Daily Archives: February 24, 2017

Song Saa, Cambodia: Private island comfort at a new level – Ballarat Courier

Posted: February 24, 2017 at 6:47 pm

25 Feb 2017, 12:15 a.m.

A missive revealing an exotic menu, lapping water, candlelight, furniture heavy with history: this resort idyll will take you into a whole new comfort zone.

Song Saa is a luxury resort on a private, jungle-covered island.

Bliss: The view out over the infinity pool.

Blessed seclusion.

Song Saa offers pristine white sand beaches.

The immaculately decorated interiors.

Infinity pool.

Dinner time on Song Saa.

One of Song Saa's dinner settings.

It's the closest thing I'll get to a culinary romance.

In a crisp jungle dawnbut with the promise of heat later in the day, I open the heavy wooden door of my villa to retrieve the rolled notethat's been slipped between the outside handle. It's a love letter of sorts.

"Dear Jane,"it reads in a swirling script

"'Souse day', good day from all the Song Saa Islanders.

"We trust that you are enjoying our little paradise and the Monk Blessing this morning.

"This evening we would like to invite you for dinner at our main beach area for Kampong Som ocean red snapper fillet and Island coconut creme brulee and tropical fruit compote.

"... From our island bakery you can enjoy Kamping Cham, ripe mango mousse torte, caramel palm sugar infused. With warmest wishes Chendu and Chef Sophat."

An invitation to dinner, cooked by anotheris a clear signal that I am away from the regular world of routine and rush that I've chosen.

The off button has been pressed, permission has been given to relax, here on this tiny island in Cambodia.

But on the journey to one of the kingdom's newest resorts it's hard to keep expectations in check.

Chatter about the Song Saa Private Island begins in the hot and dusty inland of northern Cambodia and follows me all the way south to our destination in the Koh Rang Archipelago.

In the coastal town of Kep, once dubbed the Riviera of the south,expat eyebrows raise at the resort's mention and locals grin.

The resort only five years young and the story of how Australian owners RoryHunter and Melita Koulmandas Hunter came to build such a place ona jungle-covered island in this fledgling country appears to be better known in the kingdom than it does in their homeland (although they haven't lived in Australia for severalyears).

The kingdom's first true luxury resort on a private island sounds like the poster child for luxury as well as for care for the community and environment.

It sounds idyllic. A little far-fetched even.

And yet the speedboat ride from Sihanoukville port with leatherseats, cool white flannels and champagne is upstaged after only a few steps on to the silkiest of sand of the private island (staff assure me that it's not imported) and a walk to the jungle villa with butterflies darting among the greenery.

The 3.5-hectare island, Koh Ouen,is just one part of Song Saa.

Wooden bridgesconnect it to its "sweetheart" the four-hectare nature reserve of Koh Bong,to the Vista restaurant and bar area and the over-water villas.

In an arc shape, without railings, the bridge walk to breakfast is both deliberate and giddying as schools of snapper dart back and forth in the turquoise water underneath me.

In the over-water pavilion, as oatmeal with cinnamon lemongrass and kaffir lime is served alongside tropical fruit cooled by wet stones, the putt-putt of fishing boats can be heard in the distance.

Just as intoxicating is the jungle villa No.11 with itsheavy doors between bedrooms and conversation-pit lounging areas; half-moon pool overlooking its sweetheart island, outside showers, furniture of recycled fishing boats and a drinks station where fresh limes, lemongrass vodka and tonic water are refreshed each day.

Koulmandas Hunter designed almost every piece of furniture before having it custom made.

"All of the floors in the villas are old recycled housing materials from Thailand and Cambodia. The pool tiles are a local stone from the mainland and all the work stations are made from 100-plus year old Cambodian beds," she says.

If rustic sophistication were a thing, this would be it.

Be prepared too for the most elaborate turn-down service with ladders required to draw the curtains, restocking of the fridge, fluffing of the pillowsand the lighting of many, manytealight candles enclosed in lanterns.

Request an in-villa movie night and you will return to a screen the width of the lounge area, movie projector and boxes of popcorn.

A private island this might be, but it is also one piece in the Song Saa story as the project director, Ben Thorne of the Song Saa Foundation, says of the first government recognised marine reserve that rings 200 metres around each island and across a five-hectare stretch of ocean.

"Fishing in the archipelago is the predominant source of food and income and nutrients for the local communities," Thorne says.

"We know that we have transient turtles come through the area and a high abundance of commercial fish species such as snapper and barracuda so the ones that are caught outside the reserve have protection in around the Song Saa islands.

"Once we've protected enough fish in our own marine reserve there will be juveniles going out beyond the waters of the marine reserve. It's about protecting and creating a legacy for the local fishermen as well as the local environment here.

"And we want guests to be able to go out and see this diverse reef, which we're proud to say we have."

To see how the foundation works,I cross the waters, not by luxury speedboat but bylongtail to Song Saa's closest village in the community of Prek Svay, loosely translated as Mango River. Stilt houses line the waterways and fishing and cashew farming is a source of income.

Dotted with coconut trees,about 30 per cent of staff are from the community and the foundation runs English lessons and beach clean-ups as part of its conservation club. Many are employed from nearby Sihanoukville and staff are gearing up for World Ocean day and mangrove planting.

I receive my Buddhist blessing from two monks and then from a small child a gift of bugs wings as I leave the village.

Back at the villa the rolled dinner invitation has arrived inviting me to the main pool area at the edge of the ocean under a canopy of twisted and thatched dried vines.

There's just one one other couple dining on a small deck in the middle of the pool, clearlymarooned and loving it.

There's another 30 or so guests here,I just don't see them often.

Every night is a new dining place,from the beach clubto the end of the jetty, all timed for sunset and maximum serenity.

One guest I do talk to has just arrived for a break from her heavy-duty job in industrial China for a week of spa treatments and yoga classes and I understand the repeat visitation.

This tiny island is the place for a punctuation mark of sorts. The honeymoon, the anniversary, the present to yourself.

For me it's been the shortest, sweetest romance of all time.

*Take a kayak or catamaran with picnic to explore the area.

*Snorkel around the islands to spot grouper and parrotfish.

*Hire the spa sanctuary for exclusive use under the stars.

*Join the daily morning yoga class.

*Explore Koh Bong with a conservation team member to spot kingfisher, sea eagles and Malaysian plover.

traveller.com.au/cambodia

songsaa.com/

tourismcambodia.com/

Siem Reap and Phnom Penh Airport have multiple daily services to many Asian gateways, including Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Kuala Lumpur.

From Phnom Penh Airport transfers to Sihanoukville Port in BMW 4WD (four hours) for the speedboat ride to the island (45 minutes).

From Siem Reap flights operate daily with Cambodian Angkor Air on the ATR72 aircraft to Sihanoukville International Airport (50 minutes) before transfer to the port.Departing Siem Reapat 4.30pm every Monday and 2.25pm every Tuesday-Sunday, staff transport guests from the airport to the island.

It costs from $890 a night for a one-bedroom Jungle villa with pool inclusive of breakfast, speedboat transfers, high-speed internet and satellite TV, mini bar restocked daily, non-alcoholic beverages, use of of the resort's kayaks, sailing boats, and snorkelling gear, guided tours, 15-minute foot ritual and some daily laundry. There is no charge for children under 12.

Jane Reddy stayed courtesy of Song Saa Private Island.

The story Song Saa, Cambodia: Private island comfort at a new level first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Cohousing communities gain popularity, including here in Nashville – WKRN.com

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WKRN.com
Cohousing communities gain popularity, including here in Nashville
WKRN.com
It is an intentional community. We decided we wanted to have a community that was structured in a very high functioning way because research shows that these communities are very healthy and very thriving, Sullivan explained. In Germantown's ...

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Column: Community will miss Rev. Irwin’s impact – Wicked Local Waltham

Posted: at 6:45 pm

By Rev. Tom Maehl

Waltham is transient city with people coming and going with regularity. Mostly people who leave do so with little fanfare. Seldom do we stop to publicly say thank you and good-bye.

The Rev. Sara Irwin, who as served Christ Episcopal Church in Waltham for the past 11 years, is leaving. In early March, she and her family will move to Pittsburg where new opportunities for ministry await them. For those in the congregation she serves, this brings a measure of sadness and she will be dearly missed. For the rest of the city, this will go by mostly unnoticed.

I am a colleague of Saras and as such I will say thank you and good-bye privately. Yet I am also a citizen of Waltham, a person who cares deeply for this city in which I live, work and am raising my children. It is in that capacity that I wish to celebrate and offer public gratitude for her leadership.

First and foremost what I celebrate is the enduring presence of Christ Episcopal Church! In the 17 years in Waltham, I have watched as many older established faith communities have closed. I used to be able to count the number on one hand, now I need two. I am aware that Christ Episcopal was heading in that direction having endured years of decline. Without some sort of change, this newspaper may have had yet another front page story about a congregation closure, instead of this back page thank you note.

Over the time that the Rev. Sara Irwin has served the congregation has significantly grown. As I see it, this has come through a combination of good pastoral leadership, radical hospitality and the intentional welcome of children and young adults.

As a person of faith who values not only my own faith tradition but others, I am grateful that big fieldstone building across the street from the public library is housing another vibrant congregation, instead of say luxury housing or office space. So thank you Sara for being there for your congregation, and for your care-filled leadership that has been instrumental in ensuring that for years to come the diverse, faithful congregation you have served will continue to be there for others.

Thank you also for your care of others beyond the congregation you serve. Thanks to you and the people of Christ Episcopal for your diaper depot providing a measure of relief for lower income families. Thanks for your care of persons struggling with homeless, addiction and domestic violence. Thanks for your advocacy on behalf of the marginalized and for your cheerful willingness to collaborate with other faith traditions and communities, including my own. It is a blessing.

The Rev. Tom Maehl is the pastor of First Lutheran Church in Waltham

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NASA Looking for Bright Ideas to Help With Space Travel – Tech.Co

Posted: at 6:45 pm

After NASAs discovery of seven Earth-size planets orbiting around a single star, weve all been reinvigorated with extra terrestrial excitement. One of these planets might have life on it, or at the very least be suitable for life, and thats truly a crazy next step as we make sense of the universe around us.

It comes at a good time, because NASA has announced their iTech Cycle 2, a challenge to innovators of any stripe to come up with a solution or an idea that NASA can use to further their quest in space exploration.

The initiative is open to small and large businesses, universities, non-profits, U.S. Government organizations and individual inventors. All theyhave to do is submit is a five-page white paper with theireureka moment written down.

The iTech Cycle 2 is focusing on five key areas: Autonomy, Big DataData Mining and Machine Learning, Medical Systems and Operations, Radiation Protection and Mitigation, and X-Factor Innovationsany solution out of the box that NASA hadnt taken into account.

The submissions will be reviewed by a panel of experts and whittled down to ten finalists based on relevance to the proposed topics and potential impact on them. The finalists will then present their ideas to NASAs chief technologists, space industry leaders and potential investors at the 2017 NASA iTech Forum taking place at NASAs Langley Research Center July 10-14.

The finalists of last years initiative were Aequor, Liberty Biosecurity, and InnaMed.The iTech Cycle 2 will be open for submissions from February 23 to April 7 to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. NASA will not claim any intellectual property rights for a submitted idea.

Lets all give a cheer forthese groundbreaking innovators. After all, its one of the only things for which we can come together as a planet.

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SpaceX supply ship completes journey to space station – Spaceflight Now

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ESA astronaut Homas Pesquet tweeted this image of the Dragon spacecraft hovering just below the space station Thursday. Credit: Thomas Pesquet/ESA/NASA

Running a day late after aborting a rendezvous to resolve a navigation glitch, SpaceXs Dragon cargo craft made a smooth final approach to the International Space Station on Thursday, floating in range of the research labs robot arm for capture to deliver 2.7 tons of supplies and research experiments.

The Dragon spacecraft took four days to travel to the complex after blasting off from the Kennedy Space Centers launch pad 39A on Sunday, hauling food rations, space station repair equipment, and science investigations designed to monitor Earths ozone layer, study lightning and test out new automated navigation tools for a future satellite servicing mission.

The 23-foot-long (7-meter) Dragon supply ship approached the space station from below, pausing at predetermined hold points to allow for status checks by ground controllers. Mission control centers in Houston and at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California, gave a green light for the spacecraft to move to a capture box around 10 meters, or 33 feet, beneath the outpost.

European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet unlimbered the space stations Canadian-built robotic arm to grapple the Dragon cargo carrier at 5:44 a.m. EST (1044 GMT), a few minutes earlier than projected in Thursdays timeline.

Capture of the SpaceX-owned supply vessel occurred as the space station sailed over the northwest coast of Australia.

Looks like weve got a great capture, radioed space station commander Shane Kimbrough, who assisted Pesquet. Thomas did a great job flying it.

Great job with Dragon capture, and sorry about the delays, responded astronaut Mike Hopkins from mission control in Houston. Now the real work starts.

The mission delivered a record payload of scientific hardware for a SpaceX resupply mission, a manifest that includes 40 mice researchers will study to learn about bone healing in microgravity, a field that might have applications for victims with catastrophic bone injuries and patients with osteoporosis.

Were trying to understand what happens in the body as the bones start healing, said Rasha Hammamieh, the rodent research projects chief scientist from the U.S. Army Center for Environmental Health Research.

The military is co-sponsoring the bone health experiment, with an eye toward learning lessons that could help injured soldiers.

Up in space, you lose bone, said Melissa Kacena, co-investigator for the bone experiment and an associate professor of orthopedic surgery, anatomy and cell biology, and biomedical engineering at Indiana University. In fact, astronauts lose about 1 to 3 percent of their bone density in a month. Someone with advanced osteoporosis loses closer to 1 percent per year.

Kacena added that scientists want to test drugs on rodents that might be able to rebuild your bone systematically, so it could have applications not only for bone healing, but also for osteoporosis.

Astronauts on the space station will euthanize the mice and return them to Earth for comparison with a control group that remained on the ground.

Bacterial and stem cell researchers also have a stake in the mission.

We are excited to put MRSA, which is a superbug, on the International Space Station and investigate the effects of microgravity on the growth and mutation patterns of these bugs, said Anita Goel, chairman and science director of Nanobiosym, which developed the experiment with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space.

I have this hypothesis that microgravity will accelerate the mutation patterns. If we can use microgravity as an accelerator to fast forward and get a sneak preview of what these mutations will look like, then we can esssentially build smarter drugs back on Earth.

The stations robotic arm placed the Dragon spacecraft on the Earth-facing port on the Harmony module a few hours later, and bolts drove closed to create a firm connection. Station astronauts planned to verify no leaks between the station and Dragon spacecraft, then open hatches leading into the supply ship later Thursday to begin unloading time-sensitive specimens and research payloads.

Dragon has now officially arrived at ISS, Pesquet said. Were very happy, indeed, to have it on-board and very much looking forward to the goodies, and the tons of science of cargo it carries.

Thursdays capture marked the 10th time a Dragon spaceship has reached the space station, counting a demonstration flight in 2012.

The Dragon spacecraft automatically aborted an attempted rendezvous Wednesday due to an incorrect value in the capsules relative GPS navigation system. SpaceX engineers fixed the problem in time for another approach Thursday.

While astronauts unpack Dragons pressurized cabin, the stations robotic arm will pull two research experiment platforms and a mounting base out of the ships external payload bay for placement on the outposts huge structural truss.

One of the payloads is NASAs $92 million Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment 3, or SAGE 3, an ozone monitor that comes with a separate ESA-built hexapod mounting plate designed to point the instrument at Earths limb, or horizon, at sunset and moonset.

The sunlight and moonlight passing through the layers of the upper atmosphere will help tell scientists about the condition of the ozone layer and allow researchers to track pollutants and particles suspended high above Earth.

SAGE 3, developed by NASAs Langley Research Center in Virginia, is the latest in a series of ozone measurement sensors developed by NASA since 1979. Previous space missions studying ozone showed a decline in the distribution of the gas over Earths poles, and researchers tied the ozone depletion to chlorofluorocarbon, a chemical used in cleaning agents, refrigeration and air conditioning.

An international treaty called the Montreal Protocol that went into force in 1989 banned chlorofluorocarbons, and scientists have observed the depletion stop and watched the ozone layer begin to recover.

How does SAGE 3 fit into that? Were going to make measurements from the space station that show the recovery is on track, said Michael Cisewski, SAGE 3 project manager at NASA. I think that, from a science perspective, it doesnt get any better than that.

SAGE 3 will also measure other important stratospheric gases and atmospheric aerosols, which are components of pollution that also impact the radiation balance of our planet, said Michael Freilich, director of NASAs Earth science division.

The other experiment package carried inside the Dragon capsules external bay is sponsored by the U.S. militarys Space Test Program, hosting more than a dozen investigations for NASA and the Defense Department.

Among STP-H5s investigations are NASAs Raven autonomous space navigation demonstration designed to support future satellite servicing missions and NASAs Lightning Imaging Sensor.

The Raven payload is made up of three sensors optical, infrared and laser trackers to autonomously follow visiting cargo vessels arriving and departing from the space station.

Benjamin Reed, deputy director of NASAs satellite servicing program at Goddard Space Flight Center, called Raven a three-eyed instrument.

The Raven module will be observing visiting vehicles as they approach in all three wavelengths, Reed said. We will be generating range, bearing and pose estimates of those visiting vehicles on-board with sophisticated algorithms and on-board processing, based on the input that the sensors are receiving.

Raven is a follow-up to a NASA experiment that tried out satellite refueling techniques using a boilerplate test panel outside the space station.

The satellite servicing demonstrations will refine the technologies needed for future robotic missions to refuel, refurbish, upgrade and reposition satellites, beginning with NASAs Restore-L spacecraft in development for launch in 2020 to gas up the aging Landsat 7 environmental observatory in orbit.

Raven will try out the navigation equipment needed for Restore-L, and missions like it, to approach another object in orbit without any input from the ground and latch on to it, even if the target was never designed for a docking.

Landsat 7 was launched in 1999 before any such refueling mission was ever proposed, so it is not equipped with markings or a docking port.

These technologies are quite difficult, and that is why NASA is taking the lead, pushing the envelope, (and) doing the hard work first, Reed said. Once we have developed it on missions like Raven, we will then transfer that technology to U.S. industry that is interested in taking this on commercially.

The Lightning Imaging Sensor, managed by NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in partnership with the University of Alabama in Huntsville, will take pictures and log lightning strikes from the space stations perch nearly 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth.

Based on a spare camera made for the U.S.-Japanese Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, the instrument cost $7 million to refurbish and will detect lightning day and night in a belt between 56 degrees north and south latitude.

Lightning actually occurs somewhere on Earth some 45 times every single second, Freilich said. Understanding the processes which cause lighting and the connections between lightning and subsequent severe weather events like convective storms and tornadoes are keys to improving weather predictions and saving lives and property in this country and throughout the globe.

The Dragon spacecraft will remain at the space station for around 30 days, detach in late March and re-enter the atmosphere for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, bringing home blood and urine specimens, the euthanized mice and other hardware needed back on Earth.

The Dragons arrival is the first of three resupply missions going to the space station in the next month.

A Russian resupply ship launched early Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, on track for an automated radar-guided docking with the station early Friday.

Meanwhile, an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo vessel is being prepared for blastoff March 19 atop an Atlas 5 booster from Cape Canaveral with another supply delivery.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Google Updates: Scuba, Singularity, SMS and suing – The INQUIRER

Posted: at 6:44 pm

PLEASE BE upstanding for the round-up of this week's Google-related stories.

Firstly, there's Google's plans to sue Uber for allegedly nicking design patents for self-driving cars, and a new hack that warns users of "missing fonts" which turn out to be malware are plaguing Windows Chrome users.

On the enterprise side, Google is now offering Tesla K80 CPU clusters to spin up a supercomputer on demand, In VR, the days of silly hats for VR could be numbered as the company appears to have designed a sort of scuba-diving helmet instead.

Remix OS has announced Singularity, it's plan for an Android phone OS that plugs into a monitor to become a computer.

Meanwhile, Google Project Zero has decided to go public on the exact glitches that caused Microsoft to delay this month's Patch Tuesday. Cheeky monkeys.

Other big news this week, Google suffered a technical glitch last night which meant that some people using the company's ON router may have had to reset their credentials. No harm done, but the company has had to apologise.

There's even more big news on the messaging front - a first leak of Allo for the desktop has leaked (on purpose) presumably as a "keep the faith" acknowledgement to people who have abandoned the messaging platform which is now outside the Top 500 Android apps, despite the company hoping to make it the replacement for Google Hangouts, which is now aimed at business customers.

But meanwhile Android Messages is coming to replace Messenger and will be the default messaging app for twenty OEMs, offering Rich Communication Services (RCS) and a joined up message service equivalent to Apple's iMessage. And about ruddy time.

Google Play Music has had a tweak, but really needs a bomb put under it for the mish-mash of different design concepts, bugs and missing features that remain. It also claims to have more than 40 million songs in its library. Yet still nothing from Cardiacs.

Finally, for anyone who has a Mac and likes tinkering about in betas, the Canary channel of Chrome now offers Mac Pro Touchbar support, which means it'll be live for the rest of us after Easter. You might want to hang on though as it's by all accounts, bobbins at the moment.

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Damon Wayans Jr. Will Star in Seth Rogen’s AI Comedy ‘Singularity’ for FX – /FILM

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Damon Wayans Jr. will star in theSingularitypilot from producersSeth RogenandEvan Goldberg. FX won a bidding war for the AI comedy last August, which was around the time Rogen announced the project. The story depicts a future when artificial intelligencehas far exceeded human intelligence.

Below, learn about the Seth Rogen AI comedy.

In the series, society underwent some massive changes after artificial intelligence grew superior to humans. The Hollywood Reporter learned Wayans is set to play Doug, a man who enjoys the convenience and happiness provided by the best tech the world has to offer. His face isnt always glued to his phone, though. Doug loves to be in the moment and this makes me like this character already is often dressed in Yeezy street wear.

Sonny Lee(Silicon Valley) came up with the idea for the series. Hes writing and executive producing the pilot. Apparently, the writer went to Rogen, Goldberg, and their Point Grey Banner because Singularitystone is comparable toThis Is the End. Theres no mention of whos directing the pilot, but after their work onPreacher, it would be nice if Rogen and Goldberg got behind the camera for a concept as potentially funny as this one. If the show gets picked up, itll be the duos third project to go to series, followingPreacherand HulusFuture Man. (That one actually co-stars another former Happy Endings cast member, Eliza Coupe.)

Rogen revealed he and Goldberg were working on a show about the singularity back in August. We have a pilot for FX that were gonna shoot that were working on right now, he said. Were working on the script right now and were going to film that in the next year basically. Its about artificial intelligence, its a half-hour comedy about the singularity basically. Years ago, Rogen and Goldberg were developing another FX series, an animated showabout Bigfoot, which is still possibly in the works.

As forSingularity, Rogen, Goldberg, and Lee have a fine star for their series. Wayans appeared inLets Be CopsandHow to Be Single, but his performance in the endlessly enjoyableHappy Endingsis a good indicator of how funny he is. The Hollywood Reporter added Wayans was one of the most sought-after actors this pilot season. He was weighing offers from NBC, CBS, and FOX, but he instead went with the promising high-concept pilot from FX.

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Why the Potential of Augmented Reality Is Greater Than You Think – Singularity Hub

Posted: at 6:44 pm

Never before have businesses been able to build billion-dollar valuations in so little time. Never before have incumbent enterprises been able to go out of business so quickly. Disruption is now commonplace, and augmented reality (AR) is emerging as yet another avenue to turn industries on their heads. But what direction will this new technology take?

AR overlays digital information on the physical world using a smartphone (think Pokmon Go) or a headset. In its simplest form, AR is simply a rectangular display floating in front of the eyes, la Google Glass. More advanced forms will drop video game characters or useful information seamlessly onto physical objects, from homes to industrial warehouses.

While virtual reality is moving into a more commercial phase, AR is a little earlier in its development. But ARs potential practical applications are significant. So, whats in store for AR in the coming years?

Most business leaders today are making their projections based on what we know todaya perspective that runs the potential risk of being too linear and possibly missing the point. By digging deeply into trends, cycles and clues from technology disruptions in the past, we can create frameworks to help us better strategize for how capabilities may unfold in the future.

Today, standard market projections focus on how AR will become smaller and faster, or they extrapolate on how existing capabilities could impact the enterprise once implemented. However, past technology disruptions demonstrate that this view is too narrow, and doesn't consider the impact of converging technologiesfor example, in the way mobile technology has converged with the internet.

Augmented reality (and to some extent, virtual reality as well) is on a collision course with other emerging exponential technologiesfor example, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing and machine learning, to name a few. Businesses that prepare themselves to capture the value that can unfold when they converge are more likely to find themselves as industry leaders in the resulting economy.

Mobile technology may be one of the largest technology disruptions to happen in the past 20 years. However, the mobile industry didnt just happen on its own.

Analysts thought that these devices would become smaller, gain longer battery life and that costs would falland even predicted a slow, linear growth. In fact, McKinsey predictions were that the total market for cell phones would be around 900,000 by the turn of the century. The phone would indeed become smaller, faster and cheaper, but no market prediction would come close to predicting what happened next.

Mobile technology became disruptive when it converged with the internet, introducing a slew of new consumer and enterprise use cases. The smartphone was born, and it took the ceiling off the cell phone market potential, unlocking billions of dollars of value that simply did not exist before.

Crowdsourcing was the next convergence as smartphones tapped a worldwide developer community. Traditionally, software companies made applications for mobile PDAs in a small, niche marketplace. By hosting a crowdsourced marketplace on the App Store online store, Apple initiated what would become an estimated $143 billion market opportunity for mobile apps in just 8 years.

Mobile converging with data analytics became another landmark example. As user adoption for smartphones and mobile apps began to skyrocket, the collection of user data to fuel business insights became very relevant. Today, mobile user data has an estimated value of $50 billion, across multiple layers of user data that are collected, sold, aggregated and analyzed.

The point is, mobile is a mega-billion-dollar market, but those who focused on the handset and what it could do missed a seismic shift in the technology paradigm.

Similar to the mobile revolution, ARs future will likely not be dictated by falling prices, smaller form factors or faster performance. They may help in the ubiquitous adoption of AR, but relying on these metrics to predict the future of AR will likely miss the greater market opportunity. Its only when we start to imagine what the combination of AR and industrial IoT, machine earning and 3D printing, among others, that we can begin to truly see its future potential.

Industrial IoT. Augmented reality and the industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) will most likely be the first to converge. AR device adoption is happening in the enterprise space at a faster pace than the consumer space (with the exception of Pokmon Go). And similar to how consumer connectivity created value with the smartphone, enterprise connectivity will provide an information layer thats expected to extend the value of AR devices.

As enterprises begin to rapidly develop connected infrastructure, from manufacturing to logistics, and ultimately to the consumer, massive amounts of data are being collected and used for analysis. AR can provide a data to human interface, allowing workers, managers and executives to see the world augmented with a rich dataset.

Enterprise resource planning, warehouse management and even electronic health record systems will be able to connect a workforce to its surrounding environment, whether a factory, warehouse or hospitalworkers will be able to see information projected onto their environment. Eventually, the value will likely be driven upstream, as well into concepting, design, layout and other knowledge worker tasks, connecting the digital world to the physical one through connected data ecosystems.

Machine learning. Machine learning is expected to be an important convergence for AR, as well. Well need to figure out the best user interface for what amounts to a more hands-free experience. Just as the keyboard was an important innovation in desktop or laptop computing and touchscreens were the key to mobile devicesmachine learning may play a big role in AR interfaces.

Moving from type to touchscreen is a great example of how new interfaces require novel UI. Machine-learning-enabled speech-to-text, as well as text-to-speech, could become important innovations in AR.

Our devices should understand the way we move, talk and touch. Data around user behavior will likely be extremely valuable, opening up markets to capture, transmit, store and utilize.

3D printing. 3D printing is an exploding market in industrial manufacturing, with unique potential benefits for complexity, performance and physical properties. However, specific 3D printing tools for modeling can be confusing for engineers trained on traditional design software for 2D monitors.

Often, the unique design requirements of complex 3D structures are not well suited for existing software tools. Crafting, editing and visualizing models with AR will help bridge the cognitive gap between engineer and design, removing the degrees of separation between designer and product that currently exist today (i.e., keyboard, mouse, 2D screen, interface), and enable the designer to directly interact with the product in an intuitive, creative way.

While there are technological hurdles to cover in stereoscopic processing, display technology, form factor and even social stigma, the future of AR does not lie in the headset, but the headset and

Simply looking at AR and hypothesizing about its value is not sufficient.

Most of the opportunity around hardware innovation lies in emergent value. How AR technologies interface, integrate and converge with other future innovations will help unlock the multi-billion-dollar potential of what may initially seem like just a clunky device.

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Why the Potential of Augmented Reality Is Greater Than You Think - Singularity Hub

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Jide Announces Remix Singularity: The Continuum Alternative for Android – XDA Developers (blog)

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XDA Developers (blog)
Jide Announces Remix Singularity: The Continuum Alternative for Android
XDA Developers (blog)
On the Android side of things, Jide has just announced their own attempt at this converged desktop experience. Dubbed Remix Singularity, this approach is similar to Microsoft's Continuum but leverages Jide's own experience with Android as a desktop OS.
Remix Singularity is Jide's Android answer to Windows ContinuumSlashGear
Remix tries its hand at the mobile-desktop hybrid OS with SingularityAndroid Police
Jide's Remix Singularity OS will turn your Android phone into a PCAndroid Authority (blog)
The INQUIRER -Liliputing -YouTube -Jide
all 24 news articles »

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Jide Announces Remix Singularity: The Continuum Alternative for Android - XDA Developers (blog)

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One Android company wants to use smartphones to make PCs truly … – BGR

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Android is an operating system thats supposed to power smartphones, tablets, cars, wearables, and other gadgets. But its not an OS meant to take over your primary PC. Or is it? Recent reports indicate that Google has some great plans for Android, including turning the OS into a platform that can run on any device, laptops and desktops included. Even Samsung is heading in that direction on its own, as the Galaxy S8 is rumored to come with a special accessory that can be used to connect the smartphone to an external display.

But until any of these plans get official, theres an Android company based in China thats already doing novel things with Googles mobile OS. Jide Technologies, which makes its Android-based, Windows-like Remix OS, is ready for the next big thing: Turning Android smartphones into full-fledged computers.

We talked about Remix OS in the past, a free OS that lets you install Android on any Windows or Mac to offer you a Windows-like user interface and overall experience. The best part is that you still get to use the same apps you downloaded from Google Play on a bigger screen, complete with modified UI elements for the larger display real estate.

But Jide is ready to move forward with an even bolder plan. Rather than installing Remix on your desktop, you could install Remix OS on Mobile (ROM) on your smartphone, and then just connect it to a display or TV. Thats Remix Singularity in action:

That certainly sounds great, at least on paper. ROM will be as close to stock Android as possible, Jide co-founder David Ko told The Verge in an interview. But imagine when you get back to your office or study, you connect your phone, and it turns into a PC mode, just like a laptop or desktop.

Yes, that sounds amazing in theory. In practice. ROM will not ship with Google Play preloaded, so users will have to sideload the app to get their Play apps working on bigger screen. Furthermore, Jide needs partners to agree to have ROM installed on their devices, something that might not coincide with their contractual obligations to Google.

Finally, theres the hardware factor. Youd probably need a rather powerful mobile device to drive a great ROM experience on a monitor. But Jide is primarily targeting first-time Android users who wont all have the means to afford a powerful enough device.

That said, Remix Singularity definitely sounds exciting, so well just have to wait to see it in action.

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One Android company wants to use smartphones to make PCs truly ... - BGR

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