Tipatat Chennavasin, co-founder of the Venture Reality Fund, the largest VC fund focused on VR and AR, discussed the Current Immersive Media Landscape: Trends and Opportunities. As an investor, Chennavasin cares about sales — what consumers are actually buying. VR is looking for the killer app that will drive adoption. Forty-four VR titles have generated over $1 million in revenue, so the market is looking pretty good to him. “Beat Saber” is the first game to unlock the potential of VR, with over 500 million views on social media in addition to the game’s VR users. Continue reading vETC 2018: The Current Immersive Media Landscape: Trends and Opportunities

The Entertainment Technology Center @ USC hosted its fourth annual virtual conference, “vETC 2018 | The Grand Convergence” June 27-28 at the Technicolor Experience Center in Los Angeles. This year’s program highlighted talks in the artificial intelligence, immersive experience and adaptive production sectors. Thought leaders from the entertainment and service industries presented an insider’s look into the emerging technologies disrupting everything from the creative process to business models and consumer behavior. Videos from the conference are going live for viewing on the ETCenterVideos YouTube channel and include presentations from Microsoft Azure, Technicolor, Equinix, Deluxe, Amazon Web Services, USC School of Cinematic Arts and Viterbi School of Engineering. Watch your daily eblast over the next few weeks for updates highlighting the vETC 2018 videos. Continue reading ETC@USC Posts vETC 2018 Videos on its YouTube Channel

Amazon is boosting content on Twitch by inking exclusive live-streaming deals with media companies and influencers, to better compete with its rival, YouTube. According to sources, Twitch now offers minimum guarantees of up to “a few million dollars a year” plus a piece of future advertising sales and subscription revenue. In return, Amazon demands a minimum number of live-streaming hours per week. Among the deals signed is one with prankster Tanner Braungardt, who has 4 million YouTube subscribers. Continue reading Amazon’s Twitch Inks Live-Streaming Deals to Rival YouTube

Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings is focused on eSports, hosting arena competitions that could boost revenue from its games such as “League of Legends,” importing game titles from abroad, and purchasing the services that stream the games. The company, well known for its WeChat messaging app, is already the world’s largest videogame company by revenue. According to analysts, Tencent dominates China’s $38 billion game market, and recorded an estimated $18 billion in global sales in 2017, about half its total revenue. Continue reading Tencent Plans to Dominate eSports by Owning the Ecosystem

Nvidia unveiled new Turing architecture during a keynote at SIGGRAPH 2018 as well as three new Quadro RTx workstation graphics cards aimed at professionals. Nvidia dubs the Turing architecture as its “greatest leap since the invention of the CUDA GPU in 2006.” The RTx chips are the first to use the company’s ray tracing rendering method, which results in more realistic imagery. Also at SIGGRAPH, Porsche showed off car designs accomplished with Epic Games’ Unreal engine and Nvidia’s RTx chips. Continue reading Nvidia Quadro RTx Chips Offer AI and Real-Time Ray Tracing

Samsung has launched its SmartThings Wifi router to provide consumers with fast, secure home networking and a reliable smart home hub. Currently available in the U.S. for $120 per single unit or $280 for a 3-pack, the new router leverages artificial intelligence for Wi-Fi management and faster speeds — in addition to mesh networking for optimized Wi-Fi coverage. According to Samsung, a single unit covers up to 1,500 square feet; deploying multiple units helps ensure strong signals throughout the home while minimizing dead zones. Continue reading Samsung Tackles Home Networking With SmartThings Router

The Entertainment Technology Center @ USC hosted its fourth annual virtual conference, “vETC 2018 | The Grand Convergence” June 27-28 at the Technicolor Experience Center in Los Angeles. This year’s program highlighted talks in the artificial intelligence, immersive experience and adaptive production sectors. Thought leaders from the entertainment and service industries presented an insider’s look into the emerging technologies disrupting everything from the creative process to business models and consumer behavior. Videos from the conference are going live for viewing on the ETCenterVideos YouTube channel and include presentations from Microsoft Azure, Technicolor, Equinix, Deluxe, Amazon Web Services, USC School of Cinematic Arts and Viterbi School of Engineering. Continue reading ETC@USC Posts vETC 2018 Videos on its YouTube Channel

In January, Facebook debuted Watch Party, an experimental feature that allows shared simultaneous viewing of videos, to a select number of users. Now, the company is opening access of the feature to all groups on the site, in an attempt to make video viewing a social experience. Groups has become an important product for Facebook’s more than 1.4 billion monthly users, and Watch Party is intended to add another compelling reason for users to stick with those who share similar interests. Continue reading Facebook Launches Watch Party for Shared Viewing of Video

Samsung Electronics plans to debut a smartphone, codenamed “Winner,” with a foldable screen early next year, according to sources. The screen measures about 7 inches diagonally and can be folded in half, similar to a wallet. In the folded position, the exterior has cameras on one side and a small display bar on the other. Unfolded, the phone will be almost entirely screen. Samsung’s phone could help spark a comeback in the smartphone market, where sales have dipped 0.3 percent in 2017, the first in the industry’s history, notes IDC. Continue reading Samsung Reportedly Plans to Debut Foldable Phone in 2019

Apple’s latest 15-inch and 13-inch MacBook Pros feature improvements in processor speeds, RAM and internal storage, and allow the user to access Siri with voice commands. The new MacBook Pros also feature a much quieter keyboard. The 15-inch version, with a six-core processor, is estimated to be 70 percent faster than the previous model, and the amount of memory and storage is double the amount of the previous model. It also gave a seal of approval to Blackmagic’s eGPU peripheral, ideal for intensive graphics use. Continue reading Apple Targets Creatives With MacBook Pro Speed, Features

High-bandwidth 5G technology will make our mobile phones, tablets and computers much faster, with even the earliest 5G devices capable of 1 to 5 gigabit per second speeds — 10 to 100 times faster than today’s home broadband networks. We’ll still need the modem or Wi-Fi network for data service, and cable companies plan to upgrade their home services to be able to offer 5G. But Wi-Fi is another story: current routers don’t have enough bandwidth for the high-resolution content that 5G can offer, making its future uncertain. Continue reading Wi-Fi Will Require Enhancements to Keep Up With 5G Tech

European Union Institute researchers, working with the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), created AI-enabled software to scrutinize the privacy policies of 14 major technology companies for violations of the new GDPR. They found that one-third of the clauses were “potentially problematic” or contained “insufficient information,” with 11 percent of the policies’ sentences using “unclear language.” Among the companies examined were Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook. The researchers did not reveal which companies were in violation. Continue reading AI Software Identifies Violations of EU Privacy Regulations

Security solutions provider Quantum Base and England’s Lancaster University have developed a quantum random number generator that could become a major step in combatting cyberattacks. The generator can easily be embedded in electronic devices to provide quantum security for authentication. “We have created a small, low power device that produces pure random numbers,” explains Quantum Base CEO Phillip Speed. “It can be incorporated into any electronic product with little or no incremental cost once volume production is achieved.” Continue reading Team Builds Practical Quantum Random Number Generator

OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research group backed by Elon Musk, stated that its software can beat “teams of five skilled human players” in Valve’s video game “Dota 2.” If verified, the achievement would be a milestone in computer science and a leap beyond other AI researchers working on mastering complex games. IBM’s software mastered chess in the late 1990s, and Alphabet’s DeepMind created software that dominated “Go” in 2016. “Dota 2” is a multiplayer sci-fi fantasy game where teams advance through exploration. Continue reading OpenAI Beats Human-Player Team at Complex Video Game

Japanese game publisher Capcom is introducing a cloud-based streaming service to add high-end games to Nintendo’s Switch. Last month, the company released a cloud version of “Resident Evil 7” for the Switch in Japan, priced at $18 for 180 days of access, compared to as much as $50 for a downloaded version. Up until now, the video game industry hasn’t fully adopted cloud services because — rather than simply streaming a selected song or video – the servers would have to respond without lag to unpredictable game play. Continue reading Capcom Debuts Cloud-Streaming Version of ‘Resident Evil 7’