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Create Your Own Bot (CYOBot) v2 is an open-source, modular robotics platform for students, educators, hobbyists, and future engineers based on the ESP32-S3 microcontroller and featuring up to 16 servo motors for complex control.
The CYOBot v2 is a follow-up to the previous quadrupedal robotic platform from the same company. It adds new features such as a modular design, an upgrade to the ESP32-S3 chip, more motor channels, and an expansion block with more peripherals. It also supports integrating AI systems, such as ChatGPT, for added functionality.
The CYOBot supports up to three configurations via the CYOBrain — which powers the robotics platform and controls the servo motors — and separate 3D-printed components. The CYOBot Crawler is a four-legged robot powered by eight 180-degree servo motors. The CYOBot Wheeler form factor features four 360-degree motors linked to wheels at the end of each leg and is essentially a hybrid between a traditional wheeled robot and a quadruped walker. Finally, the CYOBot Game Console configuration only functions as a console with four buttons and two joysticks.
Design-specific electronics are separated from the main board (CYOBrain) to make it easy to switch between different designs. We have covered similar robotics kits such as the EVN Alpha, MakeBlock mBot Neo, and Arduino Alvik.
CYOBrain specifications:
CYOBot Crawler/Wheeler specifications:
The ESP32-S3-based modular robotics platform is designed to be accessible to users with varying levels of experience and supports block-based programming, MicroPython, Arduino, and C++. The developer dashboard RoboticsQuest features customized learning paths with “1,000 projects covering embedded systems, control, machine learning/AI, robotics, IoT, and more.” The platform is reportedly open-source, and several hardware and software files from the earlier version are available on GitHub, but the “CYOBot-v2” is currently empty. You can find some PDF schematics for the current version, CYOBot v2, on Hackaday.
The CYOBot v2 crowdfunding campaign is currently live on Kickstarter. Rewards include a $99 Brain for Builder set, a $129 Console Prebuilt Robot, a $169 Crawler Prebuilt Robot, a $169 Wheeler Prebuilt Robot, and several other kits and bundles. All offers include access to the online educational dashboard and are expected to ship by January 2025, although interested buyers can pay $25 extra for “Xmas Shipping.”
Via Hackster.io
The post CYOBot v2 ESP32-S3-based open-source modular robotics platform supports up to 16 servos (Crowdfunding) appeared first on CNX Software - Embedded Systems News.
Naismith's Rule provides a quick estimate for hiking time in the mountains, intended for "easy expeditions." It suggests:
For example, suppose your hike covers 6 miles with 2,000 ft of ascent. In that case, Naismith's Rule suggests allowing 3 hours total—2 hours for distance and 1 hour for elevation.
William Naismith was a Scottish Mountaineer born in 1856. He spent years trekking in the Highlands and was, to be fair, probably made of nails. In the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal in 1893, he wrote:
"...a simple formula, that may be found useful in estimating what time men in fair condition should allow for easy expeditions, namely, an hour for every three miles on the map, with an additional hour for every 2,000 feet of ascent."
The Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal, Vol. II, September 1892, No.3, p.136 (pdf)
A figure I learned that's stuck with me is that a brisk walk is around 4 mph. But that's actually pretty fast and wouldn't apply on a mountain trail and certainly not hiking up a mountain. So I've run into the challenge myself when planning a trip in the mountains of how to guess how long a hike will likely take.
From a recent hike—where I made sure to run through the full kitchen table survival skills and 10 essentials before leaving—limited daylight was a safety consideration. So knowing how long the hike might take was really important. Incidentally, there's a rule of thumb, literally, for estimating remaining daylight.
Lots of people have put Naismith's Rule to the test, including me, and though it's a slightly optimistic metric, it's a starting point. On my recent hike, we were slightly over, but not by much.
To adjust for your circumstances, add time for:
So, there are many reasons why Naismith's Rule may be on the light side. But it's a decent place to start from.
Someone for whom Naismith's Rule definitely doesn't apply is the incredible Killian Jornet, whom I watched in the beautiful documentary Déjame Vivir on Netflix. Footage of him running along knife-edge ridges at the top of the Alps is breathtaking. In 2024, he hiked all 82 peaks above 4,000m in the Alps in 19 days without using motorized vehicles between them 🤯.
Let me know if you give Naismith's Rule a try!
Also see:
I made some prints and products with and without the text in case, like me, you like a peaceful mountain ridge without any rules
Xiaomi makes everything, from phones and vacuum cleaners to massage guns and even electric cars. Now, according to a report from Chinese media 36kr, Xiaomi may be developing a device that goes toe-to-toe with Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses.
The report maintains Xiaomi is planning to launch a new generation of AI-assisted smartglasses, which will be built in collaboration with Goertek, the China-based ODM behind a bevy of XR parts, reference designs, and finished white-label hardware.
The rumored Xiaomi smartglasses are said to “fully benchmark” against Ray-Ban Meta, which includes AI functions, integrated speakers, and camera modules. Notably, Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses aren’t officially available in China.
Citing insider sources, the report maintains the device is slated to arrive in Q2 2025, with 36kr noting it may launch in time for the Mi Fan Festival, which is typically held in April to mark Xiaomi’s founding anniversary.
The report further maintains, Xiaomi co-founder Lei Jun expects to ship more than 300,000 units.
Xiaomi has dabbled in XR hardware in the past, although it really hasn’t entered full force. The Chinese tech giant hyped a widely reported AR glasses prototype at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in 2023. A year prior, the company launched a pair of smartglasses, called Mijia Glasses Camera. Much like the now defunct Google Glass, the device featured a single heads-up display.
All of that is changing though, it seems. Next year is shaping up to be a big year for smartglasses in China, as the country’s largest brands may be hoping to replicate Meta’s success with Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
Baidu announced at its Baidu World Conference on November 12th its own co-product with Xiaodu, the Xiaodu AI glasses, which is launching in China in the first half of 2025.
The 36kr report also notes that Chinese heavy-hitters OPPO, vivo, Huawei, Tencent, and ByteDance are also currently evaluating their own smartglasses projects.
The post Xiaomi Reportedly Partners with Goertek to Chase Success of Ray-Ban Meta Smartglasses appeared first on Road to VR.
Yes, when the humans arrived in the Coalition they brought themselves, and their ships, and their weapons. Those were all very impressive. They showed up with positively gigantic starships – easily two to four times larger than anyone else. When asked, the humans just looked at them, then back to us and said “why not make them big? Don’t they look great?”
We could think of a few reasons, but they didn’t seem to care about those.
But that’s not what I want to talk about. Do you know what was the most amazing, galaxy-changing paradigm they brought with them?
Containerization.
I’m serious! The first time I saw them field a colony ship my feathers ruffled and I turned my head in confusion. I was aboard the human ambassador’s yacht with a few other Coalition administrators. We had come at the human’s behest so they could demonstrate that they were taking our rules about colonizing seriously. Honestly, we probably wouldn’t have cared. All they were interested in were planets Class F and lower. The ones with multiple biomes, the ones with heavy gravity, the ones with weather. We let them license the worlds for colonization cheap – ancestors, I think we even let them have the one with storms for free.
Anyway, they asked us to come and observe, and so we sent a few people out, me among them. I was a mid-level clerk for the Innari embassy at the main Coalition station, so I was ‘volunteered’ to attend. It was boring, but it wasn’t bad. Good food, a break from paperwork, and a chance to take it easy for a week.
On the second day, the colony ship arrived. It had flashed in quite close to the planet, entered orbit, and had spent an hour setting itself up. One of the Sefigans looked at the human who was guiding us and asked what we were looking at, if we were just going to see a shuttle go back and forth for a week from the ship.
“A shuttle? Heavens, no. Just watch.” and he did that cryptic smile without showing his teeth that they do when they realize they’re about to show off.
Just then, while we were watching, the colony ship… flew apart. It wasn’t destroyed, or rather it was, but it wasn’t destructive. It had turned out that the entire colony ship was thousands upon thousands of boxes. The assembled crowd made surprised noises as the ship quickly disappeared into rectangles all the same shape and size. They disconnected from each other and fell through the atmosphere to the planet’s surface. Within a tenth of a cycle, they were all down, and had begun unfolding.
Some were buildings, some contained supplies, and some even had vehicles. As we watched through remote cameras and entire city had sprung into being, where once there was only a joining of two rivers. The colony ship was completely gone – the box that was the command module had set itself up in the center of the city and we watched as the overlay changed from “Ship Command” to “City Command” as it touched down.
Before our surprise could be properly registered it happened again. Another colony ship flashed in and flew apart and landed. And again. And again. In the space of one solar day, three full cities were set up and automated construction vehicles – also the size of the containers – had begun trundling between the cities, setting up utilities and roads. By the time the humans arrived in thirty solar days, there would be places to live, work, and entertain for fifty thousand beings.
Honestly, if that’s all they used it for, it would be impressive. But they made everything able to fit into those boxes. When they ordered supplies from human manufactories they ordered them by the container. During the next resupply, one of the containers would detach and be delivered, and sure enough, packed floor to ceiling would be the widgets they ordered.
They built reactors that fit the container, so that no matter where they went or what they were doing, it was simple to have more power than one needed.
They even built weapons that fit into the containers. I’m not talking about hand and small arms, but full anti-starship missile batteries. They would take one of their boxes, stick it to the side of a ship or a station – it didn’t even have to be human-made – and out would fold a missile battery, loaded and ready. Next to it they’d plop a reactor container and a matter printer container and in the time it took you to decide what to eat for their midday meal – lunch – they would be able to defend against an attack of nearly any kind.
When called on to aid during disasters, they brought them too. They would bring a modified version of their colony package, tuned for what kind of disaster had happened. Extra hospitals, extra living space, extra power, it didn’t matter, because it all fit into those damned boxes.
The other Coalition peoples had to adopt the human containers, it was too foolish not to. Human ships would only haul containers. They didn’t list the ship’s capacity by hauling weight, they listed them by the number of containers they could haul. If you wanted to sell to humans, you had to fit your wares into a container.
Some other peoples – the Sefigans specifically, but a few others as well – attempted to introduce their own container specifications, but they were almost never adopted. The humans had the infrastructure to haul their own containers, and unless the others fit into the system they just rejected them outright. “Too complex to add,” they said. “Just use ours; here have a few for free.” They gave away containers like they were atmosphere. When items were shipped from human manufactories they told the recipient to just keep the container “in case you need to ship anything else.”
Before too long, all the Coalition was using human containers. The Sefigans complained that they were too large, the Gren complained they were too small, and we Innari looked at the containers with an eye towards economy. We felt they were far overbuilt. We tried to make our own, out of much lighter materials but whenever they were added to a human system, they would be immediately ejected – usually with large dents or bends in them. “Stick to the specs” they’d say. “Our system requires them all to be the same.”
Without firing a shot, the humans took over one of the most important and overlooked parts of our entire system. Everyone uses their containers now, it’s just impossible to find a shipper to move material without them.
Republished with permission from the author, jpitha. Image created using Stable Diffusion.
Click This Link for the Full Post > Logistics [Short Sci-Fi Story]
A treasure trove of genetic data may hold the key to a revolution in drug development, but it offers no clues for building a consumer business.
On Tuesday, direct-to-consumer genetic testing firm 23andMe announced it would be shuttering its much-hyped drug development division — touted as not just the future of the company but of drug development — as well as cutting some 40% of its staff. There must have been markers of corporate health risk somewhere in the company’s makeup.
23andMe may well be the quintessential 2010s-era tech-adjacent startup. Its core business — using saliva-collection kits to help consumers discover more about their DNA and connect with genetic relatives — is fun, novel, and completely unprofitable in part because it is immune to repeat business. To scale, 23andMe turned to two textbook remedies for struggling DTC businesses: evolving into a subscription model and attempting to monetize the massive dataset it had acquired.
The subscription model never took off. In March, it reported just 562,000 subscribers, down from 640,000 a year prior and way off from a projection of 2.9 million subscribers by 2024 floated when it went public via a SPAC merger in 2021. The company rocketed to a $5.8 billion valuation shortly after the public listing, but that has since fallen to just $150 million. In October, 23andMe engineered a reverse-stock split to keep its share price above $1.
Meanwhile, drug development is as painstakingly long as it is costly, even with a massive DNA dataset, and 23andMe has run out of runway:
Substantial Doubt: Tuesday marked the fifth round of layoffs since the start of 2023, when it had about 800 employees, and brings its total headcount to about 300. CEO Anne Wojcicki, who holds roughly half of the voting power, is attempting to take the company private. In September, seven board members resigned after Wojcicki presented a take-private plan that was not fully financed. In its latest filings, the company noted “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.” In the meantime, it continues to pay out a $30 million settlement to customers affected by a data breach.
The post 23andMe Gives Up on its Drug Development Dream appeared first on The Daily Upside.
Burberry has announced a new immersive AR experience.
This festive season, it is launching its first virtual scarf try on offering.
In a LinkedIn post, Seema Kukadia, Digital Innovation Manager at Burberry, said: “Using the latest in web 3D and augmented reality technology, our new immersive experience encourages customers to virtually explore Burberry’s iconic scarves and visualise how the brand's best known accessory will look.”
Available online via Burberry.com and in select stores, customers can use their mobile phone camera to view the scarf styled on themselves in real-time.
The experience has been developed in partnership with WANNA, a provider of AR and 3D experiences for luxury brands.
Kukadia added: “It builds on our rich legacy of digital innovation, from being the first luxury brand to live stream a runway show to recent activations including the development of an in-game world and capsule collection with Minecraft."
2024 RTIH INNOVATION AWARDS
Immersive experiences are a key focus area for the sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards, which are now closed for entries.
The awards, sponsored by Vista Technology Support, Scala, CADS, 3D Cloud, Brightpearl by Sage’s Lightning 50, Business France, and Retail Technology Show 2025, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Key 2024 dates
Friday, 25th October: Award entry deadline
Tuesday, 29th October: 2024 shortlist revealed
30th October-6th November: Judging days
Thursday, 21st November: Winners announced at the 2024 RTIH Innovation Awards ceremony, to be held at RIBA’s 66 Portland Place HQ in Central London.
An Italian startup called Artinoise has created an unusual USB-C accessory for mobile devices that turns them into playable musical instruments. The Zefiro looks like a flash drive or a tiny vape, but by gently blowing into one end, it can be used to play simulated instruments with even less skill than what was needed to play those plastic recorders in grade school.
The Zefiro is being made available through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign looking to raise just over $5,300 to fund production. According to the company, “We have been developing and manufacturing musical instruments for years; now we just need to collect pre-orders for our latest creation and kick off manufacturing!”
Those backing the campaign early can preorder a...
23andMe is laying off 40 percent of its employees, or over 200 workers, as the company attempts to recover from last year’s massive data breach and reverse its plummeting stock price. The genetic testing company also announced that it will shut down its therapeutics business.
Though 23andMe says the restructuring plan will cost it around $12 million, it expects to save more than $35 million as a result, while “substantially” lowering operating expenses. 23andMe’s therapeutics division, which studied potential cancer treatments using its database of genetic material, will end all clinical trials, as the company considers licensing agreements or asset sales to “maximize” the program’s value.
23andMe has had a turbulent past year, with the...
A new category of devices – the stretchables – may soon be upon us, as after writing about Murata stretchable PCBs for medical applications a few days ago, I’ve now come across LG’s latest stretchable display that can be extended from its original 12-inch size up to 18 inches.
It’s the second stretchable display showcased by the Korean company, as the first prototype was unveiled in 2022 with an elongation rate of just 20%. The new display extends that to 50% and delivers a high resolution of 100ppi (pixels per inch) and full red, green, and blue (RGB) color (probably at its original size).
LG Display further explains that their engineers have applied a number of new technologies “such as improving the properties of a special silicon material substrate used in contact lenses and developing a new wiring design structure to improve the panel’s stretchability and flexibility”. Durability was also enhanced by using a micro-LED light source of up to 40μm enabling the display to be repeatedly twisted and stretched over 10,000 times.
Such stretchable displays could be found on irregularly curved surfaces like clothing and skin, and the company expects it to be integrated into various products in the fashion, wearables, and mobility/automotive sectors. The company showcased several concepts for the stretchable display including an automotive touchscreen panel that stretches out into a convex shape and a wearable display attached to firefighters’ uniforms that provides real-time information.
The company did not share many other technical details and it’s unclear when the new stretchable display will become available. All we have is a press release. I tried finding a few demos of the new 12-inch display, but all I could find was a 2-month-old video showing the first display prototype (that stretches by up to 20%) on clothing and bags at Seoul Fashion Week.
Via Liliputing
The post LG Display’s 12-inch stretchable screen can extend by up to 50% appeared first on CNX Software - Embedded Systems News.
Dans le secteur de la construction, les tâches sont physiques, pénibles et répétitives. Ceci explique peut-être pourquoi la main-d'œuvre manque parfois. Pour pallier ces difficultés, les nouvelles technologies sont d'une grande aide et permettent d'économiser en temps, en argent et en efforts. Dans cet article, nous évoquons dans les grandes lignes les meilleures innovations matérielles dans le secteur de la construction.
La construction demande une forte ressource en énergie et en eau. Même si la solution zéro pollution est difficile à atteindre, aujourd'hui, des efforts sont faits dans ce secteur pour réduire au mieux l'impact environnemental. En choisissant la location matériel luxembourg de Boels, vous pourrez réduire les nuisances sur l'environnement. La gamme d'engins Eco permet de minimiser l'empreinte carbone sur les chantiers et de réduire le bruit et les vibrations au sol. Le recyclage de l'eau utilisée lors d'une construction et celui des déchet est aussi un effort nécessaire à réaliser.
On le sait, l'humidité dans une pièce est mal venue, d'où l'importance de l'achat ou de la location déshumidificateur à condensation ou par absorption. Cependant, l'humidité peut être nécessaire pour réparer le béton grâce à une méthode récente et naturelle. Il suffit d'injecter de petites capsules contenant des bactéries et des nutriments au cœur de la fissure à combler. Sous l'influence du soleil et de l'humidité, ces polymères vont proliférer et combler le trou. Autre matériau innovant : le verre photochromique qui devient plus opaque sous l'effet des rayons lumineux. Ainsi, l'éclairage d'une pièce pourra rester constant.
Ce sont loin d'être des gadgets dans le BTP ! Les drônes permettent d'atteindre des endroits inaccessibles sans prendre de risques pour cartographier un site et le modéliser afin de travailler sur une maquette numérique. Le drône permet aussi de gagner un temps précieux car il permet de pulvériser de la matière anti-rouille ou anti-mousse sans avoir à utiliser une nacelle. Il peut aussi relever des stocks en un seul vol et faire un diagnostic thermique, entre autres exemples.
Le BIM ou « Building Information Modeling » est une méthode numérique de gestion de projet en temps réel. C'est un plan en 3D auquel tous les acteurs de la construction vont pouvoir toucher et ce, de la phase de conception, jusqu'à la phase de maintenance. Ainsi, il sera possible de voir apparaître toutes les demandes du client, les matériaux disponibles chez le fournisseur, les changements à apporter, etc. C'est in fine une méthode de création de projets interactive et évolutive qui révolutionne le monde du BTP. Plus besoin de suivre les étapes rigides et restreintes entre le maître d'ouvrage et le bureau d'étude, comme autrefois.
La présence de robots dans le secteur du BTP a toujours été vue comme un levier positif. Ceci parce que le secteur est le plus concerné par les accidents de travail et que la main d'œuvre manque. Ainsi, la robotisation des tâches résout ces deux enjeux. De nombreux types de robots existent : les robots porteurs de charges, les lisseurs d'enduits, les robots pulvérisateurs pour peindre les murs ou le robot perforateur, etc. Récemment, une start-up australienne a créé un robot maçon capable de monter les murs d'une maison en 2 jours.
Nous l'avons vu, le BIM permet de construire en 3D et de façon interactive. La réalité virtuelle permet d'aller plus loin encore et de pénétrer au sein de la maquette, comme si l'ouvrage était réel. Cela permet à tous les acteurs du projet et au client de mieux percevoir le rendu final du projet, de mieux déceler les manques, de travailler en meilleure intelligence et plus rapidement.
Cet article Les meilleures innovations dans le secteur du BTP est apparu en premier sur OBJETCONNECTE.COM.
Les profondeurs du secteur minier résonnent aujourd'hui au rythme des technologies connectées, atteignant un volume impressionnant de près de 1,3 million d'unités actives en 2023. Autant dire que chaque segment, des équipements puissants aux personnels en passant par le délicat équilibre environnemental, porte cette révolution numérique qui harmonise l'efficacité, la sécurité et l'état de santé des machines au cœur des mines. Derrière ces avancées, on trouve des fabricants ambitieux comme Epiroc, Sandvik et Komatsu, qui, grâce à des activités de fusions et acquisitions, enrichissent leurs offres pour répondre aux besoins croissants, tant en surface qu'en profondeur. Une évolution qui promet de transfigurer l'horizon minier.
En 2023, le nombre total de solutions minières connectées actives atteignait près de 1,3 million d'unités. Ces solutions se répartissent en trois segments principaux : équipements, personnel et environnement. Les équipements représentent la plus grande part, intégrant des systèmes de télématique pour les machines et véhicules miniers. Le segment des personnes inclut des solutions visant à améliorer la sécurité et la productivité des employés, tandis que l'environnement bénéficie de technologies de capteurs pour un suivi écologique. Ce secteur connaît une croissance notable avec un taux de croissance annuel composé de 16,1 %, anticipant ainsi une augmentation jusqu'à 2,7 millions d'unités d'ici 2028.
En 2023, le monde de la mining-tech a franchi un cap remarquable avec près de 1,3 million d'unités connectées déployées. Ce chiffre impressionnant témoigne de l'adoption croissante de la technologie dans le secteur minier. Les différents segments de l'équipement, des personnes et de l'environnement bénéficient de ces avancées notables, améliorant ainsi l'efficacité et la sécurité des opérations.
Les innovations technologiques pour les exploitations minières ne cessent de surprendre, avec une croissance annuelle de 16,1 % attendue jusqu'en 2028. Les fabricants d'équipements comme Epiroc, Sandvik, Komatsu et Hitachi ont revitalisé leurs offres en matière de technologie minière. L'essor des systèmes de télématique OEM et des solutions avancées connectées est synonyme de progrès exceptionnel dans la gestion des machines et des véhicules en exploitation minière. Cette transformation numérique va bien au-delà des surfaces visibles. Elle intègre des systèmes sous-terrains complexes et rationalise même les processus de ventilation pour plus de sécurité.
Le passage à des solutions totalement autonomes n'est plus un rêve lointain mais une réalité tangible dans le secteur minier. L'implémentation de systèmes autonomes dans les mines souterraines est particulièrement bénéfique. Elle réduit non seulement la nécessité d'évacuer pour la ventilation mais optimise également la sécurité et la productivité. Ces systèmes autonomes se sont étendus au-delà des simples systèmes de transport pour englober des applications comme le forage et, dans une moindre mesure, le dynamitage. Cet élan vers une autonomie complète est sans doute stimulé par l'intérêt croissant pour les initiatives de durabilité et d'efficacité énergétique. Au cœur de cette révolution, des entreprises comme IoT industriel au Canada et Sigfox en Afrique du Sud ont connu des tournants majeurs, illustrant la tendance globale vers un avenir plus intelligent et connecté.
Cet article Les solutions minières connectées atteignent 1,3 million d’unités en 2023 est apparu en premier sur OBJETCONNECTE.COM.
Le Pi Board est une création de Tamerlan qui documente toute son approche autour de ce projet de jeu d’échec réel et intelligence virtuelle.
A vrai dire, j’ai déjà connu des produits commerciaux de ce genre, il y a fort longtemps j’ai croisé un plateau de jeu d’échecs de ce type. Un système d’aimants déplaçait les pièces pour les faire avancer sur toute la surface. Avec toutefois une petite nuance, le matériel ne savait pas vraiment où vous placiez vos propres pions et il fallait entrer pour chacun de vos déplacements les cordonnées de départ et d’arrivée. Ajoutez à cela un adversaire adoptant une petite dizaine de stratégies seulement, ce n’était pas vraiment une merveille. D’autant que le plateau était vendu très cher et que les pions étaient en plastique creux pour être assez légers pour se déplacer. Bref, ce n’était pas vraiment génial.
Ici, le Pi Board qui est présenté est beaucoup plus complet, il faut dire que les éléments qui entrent en jeu sont un peu plus récents. On retrouve un plateau de jeu classique avec en dessous un système de moteurs pas à pas sur deux axes X et Y qui déplacent un aimant sous les pièces pour les faire avancer. Si l’idée de base a été d’employer un électro aimant, celle-ci n’a pas été retenue. Faire monter ou descendre un aimant classique sous le plateau semble plus efficace que d’alimenter un électro aimant, c’est également moins gourmand en énergie et moins dissipateur de chaleur. Ainsi le dispositif avec un simple aimant qui vient se placer sous la pièce à déplacer peut suivre le damier du jeu plus efficacement et sans d’autres contraintes.
Une fois cette base technique développée, on pense évidemment aux solutions comme les graveuses laser qui déplacent une tête de gravure avec le même genre de mouvements sur deux axes, il a fallu optimiser. L’idée est d’avoir une réponse rapide à vos mouvements de jeu pour que la partie ne soit pas ennuyeuse. Si votre coup joué doit attendre le repositionnement de l’aimant sous la nouvelle pièce entre chaque étape, cela risque de ne pas vraiment donner envie de jouer. Un algorithme de positionnement a donc été développé pour que le Pi Board ne place pas l’aimant de déplacement à son point de base après chaque coup. La machine se souvient de sa place et peut calculer à partir d’une grille son prochain déplacement automatiquement. Cela fluidifie grandement la partie.
D’autres éléments techniques ont également dû être optimisés comme les déplacements spécifiques du roi et de la reine ainsi que celui du cavalier. Des stratégies ont donc été mises en place pour gérer ces mouvements.
Enfin, le pilotage par une carte Raspberry Pi a permis de développer des solutions de jeu adaptables au niveau du joueur, capables de choisir les blancs ou les noirs mais également de relier le plateau du Pi Board au réseau pour piloter une partie avec un autre joueur. On imagine assez bien l’intérêt d’avoir ce genre de solutions déployées chez deux joueurs distants qui peuvent ainsi s’affronter « face à face ». Reste que pour le moment il faut entrer ses propres mouvements de jeu au travers d’un petit écran tactile situé sur le côté. Je ne sais pas comment la machine pourrait analyser le plateau de jeu. Peut être avec une caméra au dessus du plateau pour analyser les pièces et détecter les mouvements du joueur humain ? Peut être avec des capteurs NFC sous les pièces ?
Comme d’habitude, je suis assez admiratif du résultat obtenu et de l’ingéniosité de l’auteur. C’est une excellente idée d’apprentissage et de perfectionnement avec de nombreux défis à relever autant au niveau matériel pour gérer les pièces qu’en programmation pour en faire un jeu agréable.
Source : Tamerlan
Minimachines.net en partenariat avec Geekbuying.com
Pi Board : un plateau d’échec réel pour un adversaire virtuel © MiniMachines.net. 2024.
Greetings from a world where…
people talk to each other like chickens speaking with ducks [鸡同鸭讲]
…As always, the searchable archive of all past issues is here. Please please subscribe here to support ChinAI under a Guardian/Wikipedia-style tipping model (everyone gets the same content but those who can pay support access for all AND compensation for awesome ChinAI contributors).
Context: “In the past, in order to get promotions and raises, we didn't dare to have children, as we were afraid that getting pregnant and having children would affect our career development. Now, in order to keep our jobs, we are considering strategic pregnancies,” one poster comments on a social network. This week’s feature translation (original Chinese from Perpetual Light Studio[极昼工作室] covers this phenomenon of “strategic pregnancies” [战略性怀孕], which has gained momentum in the past two years. From the article:
Searching through a certain social platform dominated by female users (Xiaohongshu, I think), more than 25,000 notes are about “whether you will be laid off after a strategic pregnancy.” Someone posted a "practical guide" to share how she safely avoided three waves of layoffs in large companies from pregnancy to maternity leave, as her department went from more than a dozen people to only herself.
Key Passages: Our story begins with Yuanyi Ma, a 30-year old in her fifth year in the game development industry. In her prime, she wants to rise, but there are no vacancies in management positions, and her company has started to subtly scale back expenses and benefits (e.g., the cafeteria napkins have been replaced with cheaper brands).
Ma’s strategic pregnancy plan: 1) get pregnant in the second quarter of the year, 2) disclose her pregnancy to the firm only after she gets her bonus, 3) make sure the third trimester of her pregnancy coincides with the timing of the national and provincial civil service exams, 4) after giving birth, continue to review during maternity leave and participate in other exams in the first half of the following year, 5) finish breastfeeding and then catch up with the recruitment season for other positions.
The article continues: “She did it. She had pregnancy reactions in the first three months, tried to hold back when she wanted to vomit, and went to the bathroom quickly after meetings. When she announced her pregnancy, she was relieved. Another colleague who joined the company at the same time seemed to be inspired and went to skip rope every night after getting off work. Mai knew that skipping rope is conducive to ovulation.”
In mid-September of last year, Yue Du and her husband had only been married for two months when she received a layoff notice. Luckily, someone in management had tipped them off in advance, so the young couple decided to get pregnant as soon as possible to buy some time with human resources (HR).
Negotiations with HR delayed her firing, which allowed her to find another job at an investment fund company. Unfortunately, that company also struggled, so she had to turn to side hustles, such as audiobook reader and part-time auditor. The only one that stuck involved selling insurance policies and assisting doctors to help out-of-town patients.
Du’s husband noticed that she had become very tight about money. “He changed from buying ribs from Meituan to going to the vegetable market to compare prices.”
Some HR professionals advise against undertaking a strategic pregnancy to keep one’s job, as it only brings a short-term sense of job security. Upon return from maternity leave, female employees sometimes struggle to secure promotions and salary increases. The article cites a recent “Survey Report on Fertility Intentions of the Suitable-Age Population,” jointly published by statistics bureaus in various areas, which cites “inadequate implementation of maternity allowances, holidays, and employment guarantees” and “worries about the impact on personal career development” as two of the main obstacles to having children.
Ma continued to prepare for exams during and after her pregnancy. She took the national civil service exam two weeks before giving birth. After just two weeks of rest after a C-section, she continued her studies, doing math problems in bed while breastfeeding. During her six-month maternity leave, she took four exams and applied to posts at other companies.
One month after returning to work, she received an offer to become a teacher at a vocational school. After taking up the post, in order to better her chances of future promotions, Ma chose to be a head teacher, so she was busy every day with teaching plan and lesson preparations.
The article concludes: “One night at eleven o'clock, several girls in the class had a conflict in the dormitory, just as Ma’s daughter had a fever and had to go to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, she kept communicating with the students' parents, teachers on duty, class leaders, and the students involved. The phone was silent only after she got the medicine for her daughter. Lying in bed at one o'clock in the night, she turned on her phone and sent messages to the parents one by one to comfort them again. ‘No job is the best, they are all cities under siege.’ Ma sighed.”
For more stories of strategic pregnancies, see FULL TRANSLATION: People at large tech companies, strategically preparing for pregnancy
The blurb for a special issue of Granta on China: At a time when China has become a unifying spectre of menace for Western governments, this issue of Granta seeks to bring the country’s literary culture into focus. I’m really looking forward to reading Han Zhang’s “Picun”, an essay about working class literature in a migrant worker’s colony outside Beijing.
I’m about two years late to this article in STAT+ by Casey Ross, but I recently came across this citation in a working paper, and it is a very important read about the implementation lags of AI systems in medical systems. Let me know if you can’t access it, and I can share a pdf.
Concordia AI is hiring for roles in their Beijing and Singapore offices: International AI Governance Research Manager/Researcher; Foundation Model Safety Research Engineer; Operations Manager/Associate. Check out the announcement page for more details.
This article (in Chinese) introduces the FlagEval Debate platform which allows 2 LLMs to debate against each other based on prompts generated by the platform. H/t to Shao Heng for sharing.
These are Jeff Ding's (sometimes) weekly translations of Chinese-language musings on AI and related topics. Jeff is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at George Washington University.
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Le Radxa Palmshell SLiM X4L propose un fonctionnement classique et une orientation vers des usages très spécialisés. La marque que l’on connait pour ses cartes de développement sous SoC ARM a bien compris l’intérêt de ce processeur Intel Alder Lake-N.
De nombreux utilisateurs de minimachines « classiques » sous Intel N100 avec une ventilation active se servent aujourd’hui de ces engins pour des usages très spécialisés. Très loin de ce qu’imaginait Intel pour ces solutions pensées comme « l’après Celeron/Pentium » pour les particuliers. Ces minimachines servent à piloter des outils réseaux, créer des serveurs, gérer des imprimantes 3D ou autres outils du genre. Avec des cartes de développement dont le prix est monté en flèche et dont l’équipement annexe n’a pas baissé et la baisse du tarif de ces MiniPC « prêts à l’emploi », il est désormais souvent plus intéressant de glisser un engin complet, enfermé dans un boitier, sous Intel N100 et bien accompagné de mémoire et de stockage rapide que de rassembler tous les éléments d’une solution de développement type Raspberry Pi pour certains usages.
Radxa l’a compris et a décidé de proposer le Palmshell SLiM X4L comme alternative à ses cartes de développement classiques. Annoncé à partir 129.99€ HT, c’est un engin qui devrait proposer un excellent ratio performances et encombrement pour des utilisations spécialisées. On retrouve donc ici un Intel N100 enfermé dans un boitier tout en largeur. Pensé pour être positionné en VESA facilement, il dispose sa connectique sur deux côtés uniquement.
On retrouve ainsi pas moins de quatre USB 3.2 Type-A, un Ethernet 2.5 Gigabit, deux sorties HDMI 2.0, un jack audio combo 3.5 mm et un Antivol type Kensington Lock. L’alimentation est assurée par un port USB Type-C Power Delivery 3.0 qui demandera du 12V et 3A… Mais à vous de le fournir, l’alimentation n’est pas prévue dans la machine. Un module Wi-Fi6E et Bluetooth 5.2 est également intégré.
Autour du processeur Intel N100, on retrouve de 8 à 32 Go de mémoire vive LPDDR5-4800 et 32 Go de eMMC de base associé à 128 Go NVMe PCIe 3.0 monté en M.2 2280. Ne vous laissez pas impressionner par son châssis qui fait penser à une solution passive, il est bel et bien équipé d’une ventilation active.
Je ne suis pas certain que cette offre soit la plus pertinente pour un particulier à la recherche d’un MiniPC pour des usages moins orthodoxes que celui d’un engin de bureau. Si la place ne compte pas à ce point là et qu’un boitier un peu plus épais vous convient, il y a une foule d’autres solutions plus accessibles et peut être plus intéressantes niveau tarif et évolution que ce modèle. Pour un usage vraiment spécialisé comme de l’intégration derrière des écrans ou dans des kiosques, ce design peut par contre avoir du sens. Et si vous êtes vraiment vraiment à la recherche d’une solution la plus compacte possible, Radxa propose également la X4, une carte de développement sous Intel N100.
Radxa X4 : la carte de développement sous Intel N100 est dispo
Sources : Bret.dk via Liliputing
Minimachines.net en partenariat avec Geekbuying.com
Palmshell SLiM X4L : un MiniPC Intel N100 signé Radxa © MiniMachines.net. 2024.
There is a bit of turmoil in the VR developer communities because developers are experiencing more difficulties in making their games noticed on Quest. They are all asking Meta to take action, otherwise they risk going out of business. Let me tell you the main complaints, some possible solutions, and why it is important to speak about this.
I’ve always hated the curation of the Meta Store that relegated us indie developers to the secondary “App Lab” store. I’ve always thought that made no sense to divide developers into Class A and Class B developers and that everyone should have the same opportunity to publish his own game and make it visible to the community, hoping that it can become a hit. It’s fair this way. So when App Lab was eliminated and all the games were merged into the main (Quest) Horizon Store, I was very happy.
But the problem is that the Horizon Store was probably not ready for this merge. App Lab contained both interesting indie games and cheap experiments. After the operation, many people complained about the fact that their home page of the store was just full of shovelware, and others that they were suggested mediocre content. I remember one guy saying that he was suggested to play “Orilla Tag”, a clear rip-off of Gorilla Tag (I wonder if there is also a “Rilla Tag”, “Illa Tag”, and so on, until the most infamous of them all, that is called just “G”). This means that the system that is suggesting to people the game to play is not working very well, and is giving visibility to crappy content that no one wants to play instead of rewarding little gems made by indies.
I’m hearing from devs that their sales have dropped significantly since the store opened up and they’re unsatisfied with discovery and ranking.
— Alex Coulombe (@iBrews) October 25, 2024
They feel like the apps they spent years developing are now living side by side with shovelware and the consumer can’t even tell. https://t.co/QmVFIDwzu8
Together with the suggestion engine, there is also another big problem in the store, which is the Search Engine. Finding games using a part of the name is not always easy: sometimes the wanted game does not appear, or it is not the first result, and so on. This means that if someone wants to find a game that saw a couple of days ago in a Youtube video and so he only remembers some vague resemblance to the name, he may not find it. And these are all lost sales for the developer of that game.
There is one simple solution for the search functionality: Meta should fix it. Searching the web is not a mysterious topic anymore, and there are many algorithms for that. Considering Meta’s budget, I imagine it is just a matter of making this a priority and taking the time to fix it.
As for the suggestion engine, it is always been a problem since the Gear VR times, when people started receiving nonsense notifications like “Since you liked Arizona Sunshine, go playing Hello Kitty Word 2000” and published them on Reddit so that we all could have a laugh. I think it’s time to fix it once and for all: in this case, it is not so trivial as fixing the search functionality, though.
There is not a single standard for suggesting something to users, but there are different strategies out there. And there are also different characteristics through which you can choose the content to suggest: for instance, what has more weight, the type of content (e.g. action vs adventure), its length (short vs long), the reviews it had, or the previous history of the user? The algorithm has to choose how to mix all of these things to give the user a good set of suggestions. It’s not easy, but a company like Meta, which is also one of the leaders in the AI sector (think about the Llama models…), should be able to carry on this task.
An app that is unavailable and one that costs £11.99. Nice
— Rael Hodgson (@RaelXRWorkout) October 27, 2024pic.twitter.com/ny2JrnuPjA
But there is even a bigger problem, that is how to create a good mix of certified quality games and hidden gems. One naive approach would be to allow all games on the store, but give visibility (by ranking them higher in the searches or putting them in the Featured section) only to the ones by teams that are certified to make good games. But this would de-facto shadow ban all the indie games from new small teams, creating a situation very similar to the one we had before with App Lab. The solution would be in my opinion to create a mix between the two: on the front page of the store that is customized for every user, the system should provide most suggestions that are known games (e.g. Batman: Arkham Shadow, Gorilla Tag, Max Mustard) and then leave a few slots to unknown games that may be hidden gems that the user may like. Then the system should track how many of these suggested unknown games are actually getting good play time and positive reviews, and the more they perform well in terms of engagement, the more they should be promoted up in the rankings. The ones that are played and mostly disregarded, instead, should be given always less visibility, even if they come from well-established companies. I believe this would be a fair treatment because games would be the facto evaluated by their users: the more a title is liked by the Quest users, the more would become a hit worth being showcased.
I still need more datapoints, but the suggestion is being raised by multiple long-standing VR developers that lack of a sales bump this week points to either Quest 3S not selling well or users being funneled into free-to-play Horizon Worlds rather than store content.
— Ian Hamilton (@hmltn) October 25, 2024
It’s been since ages that Meta has tried to make a successful Social VR application. Its last one is Horizon Worlds, which was marketed as the ultimate social VR experience and launched with much hype, but that never had massive success. Competitors like VRChat and Rec Room always had more users and the press mocked Facebook, a social company, for not being able to create a compelling social VR experience. Since Meta invested a lot of money in Horizon and absolutely wants to dominate the social XR space, because social brings lots of things with it (including the data of people), it started to shovel into our throats Horizon Worlds everywhere. If you open the Meta Horizon app on your phone, you will notice that the home page is all about Horizon Worlds worlds and to open the actual store of apps, you have to click on a tiny button in the upper-left corner or scroll down the page for a while. When you launch your Quest, the first tab that opens is the “Horizon Feed”, which suggests a mix of games, Horizon Worlds worlds, and videos from Youtube creators (and I have never asked for the last two things). When you search for something in the Store, the Store tells you both games and Horizon Store destinations with that name. Sometimes even the game suggestions are not about games but about Horizon Worlds places. At the latest Meta Connect, Meta proposed a re-design of the Quest runtime, and guess what? There was an easy way to go to Horizon Worlds portals…
I understand that there are some managers in Meta that have to reach their annual goals and so they are doing everything to have a certain number of users in Horizon by the end of the year. But this is creating issues for everyone. As a user, I find the mobile app totally unusable: it should make it easy for me to buy games and configure my Quest, while it makes it easy to go to Horizon Worlds or to configure my Meta Avatar (that is mostly useful for Horizon Worlds). As a developer, I find it frustrating that my content has to compete not only with the other games on the store but also with Horizon Worlds destinations, which are even given priority on mobile. Someone is also complaining that some people prefer a free mediocre Horizon World ripoff destination to the original paid game on the Meta Store. Again, this is hampering the sales of content on Meta Store.
I would also add that I wonder if there can also be legal implications attached to what Meta is doing. I’m not a lawyer, but I guess is not very fair that Meta is showcasing so much of the content of its own social VR application when there are other social VR applications on its store (e.g. VRChat) that are not getting the same treatment. The recent Digital Markets Act in the EU puts more pressure on the so-called “gatekeepers” to not favor their own products in the search results of their platforms. So, if I were Meta, I would be careful and evaluate what I am doing also on a legal standpoint before some antitrust entity wakes up and notices these potential issues.
So yeah, I have like 100 high quality titles installed on my Quest 3, but I get a notification suggesting I try "skibidi toilet big" in horizon worlds.#vr #MetaQuest pic.twitter.com/xWP0cOYY2k
— Krzysztof Wrona (@Studio_VRon) November 10, 2024
I would re-design the whole experience on the mobile Meta Horizon app, making it more usable and giving more visibility to content on the store. And I would do the same on all platforms, from the web store to the runtime of Quest. I would also remove all the “Horizon Worlds” results from the search engine of the Store: if someone wants to look for a Horizon Worlds world, he had better open the Horizon Worlds app. Otherwise, it is like if I opened the Start menu of my Windows PC, and when I start typing “Wo” instead of finding “Microsoft Word”, the first suggestion would be the “Wololo Potato” world in Roblox. Wouldn’t this feel strange?
If Meta wants still to drag more people into social VR, it could create in its interface a little “Featured Worlds” section, where it hand-picks 4-5 spotlight experiences across all social VR worlds (Horizon Worlds, Rec Room, VRChat, …) that are absolutely worth a look. This could have value for both the users (who can so discover majestic social VR experiences) and developers of social VR content (because they have the opportunity to be spotlighted), but wouldn’t hurt the visibility of Quest apps on the main Store of the headset.
Furthermore, I think that Meta should also realize that probably Horizon Worlds is not what the VR community is looking for at this moment. If you need to always brute-force your product in front of the eyes of the people to gain new users, then it means that the product does not fit with the needs of the people. Consider also that notwithstanding all this visibility, Horizon Worlds is not even the most popular social VR world on the market: this says a lot. Google Chrome has been installed on every Android phone and it immediately became the to-go browser for everyone paired with Google Search because both products were crazy good before the recent enshittification. If this is not happening with Horizon Worlds, I think Meta should question itself if it is really on the right path with this product.
Meta has still a 30% cut on all the transactions happening in the Store. 30% is really a lot of money, especially for small teams that are trying to make their business sustainable.
I know that managing a store is complicated and expensive. And I also know that Meta is subsidizing its cheap hardware with the money it earns from its store. So I’m not asking Meta to remove the Store fee, because that would make no sense.
But I still think there are ways to find a middle ground with the needs of the developers. For instance, the store fee may be reduced for the first period of “start up” of the various products or companies. Or it could be reduced for the products with sales below a certain threshold.
At this point, you may wonder why Meta should care about supporting small developers when it can afford to have big titles like Asgard’s Wrath 2 or Batman: Arkham Shadow that are self-funded. The reason is that the big titles are important, but it is the vibrant indie ecosystem that is keeping the platform alive, with its passion, innovation, and new ideas. I repeat it every time: many VR big hits have been developed by small indie studios. Two huge examples of this are Beat Saber and Gorilla Tag. At this moment, Meta can have a successful platform only as long as its developers are happy with it. And “happy” means that after they invested a lot of time and money to develop a piece of content, they can find enough people on the Meta Horizon Store that play their content and pay for it, making their business sustainable. Also because if we pay 30% of cut to the Store, the Store should give us a good service in return. If this doesn’t happen, all the developers will leave the platform, leaving Quest with a poor ecosystem and very bad press.
You may then wonder where could we go, considering that there is no platform as big as Quest now. Well, first of all, “now” is the key word here. Wait a few years and the Apple and Google stores would have become more relevant in XR, and if they offered better opportunities to devs, all people could jump ships. Then, remember that there are many ways to make money in XR, and enterprise XR is one of them: we are not forced to make consumer content. Or we could also simply do other jobs, like doing standard 3D content (which has an even bigger audience) or jump on the AI bandwagon. Actually, many friends have already left VR and are suggesting me to do the same and look for money elsewhere. We developers have many options, if we stay in VR is just for our passion.
We hear you on this. Helping devs find customers AND monetize is mission critical for us. First key step: grow the total audience. Quest 3S is already doing that, so far it’s bringing in the highest share of new-to-Quest users (vs upgraders) since Quest 2. https://t.co/SkRSF4dhLc
— Mark Rabkin (@mrabkin) October 26, 2024
Don’t misunderstand the tone of this article, though: I’m grateful for what Meta is doing for XR, for having released the Quest headset, and for having so created a VR ecosystem that is big enough that is sustainable for some developers. But I think that if we want to make XR succeed, we need to do this all together, and we should all support each other for this to happen. And this includes Meta in doing its part in helping us in doing our job. Even if this means making some present sacrifices like not putting its own product under the spotlight, because this can bring many long-term advantages for us and also for Meta itself. I really hope this can happen.
(Header image by Meta)
The post Meta should improve its Store to support more its developers appeared first on The Ghost Howls.
Whoops, how’d that slip through?
US sanctions have been designed to keep high-powered computer chips from entering China, but last month one of TSMC’s chips was discovered inside a processor made by the Shenzhen-based Huawei. Now, according to a Reuters report this weekend, the US government has ordered the chipmaker to halt orders of advanced chips to the country starting Monday.
US rules do not ban TSMC from selling all chips to China, just those that are high-powered and could be used for advanced artificial intelligence purposes. But while imposing export controls on high-powered chips is easy, enforcing them is much harder. That’s because TSMC makes chips based on customer designs, and experts say that chips are so complex it can be difficult to ascertain their power based on design alone.
In October, a teardown of a Huawei AI processor by research firm Tech Insights found one of TSMC’s high-powered chips. TSMC then flagged the discovery to the US Commerce Department, claiming it was unsure how the chip made its way into the China-made hardware. The incident has raised enough of a panic to spark even more stringent export controls:
A New Era: For its part, TSMC in a statement insisted it was a “law-abiding company.” The Taipei-based firm operates in accordance with US rules to maintain access to critical US tech. But with a new administration en route that has criticized Taiwan’s chip industry, TSMC’s continued seat at the US table looks slightly in doubt. One source told the FT that TSMC’s cooperation is “designed to underscore that we are the good guys and not acting against US interests.”
The post TSMC To Halt Shipments to China appeared first on The Daily Upside.
DeFi is in the middle of an identity crisis. Born out of the 2008 financial meltdown, the decentralized finance movement aimed to reinvent a too-big-to-fail global financial system that wasn’t always looking out for the little guys. Why give money to the big banks when you could create a peer-to-peer system you controlled?
But if cutting out Wall Street with blockchain technology was an objective, the “cypherpunks” have failed: the world’s largest banks are about to cash in on the technology they’ve been championing for some two decades. BlackRock, WisdomTree, and a handful of others have all launched new digital-native funds in recent months, from tokenized money market funds to digital Treasuries. These new products are much cheaper to operate and come with additional benefits, like the ability to instantaneously settle transactions. They’re also tapping into an industry that is transacting trillions of dollars on-chain per month.
“It’s potentially one of the biggest technological advances in markets since trading became electronic,” said Aaron Kaplan, CEO of the digitally native brokerage Prometheum, the first firm to get the regulatory green-light to safeguard and clear digital assets. “It has the potential to disrupt not just the securities industry, but much larger financial institutions.”
The beauty of the underlying technology is that it can “tokenize” real-world assets, anything from real estate, to stocks, to fine art. The tokens are held on a blockchain, a digital ledger, and can be bought and sold just like any other security. Whoever owns the token owns the real-world asset. The size of the market for all this is mind-boggling: the total value of tokenized assets could reach $24 trillion by 2027, according to a report by the World Economic Forum, which would account for nearly 10% of global GDP.
“DeFi has these interesting use cases, but it’s essentially stuck in its own universe,” said Kaplan, who was called to testify before a Congressional committee last year. Blockchain is a pseudo gray area for regulators as assets like cryptocurrency have yet to be defined as a commodity or a security. “The innovations have already been incubated in the DeFi space,” he said. “Now, they’re trying to figure out how to use them for traditional securities.”
The biggest nut for companies to crack is securing these digital assets and keeping them out of the hands of cybercriminals. Regulators are lobbing lawsuits at blockchain-based exchanges, and politicians are calling for more scrutiny before the tech transforms how assets are traded and secured.
Stuck in the BUIDL. BlackRock became one of the first major firms to launch a digital asset fund in March, and it’s paying off. Its Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) now has about $500 million in assets under management. It effectively acts like a digital currency, offering a stable value of $1 per token that institutional investors can trade and collateralize in other on-chain transactions. The fund invests in cash, Treasury bills, and repurchase agreements, earning yield for holders. It’s become an early success story and a major test case for Wall Street’s bet on DeFi.
Being among the first to market has allowed BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to build BUIDL into one of the largest and most recognizable products in its class. But, with investment minimums of upwards of $5 million, these new digital funds aren’t going to be a mass market any time soon. But for the super rich, it’s a no-brainer.
Block & Tackle. A key advantage is the ability to instantaneously settle transactions. Take traditional yield-earning funds like bonds, for example. After the transition to T-1 in the US, fixed income products generally take one day to settle, allowing time for the assets to be cleared and delivered to the seller. But, on-chain funds close instantaneously, meaning the funds can be returned and redeployed right away, saving hours of wasted time.
When you’re dealing with millions of dollars, every second counts.
Faster and Cheaper? For blockchain proponents, this is just the next step in trading technology. Once upon a time, traders held paper tickets on the exchange floors as proof of ownership of an asset. When the stock market started hitting hundreds of thousands of trades per day, brokers needed a better way to record trades other than on glorified Post-It notes. With the advent of online record keepers in the 1970s, ticket receipts went digital.
Kaplan and other proponents expect blockchain will be the greatest leap forward since that switch from paper to digital. “It’s just inefficient the way it’s being done now,” he said.
The post Wall Street Does DeFi appeared first on The Daily Upside.
In the UK, figures from the Association of Contact Lens Manufacturers (ACLM) highlight that the contact lens market has grown considerably. According to the report, the size of the British contact lens market reached £360 million in 2023. All in all, the UK market now represents the largest of all the countries in the survey, accounting for around 19% of contact lens wearers.
Per Simon Rodwell, Secretary General of the ACLM, this surge can be attributed to continuous innovations in lens technology, which have enhanced comfort, convenience, and functionality, strengthening their appeal to a broader audience. The growing popularity of contact lenses in the UK reflects a wider trend where these vision aids are no longer viewed merely as alternatives to glasses but as sophisticated devices capable of much more.
In this article, we'll look at how contact lenses have undergone significant changes, exploring their modest beginnings and current medical-technological applications.
The humble beginnings of contact lenses
The journey of contact lenses from basic vision correction aids to advanced wearable devices is both fascinating and inspiring.
Its origins trace back to the pioneering work of Adolf Eugene Fick, a German ophthalmologist who is credited as the inventor of the first successful scleral contact lens. Given the limited availability of suitable contact lens materials, however, Fick was unsatisfied with the discomfort of blown glass shell contacts that could only be worn for up to two hours at a time.
Nevertheless, it was Fick's work that effectively laid the groundwork for all future contact lens designs. By the 1930s, the development of thermoplastics signified a massive step forward for scleral contact lenses, contributing to their popularity as an alternative to eyeglasses.
Technological advancements continued well into the 1970s when soft contact lenses were finally given US FDA approval and embraced by the general public.
Soft contacts dominate the modern market
Today's contact lenses are far more advanced than those glass-blown prototypes by Fick.
Notably, the market offers a wide range of options tailored to various needs and preferences, including daily disposables, extended-wear lenses, and specialised lenses for conditions like astigmatism and presbyopia. Moreover, advancements in materials have made lenses more comfortable and breathable, reducing the risk of eye infections and irritation.
The accessibility of these advanced contact lenses has also improved. No longer limited to in-store shopping, consumers can now purchase contact lenses online. Established retailer Vision Direct, for one, allows customers to purchase a variety of lenses such as multifocal, toric, and even coloured contacts. This platform delivers affordable contact lenses straight to customers' doorsteps, making vision correction more convenient than ever.
Coupled with the introduction of digitalised eye tests that can conduct eye exams in as little as five minutes, the shift towards online retail has democratised access to high-quality eye care services and products, further enhancing the usability and appeal of contacts.
Smart contact lenses and the future
One of the most promising applications of smart contact lenses was developed by wearable technology firm InWith.
First unveiled during the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the startup claims that the smart contact lenses can display real-time information and offer wearers "tunable vision" that can be controlled with a smartphone. The product announcement claims several hundred patents, which allow an augmented reality (AR) display chip to be used with and embedded into existing hydrogel contact lenses.
Smart contact lenses are also being explored for their potential to detect glaucoma early. Researchers from the Institute of Advanced Structure Technology at the Beijing Institute of Technology have developed a prototype designed to measure eye pressure accurately.
These measurements are typically taken during eye exams where a slight elevation in pressure indicates fluid buildup around the cornea, leading to a glaucoma diagnosis. With the dual-circuit “smart” lens design, however, such measurements can be monitored remotely for easier diagnosis, even in a wide range of temperatures.
The UK contact lens market’s rapid growth reflects a broader trend: contact lenses are no longer just corrective devices; they are becoming essential tools with applications that range from healthcare to augmented reality. This technological evolution, coupled with the accessibility provided by online retailers, ensures that contact lenses will remain at the forefront of both fashion and medical innovation.
Imaginez un appareil photo qui ne capture rien. Pas une image, pas un souvenir figé. Juste un rituel. Cet objet existe : le Polaroid LEGO. Lancé en début d’année, il ne promet rien d’autre que le geste.
Un simulacre ? Non. Une leçon.
Nous vivons à l’ère des clichés éphémères, des souvenirs consommés avant même d’être vécus. Des images sans histoire, des preuves sans mémoire, un flot d’instants qui s’évanouissent aussitôt saisis. Dans ce monde où l’on veut tout immortaliser sans jamais savoir quoi retenir, ce Polaroid nous invite à réfléchir. Il célèbre l’acte de photographier sans céder à la possession. Lever l’appareil, cadrer… et renoncer.
Ce paradoxe résonne profondément à notre époque, où l’image règne en maître. Flashback, un projet lancé sur Kickstarter, prolonge cette réflexion. Avec lui, pas d’écran, pas de filtre : on capture, puis on attend. L’image n’apparaît qu’après 24 heures, laissant le temps de vivre l’instant. Une manière de renouer avec l’authenticité à l’ère du “tout, tout de suite”.
Cette quête répond aussi à un phénomène bien actuel : la nowstalgie. Nous cherchons à conserver le présent à tout prix, mais dans cette obsession, nous passons à côté de l’essentiel. En cadrant, en filmant, nous vivons déjà dans la nostalgie d’un moment que nous ne prenons pas le temps de ressentir. Flashback, ou encore le Polaroid LEGO, nous invitent à faire une pause.
À lâcher cette compulsion de tout enregistrer pour mieux vivre l’instant.
Dans cet esprit, Nonna’s Cam, imaginée par les créatifs de l’agence LOLA MullenLowe Madrid, dépasse le simple acte de photographier. Avec son doigt hyper-réaliste placé devant l’objectif, cette caméra argentique évoque avec tendresse - et humour - les maladresses de nos grands-parents, transformant chaque cliché partiellement obstrué en un hommage attendrissant aux souvenirs.
Ce projet invite à ralentir et à repenser notre obsession pour la perfection technique, si souvent recherchée via nos smartphones, et à redécouvrir la beauté de l’imperfection. Car finalement, la valeur d’une image ne réside-t-elle pas davantage dans l’émotion qu’elle fait naître que dans sa précision irréprochable ?
Mais cette quête d’essentiel soulève une autre question : notre rapport au réel. Dans un monde où les deepfakes, filtres et réalités virtuelles brouillent les frontières entre vérité et artifice, peut-on encore croire aux images ? Peut-on distinguer le vrai du faux ?
Le concept de liar’s dividend, cette idée que le doute profite à ceux qui manipulent la vérité, aggrave la situation : dans un monde où tout semble falsifiable, même l’authentique peut être rejeté sous prétexte que "tout est peut-être truqué".
Face à ce doute généralisé, des alternatives émergent. La caméra ROC, presque comme un gardien du réel, promet des « moments incontestablement authentiques ». Son secret ? En combinant des capteurs, des preuves zéro-connaissance côté client sur l’appareil, et un environnement TEE inviolable pour attester des données des capteurs, elle garantit l’intégrité de ses images, avec pour objectif de restaurer la confiance dans ce que nous voyons.
Nietzsche le pensait : les vérités absolues enferment l’esprit, là où l’incertitude libère. En rendant l’image irréfutable, ne risquons-nous pas de sacrifier ce flou poétique, cette part de mystère qui rend l’ordinaire extraordinaire ?
L’évolution de la photographie ne s’arrête pas là. De nouveaux concepts repoussent les limites de l’imaginaire et réinterprètent notre rapport à l’instant.
Prenez Soft une application qui capte le rythme de votre environnement pour transformer chaque photo en une œuvre vivante. Couleurs, saturation, grain : chaque aspect d’une image est influencé par l’atmosphère ambiante, inscrivant dans le cliché la respiration même de l’instant. Ici, il ne s’agit plus de reproduire fidèlement une scène, mais de capturer l’essence de ce qui l’entoure.
D'autres s'aventurent dans des contrées plus mystérieuses, comme Paragraphica, cet appareil singulier sans objectif ni capteur. Guidé par l’intelligence artificielle, il capte le murmure des lieux à travers leurs données invisibles, les traduit en mots, puis en images, révélant les secrets enfouis du réel. Ou encore DreamGenerator, qui mêle photographie classique et prompts créatifs, métamorphosant un simple cliché en une scène féerique ou rétro selon l’imaginaire de son utilisateur.
Dans un élan encore plus symbolique, la Poetry caméra s’aventure ailleurs : au lieu d’une photo, elle offre un poème. Une manière d’embrasser l’instant en profondeur, de lui donner des couches de sens qui se dévoilent lentement, comme un souvenir qui se révèle avec le temps. Une belle métaphore, n’est-ce pas ?
Que faut-il retenir de tout cela ? L’évolution de la photographie, des premiers daguerréotypes à ces caméras qui réécrivent le réel, semble nous raconter une quête incessante : celle de capturer non seulement l’instant, mais aussi l’essence de ce qu’il contient. Sa capacité à suggérer plus qu’elle ne montre, à laisser place à l’imaginaire, au mystère.
Après l’impressionnisme, l’expressionnisme et le surréalisme, voici venu le temps du selfpressionnisme : on ne cherche plus à exprimer le monde visible, mais à explorer notre expérience intérieure. Des appareils tels que la Poetry caméra ou le DreamGenerator transcendent leur fonction première : ils ne se contentent pas de figer le monde visible, ils invitent à l’habiter autrement. Ces objets, à la frontière du rituel et de la réflexion, nous incitent à ressentir une profondeur insoupçonnée dans l’éphémère.
Car oui, il y a des photos qui prennent tout. Et il y a celles qui laissent tout : le silence, le souffle, l’éclat fugace d’un instant. Une mémoire sans image, mais une lumière qui reste.
La photographie n’est pas une cage pour le temps, mais une clé. Une clé qui libère l’instant, le laisse vibrer, résonner. Alors, demain, quand vous cadrerez un moment, posez-vous cette question : capturer le visible… ou libérer l’invisible ?
MD
