After months of negotiations, Electronic Arts’s EA Sports and the FIFA World Cup governing body are parting ways after nearly three successful decades of game collaboration that generated tens of billions of dollars in revenue and helped popularize professional soccer around the world. Having decided not to renew the partnership with a new contract, the parties have agreed to extend the existing contract — which was to end in December after the World Cup in Qatar — through the summer of 2023 and the Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Continue reading FIFA and EA Sports Go Separate Ways After Long Partnership

Nvidia Air is a cloud-based platform to build, simulate and work the bugs out of a state-of-the-art data center powered by a modern network using digital twins. Geared toward medium to enterprise scale environments, the platform is the company’s latest Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) product, letting users create a virtual double of a data center’s physical and logical layout and employ continuous integration and deployment testing and validation techniques before moving to a production environment. The idea is to go live with the same set of simulation, visualization and AI tools. Continue reading Nvidia Air Helps Users Create Virtual Doubles of Data Centers

In a paper briefly posted to the NASA website, Google stated that it conducted an experimental demonstration that proved the supremacy of a quantum computer, dubbed Sycamore, over a traditional one. Although the quantum computer is “unproven,” it offers the possibility of solving “formerly ungraspable mathematical problems.” A Google source hinted that NASA published the paper before it could be vetted via scientific peer review. Since the article was pulled off the site, Google has not acknowledged its existence. Continue reading Google Claims Quantum Supremacy in Briefly Posted Paper

In January 2018, Harvard law professor Noah Feldman suggested to Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg that the company create an independent, transparent committee to help guide its content decisions. Sandberg passed the idea along to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, and Feldman was brought on to write a white paper on his idea and stay as an advisor. Zuckerberg first revealed plans seven months ago, and now, Feldman’s idea, dubbed the Oversight Board, is on its way to becoming a reality. Continue reading Facebook Continues Plans for Independent Oversight Board

Some startups are trying to create another form of AI than deep learning, to minimize the amount of training, data and server power needed. Samsung Next, the South Korean company’s venture capital unit, just launched the Q Fund to jumpstart this idea by funding companies focusing on new ways of developing artificial intelligence. One of Q Fund’s first investments is Vicarious, a startup that wants to give machines “imagination” and is inspired by biology to make machines learn more quickly. Continue reading Samsung Fund to Boost Startups with New Approaches to AI

According to Patently Apple, “There have been a series of very smart and very cool patent applications surfacing of late covering a future mixed reality headset that could one day be a part of a virtual desktop system designed to edit 3D documents” and a “detailed invention covering an advanced gesturing control system for a heads-up-display system of an autonomous vehicle.” For the latter, the official patent application by Apple reads that the invention could lead to “safe, smaller, and less expensive autonomous vehicles.”

Continue reading Apple Submits VR Patents for Next-Gen Autonomous Vehicles

French company Sysveo is developing software that will enable drones to see and record virtual 3D images in the videos they shoot while in flight. The technology would work so that a drone could be programmed to display the specific blueprints of a building or home for example, against the background of a location such as a neighborhood or city. The project, which is currently in an early stage, is being developed on a patent from France’s CNES space agency and funding from the European Space Agency. Continue reading Augmented Reality: 3D Virtual Tech Being Developed for Drones

Improbable Worlds has created a distributed computing platform that allows developers to build large-scale, 3D, real-time models, and now the London-based startup has $20 million to bring this tech to gaming, urban planning, biology, and numerous other industries. The modeling system is unique because it draws upon the computing power of its users and redistributes the computing, while enabling collaboration. Prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is the investor. Continue reading Improbable Worlds Raises $20 Million for Simulation Platform