Beating the Self Driving Horse

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Beating the Self Driving Horse
Number 2767
Broadcast Date MAY 23, 2016
Episode Length 39:37
Hosts Tom Merritt
Guests Veronica Belmont

We don’t trust self-driving cars but chances are we get them anyway. Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt discuss whether companies can convince US drivers to take their hands off the wheel.

Guest

Headlines

A Friday update to the DRM on Oculus Rift games added a check to see if a Rift was connected before launching the game. This broke the software Revive, which translated Oculus Runtime function to OpenVR calls, allowing games to be played on other headsets like the HTC Vive without undermining the DRM. So Revive was updated to circumvent the DRM completely. Revive developer Libre VR told Motherboard he would prefer a solution that doesn’t circumvent DRM and would be willing to work with Oculus to do so.
Google will launch a research project called Magenta on June 1st that will explore the use of deep learning to create art and make models for the open source AI platform TensorFlow. The project will start with music and then move to video and other visual arts. Douglas Eck, a researcher on the project spoke about it at Moogfest and said they may make a Magenta app where you can enjoy the AI art and give your thoughts on it.
TechCrunch reports Facebook Live is adding a feature when you fast forward a video that lets you skip to the part with the most reaction volume. A graph of the reactions is overlaid over the progress bar. The option is rolling out to some users starting now. Facebook also added the Continuous Live Video API though streams that take advantage will not be able save the video for replay. The previous limit was 90 minutes.
Friday evening at a fan event, JJ Abrams said that Star Trek: Into Darkness director Justin Lin was outraged that Paramount and CBS were suing the makers of the fan-film Axanar. Lin pushed the studio and according to Abrams the lawsuit will be stopped “within the next few weeks.” CBS and Paramount told Buzzfeed reporter Adam Vary that the studios were in settlement talks. Axanar’s executive producer Alec Peters said new fan film guidelines will be handed down in the next few days.
Spotify has increased by one the number of people allowed on its Family Plan. The price went down too. Now up to six account members can get a premium subscription for only $15 (£15 or €15) a month. People who’ve already signed up to Spotify's Family Plan will be charged the new rate the next time the company takes your payment. The updates affects all users globally with the exception of Canada.
Facebook announced it has acquired spatial audio company Two Big Ears. Two Big Ears’ Spatial Workstation will be rebranded as the free “Facebook 360 Spatial Workstation.” Facebook is making authoring tools, and the encoder and rendering engine for cinematic VR and 360 video available for free. The audio toolkit “will continue to be platform and device agnostic” — and support for Windows is apparently still on the way.
India’s FreeCharge just announced a new feature enabling money transfers in WhatsApp. By approving a setting in the FreeCharge app users can transfer money in WhatsApp by typing FC after the amount of money in Rupees to be sent. WhatsApp is the most used messaging app in India.
OnePlus gave away 30,000 of its Loop VR headsets at oneplus.net/oneplus-loop-vr though you needed to pay shipping. Shoppers in India can purchase the headset through Amazon June 3 and June 7 at noon through the Amazon mobile app. If you visit the OnePlus VR Shopping experience you can order the OnePlus 3 phone early.
Polygon reports that E3 2016 will host a free 3-day gaming event open to the general public called E3 Live 2016. The event will take place from June 14 to the 16th at 800 West Olympic Boulevard, in Los Angeles and not the LA Convention Center where E3 2016 will be held. The event will have games, live music, dance competitions, demos, exclusive merchandise, and interactive demos. The free tickets are first come first serve. You can register at e3livela.com.

Discussion

Pick of the Day

Hi Tom, Rodger, and Veronica,

I've got a pick for you that I never would have expected. The Angry Birds movie. We took our son to it this weekend and all thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been years since I've played any of the games, but clearly Rovio is still raking in the mountains of cash I'm sure was required to hire the talent behind this film.

I'm still shocked that I'm recommending this movie.

Keep up the good work,
Submitted by Boss John Clayton from the Billings, MT office

Messages

Phone call from Carl Heath from MakerFaire


Regarding the modular smartphone Google is working on… I can see a smartphone built for a warehouse worker with a scanning module to run orders. A 'sign here' module for parcel and delivery services that can be replaced and doesn't wear out to the point your signature is a single curved line. I can see a module for a medical environment that can test pulse-ox, blood sugar, etc. I see a module that acts as a second factor token for logging into critical business systems. I can see a module with break out probes that interact with software on the smartphone to assist a field technician. A module with a FLIR and IR imaging sensor for a security guard. Now base that on the fact you can combine these in almost limitless ways. The limit is the imagination.


Thanks,
Sent by Michael


I work for Alta Devices but regarding the solar cell certified at 34.5% efficiency I have some clarifying facts. The PR blast claims they broke our record, which is Module level, I know this is getting a little into the details, but there are rules associated with how big a panel has to be before it can be considered a module, and as far as we can tell they didn't break that record. …NREL certified our latest 2J record in January and we announced it last month. Further we are actually producing our 1J cells and they are going toward actual products like unmanned aerial vehicles to help get them to fly all day. …as far as we can tell, they didn't break our record, they just got a high efficiency cell certified, completely different. Thanks for great show!
Sent by Jason


Since this is just speculation, I'm hoping to give you some insight that *might* explain some of the seemingly contradictory statements that a government has reviewed code while the developer simultaneously claims that they have not turned over their code.

Many companies (including Apple and Microsoft) have their products validated to the FIPS 140-2 standard (Cryptographic Module Validation) which is managed by the United States and Canada. FIPS 140-2 includes code review requirements, so on the surface, it appears that the government receives source code for these products. In actuality, the testing and code reviews are performed by independent accredited testing laboratories, so the government does not receive or look at the code. Depending on the project the code reviews may be performed in-person so the code never leaves the developer's control outside of a reviewer's memory and notes.

Since my experience is specific to the US/Canada program, I don't know if China does something similar and want to reemphasize that this is just a possible explanation.
Sent by Kenji

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