Author: azeeadmin

VR headsets make me queasy. I’m not alone. It’s a common complaint about virtual reality content but this startup might have solved the problem in the most unlikely way. Holoride wants people to use VR in the backseat of the family sedan.

My stomach is happy to report it works as advertised.

Yesterday, after strapping on an Oculus Go, I was flung around a race track outside of Las Vegas at speeds approaching 90 mph and I didn’t get sick. In fact, after the ride was completed, I was shocked to find out we were going faster than 35 mph. Holoride’s system was entertaining and distracting. It removed me from the ride and placed me in a space battle with Iron Man and Rocket.

After the demo I was left with just one thought: The future of in-vehicle entertainment could be virtual reality.

Here’s how it worked.

After sitting down in the back of Audi’s new electric SUV, the e-tron, a company representative fitted me with an Oculus Go headset that was wired to the car. I was handed a remote and told to follow along.

Marvel’s Rocket appeared as my instructor. He said I was to help him and Iron Man defeat some of Thanos’ baddies by shooting them down while we fly through space.

And off we went — both in the game and on the track. It felt just like a ride at Disney World.

The content on the screen matched the dynamics of the vehicle. As the Audi SUV whipped around the track, the content was synced with the movements.

When the e-tron bared left, my rocket ship in the game bared left. When the e-tron flew down the track’s straightaway, my rocket stayed on its course. Meanwhile, I was in the backseat smiling like a child as I waved around a remote control trying my hardest to save the universe from Thanos.

Somehow, I didn’t get sick.

Holoride’s secret sauce involves matching the VR content with the slight movements of the vehicle. The content compensates everything from bumps to swerves to sudden stops. The company sees a future when passengers can endure long car rides free of boredom and without car sickness.

The possibilities of this technology is compelling. Nevermind entertaining passengers, motion sickness affects a lot of people and this appears to eliminates it. If programmed for a plane or train or long distance bus ride, Holoride’s system could allow for a more comfortable ride.

Holoride (no relation to Microsoft’s HoloLens) developed the technology inside Audi over the last two years. The automaker spun out the company, freeing it up to work with other car makers to put its system in their vehicles.

VR’s tendency to induce motion sickness is one of its biggest hurdles, and that’s with most people experiencing it while just standing there. Add a moving vehicle to the mix — like when you’re trying to use VR to space out as the passenger on a roadtrip — and your inner ear is getting all kinds of mixed signals. Holoride aims to turn that challenge into a feature.

This early demo shows Holoride is on the right path but I fear it’s a steep climb to gain content and users. Holoride worked with Disney Games and Interactive Experiences to develop the content.

The demo I experienced left me impressed. It featured everything I want: interactive content, marquee characters, and a fun story line. But I could only play this game a few times before I would get bored. The novelty would probably last a bit longer on my kids, but not much.

The Holoride founders tell TechCrunch it intends to release an SDK by year’s end that would open the platform to developers. It’s unclear if current VR content could be easily ported to the system.

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While Holoride says it’s an independent company, the roots of this startup are all Audi. The automaker holds a minority interest through subsidiary Audi Electronics Venture, which developed the technology. Audi will license the technology to Holoride and the startup will use an open platform to allow any automaker from Ford to Tesla and everyone in between as well as content developers to create whatever reality formats they desire.

Nils Wollny, head of digital business at Audi co-founded Holoride along with Marcus Kuhne, who was project lead of Audi’s VR experience and Daniel Profendiner, a software engineer at the company. Wollny is Holoride’s new CEO.

The co-founders began working on VR in 2014, but the project started in earnest two years ago when it partnered with Disney Games and Interactive Experiences.

The system needs to be configured for different vehicles. That’s part of the development process. Right now, in Holoride’s development cycle, a Holoride experience programmed for an Audi etron will not work in a Chevy Tahoe. A person couldn’t take the headset from one vehicle to another.

A lot of questions remain about for Holoride. Though Audi’s name is attached to the project, Holoride is an independent company. The founders tell TechCrunch it has plenty of runway before it needs to look for another round of investment.

Few technology demos have left me as impressed as I was with this system. But developing a compelling demo is different from building a successful content company. I, for one, would love to live in a future where I could strap on a headset and eliminate motion sickness and everyone else on an intercontinental flight.

Augmented reality has been a bit of a sleeper at this year’s CES. It seems likely we’ll see a bit more on that front next month at Mobile World Congress. After all, smartphones are largely considered the first frontier for AR adoption. Still, that’s not going to stop some companies from going all-in with head mounted displays.

Rokid has been showing off its own solution for the space since roughly this time last year — though back then they were still very much in the early prototype phase. Things have progressed a bit in the intervening 365 days, and the company claims to be “nearing mass-production” with plans to start shipping product in the spring.

The latest version of Rokid Glass is 40 percent smaller than the version shown off last year. Even so, these should not be regarded as mainstream hardware. Like so many other AR glasses we’ve seen in recent years, the company said the devices are designed to be used as “an open hardware and software platform where all clients and partners can build industrial and enterprise software use-cases. Various applications include manufacturing, product inspection, field service and remote conferencing.”

This week at the show, Rokid will be showing off Project Aurora, the above goggle-looking hardware, which is designed to offer a sort of surrogate for your existing hardware — things like PCs and tablets. It’s a way, I suppose to get away from the screen without actually, you know, getting away from the screen.

Here’s what the company had to say in a press release, “By leveraging the ever-increasing computing power of mobile devices, Project Aurora supplements these robust experiences by providing a lightweight form factor, industry-leading display quality, and multimodal handsfree input. Project Aurora will connect consumers to rich, immersive AR content and experiences that were previously unattainable with such a lightweight smart glass, and we’re excited to share how the future looks through it.”

From the sound of it, the company’s angling to offer up a take on the Minority Report-style tech that has long been synonymous with futuristic interfaces. How it actually plays out in person is another question, entirely, of course. We should get a closer look this week at CES.

Augmented reality has been a bit of a sleeper at this year’s CES. It seems likely we’ll see a bit more on that front next month at Mobile World Congress. After all, smartphones are largely considered the first frontier for AR adoption. Still, that’s not going to stop some companies from going all-in with head mounted displays.

Rokid has been showing off its own solution for the space since roughly this time last year — though back then they were still very much in the early prototype phase. Things have progressed a bit in the intervening 365 days, and the company claims to be “nearing mass-production” with plans to start shipping product in the spring.

The latest version of Rokid Glass is 40 percent smaller than the version shown off last year. Even so, these should not be regarded as mainstream hardware. Like so many other AR glasses we’ve seen in recent years, the company said the devices are designed to be used as “an open hardware and software platform where all clients and partners can build industrial and enterprise software use-cases. Various applications include manufacturing, product inspection, field service and remote conferencing.”

This week at the show, Rokid will be showing off Project Aurora, the above goggle-looking hardware, which is designed to offer a sort of surrogate for your existing hardware — things like PCs and tablets. It’s a way, I suppose to get away from the screen without actually, you know, getting away from the screen.

Here’s what the company had to say in a press release, “By leveraging the ever-increasing computing power of mobile devices, Project Aurora supplements these robust experiences by providing a lightweight form factor, industry-leading display quality, and multimodal handsfree input. Project Aurora will connect consumers to rich, immersive AR content and experiences that were previously unattainable with such a lightweight smart glass, and we’re excited to share how the future looks through it.”

From the sound of it, the company’s angling to offer up a take on the Minority Report-style tech that has long been synonymous with futuristic interfaces. How it actually plays out in person is another question, entirely, of course. We should get a closer look this week at CES.

Ring — the security company acquired by Amazon for a billion-plus dollars last year — is launching a bunch of stuff at CES.

First up: the Door View Cam.

While at first glance it looks pretty similar to Ring’s existing doorbell cameras, there’s a key difference here: it’s meant to go on your door itself, replacing the glass peep hole viewer rather than replacing your doorbell.

Because no one wants a bunch of wires running across their door, this new cam runs off a battery that’ll live on the inside half of your door. A button on the face acts as a sort of doorbell — but because people might not automatically think to push a button on your door (rather than off to the side somewhere, as doorbells usually are), it also has an impact sensor that’ll automatically detect when someone knocks.

And, for good measure, it’ll still work as a good ol’ fashion analog viewer.

Ring says the Door View Cam should hit the US “later this year” for $199.

Next, a bunch of new accessories to tie into the existing Ring Alarm security system. Pictured from left to right above, they’ve got:

• A $35 Smoke/CO listener. It’s meant to sit next to existing smoke alarms (not replace them) and listen for any alarms, triggering your Ring should the need arise.
• A $35 flood/freeze sensor, which you can sit in places like your basement to have it ping your phone if it detects water on the floor or temperatures below freezing
• A $30 siren, in case you want more sirens around the house blaring when the alarm goes off.

And, last but not least, they’ve got a bunch of new smart lighting products, all of which tie into Ring and can do things like fire up your doorbell cam a few seconds before people are directly in front of your door.

There’s a $70 wired floodlight (sort of like their existing smart floodlight, minus the camera).

A $40 spotlight, meant for places like porches and sheds

A $30 motion-activated path light, meant for… well, paths.

A $18 motion sensor/light meant for stairways

And a $25 motion sensor, no light included.

If you’ve already got power running to landscape lightning around your yard, there’s no need to tear it all up again: they’ve built a $100 low-voltage transformer meant to be dropped into existing setups to let them pull sufficient juice to power everything above.

As you might expect from an Amazon-owned company, it all plays friendly with Alexa. So things like “Alexa, turn on the lights in my backyard” will work.

Ring says the new lightning devices will go up for pre-order today on Ring.com and Amazon, and it all should start shipping out by March 6th.

Overall, it’s a pretty dang solid CES showing from Ring. It’s easy to slip up a bit and lose momentum after an acquisition, as you get used to the new bosses, structure, and logistics — but less than a year after being bought, Ring is coming out swinging with over half a dozen new products all meant to compliment their existing lineup.

Ring — the security company acquired by Amazon for a billion-plus dollars last year — is launching a bunch of stuff at CES.

First up: the Door View Cam.

While at first glance it looks pretty similar to Ring’s existing doorbell cameras, there’s a key difference here: it’s meant to go on your door itself, replacing the glass peep hole viewer rather than replacing your doorbell.

Because no one wants a bunch of wires running across their door, this new cam runs off a battery that’ll live on the inside half of your door. A button on the face acts as a sort of doorbell — but because people might not automatically think to push a button on your door (rather than off to the side somewhere, as doorbells usually are), it also has an impact sensor that’ll automatically detect when someone knocks.

And, for good measure, it’ll still work as a good ol’ fashion analog viewer.

Ring says the Door View Cam should hit the US “later this year” for $199.

Next, a bunch of new accessories to tie into the existing Ring Alarm security system. Pictured from left to right above, they’ve got:

• A $35 Smoke/CO listener. It’s meant to sit next to existing smoke alarms (not replace them) and listen for any alarms, triggering your Ring should the need arise.
• A $35 flood/freeze sensor, which you can sit in places like your basement to have it ping your phone if it detects water on the floor or temperatures below freezing
• A $30 siren, in case you want more sirens around the house blaring when the alarm goes off.

And, last but not least, they’ve got a bunch of new smart lighting products, all of which tie into Ring and can do things like fire up your doorbell cam a few seconds before people are directly in front of your door.

There’s a $70 wired floodlight (sort of like their existing smart floodlight, minus the camera).

A $40 spotlight, meant for places like porches and sheds

A $30 motion-activated path light, meant for… well, paths.

A $18 motion sensor/light meant for stairways

And a $25 motion sensor, no light included.

If you’ve already got power running to landscape lightning around your yard, there’s no need to tear it all up again: they’ve built a $100 low-voltage transformer meant to be dropped into existing setups to let them pull sufficient juice to power everything above.

As you might expect from an Amazon-owned company, it all plays friendly with Alexa. So things like “Alexa, turn on the lights in my backyard” will work.

Ring says the new lightning devices will go up for pre-order today on Ring.com and Amazon, and it all should start shipping out by March 6th.

Overall, it’s a pretty dang solid CES showing from Ring. It’s easy to slip up a bit and lose momentum after an acquisition, as you get used to the new bosses, structure, and logistics — but less than a year after being bought, Ring is coming out swinging with over half a dozen new products all meant to compliment their existing lineup.

Will LG’s over-the-top rollable TV ever be real? And at the end of the day does it really matter? The company offered another glimpse at the 65-inch LG Signature OLED TV R (model 65R9) during its CES press conference. It’s ever bit as big, brush and completely unnecessary as ever.

Ultimately these kinds of devices are a way to plant a flag in the sand — to show off the possibilities from all the money they’re pumping into R&D. More than likely, such a set isn’t coming home with you any time soon — and even if you could get your hands on it, would it ultimately be worth it?

For one thing there’s the price. LG won’t even ballpark a device like this, though a rep from the company did suggest that it will ultimately be more expensive than even its giant new 8K set. And for what, really? The ability to stash away a TV when not in use? For all the novelty of such a thing, how practically is it, ultimately? Is that precious counter space? Perhaps you can eat meals on there when not watching TV.

Were I in a position to drop that much on a set, I would almost certainly invite people over, ask if they wanted to watch some TV, wait for them to ask where my set is and then, boom, there’s a TV slowly rising from a countertop, like some sort of one-percenter magic trick.

That said, the technology pretty neat. We got a demo before the event, and there was a sufficient amount of oohing and aahing among the tech press present. There are also some neat tricks on board. The base essentially works as a giant sound bar, projecting an approximation of a 4.2 surround system.

There’s also a mode where the drops down three-fourths the way and doubles as a kind of menu bar. From here you can listen to music, have it double as a large digital picture frame and even beam some white noise into the room.

There will also likely be Alexa and Assistant functionality on board when it hits the market, meaning the screen can double as the world’s biggest and most expensive Echo Show.

Pricing and available are, naturally, still very much up in the air.

Will LG’s over-the-top rollable TV ever be real? And at the end of the day does it really matter? The company offered another glimpse at the 65-inch LG Signature OLED TV R (model 65R9) during its CES press conference. It’s ever bit as big, brush and completely unnecessary as ever.

Ultimately these kinds of devices are a way to plant a flag in the sand — to show off the possibilities from all the money they’re pumping into R&D. More than likely, such a set isn’t coming home with you any time soon — and even if you could get your hands on it, would it ultimately be worth it?

For one thing there’s the price. LG won’t even ballpark a device like this, though a rep from the company did suggest that it will ultimately be more expensive than even its giant new 8K set. And for what, really? The ability to stash away a TV when not in use? For all the novelty of such a thing, how practically is it, ultimately? Is that precious counter space? Perhaps you can eat meals on there when not watching TV.

Were I in a position to drop that much on a set, I would almost certainly invite people over, ask if they wanted to watch some TV, wait for them to ask where my set is and then, boom, there’s a TV slowly rising from a countertop, like some sort of one-percenter magic trick.

That said, the technology pretty neat. We got a demo before the event, and there was a sufficient amount of oohing and aahing among the tech press present. There are also some neat tricks on board. The base essentially works as a giant sound bar, projecting an approximation of a 4.2 surround system.

There’s also a mode where the drops down three-fourths the way and doubles as a kind of menu bar. From here you can listen to music, have it double as a large digital picture frame and even beam some white noise into the room.

There will also likely be Alexa and Assistant functionality on board when it hits the market, meaning the screen can double as the world’s biggest and most expensive Echo Show.

Pricing and available are, naturally, still very much up in the air.

Amazon today announced a significant partnership with Telenav, a connected car and location-based services provider. As part of the collaboration, Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, will now be part of Telenav’s in-car navigation systems.

As it stands, Alexa lacks a lot of information that is pertinent to drivers. This collaboration should massively help to change that. The partnership is also designed to enable carmakers to bring Alexa inside more of its vehicles.

“Navigation is among the most popular use cases for in-car technology, and we’re excited to be working with Telenav to make it easier for automakers and suppliers to support voice-first navigation through Alexa,” Amazon Alexa Auto VP Ned Curic said in a statement. “Using the Alexa Auto SDK, Telenav is helping make Alexa a truly integrated part of the in-car navigation system, and providing customers with a more useful, consistent experience at home and on the go.”

Back in September, Amazon announced Echo Auto, an in-car accessory that enables consumers to install Alexa into their cars themselves. Amazon had also previously made Alexa available through certain cars from the BMW Group.

What’s different about this announcement is that Amazon now has the ability to bake in Alexa from the start.

Amazon also today announced a partnership with HERE Technologies to bring a voice-first in-vehicle navigation system into the more than 100 million vehicles today that are equipped with HERE. With this collaboration, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, people will be able to plan their trips while at home and then, once they get in the car, the navigation system will already know what to do and where to go.

Based on the looks of these two announcements, it’s clear Amazon is ready, more than now than ever before, to be inside your car.

Amazon today announced a significant partnership with Telenav, a connected car and location-based services provider. As part of the collaboration, Amazon’s voice assistant, Alexa, will now be part of Telenav’s in-car navigation systems.

As it stands, Alexa lacks a lot of information that is pertinent to drivers. This collaboration should massively help to change that. The partnership is also designed to enable carmakers to bring Alexa inside more of its vehicles.

“Navigation is among the most popular use cases for in-car technology, and we’re excited to be working with Telenav to make it easier for automakers and suppliers to support voice-first navigation through Alexa,” Amazon Alexa Auto VP Ned Curic said in a statement. “Using the Alexa Auto SDK, Telenav is helping make Alexa a truly integrated part of the in-car navigation system, and providing customers with a more useful, consistent experience at home and on the go.”

Back in September, Amazon announced Echo Auto, an in-car accessory that enables consumers to install Alexa into their cars themselves. Amazon had also previously made Alexa available through certain cars from the BMW Group.

What’s different about this announcement is that Amazon now has the ability to bake in Alexa from the start.

Amazon also today announced a partnership with HERE Technologies to bring a voice-first in-vehicle navigation system into the more than 100 million vehicles today that are equipped with HERE. With this collaboration, announced at the Consumer Electronics Show, people will be able to plan their trips while at home and then, once they get in the car, the navigation system will already know what to do and where to go.

Based on the looks of these two announcements, it’s clear Amazon is ready, more than now than ever before, to be inside your car.

Non-tracking search engine DuckDuckGo has denied a claim made in a forum post suggesting it’s using browser fingerprinting as “absolutely false”. The post has been shared on social medium by some security professionals.

Browser fingerprinting is a common but controversial technique. Many websites — and their advertisers — try to track you by collecting as much information about your browser, including its plugins and extensions, and your device, such as its make, model, and screen resolution, to create a “fingerprint” that’s unique to you.

That fingerprint is used to track you across websites to figure out which sites you visit — and which targeted ads to serve up.

No wonder some users were surprised.. We checked the site using CanvasBlocker, a popular privacy extension used to block trackers from fingerprinting your browser, and obtained the following readout:

DDG has carved out a small but growing space for itself in the search market as a pro-privacy Google alternative by saying it does not track or profile users — but instead displays ads based on basic keyword search.

If it was using browser fingerprinting to track users, that would very clearly go against long-stated non-tracking principles.

But founder and CEO Gabe Weinberg assures us it is not, saying this is a case of a false positive.

He told TechCrunch: “Fingerprinting-detection libraries unfortunately create false positives because they don’t anticipate good actors using some browser APIs for non-nefarious purposes for which they were designed. We know this not only because we’re falsely identified here (and have been elsewhere) but because we are building this type of detection into our mobile app and browser extension and don’t similarly want to make false claims.”

Asked which browser APIs might be triggering the flag Weinberg said DDG uses getBoundingClientRect() to “determine size of browser and how to layout the page”, adding: “I think that is the one that set this one off in particular.”

CanvasBlocker’s default setting is to not block fingerprinting but to return “fake readouts,” which returns a new random value each time a website tries to fingerprint. In this case, it seems that the site’s browser resizing code was triggering the plugin.

The company’s head of search, Brian Stoner, has also responded to the forum claim via Reddit, writing: “We are absolutely NOT doing any fingerprinting whatsoever. Please see our privacy policy, it’s pretty clear on this: ‘We don’t collect or share personal information’.”

“We use a variety of browser API’s to deliver a search experience that is competitive with Google’s. Many “fingerprint” protection extensions take a scorched earth approach, blocking any browser API that could be exploited by a bad actor.”

DuckDuckGo said late last year that it’s now processing 30 million daily searches, up by more than 50 percent year-over-year.