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Every Modern Warfare 3 Verdansk POI in the Reveal Trailer
Every Modern Warfare 3 Verdansk POI in the Reveal Trailer
Full list of Modern Warfare III Verdansk POIs shown in the Gameplay Reveal Trailer aired at the end of the Warzone Shadow Siege event.
2023-08-18 23:51
UK to Have Less Coal Power This Winter as Plants Start Closing
UK to Have Less Coal Power This Winter as Plants Start Closing
The UK is set to have less coal-fired electricity available this winter as two operators have started to
2023-06-28 19:29
Apple’s ‘mixed reality’ headset: What could the future look like through new VR glasses?
Apple’s ‘mixed reality’ headset: What could the future look like through new VR glasses?
In a couple of weeks, at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple could be set to reveal one of its most important and risky products ever: a whole new way of seeing the world. The “mixed reality” headset is still a secret and a mystery. Though it has been strongly rumoured, it still might never arrive; it would certainly not be a surprise if it did not turn up at that WWDC event, though it would be something of a disappointment given how many whispers there have been. But whether it arrives now, later or never, Apple’s headset has been in the works for years. And clues to what it might look like – or what the world might look like through it – are already sprinkled through the company’s other products and apps. Rumours of how the headset will look have suggested it might be something like ski goggles, with cameras mounted on the outside and a precise screen on the inside, borrowing some of the design language of the Apple Watch; eventually, that is expected to morph into something less like a virtual reality headset, and more like glasses with a screen that will blend into normal life. We have a lot of clues about what the mixed reality experiences that Apple wants people to see through it will look like. That’s because Apple and its executives have frequently discussed the uses of augmented reality in public, even as the hardware has stayed a tightly protected secret. Apple’s work on a kind of headset is thought to have been ongoing since 2016, though what exactly that headset was rumoured to be has shifted over the years. The main rumours have coalesced since then into work on a “mixed reality” headset: something that would use cameras to show a picture of the real world inside a headset strapped to users face, and sensors and software to overlay virtual objects on that real world. In 2017, Tim Cook spoke to The Independentabout the importance of augmented reality. At that point, he was talking primarily about the iPhone and iPad, and how their cameras, sensors and screens could be used to layer virtual objects on top of the real world. It was clear even then that Apple really planned to include it in some sort of glasses or goggles, however. Asked at the time, Mr Cook pointed to “rumours and stuff about companies working on those” and declined to discuss Apple’s plans, but he said that the “technology itself doesn’t exist to do [devoted hardware] in a quality way”. “The display technology required, as well as putting enough stuff around your face – there’s huge challenges with that,” he said then. “The field of view, the quality of the display itself, it’s not there yet,” he added, saying that Apple doesn’t “give a rat’s about being first” and would not launch anything until it was satisfied. In the time since, Apple has seemingly been working very hard to get satisfied with that technology. It appears to be paying off: last week, virtual reality pioneer Palmer Luckey, who created Oculus and then sold it to Meta, suggested that he had seen an early version of the headset and that it was “so good”. Morsels of unclear and uncertain information like that are all we have to go on about the headset, which has not really been leaked in any definitive form even as rumours suggest it is just weeks from launch. But if the hardware is unknown, Apple’s plans are not so mysterious. That is because Apple may already have been quietly planning for the metaverse – or something like it, given that the company may be unlikely to adopt a term that has been soured both by the mixed reaction to “Web 3.0” and Facebook’s attempt to co-opt it by changing its name to Meta and re-orienting the company around it. Apple will probably avoid much of that branding, since it has quickly become attached to a kind of hype and boosterism that it tends not to associate itself with. It also usually likes to make up its own terms – and recent trademarks have included filings for “xrOS”, which may be the branding for the operating system that powers the headset. But those early experiments in the metaverse do already show some of the ways that Apple might be imagining us interacting with its new headset. The most obvious comparison is with the Oculus headsets that are now developed by Meta. Those have focused more on virtual reality than augmented reality; Meta has been interested in creating whole new digital worlds, rather than overlaying virtual objects on the real world, like Apple seems to be interested in. But the use cases may be the same, and Meta has focused on applications such as business meetings, where people can sit around a real table and discuss things, as well as VR games such as the hugely popular Beat Saber, where people try and strike objects with a sword in time to a beat. Apple has in recent years been more focused on the quality of interactions with devices, and has actually encouraged users to spend less time on their devices and more time being active. As such, it might not opt for mixed reality experiences that leave people cooped up inside the headset, and might instead be more outward-looking. As such, Apple might still focus on meetings, but would presumably use its augmented reality technology to add virtual people onto real rooms, rather than stuffing them in computer-designed spaces. And it might focus more on people’s interactions with the real environment by, for instance, allowing people to see their messages or directions as they move around, a version of which is already experienced by people who wear the Apple Watch. Apple has already offered a host of technologies aimed at making it easier for developers to include augmented reality in their iPhone and iPad apps. In 2017, when Cook made those tantalising comments about a possible headset, he was actually showing off uses of those frameworks: in the app Night Sky, for instance, which overlays virtual images of the constellations on top of real camera views of the stars. The company makes that technology possible with a range of systems, in both its hardware and software. That hardware includes the cameras, of course, but also the LiDAR sensor in some iPhones and iPads that allows for precise scanning of the environment; the software is most obvious in the form of ARKit, which does the heavy lifting of understanding the world around a user so that developers can just place their virtual objects into it. Since then, developers such as Ikea have used that to offer the option to drop virtual furniture into a real room to see how it might fit, for instance. Other apps such as 3D Scanner harness those sensors to allow people to easily create virtual views of those rooms as if they are in a video game. But the most telling way of guessing what Apple’s plans for the headset are can be found in its own technology. Apple has been quietly creating a whole world of apps that appear to be ready for mixed reality, hidden in plain view. One of them is Memoji, which are cartoon versions of people that can be used as stickers to react to messages or as profile pictures within messages. Apple has leaned on them heavily in recent years, using them as decorations in its presentations, for instance. At the moment, they are just a fun picture. But it’s very easy to imagine how they could instantly be used as avatars for people in virtual environments. If people are to participate in virtual meetings through their headsets, then other participants in that meeting will need to appear in some form, and current versions of those environments such as Meta’s Horizon Worlds rely on cartoonish drawings of people rather than realistic depictions. Apple already has those ready to go – many iPhone owners might already have created their virtual avatar, without even realising it. Aside from meetings, one of the most discussed use cases of mixed reality is in finding directions. A person might be walking up to junction, for instance, and see a virtual signal telling them to turn left overlaid on the real road that they need to start walking down. Apple has been putting the foundations of that kind of technology in place for years. It launched Apple Maps in 2012 and in the time since has been working to integrate it with the real world: collecting detailed 3D information about the world, for instance, so that it can show accurate and precise virtual models of real buildings, and a “Look Around” tool introduced in 2019 that works like Google Street View and lets people scroll around three dimensional panoramas. At the moment, those features are used to make people’s phone navigation look nice: as you drive into a city, for instance, the 3D models of buildings shift around, to make it feel like the virtual car on your phone is really driving along. But it takes very little imagination at all to see that the real purpose of those models may be to allow Apple to have a precise understanding of the real world, so that the headset will know where it is and help its wearer. Apple has also already been working on wearable products, which might themselves offer an insight into how the headset will work. The Apple Watch and AirPods already work by attaching themselves to people’s bodies and adding a layer of digital information – which, in a way, is exactly what the headset will aim to do. The AirPods, for instance, have found a way to lightly add information on top of the real world: using Siri to read out messages as they arrive, and adding transparency modes that allow the noises of the real world in as well as the sound coming through the earphones. And the Watch may be a glimpse at how Apple will encourage people to strap a computer to their body in a way that might look alarmingly sci-fi but has become accepted as relatively normal. Apple encouraged the Watch to become an acceptable accoutrement by focusing on personalisation, and designing in a way that brought in a sense of softness that did not make the hardware seem too much like a computer – it will probably do much the same with the headset. Apple’s new products are often described as if they have been magicked up from nowhere. But in truth all of its recent innovations have had their roots in previous products: the iPhone combined an iPod and a computer, and both the iPad and Apple Watch were bigger and smaller versions of that iPhone. The same thing appears to have been happening with Apple’s headset, which might look a lot more familiar than we are expecting. When the company takes to the stage to reveal its new products in a couple of weeks, we might realise that the product Apple wants us to strap to our faces has been developed right under our noses. Read More The 20 technologies that defined the first 20 years of the 21st Century Apple Watch 7 pre-order: How to buy the new smartwatch in the UK Apple introduces new version of Watch with complete redesign iPhone 13 - live: UK contract deals and prices for Apple, EE and O2
2023-05-23 02:20
AEW Fight Forever Unlockable Wrestlers Guide
AEW Fight Forever Unlockable Wrestlers Guide
AEW Fight Forever contains five unlockable wrestlers, including Cody Rhodes and Paul Wight, that can only be obtained via purchase or Road to Elite victories.
2023-06-30 01:56
Ninja's surprise CS: GO case opening at Nadeshot's wedding leaves Internet baffled: 'That's sad'
Ninja's surprise CS: GO case opening at Nadeshot's wedding leaves Internet baffled: 'That's sad'
Why did Ninja's picture from Nadeshot's wedding went viral? Know more
2023-07-22 17:49
Friends learn of Princess Diana's death in real-time in historic viral video
Friends learn of Princess Diana's death in real-time in historic viral video
It's 26 years to the day since Diana, Princess of Wales, died following a car crash in Paris, France along with her partner Dodi Fayed and driver Henri Paul. Diana was arguably the most famous woman in the world at the time and the level of devotion to her by the public will possibly never be seen again for a member of the Royal family. The outpouring of grief in the weeks that followed her death was unlike anything the UK has ever seen and the response was similar elsewhere around the world. One particular clip which sums this up is a now-viral video filmed by Alan Light who was playing cards with his friends in Iowa City, Iowa on that fateful night in 1997. Light was testing out his new camcorder and while everyone is in a good mood at the start of the video one of the friends does mention that Diana had been gravely injured because of the crash. They continue to play cards with CNN's coverage playing in the background. However, the atmosphere soon changes a few minutes into the video when CNN announces that Diana has passed away causing them to be utterly shellshocked by the news. Friends shocked to learn Princess Diana is dead (Historic 1997 video) www.youtube.com The rest of the near 7-minute video plays out with the friends quietly watching the coverage of the event on CNN. The video has been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube alone and is considered to be one of the first ever reaction videos, even though the men involved at the time weren't aware of that. Since sharing the video in 2021, Light has been inundated with questions about why he was filming at that exact moment. He recently answered those queries in the comments section of the video. He wrote: "I recorded this home video in 1997 the night Diana died and it sat in a box for many years. Why was I recording? I was trying out a new camcorder by recording friends playing the card game UNO. When my mom called me to say that Diana was in a car crash I turned on the TV, on silent, and we kept playing the game while monitoring the text on the bottom of the TV screen. "When the screen text changed to "Diana dead" the true reality of the situation hit like a ton of bricks and we stopped playing UNO of course, and rushed over to the TV. This was recorded in America, in the state of Iowa. All of the guys in the video are still alive today (as of today, June 6, 2022). "The guy who screams when he learns Diana has died is my friend Ken who still lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It is his genuine reaction to the news of Diana's death. Some people call it a "Wilhelm scream." (Apparently that's a movie term). The guy who stifles a smile after Ken's scream is Scott (his brief smile was a reaction to Ken's loud silly scream, NOT to Diana's death). "When CNN announced that Diana had died I didn't turn the camera back to the TV because my instinct was that it would be more interesting to capture my friends' reactions. Some people call this video the first of what are now called "reaction" videos, a term that didn't exist in 1997 (and neither did YouTube, which began in 2005)." Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-08-31 15:18
Discovery in Swiss Alps called an 'archaeological sensation'
Discovery in Swiss Alps called an 'archaeological sensation'
The remains of 2,000-year-old Roman walls have been discovered by archaeologist in Switzerland in the foothills of the Alps. During the excavation of a gravel pit in Cham in the canton, or state, of Aug in central Switzerland, the walls, which once protected a Roman building complex, were found. Other pieces have also been unearthed by archaeologists, include a plaster wall, iron nails, and gold fragments. As well as items such as bowls, millstones for grinding, glassware, and crockery and ceramic jugs known as amphorae. In a statement form the Office for the Preservation of Monuments and Archeology, the findings were labelled an "archaeological sensation" for the region and could shed light on Roman activity in central Switzerland. Gishan Schaeren, head of the Department of Prehistory and Protohistoric Archaeology said in the statement: "Roman buildings of similar dimensions were last excavated in Cham-Heiligkreuz almost 100 years ago. We were also amazed that the top bricks were even visible above ground." The walls extend over an area of at least 5,300 square feet (500 square metres). Although it's unclear how Romans used the site, including whether it was a "villa with a view or a temple building," said professor of archaeology of the Roman provinces at the University of Bern Christa Ebnöther. The team said that findings of Roman tableware known as terra sigillata - which means "sealed earth" in Latin - were found, suggesting elite people were at the site. The amphorae, which typically held liquids such as wine, olive oil and fish sauce, are evidence that Romans in the region traded with those in the Mediterranean. Archaeologists also found several copper and bronze coins, including a silver denarius minted by Julius Caesar from the first century B.C. The discovery of the Roman walls is not the first ancient find in the area. Previously, archaeologists had found remains of a middle Bronze Age settlement, burials from the late Bronze Age, and a number of coins form the era of the Celts. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-09-08 17:26
Instructor Accuses Entire Texas A&M Class of Using ChatGPT, Withholds Grades
Instructor Accuses Entire Texas A&M Class of Using ChatGPT, Withholds Grades
In a startling example of how ChatGPT can disrupt education, a university instructor punished an
2023-05-17 07:16
Human embryo created without using sperm or eggs
Human embryo created without using sperm or eggs
Scientists in Israel have created a model of a human embryo from stem cells, without using sperm, eggs or a womb. A team at Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science made the model, which resembles an embryo at day 14, when it acquires internal structures but before it lays down the foundations for body organs, and the work was published in the journal Nature. But the scientists involved said it would take a long time yet to create an embryo from scratch. Team leader Jacob Hanna said the team took stem cells derived from adult human skin cells, as well as others cultured in the lab, then reverted the cells to an early state.They then manipulated them to make a model of an embryo, rather than an actual or synthetic one. "The question is, when does an embryo model become considered an embryo? When that happens, we know the regulations. At the moment we are really, really far off from that point," Hanna said. However, they said the work could open the door to new ways to test the effect of drugs on pregnancies, better understand miscarriages and genetic diseases, and maybe grow transplant tissues and organs. "They are not identical. There are differences from human embryos, but still, this is the first time, if you open an atlas or a textbook, you can say - yeah I can really see the similarity between them," said Hanna. "In about 1 percent of the aggregates we can see that the cells start differentiating correctly, migrating and sorting themselves into the correct structure, and the farthest we could get is day 14 in human embryo development," he said. Their next goal, Hanna said, is to advance to day 21 and also reach a threshold of a 50 per cent success rate. Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz, a professor of development and stem cells at the University of Cambridge, said the study joins six other similar human embryo-like models published from teams around the world this year, including from her lab. "None of these models fully recapitulate natural human development but each adds to ways in which many aspects of human development can now be studied experimentally," she said. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.
2023-09-08 18:27
How One Grieving Father Got Lawn Darts Banned
How One Grieving Father Got Lawn Darts Banned
Lawn darts were banned in 1988, but not before seriously injuring many children and killing at least one.
2023-10-25 00:27
Exxon Aims to Become a Top Lithium Supplier for EVs by 2030
Exxon Aims to Become a Top Lithium Supplier for EVs by 2030
Exxon Mobil Corp. plans to become one of the biggest suppliers of lithium for electric vehicles, marking the
2023-11-14 01:00
All Weapon Buffs and Nerfs in Warzone 2 Aug. 16 Patch
All Weapon Buffs and Nerfs in Warzone 2 Aug. 16 Patch
Warzone 2 Aug. 16 patch notes are now live. Here's every weapon buff and nerf in the update including buffs to the Fennec 45 and nerfs to the TAQ-V.
2023-08-18 01:52