XR: Extended Reality

What Is Extended Reality (XR) and How Is it Changing the Future? XR, cross reality, or extended reality, is a catchall term for several different but related technologies. It rolls together similar acronyms like VR (virtual reality), AR (augmented reality), and MR (mixed reality)....... XR is “reality-plus” tech using any kind of display. XR is VR plus AR.......... All XR tech takes the human-to-PC screen interface and modifies it, either by 1) immersing you in the virtual environment (VR), 2) adds to, or augments, the user’s surroundings (AR), or 3) both of those (MR)....... A couple of examples are immersing gamers in the action by putting a screen (a smartphone display or headset) right in front of the eyes (VR) or adding game characters to real-world surroundings like in the popular Pokémon Go (AR)........ devices with AR, VR, or MR tech are all considered “XR devices.” if you’ve played a VR game like Star Wars: Squadrons or Half-Life: Alyx or used Google Maps to navigate, you’ve already used XR tech. Virtual reality (VR) is a subset of extended reality (XR). VR is an immersive computing or gaming experience where the user’s entire field of vision is filled via the device’s display........ while all VR is XR, not all XR is VR........ augmented reality (AR) may use your phone’s camera to superimpose game characters onto your smartphone’s display, as if the character was in the room with you. That’s AR, and it’s also XR, but it’s not VR.......... VR is immersion, such as when you use a smartphone screen in a headset to fully immerse yourself in gameplay. AR is augmentation, such as when you use an app to superimpose a digital tiger in your living room with your phone’s display......... all MR is XR, but not all XR is MR.......... XR is already popping up all over, with applications from manufacturing to shopping to HR to gaming........ Businesses are reaping the benefits of XR tech already, with immersive technologies as part of try-before-you-buy experiences. For example, if you’re shopping online for a couch you can see how it actually fits into your living room. Some retailers are using XR tech to allow you to get a preview of the real thing. That leads to a reduction in returns and even one-ups the brick-and-mortar retail experience......... AR can show how new factory layouts will look before they’re set up, and maintenance crews will soon create plant walkthroughs that make machines that need servicing stand out in vibrant red or orange. XR hands-on training can give step-by-step virtual experiences in real-world facilities. You’ve probably already played one of the top XR games in history, Pokémon Go, which puts friendly little “pocket monsters” in your living room and neighborhood........... the Microsoft HoloLens 2, which can track your hand and eye movements for a seamless blend between the virtual environment and the real world........ Google Maps. Street view is technically XR, as is the satellite view you can use during navigation. When you do a Zoom call and someone uses a virtual background or an I-am-not-a-cat filter, that’s XR, too....... Get ready for XR to change your life deeply in the next couple of years. You’ll see it pop up in sports (analyzing your golf game and giving pointers, for example) and in healthcare (showing your path through the hospital to the X-ray department with blinking arrows). In education, virtual field trips will broaden young horizons in new, exciting ways. You’ll even navigate tomorrow’s brick-and-mortar stores with AR maps that guide you to the products you’re searching for........ XR is a new buzzword in the tech world, but it’s pretty simple to understand. XR is an umbrella term that rolls in VR, AR, and MR. In a nutshell, XR technology is any tech that takes your display and makes it more immersive, or makes it interact with your real-world surroundings in some way. And it truly is changing the future. .

What does ChatGPT Mean for Enterprise-Grade XR? Virtualspeech is integrating ChatGPT for VR training, while Microsoft integrates the tech into Azure ....... ChatGPT is the latest trending tech topic, kicking off 2023 with an AI-powered chatbot which answers general-purpose questions and requests. ........ Meta is developing Project CAIRaoke self-learning and conversational AI network to assist with everyday routines. Meta is also integrating its four key AI platforms into Horizon-based Metaverse and immersive content creation services. ........ The service also allows users to generate content such as stories and articles. ........ In December, Ammaar Reshi created and sold a children’s book that he wrote using ChatGPT and physically published via Amazon Kindle Publishing in an exceedingly short time period. ........ Enterprise end-users could use ChatGPT to generate business resources such as research documents, marketing content, automating sales processes, instructional material, and translations. ........ 23 percent of customer service companies currently use AI chatbots to engage with customers......... Meta’s Messanger service currently operates 300,000 chatbots .......... 80 precent of customers are using chatbots at some point during their buying journey. ......... The integration enables Virtualspeech to offer flexible and efficient AI-based upskilling services. ........ The VR training service uses ChatGPT to voice avatars that help trainees refine soft skills like interview technique, presentation skills, and handling difficult conversations.......... the platform’s integrated ChatGPT avatars can answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests from the user. .......... a VR training platform that generates two-way conversations to promote self-driven learning opportunities in business environments. ......... The platform also provides a route with improved access for users with disabilities and those who have difficulty accessing traditional training methods. ........ uses ChatGPT to simulate challenging conversations between employees and managers. ........ Virtualspeech claims its platform can help managers train for hard discussions while presenting co-workers with openness, respect, and support. ........ Like other accompanying XR technologies, like hand-tracking, mixed reality (MR) passthrough, and spatial audio, AI chatbots can increase immersion by simulating realistic human-like verbal reactions to a user’s actions. .......... Current Azure AI client KPMG is using Microsoft solutions to assist companies in understanding significant efficiencies during tax ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) initiatives. .

He Used AI to Publish a Children’s Book in a Weekend. Artists Are Not Happy About It Artificial intelligence systems like Midjourney are trained using datasets of millions of images that exist across the Internet, then teaching algorithms to recognize patterns in those images and generate new ones. That means any artist who uploads their work online could be feeding the algorithm without their consent. Many claim this amounts to a high-tech form of plagiarism that could seriously harm human artists in the near future. ........ “The main problem to me about AI is that it was trained off of artists’ work,” adds Adriane Tsai, also a children’s book illustrator. “It’s our creations, our distinct styles that we created, that we did not consent to being used.” ........ And at comedy clubs, artificial intelligence is being used to deliver standup jokes. ...... “As somebody who makes my money and finds my joy in writing, it’s deeply troubling to see people seeking cheap alternatives to actual human writing, which is already one of the most deliriously underpaid professions,” says Abraham Josephine Riesman, an author. .

I spent the weekend playing with ChatGPT, MidJourney, and other AI tools… and by combining all of them, published a children’s book co-written and illustrated by AI!

Here’s how! 🧵 pic.twitter.com/0UjG2dxH7Q

— Ammaar Reshi (@ammaar) December 9, 2022

Artificial Intelligence Can Now Craft Original Jokes—And That’s No Laughing Matter Artificial intelligence can diagnose tumors, read maps and play games, often faster and with more accuracy than humans can. ........ Following a formula is something AI is exceptionally good at. So are a lot of successful comedy writers. ....... The book is a distillation of a course he taught in New York City after scrutinizing decades of monologues and reverse engineering the most successful jokes. ......... Toplyn isn’t precious about comedy writing: it’s a job, one that a person can learn to do well if given the right inputs. The jokes that got the biggest laughs for Leno and Letterman follow identifiable formulas populated with “handles”—people, places, things and other references—each with a variety of related associations that can be combined to form a punch line. Given enough time and data, he realized, a computer could potentially learn to make these jokes too. .......... Toplyn counters that critics overlook how much communication follows simple formulas, even the funny kind. ....... Piotr Mirowski was working as a search engineer at Bing when he noticed the similarities between his day job and his personal passion, improv. The principle of search engineering is to teach the computer how to identify the best result for a given query. In improv, Mirowski says, performers are also trained to follow their instincts and do what feels best in that scene. It’s not always perfect, and the results sometimes have a hilarious absurdity, as anyone who has started typing a Google query with the predictive search feature on knows. Mirowski co-founded Improbotics, an international improv troupe that works alongside an AI that tosses out prompts and lines that human performers have to work into the show. ......... Improv comedians often draw upon cues shouted out from the audience. An AI can draw upon ideas from all over the world and across history. The goal isn’t to build a thing that will make the laughs for us, Mirowski says, but instead one that can help humans find new things to laugh about. ........ “Then Jimi Hendrix gets an electric guitar, and it’s like, ‘Oh. That’s what this is about.’” .......... There’s a common saying that robots should do the jobs that are too dirty, dangerous or dull for humans. Comedy can be all of those things, but we still want it for ourselves. .

Talking Less Will Get You More
Kamala Harris

Changed my name to Mr. Tweet, now Twitter won’t let me change it back 🤣

— Mr. Tweet (@elonmusk) January 25, 2023

Could Steve Jobs Have Made A Difference At Apple in 2020?

This is one of those what-ifs. There is Larry Ellison, the colorful Founder CEO of Oracle, best friend to Steve Jobs for 25 years, who will have you believe Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs. Tim Cook can not wear the shoes. It is true Apple has since only been milking what was already built. They are still milking the iPhone and the iPad.

It is said Steve Jobs was thinking about tackling the TV next. If you go from the PC to the iPod-iPhone-iPad, it is a paradigm shift from the GUI (Graphical User Interface) to the touch screen. But do you really want to touch your TV? TV was and is a harder nut to crack. The innovation perhaps is not on the screen. It is in how content is created and distributed. Netflix, and YouTube and Amazon are tackling some of it.

It is true Steve Jobs managed to be a pioneer for both GUI and the touch screen. But what's next? Obviously we are looking beyond touch. They talk of NUI, Natural User Interface. Voice commands. Gesture, things like that. Computing is so seamlessly integrated to the natural environment around you, you simply speak to it, or you wave at it.

Could Steve Jobs have tackled it? It is not like you are saying, Steve Jobs grew up speaking English, could he have beat the Chinese at Mandarin? Steve Jobs would not have been handicapped by the NUI. But it might have been hard for the same person to also be the pioneer for that third paradigm. It is remarkable enough that one person became the master of two paradigms. Three? Three would have been a lot. But it was possible.

Steve Jobs' Apple had almost a hundred billion dollars in the bank. Jobs liked to say he liked to keep his gunpowder dry, in case something showed up. Perhaps things like VR and AR are more capital intensive. Perhaps not.

It is conceivable Apple under Steve Jobs might have also been a leader in this next emerging paradigm, the paradigm of the Natural User Interface. Tim Cook is already missing out. Tim Cook is more like Steve Ballmer. Ballmer kept showing crazy good numbers. But he totally missed out on the smartphone. Cook is similarly showing pretty good numbers. But it is Google and Amazon that are Hey Google! and Hello Alexa!

VR is going to be amazingly democratizing. Before VR you have bought a TV for hudreds of dollars. In a VR headset, a TV is maybe a one dollar app. Suddenly a dollar a day people might be looking at high end TV. And it can be a tremendous educational tool. Super-customized education.