5 Intriguing Things
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1. The neuroscientific importance of the Oculus Rift VR helmet.
"The Oculus Rift Best Practices Guide (BPG) is probably the most substantial document ever written on applied sensorimotor neuroscience. I’ve been thinking a bit more about this, and here are some quick notes... The Rift succeeds in creating presence because it brings multiple important sensory cues into 'sync,' and this tips our sensorimotor system into a new posterior mode. That is, the most likely explanation that our brain is able to find for the sensory input it is receiving corresponds to the one provided by the simulation - and once the brain 'buys in,' it does so enthusiastically. This is completely different from our experience of traditional games or cinema, even with advanced gear."
"Our algorithm first reconstructs the 3D input camera path as well as dense, per-frame proxy geometries. We then optimize a novel camera path for the output video that is smooth and passes near the input cameras while ensuring that the virtual camera looks in directions that can be rendered well from the input. Next, we compute geometric proxies for each input frame. These allow us to render the frames from the novel viewpoints on the optimized path. Finally, we generate the novel smoothed, time-lapse video by rendering, stitching, and blending appropriately selected source frames for each output frame."
3. Xiaomi is the Chinese smartphone maker to watch.
"Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone maker with the diminutive name, became the leading smartphone vendor in China in the second quarter, with its shipments exceeding Samsung's for the first time, according to figures from market research firm Canalys. Xiaomi led China’s second-quarter smartphone shipment rankings with 14 percent market share, followed by Samsung, Lenovo and Yulong each with 12 percent."
4. This Zambian rock band from 70s is tremendously good.
"I first heard the Witch in 2008, via an mp3 blog dedicated to obscure African sounds. The music was incendiary, all crystalline guitar lines and supple rhythms, topped by Jagari’s plaintive voice. The recordings were rife with the pop and hiss of old vinyl; sometimes the music hiccupped, slurring for a moment. This only intensified the thrill of discovery. I found a few more bootlegs online, which confirmed my initial impression: something special went down in Zambia in the 1970s."
5. Where the Total Information Awareness program got exported: Singapore.
"Ten years after its founding, the RAHS program has evolved beyond anything Poindexter could have imagined. Across Singapore's national ministries and departments today, armies of civil servants use scenario-based planning and big-data analysis from RAHS for a host of applications beyond fending off bombs and bugs. They use it to plan procurement cycles and budgets, make economic forecasts, inform immigration policy, study housing markets, and develop education plans for Singaporean schoolchildren -- and they are looking to analyze Facebook posts, Twitter messages, and other social media in an attempt to 'gauge the nation's mood' about everything from government social programs to the potential for civil unrest. In other words, Singapore has become a laboratory not only for testing how mass surveillance and big-data analysis might prevent terrorism, but for determining whether technology can be used to engineer a more harmonious society."
Today's 1957 American English Language Tip
chiefest, formerly common, is now felt to be an unnatural form, & used only as an ornament.
You know what to do people: let's bring it back.
Finally, We Generate the Novel Smoothed