I actually can't imagine what it will do for video gaming. Maybe enhancing cut-scenes, but then why can't they just do the performance and rendering using the gaming engine in realtime?
Perhaps AI will help with procedural generation of environmental details within a pre-built game world. This way the AI isn't burdened with generating the whole scene, but only the clutter of objects and textures - things that usually take a long time to build by hand.
For example in Train or Truck Simulators, I see examples where someone has put effort into making that farmhouse in the distance nicely detailed, but other times it's just a simple structure. If AI were tasked with "distant details", the whole game could look more polished.
The photo app redesign looks great on paper, but is terrible in practice.
Watching videos in full screen, with audio on, and without controls overlay (I hope I am not asking too much!) requires multiple taps and several frustrating attempts every-single-time.
Activity on your shared albums has been relegated to a small text-only link, and you only get to see small photos, and it doesn’t smartly tiles photos together anymore (photos are now randomly chopped to fit in the frame).
The photo app gets badges, but then you don’t know where to find the new activity inside the photo app.
There is no way changes like these were created, tested, and validated by a well-functioning team
Also, watching videos full screen and scrubbing around in the video requires backing out to the smaller view. Then you get to fast forward/rewind. Then you have to tap to watch full screen again. Everything about this experience has gotten worse. I can’t even come up with a use case in which this is an improvement.
While you're technically correct, the parent is more correct. Competitors have to pay normal launch rates. The competitive service needs to include those costs to end users.
Starlink "pays" for launches at cost. While we don't know what SpaceX's cost margins are, they are not trivial. To setup a low orbit constellation is extremely expensive and competitors lose millions per launch that Starlink gets to reinvest.
There's been 136 launches of Falcon 9 for Starlink. ~US$62m per launch? If their margins are 20% that's that's $1.6b in savings. And I bet F9's margins are closer to 50% - supporting Starship and more.
I haven’t decided yet where I stand on this, however…
…As I understand it, the intent of the law is to avoid that large companies book billions of revenues in the country, but then use price-transfer schemes to book the profits somewhere else, and not pay any taxes locally.
The net effect of the law on larger internet companies is probably marginal, but I am not sure the law was designed well enough, so as to avoid collateral damage on smaller internet companies
The way Italy is implementing their own law looks kinda like ultimatum for others to implement minimum corporate tax law. As was agreed, but then never done because China and US are arguing details and everyone knows last one to implement theirs is likely a winner economically.
You can sit around and wait for decades until this might get meaningfully implemented, loopholes get closed and enforcement is strict. Great step by Italy to refuse that and just implement a measure in the meantime. Can always be repealed if indeed things get fixed on a global level.
I agree. Also, especially in the extremely crowded and noisy context - what would have been the chances to have the demo working so well?
In fact, even if the robots worked very well autonomously, you would still have wanted a way to ensure that the demo is successful - the same way Steve Jobs did with the iPhone demo, Larry Ellison did with the Oracle servers demo, etc.
So many stories like that in the history of famous product launches.
The one thing that bothers me a little is that if you look at the robots dancing, they are only moving the upper body; their feet are always on the ground. I would have liked to see them having enough ability to dance and move the legs too… then, again, maybe the gazebo they were in was just too space-constrained, or it was just too risky to do that in the demo - given the crowd, and all the chaotic party context. When you set up a demo, you have to account for the edge cases where your product glitches, not just for what it mostly does very well.
Anyhow, these are all AI issues (as opposed to mechanical ones), and, at the pace AI is evolving, it is not hard to see how these types of issues get ironed out over the time horizon leading to the launch.
The Optimus demo did do a great job at actually making people see a world in which robots just roam around and interact with humans everywhere. .
> these are all AI issues (as opposed to mechanical ones)
Actuation is still a massive problem in humanoid robotics. We have over 650 muscles. A humanoid today can't even approximate that. Sure, a robot might not need that many actuators to be extremely useful. However, to be general enough to be able to interact with any human environment, the number of required actuators will not be trivial.
Add to that gearing, couplings, driver electronics, encoders, thermal management, calibration, noise, maintenance and other per-actuator requirements and the picture quickly becomes overwhelming.
This is an area that is still looking for a significant breakthrough.
- Small, powerful 3-phase servomotors are cheap and easy to obtain. Mass production of drone motors has advanced small motor technology considerably. Tiny motors use to be either toy-grade junk or expensive Swiss precision. That's improved.
- Motors with built-in encoders are, at last, available. Encoders used to be fragile plastic boxes stuck on the end of the motor. Also, thermal sensing inside the motor is common, so you can tell if you're overheating it.
- Permanent magnets are small and powerful, and have such high coercitivity that you don't have to worry about demagnetizing them if you over-drive the motor. The main limit on motor power is cooling. You can way overdrive a motor momentarily, like muscles.
- Motor controllers are now small and cheap, They cost about $1000 per motor two decades ago. The power semiconductors are small. Controllers can be programmed to use very high power levels briefly, monitoring thermal sensors.
It would be nice to have good linear actuators. Linear motors do exist, but never really became a big thing.
I'm totally with you on the evolution of motor tech because of drone and also personal mobility (scooters and hoverboard motors are a steal for what they can handle).
While high torque motors got way cheaper, especially with MIT Cheetah "clones" getting easily available, they're still at least 200-500 a pop (depending on the torque needed for each articulation) from what I could find.
I might not know where to search for the real gems though. Where do you search for cheap powerful servomotors?
It's impressive how well the hardware seems to work now, though the software is still clunky. You can see how well the hardware works under human nervous control in the recent MIT bionic foot https://youtu.be/1tD7qd68i3o?t=36
I agree. Also, especially in the extremely crowded and noisy context - what would have been the chances to have the demo working so well?
In fact, even if the robots worked very well autonomously, you would still have wanted a way to ensure that the demo is successful - the same way Steve Jobs did with the iPhone demo, Larry Ellison did with the Oracle servers demo, etc.
So many stories like that in the history of famous product launches.
The one thing that bothers me a little is that if you look at the robots dancing, they are only moving the upper body; their feet are always on the ground. I would have liked to see them having enough ability to dance and move the legs too… then, again, maybe the gazebo they were in was just too space-constrained, or it was just too risky to do that in the demo - given the crowd, and all the chaotic party context. When you set up a demo, you have to account for the edge cases where your product glitches, not just for what it mostly does very well.
Anyhow, these are all AI issues (as opposed to mechanical ones), and, at the pace AI is evolving, it is not hard to see how these types of issues get ironed out over the time horizon leading to the launch.
The Optimus demo did do a great job at actually making people see a world in which robots just roam around and interact with humans everywhere. .
This is the best review I have ever read on the Apple Vision Pro.
Also, we should probably stop lying to ourselves, and finally admit what we have known in hour hearts for a little while now: Apple is not anymore what it used to be. Reading this makes it clear…
Apple Vision Pro is the modern equivalent of John Sculley’s Apple Newton
My take away from the GP was that it's not so much as an issue with Apple'version of VR but about the state of the technology itself. The hardware today is too bulky and difficult to use as a daily driver.
May be Google was on to something with their glasses and may be some version of electrochromic glass goggles that also works as a display is the answer.
I agree that Apple is not what it used to be. They normally don't go for still evolving tech and swoop in with a better product(and experience) only after the product's viability is established.
Not sure this is really an Apple thing. Basically all the tech companies have released some VR or AR product that either flopped, or was downgraded to a niche industry product.
Remember just a few years ago when Meta was trying to convince us that the metaverse was the future.
Part of Apple's strength is getting into the market at the right time when technology is ready and offering a streamlined, just works experience. Apple Vision Pro is nothing like that and that's why the previous commenter said it's not the usual Apple...
Just a few weeks ago they released new products that actually have a much bigger potential then the Vision Pro for the usecases virgildotcode imagined. I.e. Orion AR. As a person that only knows about it from the presentation/demos it kinda sounded like a crossover of VR headset and Google Glasses
Though I sincerely doubt it will succeed at a wider audience either, even if it's mass market appeal is way higher.
The tech just isn't there yet - we'd need 4-8+k displays per eye with batteries that need to last at least 10 hours for this to become really viable (even if we could probably compromise batteries with a usb-c connection to the laptop for this particular usecase)
Nonetheless, that should strengthen my point - as my comment was a rebuttal Gogachads nonchalant past tense wrt Metas ongoing investment into the metaverse. Metas main goal is still exactly that, ever since their pivot
You can pry my oculus quest 2 from my cold dead hands. But yes, the meta verse isn’t happening. However, they just released a new Eminem beat saber song that is crazy addictive.
Lots of people love exercise.
It can even be a lot of fun to play a game of basketball, soccer, or to dance…
We are all different, and one just has to find a type of exercise that one likes.
Also, being low in fat is great, but it’s not the same as also having a developed muscle structure, strong bones, and performant cardiovascular system.
The answer is that aw jones was the first to use the long short hedging strategy. That is why his fund is called a hedge fund and is considered the first of its kind. Others have used shorting before but he was the first to use the strategy of specifically entering a short position to protect a different long position. Well, he was the first one to officially theorize it and market it, at least. That is why when carol loomis described his fund, she coined the word hedge fund.
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