Lifeboat Foundation

Pixel users can get walking directions from Google Maps in augmented reality.

In the end, it wasn’t meant to be. Microsoft had pulled out all the stops for its Build 2019 developer conference keynote on Monday morning. The company had partnered with Epic Games and Industrial Light & Magic chief creative officer John Knoll for a hugely ambitious demo of its Hololens 2 headset that aimed to recreate the Apollo 11 moon landing, 50 years after the fact, in mixed reality.

All had worked out well during multiple rehearsals over the last few days. But when Knoll and science journalist and “Man on the Moon” author Andrew Chaikin were set to go on stage on Monday, the demo just didn’t run. Microsoft stalled by extending its pre-show ImagineCup competition until the show’s moderator couldn’t think of any more questions to ask. Then Knoll and Chaikin went on stage, giving it one more go — and the mixed-reality overlays simply refused to appear.

Continue reading “How Epic & ILM’s John Knoll Tried to Recreate the Moon Landing for Microsoft’s Build 2019 Keynote” »

Ahead of its 2019 Build developer conference, Microsoft announced a slew of updates across its Azure cloud, cognitive services, blockchain, intelligent edge, and HoloLens 2.

CNBC flew to Fort Pickett with Under Secretary Ryan McCarthy to test the Army’s IVAS headset, which it’s building with Microsoft.

As the artificial brain races towards the singularity, what we often forget is the boost to human brainpower that will accompany it. As we increase our senses and perceptions, humans have a choice what to do with these new superpowers, that can be used to reinforce one’s tunnel vision of life or to ignore it.

This story is part of What Happens Next, our complete guide to understanding the future. Read more predictions about the Future of Fact.

Not everyone experiences the world in the same way. Whether it’s how you react to the results of an election or what tones you hear in a sound clip, observable reality is often not as objective as you think it is.

Emerging technologies such as augmented reality will further blur this line. With AR on mobile devices and head-mounted displays, we’re well within the start of what it means to live an augmented life. Humans are doing a lot of fun things right now, like integrating playful games into our world and painting ourselves with digitally applied effects and makeup. We’re also starting to find utility for AR in the workplace and with hardware designed specifically for the enterprise market.

Continue reading “VR and AR will expand the limits of human perception” »

The startup has an incredibly ambitious plan for the future.

But Microsoft still has a lot of work to do.

Prostate cancer remains one of the major causes of death worldwide. In view of the limited treatment options for patients with prostate cancer, preventive and treatment approaches based on natural compounds can play an integral role in tackling this disease. Recent evidence supports the beneficial effects of plant-derived phytochemicals as chemopreventive and chemotherapeutic agents for various cancers, including prostate cancer. Prunus africana has been used for generations in African traditional medicine to treat prostate cancer. This review examined the potential roles of the phytochemicals from P. africana, an endangered, sub-Saharan Africa plant in the chemoprevention and chemotherapy of prostate cancer. In vitro and in vivo studies have provided strong pharmacological evidence for antiprostate cancer activities of P. africana-derived phytochemicals. Through synergistic interactions between different effective phytochemicals, P. africana extracts have been shown to exhibit very strong antiandrogenic and antiangiogenic activities and have the ability to kill tumor cells via apoptotic pathways, prevent the proliferation of prostate cancer cells, and alter the signaling pathways required for the maintenance of prostate cancer cells. However, further preclinical and clinical studies ought to be done to advance and eventually use these promising phytochemicals for the prevention and chemotherapy of human prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is one of the most common nonskin cancers in men. It is caused by unregulated prostate cell division, which leads to abnormal growth, with the potential to spread to other parts of the body [1]. These neoplastic cells originate from highly specialized cells through a process of regression to an advanced stage. Unlike the normal parent cells, these cells divide continuously, resulting in a tumor. Approximately, 9–11% of men are at risk of clinically suffering from prostate cancer in their life time [2–5]. Prostate cancer is typically androgen-dependent during its initial stages when the hormone androgen binds to the androgen receptor (AR) and then transactivates target genes [6, 7]. Androgen and AR-mediated signaling are therefore crucial for the development and functioning of both the normal prostate and prostate cancer.

The future is just over the horizon and we’re accelerating towards it. And while the famous Dr. Emmett Brown from Back to the Future once said, “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads,” at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Nissan revealed not only the future of road-based transportation but equally your future whip.

Driving in the future will not only be autonomous, but will also seamlessly integrate the virtual world into your physical domain using mixed reality, creating an all-around intelligent, connected, transportation ecosystem.

Continue reading “Nissan Reveals Invisible Tech for a Visible Future at CES” »