Monday, May 30, 2016

Google unveils Daydream to create a VR ecosystem for Android


Google’s VR efforts have come a long way since two years ago when Google introduced its inexpensive phone-base VR viewer, Cardboard. Today, as part of the IO Keynote, Google’s Clay Bavor previewed Google Daydream — the company’s upcoming VR platform. Bavor stressed the need for a systems approach to VR, especially as it relates to reducing latency — often called the Motion to Photon time. Daydream isn’t a specific piece of hardware or software, but a set of reference designs and Android enhancements that are aimed at creating a vibrant VR ecosystem on Android devices.

Look for Daydream-Ready Smartphones, with support in Android N

Gogle will be publishing the specs for smartphones that it believes are sufficient for a good Daydream VR experience. Those include requirements on the sensors, display, and compute power of the SoC. Most of the major phone vendors are already working with Google on Daydream-Ready devices, and Google expects them to start coming to market this fall. One interesting note, though, is that Daydream is designed to achieve a latency of under 20ms. That is much slower than desktop VR companies consider acceptable for either comfortable viewing of interactive content or action gaming. HTC and Oculus both push for 11ms (providing a 90fps frame rate). Obviously, they also require a lot more GPU horsepower, but it will be interesting to see how many experiences will work in the slower 50fps world of Daydream, and how much discomfort may result.
Android N will include system support for low-latency, as well as a VR system UI, which will help avoid the problem with smartphone-based VR today, where you need to keep going back and forth between VR apps and the Android UI on the phone screen.

Headset & Controller

Google isn’t announcing a headset, but is making available a reference design for headsets. The sketch they showed (included to the right) looks a lot like Gear VR. Some Daydream-capable headsets are expected to be in the market by Fall. The controller reference design looks like a typical Bluetooth remote, but in addition to a button and a touch-sensitive pad also has an orientation sensor like a Wiimote. As you’d expect, you can therefore use it a bit like a magic wand to control your VR experience.

VR Apps & Ecosystem

Google Play for VR will allow users to find, install, and launch VR apps. Your VR apps will then be incorporated into a Daydream Home screen, that looks very much like the one Oculus uses. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when Oculus meets Google on Android phones — will we have both an Oculus Home and a Daydream Home?
Google is also making a major push to add VR support to its core media offerings. Google Play Movies will allow you to view your Play video content in a Virtual Movie Theater, and Google StreetView will be fully VR-ready — you can already use Gear VR and Cardboard with 360-degree photos in Maps through the StreetView app. YouTube is being rebuilt with VR support, including discovery & playlists in VR, with support for spatial audio.
For those hoping Google would upset the apple cart with a stunning new piece of hardware that would bridge the performance, price and complexity gap between Gear VR and the dedicated headsets like Rift and Vive (like me), that didn’t happen. But Google is certainly making the right moves to provide a vibrant ecosystem for VR content creators and users on the Android platform.




Pepper robot to open up to Android

Pepper is being used by a range of companies in Japan and in three French train stations
Pepper, the robot that has been trained to "perceive" human emotion, is opening up its platform to Android developers.
Maker SoftBank is hoping that it will spur new apps and new capabilities for the humanoid robot which has sold well but still has no clear defined purpose.
Ten thousand of the robots have been sold but developers have been slow to make apps for its closed Naoqi operating system.
Android will run on a tablet strapped to the robot's chest.
Neither Google nor SoftBank has disclosed what sort of business deal they have struck and it is unclear if the robot will take advantage of new features such as the recently announced artificial intelligence Google Assistant.
But it will almost certainly offer Google some degree of control over the robot as well as a cut of revenues.

Pepper was designed by French robotics firm Aldebaran
Pepper has been in big demand in Japan with each batch of 1,000 units selling out in minutes. It will go on pre-sale in the US in July.
It costs 198,000 yen ($1,800) and each one is sold at a loss.
The 1.2m (4ft) humanoid bot features more than 20 motors and has articulated arms. It was designed to understand emotions and mimic human body language - so, for instance, its shoulders go up when it is in standby mode, imitating sleep.
So far, Pepper is being used as a waiter, salesman and customer service representative in around 500 companies in Japan, including Nestle, Mizuho Bank and Nissan.


Great Sphinx of Giza - Google Street View


The Great Sphinx of Giza, commonly referred to as the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining or couchant sphinx (a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head) that stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt. The face of the Sphinx is generally believed to represent the face of the Pharaoh Khafra.

8 Ways to Focus on Getting Fit


You know you should exercise more, but that won't always get you going. Here's how to devise and stick to an exercise program.

Forty percent of all chronic diseases can be prevented through a healthy lifestyle, which includes eating a healthy diet and working out regularly. Yet Americans have become increasingly obese and sedentary. “People just aren’t making the connection between unhealthy lifestyle choices and disease risk,” says Alice Burron, MS, spokeswoman for the American Council on Exercise and author of Four Weeks to Fabulous. Doctors often try to change people’s attitudes by emphasizing the health benefits of exercise. But a recent study at the University of Missouri, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found that telling people why exercising is good for them doesn’t motivate them. People don’t “think” themselves into being more active and working out, the researchers concluded after studying data on close to 100,000 participants.

The researchers, led by Vicki Conn, PhD, RN, FAAN, associate dean for research and Potter-Brinton professor in the MU Sinclair School of Nursing, also concluded that rather than focus on why patients should exercise, health experts should be emphasizing how to exercise. They believe that many people would exercise more and lose weight if they knew how to fit working out into their busy schedules.

Personalizing Your Exercise Goals

Burron says the chance of starting and sticking to an exercise regime increases if people personalize their decisions. “For example,” she says, “if they have a close friend or family member who has suffered from heart disease, stroke, diabetes or cancer, and they resolve to make healthy lifestyle changes to prevent the same fate, success almost always follows.”

Wanting to be a role model for your children or others in your life is another good motivation. “I want to teach my four children how to eat well and stay active for life,” she says. “Also, being in the fitness industry, everyone watches me closely — my weight and what I eat. I have to be a good example so that I am believable and people will follow my lead.”

Here are other ways that you can motivate yourself to lose weight and exercise regularly:



  • Make specific goals. Don’t just say, “I want to lose weight.” Better: “I want to lose 20 pounds in a year.” Your goal needs to have specific timeframes and be something where you can measure your progress, Burron says.



  • Be realistic. Never expect to lose 20 pounds in two weeks or even three. Set goals that are realistic with the effort and commitment that you can give to them, Burron says. Also, make sure you have the resources available to achieve your goals. Don’t choose swimming as your form of exercise if you don’t have access to a pool, or running outdoors when it’s going to be freezing outside for the next few months.



  • Set reminders. Post sticky notes where you will see them, reminding yourself of the benefits of exercise and sticking to your goals.



  • Schedule your workout. Put time for exercising on your calendar, just as you would a doctor’s appointment or work. You can use your phone to set an alarm when it’s time to get moving.



  • Put it in writing. Keep a journal with your goals for the week along with your results. After working out, write down what you did and for how long. When you look at the numbers and see progress, it will encourage you to keep going.



  • Consider the obstacles. Think about what might get in the way of your going for a brisk walk or biking at least three times a week. “Then come up with a plan to overcome these obstacles,” Burron says. For example, if you have small children that you can’t leave and have no one to watch them, buy a good stroller or bike so they can come along. Weather getting you down? Find a fitness center with child care or create a home exercise routine that you can do when the kids are napping or at school.



  • Get a partner. “If you have the tendency to bail from exercise at the last minute, finding a partner who can keep you accountable might be a good strategy,” Burron says.



  • Talk to a trainer. It’s important that your exercise routine be made of activities you like. The more you like them, the more motivated you’ll be to do them. However, you may need a personal trainer to teach you how to properly do the exercises you’ve chosen and set up a routine that you can live with easily.


    • Making lifestyle changes is similar to remodeling your house, Burron says. “It will go much better if you have a plan.” Even making small increases in your physical activities will be beneficial to your overall health.

    Google defeats Oracle in Java code copyright case

    Google's uses Java in its Android smartphone operating system

    Google has won a major US court battle with software firm Oracle after a jury ruled it did not unfairly appropriate parts of the Java programming language.
    Oracle had argued that Google had infringed its copyright and had sought nearly $9bn (£6bn) in damages.
    The outcome was eagerly awaited by software developers who feared that a victory for Oracle might encourage more such legal actions.
    The company says it will appeal against the decision.
    Google uses Java in its Android smartphone operating system which powers about 80% of the world's mobile devices.
    The company had argued that extending copyright protection to pieces of code called APIs (application programming interfaces) would threaten innovation.
    The jury in San Francisco agreed that copyright law allowed "fair use" of the Java elements as they were only a part of a larger system Google had created for a new purpose.
    "Today's verdict that Android makes fair use of Java APIs represents a win for the Android ecosystem, for the Java programming community, and for software developers who rely on open and free programming languages to build innovative consumer products," a Google spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
    Oracle says it will take the case to the US Supreme Court
    The legal battle began in 2010 and the two firms first faced each other in court in May 2012. A federal judge ruled against Oracle, but the company then appealed. After legal wrangling, the case was sent back to court.
    Despite Thursday's outcome, Oracle lawyer Dorian Daley said it would pursue the matter further.
    "We strongly believe that Google developed Android by illegally copying core Java technology to rush into the mobile device market," he said.
    "Oracle brought this lawsuit to put a stop to Google's illegal behaviour. We believe there are numerous grounds for appeal and we plan to bring this case back to the federal circuit on appeal."

    Scientists develop software to make robots smarter

    NEW YORK: Scientists including an Indian-origin professor have developed a new software which helps robots efficiently cope with challenges like grabbing a milk jug from the back of the refrigerator while boosting their creativity in solving problems.

     Developed by the team at Carnegie Mellon University, the rearrangement planner software was developed in the robotics lab of Siddhartha Srinivasa.

     "It was exploiting sort of superhuman capabilities," Srinivasa said of his lab's two-armed mobile robot called "Home Exploring Robot Butler" or HERB.

     "The robot's wrist has a 270-degree range, which led to behaviours we didn't expect. Sometimes, we're blinded by our own anthropomorphism," he added.

     In one case, the robot used the crook of its arm to cradle an object to be moved. "We never taught it that," Srinivasa said.

     In addition to HERB, the software was tested on NASA's KRex robot which is being designed to traverse the lunar surface.
    While HERB focused on clutter typical of a home, KRex used the software to find traversable paths across an obstacle-filled landscape while pushing an object.

     The rearrangement planner automatically finds a balance between the two strategies, Srinivasa said, based on the robot's progress on its task.

     The robot is programmed to understand the basic physics of its world so it has some idea of what can be pushed, lifted or stepped on. It can be taught to pay attention to items that might be valuable or delicate.

     One limitation of this system is that once the robot has evaluated a situation and developed a plan to move an object, it effectively closes its eyes to execute the plan.
    The findings were presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Stockholm, Sweden, recently.
    Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)