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Canon Mixed Reality Is Google Glass for Business
The Canon Mixed Reality headset can created detailed simulations and present them to the wearer as if they were highly detailed objects. Aimed at businesses who want to create products in a virtual world before the real one, it costs $125,000.
You've heard of virtual reality and augmented reality, but are you ready for Mixed Reality? Canon hopes so, launching a new kind of product that blends the real world with imaginary objects via a sci-fi looking headset.
And when I say sci-fi, I mean old-school "Borg drone" sci-fi, lacking the minimalist and modern lines of Google Glass. Canon's Mixed Reality goggles are anything but sleek, amounting to a bulky headset that you tighten via crank, with a thick cord and antennae sticking out.
If it sounds like something you'd never buy, you're right, because you're not a business interested in simulating 3D renderings in actual space. If you were, say, a high-end automaker that does car design through 3D graphics and simulator rooms, then you'd be first in line. Canon Mixed Reality (a.k.a. MREAL) is aimed at businesses who want to see something virtually before it becomes real. (The video below explains more.)
Mixed Reality is similar to augmented reality, except that instead of seeing signposts with extra information (à la Nokia City Lens), Canon's headset simulates objects in space, in incredible detail. A room may be empty except for a chair, but sit down and put on the headset, and suddenly you're behind the wheel of a virtual sports car or helicopter. The simulation can be as detailed as the 3D rendering file that the headset is reading.
That kind of virtual reality tech doesn't come cheap, though — Canon's price tag for the headset and accompanying system is $125,000, with $25,000 in expected annual maintenance. While that's a couple of orders of magnitude more than the $1,500 developer price for Google Glass, Canon's tech is a completely different animal, with much different capabilities. It's available now.
In addition, Canon's headset is just the wearable part of a platform. There's a software development kit for Mixed Reality, and developers will be able to create Minority Report-like experiences, where the wearer can actually interact with virtual objects via gesture. In any case, the headset system is still about a third of the cost of the simulator rooms many companies use today.
I got a chance to check out Canon Mixed Reality at a demo in New York City. Donning the headset for the first time, I was disappointed that there seemed to be a very slight lag in the virtual environment, almost like stop motion. The point of the product isn't to transport you to a sci-fi world, so that expectation probably wasn't fair, but nonetheless it was a bit jarring.
However, in looking around a virtual car for a few minutes, I could easily see the usefulness, kneeling down to look closely at the hubcaps, I could see good detail on the rims and tires. Then, before my eyes, the whole car changed color. Pushing my hand through the wheel, I saw it disappear beneath the virtual surface and felt for a second like Kitty Pryde.
Canon's pricey Mixed Reality concept may have a limited audience, but it's a very exclusive one. Being able to see, walk around and look closely at your product before it's even built will only appeal to a few specific industries, but for those businesses, it's pretty much the only game in town.
Source: http://mashable.com/2013/02/21/canon-mixed-reality/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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