Adam Goetz
577 Flips | 1 Magazine | 2 Likes | 7 Following | 19 Followers | @alfgoetz | Keep up with Adam Goetz on Flipboard, a place to see the stories, photos, and updates that matter to you. Flipboard creates a personalized magazine full of everything, from world news to life’s great moments. Download Flipboard for free and search for “Adam Goetz”
Holograms, campfire horror stories, and OK Go: the best VR and AR from the Tribeca Film Festival
Virtual reality hasn’t changed the world the way its creators hoped — at least, not yet. But it’s gotten a lot of traction in a slightly unexpected place: film festivals. At last month’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, curators featured nearly three dozen virtual and augmented reality …
This VR project shows us how animals see the world
London-based design studio Marshmallow Laser Feast is using VR to let us reconnect with nature. With headsets, you can see a forest through the eyes of different animals and experience the sensations they feel. Creative Director Ersinhan Ersin took the stage at TNW Conference last week to show us …
How to hear (and delete) every conversation your Amazon Alexa has recorded
Digital assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant are designed to learn more about you as they listen, and part of doing so is to record conversations you’ve had with them to learn your tone of voice, prompts, and requests. Recently, this feature-not-a-bug has landed Amazon in a string of …
Researchers teach AI to think like dogs and find out what they know about the world
They say AI trained on dog behavior could be useful for teaching robots<p>What can artificial intelligence learn from dogs? Quite a lot, say researchers from the University of Washington and Allen Institute for AI. They recently trained neural networks to interpret and predict the behavior of canines. …
Alphabet will start Toronto smart city project this summer. Residents still have questions.
Toronto’s about to get the “world’s first neighborhood built from the internet-up,” according to the company behind the project. Residents, though, …
The first luxury hotel in space shows affordable space tourism is still a long way off
Space tourism is no longer a distant dream: multiple companies want to be the first to get tourists off the ground for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. …
Space TravelA guide to Westworld’s viral marketing, for fans who don’t want to translate binary code
Secrets and revelations from the websites of Delos, Inc.<p>The second season of <i>Westworld</i> premiered on April 22nd, and to promote the show, HBO has leaned into the series’ puzzle-box sensibilities by burying clues, Easter eggs, and sneak peeks in an avalanche of viral marketing. Over the last few …
Microsoft will streamline Skype call recording with new Content Creator mode
Added for the convenience of streamers, vloggers, and podcasters<p>Skype is finally getting a call recording feature, only 15 years after it was first released. It should be noted that Skype isn’t building its own recording software but relying on third-party apps, including Xsplit, Wirecast, and …
Disney’s Avatar park will soon feature a giant walking mech suit
Meet the Pandora Utility Suit<p>Disney opened its impressive, immersive Pandora: The World of Avatar park last year, allowing visitors to go to go and experience the world of James Cameron’s 2009 film <i>Avatar</i>. Disney announced that it’s making a rather cool addition to the the park: a towering, walking …
Snapchat introduces Mentions and Group Video Calls
Snapchat today announced it was bringing two new features to the app which boost its credibility as a social experience: Group Video Calls and Mentions.<p>Group Video Calls function about the way you’d expect. When you’re part of a group, you tap the video icon to start a video call. Everyone in the …
The Intros to Friends, Fresh Prince and More Are Reborn as 8-Bit Animations for Ready Player One
If you thought Charlie Sheen was a blockhead on Two and a Half Men, just wait until you see his pixelated persona in Warner Bros. TV’ 8-bit …
How an Acronym You’ve Probably Never Heard of Will Change TV Advertising Forever
For years, brands have salivated over the prospect of fusing the best aspects of digital marketing with the tried-and-true canvas of linear …
Watch Our 360/VR Documentary 'Living With Jaguars' on Saving the Wild Cats of Brazil
We took VR cameras to the Brazilian Pantanal, which is home to one of the highest densities of wild jaguars in the world.<p><i>Join us at the TIFF Bell Lightbox at 350 King Street West in Toronto to experience 'Living With Jaguars' in full room-scale virtual reality. Showtimes are April 6-8 from …
Adobe brings more of its AI smarts to its video tools
Right in time for NAB, Adobe today announced the latest updates to its Premiere CC and After Effects CC video editing and motion graphics tools. The general theme of this release is the introduction of two new AI-powered tools that will make the life of editors easier, as well as a variety of small …
Google Search just made it easier to pick a movie to watch
Google is adding a small but useful update to its mobile search app that should make it easier to plan a night out to the movies.<p>A new comparison tool lets you quickly see IMDB, Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes scores, as well as a description and showtimes. The movies are listed in a horizontal …
HTC is looking for a savior in VR, but it won’t find it
Times are certainly tight at HTC, but their plays in the consumer VR market are starting to look like Hail Marys.<p>The company’s central VR platform play, their Viveport subscription product, is regarded by a lot of people I’ve talked to as little more than bloatware, while their newest product, the …
Square's Cash App launches in the UK
Square’s Venmo-competitor, the Cash App, has launched in the UK, bringing peer-to-peer transactions to an already crowded marketplace.<p>The launch incarnation of the app is fairly threadbare. Users can make payments to other users in the UK, and that’s about it. It’s probably more helpful to talk …
NASA grants Lockheed Martin $248M contract to develop a quieter supersonic jet
The Concorde was a generation ago, yet its legend persists — and the dream of supersonic flight may be returning. NASA and Lockheed Martin are taking concrete steps toward the creation of jets that travel faster than the speed of sound but are “about as loud as a car door closing.”<p>NASA announced …
Facebook update shows which of your friends are suckers for fake news
Facebook today announced it was rolling out an update to its News Feed to combat fake news. While the initial purpose of the update appears to be giving users context for the news stories they read. But the update also has a hidden second purpose: Showing you which of your friends are sharing bogus …
Apple steals Google’s AI chief
Apple has just poached one of Google’s top AI executives in a move likely to have far-reaching consequences.<p>Apple has hired John Giannandrea, previously Google’s head of AI and Search, The New York Times reports. Giannandrea will lead Apple’s “machine learning and A.I. strategy,” the Cupertino …
‘Deadpool’ Is Giving You A Chance To Own His Custom Pink Suit To Aid LetsFCancer
Image via Omaze<p><b>‘Deadpool’ has teamed up</b> with charity fundraising platform Omaze to do more good in the world, that is, help nonprofit organization …
Twitter Gets Into the MLB Livestreaming Ballgame for 2018
Major League Baseball’s package of 25 weekday-afternoon games available exclusively via Facebook Watch starts Wednesday afternoon (weather …
MIT’s new headset reads the ‘words in your head’
There’s always been a glaring issue with voice computing: Talking to a voice assistant with other people around makes you feel like a bit of a weirdo. It’s a big part of the reason we’ve been seeing the technology start to take off in the home, where people feel a little less self-conscious talking …
Massterly aims to be the first full-service autonomous marine shipping company
Logistics may not be the most exciting application of autonomous vehicles, but it’s definitely one of the most important. And the marine shipping industry — one of the oldest industries in the world, you can imagine — is ready for it. Or at least two major Norwegian shipping companies are: they’re …
These tech ads from back in the day show how far we have (and haven't) come
A digital artist is compiling old computer ads into a compendium that singlehandedly reminds us how far technology has come in just a few short decades.<p>The ads come from <i>Byte Magazine</i>, which ran from 1975 to 1998. It might be but a distant memory of a bygone age, but back in its day, <i>Byte</i> was a big …
Facebook’s First Exclusive Stream of a Major League Baseball Game Gets Mixed Reviews
Facebook continued to prove it’s more than just a social platform with Wednesday’s broadcast of a Major League Baseball game. The match-up between …
BaseballFetch adds two new robots to its warehouse automation army
Fetch Robotics capped off 2017 with a $25 million Series B, bringing its total up to $48 million. It’s clear that investors are taken with the San Jose-based automation company. By most accounts, increasingly automated warehouses are undergoing a staffing crunch, and Fetch offers the promise of …
Instacart raises another $150 million
Instacart, the grocery delivery startup that has a partnership of sorts with Whole Foods, is raising $150 million in funding, Axios first reported. This is on top of Instacart’s $200 million raise at a $4.2 billion valuation in February.<p>Instacart has since confirmed the raise, bringing its total …
This Salad Was Grown in Antarctica
A new German greenhouse has its first harvest on the icy continent.<p>The salad you’re looking at above was grown in Antarctica, the first from a new greenhouse on Earth’s least hospitable continent.<p>Scientists at Germany’s DLR Institute of Space Systems were successfully able to grow eight pounds of …
Virgin Galactic successfully tested its rocket-powered spacecraft today for the first time since 2014
Virgin Galactic took to the skies today for the first test of its rocket-powered spacecraft in over three years. The SpaceShipTwo launch platform deployed the <i>VSS Unity</i> at a set altitude where the space craft will fire its engines for as long as 30 seconds bringing the craft to 1 1/2 the speed of …