Jean-Philippe Encausse
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Avec son (mini) podcast, Dior dévoile ses secrets de défilé
SpaceX catches returning rocket in mid-air, turning a fanciful idea into reality
BOCA CHICA BEACH, Texas—SpaceX accomplished a groundbreaking engineering feat Sunday when it launched the fifth test flight of its gigantic Starship rocket and then caught the booster back at the launch pad in Texas with mechanical arms seven minutes later.
This achievement is the first of its kind, and it's crucial for SpaceX's vision of rapidly reusing the Starship rocket, enabling human expeditions to the Moon and Mars, routine access to space for mind-bogglingly massive payloads, and novel capabilities that no other company—or country—seems close to attaining.
The test flight began with a thundering liftoff of the 398-foot-tall (121.3-meter) Starship rocket at 7:25 am CDT (12:25 UTC) from SpaceX's Starbase launch site in South Texas, a few miles north of the US-Mexico border. The rocket's Super Heavy booster stage fired 33 Raptor engines, generating nearly 17 million pounds of thrust and gulping 20 tons of methane and liquid oxygen propellants per second at full throttle.
🧬 Enigme: 70% des plastiques disparus en mer restent introuvables. Une explication inattendue...
Du Social Media au “Hollow Media” ?
Depuis la fin des années 2010, les géants des réseaux sociaux — Meta, X (ex-Twitter), TikTok, Snapchat — dominent, capturant nos esprits avec des stratégies invisibles. Après la percée de TikTok en 2019, les nouveaux venus peinent à s’imposer. BeReal, l’anti-Instagram, a captivé en 2022, mais son élan s'est vite essoufflé. Une photo par jour ? Trop peu pour marquer les esprits. Et quand les mastodontes copient, la réalité est implacable : si l’innovation allume l’étincelle, c’est bien le social flywheel — cette boucle d’interactions qui s’alimente sans cesse — qui entretient la flamme.
Quand le vide s’habille en pixels
Et demain ? On parle de formats révolutionnaires : vidéos volumétriques, hologrammes, 3D… Mais avant même d’y arriver, un phénomène bien plus insidieux s’impose : les bots. Autrefois rejetés, relégués aux marges et cachés dans l'ombre, ils sont aujourd'hui accueillis à bras ouverts. Avec Social AI, ils ne sont pas seulement tolérés — ils sont glorifiés, devenant nos nouveaux compagnons numériques.
Ici, l’humain s’efface, laissant place à des IA infiniment disponibles — des followers sur mesure : intellectuels, trolls, conservateurs... Un cortège d’entités virtuelles, soigneusement conçues pour nous flatter ou nous contredire, selon nos désirs. Une approche du "social" qui se mue en journal intime, un espace d’introspection sans jugement, où l’on affine ses compétences argumentatives sans jamais affronter la friction des échanges humains réels. Quelle belle promesse ! Mais ne vous y trompez pas. Des amis ? Non, des simulacres, exécutant une chorégraphie froide et déshumanisante.
Tout ça, à quel prix ?
Nous voilà face à une nouvelle manifestation de post-ironie. Car ce qui, au premier regard, semble grotesque — on croirait à une satire amère des réseaux modernes, où la superficialité règne, habillée des oripeaux de l’engagement — devient progressivement une réalité acceptée, un nouveau modus vivendi.
Certains diront que cet exemple est isolé, mais il révèle une réalité plus large : nous évoluons dans une ère où les influenceurs virtuels se multiplient, tout comme les clones numériques et les compagnons IA. Qui aurait imaginé que l’homme, si prompt à chercher la chaleur humaine, se tourne vers des entités qui n’ont ni cœur ni âme ?
Derrière cette tendance se cache une vérité plus sombre : ce ne sont pas seulement des amis numériques que nous recherchons. En interagissant avec ces IA, nous devenons leurs cobayes. Nous les nourrissons de nos pensées, de nos émotions, sans même nous en rendre compte. Et elles apprennent. Elles évoluent. Et nous, nous régressons.
Le poids de l’artifice
Sous le poids de l’artifice, l’omniprésence des IA, censée réduire la solitude, pourrait au contraire l’intensifier. Les interactions authentiques demandent vulnérabilité, dialogue, et l'acceptation des imperfections. Se réfugier dans des conversations programmées ne fait que renforcer l’isolement émotionnel, tout en exacerbant les tendances narcissiques.
Même dans le numérique, des indices subtils d'humanité persistent : les temps de réponse, les hésitations ou les erreurs de formulation témoignent d'une présence véritable derrière l'écran. À l’inverse, les IA, avec leurs réponses instantanées et parfaites, effacent la spontanéité qui rend nos interactions uniques.
Cette uniformisation peut engendrer une fatigue émotionnelle, déconnectant les échanges de la complexité humaine. À long terme, cette quête de perfection algorithmique menace d’appauvrir nos compétences sociales, car l’apprentissage des relations repose sur l’imprévisibilité et les nuances qui caractérisent nos interactions.
Place aux “hobby apps” ?
Des plateformes éthiques émergent, mais leur force — qu'il s'agisse d'algorithmes bienveillants ou de leur absence — est aussi leur talon d’achille. Moins axées sur le social flywheel, elles peinent à "scaler" face aux géants établis.
Pourtant, tout n’est pas noir. Il existe des contre-exemples. Certaines plateformes, en se concentrant sur les passions et les communautés, parviennent à recréer une forme d'engagement authentique. Les hobby apps comme Strava en sont la preuve. Initialement centrées sur le suivi de performances sportives, elles se sont transformées en véritables réseaux communautaires. Sur Strava, les utilisateurs ne font pas que partager leurs exploits sportifs : ils likent, commentent, se motivent à travers des kudos et participent à des clubs virtuels autour de défis collectifs. Ici, l’engagement repose sur une dynamique naturelle, fondée sur des intérêts communs.
Le même phénomène se produit sur des plateformes comme Goodreads pour les passionnés de lecture, ou Shelf, où les utilisateurs partagent leurs découvertes médiatiques.
Ces réseaux montrent qu’il est encore possible de construire des communautés riches, rappelant que derrière chaque échange se cache une expérience humaine.
Des “Dark Patterns” aux “Human Patterns”
Alors, les réseaux sociaux sont-ils condamnés à sombrer dans le "Hollow Media", cet espace virtuel creux où les interactions artificielles prévalent ? Ce danger n’a jamais été aussi tangible. Les engagements simulés, orchestrés par des IA génératives, se multiplient, menaçant la sincérité des échanges humains. Pourtant, une lueur d’espoir émerge.
À mesure que notre conscience évolue vers une prospérité plus authentique, un changement se dessine. Nous pouvons passer des “Dark Patterns” — ces manipulations invisibles qui capturent notre attention — aux “Human Patterns”, des mécanismes respectueux de nos besoins de connexion réelle.
Pensez-y : sur certaines plateformes de rencontre, la fonction de copier-coller est désactivée dans le chat. Ce simple ajustement crée une friction qui valorise l’échange authentique. En rendant la tâche plus complexe, les utilisateurs sont moins enclins à recourir à des réponses pré-écrites ou générées par l'IA, ce qui favorise des interactions plus réfléchies et personnelles.
Un autre exemple est Slowy, une app qui offre une expérience de correspondance traditionnelle sur mobile. Ici, le délai d'envoi des messages dépend de la distance entre les utilisateurs. Cette approche souligne comment des fonctionnalités bien pensées peuvent garantir une dimension humaine et redonner du sens aux connexions.
Si nous orientons les réseaux sociaux vers des interactions plus vraies, ancrées dans la communauté et les passions partagées, il est possible que nous assistions à une renaissance, où les plateformes numériques serviront enfin à nourrir l’humain plutôt qu’à l’aliéner.
MD
Dramatic Footage Shows SpaceX Starship Exploding After Crashing Into the Ocean
Ocean Explosion
Even up until its very last moments, SpaceX's fifth orbital test flight of its heavy-lift Starship spacecraft had been a huge success.
First, the company managed to safely catch Starship's Super Heavy booster using its "Mechazilla" tower, which features two "chopsticks" arms — a baffling feat of engineering.
Even the 165-foot upper stage managed to pull off a textbook flight, taking off early Sunday morning from the company's test flight facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, and orbiting the Earth for almost an hour.
Pristine Starlink-provided footage showed the spacecraft gently gliding through space, with the Earth spinning below.
Right before touchdown, the spacecraft performed a "belly flop" maneuver to slow its descent even further. Then, it fired its thrusters to right itself and slow its descent over the surface of the ocean.
But seconds later, a presumably remotely operated camera bobbing in the water recorded the spacecraft go up in a massive fireball, a dramatic ending to an otherwise textbook test launch.
"Splashdown confirmed!" SpaceX's official account tweeted. "Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting fifth flight test of Starship!"
Despite the explosion, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk called it a huge win.
"Ship landed precisely on target!" he tweeted. "Second of the two objectives achieved," he added, likely referring to the company catching the Super Heavy booster.
Starship Flight 5 Splashdown! @SpaceX's Starship vehicle has successfully soft-landed in the Indian Ocean, then tipped over and appeared to explode as it fell into the sea. 'Starship has landed,' SpaceX says. Recovery was never intended for this Ship. pic.twitter.com/TTBVGOJVpY
— Tariq J. Malik (@tariqjmalik) October 13, 2024
Next Stop: Mars
Previous test flights haven't gone nearly as well. The last flight in June saw the massive spacecraft largely survive its descent in tact but helplessly splash down in the ocean. At the time, Starship's aerodynamic "flaps" were obliterated by the extreme forces involved.
The company's test flights in 2023 largely ended in massive explosions, forcing the company to reset over many months and deal with the aftermath.
During its latest flight, Starship could be seen slowly being engulfed in plasma as it reentered the Earth's atmosphere at over 16,000 mph. The spacecraft's hexagonal heat shield tiles protected it from the extreme temperatures involved. Even the flaps looked far better off this time around compared to the company's June test flight.
The next flight dubbed Flight 6 has already been greenlit by the Federal Aviation Administration, setting the stage for yet another exciting launch.
Naturally, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk took the opportunity today to reiterate his ambitions to develop a city on Mars with the help of the spacecraft.
"If civilization is reasonably stable for the next ~30 years, a self-sustaining city of a million+ people will be built on Mars," he tweeted.
More on Starship: SpaceX Just Caught Its Starship Booster With Giant "Chopsticks" Arms
The post Dramatic Footage Shows SpaceX Starship Exploding After Crashing Into the Ocean appeared first on Futurism.
Can walls of oysters protect shores against hurricanes? Darpa wants to know.
On October 10, 2018, Tyndall Air Force Base on the Gulf of Mexico—a pillar of American air superiority—found itself under aerial attack. Hurricane Michael, first spotted as a Category 2 storm off the Florida coast, unexpectedly hulked up to a Category 5. Sustained winds of 155 miles per hour whipped into the base, flinging power poles, flipping F-22s, and totaling more than 200 buildings. The sole saving grace: Despite sitting on a peninsula, Tyndall avoided flood damage. Michael’s 9- to 14-foot storm surge swamped other parts of Florida. Tyndall’s main defense was luck.
That $5 billion disaster at Tyndall was just one of a mounting number of extreme-weather events that convinced the US Department of Defense that it needed new ideas to protect the 1,700 coastal bases it’s responsible for globally. As hurricanes Helene and Milton have just shown, beachfront residents face compounding threats from climate change, and the Pentagon is no exception. Rising oceans are chewing away the shore. Stronger storms are more capable of flooding land.
In response, Tyndall will later this month test a new way to protect shorelines from intensified waves and storm surges: a prototype artificial reef, designed by a team led by Rutgers University scientists. The 50-meter-wide array, made up of three chevron-shaped structures each weighing about 46,000 pounds, can take 70 percent of the oomph out of waves, according to tests. But this isn’t your grandaddy’s seawall. It’s specifically designed to be colonized by oysters, some of nature’s most effective wave-killers.
SpaceX’s Starship test completes with a remarkable ‘chopstick’ booster catch
SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft splashed down in the Indian Ocean a little over an hour after its 8:25AM ET launch from South Texas. Almost seven minutes following liftoff, the Super Heavy booster returned to its launchpad, where the launch tower caught it using arms that SpaceX has nicknamed the “chopsticks.”
The remarkable catch was a first for SpaceX and an important step toward making the Super Heavy booster a fully reusable launch system just like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets. The booster completed a similar set of maneuvers to today’s during its previous flight test in June, when it splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, instead.
Startups Are Biohacking Psychedelic Drugs to Make Sure You Never Have a Bad Trip Again
A number of pharmaceutical companies are running experiments in attempts to create the next generation of psychedelic drugs, with the goal of turning them into a safer psychotherapy treatment.
As Time reports, researchers at a company called MindMed are working on an alternative to MDMA, (i.e. "ecstasy" or "molly") called R-MDMA. Early data has shown that R-MDMA has fewer side effects than its predecessor, thus enhancing its potential as a therapeutic drug.
Other companies are working on taming other psychedelic drugs — like one attempting to create a synthetic version of the "spirit molecule" DMT — to provide longer-lasting relief for people suffering from depression.
These drugs' potential to provide psychedelic experiences that meaningfully improve mental health remains a hotly debated subject, especially considering the potential of an unwanted "bad trip." But the use of psychedelics within the context of mental health, used under a controlled setting, has seen a huge influx of interest over the years. While MDMA is still classified as a Schedule I substance — per the DEA, a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use — several studies have found the drug could be an effective way to treat conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder or depression.
Beyond America, countries like Portugal and Amsterdam have decriminalized small amounts of MDMA for personal use, and last year, Australia greenlit government-sanctioned legal trials of MDMA for PTSD treatment. Despite the surge of interest, scientists are only starting to understand how these substances alter our brain chemistry.
"Psychedelics are very promiscuous molecules," psychedelic drug development company Mindstate CEO Dillan DiNardo told Time. They're "very effective, but they’re scary and they’re chaotic and they’re unpredictable."
One factor distinguishing Mindstate is their plan to use artificial intelligence to figure out how psychedelic drugs affect the brain. And its efforts are seemingly starting to pay off. Last month, the company received approval to kick off human trials of a compound dubbed MSD-001 by the US Food and Drug Administration. The substance dubbed "Moxy" targets "specific serotonin receptors with high specificity, minimizing broader psychotropic effects," according to Microdose.
"Moxy is not the entire medicine," DiNardo told the Washington Post at the time. "Moxy is the first part of a number of different medicines that we’ll be making."
Companies like Mindstate and MindMed have a long way to go until their synthetic psychedelics can be prescribed by health practitioners. Human trials will likely drag on for many years, and it remains unclear if they'll ever prove to be effective. But advocates of psychedelic therapy may view this as a small (but meaningful) step forward.
More on psychedelics: Scientist Takes High Dose of Psilocybin, Clambers Into MRI Machine to Scan His Own Brain
The post Startups Are Biohacking Psychedelic Drugs to Make Sure You Never Have a Bad Trip Again appeared first on Futurism.
Podcast en pleine expansion : Insights du Paris Podcast Festival 2024
La 7ème édition du Paris Podcast Festival a rassemblé créateurs, producteurs et experts, tous fascinés par le marché florissant du podcast. En juin dernier, le journal Les Echos avait révélé que le marché du podcast pourrait franchir les 10 milliards d'euros d'ici 2030, une prévision qui met en lumière l'essor spectaculaire de ce format dans l’univers médiatique. Entre les données du baromètre du CSA sur l'état de la consommation du podcast natif en France, l'émergence d'une nouvelle génération de créateurs et l'impact foudroyant de l'IA, les discussions s'annonçaient animées
Par Océane Ansah du MediaLab de l'Information de France Télévisions
Quel est l'état de la consommation du podcast natif en France aujourd'hui?
D’après le baromètre annuel présenté par Julie Gaillot, directrice du pôle Society à l’Institut CSA, un tiers des Français écoute des podcasts au moins une fois par mois. De plus, 23% les écoutent tous les jours, soit une hausse de 8 points par rapport à l’année dernière. La majorité consomme ces contenus à la maison (91%) et 69% dans les transports. Les habitudes évoluent également: 66% des auditeurs écoutent seuls, contre 73% en 2023, une tendance émerge vers des moments d’écoute partagés.
Côté formats, les documentaires (87%) et les histoires vraies (84%) dominent les préférences des auditeurs. De plus, 83% des amateurs de podcasts trouvent facilement de nouveaux programmes, principalement via les applications de streaming (44%) et les réseaux sociaux (38%). Cependant, une partie des Français avoue "ne pas savoir où trouver des podcasts". Un défi que souligne Julie Gaillot : "Il est crucial pour les créateurs de se faire connaître et de dire qui ils sont."
Le profil type de l'auditeur de podcast se confirme : jeune, urbain, hyperconnecté, engagé et familial. Ces auditeurs montrent une surconsommation des médias et une forte participation citoyenne. Par exemple, seulement 7% des adeptes se sont abstenus aux dernières législatives, contre 33% dans l'ensemble de la population
Pour Julie Gaillot, l'attrait du podcast réside dans l'intervention d'experts et la profondeur des sujets traités. En résumé, l’écoute progresse, les pratiques restent stables, et l’engagement des auditeurs ne cesse de croître..
“Le format vient créer le public”- Antoine Bonnet
Lors de la table ronde sur le "triomphe de l’écoute numérique", Antoine Bonnet, responsable des podcasts chez France 24, et Valentine Spinner, chef de groupe audio chez AudioM, ont discuté d'un enjeu central : les podcasts cannibalisent-ils l’audience de la radio ? Antoine Bonnet répond par la négative. Il reconnaît que les podcasts sont devenus un passage obligé pour les grandes radios, mais ils ne les remplacent pas.
Selon lui, il existe une véritable complémentarité entre les deux formats, qu'il qualifie de "passerelles" plutôt que de concurrents. Le profil des auditeurs radio et podcast est fondamentalement différent, ce qui permet aux deux médias de coexister et de se nourrir l'un l'autre. Les podcasts apportent une flexibilité et une profondeur qui complètent parfaitement l’instantanéité et le direct propres à la radio.
Les créateurs de contenu, toujours au centre du jeu
Alors que les médias traditionnels peinent à capter l'attention des jeunes, l'industrie du podcast a trouvé la réponse évidente : les créateurs de contenu. En s’appuyant sur des voix authentiques et des formats flexibles, les podcasts offrent une connexion plus intime et une personnalisation du contenu que la télévision ou la presse écrite n'arrivent plus à proposer. Pour Christine Jolly, Head of Sales chez Spotify, et Anaïs Dupuis, Podcast Producer chez Spotify, le succès du podcast repose en grande partie sur la médiatisation, amplifiée par les communautés des créateurs.
Un exemple frappant : Chez Sally, un podcast original de Spotify en partenariat avec Samsung. Animé par Sally, créatrice de contenu spécialisée en actu, politique et lifestyle, ce podcast, avec son million d’abonnés sur Instagram, se classe en deuxième position sur Spotify. Un succès qui fait de cet espace un terrain de jeu idéal pour les annonceurs.
Podcast et intelligence artificielle
Récemment, Google a dévoilé son générateur de podcasts, intensifiant un débat déjà bien entamé depuis qu'Apple Podcasts a commencé à expérimenter des voix générées par l'IA : "L'intelligence artificielle remplacera-t-elle les animateurs ?" Cette interrogation dépasse la simple question technologique : elle touche à la valeur même de la créativité et de la personnalité que les animateurs apportent à leurs émissions, un aspect que les voix synthétiques, aussi perfectionnées soient-elles, peinent encore à reproduire pleinement. La réponse de Janny-Claire Beberian, Business Director Southern Europe chez Adswizz, est alors catégorique : "Non." Pour elle, "la beauté du podcast réside dans son incarnation", une idée soutenue par Anne-Marie Kalinka, Directrice Générale chez Amnet, qui souligne le besoin d'authenticité des auditeurs. Le podcast reste perçu comme un "média de confiance", et pour l'instant, la star reste l'animateur humain.
Pour l'heure, l’intelligence artificielle est principalement utilisée dans la création de spots publicitaires audio, un domaine où elle excelle en générant rapidement des voix et des scripts adaptés à des campagnes spécifiques. Cependant, lorsqu'il s'agit de podcasts, les défis se multiplient, notamment en raison de l’absence de cookies, qui sont un pilier traditionnel du ciblage publicitaire sur le web. Cette absence complique le travail des annonceurs, car il devient plus difficile de suivre et de comprendre les préférences des auditeurs. Leur espoir réside dans l’évolution de l’IA, notamment à travers l’analyse sémantique avancée des contenus audio. En analysant en profondeur le contenu de chaque épisode, l’IA pourrait identifier des thèmes, des mots-clés et des nuances de langage, permettant ainsi un ciblage publicitaire plus précis et contextuel. Imaginez une IA capable de comprendre en temps réel que dans un épisode de podcast sur le bien-être, il serait pertinent de diffuser des publicités pour des produits de santé ou de méditation.
Ce type de publicité contextuelle, optimisée par l'IA, serait non seulement moins intrusive mais aussi plus efficace, en créant un lien direct entre le contenu consommé et les annonces proposées. Les annonceurs pourraient ainsi maximiser leur retour sur investissement tout en respectant la vie privée des auditeurs, un aspect de plus en plus crucial à l’ère post-cookies. La clé du succès pour les plateformes sera d’investir dans des algorithmes capables de non seulement comprendre le contenu mais aussi de le contextualiser dans l’écosystème plus large de la consommation médiatique.
Conclusion
Le podcast s’impose comme un média incontournable, porté par des créateurs capables de toucher des jeunes audiences avec authenticité. Loin de remplacer la radio, il complète l’offre audio en proposant des formats plus flexibles et engageants. Même avec l’arrivée de l'IA, qui améliore déjà la création de publicités audio, l’essence du podcast reste profondément humaine. a richesse des voix et l’authenticité des échanges sont des éléments que l’IA ne peut encore remplacer. Cette complémentarité entre technologie et humanité dessine un futur prometteur pour le média, tout en soulevant des défis sur l’équilibre à trouver.
The post Podcast en pleine expansion : Insights du Paris Podcast Festival 2024 first appeared on Méta-media | La révolution de l'information.
Have You Heard Of The Liquid Powder Display?
Over the decades the technology behind flat panel displays has continuously evolved, and we’ve seen many of them come and go. Among the popular ones there are a few that never quite made the big time, usually because a contemporary competitor took their market. An example is in a recent [Wenting Zhang] video, a mystery liquid powder display. We’d never heard of it, so we were intrigued.
The first segment of the video is an examination of the device, and a comparison with similar-looking ones such as a conventional LCD, or a Sharp Memory LCD. It’s clearly neither of those, and the answer finally came after a lot of research. A paper described a “Quick response liquid powder” as a mechanism for a novel display, and thus it was identified. It works by moving black and white electrically charged powder to flip a pixel from black to white, and its operation is not dissimilar to the liquid-based e-ink displays which evidently won that particular commercial battle.
The process of identifying the driver chip and pinout should be an essential watch for anyone with an interest in display reverse engineering. After a lot of adjusting timing and threshold voltages the dead pixels and weird effects fall away, and then it’s possible to display a not-too-high-quality image on this unusual display, through a custom PCB with an RP2040. Take a look at the video below the break.
We’ve seen [Wenting Zhang]’s work here a few times before, most recently in a very impressive mirror-less camera project.
Les avancées technologiques dans les travaux de menuiserie
Les avancées technologiques transforment indubitablement notre manière de réaliser les travaux en menuiserie. Des outils tels que la conception assistée par ordinateur et la modélisation 3D rendent les travaux en atelier plus efficaces et précis.
Avec l'intégration des vitrages intelligents et des fenêtres photovoltaïques, il est possible de s'engager dans le domaine de la construction durable. Autant dire que l'avenir de la menuiserie s'annonce passionnant et innovant.
Conception assistée par ordinateur (CAO) pour gagner en précision
Depuis quelques années, cette technologie s'est immiscée dans les ateliers de menuiserie. Grâce à ces logiciels, il est désormais possible de concevoir des meubles et des structures avec une précision redoutable. Finis les schémas dessinés à la main, où chaque coup de crayon pouvait renfermer une approximation gênante !
En plus de cela, la CAO permet de visualiser en trois dimensions les produits finaux avant même d'avoir touché un morceau de bois. Cela évite bien des erreurs de conception et ajuste les créations aux demandes exactes des clients. En outre, avec la possibilité de sauvegarder et modifier facilement des designs existants, la flexibilité est au rendez-vous. Pour plus d'informations sur les solutions modernes dans le domaine de la menuiserie, consultez l'expert B'plast.
Modélisation 3D et impression 3D dans les travaux de menuiserie
Parallèlement à la conception assistée par ordinateur, avec des logiciels de construction BIM, la modélisation 3D occupe une place centrale dans cette évolution technologique. Elle permet de transformer les idées numériques en réalisations tangibles. La numérisation 3D, quant à elle, aide à scanner des objets existants pour en créer des copies avec une fidélité impressionnante. Cette technique se révèle particulièrement utile pour reproduire des pièces anciennes ou usées nécessitant une rénovation.
Quant à l'impression 3D, elle représente une véritable révolution pour la menuiserie. Elle permet de fabriquer des prototypes rapidement, de tester différents modèles et d'ajuster les conceptions sans gaspiller de matériaux précieux. Avec des imprimantes 3D de plus en plus accessibles sur le marché, il devient souple et abordable d'innover constamment.
Vitrages intelligents et fenêtres photovoltaïques
En matière de menuiserie appliquée aux ouvertures, les vitrages intelligents sont certainement parmi les nouveautés les plus fascinantes. Ces derniers permettent de réguler l'opacité des vitres selon l'intensité lumineuse extérieure. Vous pouvez ainsi contrôler la clarté naturelle sans ajout de rideaux ou stores, tout en économisant de l'énergie.
De leur côté, les fenêtres photovoltaïques offrent une autre dimension au domaine de la menuiserie. Intégrant des cellules photovoltaïques dans la vitre, elles transforment la lumière du jour en électricité. Elles rendent ainsi les bâtiments plus durables. Imaginez pouvoir produire de l'énergie simplement grâce aux fenêtres installées dans votre maison. C'est non seulement écologique, mais aussi très économique à long terme.
Fenêtres connectées et vitrages haute performance
Outre ces innovations, les fenêtres connectées commencent également à faire parler d'elles. Connectées à vos appareils via Wi-Fi, elles peuvent être contrôlées à distance. Ainsi, si vous avez oublié de fermer une fenêtre en partant, il suffit d'une simple commande depuis votre smartphone et c'est réglé !
Et ce n'est pas tout ! Le triple vitrage contribue grandement à améliorer l'isolation thermique et acoustique des habitations. Combiné à des cadres minces, on obtient des fenêtres extrêmement performantes sans sacrifier l'élégance du design. Ces deux éléments participent à créer des bâtisses plus confortables et économiques en énergie.
Technologie CNC pour les travaux de menuiserie
Il est impossible de passer sous silence la technologie CNC qui a bouleversé nos méthodes de production. Les machines à commande numérique permettent de découper, de fraiser et de graver le bois avec une précision inégalée. Non seulement cela réduit le temps de travail, mais cela diminue également les marges d'erreur humaines. Les commandes répétitives deviennent aisées tout en assurant une qualité constante.
D'une échelle artisanale à industrielle, la technologie CNC facilite la réalisation de projets complexes qu'il aurait été impensable de mener à bien manuellement. Elle élimine en grande partie les tâches pénibles et répétitives. De cette manière, chaque menuisier peut se concentrer davantage sur la créativité et l'innovation.
Cet article Les avancées technologiques dans les travaux de menuiserie est apparu en premier sur OBJETCONNECTE.COM.
In a rare disclosure, the Pentagon provides an update on the X-37B spaceplane
After more than nine months in an unusual, highly elliptical orbit, the US military's X-37B spaceplane will soon begin dipping its wings into Earth's atmosphere to lower its altitude before eventually coming back to Earth for a runway landing, the Space Force said Thursday.
The aerobraking maneuvers will use a series of passes through the uppermost fringes of the atmosphere to gradually reduce its speed with aerodynamic drag while expending minimal fuel. In orbital mechanics, this reduction in velocity will bring the apogee, or high point, of the X-37B's orbit closer to Earth.
Bleeding energy
The Space Force called the aerobraking a "novel space maneuver" and said its purpose was to allow the X-37B to "safely dispose of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation."
Nintendo’s new clock tracks your movement in bed
On Wednesday, Nintendo announced Sound Clock Alarmo, a $99 bedside smart clock that uses motion sensors to detect when users move during sleep to keep track of sleep patterns. The clock, which is only available to Nintendo Online subscribers until January 2025, changes appearance based on the selected alarm, with different clock faces corresponding to various Nintendo games like Super Mario Odyssey, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Splatoon 3.
Unlike other sleep trackers that require you to physically wear something (such as the Apple Watch), Alarmo uses millimeter-wave presence sensors to track user movement, and it feeds that data into an internal system that keeps track of user sleep patterns (Alarmo does not send any sleep information to Nintendo).
The clock tracks how long the person has been sleeping and how long it took them to get out of bed after the alarm went off. Sleepy users can also use gestures to trigger a snooze function without physically touching the clock.
Building A Sound Camera For Under $400
[Benn Jordan] had an idea. He’d heard of motion amplification technology, where cameras are used to capture tiny vibrations in machinery and then visually amplify it for engineering analysis. This is typically the preserve of high-end industrial equipment, but [Benn] wondered if it really had to be this way. Armed with a modern 4K smartphone camera and the right analysis techniques, could he visually capture sound?
The video first explores commercially available “acoustic cameras” which are primarily sold business-to-business at incredibly high prices. However, [Benn] suspected he could build something similar on the cheap. He started out with a 16-channel microphone that streams over USB for just $275, sourced from MiniDSP, and paired it with a Raspberry Pi 5 running the acoular framework for acoustic beamforming. Acoular analyses multichannel audio and visualizes them so you can locate sound sources. He added a 1080p camera, and soon enough, was able to overlay sound location data over the video stream. He was able to locate a hawk in a tree using this technique, which was pretty cool, and the total rig came in somewhere under $400.
The rest of the video covers other sound-camera techniques—vibration detection, the aforementioned motion amplification, and some neat biometric techniques. It turns out your webcam can probably detect your heart rate, for example.
It’s a great video that illuminates just what you can achieve with modern sound and video capture. Think SIGGRAPH-level stuff, but in a form you can digest over your lunchbreak. Video after the break.
[Thanks to ollie-p for the tip.]
The new fashion: Clothes that help combat rising temperatures
Sunderfolk finds the middle ground between Jackbox and Dungeons & Dragons
Paris Retail Week 2024 : L’Innovation au Cœur de la 10ᵉ Édition
La 10ᵉ édition de Paris Retail Week, qui s’est déroulée du 17 au 19 septembre 2024 à Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, a une fois de plus affirmé sa place comme l’un des événements majeurs du secteur du commerce en Europe. Sous le thème RETAILIGENCE, l’événement a mis en lumière toutes les formes d’intelligence appliquées …
L’article Paris Retail Week 2024 : L’Innovation au Cœur de la 10ᵉ Édition est apparu en premier sur FRENCHWEB.FR.
Submerged Review: First Scripted Apple Immersive Video Sends Chills From Vision Pro
Cinephiles scratching their heads at Megalopolis and the limits of the Hollywood machine for making movies in the 21st century should find an Apple Vision Pro and sit for a showing of Submerged.
Apple invited me to what amounts to a premiere red carpet event in New York to view Submerged before its release on Apple’s headsets. They told me to bring my Zeiss prescription lenses if I had them, so I pulled those off my headset at home and brought them along in my UploadVR Bag.
When I arrived, I mentioned I brought my lenses and was told I needed to have also brought along an Apple Clip Code identifying my prescription to the headset. I didn’t realize I had it on hand, with Apple representatives pointing me to the Health app on my iPhone which already had the prescription there from when I bought the lenses.
So I snapped my lenses into the headset, put it on, and pointed its cameras at my iPhone screen to adjust for my prescription.
Before the main event, Apple showed some forthcoming video from the NBA All-Star game. This was a fascinating point of comparison, because in 2018 I attended a Lakers game at the peak of NextVR’s push for VR streaming and noted the careful placement of their cameras to provide intimate angles, like directly through the backboard.
In the new NBA video from Apple showing the All-Star game in 2024, though, you can see how the backboard is occupied by a different camera system moving to follow the action for TV viewers. Because the Apple camera was placed on the hoop’s stand, then, my view violently shook with each dunk. I didn’t enjoy that. Another shot from court side, meanwhile, had a ball come directly at the camera, which was a standout moment when a viewer is likely to try and dodge the ball.
I didn’t bring my lenses through the NYC rail system to go courtside at an NBA game, though. I came to watch Apple’s first immersive scripted short film, and now it’s time for my mostly spoiler-free review.
Submerged In The Future Of Movies
Submerged is a breakthrough short film for immersive media.
Finding a friend with a Vision Pro to see it should be a priority for any professional, or would-be professional, hoping to work in movies. While the vast majority of people won't be able to try this yet, and that's a shame, eventually there will be a Vision headset at a price point where they can.
Immersive movie-making is not a new idea, of course. From smell-o-vision to stereoscopic 3D, haptic chairs, IMAX and, yes, even Adam Driver addressing questions from the audience in Megalopolis, there’s more than a century of exploration you can follow in how exactly to keep movie-going butts in seats for longer, more thrilling escapes.
Despite all these efforts, the theatrical experience seems to be on life-support at most venues. There’s the drive to stream from home and, when you can actually afford to go out to a movie, run-down concession counters are worked by unmotivated staff as the venue beams movies through dim projectors onto a screen specked with distracting debris competing with the near-constant temptation to check your phone. This death-by-a-thousand cuts, it seems, largely destroys the escapism and suspension of disbelief these theaters provided for generations.
Even in my viewing in VR, I forgot to put my iPhone in Do Not Disturb before “entering the theater” and so, unable to see my phone and unwilling to pause the movie and take the headset off – it was just a 17 minute production after all – the device vibrated and dinged at me through the entire showing. My iPhone essentially transformed into the chattering couple in the third row detracting from this engrossing experience, even while inside Apple’s theater-for-one. It was revealing, then, to see iPhone itself as a core problem here which Apple is attempting to solve with Vision Pro.
Submerged features a number of shots set underwater. Based on those scenes, I told Apple public relations they should release this short film for Quest headsets too so consumers could compare the presentation on an LCD display to the OLED of Apple Vision Pro. I theorize these shots would be utterly unwatchable on a Meta Quest 2, 3, or 3S display. In Disney’s What If… interactive experience, for instance, the project opens with the glittering black of a starfield. That same moment would likely appear as a greyish mess if presented on Meta’s Quest 3 or 3S, and I suspect the same is true of feeling “submerged” underwater. But in Vision Pro from All Quiet On The Western Front’s Edward Berger, he’s mastered the project specifically for Apple’s display. So as you look into the murky waters, you feel like you’re floating out there, peering through the ocean itself as an obstruction rather than the display.
The story follows actors I’ve never seen before through intimate, carefully choreographed shots that present often at human-scale inside a shiny submarine which feels like it’s in active use. Overall, you feel like you’re face-to-face with these characters as they seem to occupy space just a few feet from you, with a thin depth of field to many shots that keeps your eyes locked on every expression and pore on their faces. Camera movements tend to move straight forward or back in consistent comfort, except for a few moments where the director wants to invoke some shift in your attention or mindset.
The most remarkable part of this film — ultimately the reason why this is a must-see for cinephiles and prospective filmmakers — is the way it tests the limits of linear storytelling with an immersive camera. I’ve seen some immersive films I would rather forget now, from the Jaunt days nearly a decade ago, and one in particular I’d wish to exit from my memory featured actors in a war epic who seemed put off by their vicinity to the camera. In Submerged, though, a couple brief moments where the cuts held too long on an actor hitting their mark are largely forgettable next to the way the camera builds toward a climax.
I will never forget the sinking feeling achieved by Apple’s cameras steadily tilting off their horizontal axis in each subsequent shot. Altogether, the production value and execution here leave the viewer with nothing to do at the end except take a deep breath of fresh air.
Behind-The-Scenes
Apple released a behind-the-scenes video showing its camera system and sets, as well as the official text pasted below:
Shot on location in Prague, Brussels, and Malta over three weeks, Submerged was filmed using a full-scale 23-ton submarine set made with real steel, brass, and metal that was modeled after WWII-era vessels. Significant portions of the set were built to withstand being fully submerged, and featured practical camera traps and special effects that were uniquely rigged to expose Apple Immersive Video cameras to sparks, steam, water, and fire without breaking viewers’ sense of immersion. Cast members who might appear out of frame or focus in a 2D feature were meticulously scripted, and participated in extensive stunt rehearsals, including freedive training in dive tanks and open water, to maintain continuity and realism.
Using inside info, iPhone thieves arrive at your house right after FedEx
There has been a rash of iPhone thefts around the US the past few months, conducted by "porch pirates" often seen on doorbell camera videos scooping up boxes right after they are delivered. Phones shipped by AT&T are being targeted more than those of Verizon and T-Mobile, according to a Wall Street Journal article published yesterday.
"The key to these swift crimes, investigators say: The thieves are armed with tracking numbers. Another factor that makes packages from AT&T particularly vulnerable is that AT&T typically doesn't require signature on delivery... Verizon and T-Mobile require a signature on delivery for smartphones; AT&T generally doesn't," the article said.
The WSJ talked to Chris Brown, a police lieutenant in Deer Park, Texas, who "said the suspects were armed with inside information: AT&T parcel tracking numbers. Deer Park police are working with AT&T to investigate how the suspects got that information, he said."
Zoom will let AI avatars talk to your team for you
Zoom is getting one step closer to letting AI avatars attend meetings for you. As part of a broader AI expansion, Zoom announced it will soon let you create an AI avatar of yourself that you can use to send brief messages to your team.
To create a digital avatar, you’ll need to record an initial video of yourself that Zoom’s AI will use to make an avatar that looks — and even sounds — like you. From there, you can write the message you want your AI avatar to say and then have it do all the talking for you. This feature will only work with Zoom’s Clips feature, allowing you to record brief video updates for your colleagues.
Zoom is taking the possibility of deepfakes into account. Smita Hashim, Zoom’s chief product officer, said during a...
Amazon’s new AI guides can help shoppers find what they need
Amazon has a new shopping tool that uses AI to help customers quickly find products based on the specific features they need. AI-powered “Shopping Guides” are now rolling out in the US on Amazon’s mobile website and apps for iOS and Android, presenting users with more tailored product information and recommendations when they’re browsing.
Amazon said in its announcement that AI guides are available for over 100 product types, including TVs, headphones, running shoes, skincare, and more. They are supposed to include “educational content” about these products, alongside customer insights to “help you make informed purchase decisions,” according to Amazon.
Selecting a shopping guide for headphones, for example, will display a selection of...
Google identifies low noise “phase transition” in its quantum processor
Back in 2019, Google made waves by claiming it had achieved what has been called "quantum supremacy"—the ability of a quantum computer to perform operations that would take a wildly impractical amount of time to simulate on standard computing hardware. That claim proved to be controversial, in that the operations were little more than a benchmark that involved getting the quantum computer to behave like a quantum computer; separately, improved ideas about how to perform the simulation on a supercomputer cut the time required down significantly.
But Google is back with a new exploration of the benchmark, described in a paper published in Nature on Wednesday. It uses the benchmark to identify what it calls a phase transition in the performance of its quantum processor and uses it to identify conditions where the processor can operate with low noise. Taking advantage of that, they again show that, even giving classical hardware every potential advantage, it would take a supercomputer a dozen years to simulate things.
Cross entropy benchmarking
The benchmark in question involves the performance of what are called quantum random circuits, which involves performing a set of operations on qubits and letting the state of the system evolve over time, so that the output depends heavily on the stochastic nature of measurement outcomes in quantum mechanics. Each qubit will have a probability of producing one of two results, but unless that probability is one, there's no way of knowing which of the results you'll actually get. As a result, the output of the operations will be a string of truly random bits.
Nvidia’s RTX 5070 reportedly set to launch alongside the RTX 5090 at CES 2025
Nvidia will reportedly announce its RTX 5070 GPU alongside the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 at CES 2025 in January. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will be holding a CES keynote on January 6th, and now Wccftech claims that Nvidia will showcase a trio of next-generation RTX 50-series GPUs during Huang’s keynote.
Rumored specs of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 leaked last month, with Nvidia’s flagship RTX 5090 expected to ship with 32GB of GDDR7 memory and a 600-watt spec. Wccftech reports that the RTX 5070 will feature a 192-bit memory bus with 12GB of GDDR7 VRAM. The RTX 5070 is also said to have a 250-watt total board power spec, 14 percent higher than the RTX 4070. Hardware leaker kopite7kimi has corroborated the report, suggesting the GPU will ship with...
🧬 Des chercheurs découvrent un nouveau groupe sanguin
I’ve reviewed every AMD and Nvidia GPU this generation — here’s how the two companies stack up
Meta Hyperscape hands-on: a wonderful glimpse of the future
When I wrote the article about my 5 main highlights of Meta Connect, I selected among them Meta Hyperscape, the solution to scan environments and enter inside them. I guess this surprised a few of you, who were expecting a mention of Meta Avatars or some of the new games, but after I’ve tried the beta of Hyperscape available on the Horizon Store, I’m not only convinced that I did right at considering it one of the main pieces of news of the show, but I also think that it’s much bigger than I imagined. Let me tell you why.
Meta Hyperscape
A little refresh in case you missed this news at Connect: Mark Zuckerberg announced at Meta Connect a solution called Hyperscape. This software is comprised of a mobile app that lets you scan an environment (e.g. your room) with your phone, and it uploads the data on the cloud, which reconstructs the space using a series of Gaussian Splats. Then there is a VR app for Quest where you can enter the environment you’ve just scanned, either alone or with other people. Meta is not the first company proposing something similar: a few months ago I tried a similar service by Varjo, for instance.
The service is currently available in beta only in the US and the VR Client only features 6 predefined environments for now.
How to install Hyperscape
Hyperscape is available on the Meta Horizon Store. It requires the runtime v69 of Quest, so if you are still on a previous version, make sure to update your headset by going to the System Settings and forcing an update.
The app is available only in the US… but I mean, I’m Italian, so I’m not someone willing to respect the rules… so I launched the VPN on my PC to set myself up as if I was in the US, went to the store page of Hyperscape on the web version of the Horizon Store while I was logged in with my Meta account, and asked to Get and Install the app. I put the headset on my head, and voilà, Hyperscape was on my device. The download has been lightning fast because the app weighs only 32MB!
Launching the app
Hyperscape is so lightweight that I guess is a native app… which is also coherent with the fact that it should be very reactive. The application surprisingly launches as a 2D window, that then becomes immersive only after it has done some checks. I’ve never seen any functionality like that if not in WebXR, so I wonder how they did it (maybe thanks to the new Spatial SDK?).
When it is a 2D window, Hyperscape does some network checks and runs the full application only if your network is good enough. If it finds some network problems, it shows you a dialog that flags that your network is not fast enough and says that you may have some issues. You can choose to close the app or to continue notwithstanding the issues. My suggestion is that, unless your network speed is really potato or you are very prone to motion sickness, you should go on anyway, so that you can experience this interesting application.
The network check is important because this application relies on cloud streaming. According to people who analyzed the data of the app, Hyperscape uses the rumored Meta Avalanche service for cloud rendering and streaming.
Navigating the environments
As I’ve said, Hyperscape currently features only six environments: one is a car garage, four are the spaces where some small indie artists paint or craft objects, and the last one is the previous office of Mark Zuckerberg. Hyperscape showed me this choice in a little floating menu window in mixed reality. I selected the cars to start but then navigated all of them. I have to say that the four artists’ spaces are quite similar, I would have personally preferred a bit more variety, but still, they are all worth a look.
When you choose one space, you are teleported into it in an immersive way and a popup explains to you what that environment is about. Then you are presented with the controls: with the left thumbstick, you can teleport, while with the right thumbstick, you can snap turn. The A button is to show again the info window of the space you are in. The Menu button of the left controller is to return to the environment select window, instead.
Inside the spaces there are some places featuring little circles: if you point at them with your right controller and you press the Trigger button, a little pop-up will explain to you something about the object the little dot is on. Most of the time, to be totally honest with you, this additional information was absolutely not interesting to read.
If you have ever tried a VR virtual tour experience for real estate, you know what I’m talking about: you just go around a place and click on some interesting points to get some relevant info.
Gaussian Splats
Gaussian Splats are an amazing new rendering technique, but since it’s something new, people are still experimenting with how to use them at their best. When I tried Varjo Teleport, I mentioned how the various environments I was in looked like painted in watercolors. Here the reconstructions are much better, and I did not have the same sensation, but still, things looked slightly blurred, as if every object was lightly softer or slightly more distorted than it should have been. A few objects, probably the ones that were not scanned appropriately, looked like watercolored. Reflective surfaces showed artifacts, and when I moved my head, they changed their appearance in a noticeable way. Sometimes you notice some “paint strokes” in the air, which probably represent some bug in the reconstruction. And if you go close to an object, you notice that all its visuals are like painted.
Don’t misunderstand me: as you can see from the images and the videos in this article, the reconstruction is definitely good. But from the pictures, you easily miss all the imperfections that you instead easily notice in VR, and that prevent you from having a full sense of immersion.
Cloud streaming
The application is cloud streamed and you can easily notice that. Sometimes there are some visible effects of that: I had lag, small freezes, and also some weird things happening in the periphery of my vision. But also when the network behaves well, there is always that subtle sense of slight blurring and slight lag that is always present with streamed experiences. This is for sure one of the reasons why this app is in Beta: the streaming should be improved. I also wonder if, considering that the app should be available only in the US, the streaming services are only located in North America, so we Europeans have a worse experience.
The huge sense of presence
Most of the time, your experience will be conditioned by some of the problems that I’ve mentioned above and your brain will easily notice that you are in a reconstructed environment and not in a real one. Some objects are blurred, some others have reconstruction imperfections, and so on. In fact, when I launched the car garage environment, I was not much impressed by it. I found it nice, but that was it.
But there will be a few spots in the experience where the space in front of you will look real to you, and in these moments you will go WOW. It happened to me the first time in one of the workbenches of one of the creators: I looked at the desk in front of me and for a split second it looked like real and my mind clicked. For that moment, I truly believed to be there in the space of that creator, in front of his desk. Then moving around, I lost this sensation because of the imperfections, but then later in another space, I had it again.
The quality of the reconstruction is overall very good, but in some places, it is excellent and you can feel immersed there. And what is impressive is that these environment reconstructions are truly 6DOF. I could move with teleporting everywhere I wanted, and I could snap turn however I wanted. Virtual tours are usually 3DOF and you can only navigate to specific viewpoints. Here I could be everywhere, it was like being in another space. If they can improve the splats’ quality this can truly feel like a teleport to another location.
I thought it could be just me to be amazed by this app, so I also made another non-VR person try the experience and she was literally amazed all the time about it. So it’s not only my impression, it is definitely good.
The endless possibilities
I got pretty excited by Meta Hyperscape, so as an entrepreneur and developer I immediately started thinking about all the possibilities enabled by this technology. The first thing I thought is that this will disrupt virtual tours: if I were Matterport or another company making money with virtual tours, I would be concerned, because with Hyperscape, everyone with a phone (and some technical knowledge) could scan his own space and create a virtual tour about it. And this virtual tour would be fully 6dof: people can freely move inside it, feel the objects with the proper depth, and so on. It would not be just a set of 360 photo bubbles, but a full navigation in another space. I know that Hyperscape is in beta, but when it is finalized, this service will be perfect for visiting homes remotely.
The social aspect is also another thing that always fascinated me about reconstructed 3d spaces. I could scan my new home and invite my friends to visit it in VR. Or I could scan a space in a specific moment I want to remember (e.g. a portion of the restaurant of my wedding party) and I could revisit it alone or with my family whenever I want. I’m pretty sure that Meta is primarily interested in this and I see in it great potential: as today you shoot a picture to remember a moment, in the medium-long term future maybe you will be able to save a full environment.
The office of Mark Zuckerberg is a glimpse of that: in my life, probably I will never have the opportunity of being invited by Marky Z to his office, but with Hyperscape, I was there. It could also be a service offered by celebrities to let you visit their environments, their favorite spaces, or the location of their events…
Another idea could be creating VR games that are held in real spaces. Indie developers with limited budgets for 3D graphics may for instance scan their rooms (after they remove the pizzas and the Red Bulls :P) and set up an escape room or a point-and-click adventure there.
As the Varjo PR told me at AWE about their Teleport service, it can also be useful in the B2B sector: for instance, if a company has to set up a stage, or a booth, or something like that, they could do that, then scan the environment, and send it to the CEO to step in and verify if he likes it
I think this is an enabling technology that as soon as it is stable, will offer many new opportunities in the XR space. And don’t get me started on what it could be possible to do with interactions: if some of the scanned objects could be grabbed or interacted with (e.g. you can turn on the light), that would be amazing.
A note on cloud rendering and feasibility
This application does cloud streaming, probably streaming the splats that you have to show on the display. Cloud streaming is amazing for many reasons, but it also is the cause of some of the problems described above: lag, latency, vision artifacts, etc… It also introduces an additional problem: price. Streaming from the cloud is pretty expensive and I wonder what is the cost per minute per user that Meta is paying for Hyperscape. I wonder also if streaming has been chosen because Meta wanted to test its Avalanche service or if there is a necessity at the base, like that the environments are so big that a full download would require too much time, or the computation needed by the splats is so big that must be done in the cloud. I bet that also the choice of using teleport and not allowing smooth locomotion is conditioned by these performance considerations.
I ask all these questions because I’m wondering about the feasibility of this as a commercial application. Is it currently too expensive for a startup to create a similar infrastructure? And if it is Meta offering it, what will be the price? And will Meta try to make money out of it? All these questions will help in understanding if all the above ideas can become true products in the short term or not. Because if the costs are too high, no company would ever create a product out of it in the next months. But if it is affordable, we can have new startups exploiting this new technical marvel.
Final considerations
I’ve been impressed with Meta Hyperscope. It’s a glimpse of a future when we will be able to visit other real spaces without moving from home and have the true impression of being there. This is an enabling technology that in my opinion will have many ripple effects in our space in the medium-long term. But for now, it is still a bit rough and probably expensive. If you truly want to feel like being in the office of Mark Zuckerberg, you still had better wait for him to offer you lunch (where you eat some BBQ sauce, of course)…
(Header image by Meta)
The post Meta Hyperscape hands-on: a wonderful glimpse of the future appeared first on The Ghost Howls.
Le Vegas Loop face à des défis insolites d’intrusions et d’erreurs
Le système de transport souterrain d'Elon Musk est constamment perturbé par des conducteurs égarés, des skateurs et des personnes ne respectant pas la loi.
Your doctor’s office could be reading your blood pressure all wrong
Many people may be surprised to learn the proper procedure for taking a blood pressure reading—because of how different it is from what happens during their doctor's appointments.
According to the American Heart Association and other medical experts, getting an accurate reading requires following a strict set of preparations: You must not eat, drink, exercise, or smoke within 30 minutes of a reading. You must have an empty bladder. You must sit straight up in a chair with back support. Your legs must be uncrossed and your feet must be flat on the ground. The arm to be measured must be rested on a flat surface so that it is at the same level as your heart, not lower, not higher. You must sit calmly, without talking for five minutes to relax before the reading. When it's time, an appropriately sized cuff should be wrapped around your bare upper arm, right above the elbow; it should never be wrapped over clothing. At least two readings should be taken, with the average recorded. Ideally, readings should be taken in both arms, with the highest readings recorded.
Deviations from this protocol have the potential to significantly alter your blood pressure reading—and your blood pressure category. For instance, putting the blood pressure cuff over clothing can raise your reading as much as 50 mm Hg. That's enough to make someone with early stage hypertension seem as if they're in a hypertensive crisis, at imminent risk of a stroke or heart attack. If you have to pee, the reading can be 15 mm Hg higher. Talking can raise it by 10 mm Hg.
Quelles seront les tendances du voyage de luxe en 2025 ?
Meta Orion Interview Dives Deep Into Details Like Resolution, Battery Life, & More
Meta’s biggest reveal at last week’s Connect conference was definitely the Orion prototype AR glasses, which the company says it’s been working on for nearly five years. It’s a big deal not only because of how compact it is, but because Meta says it wants to eventually turn the prototype into a consumer product.
You may have caught our high-level coverage of the Orion headset here, but our friend Norman Chan from Tested got to sit down with Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth to try out the glasses and learn about the Orion project. In typical form, he digs deep into the intriguing technical details of the headset. You can check out his full video below, or scroll further down to get a summary of the technical details Chan learned from his demo and conversation:
Although Orion isn’t ready for mass production, Meta says it’s planning to build around 1,000 units for internal testing. At a purported cost of $10,000 for each prototype, that’s a cool $10 million worth of hardware the company will be shelling out to get enough devices that it can do testing and development at a reasonable scale.
The Orion glasses weigh just 98 grams, which is right under the 100 grams threshold that Meta believes is important for making something that actually looks and feels like glasses rather than goggles. For comparison, the classic Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses weigh around 30 grams, and Meta’s own Ray-Ban smartglasses weigh around 50 grams. So the Orion AR glasses might be reasonably called glasses, but they’re still chunky bois.
Still, 100 grams is incredibly lightweight if you consider that Orion is packing most of the same fundamental capabilities as Meta’s own Quest 3 headset, which is more than five times heavier at 515 grams.
In addition to the novel silicon carbide lenses we heard about, which help the glasses reach a large (for their size) 70° diagonal field-of-view, Orion also employs MicroLED projectors which are not only tiny, but super bright. Meta says they can output hundreds of thousands of nits of brightness. It’s essential to start with such a bright light source because it’s a complex optical path that loses lots of light along the way. By the time it reaches your eyes, you’ll be seeing just 300–400 nits.
That’s a bit brighter than your average VR headset, but still a long way from bright enough to use outside on a bright day. You’d need around 3,000 nits for reasonable outdoor usability. That means Meta will need to find a brighter light source, or reduce inefficiency in the optical path, if it wants Orion to be something people will wear outside of their homes.
As for resolution, Chan says the main Orion demo has a resolution of 13 pixels-per-degree, which is a bit of a surprise. Because AR glasses often have a smaller field-of-view than their VR counterparts, usually they get an advantage on PPD because the available pixels are spread over a smaller area. But even with a 70° field-of-view, Orion has only about half of the PPD of Quest 3 (25PPD).
However, Meta was apparently also demoing a similar Orion prototype that was 26 PPD, but that came at the cost of image brightness. The company told Chan that its goal is to reach a resolution of 30 PPD by the time Orion becomes a proper product. That’s still far from a ‘retina’ resolution of 60 PPD, but should be enough to make the headset useful for text-based work.
One of the most interesting details from Chan’s interview was the way Orion glasses implement eye-tracking.
Like other headsets, the technique involves illuminating the eye with a series of infrared LEDs, then point a camera at the eye to reverse-engineer the position of the eye based on the visible reflection of the IR LEDs. Usually the IR LEDs are placed in a ring around the lens, but Chan noted that Orion places absolutely tiny LEDs directly in the user’s field-of-view—right on the lens.
In order to make it all invisible to the wearer, the wires that power the LEDs are arranged in a nearly randomized pattern that you could easily mistake as a bit of hair on the lens.
A random pattern is less eye-catching than a clearly defined pattern (the basis of many optical illusions). Between the random pattern, minuscule thinness of the wires, and nearness to the eye, Chan said it was all but invisible when looking through the lens.
It was also mentioned that the ‘compute puck’, which offloads much of the processing work from the glasses, uses a custom Wi-Fi 6 protocol to communicate, with a range of 10 or so feet.
The custom protocol purportedly focuses on ‘pulsing’ data from the puck (rather than continuously streaming it) to reduce both heat production and power consumption. We can imagine this being a packet-like approach where instead of communicating constantly from the puck to the glasses, outgoing information is gathered over the course of a discrete time period before being packaged and transmitted.
While the puck is plenty large and is said to be capable of “all day” battery life, the glasses themselves can currently run for up to three hours—essentially the same battery life you’d expect from a standalone VR headset.
Compared to research prototypes shown by Meta in the past, Orion isn’t just made to give people a look at the experience the company wants to eventually deliver. Orion is more of a preview of a product that Meta is actively building.
The company says it still plans to make the glasses smaller, higher resolution, and affordable. And so far Meta says it expects the eventual consumer version of Orion should become available before 2030 and cost somewhere around $1,500.
There’s even more details packed into Chan’s video than we covered here! If you want to hear it all, check out the full video.
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