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Mercedes pushes UX boundaries

The Vision AVTR (a reference to the movie Avatar, in which the protagonists can establish neural connection with the natural world on the moon of Pandora) is Mercedes-Benz's most futuristic concept. The car has no steering wheel, has its back covered in scaly-looking "bionic flaps," and has wheels that can rotate far enough to allow the car to move sideways, among other futuristic technologies.

See video below

 

According to Mercedes-Benz, the car now has tech that lets you perform certain tasks just by thinking about them. It's based on visual perception — the car has light dots projected on the car's digital dashboard, and a BCI (brain-computer interface) device with wearable electrodes is attached to the back of the user's head.

Mashable

 

Medical transcription evolves

Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have all created software to this effect and are increasingly creating tools for healthcare settings, likely in a quest for new sources of recurring revenue.

Even Nvidia, which has traditionally focused more on its imaging technology, has started offering medical transcription. Earlier this year, Nvidia launched a service called BioMegatron, which is built to recognize conversational speech. The data set is trained on over six billion medical terms and is 92% accurate. There are also a host of smaller companies like Dragon, MModal, Suki Ai, and Saykara providing transcription for doctors.

FastCompany

Video of Nvidia's vision for AI in healthcare

 

Venmo personalizes your credit card UX

If approved, your card will be printed with your unique QR code on the front, creating a distinct card design for each customer. When it arrives, you can scan the QR code via your mobile phone camera to easily activate the card, or have your friends scan in the Venmo app to access your profile and send a payment or split purchases. And with five vibrant, colorful designs, you can choose the card that fits your style.

Venmo blog

Car display screens keep getting bigger

The trend toward making car owners feel like they’re at a drive-in theater has been going on for years, best exemplified by Tesla, whose Model 3 sedan has a 15-inch center screen that controls many functions that used to require buttons. In the smartphone era, people have been trained to expect screens that are not just big but regularly updated and easy to use. (Bringing a bazooka to this knife fight is Chinese electric-car startup Byton, whose M-Byte SUV will come with a four-foot screen.)

“We know the benchmark is cellphones,” says Gary Jablonski, the chief engineer who runs Ford’s infotainment efforts. That’s why, along with screens that stretch farther, Ford is also launching Sync 4. The latest generation of its infotainment system will offer the kinds of features you’ve come to expect from the computer in your pocket. The cloud-connected navigation system will liberate users from constrained libraries of points of interest, allowing them to search the map for things like their doctor’s office. Traffic data will be more detailed and up to date.

Wired

This video has the Byton with the massive display

 

Google as Interpreter

Interpreter mode, the feature that allows Google Assistant to translate your conversations in real time, is coming to phones. Google says it will work with 44 languages and can be invoked by saying commands like “Hey Google, help me speak Thai” or “Hey Google, be my German translator.”

Once you’re in interpreter mode, the Assistant will translate your speech and read it out loud. On phone screens, the Assistant is able to offer up Smart Replies that can speed up the conversation by letting you respond without having to speak.

The Verge

 

 

 

Google's new mobile UI

Soli is a new sensing technology that uses miniature radar to detect touchless interactions developed by Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP). For the first time, consumers will be able to play with this new method of control via the Pixel 4 smartphone, pioneering an entirely new way to interact with devices.

With every new technology, you have to find a way to show people how to use it in order to speed up learning and adoption. Inspired by the way games have been used in the past to help people master a new technology, Ustwo and Google ATAP created a gaming experience to help players learn to control their device using gestures in the air.

 

USTwo

 

 

 

 

 

Eye-tracking evolves

Tobii was founded in 2001 after John Elvesjö, then an engineering student, built a computerized camera that could count bubbles in liquids. After realizing it could also track his pupils, he began developing an eye-tracking system that could control a computer. The team initially positioned its system for use in scientific research but quickly identified a market in health care. “We had experts approach us at trade shows and conferences saying, ‘Do you understand how much good this could do for people with disabilities?’” said Henrik Eskilsson, chief executive and co-founder.

Eye-tracking technology has been around for decades, but the devices were complicated, said Werner Goertz, senior director at the market research firm Gartner Inc. Today, companies such as Tobii are selling technology that allows other companies to add eye-tracking capabilities to their own products, allowing startups in industries including health care, retail, automotive and consumer electronics to test it out. “You just buy it off the shelf and stick your own application on top of it,” said Mr. Goetz.

WSJ

 

 

Feel, not hear, sounds

Dr. Eagleman founded NeoSensory in 2015 in Palo Alto, Calif., not far from Stanford University, where he’s an adjunct professor. Its aim is to develop haptic wearables that offer new ways of experiencing the world. The first of these is the Buzz, a device geared toward allowing the hearing impaired to perceive the auditory world via haptic vibrations. NeoSensory plans to start selling the Buzz in January for $630, comprised of an upfront fee of $150 and $20 monthly payments for two years.

People with hearing impairments who tested the Buzz said they could recognize noises like oncoming vehicles, crying babies, barking dogs, opening doors, guitar music—even the high-pitched “ding!” of a toaster oven—through a range of distinct vibrations. 

WSJ

Bionic Eye

It's called the Orion Visual Cortical Prosthesis System, and it's been developed by Second Sight Medical Products. Like the Argus II before it, the Orion system consists of a small camera mounted on a pair of glasses to capture images, a video-processing unit to convert what the camera sees into electrical impulses the wearer can interpret and an implant that stimulates the user's brain to create a perceived image. However, unlike the Argus II which used implants that clamped onto the patient's optic nerves, the Orion's implant sits directly on the brain itself.

Engadget

 

 

 

The Neuralink BMI

If Neuralink’s technologies work as Musk and his team intend, they’ll be able to pick up signals from across a person’s brain—first from the motor cortex that controls movement but eventually throughout your think-meat—and turn them into machine-readable code that a computer can understand. It might use them to control a computer or a prosthesis, to someday even feed information back to help the blind see, or to create entire virtual Matrixes inside your mind. “All this will occur I think quite slowly,” Musk said from the stage. “It’s not as if Neuralink will suddenly have this incredible neural lace and take over people’s brains. It will take a long time.” But after tests, and FDA approval, and more advances, this tech could be the thing that lets people commune with the ultrasmart artificial intelligences Musk is convinced are on the way. “Even in a benign AI scenario we will be left behind,” he said. “With a high-bandwidth brain-machine interface, we can actually go along for the ride. We can have the option of merging with AI.”

Wired

Here is Elon Musk presenting the concept at the California Academy of Sciences