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Cortical Labs biological computer

Cortical Labs biological computer

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Star Trek bio-gel packs are not science fiction anymore. Cortical Labs has built the first deployable biological computer, priced at $35,000.

Two years ago, researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Australia, together with scientists at Cortical Labs in Melbourne, suggested that the answer to real, less artificial AI was organoids – computers built with human brain cells. Fast forward to today, and Cortical Labs has turned the theory into reality with the production of the world’s first commercialized biological computer.

Live neuron cells are cultivated inside a nutrient-rich solution, supplying them with everything they need to be healthy. They grow across a silicon chip, which sends and receives electrical impulses into the neural structures.

They claim it is available for purchase and can ‘solve today’s most difficult challenges’. Lets hope it’s not another startup scam like some quantum computers have been turning out to be.

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Getting into pro racing

Getting into pro racing

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SRO Motorsports is a Twitch channel showing off semi-pro racing. What makes it all interesting is that it shows off what just a few people can do. What would have taken a huge TV crew is being done by just a few folks.

It was exceptionally fun because the 2 commentators respond to the chat questions live while narrating the race. You could ask just about anything about rules, ages, etc and they would just respond on-air. One of them even ran off between heats to grab them both some food from the on-track food carts. People in the stands watching were commenting live on chat. The racers range from 17 year olds all the way up to 40+ and they use cars that are not that different than ones you might have as a daily driver.

People asked about getting started in racing and they even answered those question (you get a driving certificate for racing via schools like Skip Barber driving school) as well as lots of interesting tidbits about rules and behinds the scenes knowledge.

Ray cast audio

Ray cast audio

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Audio in games has always been a bit of a cheat. In the earliest days of games, a simple pre-recorded sound was replayed when a gun was shot or step taken. Bit rates went up and the quality increased. Audio could be played in stereo to help isolate location of the sound. Games then added full 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound and binaural sound. They now even take into account the material of object collisions such as metal on concrete vs metal on carpet – but it’s not fully dynamic.

Moving forward, what if we could fully simulate sound in a dynamic virtual location? We could take into account how sound reacts with different materials, walls, and shapes in the environment automatically. The idea is not new – but the compute required was far too high for realtime games.

Vercidium has tried to re-create the idea using modern hardware. What is unique is the idea of using this system for visually impaired people. This isn’t an idea that is limited to virtual worlds, but what if alarms in real life had such visual projection (lasers, lights, etc). Interesting.

There’s also some interesting comments in the video discussion that can lead you down different implementations and ideas.

Why aren’t blue states winning?

Why aren’t blue states winning?

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In many states (such as California, New York, Oregon, and Illinois) Democrats control all the levers of power from governor, to house of representatives/senate, and even city government. They run the government. They write the laws. Yet, in key areas, many blue states are actually doing worse than red states.

Oregon is one of those states. Despite one of the highest funding rates per student in the country, Portland Public Schools are nearly dead last – much worse than southern red states on all metrics of student achievement. Despite record spending on homelessness, Portland has some of the worst homelessness in the country. Oregon has some of the worst mental health systems in the country. Many blue states are some of the least affordable despite decades of rent programs and development restrictions. The list goes on. What’s going wrong?

New York Times dives in to find out why.

Continuous Scene Meshing On Quest 3

Continuous Scene Meshing On Quest 3

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The Quest 3 lets you scan a room and build up an internal 3D mesh that represents the world you are in. This can take from 20 seconds to minutes and requires the user walking around the area – and is not able to change dynamically to opening/closing doors/etc.

The Depth API provides live depth frames up to 5 meters in distance – but how to use that to build up the environment in real time?

Julian Triveri‘s multiplayer mixed reality Quest 3 game Lasertag does just this. It takes the live frames and uses an open-source Unity implementation of marching cubes. Apple Vision Pro and Pico 4 Ultra already use this method – but have hardware accelerated depth sensors to help. Quest 3 developers need to do this computation themselves.

See the code on GitHub.

https://www.uploadvr.com/developer-implemented-continuous-scene-meshing-quest-3-lasertag

Difficult conversations

Difficult conversations

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As always, Adam Savage has a bunch of good observations about working together in creative teams.

Dealing with university students – some who can barely see outside their own personality while others are already racing to take on the world. I don’t know what it’s like to address so many different kinds of people.

Confrontation is an investment. If I tell you something isn’t working well, it’s because I’m investing in this relationship. If I don’t care, I just won’t say anything or move on. If the response to that confrontation is to lie, misrepresent, minimize, etc – then I realize how much they value and are investing in the relationship and I can then act accordingly.