Microsoft is making your virtual conferences and virtual meetings more fun. At the company’s recent digital conference holoportation was used, which uses 3D capture technology to beam a lifelike image of a person into a virtual scene. Microsoft Mesh is a new mixed reality platform designed to allow geographically distributed teams to meet and collaborate in shared mixed reality sessions through digital avatars. The mixed reality platform Microsoft Mesh is powered by Azure and allows people in different physical locations to join collaborative and shared holographic experiences on many kinds of devices, conduct virtual design sessions, assist others, learn together and host virtual social meetups. 

For instance, architects and engineers could physically walk through a holographic model of a factory floor under construction, seeing how all the pieces of equipment fit together in three dimensions, potentially avoiding costly mistakes.

Even engineering or medical students learning about electric car engines or human anatomy could gather as avatars around a holographic model and remove parts of the engine or peel back muscles to see what’s underneath. 

Image credits: Google Store

While Microsoft  made a grand entry into the virtual world, Google has almost exited it. The search giant’s popular VR product, Cardboards is no longer available. The $20 minimalist VR hardware is not available on Google Store for purchase.  The VR shutdown started in 2019, when Google omitted Daydream support from the Pixel 4 and killed the Daydream VR headset citing that the company hasn’t seen  “the broad consumer or developer adoption we had hoped.”  

Honda Launches Level 3 Self-Driving Car

Image credits: Honda

On Thursday, Honda unveiled the world’s first Level 3 self-driving car in Japan. Honda SENSING Elite is a variation of Honda SENSING, a suite of advanced safety and driver-assistive technologies currently available for Honda vehicles around the world. The name “Elite” represents the outstanding and “elite” technologies included in this latest variation.

One of the “elite” technologies is the “Traffic Jam Pilot” function, an advanced technology qualifying for Level 3 automated driving. Traffic Jam Pilot technology enables the automated driving system to drive the vehicle under certain conditions, instead of the driver, such as when the vehicle is in congested traffic on an expressway. For simulation, the test vehicles were driven on expressways for a total of approximately 1.3 million kilometers 

China Pumps Money Into R&D

On Friday, Chinese Premier Le Keqiang revealed the country’s plan to achieve major technology breakthroughs in the next five years. In his speech addressing China’s 14th 5-year plan, Li emphasised on technologies like quantum computing, AI, cloud computing, chips and DNA banks. China’s ambition to attain AI supremacy while becoming independent of American imports has never been stronger.  Li said China’s research and development spending will increase by more than 7% per year in the next 5-year cycle. China’s spending on R&D climbed 10.3% to 2.44 trillion Chinese yuan ($378 billion) and accounted for 2.4% of GDP in 2020, according to official statistics. With the danger of chip shortage looming large, China’s call to action couldn’t have been timed better.According to a recent report by Stanford, China has even overtaken the US in number of journal citations for AI research. 

IBM Launches Cloud Satellite

This week, IBM announced Cloud Satellite, a hybrid cloud service that is now available on any environment — on any cloud, on premises or at the edge. IBM collaborated with Lumen tech to integrate IBM Cloud Satellite with the Lumen edge platform to enable clients to harness hybrid cloud services in near real-time.

IBM says that Cloud Satellite will usher a secured, unifying layer of cloud services for clients across environments, regardless of where their data resides. “This is essential to help address critical data privacy and data sovereignty requirements. Industries including telecommunications, financial services, healthcare and government can now benefit from reduced latency that comes with analyzing data securely at the edge. Workloads related to online learning, remote work, telehealth services and more can now be delivered with increased efficiency and security with IBM Cloud Satellite. As workloads shift to the edge, IBM Cloud Satellite will help clients deliver low latency, while still enabling them to have the same levels of security, data privacy, interoperability and open standards found in hybrid cloud environments,” said IBM.

AI On AIR

Starting this week, All India Radio (AIR), in association with Vigyan Prasar, will be starting a new radio science series on artificial intelligence (AI). Produced by Madurai AIR, the new science series titled — ‘Ini yavum nunnarive’ (Future is Artificial intelligence) will be broadcasted on AIR every Saturday at 8 PM from March 6th, 2021. 

This new radio series will focus on how artificial intelligence is being used in literature, industrial and social sectors, while addressing its impact on the society. The series will be produced in 19 different Indian languages. They will be broadcasted on more than 121 AIR stations to cover 85% of the country’s geographical area. 

Biden Hires Big Tech Critic

In what can be a major shocker for the big tech, President Biden who has been the favorite of major tech companies during election, has hired Tim Wu who is known for criticising the tech companies for their antitrust practices. Wu even wrote a book in 2018 titled, “The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age.” The hire signals that the White House will continue to pursue a big tech breakup, which got traction during the times of the Trump administration. Companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook and others are currently facing antitrust charges across the both in the US and Europe. . 

The post Big Tech VR Hits And Misses, China’s Renewed AI Ambitions And More In This Week’s Top News appeared first on Analytics India Magazine.