Footage of a Texan lawyer denying he was a cat as he appeared with a feline filter on a live call was created using a decades-old piece of software pre-installed on some Dell laptops. The BBC reports: The Live Cam Avatar software was also available for people to download. It is not clear how the lawyer found himself speaking through the…
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Can Chatbots Simulate Conversations with Dead People?
The author of the book Online Afterlives describes the unusual projects of people like Eugenia Kuyda, co-founder of Luka, an AI-powered chat simulator that books restaurant reservations and makes recommendations. Kuyda worked with computer scientists to convert several thousand text messages between deceased tech entrepreneur Roman Mazurenko and his friends and relatives into a chatbot simulation: “How are you there?” asks…
‘Companies Are Fleeing California. Blame Bad Government.’
Bloomberg Editorial Board: Amid raging wildfires, rolling blackouts and a worsening coronavirus outbreak, it has not been a great year for California. Unfortunately, the state is also reeling from a manmade disaster: an exodus of thriving companies to other states. In just the past few months, Hewlett Packard Enterprise said it was leaving for Houston. Oracle said it would decamp for…
‘Apocalyptic’ skies across U.S. West this week
Video of the weirdly orange skies across the U.S. West this week, created by massive wildfires that incinerated several communities in Oregon in the past 2 days and blotted out the sun in San Francisco yesterday. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/apocalyptic-red-skies-u-s-west-early-sept-2020…
Is Virtual Burning Man the Internet’s Ultimate Test?
An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from The New York Times, written by Neil Shister, author of “Radical Ritual: How Burning Man Changed the World.” Here’s an excerpt: In perhaps the ultimate test of whether the internet can satisfyingly replicate the real world, Burning Man has gone online this year. The notion isn’t as much of a mismatch as it…
Ailing Scientist Hopes to Become the World’s First Cyborg
The Telegraph reports:
Peter Scott-Morgan stands, wide-eyed and tearful. “Good. Grief.” he says quietly. “I was unprepared for the emotion… It’s quite extraordinary. It really is.” Using an exoskeleton, Scott-Morgan is experiencing what it is like to stand for the first time in months after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease in 2017, the same incurable condition that killed scientist Stephen Hawking….
Gmail Is About To Start Testing Verification-Like Logos For Email
One of the biggest announcements made in Google’s recent announcement of security enhancements for G Suite services is that authenticated logos are coming for emails from participating companies. Engadget reports: Last year Google announced it joined the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) group, which is pushing an email spec that adds brand logos to authenticated emails. In practice it seems…
Android’s AirDrop Competitor Is Coming Soon
Android’s long-awaited “Nearby Sharing” feature, which allows you to share files between Android devices wirelessly, is rolling out to beta testers. Android Police reports: Nearby Sharing may appear slightly differently depending on the type of content you try to share. In all cases, it shows up as an app in the apps list on the share sheet, but you may also…
Video Leaks From Samsung’s ‘Artificial Human’ Avatar Project Neon
The Verge has been investigating Samsung’s “artificial human” project Neon, which seems to be about creating realistic human avatars: A tweet from the project’s lead and some leaked videos pretty much confirm this — although they don’t give us nearly enough information to judge how impressive Neon is. The lead of Neon, computer-human interaction researcher Paranav Mistry, tweeted this image, apparently…
Facebook To Create Virtual Reality Social Media World Called Horizon
dryriver shares a report from the BBC: Facebook is creating an immersive environment called Horizon to tempt people into spending more time in virtual reality. The VR app will be a mix of social places where users can mingle and chat, and other areas where they can play games against each other. People will inhabit and explore the virtual spaces via…