COVID-19 has wreaked serious havoc since it broke out globally, and although the world is getting used to the disease, working towards procedures to curb its spread and fatalities, we are still some way from having a more permanent solution such as a vaccine.

Until then, the virus will continue to impact every aspect of our lives, as well as all sectors of the economy, and tech is no exception. The technology industry has a vital role to play, pushing innovations to help us all tackle what are sure to be more difficult times ahead.

We’ve already seen some examples of this emerging, so read on for three examples of what shape these innovations can take.

Heat Sensing AR Glasses

Augmented Reality glasses have been a trend under development for a while now, exponentially coming down in price and packing more capabilities, processing power, and sophisticated sensors in ever-smaller devices that are much less cumbersome.

In addition to capturing images, it is possible to have heat-sensing cameras built into such headsets, and it is easy to see how this will become invaluable in helping to screen people who might be showing early symptoms that could indicate they are infected with a virus such as COVID-19. This would go a long way in minimizing contact and curbing the spread of the disease.

There is much discussion around what responsibility tech giants as Twitter and Facebook have in regulating and moderating unfounded claims and hold people accountable
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This will aid in the easy identification of threats and possibly help in the safer long-term reopening of various sectors that have been forced to shut down or dramatically reduce their operations since the pandemic began, and is crucial to restarting the global economy without overloading already-stretched healthcare systems.

One instance which would call for the use of such technology is football, where fans are no longer allowed in stadiums at the moment since large gatherings without screening would make it very likely for the virus to spread. Yet this lack of fans in stadia will see football clubs struggling to keep up their finances and the game behind closed doors has left much to be desired. Until we can all get back to life as normal, many of us are still facing some time stuck at home, but the pandemic has not been able to stop folks from deriving excitement from playing online games. You could, for example, choose to play some games at an online casino in your spare time to get your head off the everyday worries and soothe your nerves amid this pandemic.

Implementing worldwide video conferencing standards 

Many of us have had to embrace the idea of working from home in these turbulent times, and in the middle of this transition we quickly discovered that phone conversations won’t always cut it. And although the quality of video conferencing tools has certainly improved in recent years, we still have a long way to go in order to replicate the sense of connection and presence that we get from face-to-face communications that are (at least for the moment) quite literally on hold.

Many of us have had to embrace the idea of working from home in these turbulent times
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There is still a lot of room for improvement, particularly where it comes to interoperability. If, for example, you receive a video call invitation via Facetime, using an Apple device would be convenient on your end. Meanwhile, Zoom would need a Zoom client, and WebEx requires a WebEx client. Even the likes of Skype and Teams cannot interconnect irrespective of the fact that they’re both Microsoft products.

This is a problem that has been largely addressed in mobile phones and other networked devices, so video conferencing should move in the same direction.

Taking the fight  to peddlers of fake news and recommendations

Sadly, there has been a lot of fake information about this pandemic. And while some of it can be dismissed as somewhat funny, much of it can actually prove harmful, and the proliferation of false information has been proven to put people in real danger.

Social media platforms have been the major disseminator of such fake information and conspiracy theories about potential cures, the origins of the virus, or health advice for curbing its spread. There is much discussion around what responsibility such tech giants as Twitter and Facebook have in regulating, moderating, or at the very least flagging such unfounded claims and hold people accountable.

There has been a lot of fake information about this pandemic
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Decisive action would serve as a deterrent to those gleefully jumping on the ‘misinformation bandwagon,’ and here, too, technology can be our ally. There are many Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that can be deployed to identify, flag, and neutralize these invalid ideas and recommendations at scale, and doing this could potentially save lives in the long run. Whether there is enough social and political will to push tech companies into doing so, however, is another matter.

The post Fighting COVID-19 with Technology appeared first on Tech Trends.

As the world grows crazier by the day, Augmented Reality provides some much-needed comic relief.

AR is the “Rising Star” medium of our age, claims Liat Sade-Sternberg, CEO of fuse.it. And it’s hard to argue with that while watching a demo of a guy dancing gangnam style along with disturbingly agile avatars of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. We definitely live in strange times.

Augmented reality is the “Rising Star” medium of our age
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You can argue about whether or not that’s a good thing, but in this age of fake news and memes, the fact that this content doesn’t look too polished takes a back seat to whether you can do something fun and creative with it – and share it with one tap.

You can insert yourself into memes and news clips with media personalities
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And that’s just the sort of use case that Sade-Sternberg is selling. Fuse.it is an AR app that lets you sync up multiple audio sources with video at the same time as interacting with a range of 3D animated characters including Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton.

We will we see more apps that mix creative animated environments with the real world
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You can insert yourself into memes and news clips, having “conversations” with media personalities, singing and dancing with your favourite (or least favourite) politician, and basically blend, colour, manipulate and mash up any video source to create viral clips ready to share.

Interact with a range of 3D animated characters including Barack Obama and Donald Trump
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Using the app (which has just been released on iOS) is a matter of selecting a character or video you want to interact with, choose a camera position and begin recording. With a tap you can bring those characters to life, and record yourself interacting with them in your own surroundings, sharing the end results with friends. Fuse.it promises to keep adding the app’s content database to reflect the latest trending pop culture and news stories.

“It allows people to become content creators, with users easily able to make viral videos from fake news clips to memes,” says Sade-Sternberg. “We were looking for a new way to easily integrate people into videos and turn their media consumption from passive to active by letting them embed themselves into their favorite pop culture moments such as news, memes, movies, tv, music videos and more to let them be part of the story.”

She explains the original inspiration for the app came from trying to close the gap between official media and user generated content, providing a one-click solution to let users create blended content instantly. They decided to focus on video because it is as Sade-Sternberg puts, it, “king of content.”

“Online videos will account for more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic by 2020. Every day Over 8 billion videos or 100 millions hours of videos are watched on Facebook, 10 billion videos on SnapChat and 500 million hours of videos are watched on Youtube.”

The Israeli start-up – which was founded in Tel-Aviv but is currently headquartered in LA – also claims to have secured partnerships with several large music labels, but say they cannot yet disclose which.

Users are easily able to make viral videos from fake news clips to memes
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As mentioned above, the quality of the demos is far from polished, but it is enough to have fun with, and to hint at what will become possible in the near future as the technology continues to gain momentum and become more pervasive. And this is certainly what Sade-Sternberg is betting on:

“As we see Augmented Reality become more mainstream, so too will we see more apps that mix creative animated worlds with the real world. AR is already accessible to every person in the world. Google, Apple and Amazon all are investing big time in the technology so I think we’re going to see lots of improvement in this field in the upcoming months. We are in an exciting time, when we will define the behavior of how people will use AR apps.”

Originally published on VRScout

This App Creates Crazy AR Videos with One Tap via @alicebonasio https://t.co/ZjjfLvHTf9 pic.twitter.com/cec6cY4wbm

— VRScout (@VRScout) December 11, 2017

If you would like to find out how to leverage VR/AR/MR in your project or enterprise, Tech Trends offers Virtual Reality Consultancy support

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Making Up Fake News with AR appeared first on Tech Trends.

From fake news to bonkers Twitter wars, 2016 has certainly been an eventful time for social media, and 2017 is shaping up to be even more so.

From fake news to Twitter wars, social media is the new current affairs battleground
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So what were the headlines that had everyone talking? Is social media likely to change much throughout the remainder of 2017? And are there any identifiable patterns that can be capitalised on to help with your own social media campaigns?

This infographic by the Website Group presents some of the most noteworthy highlights that have come our way in the past 12 months. If you care to share your own favourites do leave a comment below or reach out on Twitter @alicebonasio
’Social Media in the News 2016 – 2017’ – an infographic by the team at The Website Group

The post Infographic: Social Media in the News appeared first on Tech Trends.