Jean-Philippe Encausse

Gamers have nothing on investors when it comes to fast twitch muscles. 

Shares in major video game publisher Ubisoft took an over 7% hit on Monday after an investor with a less than 1% stake in the company published a letter suggesting it should go private and shake up its management. The fact that such a minnow of an investor could significantly dent the share price shows how on edge the sector is lately.

Still In the Game

Ubisoft is known for popular franchises including “Assassin’s Creed” and “Far Cry,” and recently released a big, blockbuster “Star Wars” game. But, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, its recent work has been plagued by delays and cancellations, and its share price is down 41% year-to-date. Although the games industry is suffering a crunch overall, Ubisoft’s share price is faring worse than most.

But shares jolting downward isn’t the only symptom of the gaming sector’s hair-trigger pessimism: 

• Last week, Sony (which owns PlayStation) shut down a game called “Concord” just two weeks after it was released. “Concord” was a live-service game, meaning its business model was based more on an attention economy and keeping players engaged in the game, rather than just selling copies.
• PlayStation spent eight years developing “Concord,” but negative reviews from gamers and poor sales prompted it to shut down the game. It shows the risk that game companies take trying to bank on an attention-economy effort.

“In the end, live services are a high-risk, high-reward venture,” Rhys Elliott, a gaming analyst at MIDiA, told The Daily Upside. Despite this, Elliott expects Sony to keep plugging away at live-service games. “It only takes one big live-service win to generate billions in revenue and unlock new audiences — two things PlayStation wants as the console business faces growth challenges.”

Big in Japan: In another bizarre move, Sony raised the price of its PlayStation 5 console in Japan by 19% at the beginning of this month. The PS5 is now a 4-year-old console, so bumping the price up is pretty unreal. Sony said the increase was due to “fluctuations” in the global economy. Why those fluctuations only hit its home country of Japan is a mystery.

The post Ubisoft Shares Take a Hit Over Investor Unease appeared first on The Daily Upside.

There’s something magical about volumetric displays. They really need to be perceived in person, and no amount of static or video photography will ever do them justice. [AncientJames] has built a few, and we’re reporting on his progress, mostly because he got it to run a playable port of DOOM.

As we’ve seen before, DOOM is very much a 3D game viewed on a 2D display using all manner of clever tricks and optimizations. The background visual gives a 3D effect, but the game’s sprites are definitely very solidly in 2D land. As we’ll see, that wasn’t good enough for [James].

The basic concept relies on a pair of 128 x 64 LED display matrix modules sitting atop a rotating platform. The 3D printed platform holds the displays vertically, with the LEDs lined up with the diameter, meaning the electronics hang off the back, creating some imbalance.

Lead, in the form of the type used for traditional window leading, was used as a counterbalance. A Raspberry Pi 4 with a modified version of this LED driver HAT is rotating with the displays. The Pi and both displays are fed power from individual Mini560 buck modules, taking their input from a 12 V 100 W Mean-Well power supply via a car alternator slip ring setup. (Part numbers ABH6004S and ASL9009  for those interested.) Finally, to synchronise the setup, a simple IR photo interrupter signals the Pi via an interrupt.

The base contains a DC motor driving the platform with a 224:20 reduction ratio using a GT2 timing belt to help reduce noise. [James] reports that running at 700 RPM was the limit for the current version, giving an acceptable update frame rate. Too high, and the vibration and chassis flex was excessive. The base does little else other than house that power supply and support a 400 mm acrylic garden light dome. We wouldn’t want to run this without such protection, which might not even be enough.

There are quite a few details to consider in such a build. One is the need to reduce the angle of perception of the LED display using a 3D printed slat-type collimator in front of each unit. You only want to perceive the LEDs head-on, or the POV effect is ruined. However, most of the details are in the software.

To that end, [James] took the entire game logic of the ‘Doom Generic’ port, removing the code that renders the 3D parts of the scene. The 2D menus and in-game panels are rendered by projecting the image onto a cylinder. That was easy. [James] took a minimalist path for the room scenes, as fully solid walls looked too busy. The viewport automatically zooms into any ongoing battles, so monsters zoom into focus if nearby, but objects behind closed doors and too far around corners are discarded. No spoiler alerts! The models were lifted from Chello’s Voxel Doom mod, giving a fitting 3D upgrade to gameplay. This is an ongoing project, so we’ll keep track and report back!

We’ve reported on a few volumetric displays over the years, like this tiny one based on an OLED display. Even a volumetric CCTV system. But they can’t run DOOM. Speaking of which, here’s what it looks like ray-traced.

Thanks to [Keith] for the tip!

Sharp and Japan’s largest telecom NTT Docomo today announced a new pair of AR glasses called MiRZA, which is hitting the Japanese market sometime his Fall.

It would be pretty tough to mistake Mirza for a normal pair of glasses, what with its chunky struts and rims, 6DOF tracking sensors, and center-mounted camera—not to mentions its unique AR optics, which incorporate so-called ‘mirror bars’ courtesy of South Korean AR lens creator LetinAR, promising a 45-degree diagonal field of view.

Created by NTT QONOQ Devices, a joint venture between Sharp and NTT’s XR development branch NTT QONOQ, Mirza isn’t going to be cheap either. Priced at an eye-watering ¥248,000 (~$1,730 USD), the funky but functional device more than likely will be squarely targeted at enterprise.

In the press release (Japanese), the company highlights its ability to take photos and make calls, and also display multiple screens positioned anywhere around the user. Mirza promises a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, although it’s unclear if that’s referring to perceived brightness to the end user or the brightness of the 1,920 × 1,080 microOLEDs.

To boot, Mirza promises good weight distribution thanks to placing components closer to the back of the glasses’ struts. Both internal battery and processing (Qualcomm Snapdragon AR2 Gen1) is on board, however it boasts wireless connectivity to Snapdragon Spaces-compatible smartphones.

For now, the company has only certified the AQUOS R9 SH-51E, a Japan-only flagship from Sharp, however the company says more compatible phones will be announced in the future.

We’re still waiting for more clarity on launch regions, however it’s likely Mirza may be a Japan-only device. In the meantime, check out the specs below:

MiRZA Specs

• Weight:125g
• Size: Approx. 187mm (W) x 45mm (H) x 184mm (D) (when in use), Approx. 187mm (W) x 45mm (H) x 96mm (D) (stored)
• Chipset: Snapdragon® AR2 Gen1
• Display: Resolution: FHD (1,920 x 1,080), 45° FOV (diagonal), 1,000 nits brightness, MicroOLED binocular full color
• Optics: LetinAR’s unique thin mirror bar type optical module
• Battery: continuous use time: 1～1.5 hours, charged in under 2 hours using the included USB Type-C cable
• Camera: 1x front RGB camera (image quality: FHD), 2x side monochrome cameras
• Audio: 4x microphones, 2x speakers
• Other sensors: Touch sensor (for operation), Proximity sensor (for determining wearing status), Illuminance sensor (for automatic brightness adjustment), Acceleration/gyro/camera spatial recognition sensor (for 6DoF tracking)
• Connection: Bluetooth 5.0, Wi-Fi 6E

The post Sharp & Japan’s Largest Telecom Unveil Lightweight AR Glasses ‘MiRZA’ appeared first on Road to VR.

En 2009 Netflix publiait un document de 125 pages résumant sa culture et sa vision du travail qui avait, en son temps, fait beaucoup parler de lui. Au début de l’été une version mise à jour a été mise en ligne et c’est l’occasion de revenir sur ce document assez disruptif et voir ce que nous dit son évolution au fil du temps.

Une approche clivante du marketing RH

Même si le document a été mis à jour depuis je ne peux que vous inciter à lire ces 125 slides qui sont non pas un condensé mais, au contraire, une vision exhaustive de la culture Netflix et de leur vision du travail pour comprendre à quel point le document avait surpris voire choqué à l’époque.

On ne pouvait que reconnaitre à Netflix le mérite de l’honnêteté quitte à être clivant, à l’opposé de la plupart des entreprises qui affichent des valeurs assez consensuelles pour plaire à tous quitte à ce qu’elles ne se vérifient pas dans la pratique.

Il ne faut pas oublier que ce document avait pour objectif le recrutement et, d’une certaine manière, plutôt que dire « pourquoi nous rejoindre » il disait tout autant « pourquoi ne pas nous rejoindre« , « si vous n’êtes pas confortable avec ça surtout ne postulez pas« .

J’admet m’en être d’ailleurs inspiré à un moment au moment de mettre en place un site carrière afin de ne plus perdre de temps sur des candidatures peu pertinentes : plutôt qu’un discours qui donnait envie au plus grand nombre de candidater j’ai préféré un discours qui allait plaire à des gens qui nous ressemblaient et rebuter les autres.

Typiquement, Netflix allait en 2009 à l’encontre d’un discours très en vogue dans beaucoup d’entreprises, notamment de la tech, qui clamaient qu’elles étaient une grande famille. Netflix a toujours tenu le discours opposé, se comparant plutôt à une équipe de sportifs professionnels avec ce que cela implique sur l’emphase mise sur la collaboration, la performance et ce qui lie les gens. Indirectement, et contrairement à beaucoup d’autres, son image n’a pas été écornée lorsqu’elle a du licencier car ça n’était pas orthogonal avec les valeurs qu’elle communiquait.

Ceci dit le moins qu’on puisse dire c’est que cette culture ne les a pas empêché ni de recruter ni de réussir.

La culture Netflix en 2024

Netflix a donc publié une mise jour du manifeste de sa culture au printemps dernier. Qu’est ce qui change ? Tout d’abord la taille puisque tout est condensé pour tenir sur une seule page. Comme si ils avaient pris le temps d’avoir du recul ce qui a permis de simplifier le propos sans pour autant que cela ne change beaucoup sur le fond.

Fondamentalement je ne vois pas beaucoup de changement et cela ne me surprend pas : en 2009 Netflix affichait une culture qui étaient en phase avec la direction que prenaient le monde, la société, l’économie, ce qui tranchait justement avec celles d’entreprises un peu plus ancrées dans le passé. Or, depuis, si les choses ont changé c’est pour aller dans le sens de ce que percevait Netflix, confirmant qu’ils avaient vu juste depuis le début.

Rien de neuf mais une vision affinée et améliorée de la précédente au fil du temps et de l’expérience.

Mais surtout une version plus synthétique ce qui permet d’aborder plus facilement ses quatre pierres angulaires.

La « Dream Team »

On en revient à la notion d’équipe préférée à celle de famille. On y trouve une liste des valeurs qui doivent être partagées (altruisme, jugement, candeur, créativité, courage, inclusion, curiosité, résilience) dont on verra qu’elles sont essentielles à la mise en oeuvre des autres dimensions de la culture Netflix. Quand on voit les retours d’expériences de salariés d’entreprises qui essaient de se substituer à leur propre famille ils n’ont certainement pas tort (After Working at Google, I’ll Never Let Myself Love a Job Again).

Il y a surtout une référence constante à la performance : au delà des valeurs c’est la performance et elle seule qui fait qu’on est digne ou non de rester dans l’équipe.

Derrière la candeur on trouve la notion de feedback continu, la volonté de constamment se remettre en cause et accepter d’être remis en cause par autrui dans une logique d’amélioration continue.

Les gens au dessus des process

Netflix reconnait la primauté de l’individu sur les process et considère que les gens sont capables d’avoir un impact sur leur propre travail si on les laisse utiliser leur capacité de jugement, leur sens des responsabilités et la critique constructive.

On a le droit de ne pas être d’accord avec ce qui est fait ou la manière dont on le fait à condition de finalement s’engager une fois qu’une discussion a eu lieu sur le sujet.

Cette confiance donnée aux individus sur la manière d’organiser leur travail permet d’éviter les complications et l’excès de process qui accompagnent souvent la croissance des entreprises (Smart Simplicity : 6 règles pour gérer la complexité sans devenir compliqué).

Cela rejoint une préoccupation émergente dans nombre d’entreprises sur le fait que jusqu’à présent les gens étaient dirigés par les process alors qu’aujourd’hui nature même du travail et des challenges auxquels font face les collaborateurs demandent de donner aux collaborateur la capacité d’influer sur les process. Il y a de nombreuses réflexions en cours sur cette notion de People Centric Operations (Les salariés doivent suivre les process. En êtes-vous sûrs ?) mais ça ne sont que des réflexions tant cette approche pousse les entreprises à sortir de leur zone de confort. Pour Netflix c’est une réalité.

Inconfortablement excitant

Divertir 2 milliards de personnes demande d’innover, sortir de sa zone de confort, sans cesses essayer des choses nouvelles. Au delà de ce qui sonne comme une évidence qui, a mon avis, ne s’applique pas qu’à Netflix et aux entreprises de son secteur mais quasiment à tout le monde (encore faut il en avoir conscience) cela demande aux collaborateurs d’accepter de vivre dans l’inconfort du changement permanent.

Une vérité que tout le monde connait même si peu d’entreprises osent l’assumer, préférant vendre à leurs employés l’illusion rassurante d’une stabilité qui n’existe plus. (La transformation n’est pas un état provisoire de l’entreprise et vos employés le savent donc ne mentez pas.)

Excellent et toujours meilleur

Les salariés, appelés ici membres de la Dream Team, doivent sans cesse améliorer les choses et construire un futur dont on ne sait pas ce qu’il sera. Rappelez vous que Netflix a commencé en 1998 en louant des DVD qu’ils envoyaient par la poste et qu’il s’agit du parfait exemple d’une entreprise qui n’a pas subi la transformation digitale de l’économie. D’ailleurs plutôt que la subir c’est elle qui transformé son secteur.

Pour Netflix c’est sa culture qui est la cause de sa réussite et elle enjoint à ses salariés de sans cesse l’améliorer et surtout pas de la préserver telle qu’elle comme, là encore, trop d’entreprises le font, perdant ainsi la capacité à saisir des opportunités et se transformer.

Pour moi cela fait écho à une intervention de Ginnie Rometti, alors PDG d’IBM, il y a plus de 10 ans et où elle avait dit qu’il ne fallait jamais « protéger le passé« .

Conclusion

Il est surprenant de constater à quel point la manière dont Netflix formalise et présente sa culture détonne encore dans le monde d’aujourd’hui alors que rien ne me semble plus pertinent si on est réalistes par rapport à ce qu’est le monde d’aujourd’hui et les challenges auxquels font face les entreprises.

Pourquoi un tel grand écart ?

Tout d’abord une réelle volonté de la part des entreprises de protéger le passé. Une entreprise est un organisme vivant, sa culture doit évoluer avec le temps et les gens afin de prendre en main son futur et non le subir.

Ensuite la peur de déplaire, de déranger. Beaucoup d’entreprises essaient de plaire au plus grand nombre et, surtout, ne veulent en aucun cas déplaire à qui que ce soit que ce soit en termes de marketing RH ou de marketing tout court. Or ce que dit Netflix fait peur : beaucoup de personnes ne sont pas confortables dans un tel environnement et ce qu’il raconte de la compréhension qu’on a du monde. Netflix a décidé de ne s’intéresser qu’à ceux qui sont alignés à cette vision même si cela veut dire se couper d’un grand nombre de talents. Notons également que Netflix fait une claire séparation entre marketing et marketing RH là où beaucoup pensent qu’il y a un lien entre les deux : ses produits sont pour tout le monde mais tout le monde ne peut pas y travailler. Votre abonnement est bienvenu, pas votre CV.

Enfin la difficulté de changer. Une culture ne se décrète pas, elle se vit et est incarnée au premier chef par ses dirigeants. Pas facile d’opérer un tel virage si on se dit qu’on risque d’en être la première victime. Cela me rappelle l’exemple de CISCO à la fin des années 2000 (Entreprise 2.0 : retour sur l’expérience de CISCO). Non seulement John Chambers, le PDG de l’époque, avait dit qu‘il avait du aller contre sa nature profonde pour aller dans le sens du bien de l’entreprise mais en plus qu’il avait du se séparer de la moitié du top management incapable d’incarner la nouvelle organisation et la culture qui allait avec.

Image : Netflix de Emre Akkoyun via Shutterstock.

L’article Qu’est ce que la culture et le management de Netflix nous disent sur le monde d’aujourd’hui est apparu en premier sur Bloc-Notes de Bertrand Duperrin.

Loki, ça vous dit quelque chose ? Non, je ne parle pas du dieu espiègle de la mythologie nordique, mais bien d’un outil qui pourrait bien révolutionner la façon dont on traque les fake news. C’est une solution open source capable de passer au crible de longs textes pour en extraire les affirmations douteuses et les vérifier en un clin d’œil.

Loki est un projet vraiment prometteur pour tous ceux qui ont à cœur la vérification des faits, que vous soyez journaliste, chercheur ou simplement un citoyen soucieux de démêler le vrai du faux. Son atout majeur, c’est un pipeline complet qui prend en charge tout le processus, de la décomposition des textes en affirmations individuelles jusqu’à la vérification finale.

Et concrètement alors, comment ça marche ?

Eh bien, Loki commence par découper un long texte en petits morceaux plus digestes, histoire d’y voir plus clair. Ensuite, tel un fin limier, il évalue chaque affirmation pour déterminer si elle mérite d’être vérifiée. Exit les déclarations vagues ou ambiguës, on se concentre sur le concret !

Une fois les affirmations intéressantes identifiées, Loki se transforme alors en super détective du web. Il génère des requêtes précises pour partir à la chasse aux preuves sur Internet, en s’appuyant sur divers modèles d’IA tels que le traitement du langage naturel (NLP), l’apprentissage automatique (ML) ou encore l’extraction d’informations. Comme ça, fini les heures passées à éplucher les sources, il s’occupe de tout !

Et une fois les preuves rassemblées, il enfile sa casquette d’enquêteur pour évaluer la véracité de chaque affirmation. Tel un juge impartial, il examine les éléments à charge et à décharge pour rendre son verdict. Fake news ou info fiable ? Vous le saurez en un instant ! Il faut cependant garder à l’esprit que même si Loki s’appuie sur des modèles d’IA performants, aucun outil n’est parfait. Une supervision humaine reste donc nécessaire pour garantir la fiabilité des résultats.

L’interface est basique mais permet d’interagir directement avec le moteur de vérification. Pas besoin d’être un crack en informatique, c’est à la portée de tous.

Le top, c’est qu’il ne se contente pas de vous dire si une info est vraie ou fausse. Il vous explique aussi comment il est arrivé à cette conclusion, avec toute la transparence qu’on est en droit d’attendre de ce genre d’outils. Ça permet de sourcer et de justifier l’analyse. En prime, il sait se montrer pédagogue puisqu’en plus de débusquer les fake news, il vous proposera aussi une version corrigée et sourcée de l’information. De quoi devenir un pro de la vérification des faits en un rien de temps !

Si vous voulez tester Loki par vous-même, rien de plus simple. Il vous suffit de vous rendre sur le site https://loki.librai.tech/ pour découvrir toutes les possibilités offertes par cet outil. En attendant, voici un petit tutoriel pour bien démarrer avec Loki. Il vous faudra des clé API pour OpenAI, Anthropic et Serper.

Première étape : installez Python et Poetry en suivant les instructions sur le site officiel.

Ensuite, clonez le dépôt GitHub de Loki et lancez l’installation avec les commandes :

git clone https://github.com/Libr-AI/OpenFactVerification

cd OpenFactVerification

pip install -r requirements.txt

poetry install

Ça peut sembler un peu technique, mais promis, c’est à la portée de tous !

Une fois que tout est en place, vous pouvez commencer à jouer avec Loki.

Pour vérifier un texte, rien de plus simple :

python -m factcheck --modal text --input mon_texte.txt

Et voilà, Loki va se mettre au travail et vous fournir une analyse complète du texte et vous livrer à la fin un gros JSON.

Vous pouvez aussi tester avec différents types de contenu (image, vidéo, audio…) en changeant l’option --modal. Et si vous voulez personnaliser le modèle utilisé ou les sources de vérification, il vous suffit de passer un fichier de configuration en paramètre :

python -m factcheck --modal text --input mon_texte.txt --api_config ma_config.yaml

Notez aussi que tout ceci est dispo sous la forme d’une lib Python, donc facilement intégrable avec vos outils.

Avec ça, vous avez toutes les cartes en main pour devenir un pro de la vérification des faits. Alors, à vous de jouer ! Et si jamais vous avez besoin d’un coup de main, n’oubliez pas que la communauté Loki est là pour vous aider sur GitHub ou sur le serveur Discord dédié au projet.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is showing 3D-printed metal parts made onboard the International Space Station using a printer and materials the agency sent earlier this year.  While 3D printing onboard the ISS is nothing new, the printing of metal parts in space is an important advancement. The agency’s goals are to be able to produce more tools and spares in situ rather than having to rely on resupply missions. An ambitious idea being pitched is to use captured space debris as input as well, which would further decrease the ISS’s dependence on Earth and expensive cargo runs from the bottom of the gravity well.

The 180 kg 3D printer lives in the European Drawer Rack Mark II inside ESA’s Columbus module. Controllers on Earth managed the printing process after installation. The printer ran for about four hours a day, with each layer inspected before continuing. This means the printing process took days, but running the machine continuously would, of course, cut printing time significantly.

The printer uses stainless steel wire that is fed to the printing location, where a laser melts it. As the pool of molten metal moves away from the laser-heated spot, it solidifies like plastic does in a regular FDM printer. Of course, with the melting point of stainless steel being around 1400 °C, it runs a lot hotter and thus requires that the printer to be inside a completely sealed box, with the atmosphere inside vented into space and replaced with nitrogen prior to starting the printing process. The presence of oxygen would totally ruin the print.

We badly want a practical metal printer for home use, but, so far, they remain out of reach. When you do get them, you might consider that there are different design rules for metal-printed parts.

The post This Mod Lets You Play ‘Star Wars Outlaws’ in VR appeared first on Road to VR.

Jolie évolution depuis le modèle précédent, le Morefine M11 propose une approche totalement différente dans ses usages. Avec toute la connectique d’un MiniPC et un écran de 7 pouces tactile, il peut servir dans énormément de scénarios.

Envie d’un PC domotique ? Un PC de caisse, un contrôleur pour une machine externe quelconque ? Envie d’un PC multimédia qui permet de sélectionner le contenu de vos vidéos et musiques à la volée ? Tout cela est possible sur le Morefine M11. La plateforme interne reste basée sur un cœur Alder Lake N d’Intel, mais l’enveloppe évolue vraiment.

Deux processeurs sont retenus, le N100 identique à ce que proposait le Morefine M10 mais aussi le N200. Deux puces quasiment identiques en terme de conception avec 4 cœurs, 6 watts de TDP et 6 Mo de cache. Mais une petite nuance pour le N200 qui permet d’aller un poil plus haut en fréquence. Jusqu’à 3.7 GHz pour les cœurs de calcul contre 3.4 GHz pour le N100. Et surtout un circuit graphique Intel UHD qui profite de 32 EU à 750 MHz pour le N200 contre 24 EU à la même fréquence pour le N100. Le seul point faible du N200 est son tarif plus élevé chez Intel.

On retrouve un boitier de 17.38 cm de large pour 11.6 cm de profondeur avec 2.19 cm d’épaisseur. Une petite béquille dépliable est positionnée sur l’arrière du châssis de manière à pouvoir faire tenir l’engin debout et vous permettre de mieux voir l’écran. L’affichage n’est d’ailleurs pas détaillé, le « constructeur » se contentant d’un qualificatif HD pour le décrire. Je suppose qu’il s’agit d’un écran IPS capacitif en 1280 x 800 pixels mais je n’ai pas plus d’informations que cela.

On retrouve en interne plusieurs configurations. Les N100 et N200 avec toujours 16 Go de mémoire vive LPDDR5-4800 soudée à la carte mère. Et de 256 Go à 2 To de stockage NVMe PCIe. Un port M.2 2242 est intégré à la machine. Autre particularité, la présence d’une batterie interne avec un modèle Li-Po 3400 mAh qui offrirait jusqu’à 3.5 heures d’autonomie. L’idée ici est plus d’offrir la possibilité de se balader d’une pièce à l’autre sans éteindre son PC plutôt que de le considérer réellement comme un portable. Mais c’est également une solution intéressante de considérer cette batterie comme une sorte de protection électrique.

La connectique est assez complète avec sur le haut de l’engin un port Ethernet Gigabit et trois USB 3.2 Type-A. A gauche une sortie HDMI 2.1, un microphone, et deux USB Type-C dont un proposant des données, une sortie Power Delivery 3.0 et un Display Port. C’est ce port USB Power Delivery qui permettra d’alimenter la machine et de recharger sa batterie interne.

Enfin, à droite on retrouve un USB 2.0 Type-A, un jack audio combo 3.5 mm et le bouton de démarrage. Sur les côté de l’engin, le Morefine M11 propose également des enceintes stéréo.

l’engin est sympathique et on imagine plein d’usages originaux avec ce type de minimachine. Malheureusement, les prétentions tarifaires de l’objet sont encore une fois un peu élevées pour qui cherche un MiniPC de ce type. Chez le constructeur, en version N100 16/512 Go on est à 364$ HT soit quelque chose comme 330€ HT et presque 400€ TTC. Une version N200 toujours en 16/512 Go grimpe à 415$ HT (373€ HT et 448€ TTC). Il sera moins onéreux d’investir dans un MiniPC classique et de lui ajouter un écran tactile HDMI/USB externe que dans cette solution.

Au passage, je ne suis pas vraiment certain de la disponibilité réelle de ces engins qui commencent à se multiplier en ligne. Des marques noname commencent à en proposer comme cet HiGole F9B Pro qui en est une autre version sous N100 avec une connectique plus orientée vers des usages pro (double Ethernet 2.5 Gigabit par exemple) mais plus de béquille ni de haut-parleurs dans un châssis identique. Ce modèle est annoncé à 300€ environ en 16/512 Go avec Windows 11 mais encore 43€ de frais de port. HiGole propose même une variante avec un modèle équipé en 4G à 360€.

Toutes ces marques semblent évidemment dépendre du même fournisseur de base. Mais celui-ci ne semble pas leur avoir livré grand chose, ce qui explique peut être les tarifs élevés et les frais de port dissuasifs. L’arrivée de ces engins en masse pourrait changer la donne. A suivre donc.

Source : Liliputing

Minimachines.net en partenariat avec Geekbuying.com
Morefine M11 : un MiniPC Alder Lake N avec un écran 7″ tactile © MiniMachines.net. 2024.

Natural diamonds require a lot of pressure and time, and then someone has to mine for them. Lab-grown diamonds can be produced to be nearly indistinguishable from the natural ones, minus the time and mining. For Works in Progress, Javid Lakha describes the process and the growing cost gap between natural and the cheaper lab-grown.

As the value of diamonds inevitably falls, do engagement rings turn towards something more rare?

Tags: cost, diamond, Works in Progress

Enlarge / Researchers say that Dungeons & Dragons can give autistic players a way to engage in low-risk social interactions. (credit: Nicole Hill/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Since its introduction in the 1970s, Dungeons & Dragons has become one of the most influential tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) in popular culture, featuring heavily in Stranger Things, for example, and spawning a blockbuster movie released last year. Over the last decade or so, researchers have turned their focus more heavily to the ways in which D&D and other TRPGs can help people with autism form healthy social connections, in part because the gaming environment offers clear rules around social interactions. According to the authors of a new paper published in the journal Autism, D&D helped boost players' confidence with autism, giving them a strong sense of kinship or belonging, among other benefits.

“There are many myths and misconceptions about autism, with some of the biggest suggesting that those with it aren’t socially motivated, or don’t have any imagination," said co-author Gray Atherton, a psychologist at the University of Plymouth. "Dungeons & Dragons goes against all that, centering around working together in a team, all of which takes place in a completely imaginary environment. Those taking part in our study saw the game as a breath of fresh air, a chance to take on a different persona and share experiences outside of an often challenging reality. That sense of escapism made them feel incredibly comfortable, and many of them said they were now trying to apply aspects of it in their daily lives.”

Prior research has shown that autistic people are more likely to feel lonely, have smaller social networks, and often experience anxiety in social settings. Their desire for social connection leads many to "mask" their neurodivergent traits in public for fear of being rejected as a result of social gaffes. "I think every autistic person has had multiple instances of social rejection and loss of relationships," one of the study participants said when Atherton et al. interviewed them about their experiences. "You've done something wrong. You don't know what it is. They don't tell you, and you find out when you've been just, you know, left shunned in relationships, left out.... It's traumatic."

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Accenture has expanded its partnership with Unilever to simplify its digital core and apply generative AI to drive efficiencies and improved business agility.

Hein Schumacher CEO, Unilever, says: “We have already introduced 500 AI applications across Unilever, helping us to reach new levels of efficiency. But as AI matures and becomes increasingly intelligent and intuitive, we see so much more potential.”

“Now, as part of our action plan to deliver faster growth, drive productivity, and dial up performance, we’re going deeper. With the help of Accenture’s world class tools and capabilities, we will be able to analyse where and how AI can have the highest transformational impact and deliver the greatest returns.”

Unilever will look to leverage Accenture’s GenWizard platform to accelerate its technology and digital product development. The Gen AI platform has more than 350 patents and ready to apply tools and frameworks.

Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO, Accenture, says: “This next exciting chapter in our decades long collaboration with Unilever will raise the bar on how enterprises can scale Gen AI to power productivity and value at speed.”

“Our GenWizard platform will enable Unilever to create a full spectrum of targeted Gen AI solutions across its business that can realise efficiencies and cost savings, uncover new ways of working and ultimately help drive competitive advantage.”

2024 RTIH INNOVATION AWARDS

Gen AI is a key focus area for the sixth edition of the RTIH Innovation Awards, which is now open for entries.

The awards, sponsored by CADS, 3D Cloud, Retail Technology Show 2025, and Business France, celebrate global tech innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

It’s free to enter and you can do so across multiple categories.

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.

Microsoft is holding a OneDrive digital event on October 8th that will cover the “latest innovations in AI across Microsoft 365 and OneDrive.” It’s the second annual event after Microsoft held a similar stream last year to introduce a big new design update for the cloud storage service, AI Copilot integration, and lots more.

This year, Microsoft is promising to announce “what’s coming for Copilot in OneDrive,” alongside enhancements to the OneDrive mobile app and an “improved photos experience.” The event will also cover OneDrive features across work and personal accounts.

The OneDrive digital event will be hosted on Microsoft Teams and will include the ability to ask the OneDrive product team questions about the cloud storage service....

Continue reading…

Hanlon's Razor is the adage: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Or sometimes, "Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence."

It appears in a similar form by the inimitable Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as, "And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence," in The Sorrows of Young Werther. The same sentiments are also shared by William James, Churchill, and H.G. Wells. More recently, Douglas Hubbard gave a more modern version in his book The Failure of Risk Management: Why It's Broken and How to Fix It: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity that which can be explained by moderately rational individuals following incentives in a complex system."

The mistake of assuming bad intentions was brought home to me when puzzling why people kept leaving paper towels in the sinks of the bathrooms at university. How hard is it to put them in the bin?? A year after assuming my fellow students were either lazy or inconsiderate or both, I was washing my hands when another student dried his hands on the towel, walked to the door, opened it by covering the handle with the paper towel — presumably to avoid the germs — and then aimed his paper towel at the bin which was between the sinks. He missed, and it landed in the sink as he walked off down the corridor. Suddenly, it was clear to me that the hygiene of the door handle was higher in consideration of towel-in-the-sink people than whether or not their towel hit their target (and whether it was worth checking if their towel had hit the bin). It made sense. Someone later moved the bin next to the door, and it didn't happen again.

Besides towels in sinks, I've seen people get mad at others pushing in line when the pushers-in didn't realise other people were queuing. I've seen drivers shouting at another driver who's in blissful ignorance of the trouble they've caused. I've seen agents blamed for terrible customer service when the system is at fault, and customer service blame users when the product is at fault. I've seen people despairing at others leaving litter in the park or on the street when animals had dragged out the mess overnight. I've seen people vilified for not moving down on a train when they weren't aware of the squeeze at the other end. And, usually, I think people aren't smart or capable enough, or in fact wicked enough, to carry out the conspiracies that people credit them for. Very often it's the person assuming bad intentions and getting mad who suffers the most.

To be sure, there are different degrees of negligence. We can all make mistakes, but if you're doing your taxes, it's not okay to make a mistake because you didn't read the instructions. If you're standing on a busy train, you owe it to others to be aware that you may be blocking an aisle, and we should do our best to make sure our rubbish stays where we put it. But none of us are perfect and so often I think Hanlon's Razor has some truth to it.

Perhaps a better formulation of Hanlon's Razor would be, "Before attributing to malice, try attributing to incompetence." But I'm not a fan of the wording with 'stupidity' or 'incompetence'. Awareness is so often the necessary start and what's missing.

Since posting this a few people also shared with me, Clarke's Corollary: "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." And another relevant name for a similar situation is Cock-up Over Conspiracy.

Hanlon's Razor, which encourages us first to consider innocent mistakes rather than assuming ill will, was a submission to Murphy's Law, book two: more reasons why things go wrong, by Arthur Bloch (p52). Murphy's Law is "If anything can go wrong, it will." I've also previously covered Muphry's Law, where, when criticising spelling or grammar, you will make a spelling or grammar mistake yourself.

Also see:

• Fundamental Attribution Error (someone shared Hanlon's Razor with me on posting this)
• Attribution bias
• Self-serving bias

More conjectures and thinking named after people:

• Chesterton's fence
• Russell's teapot
• Bloom's taxonomy
• Maslow's hierarchy
• Muphry's Law
• The Peter Principle
• The Generalised Peter Principle
• Hofstadter's Law

Sometimes, simple things can make a world of difference. Take for example a non-verbal person who can’t necessarily control a touch screen in order to tell someone else what they need or want or think.

This is where Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices come in. Recently tasked with building such a device, [Thornhill!] came up with a great design that houses 160 different phrases in a fairly small package and runs on CircuitPython.

Basically, the client presses the appropriate snap-dome button button and the corresponding phrase is spoken through the speaker. The 10×16 grid of buttons is covered with a membrane that both feels nice and gives a bit of protection from spills.

The buttons can achieve high actuation forces and have a crisp tactile response, which means they’re probably gonna go a long way to keep the user from getting frustrated.

This handy AAC board is built on the Adafruit RP2040 Prop-Maker Feather and two keypad matrices. If this weren’t useful enough as it is, [Thornhill!] also built an even smaller version with 16 buttons for the client to wear around their neck.

Did you know? AAC boards aren’t just for humans.

Today I want to get back to writing a post about VR startup life and personal development, an article more similar to what you usually find in a personal blog. In particular, I want to talk about a strategy I’ve recently applied to plan my days better and align what I’m doing with what I want to obtain in my VR career. I’ve been using this strategy for a few weeks now and I’m seeing very positive results, so I’m sharing it with you.

So what is this mysterious secret strategy I’m talking about? Well, actually, nothing that is rocket science, but a principle so simple that it may seem obvious: “Decide what you want to obtain in your work life and align all your choices according to it”. I know, after the initial tease, you were expecting some incredible revelation, or a sign coming directly from above, but trust me when I say that this simple sentence is much more powerful than you think.

It all starts by deciding what you want to do in your work life in the next 3-5 years. What is your goal? What is your mission? What drives you to wake up every day and go to work? Where do you want to arrive? This on its own, is a very difficult task to do: some people have a clear idea of what they want to become, others are just working on autopilot. But it’s not only important, it is SUPER important to have a goal, to have a destination, and to know where you want to be, otherwise, it would be like being in a car and not knowing where are you heading. How can you know if you are on the right path if you don’t know which one is your destination?

via GIPHY

I know you are always busy, but it’s overly important you stop for a moment and think about this. Dedicate a few hours to find your goal, which should be something that you like doing, and also give you enough money to sustain yourself. Remember that there are no right or wrong answers, there are only YOUR answers. Even an answer like “I just want to do my 8-5 VR development job every day and have no career advancement and focus on enjoying the time with my family” is perfectly fine. Don’t be fooled by the hustle culture or the “LinkedIn influencers” that say that everyone should be the CEO of a unicorn, just think about where YOU personally want to arrive in a few years. Of course, the goal should be stimulating for you, something that gives you enthusiasm so I still suggest you be ambitious: no one wakes up motivated in the morning by the long-term goal of being the average potato frier at McDonald’s. You may want to be a famous XR Youtuber, an XR CTO, the best XR stand-up comedian, an XR artist at Ubisoft, the champion of XR potato frying (this is my goal), whatever you want.

After you have your destination, the usual suggestion is to go backward in calculating the path you need to get there. So for instance, to be an XR CTO you need first to become an XR developer, have some experience in a few companies, study code architecture, get knowledge about a few different technologies, etc…

After you have this rough plan, the important things you have to do is: stick with it, and verify you are advancing towards it every day. These are the two things that I’ve started to do more frequently in the last weeks and that are bringing me good results.

One of the most difficult things is sticking with the plan because it means being very focused on what you want to become and making it your priority, ignoring other opportunities you may find down the line. Everything in your working life should align with your goal or be rejected if it can slow down the path toward your goal. This is a hard part because it means letting go of interesting opportunities.

via GIPHY

So if your goal is to become a super-famous VR YouTuber and someone offers you a good job as a developer, theoretically you should decline it, which also means giving up on thousands of dollars. I said “theoretically” because real life is much more nuanced than a simple statement can be. For instance, you may have in your plan to be a developer and do your first YouTube videos in the evening or during the weekends. If this was part of the plan, you should get the job. Or maybe the development gig is a part-time one, and you can make it fit your schedule as a YouTuber and earn extra money. Different cases lead to different outcomes.

Life is not all black and white, so probably it is better to talk about “priorities” than about a hard yes/no switch. You must make your main goals the top priority of your working life, with the rest coming after it. If you want to become a VR Youtuber, that should be the priority and all the other opportunities should be secondary of it. For every activity that is proposed to you, you should ask yourself: does it align with my goal of becoming a VR Youtuber? If it does not help you directly, can it help indirectly (e.g. providing money or connections)? And if it does not help at all, can you do it anyway because it does not steal resources from that main goal? Are there any factors for which you would need to do it anyway (e.g. the activity would be helpful for a close friend)? Keeping in mind your priorities helps you in deciding what you want to do.

This also trickles down on how you organize your weeks and your days: when you do your daily and weekly planning, you should allocate first the time dedicated to the tasks of your priority goals, assigning to them all the time that they need, and then assign the remaining time to the other activities, until you fill all your working time. And if an activity does not fit in your schedule, that’s fine: it is not a priority one, you can let it go. Basically, every decision you take should be made in a way consistent with your goals. Will this make you lose some opportunities? Yes. Will this disappoint someone who hoped to count on your help with something? Absolutely. But you have only one life and you should be satisfied with it. Your priority is being happy yourself, not not-disappointing the others.

Of course, plans should be changed and reassessed once in a while. Nothing goes exactly as planned, so every few weeks, you should see if your plan is going as expected and re-plan if needed (usually it is needed). Sometimes you may even realize that you have changed in the meantime and you have now different priorities in life (this happens for instance when people have children) and this means you may change your destination goals. Or you may change your goals because you have reached the current ones, or because you realized there is no chance you can obtain what you hoped for (e.g. the goal was overly ambitious): giving up can sometimes be the wise thing to do instead of keeping stubbornly going for the same route and keeping failing. Or an unexpected opportunity may come: maybe your goal is becoming a Youtuber when Mark Zuckerberg sends you an email and asks you to become an executive of Meta and support him in his quest on the harvestingdataverse for a gazillion dollars a year: in this case, it is wise to get the opportunity, because it is something that happens once in a lifetime.

via GIPHY

The last point that I want to suggest and that has been a good addition to my daily routine is: to ask yourself frequently what you are doing to fulfill your goals. Every week, in my weekly planning, I put the tasks that put me closer to my goals in a different color and I give them priority. And every day, in my morning routine, I now ask myself what I will do during the day to become what I want to be. I’m not gonna lie, doing that every day sounds stupid… a lot of mornings, I just answer myself “Yeah, I’m doing this VR thing that I did also yesterday and the day before”. But asking it every day like a mantra helps me keep committed, and helps me in questioning if I’m really working towards my goals: because if in two consecutive days, I answer “no today I’m not doing anything that fits my priorities” then I realize that something is wrong with my planning. That is also a good moment to assess if the direction that I’m following is the correct one and evaluate if my recent progress has been good.

It is a bit like when you want to lose weight and you go on a scale every day. It is good because this action reminds you that your goal is losing weight and then checking your weight frequently, you can notice if you are doing well (and so keep doing what you are doing) or going bad (and so fixing your bad behavior). If you weigh yourself once a month, I’m pretty sure you won’t obtain many results.

These simple rules I just told you are actually helping me a lot in my VR career. I’m not trying anymore to do everything in VR and I feel less “guilty” when I reject a proposal that doesn’t fit my current goals (of course I always do that in the kindest way possible). I feel I’m behaving more coherently and I’m more “aggressive” and consistent in my efforts. Also sometimes during the daily assessment time, I have new ideas on things I can do during the day to get closer to my goals.

And I’m seeing the results of this: I believe I’m advancing my career much better than before. And even for some small goals I set for myself, like meeting Palmer Luckey at AWE, this fact of doing everything I could to make it happen, in the end, made me obtain what I wanted. That’s what made me write this article: I’ve found this strategy is working for me and I wanted to suggest it to you, too.

And if you try to apply it, of course, let me know how you feel doing it. Good luck with your VR career!

The post The importance of aligning everything you do in your VR career to your goals appeared first on The Ghost Howls.

Just think; you are in the kitchen and are working on a recipe, and you simply say, ‘hello assistant, kindly add ten packets of milk to my cart,’ and it is done for you. Or, you are getting back from work, and you ask the assistant to reorder your favourite food – that’s what voice commerce is all about. Digital shopping has come a long way from when we browsed on desktops to now, where we can shop hands-free.

According to Datam Intelligence, the global voice commerce market had grown to US$108.33 billion in 2024 and was projected to continue growing at a CAGR of 27.28% until 2031.

In May 2023, Amazon confirmed it had sold over 500 million Alexas since the device was launched about a decade ago. So, with more individuals turning to these devices, what does the future hold for conversational commerce?

The power of customer engagement

Customer engagement has always been the heartbeat of online shopping. For instance, in the casino industry, providers have been evolving to include online platforms where players can participate in games from any place.

And, if you have been keeping a close watch on this industry, you must have noticed games like live casino games where players can participate with live dealers in real-time from any place. The whole idea is usually bettering customer engagement.

By using voice data and analytics, businesses can extract meaningful insights into user preferences and, thus, provide more personalised experiences. Especially now that over 91% of customers will likely shop at a business that customises, tailoring your experiences to fit customer needs can be a great way to differentiate yourself from the crowded market.

Referencing to the example we gave - the casino industry - game providers can integrate AI voice assistants to cater to individual preferences. This could be in the form of adjusting game music to their preferences, recommending games or just conversing naturally.

More and more online businesses are also likely to incorporate this technology into their payment methods as it eliminates the need to enter your details manually; you only need to give a voice command.

Plus, using voice commands to pay can be quite fast compared to traditional methods of payment, and if you have a disability, this technology can make online shopping more accessible. On top of this, your voice can be used as a biometric for security authentication, strengthening your security.

Why are more people turning to it, and what will the future be like?

Just recently, in mid-2024, a Data Intelligence report showed that North America dominated the voice commerce market while Asia-Pacific businesses welcomed this technology significantly. As if that is not enough,

Bazaarvoice added that of all the Google searches, voice searches accounted for 20%. In this report that was published in July 2023, 62% of smart speaker users confirmed that they would purchase their speakers in the succeeding month.

Among the many reasons why this industry’s global market share is increasing is that voice assistants have been widely accepted among all age groups.

Most smartphones will have this technology pre-installed, which makes it more accessible to a larger audience of users. In most cases, users will find it valuable as it allows them to conveniently play music, access information and control smart home devices.

Conversation commerce best strategies

Voice commerce uses artificial intelligence, natural language processing (NLP) and other machine learning algorithms to interpret user queries accurately.

And good enough, the algorithms are such that they can continuously learn how users interact. NLP, for instance, can decode nuances of language such as sentiment and content and help virtual assistants engage users more meaningfully.

And since most of these voice assistants are directly linked to search engines, you want to ensure that the products you sell have relevant keywords that are more likely to feature in voice searches. You may want to consider using long-tail or full-sentence keywords mostly.

If voice assistants can easily understand your content, and if you provide the necessary information that customers are looking for, then you can ensure that customers have a great experience.

You can also enhance the customer experience by allowing them to find support through voice-assisted chatbots. And with all this in place, you also want to ensure you have a way to measure your voice commerce results.

These metrics could include but are not limited to the number of searches, purchases and requests. Such information can help you determine whether or not your voice commerce efforts are helping you meet your company goals.

It’s without a shadow of a doubt that voice commerce has a bright future. Offering a more convenient way to shop, this technology will definitely affect our purchase behaviours in the coming days.

On top of that, rapid technological advancements in different regions like North America will continue to offer a conducive environment for the further spread of technology.

Enlarge / There are different types of Space Marines. Some of them are traitors. All of them weigh as much as a Fiat 500.

If you had given me, at age 15 or so, a game in which you can fight seemingly hundreds of Tyranid bugs at once with two friends, alternately blasting them with bolt rifles or pulverizing them with a chainsword, then finishing the biggest of them by ripping off one of his claws and shoving it through his head, all of it happening to the sounds of action-movie orchestration and dialogue about stoic duty, would I have had any complaints?

No, I would not. But we're spoiled for choice now. How much you enjoy Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 (for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation and releasing on September 9) will depend on your ability to tap into the deep basement of your kill-'em-all mentality and fantasy lore engagement. You can enjoy it somewhat ironically, which I did at times, especially when playing co-op with friends who told me that they did not like the game's aesthetics at all. But strip away the grimdark trappings of zealotry, Chaos Marines, and skulls—so, so many skulls—and you have a competent, sometimes innovative third-person squad shooter. It feels like Gears of War, minus the cover, but with heavier characters, more melee combat, and somehow even fewer women.

Getting the most out of Space Marine 2 means suspending disbelief, feeling heavy metal, and wanting to kill a whole bunch of things with some very big dudes. In roughly a dozen hours of gameplay, I found the core gameplay loop relatively engaging, with enough mix-ups, upgrades, and challenges to keep it feeling more like the fun kind of endless war, not the real kind. It's pretty enjoyable to team up with friends, too, so long as they're cool with Warhammer 40K's vibes and some occasionally repetitive challenges.

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Enlarge

Wars of necessity spawn weapons innovation as each side tries to counter the other's tactics and punch through defenses. For instance—as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made drone warfare real, both sides have developed ways to bring down drones more easily. One recent Ukrainian innovation has been building counter-drone ramming drones that literally knock Russian drones from the sky.

In the case of the trench warfare that currently dominates the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainians have another new tactic: dragon's fire. Delivered by drone.

Videos have begun to circulate on Telegram and X this week from Ukrainian units showing their new weapon. (You can see three of them below.) The videos each show a drone moving deliberately along a trench line as it releases a continuous stream of incendiary material, which often starts fires on the ground below (and ignites nearby ammunition).

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If you’ve been reading Hackaday for awhile, you’ll know we’re big fans of OpenSCAD around these parts. There’s a number of reasons it’s a tool we often reach for, but certainly one of the most important ones is its parametric nature. Since you’re already describing the object you want to generate with code and variables, it’s easy to do things like generate an arbitrary number of cloned objects by using a for loop.

There are a number of fantastic OpenSCAD libraries that explore this blurred line between code and physical objects, and one that recently caught our eye is scadqr from [xypwn]. The description says it lets you “Effortlessly generate QR codes directly in OpenSCAD”, and after playing around with it for a bit, we have to agree.

How effortlessly are we talking about? Take a look:

Yeah, that’s pretty damn easy. Even better, there’s no alphabet soup of libraries or APIs going on behind the scenes here. It’s just a single file you include in your OpenSCAD script. In fact, you don’t even need to go that far. As [xypwn] explains, the source for the library itself is just the one file, so you could just copy its code right into your project if you didn’t want to have to pull it in as an include. That could be especially handy if you’re deploying this code somewhere that doesn’t let you pull in external files, like Thingiverse’s Customizer.

Now, there’s all sorts of reasons you might want to create a QR code from within OpenSCAD. But one of first ones that popped into our heads is for the purposes of part identification. Forget simple version numbers, this library would let you physically embed all sorts of ancillary data into your printed components, like who rendered them and at what time. Or perhaps each printed part in an assembly could have a unique QR code that pointed to its respective page in your online documentation.

Got any interesting ideas? Let us know in the comments.

Les technologies de réalité virtuelle (VR) et augmentée (AR) modifient la perception des distances. Une étude récente de l'Université de Toronto révèle des effets surprenants et potentiellement risqués pour les utilisateurs de ces technologies.

Réalité virtuelle, dangereux pour la perception des distances

L'étude montre que la VR et l'AR altèrent temporairement les perceptions et mouvements des utilisateurs. Les participants en VR n'atteignaient souvent pas leurs objectifs en ne se déplaçant pas assez loin. À l'inverse, ceux en AR allaient trop loin et dépassent souvent leurs objectifs. Ces changements se manifestaient immédiatement après l'utilisation des technologies, mais les effets s'atténuaient progressivement en revenant aux conditions réelles.

Les chercheurs ont constaté une différence marquée entre VR et AR. Les effets de l'AR disparaissaient plus rapidement avec les utilisateurs se réadaptant plus vite aux réalités physiques. Cela pourrait s'expliquer par le fait que l'AR permet toujours de voir et d'interagir avec le monde réel. Ainsi, les utilisateurs gardent une perception plus précise de la profondeur et des distances. Cette découverte souligne un défi crucial pour les industries qui intègrent ces technologies dans leurs formations.

Une adaptation inégale entre VR et AR

L'équipe de recherche a exploré l'impact des environnements numériques sur les capacités physiques dans le monde réel. Xiaoye Michael Wang, chercheur associé à l'étude, a expliqué que les technologies de réalité mixte affectent la précision des mouvements après utilisation. Les résultats suggèrent que l'adaptation du cerveau et du corps à ces environnements numériques influence les interactions physiques une fois de retour dans le monde réel.

Tim Welsh, professeur et co-auteur de l'étude, a souligné l'importance de ces résultats pour les formations utilisant VR et AR. Ils mettent en lumière un défi potentiel dans le transfert des compétences acquises en réalité virtuelle vers des applications réelles. Les industries adoptent de plus en plus ces technologies pour former des professionnels, comme les chirurgiens ou les pilotes. Certes, il faut comprendre leurs limites pour assurer des performances optimales dans des situations réelles.

Des implications majeures pour la formation professionnelle

Ces découvertes posent des questions cruciales sur l'efficacité et la sécurité des technologies de réalité mixte. Les chercheurs insistent sur l'importance d'une meilleure compréhension des effets secondaires de la VR et de l'AR. Cela permettrait de maximiser leur potentiel tout en minimisant les risques pour les utilisateurs. Par exemple, dans des domaines critiques comme la chirurgie ou la conduite, une perception erronée des distances pourrait avoir des conséquences graves.

L'équipe souhaite maintenant explorer comment différents types d'expériences immersives influencent les performances réelles. Ils comptent également étudier l'impact de la durée de l'entraînement et des différences individuelles, telles que l'expérience antérieure avec ces technologies. Ces recherches pourraient mener à des améliorations dans la conception des systèmes de VR et AR. Ceci en réduisant les effets secondaires et en optimisant leur utilisation pour le développement des compétences.

Cette étude révèle des effets inattendus des technologies de réalité mixte. Cela souligne la nécessité d'une approche prudente dans leur déploiement. Les découvertes pourraient guider les futures adaptations de la VR et de l'AR et ainsi garantir l'enrichissent des compétences des utilisateurs sans compromettre leur sécurité.

Cet article Réalité virtuelle et augmentée : danger caché pour vos perceptions est apparu en premier sur OBJETCONNECTE.COM.