Shattered Silos: 2024’s Top Technology Trends


Technological innovation is increasingly focused on solving pressing, global challenges like climate change, disaster response, and accessible, preventative healthcare. Time is of the essence in finding solutions to these issues. On the global stage, the deadline for the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a framework of strategies to tackle climate change, improve heal... » read more

Week In Review: Auto, Security, Pervasive Computing


The U.S. Department of Defense updated the directive that governs the development and fielding of autonomous and semi-autonomous weapon systems. The revisions include an expanded focus on artificial intelligence, and reference to recently-established organizations like the DoD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office. NIST released a new guidance document aimed at helping organi... » read more

Wearable Electrotactile Rendering System w/High Spacial resolution, Rapid Refresh


A new technical paper titled "Super-resolution wearable electrotactile rendering system" was published by researchers at City University of Hong Kong (CityU) and Tencent Technology's Robotics X Laboratory. "Here, we present a wearable electrotactile rendering system that elicits tactile stimuli with both high spatial resolution (76 dots/cm2) and rapid refresh rates (4 kHz), because of a prev... » read more

Chip Challenges In The Metaverse


The metaverse is pushing the limits of chip design, despite uncertainty about how much raw horsepower these devices ultimately will require to deliver an immersive blend of augmented, virtual, and mixed reality. The big challenge in developing these systems is the ability to process mixed data types in real time while the data moves uninterrupted at lightning speed. That requires the integra... » read more

Building the Metaverse, Part Two: The Technology


In my first article on the metaverse, I explored the extraordinary vision and driving forces behind the metaverse, along with some potential use cases. In this second part, I want to outline the technology that will be needed to enable it. The metaverse will rely on a range of existing and new hardware and software technologies, which will enable the development of new services and new ways ... » read more

Design And Security Challenges for VR


Virtual reality is no longer just for gamers, and as this technology is deployed in everything from health care to industrial training, the requirements for processing more data faster over a high-speed connection are growing. Designing these devices continues to be a study in contradictions. They must be extremely low power, with a small enough batteries to make them comfortable to wear. Bu... » read more

Edge-AI Hardware for Extended Reality


New technical paper titled "Memory-Oriented Design-Space Exploration of Edge-AI Hardware for XR Applications" from researchers at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Reality Labs Research, Meta. Abstract "Low-Power Edge-AI capabilities are essential for on-device extended reality (XR) applications to support the vision of Metaverse. In this work, we investigate two representative XR w... » read more

Building The Metaverse, Part One: The Vision


The longer-term vision of the metaverse is a universe where a massive computer-generated virtual world – or worlds – will be deeply intertwined with the physical world. This will enable humans and things to interact, transact, and collaborate in parallel or in superposition in ways that will mesh real-world activity and simulation in various and increasing indistinguishable ways. The met... » read more

Internet Tech Trends For 2022


Every year at the start of the year, Benedict Evans produces a big presentation on trends in technology, internet, mobile, and so on. He used to live in the US and did this for Andreesen-Horowitz (a16z), but he has since returned to Britain (he's English) and I think has his own consulting company. This year's presentation is titled "Three Steps to the Future." The most exciting themes in t... » read more