InfoQ Homepage Emerging Technologies Content on InfoQ
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eBay Increases Listing Completion Rate by 30% by Porting Barcode Scanner to the Web With WebAssembly
EBay recently reported a positive business outcome by using WebAssembly to deliver a code scanning feature to its mobile web users. The Draft Completion Rate for sellers’ listing increased by 30% by porting the in-house C++ scanning library to WebAssembly, and using it concurrently with two competing solutions.
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Google Open-Sources Real-Time Hand Tracking for Android and iOS
Google has open-sourced a new component for its MediaPipe framework aimed to bring real-time hand detection and tracking to mobile devices.
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Facebook and University Researchers Developing Mind-Reading System
As part of a Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) brain-computer interface (BCI) research program called Project Steno, a team of scientists from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) described their work on converting brain waves into a text transcription of speech. The goal of Facebook's project is a device that allows users to "type" by imagining themselves speaking.
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Building AR/VR Applications in the Browser
Both Augmented and Virtual reality present exciting new opportunities for web developers. We follow Doug Sillars' talk on "Building an ARt Gallery in the Browser" to find out what the state of Virtual and Augmented Reality in JavaScript is, and how developers can get involved by using A-Frame, an AR/VR JavaScript library.
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OpenXR Spec Hits 1.0, Guarantees Backward-Compatibility
Backed by Epic, Microsoft, Oculus, and others, OpenXR aims to reduce fragmentation in the AR/VR space by setting an open, royalty-free standard for augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) platforms and devices. Additions to version 1.0 include better support for input subsystem, game engine editor, and loader.
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Mozilla's Firefox Reality VR Browser Now Available on Oculus Quest, with Tracking Data Protection
Mozilla recently brought Firefox Reality, its popular open-source Virtual Reality (VR) browser, to the Oculus Quest handset. Oculus Quest users will now enjoy the privacy features included in the browser, such as Enhanced Tracking Protection.
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Microsoft Quantum Development Kit Goes Open Source
Microsoft has recently made its Quantum Development Kit (QDK) open source in an effort to make “quantum computing and algorithm development easier and more transparent for developers”, Microsoft says. Microsoft QDK includes the Q# compiler, quantum libraries, and the quantum simulator.
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Robot Social Engineering: Brittany Postnikoff at QCon New York
At QCon New York, Brittany Postnikoff presented “Robot Social Engineering: Social Engineering Using Physical Robots”. Quoting findings from academic research literature, she demonstrated that humans can often be manipulated via robots. A core message of the talk was the need for security and privacy to be part of any robot's fundamental design.
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Microsoft, Salesforce and the Ethereum Foundation Join Open-Source Hyperledger Blockchain Project
In a recent press release, Hyperledger, an open-source blockchain and distributed ledger project, announced eight new members have joined their consortium including Microsoft, Salesforce and the Ethereum Foundation. These organizations join established members like Airbus, Cisco, IBM and Intel.
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Iconic Doom3 Game Now in Browsers with WebAssembly: Q&A with Gabriel Cuvillier
The iconic Doom 3 game now runs in browsers with WebAssembly. The port illustrated both the present performance potential and the missing parts for WebAssembly today to seamlessly run heavy-weight desktop applications and games. InfoQ interviewed Cuvillier on technical challenges and lessons to be learnt for developers thinking about porting desktop applications with WebAssembly.
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Moving Embodied AI forward, Facebook Open-Sources AI Habitat
In a recent blog post, Facebook has announced they have open-sourced AI Habitat, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) simulation platform that is designed to train embodied agents, such as virtual robots. Using this technology, robots can learn how to grab an object from an adjacent room or assist a visually-impaired person in navigating an unfamiliar transit system.
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MIT Debuts Gen, a Julia-Based Language for Artificial Intelligence
In a recent paper, MIT researchers introduced Gen, a general-purpose probabilistic language based on Julia aimed to allow users to express models and create inference algorithms using high-level programming constructs.
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Bringing Blockchain Developer Tools to the Enterprise, Truffle and Microsoft Announce Partnership
In a recent blogpost, Microsoft and Truffle announced a partnership to bring blockchain developer tools and experiences to the Microsoft Azure ecosystem. The investments the organizations are making include local blockchain nodes for testing, with test data, smart contract authoring and continuous deployment, debugging and testing.
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Facebook PyRobot Aims to Make Robot Programming Easier
According to Facebook, PyRobot will allow developers to get up and running with a robot quickly thanks to it providing a higher-level abstraction on top of the robot operating system (ROS).
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Cloudflare CIRCL Experiments in Post-Quantum Cryptography
Cloudflare has open-sourced CIRCL (Cloudflare Interoperable, Reusable Cryptographic Library), a collection of algorithms for post-quantum (PQ), elliptic curve cryptography, and hashing for prime groups.