Tech
Is virtual reality the future? Apple’s betting on it, but VR experts say we may not be there yet
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On Monday, Apple unveiled a new product that’s either revolutionary, or very expensive hype, depending on whether you read the company description of the Vision Pro or media reviews of its unveiling.
Launched during the company’s annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino, Calif., the Apple Vision Pro is a wearable headset. The device will be capable of toggling between virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR), which projects digital imagery while users still can see objects in the real world.
It can be used for immersive experiences in everything from work meetings and FaceTime, to photos, movies and apps.
“Today marks the beginning of a new era for computing,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The headset, which Apple says will be available in 2024, won’t be cheap, starting at $3,499 US, or about $4,700 Cdn.
While the Vision Pro was unveiled with some fanfare — it’s Apple’s first major product launch since its Apple Watch nearly a decade ago — investors gave it a lukewarm reception. Analysts warned the cost could be a major deterrent and the VR and AR industries have struggled to take off in the past.
“VR kind of resurfaces every 10 years or so as the big thing,” Alla Sheffer, a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia whose research areas include virtual and augmented reality, told CBC News. “And then it goes away.”
The question on many people’s minds: is this time different?
What’s the difference between VR and AR?
To grasp the technology’s implications, it helps to understand the technology itself. Traditional virtual reality is a computer-generated environment. Typically, a user wears a head-mounted display or headset like ski goggles, Sheffer explained. But instead of looking through those goggles, users see a display.
“You only see the virtual content. You don’t see the outside world,” Sheffer said.
VR also includes capture setups, and software that responds to them: think, for example, of a virtual reality golf game where you’re moving your hands, and that’s captured automatically and translated into a gesture using a virtual golf club.
There are two types of augmented reality, Sheffer said: head-mounted display, and cell phone. With head-mounted display AR, imagine you’re wearing the same ski goggles, but now they’re transparent. You can see what’s in front of you in the physical world, but you can also see what’s on the screen.
Cell phone AR, Sheffer explained, combines what you see on your phone’s camera with virtual elements. Imagine choosing a couch model on a retail website, and seeing it in your living room through your phone’s camera.
“You probably interact with AR a lot and don’t realize it,” said Bree McEwan, an associate professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at the University of Toronto, and the director of the McEwan Mediated Communication Lab.
Pokemon GO, Snapchat, TikTok filters and even Google Maps already utilize AR, McEwan said.
What already exists in this sphere?
The Vision Pro combines both VR and AR in one device, McEwan and Sheffer explained. But Apple is far from the first company to venture into the virtual and augmented worlds.
There are a number of VR headsets already on the market, including Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 and Pro. Its Quest 3 is set to launch later this year, starting at $499 US or about $667 Cdn. That device will feature colour mixed reality, which combines augmented and virtual reality elements, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Meta’s Quest 2 and Quest Pro devices comprised nearly 80 per cent of the 8.8 million virtual reality headsets sold in 2022, according to an estimate by market research firm IDC. Still, Meta has struggled to sell its vision of an immersive “metaverse” of interconnected virtual worlds and expand the market for its devices beyond the niche of the gaming community.
AR has been a trickier market to break into, McEwan said, noting the failure of two products, Microsoft’s HoloLens and Google Glass.
When Snap, the company that owns SnapChat, made AR glasses, “they went nowhere,” Sheffer said.
“AR didn’t take off the way people thought it would,” McEwan said, noting there have been a number of technical issues.
Sheffer said the struggle may come down to a simple issue: “Humans don’t like to wear things on their heads.”
What are the real-world applications?
Right now, the biggest use for VR is games, McEwan said, adding: “Games is a big business.”
It’s also been used effectively for simulators, such as driving and flying simulators, practicing sports, and for training purposes, Sheffer said. “I think there’s a lot of value there.”
Virtual reality is also being utilized in medicine and medical research; to make cancer treatments less stressful, to grant final wishes in palliative care, and to keep surgical skills sharp, to name just a few applications. Some therapists are incorporating the technology into treating phobias and anxiety.
It’s also used for interpersonal skills and public speaking training, McEwan said. Education is another major opportunity, she added. In one of the classes she teaches, McEwan gives students headsets and they do five weeks of classes virtually. It’s a model she started utilizing during COVID, instead of using Zoom.
Screen-based AR is already used in several industries, such as warehousing and manufacturing, Sheffer said, where you can point your camera at an object and a recognition software identifies it.
So, is the future virtual?
McEwan sees a potential future for headsets in the business sphere, and predicts more organizations may start providing them for meetings and training. And if people get comfortable using something in a business setting, that may bleed into the social environment, she said, noting that’s what happened with e-mail and intranet messaging systems.
But while there’s what she calls a “cultural imagination,” for popping a device on your head and appearing in the metaverse, she said we’re not there yet. “The average person is probably not quite ready to jump into VR all of the time.”
Whether or not headsets are going to finally take off is what Sheffer calls “the billion-dollar question.” VR had surges of popularity over the last several decades, but people didn’t want to wear the headsets, she said.
“I think if anyone can make it, it’s Apple,” she continued. “If they can make the headset convenient, and make people want to wear it, then all of the sudden this can go places.”
Tech
Nothing Ear And Nothing Ear (a) Earbuds Are 1st With ChatGPT Integration – Forbes
London-based Nothing Tech has just launched new earbuds, two pairs, in fact. The Nothing Ear and more affordable Nothing Ear (a) have just gone on sale—you can read Forbes contributor Mark Sparrow’s review of both pairs here. And now, the company has announced a cool new feature: and industry-first integration with ChatGPT. It comes with strings, though.
The new earbuds have just been announced and are available to pre-order from nothing.tech now and go on sale from Monday, April 22. If you’re in London, and you want to be among the very first to get the earbuds, you can snap them up in the Nothing Store Soho a little bit sooner, from Saturday, April 20 (click-and-collect is available).
From launch, the company said, “it will enhance its overall user experience with industry-first ChatGPT integrations in its audio and smartphone products.”
Nothing goes on that it wants “to advance consumer tech products’ transition to AI, as well as simplify and enhance the user experience.”
It means users will be able to pinch the earbud to directly speak to ChatGPT to ask questions and hear responses in the earbuds. Nothing is also introducing new elements to Nothing phones, such as widgets which make it easy to talk to ChatGPT on the handsets. Other features include being able to send screenshots directly to ChatGPT and a clipboard shortcut for sending text.
So, what are the catches?
Although the Bluetooth new earbuds will work with any iPhone or Android phone, and there are dedicated Nothing apps for each platform, the ChatGPT integration is more limited for now.
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The earbuds must be paired with a Nothing handset. From today, the feature works with the premium model, the Nothing Phone (2), providing it’s running the latest software. The earlier Nothing Phone (1) and more recent, more affordable model, Nothing Phone (2a) will need to wait for a software update, which Nothing says is “coming soon”.
Also coming in the future is compatibility with earlier Nothing earbuds, that is the Ear (1), Ear (2) and Ear (Stick).
The new earbuds are very keenly priced. Ear costs $149 (£129 in the U.K.), while Ear (a) is $99 (£99 in the U.K.). Both pairs have active noise-cancelling, which is not commonplace at this price point. The more expensive Ear has a wireless charging case and a feature to create a personal sound profile. Both pairs come in black and white finishes, with Nothing’s trademark transparent design in the earbuds and charging case. But the Nothing Ear (a) has an eye-catching extra: a tremendous yellow-finish option.
Tech
U of T Engineering PhD student is working to improve the sustainable treatment of Ontario's drinking water – U of T Engineering News – U of T Engineering News
Growing up in a small neighbourhood in Cameroon, Maeva Che (CivMin PhD student) was aware of challenges of accessing clean drinking water.
“Experiencing that exposure to water issues and challenges with sustainable access to safe drinking water ignited my interest in water treatment,” Che says.
Che’s drive to improve water quality around the globe brought her to the Drinking Water Research Group (DWRG) at University of Toronto’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, where she is researching innovative solutions to address local water issues.
Che is working under the supervision of Professor Ron Hofmann (CivMin), who is a member of the DWRG. Her research focuses on removing unpleasant taste and odour compounds in Ontario’s drinking water by promoting the biodegradation of these compounds through granular activated carbon (GAC) filtration.
The project is supported by a five-year Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Alliance grant called Advanced and Emerging Issues in Drinking Water Treatment.
GAC filtration is a water treatment process that uses granular activated carbon, which is made from organic materials that are high in carbon, such as wood, coal or coconut shells. These materials are heated in the absence of oxygen through a process known as pyrolysis and prompted chemically or physically to produce the activated carbon. The activation enhances the material’s adsorption properties, making it productive to remove contaminants from water.
While GAC filtration is an effective treatment process, its adsorptive capacity is limited. The adsorptive capacity of GAC is expected to become exhausted after about three years in service and drinking water treatment utilities must replace the GAC. Aside from the inconvenience, replacing GAC is costly.
Che is working on alternative ways to remove contaminants using GAC filtration, specifically through biodegradation. When the filtration has been in service for a while, there is the growth of micro-organisms on the GAC, which can be useful for removing contaminants.
“Think of biodegradation as the useful bacteria on the GAC feeding on the contaminants in the water, thereby removing them,” says Che.
“If the GAC has enough good bacteria that is biodegrading the compounds, the GAC may not need to be replaced when its adsorptive capacity becomes exhausted. This can extend the filter’s lifetime, resulting in cost benefits for treatment utilities.”
In other words, biodegradation can potentially enhance the performance of GAC filters.
Che and the DWRG will collaborate with water treatment plants to determine methods that can enhance the biodegradation of taste and odour compounds within their GAC filters.
Currently in its initial phase, the project is taking place alongside the Peterborough Utilities Group’s drinking water treatment plant, where Che is conducting pilot-scale filtration studies with support from the Peterborough Utilities Commission. They plan to extend this research to other partner treatment plants in the future.
Working with various water treatment plants across Ontario, Che will also assess the effectiveness of GAC filters in removing non-traditional taste and odour compounds, which are not commonly monitored.
To achieve this, she’ll evaluate filter performance for two common taste and odour compounds — 2-methylisoborneal and geosmin — and eight additional non-traditional compounds that can cause taste and odour events. This involves collecting GAC and water samples from the plants and conducting lab-scale filtration tests, called minicolumn tests. This test, developed by the DWRG, allows to differentiate between adsorption and biodegradation in GAC filters.
Minicolumn tests provide crucial insights into the performance of the GAC filters in terms of the adsorption and biodegradation of contaminants. To distinguish between these mechanisms, researchers use parallel minicolumns. One minicolumn operates under conditions where the biological activity of micro-organisms is suppressed, which isolates the adsorption process. The second minicolumn operates without biological suppression, allowing both adsorption and biodegradation to occur.
“Many plants are unaware of their filters’ performance for other compounds, aside from the two common ones, that also contribute to taste and odour events in water. Our project, therefore, plays a crucial role in expanding the understanding of this,” Che says.
Project partners include the Ajax Water Supply Plant and the Barrie Surface Water Treatment Plant.
The DWRG is made of approximately 30 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, research managers and associates who collaborate with local, national and international industry and government organizations to address a wide range of projects related to municipal drinking water.
Che credits her experience as a master’s student with the research group as a major factor in her decision to pursue a PhD at the University of Toronto.
“During my master’s degree with the DWRG, I worked on projects that improved drinking water quality, gaining hands-on experience at treatment plants. Seeing the results of my research reinforced my decision to pursue my PhD here,” Che says.
Ultimately, Che hopes to make a significant impact in the field — and the DWRG provides opportunities to achieve this, with a supportive community of researchers and supervisors.
“My goal is to continue researching and developing sustainable solutions for drinking water treatment that benefit communities in need,” she says.
Tech
Huawei's latest flagship smartphone contains no world-shaking silicon surprises – The Register
When Huawei debuted its Mate 60 smartphone in mid-2023, it turned heads around the world after teardown artists found it contained a system-on-chip manufactured by Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) using a 7nm process.
SMIC was thought not to be able to build that sort of thing. So while the Mate 60 didn’t differ markedly from every other modern smartphone, its very existence called into question the effectiveness of US-led efforts to prevent advanced chipmaking tech reach the Middle Kingdom.
Much speculation has therefore concerned what Huawei would deliver next, and this week the world got its answer – in the form of the Pura 70.
Chinese media report that early users of the device have posted details of its innards, naming the SoC as Kirin 9010 with four efficient cores running at 1.55GHz, half a dozen performance cores at 2.18GHz, and a couple of high-performance cores zipping along at 2.30GHz. All cores are Arm v8. A third-party spec sheet suggests it’s a 7nm chip – meaning Chinese chipmakers appear not to have made another unexpected advance.
Early tests suggest it outperforms the Kirin 9000 found in the Mate 60, but independent assessments are yet to emerge. The crowdsourced evaluations currently available are sometimes dubious.
What we can say with confidence is that the Pura 70 has a 6.6-inch OLED display with 120Hz refresh rate and resolution of 2,760 x 1,256. It has 12GB RAM aboard, and buyers can choose from 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of storage.
The three rear-facing cameras on the base models can capture 50, 12, and 13 megapixels apiece.
The Pura range derives from Huawei’s P-Series handsets that stretched from the midrange to the low-end of premium, but are now focussed – pardon the pun – on photography enthusiasts. The device comes on four variants, each priced to match the four editions of Apple’s iPhone 15.
The screen on the high-end “Ultra” model grows to 6.8 inches and 2,844 × 1,260 pixels, with two rear cameras that shoot at 50 megapixels and one at 40. One of the 50MP snappers is retractable, to enhance its zooming powers.
Importantly, all models of the Pura 70 run HarmonyOS 4.2 – Huawei’s not-Android operating system.
China is all-in on HarmonyOS as the nation pursues indigenous alternatives to Western tech. In recent weeks Chinese media and government agencies have noted the growing proliferation of native HarmonyOS apps, trumpeting that developer enthusiasm for the platform means local buyers now have a more patriotic alternative.
That alternative appears to be welcome: after the debut of the Mate 60, analyst firm IDC saw Huawei’s smartphone market share improve by 36.2 percent. ®
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