An animated version of Novak Djokovic. | Image: Australian Open
The Australian Open might look a little different this year if you’re livestreaming it on YouTube. That’s because the tournament has put an animated overlay on some of its matches to avoid broadcast licensing conflicts, making players look an awful lot like Wii Sports characters, as reported earlier by The Guardian.
The animated players follow all the same movements as their real-life counterparts as they travel across a cartoon-ish court, while the “whap” of the ball, chatter from the crowd, and commentary all remain authentic. But the animations aren’t perfect, as the players’ sneakers seem to clip into the court at some points, while Naomi Osaka’s animated tank top looked like it was ripped during her match against Caroline Garcia.
Screenshot: The Verge
Naomi Osaka’s tank top didn’t look quite right.
With the animated livestreams, the Australian Open can air its games on YouTube without conflicting with the broadcasting agreements it sold to networks and streaming services around the world, according to The Guardian.
The technology, which the Australian Open first introduced last year, uses 12 cameras to “process the silhouette of the human in real time, and stitch that together across 29 points in the skeleton,” Machar Reid, the director of innovation at Tennis Australia, the organization behind the tournament, told The Guardian. “It’s not as seamless as it could be — we don’t have fingers — but in time you can begin to imagine a world where that comes.”
Based on the information from the sensors, the Australian Open’s systems can then create an animated version of the live events with a two-minute delay.
It's an understatement to say that cell phones have evolved in the 30-plus years since they entered mainstream society. But, despite all the stuff our smart phones offer, they'll never hit the same way those early models did. Now, there's an opportunity to step back in time, thanks to the new digital Nokia Design Archive sharing sketches, photos, interviews and videos spanning from the mid-1990s to 2017.
Aalto University, in Nokia's home country of Finland, is responsible for the Nokia Design Archive. Its team of researchers curated 700 entries and included a repository with another 20,000 items and 959GB of born-digital file. The never-before-seen content from Nokia, which released its first GSM hand-portable phone in 1992, doesn't disappoint. Anyone feeling extra nerdy (ahem, me) can even read through presentations with mood boards and concept designs.
The ensuing nostalgia dive provides not only an ode to the classic Nokia devices (and their very 90s styling), but also an interesting look into how technology evolves. "In the early ages of Nokia, there was a genuine wish to understand people, how they live, what makes them tick. Now we’re at a similar point of societal transformation with AI. Nobody has concretised what it is yet, but we need to get people thinking about what could be," said lead researcher Professor Anna Valtonen in a release. “The Archive reveals how designers made visions concrete so that they could be properly explored long before they became reality. It reminds us that we do have agency and we can shape our world — by revealing the work of many people who did just that.”
Nokia
The Design Archive looks a bit like a word graph floating through space, with topics including Mobile Games and Gaming — which provides an overview of the infamous Snake game's creation — and Phones Fashion and Accessories. The free platform offers four topic filters: products, aesthetics, design process and design strategy. Plus, you can narrow in on specific years for a better look at your favorite model's time period. The team hopes to continue adding more content as the project develops further.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/the-nokia-design-archive-has-20-plus-years-of-never-before-seen-images-sketches-and-strategy-150044971.html?src=rss
Axios is expanding its local newsletter presence from 30 to 34 cities. The catch? OpenAI is funding it. In its continued pretense of benefiting newsrooms, OpenAI has partnered with Axiosin a three-year deal to cover Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Kansas City, Missouri; Boulder, Colorado; and Huntsville, Alabama. What does OpenAI get in exchange for its funding? Oh, just the ability to use Axios content to answer users' questions.
Like the close to 20 newsrooms that OpenAI has already partnered with, Axios seems to have forgotten that the scorpion did end up stinging the frog. Instead, we have this starry-eyed statement from Axios co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei: "We launched Axios Local nearly four years ago with the bold goal of bringing local news to communities across the country. OpenAI’s investment allows us to continue our expansion and aid us in bringing essential local news to deserving audiences."
Axios will be able to use OpenAI's technology to create its own AI-powered systems and products. However, VandeHei issued a memo to employees stating the aforementioned technology won't be used for reporting stories (sure, because no one has been laid off in favor of AI before — oh wait, wait some more and the list continues). The Axios announcementdoes, however, point out that The New York Times is currently suing both OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, so maybe there's some awareness of what its entering into.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/axios-partners-with-openai-forgetting-the-scorpion-stung-the-frog-144242204.html?src=rss
Global fashion brands grapple with excess inventory. ASOS, for instance, had over £1.2 billion of unsold products in 2022. Mostly, these brands avoid reselling in core markets like the UK and the U.S. to prevent market cannibalization. Meanwhile, emerging markets like Africa heavily rely on secondhand clothing imports, but 30% to 40% of these items […]
OpenAI has begun testing a feature that lets new ChatGPT users sign up with only a phone number — no email required. As spotted by software engineer Tibor Blaho, the feature, which is available in beta in the U.S. and India, lets users create an account for ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot platform, by providing their […]
Less than a year after unveiling its AI avatars that convey human emotions using user text inputs, Nvidia-backed AI startup Synthesia announced on Wednesday that it has secured $180 million in a Series D funding round to advance its AI-powered […]
Apple recently made a donation to assist with LA wildfire recovery efforts, and is now inviting customers to do the same.
Those based in the US can make a donation to the American Red Cross’s Southern California Wildfires Relief fund though the App Store or Apple Music apps …
Several Meta properties including Facebook are reportedly down for users within the last few minutes. Downdetector shows a spike of more than 10,000 reports and climbing for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
Honda announced that its first original electric vehicle — that is, an EV built on its own platform and not one based on another automaker’s tech, like the Honda Prologue — will be the Acura RSX, due out in 2026.
Honda’s two battery-electric vehicles in the US, the Honda Prologue and the Acura ZDX, are both based on General Motors’ Ultium vehicle platform. The Prologue, in particular, has been an early success for Honda, outselling its sister vehicles, the Chevy Blazer and Equinox EVs.
But now Honda is ready to start working on its own tech. The RSX will also be the first EV to be built at Honda’s new factory in Ohio, where production is expected to kick off in late 2025. The $4.4 billion plant is a joint venture between Honda and LG Chem, the Korean battery company.
Honda is resurrecting the RSX badge that it first used in the early 2000s as its performance brand’s version of the Honda Integra. This follows Honda’s decision to also bring back the Prelude as a sporty, two-door hybrid.
“In RSX, we turn to an Acura nameplate that communicates fun to drive performance, a great name for a sporty SUV with a coupe silhouette for our first original Acura EV,” said Lance Woelfer, VP of automobile sales at American Honda Motor Co.
The RSX will also be the first vehicle from Honda to feature its in-house-developed Asimo OS. At CES, Honda said that Asimo would be the company’s first effort at designing a software-defined vehicle, in which updatable software controls the vehicle’s core functions. The OS was named after Honda’s Asimo humanoid robot, which was retired in 2018. Asimo will also underpin the automaker’s new Honda Zero vehicles, with the first being the Honda 0 SUV.
“So it works out that Acura is once again, sort of the tip of the spear for electrification and our digital future,” said Jessica Fini, Honda’s assistant VP for communications.
TikTok will shut down entirely in the US on Sunday without intervention from the US Supreme Court, unnamed sources have told Reuters. That would go beyond the ban’s requirement for app stores to stop offering downloads of the app, but not immediately halt use of it.
If TikTok shuts down, it will show users a pop-up message pointing them to a website with information about the ban, according to the outlet's sources. The company will also reportedly let users download all of their data.
On Friday last week, a lawyer for TikTok said during a Supreme Court hearing that the app will “go dark” if the court doesn’t pause the ban. The court’s decision on the matter could come as soon as today, and a shutdown is one of the possible outcomes for TikTok, whose executives recently told employees were “planning for various scenarios,” as we reported yesterday.
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