It’s an ideal time to outfit hybrid home workers, and Lenovo is going all-in on the concept, rolling out new tools for digital business users. Foremost among the digital offerings is the ThinkVision 27 3D, a 27-inch glasses-free 2D/3D compatible monitor with real-time eye-tracking. Designed for developers and professional content creators like graphic artists or product designers who can benefit from immersive 3D visualization, ThinkVision has a max resolution of 1920×2160 for 3D and displays flat at 3840×2160, thanks to a lenticular lens in the monitor that can toggle between the two. Continue reading Lenovo Offers Glasses-Free 3D at 4K via ThinkVision Monitor

Epic Online Services, the development hub for Epic Games, has expanded its crossplay overlay initiative to include initial support for games on Microsoft Xbox, Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation, optimizing its free SDKs for multiplayer crossplay and making it easier for developers to link their games and communities for those platforms across multiple stores. Last summer, EOS launched a PC crossplay overlay. The current upgrade enhances “capabilities across all supported platforms,” the company says, noting “crossplay enables bigger games, bigger audiences” and global games industry growth by connecting more players with a single overlay. Continue reading Epic Offers Crossplay Support for Xbox, PlayStation, Switch

Amazon has opened Sidewalk, its low-power, wide-area network (LPWAN), to developers. Introduced in 2019, Amazon’s early focus was using Sidewalk to optimize Ring cameras and Level smart locks. The company quietly extended coverage to what it says is 90 percent of the U.S. population, and indicates it is now ready to connect “the next billion devices.” Sidewalk can be useful for a multitude of IoT devices that need Internet connectivity yet can’t always rely on a robust four-bar signal, or just don’t require a lot of bandwidth or power. Continue reading Amazon Opens Low-Power Sidewalk Network to Developers

For the most part, exhibitors in the Gaming and Metaverse areas at CES 2023 didn’t touch on the latent problems with consumer adoption of the metaverse. While worlds like “Fortnite” and “Roblox” that draw consistently high MAUs do so because they offer fun mechanics, the many metaverse platforms on exhibit generally did not provide compelling reasons for why companies — much less consumers — should spend time in their worlds. Dimension X’s booth was a standout on the floor, however, as it showcased Bonfire, a soon-to-be-released tool to enable the seamless creation of narrative mechanics within virtual worlds. Continue reading CES: Dimension X Demos Bonfire Virtual Story Creation Tools

The industry is buzzing about a new Sony product called Mocopi that offers motion capture priced for consumers. The Meta Quest-compatible Mocopi utilizes six tracking bands to be worn on the head, back, hands and feet. Priced at 49,500 yen (or about $358), Sony announced Mocopi on its Japanese YouTube channel, with a U.S. release expected toward the end of January 2023. Touted as a way to operate avatars in the metaverse or make videos, Mocopi will have an SDK that can import motion data into 3D animations. Continue reading Sony Targets the Metaverse with Consumer Motion Capture

At the Samsung Developer Conference in San Francisco, the company introduced new initiatives tied to its latest smartphones, the Galaxy Watch 5 and other connected devices. Samsung also revealed plans for personalization enabled by its One UI 5, the updated user interface that will be made available later this month. Security and privacy were also on the agenda. The company announced it is developing a method to keep IoT smart devices secure by putting them on the blockchain. Samsung Knox Matrix will feature a private blockchain system to help protect Galaxy devices, TV sets and smart home appliances while securely sharing login credentials. Continue reading Samsung Touts New Initiatives and Private Blockchain Security

Thirdweb — licensor of a development toolkit that simplifies creation of Web3 products including games, smart contracts, NFTs, marketplaces and more — has raised $24 million in a Series A funding round with buy-in from Shopify, Coinbase, Polygon and Haun Ventures. The new investment translates to a valuation of $160 million for the startup, which provides cost-effective turnkey solutions for non-coders (or coders that want to save time) to try Web3 while waiting for it to hit critical mass. The company currently has operations in London, San Francisco and Brooklyn. Continue reading Thirdweb Attracts Investors for Its Web3 Development Toolkit

Amazon just debuted new Alexa features including one that simplifies coordinating multiple voice assistants on a single device using Agent Transfers (AT) and Amazon’s Universal Device Commands (UDC). Using UDCs, Alexa will be able to act on instructions; for instance, saying “Hey Sonos, turn up the volume” to get results for devices with Sonos Voice Control. ATs enable Alexa to transfer requests it can’t unilaterally fulfill — like “Place an order on Uber Eats” — to other assistants that can. Amazon outlined its AT and UDC plans in a white paper on design recommendations for the Voice Interoperability Initiative (VII). Continue reading Amazon’s New Alexa Developer Tools Target Interoperability

Adobe is releasing an open source developer toolkit that aims to prevent the spread of visual misinformation by including additional metadata that Adobe calls Content Credentials. The system is also designed to help content creators indelibly tag authorship to their work. Announced in 2019, the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) project has released a whitepaper introducing the system, which is integrated into Adobe software. The CAI has teamed with hardware manufacturers and newsrooms to help ubiquitize its vision. The Associated Press, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have signed aboard. Continue reading Adobe Debuts ‘Content Credentials’ to Battle Misinformation

Matter was a big player at CES 2022. Built around the premise that smart homes need a single, unifying interface standard that makes devices “secure, reliable and seamless to use,” the Matter alliance now has more than 220 member companies, including Apple, Comcast, LG and Samsung. Amazon announced developers can add Frustration-Free Setup on Matter-certified devices using the Matter SDK, and Google declared its Fast Pair simple setup is supporting Matter. As companies build new smart products, Matter believes that users should merely plug them in to make them operational on the home network. Continue reading CES: Support for Matter Helps Drive Smart Home Momentum

Nvidia is mapping out a customer service future populated with real-time avatars who use natural-language AI with real-world customers. The company, which has seemingly transformed from graphics powerhouse to AI authority (in just under 28 years since being founded by Jensen Huang, company CEO) used this week’s GTC conference to emphasize full-stack computing. The speed and flexibility of the company’s three GPU chips offer general purpose enterprise potential, thanks to Nvidia’s parallel-processing platform, CUDA. Huang backed this assertion with a slide indicating Nvidia has deployed more than 150 SDKs to industries generating $1 trillion. Continue reading Nvidia Goes Full-Stack, Touts Artificial Intelligence and Cloud

Qualcomm unveiled its Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G platform, with the hopes of speeding up development of commercial, enterprise and industrial drones. The new platform, which is powered by Qualcomm’s QRB5165 processor and builds on the company’s IoT products, enables drones to utilize 5G and artificial intelligence technologies. Low power 5G drones can capture and transmit a lot of data via cameras that it transmits to an operator or over a network. AI enables the drone to determine what data is most valuable. Continue reading Qualcomm Introduces Its Latest Drone Platform with 5G & AI

The U.S. military, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are reportedly among the agencies that have been buying citizens’ location data from commercial services. Now, a Treasury Department inspector general report has indicated that this practice is illegal without first obtaining a warrant. The agencies in question say they are buying commercially available data from those who have consented to having their data collected. Continue reading Treasury Department May Put an End to Location Data Sales

Last month Nvidia launched Maxine, a software development kit containing technology the company claims will cut the bandwidth requirements of video-conferencing software by a factor of ten. A neural network creates a compressed version of a person’s face which, when sent across the network, is decompressed by a second neural network. The software can also make helpful corrections to the image, such as rotating a face to look straight forward or replacing it with a digital avatar. Nvidia is now waiting for software developers to productize the technology. Continue reading Nvidia Cuts Video-Conferencing Bandwidth by Factor of Ten

Apple has revised its App Store review guidelines used to curate iOS/iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS, and macOS App Stores, most notably, now allowing developers to serve ads via push notifications. In past guidelines, Apple specifically said that push notifications should not be used for “advertising, promotions or direct marketing purposes.” The revised guidelines also expand the definition of a spam app and state that legal entities of services in “highly regulated fields” should submit the app rather than individual developers. Continue reading Apple Alters App Guidelines, Okays Opt-In Push Notifications