2019 Game Tech Review
There was one thing that was truly revolutionary in gaming in 2019, the Google Stadia launch.
What if we all recorded each other all the time?
What if everything you said and did and everything you saw and heard was recorded? What if everybody you encountered was recording as well? Do you think you or they would behave differently? The idea has been posited by science fiction writers including William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Bruce Sterling to name a few favorites and by contemporary commentator Shoshana Zuboff in her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.
Google’s IBC 2019 keynote: YouTube has changed media forever
The European head of YouTube, Cecile Frot-Coutaz gave Google’s keynote presentation at IBC 2019. Six longstanding broadcast industry organizations which include standards bodies, professional engineering representatives, trade associations, and research organizations manage the IBC. They are the IABM (broadcast and media suppliers), BTS (IEEE Broadcast Technology Society), the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology), the Royal Television Society, the SCTE … Read more
The death of text: new announcements from Google I/O
The weather wasn’t the best, but they came to learn. Developers at Google I/O learned that security is the new cool. (Source: Google) It’s been clear for a long time that Google doesn’t see itself as the company that helps people find things. Not anymore, at Google I/O, Sundar Pichai told the audience that Google wants to be the … Read more
Facebook, Google, HP, and Varjo’s new VR headsets
Facebook now offers three Oculus VR head-mounted display (HMD) systems, a revamped Rift S, all-in-one portable Go, and the latest, a gaming HMD, the Quest. Facebook’s VR HMDs For reference, a can of tomato soup weighs about 350 g so wearing a VR HMD would be like strapping one and a half cans of soup to your head, how long would … Read more
Imagination Technologies NNA Update
Imagination technologies have given us a more detailed look at how its PowerVR Series 2NX inferencing accelerator benefits from the variable bit depth quantization that is its unique feature. The AX 2185 core is the only one of these accelerators (as well as the later generation Series 3 devices) that we know to have been put into production; an IMG … Read more
Google Pixel Visual Core
In a world where much of the burden of smartphone differentiation rests on the quality of the camera, Google’s otherwise unremarkable Pixel 2 has been praised as one of the best cameras out there. This distinction comes in part from the inclusion of the Google-designed ‘Pixel Visual Core,’ a companion chip intended to “make it so your Snapchat pictures don’t … Read more
This mobile phone can see you, AND what you’re holding
Smartphone attachment sees concealed weapons and explosives
I Can See You, AND What You’re Holding
We’re catching up with science-fiction. The idea of being able to hold a personal device and scan a room and the people in it, to learn in real time if any of them are of interest, or more darkly, carrying anything dangerous really is the stuff science-fiction. And yet, it’s here now. Founded in early 2017 in West Hollywood-based RH … Read more
Microsoft delivers machine learning to every windows developer
ONNX API now available in Windows At the recent Windows Developer Day, Microsoft exec. Kevin Gallo announced a number of new products for developers, the most interesting of which was what he called “the intelligent edge” and the Windows AI Platform. In a nutshell, this means that while Microsoft has previously focused mainly on cloud-based AI, it is now turning … Read more
3D Augmented reality on the web, for everyone
Google is here to save the day Google wants to popularize 3D on the web and on Android devices. The company is building a strong base in VR with Daydream and also the development of tools and devices falls into the realm of Google and Android. The company predicts there will be hundreds of millions of Android and iOS devices … Read more
AI-Intel, Nvidia, and Google mimic each other
Learning one size does not fit all In May 2017, Nvidia introduced its mega-chip Volta GPU on its Tesla V100 AIB. Volta, as you may know, has a dedicated neural processor in it which Nvidia calls Tensor Cores, 640 of them in fact. In 2016, Intel purchased, for $400 million, Nervana Systems who was developing both a GPU/software approach in … Read more