Top image: Gemini co-founders, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss, as interviewed by John Biggs, writer and CEO of Freemit. at SXSW 2016. Source.
Today marks the last day of this year’s South by Southwest (SXSW) interactive festival currently being held in Austin, Texas. Now in its eight year, the festival covers all aspects of emerging technologies; showcasing some of the best new websites and start-up ideas circulating the globe.
Key speakers who have taken part in the event include film maker J.J. Abrams, actress Kerry Washington and most notably, President Barack Obama.
The event kicked off last week with the three P’s; Presentations, Panels and Programs.
Here are some of the highlights along with a few things to look forward to:
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President Barack Obama
President Barack Obama made history when he became the first sitting American president to appear at SXSW. Obama addressed a bunch of issues related to technology, including digital communications and online voting systems. He even admitted that focusing his 2008 presidential run on “cool technology and social media” made a major impact to his campaign.
He told a tech heavy audience, “I’m here is to recruit all of you so we can start coming up with new platforms, new ideas across disciplines and across skill sets to solve some of the big problems we’re facing today."
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Robots
How cool are Robots!? This years ‘future human best friends’ include a robot who recognises human expressions, re-calls cooking recipes and can take candid photos when he sees people smiling.
In one panel, robotics experts (Wendy Ju, Leila Takayama, Thavidu Ranatunga and Nuri Kim) talked about the future of human-robotic interactions and Robotics Design.
The audience also got to watch a video presentation on robots imitating human behavior, if a robot failed at a task but reacted (sagged a bit, as if sad it had failed), it was viewed as being more intelligent than a robot that succeeded at a task but didn’t react.
It seems as though building a robot with full human-like behaviours is not too far away (SXSW 2017?)
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VR (Virtual Reality)
VR was a huge talking point at this years SXSW, with ‘VR’ having more than 105 million Twitter mentions since the festival began.
Some rather bizarre VR concepts premiered at the festival including ‘Dead Head’, a virtual reality zombie experience in which the user plays the role of a very nearly dead zombie. Another VR game launching is Paranormal Activity VR, obviously due to the overwhelming movie franchise success.
On a lighter note, Kodak, McDonalds and The New York Times are also investing in VR technology.
McDonalds have recently designed a VR experience that allows you to step into a giant Happy Meal. Users get to custom design the interior of a Happy Meal Box with virtual paint brushes, balloons, and lasers.
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SONY: Concept N
Sony’s new R&D outlet ‘Future Lab Program‘ showed off their first concept prototype: a pair of headphones worn around the neck that directs audio upwards so only you can hear it. The new earphones are called ‘Concept N’.
There’s much mystery surrounding the product, but here is what we know so far…
They are open ear phones that sit under your ear, there's no tapping buttons or swiping on the device itself, it's all voice and hands-free and its wireless.
Sony plan to reveal more over the next couple of months so stay tuned!