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archoneddzs15 · 7 months ago

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Sony PlayStation - Wizardry 7 The Pearl of Guardia (Crusaders of the Dark Savant)

Title: Wizardry 7 The Pearl of Guardia / ウィザードリィVII ガーディアの宝珠

Developer: Sir-Tech Software / Soliton Soft / Locus Company

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (Japan)

Release date: 13 October 1995

Catalogue No.: SCPS-10010

Genre: RPG

Wizardry 7 The Pearl of Guardia otherwise known as Crusaders of the Dark Savant on FM Towns, PC-9801, and MS-DOS, as well as the Sega Saturn as part of Wizardry 6 & 7 Complete is the seventh installment of the Wizardry series and a direct sequel to Bane of the Cosmic Forge (which saw a console port to the Super Famicom in the same year this PlayStation version of Wizardry 7 was released). At the end of the previous game, the party of heroes finally acquired the Cosmic Forge. However, before they were able to decide what to do with it, it was taken away by a servant of the Cosmic Lords, the cyborg Aletheides. It appears that the Cosmic Forge was in fact a clue to the location of the Astral Dominae, the artifact of life, somewhere on the planet Guardia, which has now been revealed to the universe.

The heroes then travel to Guardia, which is populated by many races and organizations with their own agendas, including the rhinoceros-like Imperial Umpani Federation and the spidery T'Rang affiliated with a malevolent being known as the Dark Savant, whose goal is to get rid of the Cosmic Lords. All these factions are looking for the Astral Dominae, finding which is the primary goal of the game. Depending on the decisions made by the player in the previous game (should he opt to import the party from there), the game will have different openings and begin in different locations. However, regardless of the initial premise, the player is free to follow or betray whatever faction he was supposed to be allied with.

I actually have to admit. It took me a while to get into Wizardry. I've always found Might and Magic games more varied and more dynamic, with their larger and much more open worlds, their flexibility, and user-friendliness (so far, I have played Might and Magic Gates to Another World and Isles of Terra. Might and Magic on PC Engine deserves mention though I hadn't played it). The first Wizardry I tried to tackle seriously was Bane of the Cosmic Forge, the Super Famicom version. I was fascinated by its character-building aspect but disappointed by the extreme monotony of its world and its linear progression. I also couldn't quite stomach the lack of an auto-map feature in a game known for its devilishly complex dungeons. I was therefore somewhat reluctant to play Wizardry 7. To my pleasant surprise, this game fixed everything that was, in my opinion, wrong with its predecessor, while retaining everything that made it great. It is a more generously designed game with a large world open for exploration, a less rigid progression, and new interesting features that come on top of an already excellent role-playing system.

The character creation can give you an idea of the game's depth and potential. I spent almost an hour rolling characters, trying to get that perfect combination of class, race, and attributes, to create the party, I really wanted. Without knowing the game inside out, however, it is rather impossible on the first try; that is why, somewhere in the middle of the game, I realized that I could have done some things differently and created a more powerful team. The discovery was a joyous one, because my party was perfectly capable of efficiently dispatching the foes, yet out of sheer curiosity and desire for experimentation I'd wanted to replay it before I finished it the first time. The game encourages trying out different combinations of classes and skills with your characters, increasing the replay value. And I barely even touched the excellent class-switching system, which allows you to create your own hybrids. Want to have a ninja who can hide in shadows, treacherously backstab, and critically hit enemies, and at the same time have at his disposal the entire spell arsenal of an experienced mage? With enough patience, persistence, and planning, you can do that.

Like its predecessor, Wizardry 7 is a beautifully challenging game - and, like it, the biggest challenge is simply exploring it. The entire game is built like an absolutely enormous, highly complex maze. There are two reasons why I enjoyed exploring it more than the comparable environment of Bane: non-linearity and automap. Unlike the previous game, Wizardry 7 doesn't put its areas in a specific order. Of course, some of the game's toughest and most coveted places are blocked off in the beginning due to a lack of certain skills and crucial items. Yet it is possible (especially during replays, when you already know where what is) to procure those items fairly quickly, gaining access to areas "out of order". In fact, you can march into the reasonably high-level Giants Cave almost right away - all you need is a high swimming skill, which you gain simply by swimming a lot. But even when you play the game for the first time, you are free to go to four or five large settlements and explore most of its dungeons in any order. This means that you feel much less "stuck" when you face a difficult puzzle - you can always go back and explore some other area, find a friendly person to trade with or get some information, hunt for better weapons or enemies that give more experience, and so on. The game keeps you occupied and interested regardless of what exactly you're doing.

The freedom of gameplay manifests itself also in the way the game handles encounters with its rather eccentric and well-written characters. You can choose to attack and kill anyone you meet in the game. This includes shop owners and crucial quest-givers. As long as you write down exactly what each character tells you, you can always finish the game, even if you literally kill everyone you meet. By the way, these characters are rather talkative and will provide quite a bit of information, enriching the game's lore - all given to you through an old-fashioned, yet strangely fulfilling text parser. They also tend to be memorable and funny. One of my favorites is the poetry-waxing Gorn King with his pseudo-philosophical musings. And who can forget the constantly inebriated brother T'Shober?..

A really interesting feature of the game is the NPC movement. Certain characters in the game don't just stand in one place, but wander around, searching for the exact same maps that you are searching for. These maps contain crucial information, and without them, it is impossible to finish the game (unless you're replaying it or consulting a walkthrough all the time). The thing is, these NPCs will sometimes get to those maps sooner than you. It will then become your priority to get the maps from them. This can be frustrating, but there are no dead ends in the game, and at any rate, it ensures that no playthrough is alike. Another notable feature is role-playing choices. You are free to join either the T'Rang or Umpani in their pursuit of the mysterious lost spaceship. Siding with one of those races will invariably incur the ire of the other, and one of the endings leads to a union with a certain faction. The different endings aren't easy to achieve and figure it - which, again, increases the replay value of the game.

On the downside, Wizardry 7 is tough. The battles, in fact, become more forgiving as the game advances, even if your character development is less than optimal - even simple straightforward leveling up gives you quite an edge. The game's difficulty lies in its puzzles, the clues to which are scattered all over the world and are really hard to find. Essentially, you'll have to explore each one of the game's large and complex dungeons to get the maps that give you crucial hints. However, some of those maps will likely have been snatched by your in-game adversaries, which means that you'll also have to find out who exactly has the map, track that person down, and either kill or bargain with him. Naturally, some people (me! me!) with little free time and even less patience can always use a walkthrough, bypassing much of the game's most cryptic and long-winded puzzle quests. Two maps, however, need to be found and used to complete the game.

Other difficulties and annoyances mostly lie in the game's somewhat user-unfriendly interface and archaic, hardcore gameplay elements such as the lack of teleportation spells. Luckily, some dungeons do provide reasonable shortcuts for quick post-exploration back-and-forth trekking, and enemy encounters lessen considerably when you backtrack on the same route.

Even though Wizardry 7 is a definite visual improvement over the previous game, it's still not very pretty, and quite monotonous. There is only one kind of tile for the cities, one for the wilderness (which consists entirely of forest), and two for the dungeons (castle and cave). More importantly, the wilderness feels somewhat too maze-like and too empty. Of course, you can always count on a treasure chest with a great weapon being hidden somewhere amid a thicket, and I suppose that's the reward for plowing through dozens and dozens of identical greenish squares, fighting sprite-sharing enemies on the way. Still, a little more variety would certainly make the game more appealing.

I am personally a bit mixed on what SCEI and Soliton have done to the portraits of enemies and NPCs in this PlayStation version. I know what they are going for, it was basically Sony flexing their 3D prowess (which was funnily enough inspired by Sony personnel seeing Virtua Fighter in the arcades), but to me, it just feels wrong somehow. I guess I am so used to the hand-drawn 2D portraits found on the FM Towns, PC-9801, MS-DOS, and Sega Saturn versions. Don't forget, the Sega Saturn version was ported by Data East and somehow Data East actually honored the good old days of 2D art in that version.

On a curious note, this must be the very first version of Wizardry 7 to actually feature some voice acting in it, though the voices are actually entirely in English (there are Japanese subtitles). If I remember, in 1996 there was a CD version of Wizardry 7 for MS-DOS PCs titled "Wizardry Gold". Somehow, Wizardry Gold is a little bit worse than this version of Wizardry 7 - it's buggier than the original Wizardry 7, features some questionable art design choices, and suffers from a bland, cumbersome Windows 95 interface. Also, Wizardry 7 for the PS1 does not support the mouse input, which feels bizarre considering Wizardry 6 and 7 were meant to be played with mouse input in mind.

In the end, Wizardry 7 is, for me, the first truly epic game in the series, one that broke boundaries and expanded beyond its scope, establishing itself as an essential classic RPG. It has everything that made its predecessors great, yet it takes risks and paves a path toward the future. With patience and persistence, this monster of a game can be tamed, and the reward far outweighs the frustration.

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#sony playstation #Youtube

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nomorepixels · 2 years ago

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Wizardry: Crusaders of the Dark Savant

©️ Sir-tech Software, Inc. 1992

Image sourced from mobygames.com

#wizardry #upscale #repaint #unstablediffusion #fm towns

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transcendtouch · 5 years ago

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A Brief Introduction to Immersive Systems: History of VR (part 1)

According to Oxford Reference, “Virtual reality is a synthetic technology combining three-dimensional video, audio, and other sensory components to achieve a sense of immersion.” Merriam-Webster defines virtual reality as “an artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (such as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment, also: the technology used to create or access a virtual reality.”

Both of the above definitions focus on the technological aspect of virtual reality, describing it as a contemporary means. However, virtual reality is more than an artificial environment. It is a simulated experience that can be completely different to our reality. The Online Etymology Dictionary defines that the term “virtual” was being used meaning “influencing by physical virtues or capabilities, effective with respect to inherent natural qualities," as early as the late 1400s. It is also stated that it has been used in the computer sense of "not physically existing but made to appear by software" since 1959. “The term "virtual reality" was first used in a science fiction context in The Judas Mandala, a 1982 novel by Damien Broderick.”

Trying to pinpoint the exact origins of virtual reality has proven to be quite a challenge, considering how difficult it has been to formulate a definition for the concept of an alternative existence. However, in this post, we too will be focusing on the technological milestones that led to today’s applications of virtual reality, making it an innovative –soon to be essential- tool.

In 1838, Sir Charles Wheatstone invents the Stereoscope, a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image.

A 19th century stereoscope:

In 1935, American science fiction writer Stanley Weinbaum presents a fictional model for VR in his short story Pygmalion's Spectacles. In the story, the main character meets a professor who invented a pair of goggles which enabled "a movie that gives one sight and sound [...] taste, smell, and touch. [...] You are in the story, you speak to the shadows (characters) and they reply [...] the story is all about you, and you are in it." This sound a lot like our idea of a tangible painting, doesn’t it? (image source)

In 1956, cinematographer Morton Heilig creates Sensorama, the first VR machine (patented in 1962). It is a large booth that can fit up to four people at a time. It combines multiple technologies to stimulate all of the senses: there is a combined full colour 3D video, audio, vibrations, smell and atmospheric effects, such as wind. This is done using scent producers, a vibrating chair, stereo speakers and a stereoscopic 3D screen. Heilig thinks that the Sensorama is the "cinema of the future" and he wants to fully immerse people in their films. Six short films are developed for it.

In 1960, Heilig also patents the Telesphere Mask (image source ), which is the first head-mounted display (HMD). This provides stereoscopic 3D images with wide vision and stereo sound. There is no motion tracking in the headset at this point.

In 1965, Ivan Sutherland, a computer scientist, presents his vision of the Ultimate Display. The concept is of a virtual world viewed through an HMD which replicates reality so well that the user won’t be able to differentiate from actual reality. This includes the user being able to interact with objects. This concept features computer hardware to form the virtual world and to keep it functioning in real-time. His paper is seen as the fundamental blueprint for VR. “The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal. With appropriate programming such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked.”

In 1966, Thomas A. Furness (a.k.a “the grandfather of VR”), a military engineer, creates the first flight simulator for the Air Force. This assists in the progression of VR because the military subsequently provides a lot of funding for producing better flight simulators.

In 1968, Sutherland, with his student Bob Sproull, creates the first virtual reality HMD, named The Sword of Damocles. This head-mount connects to a computer rather than a camera and is quite primitive as it can only show simple virtual wire-frame shapes. These 3D models change perspective when the user moves their head due to the tracking system. It was never developed beyond a lab project because it was too heavy for users to comfortably wear; they had to be strapped in because it was suspended from the ceiling.

In 1969, Myron Krueger, a computer artist, develops a succession of "artificial reality" experiences using computers and video systems. He creates computer-generated environments that respond to the people in it. These projects lead to VIDEOPLACE technology which is mentioned later.

In 1972, General Electric Corporation builts a computerised flight simulator which features a 180-degree field of vision by using three screens surrounding the cockpit.

In 1975, Krueger's VIDEOPLACE, the first interactive VR platform, is displayed at the Milwaukee Art Center. It uses computer graphics, projectors, video cameras, video displays and position-sensing technology and it doesn't use goggles or gloves. VIDEOPLACE consistes of dark rooms with large video screens to surround the user in "VR". The users can see their computer-generated silhouettes imitating their own movements and actions - the users' movements are recorded on camera and transferred onto the silhouette. Also, users in different rooms can interact with other users' silhouettes in the same virtual world. This encourages the idea that people can communicate within a virtual world even if they aren't physically close.

In 1977, the Aspen Movie Map is created by MIT. This program enables users to virtually wander through Aspen city in Colorado, like with Google Street View. There are three modes: summer, winter and polygons. It is created using photographs from a car driving through the city. There are no HMDs but it is the use of first-person interactivity and it suggests that VR can transport people to other places.

In 1977, Sayre gloves are created by Daniel J. Sandin and Thomas A. DeFanti, at the Electronic Visualization Laboratory, a cross-disciplinary research lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago. These gloves are the first wired gloves. They monitore hand movements by using light emitters and photocells in the gloves' fingers. So when the user moves their fingers the amount of light hitting the photocell varies which then converts the finger movements into electrical signals. This may be the beginning of gesture recognition. Furness creates a working model of a virtual flight simulator, for the military, called the Visually Coupled Airborne Systems Simulator (VCASS). Image of a wired glove:

In 1979, McDonnell-Douglas Corporation integrates VR into its HMD, the VITAL helmet, for military use. A head tracker in the HMD follows the pilot's eye movements to match computer-generated images.

Sources:

Barnard, Dom. "History of VR - Timeline of Events and Tech Development." Virtualspeech. August 06, 2019. https://virtualspeech.com/blog/history-of-vr.

Cakmakci, Ozan, Jannick Rolland. “Head-Worn Displays: A Review.” Journal Of Display Technology 2, no. 3 (September 2006). [accessed June 17, 2020]. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3453724_Head-Worn_Displays_A_Review.

“Daniel J. Sandin”, in evl|electronic visualization laboratory. https://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&type=5&indi=11.

Hosch, William L. “Ivan Edward Sutherland.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. May 12, 2020 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ivan-Edward-Sutherland. Access Date: June 17, 2020.

“Thomas A. Furness”, on Industrial & Systems Engineering: University Of Washington. https://ise.washington.edu/facultyfinder/thomas-a-furness.

Jack, Emily. “Artifact of the Month: Holmes Stereoscope.” NC Miscellany. Ocotber 21, 2013. https://blogs.lib.unc.edu/ncm/2013/10/21/artifact-of-the-month-holmes-stereoscope/.

Kelly, Michael. “Virtual Reality.” In Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199747108.001.0001/acref-9780199747108-e-740?fromCrossSearch=true.

Lescop, Laurent. “360° vision, from panoramas to VR.” On ResearchGate. Fig. 03.: “Morton Heilig, Telesphere Mask, 1960, Source: Wikimedia Commons.” September, 2017. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319618259_360_vision_from_panoramas_to_VR.

Lowood, Henry E. “Virtual Reality.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. November 11, 2019. Access Date: June 17, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Morton-Heilig.

Media Art Net. “Ivan Sutherland «Head-Mounted-Display», 1968.” Medien Kunst Netz / Media Art Net. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/head-mounted-display/.

Media Art Net. “Morton Heilig «Sensorama», 1962.” Medien Kunst Netz / Media Art Net. http://www.mediaartnet.org/works/sensorama/.

Media Art Net. “Myron Krueger, «Videoplace», 1974.” Medien Kunst Netz / Media Art Net. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/videoplace/.

Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “virtual reality,” accessed June 17, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtual%20reality.

Musings Of A Mario Minion. “Pygmalion’s Spectacles: Using Berkeley’s Immaterialism to Understand the Potential for Telepresence in Virtual Reality.” Medium. February 05, 2018. https://medium.com/@musingsofamariominion/pygmalions-spectacles-using-berkeley-s-immaterialism-to-understand-the-potential-for-telepresence-46b9e46eba42.

Naimark, Michael. “Aspen Moviemap 1978-80.” Michael Naimark. http://www.naimark.net/projects/aspen.html.

Online Etymology Dictionary, s.v. “virtual (adk.),” accessed June 17, 2020, https://www.etymonline.com/word/virtual#etymonline_v_7821.

Sandin, Daniel J. Thomas A. DeFanti, Richard Sayre. “Sayre Glove (first wired data glove).” evl|electronic visualization laboratory. January 1, 1977. https://www.evl.uic.edu/entry.php?id=2162.

Sutherland, Ivan E. “The Ultimate Display”. Information Processing Techniques Office, ARPA, OSD. http://worrydream.com/refs/Sutherland%20-%20The%20Ultimate%20Display.pdf.

Sutherland, Ivan E. “A head-mounted three dimensional display*.” Fall Joint Computer Conference, 1968. Salt Lake City, Utah: The University of Utah. http://cacs.usc.edu/education/cs653/Sutherland-HeadmountedDisplay-AFIPS68.pdf.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “McDonnell Douglas Corporation.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. June 12, 2020. Access Date: June 17, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/McDonnell-Douglas-Corporation.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Sir Charles Wheatstone.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. February 06, 2020. Access Date: June 17, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charles-Wheatstone.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Stereoscope.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. February 06, 2020. Access Date: June 17, 2020. https://www.tumblr.com/edit/618119398273794048.

“Thomas A. DeFanti”, in evl|electronic visualization laboratory. https://www.evl.uic.edu/core.php?mod=4&type=5&indi=10.

#history of vr #history of virtual reality #timeline #vr #virtual reality #immersion #immersive systems

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favoritevideogames71 · 6 years ago

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Video Games 1982 Electronic Games holds the third Arcade Awards, for games released during 1980-1981. Pac-Man wins the best arcade game award, Asteroids (Atari VCS) wins the best console game award, and Star Raiders (Atari 8-bit family) wins the best computer game award. Video Games presented in this video: Donkey Kong Jr. (Arcade By Nintendo) Dig Dug (Arcade By Namco / Atari) Time Pilot (Arcade By Konami) Pole Position (Arcade By Namco / Atari) Pitfall! (Atari 2600 By Activision) Moon Patrol (Arcade By Irem / Williams) Q*Bert (Arcade By Gottlieb) Joust (Arcade By Williams) Zaxxon (Arcade By Sega) Popeye (Arcade By Nintendo) Super Pac-Man (Arcade By Namco) Tron (Arcade By Bally Midway) River Raid (Atari 2600 By Activision) Mr. Do! (Arcade By Universal) Xevious (Arcade By Namco / Atari) Carnival (Colecovision) Jungle Hunt (Arcade By Taito) Robotron 2084 (Arcade By Williams) Bagman (Arcade By Valadon Automation) Berzerk (Vectrex) Wizardry II (Computer Game By Sir-Tech) Ultima II (Computer Game By Sierra On-Line) Frogs and Flies (Atari 2600 By Mattel) Night Stalker (Intellivision) Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom (Arcade By Sega) Millipede (Arcade By Atari) Pengo (Arcade By Sega) Swords & Serpents (Intellivision By Imagic) Oink! (Atari 2600 By Activision) Smurfs: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle (Colecovision) Spider-Man (Atari 2600 By Parker Brothers) Venture (Colecovision) Tron: Deadly Discs (Intellivision) Tron: Maze-A-Tron (Intellivision) Necromancer (Atari 8-Bit By Synapse Software) Shamus (Atari 8-Bit By Synapse Software) Incredible Wizard (Bally Astrocade) Dragonfire (Atari 2600 By Imagic) Demon Attack (Atari 2600 By Imagic) Shark! Shark! (Intellivision) Vote for Your Favorite Video Games of 1982: http://bit.ly/2vry4LL Computer Games 1982 Richard Garriott and Sierra On-Line released Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress. However, controversy with Sierra over royalties led the series creator Richard Garriott to start his own company, Origin Systems. Sir-Tech Software, Inc. releases Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds, the second scenario in the Wizardry series. Koei releases Night Life, the first erotic computer game. Pony Canyon releases Spy Daisakusen, another early Japanese RPG. Synapse releases Necromancer and Shamus for the Atari 8-bit family. Hiroyuki Imabayashi’s Sokoban is released for the NEC PC-8801 and becomes an oft-cloned puzzle game concept. Console Video Games 1982 Atari releases the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man. 12 million cartridges are produced, 7 million sold; it’s believed to be one of the causes of the North American video game crash of 1983. Activision releases Pitfall!, which goes on to sell 4 million copies. Atari releases Yars’ Revenge. Overlooked arcade games are revitalized as ColecoVision launch titles, including Cosmic Avenger, Mouse Trap, Lady Bug, and Venture. Atari releases E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Written in five and a half weeks, it’s one of the games that sparks the crash of 1983. Activision releases River Raid, Megamania, Barnstorming, Chopper Command, and Starmaster for the Atari 2600. River Raid becomes one of the all-time bestselling games for the system. Parker Brothers releases Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600, which is the first Star Wars video game. Imagic releases Demon Attack, Atlantis, and Dragonfire for the 2600. Even though, Atlantis sells over a million copies, Demon Attack doubles that. Arcade Games 1982 Sega releases Zaxxon, which introduces isometric graphics, and looks far more 3D than any other raster game at the time. Midway releases Ms. Pac-Man, which is the sequel to Pac-Man, but was created without Namco’s authorization. They also release Baby Pac-Man and Pac-Man Plus without Namco’s authorization later in the year. Namco releases Dig Dug, manufactured by Atari in North America. Nintendo releases Donkey Kong Jr., the sequel to Donkey Kong. Taito releases parallax scroller Jungle Hunt. Namco releases Pole Position, one of the first games with stereophonic and quadraphonic sound. Featuring a pseudo-3D, third-person, rear-view perspective, it becomes the most popular racing game of its time. Other Arcade Video Games 1982 Sega releases maze game Pengo, starring a cute penguin. Namco releases Super Pac-Man, the third title in the Pac-Man series. Konami releases Time Pilot, Namco releases Xevious which sets the style for scrolling shooters to come. Gottlieb releases Q*bert. Bally/Midway releases the Tron arcade game before the movie. Williams Electronics releases Joust, Robotron: 2084, Sinistar, and the second game of the year with parallax scrolling, Irem’s Moon Patrol. Robotron popularizes the twin-stick control scheme for fast action games. Vote for Your Favorite Video Games of 1982: http://bit.ly/2vry4LL Thanks for watching the video and reading this description! Please Like and Subscribe! by Retroconsole

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qwertsypage · 4 years ago

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Warfighter Summit

AGILE OFFENSE FOR BETTER DEFENSE

Join us for the 2021 Military Agility Forum

Brought To You By:

Join the conversation where top leaders in the defense sector

dominate new territory using agile implementation.

This will be a dynamic dual in-person and virtual experience featuring a mix of lectures and working sessions designed to generate new understanding and thought leadership targeted towards advancing the agile implementation skill set. We would love to see you in-person but if you cannot attend, this event will be geared for virtual participation as well. In-person details will be confirmed post registration.

Industrial-age strategies now must contend with information-age threats that can and do emerge suddenly, without warning. Agile defense is the way forward.

The 2021 Military Agility Forum

September 23-24, 2021

Cost: Free

Location: Washington, D.C.

Event Type: In-person & Virtual

Feature Topics:

✓ Scaled and hybrid implementation

✓ Sustaining Scrum in the military

✓ Gaining approval and buy-in from senior leadership

✓ Case studies of successful implementation

Why Now?

Operationalizing Agile is key to success for the modern warfighter. National security now requires innovation and adaptation at speed to deter potential adversaries and their quickly evolving capabilities.

“If we are to deal with the challenges of a rapidly changing world, we must learn to apply better organizational methods and increase our agility in all areas of our business.”

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, Royal Navy

First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff

“A competitor starts to get really concerned when they see you adapting faster than they are, when you’re challenging in multiple domains, when you’re putting things together that don’t normally go together, when you’re creating effects in ways that they haven’t considered yet. And then they start chasing you, versus us chasing [the] competitor. That’s my challenge for all of us in the Department of the Navy. Again, we’re moving out in some pieces of that. We’ve got to do it now at scale and speed. I think if we can do that, then we’ll continue to be the dominant naval force. If we don’t, we’re fighting a losing game, and I don’t like losing.”

– ,

James F. Geurts

Under Secretary of the Navy (Performing the Duties of)

Our Featured Panelists:

Dr. Jeff Sutherland

Dr. Jeff Sutherland (“Dr. Sutherland”) is the co-creator of Scrum and the world’s leading authority on the framework. A graduate of West Point who served as a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War, Dr. Sutherland holds bachelors’ degrees in engineering, mathematics, and economics, as well as a Ph.D. in biometrics, radiology, and preventive medicine. From his experience in senior engineering roles at various computer and software companies through the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Sutherland saw firsthand the limitations of traditional methods of software development, particularly the so-called “waterfall” method. Over the course of ten years, he began to develop and prototype an alternative framework, now known as Scrum, that was flexible, empirical, and iterative.

Brigadier Dan Cheesman, MBE Royal Marines

Brigadier Cheesman is the Royal Navy’s inaugural Chief Technology Officer. He is charged with accelerating all forms of tech into the Royal Navy through Futures, Disruption, and Change with a particular focus on Digital, Autonomy, Lethality and Agility at Scale.

JJ Sutherland

JJ is the CEO of Scrum Inc. working with organizations worldwide on the strategy and implementation of their Agile Transformations. In the corporate world he has worked with Fortune 500 companies in industries as varied as Space Launch, Research and Development, Manufacturing, Global IT, Operations, Finance, Defense, and Media. He has also worked extensively with the Royal Navy and with units of the US Navy, providing training and coaching to US Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Units and Naval Special Warfare Groups. He is the co-author of the bestselling book Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time and the author of The Scrum Fieldbook: A Master Class on Accelerating Performance, Getting Results, and Defining the Future. Prior to Scrum Inc. JJ was an award winning journalist with National Public Radio. He was Baghdad Bureau Chief 2004-2011 and also covered the Pentagon.

CDR Jon Haase

Commander Jon Haase is a United States Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Officer and Scrum Inc. Trainer. Throughout his career he has served at EOD Mobile Unit Five, Expeditionary Strike Group Seven, Joint Special Operations Command, Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit One, Special Operations Command Pacific, and a command tour at EOD Mobile Unit Two. Jon coaches and launches high-performing teams that deliver “Twice the work in half of the time,” possessing years of experience with both government and industry clients. He understands the unique challenges that accompany introducing Agile thinking and Scrum practice within government processes and has built skills and tools to work within that process to implement Scrum successfully.

Mike Lavery

Mike is currently the director of the Centers for Adaptive Warfighting (CAW) and is a leader in enabling agility throughout the Department of Defense.

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carlie19680606-blog · 6 years ago

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3 original NASA moon landing videos sell for

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savetopnow · 7 years ago

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2018-04-05 23 BUSINESS now

BUSINESS

Business Insider

Trump picks the 'Fake News Washington Post' as the newest target in his war against Amazon and Jeff Bezos

A face swap of Dax Shepard and Zach Braff prove that they're practically identical — and their fans are freaking out

'My inbox is full of error messages': Instagram's new data restrictions just gave a massive shock to developers (FB)

Here's how you can win a free month-long summer road trip — plus $6,000 spending money

Pink forgot the lyrics to her own song during a concert and fans love that she laughed it off

Harvard Business Review

How to Welcome an Employee Back from Medical Leave

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Do You "Believe" That Tax Reform Will Benefit Your Business?

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Non-tech businesses are beginning to use AI at scale: Insurance company lets customers apply for loans through an app. Prospective borrowers answer questions about their income & plans for repayment by video, which monitors around 50 facial expressions to determine whether they are telling the truth

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Europe’s tough new data-protection law

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Wakandanomics

Technology has upended the world’s advertising giants

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a-alex-hammer · 6 years ago

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Australia’s Power Ledger to bring P2P Energy Trading to Austria

Australian Energy trading company Power Ledger has partnered with a subsidiary of one of Austria’s top five largest energy utilities Energie Steiermark, to deploy a peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading network in and around Graz.

E-NEXT i with the NEXT-Incubator, the innovation arm of Energie Steiermark, will make Power Ledger’s energy trading platform available to an initial 10 Graz households, enabling those with rooftop solar panels to sell excess renewable energy to their neighbors.

Graz is home to Austria’s Smart City flagship project, which involves exploring new energy technologies to meet zero emission and carbon neutral targets by 2050.

“Power Ledger’s technology will help drive the city’s transition towards a zero-carbon energy future, while also giving Graz residents a monetary incentive to use renewable energy,” said Power Ledger Co-founder and Director David Martin.

As a blockchain-backed platform, the project will ensure data is anonymous, complying with the European Union’s strict privacy requirements as outlined in the GDPR legislation.

“Power Ledger’s partnership with E-NEXT breaks new ground, not just in the transition to a cleaner energy future but also in the way blockchain technology can be integrated into existing legislative regimes through the adoption of innovative business processes,” added Martin.

Following the initial deployment and validation phase, the project has the potential to expand to more households in Graz and across Austria’s energy network.

“Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt a lot of markets – but as an innovation, we also think it offers new business opportunities and the chance to generate added value for our customers,” said E-NEXT project partner and innovation manager Mathias Schaffer.

Power Ledger’s blockchain-enabled energy trading platform is currently being trialed in several places across Australia as well as in Thailand, Japan, and the United States.

Power Ledger is an Australian technology company that has developed a blockchain-enabled renewable energy trading platform. Power Ledger’s technology won Sir Richard Branson’s global Extreme Tech Challenge award and co-founder Dr. Jemma Green is a finalist in the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year awards. The company has built a series of products to enable energy trading, renewable asset financing and more efficient carbon and renewable energy credit markets.

E-NEXT is a subsidiary of the Austrian power utility Energie Steiermark AG who developed the NEXT-Incubator. It is a tool to not only search for new technologies & solutions but to be able to place them within the corporate in the form of pilot projects, cooperations and in some cases investments. Its parent company Energie Steiermark AG believes in stability, continuity and enjoys a decades-long success story, with a strong drive towards innovation. E-NEXT is currently partnering with Plug and Play in Silicon Valley to push innovation even further.

About Richard Kastelein

Founder and publisher of industry publication Blockchain News (EST 2015), a partner at ICO services collective Token.Agency ($750m+ and 90+ ICOs and STOs), director of education company Blockchain Partners (Oracle Partner) – Vancouver native Richard Kastelein is an award-winning publisher, innovation executive and entrepreneur. He sits on the advisory boards of some two dozen Blockchain startups and has written over 1500 articles on Blockchain technology and startups at Blockchain News and has also published pioneering articles on ICOs in Harvard Business Review and Venturebeat. Irish Tech News put him in the top 10 Token Architects in Europe.

Kastelein has an Ad Honorem – Honorary Ph.D. and is Chair Professor of Blockchain at China’s first Blockchain University in Nanchang at the Jiangxi Ahead Institute of Software and Technology. In 2018 he was invited to and attended University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School for Business Automation 4.0 programme. Over a half a decade experience judging and rewarding some 1000+ innovation projects as an EU expert for the European Commission’s SME Instrument programme as a startup assessor and as a startup judge for the UK government’s Innovate UK division.

Kastelein has spoken (keynotes & panels) on Blockchain technology in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Barcelona, Beijing, Brussels, Bucharest, Dubai, Eindhoven, Gdansk, Groningen, the Hague, Helsinki, London (5x), Manchester, Minsk, Nairobi, Nanchang, Prague, San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara (2x), Shanghai, Singapore (3x), Tel Aviv, Utrecht, Venice, Visakhapatnam, Zwolle and Zurich.

He is a Canadian (Dutch/Irish/English/Métis) whose writing career has ranged from the Canadian Native Press (Arctic) to the Caribbean & Europe. He’s written occasionally for Harvard Business Review, Wired, Venturebeat, The Guardian and Virgin.com, and his work and ideas have been translated into Dutch, Greek, Polish, German and French. A journalist by trade, an entrepreneur and adventurer at heart, Kastelein’s professional career has ranged from political publishing to TV technology, boatbuilding to judging startups, skippering yachts to marketing and more as he’s travelled for nearly 30 years as a Canadian expatriate living around the world. In his 20s, he sailed around the world on small yachts and wrote a series of travel articles called, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Seas’ travelling by hitching rides on yachts (1989) in major travel and yachting publications. He currently lives in Groningen, Netherlands where he’s raising three teenage daughters with his wife and sailing partner, Wieke Beenen.

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Source/Repost=> http://technewsdestination.com/australias-power-ledger-to-bring-p2p-energy-trading-to-austria/ ** Alex Hammer | Founder and CEO at Ecommerce ROI ** http://technewsdestination.com

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archoneddzs15 · 10 months ago

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Super Famicom - Wizardry V - Heart of the Maelstrom

Title: Wizardry V - Heart of the Maelstrom / ウィザードリィV 災渦の中心

Developer: Sir-Tech Software / GAME STUDIO Inc.

Publisher: ASCII Corporation

Release date: 20 November 1992

Catalogue Code: SHVC-W5

Genre: RPG

Despite the greatest magic of the ancient High Sages, great floods, earthquakes, and famine again pervade the great land of Llylgamyn. The great orb of L'Kbreth, an artifact of remarkable power that has protected the city for generations, is powerless to halt the scourge.

The Sages have discovered that the hidden reason is deeper and more frightening than the worst of these disasters. To save the very world as we know it, you and your intrepid party must march headlong into the...Heart of the Maelstrom!

What SFC/SNES RPG could you play that isn't Final Fantasy, Super Mario RPG, or Chrono Trigger that I would recommend? It's Wizardry 5, easily. Published by Capcom in North America, and also released in 1995 as part of the Satellaview service in Japan, the graphical look of Wizardry 5 is very welcoming and much easier on the eyes than the earlier computer versions of the game. Menus in the castle are accompanied by a background picture, making them more interesting to look at. The dungeon walls have textures instead of Apple II-style vector grid lines, so you can see doors and corners from several squares away. Monster sprites are crisp and bright and the shadowy versions of them are a cool feature.

Adding to the game's atmosphere are orchestral-sounding music tracks that let you know where you are in the menus and how deep you are in the dungeons. These music tracks are composed by the late Kentaro Haneda (RIP 1949-2007) and as always, they sound fantastic. So fantastic are his contributions to the soundtrack to the Wizardry world that there are CD albums such as "We Love Wizardry" that contain Sonic Symphony-style orchestrations of the Famicom and SFC Wizardry soundtracks.

The gameplay is extremely faithful to the original versions of the game but with new praiseworthy changes. The control scheme caters well to the lack of a keyboard. You can comfortably press the D-pad to navigate smoothly and select the menu option you want. You no longer need to manually type the name of spells to cast them, you just select them from your spellcaster's battle menu. The pacing in combat is much faster but pay attention to your characters' health points so they don't die without your knowledge.

One major problem with the game, and this only applies to the US version, is that there isn't a proper method of saving your game such as a password or multiple save files on the RAM, which means you can't really correct any mistakes you make in the game, so you'll have no choice but to go along with your losses (works like that in real life). The Japanese version actually supports the ASCII Turbo File and Turbo File 2, which are both game save devices meant to connect to the Famicom. But wait, "How can you connect this to the Super Famicom?" That's what the Turbo File Adapter is for. With this Adapter, you can connect any of the Turbo File devices to the Super Famicom with ease. Also, the US version is censored to adhere to Nintendo America's strict guidelines regarding nudity, religious imagery, and whatnot. The Japanese version is uncensored, so you have text like "sexy woman with a tail" and so on.

The control scheme isn't perfect, because in some places it can make the game drag on a bit longer than you'd like. Pressing forward against a wall will make you bump into it, and you may accidentally repeat that when you meant to close the message box. You always need to remember that the action button opens unlocked doors and not the forward direction. And the down direction spins you around instead of going in reverse. If you practice you can get the hang of the way the controls work.

Overall, Wizardry V got the royal treatment with this Super Famicom port thanks to the wonderful folks at GAME STUDIO Inc. and ASCII. Every element in the game was made with care and attention. D&D and RPG fans are in for a treat, and even young adventurers will like this one. If you've got time to delve down and play a good long number of hours on your Super Famicom, you can never really go wrong with this fifth title in the series. A Nintendo Switch Online re-release would be desirable, so if you find this one, then your adventure has begun.

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adamgdooley · 8 years ago

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HUMANS OF THE NEAR FUTURE

What does it mean to be human? With cyborgs, biohackers, transhumanism and cryonics rising in influence – and ‘mind uploading’ only decades – this existential question is increasingly complex to answer

By Oliver Pickup

The world’s preeminent ‘cyborg artist’, Neil Harbisson, has been stopped “several times a day, every single day, since March 22, 2004”. It’s impossible for him to forget the date: that Monday, 13 years ago, he had an antenna fixed to his skull in order to ‘hear’ colour. The attention generated by the unique appendage can be “really tiring”, Camden-born Harbisson admits to me. But, he believes, such sights will be the norm, and sooner rather than later thanks to the inexorable march of technology.

“Initially people questioned whether my antenna was a reading light,” says the 35-yearold, who sees in grayscale but can sense colours (the majority of which are beyond the visual spectrum) 360 degrees around him through audible vibrations. “By 2005 those who approached me thought it was a microphone; in 2007 most reckoned it was a hands-free device; and the following year a lot of them suggested it could be a GoPro camera. In 2012 the top guess was something to do with Google Glass, and more recently a selfie stick has been popular. Lately, people shout ‘Pokémon’ at me.”

Similarly, officials at Her Majesty’s Passport Office didn’t quite know what to make of Harbisson’s antenna to begin with. “On the photograph I submitted I argued that it was not electronic equipment but a new body part, and that I felt that I was a cyborg, a union between cybernetics and organism,” he continues. “I’m not wearing technology; I am technology. It doesn’t feel that I’m wearing anything, it’s just an integrated part of my body; it’s merged with my skull so it is part of my skeleton. There is no difference between an arm, my nose, an ear, or my antenna. In the end, they agreed and allowed me to appear in my passport photograph with the antenna.”

Harbisson had no real issue adjusting to sleeping with an antenna atop his head, but there were other teething problems. “As I had become taller, at the beginning I would bump into doors upon entering cars, and get stuck in branches of trees,” he says. “And I would struggle to put jumpers on. I had to become used to the organ, the body part, as well as get used to the new sense, and it took a while. Having a new sense is something that most people have never experienced. It transforms your life because you perceive absolutely everything differently.”

Moon Ribas, Harbisson’s Catalonian partner and fellow cyborg artist who he met when the pair studied at Dartington College of Arts in Devon, has two implants in her arms that allow her to perceive the seismic activity of the Earth and the Moon. Formerly, she warped her vision for a three-month period by using kaleidoscope glasses, and would wear earrings that quivered depending on the velocity of people moving behind her.

For fun, the out-there pair enjoy linking to satellites using NASA’s live feed from the International Space Station. “Instead of using my eyes to see the images, I simply connect the antenna to the data that comes from the satellites, and then I receive vibrations in my head, depending on the colours,” Harbisson says. “They have so many sensors in space that are collecting data, but no-one is actually looking at it. I feel I’m a ‘sensestronaut’ or a ‘mindstronaut’ because my senses are in space while my body is here on Earth.”

THE SHAPE OF HUMANITY TO COME

Mindstronauting aside, 2017 has been a busy year for Harbisson, and a significant one for the future of humanity, with cyborgs in the ascendancy. At March’s South by Southwest – the annual conglomerate of film, interactive media, music festivals and conferences held in Austin, Texas – Harbisson, Ribas, and BorgFest founder Rich MacKinnon presented a draft of the declaration of cyborg rights and also introduced an accompanying flag “which you can only detect if you can sense infrared”.

“We believe it should be a universal right for anyone to have a new sense or a new organ,” argues Harbisson. “Many people can identify strongly with cybernetics without having any type of implant, and there has been a lot of support. There may even be a ‘cyborg pride’ parade in Austin next year.”

Additionally, in February his startup Cyborg Nest, co-founded with Ribas in 2015, began shipping its first product, North Sense – a $425 DIY embeddable device that gently vibrates when the user faces magnetic north.” (Mind-boggling pipeline projects, kept under wraps, reportedly include silent communication using Bluetooth, a pollution-detecting device, and eyes in the back of the head.)

Cyborg Nest is just one of a growing cluster of ‘biohacker’ startups offering a variety of sense-augmenting implants, with body enhancements, prosthetics and genetic modifications are increasingly popular. Pittsburgh-based Grindhouse Wetware, for instance, has been developing ‘implantables’ since 2012, such as Circadia, a device that sends biometric data wirelessly via Bluetooth to a phone or tablet, and Northstar, which allows gesture recognition and can detect magnetic north (as well as the rather gimmicky feature of mimicking bioluminescence with subdermal LEDs).

What does it mean to be human? The answering of this existential puzzler has powered progression for millennia, but now, as nascent technologies fuse physical, digital and biological worlds, it has never been more complex, and critical, to define the age-old question.

We are hurtling inexorably towards the ‘singularity’: a hypothetical point when artificial intelligence advances so much that humanity will be irreversibly disrupted. And while conventional wisdom posits that this epochal scenario is at least a half century away, the migration from man to machine is well underway.

WHAT IS TRANSHUMANISM?

Searching(Sir) ‘Tim Berners-Lee’ – the Briton who created the World Wide Web 28 years ago – in Google throws up almost 400,000 results. That figure is almost five times fewer than ‘transhumanism’, a movement few have heard of, yet one which is beating the heart of progress, albeit beneath the radar.

The touchstone definition from a 1990 essay by Dr. Max More, the Oxford University-educated chief executive officer of Arizona-based Alcor Life Extension Foundation, states: “Transhumanism is a class of philosophies of life that seek the continuation and acceleration of the evolution of intelligent life beyond its currently human form and human limitations by means of science and technology, guided by life-promoting principles and values.”

A raft of tech billionaires are considered either ‘de facto transhumanists’ or are fully signed up to the movement. Luminaries include Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and Facebook’s first professional investor worth an estimated $2.7 billion by Forbes, Elon Musk, of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX fame, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and – according to H+Pedia (an online resource that aims to “spread accurate, accessible, non-sensational information about transhumanism”) – Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Dr. Anders Sandberg, a research fellow at Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, suggests that transhumanism “questions the human condition”, and tells me: “It is in many ways a continuation of the humanist project, seeing human flourishing as a goal, but recognising that human nature is not fixed. Rather than assume it is all going to be an entropic mess, transhumanism suggests that many serious problems can be solved and that we do have a chance for a great future.”

There are practical, utilitarian, reasons why submitting one’s body to technology makes sense – at least to Dr. Sandberg and his fellow transhumanists. “Consider that the Government spends £85.2 billion on education every year; even a slight improvement of the results would either be a huge saving or enable much better outcomes,” he continues. “One intelligence quotient (IQ) point gives you about a two per cent income increase, although the benefits would be even broader across the whole of society if everybody got a little bit smarter.

“Childhood intelligence also predicts better health in later life, longer lives, less risk of being a victim of crime, more long-term oriented and altruistic planning – controlling for socioeconomic status, etc. Intelligence does not make us happier, but it does prevent a fair number of bad things – from divorce to suicide – and unhappiness.”

While Dr. Sandberg suggests that the aforementioned DIY ‘grinder’ self-surgery movement “problematic” he is “firmly in favour of self-experimentation and bodyhacking”. He flags up the apparent triumph of Elizabeth Parrish, CEO of Seattle-based BioViva, who in September 2015 underwent what her company labelled “the first gene therapy successful against human ageing”; it was claimed that the treatment had reversed the biological age of Parrish’s immune cells by 20 years.

The Swede is also optimistic about the prospect of ‘mind uploading’, or ‘whole-brain emulation’, as he prefers to call it. He acknowledges that the enabling technology is “decades away” but believes we could “become software people with fantastic benefits: no ageing; customisable bodies; backups in case something went wrong; space travel via radio or laser transmission; and existing as multiple copies.”

Little surprise, then, that Dr. Sandberg is keen on ‘cryonics’ – the deep-freezing of recently deceased people in the belief that scientific advances will revive them – and is signed up for Dr. More’s Alcor, the largest of the world’s four cryopreservation facilities. It currently houses 117 ‘patients’, who are “considered suspended, rather than deceased: detained in some liminal stasis between this world and whatever follows it, or does not,” Irish author Mark O’Connell writes in his brilliant book To Be a Machine, which centres on humans of the future.

For Dr. Sandberg, the $200,000 cost of whole-body perseveration is justifiable as it would be “irrational not to” take the negligible odds that technologic advances will revive him, at some point. “Sure, the chance of it working is small – say five per cent – but that is still worth it to me, a bit like Pascal’s Wager,” he says. “And after all, to truly be a human is to be a self-changing creature.”

THE MORALS OF HUMAN ENHANCEMENT

Is it morally wrong to augment humans? David Wood, chairman of London Futurists, counters that question by firing a cluster of his own, asking me: “Is it morally wrong to teach people to read, or vaccinate people? Is it morally wrong to extend people’s lives by using new medical treatments, or seek a cure for motor neurone disease, or cancer, or Alzheimer’s? They are all forms of augmentations.”

Having warmed up the Scot, who spent eight years studying mathematics and then the philosophy of science (specialist subject quantum mechanics) at Cambridge University, he says: “Recall the initial moral repugnance expressed by people when heart transplants first took place. Or when test-tube babies were created, or when transgender operations were introduced. This moral repugnance has, thankfully, largely subsided. It will be the same, in due course, for most of the other enhancements foreseen by transhumanists.”

Wood, a science-fiction lover from childhood, was switched on to transhumanism “in the early 2000s”, after reading The Age of Spiritual Machines, a seminal book written by futurist Ray Kurzweil, who would later be personally hired by Google co-founder Larry Page “to bring natural language understanding” to the organisation. Famously, the American author has predicted that the ‘singularity’ is on course to happen in 2045, though many critics dismiss his forecast as fanciful and dogmatic.

We could become software people with fantastic benefits

Regardless, transhumanism is on the rise in Britain. “The UK Transhumanist Association (UKTA) used to half-jokingly refer to themselves as ‘six men in a pub’,” says Wood, who in July 2015 co-founded H+Pedia “The UKTA was superseded, in stages, by London Futurists – which covers a wider range of topics – and we now have over 6,000 members in our Meetup group.”

So, what does the near future hold for humanity?“We can envision ever larger gaps in capability between enhanced humans and unenhanced humans,” adds Wood. “This will be like the difference between literate and illiterate humans, except that the difference will be orders of magnitude larger.

“Transhumanists anticipate transcending the limitations which have been characteristics of human experience since the beginnings of Prehistory: ageing; death; and deep flaws in reasoning. Maybe once that happens, the resulting beings will no longer be called humans.”

-ENDS-

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autobizupdate · 8 years ago

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AutoMobility LA(TM) Announces Sponsor And Prizes For 2017 Top Ten Automotive Startups Competition(TM)

- Leading global automotive supplier Magna International Inc. to sponsor 2017 competition

- Top Ten winner to have the opportunity to be included in Extreme Tech Challenge on Sir Richard Branson's Necker Island

- Startups to compete for prizes worth over $200,000 provided by Elektrobit, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Porsche Consulting

LOS ANGELES, July 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Los Angeles Auto Show's (LA Auto Show®) AutoMobility LA™ today announced that leading global automotive supplier Magna International Inc. will be a sponsor for its 2017 Top Ten Automotive Startups Competition™ (Top Ten). With Top Ten continuing to evolve, Magna International Inc. becomes the first company to sponsor the startup competition.

"Our work with start-ups helps us stay at the forefront of emerging technologies and potentially validate them for automotive applications," said Swamy Kotagiri, Magna's Chief Technology Officer. "We see great opportunity to form mutually beneficial relationships with inventors and entrepreneurs to help bring ideas to market."

Additionally, the show has revealed prizes that will be awarded to the Top Three and grand prize winners. Top Three and grand prize winners will receive a Microsoft BizSpark Plus prize of $120,000 in Azure credits over two years, consultancy from Elektrobit, Microsoft and Porsche Consulting, NVIDIA DRIVE™ PX 2 AI car computing platform, and EB robinos open software framework to speed the development of their autonomous driving functionalities. The Top Ten grand prize winner will also receive a cash award and an opportunity to attend the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) held on Sir Richard Branson's private estate, Necker Island.

All finalists for this year's competition will receive exclusive access to AutoMobility LA, exhibit space inside the Technology Pavilion, and tickets to the 2018 NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference on AI and self-driving cars. The startups will also be recognized in front of 25,000 media professionals, influential thought-leaders, automakers, tech titans, designers, developers, investors, dealers, government officials, analysts, fellow startups and more.

Finalists will have full access to all major AutoMobility LA networking events and receive an invitation to a VIP reception with the AutoMobility LA executive team, Advisory Board members, top investors and industry executives.

Top Ten will be introducing a new award this year in conjunction with the Top Ten prizes. Presented by technology giant NVIDIA, the best automotive startup using AI will be announced during AutoMobility LA 2017. The winning company will receive an NVIDIA DRIVE PX 2 AI car computing platform and EB robinos open software framework.

AutoMobility LA's Top Ten Startups will be selected from the pool of applicants by a panel of judges comprised of top executives from Elektrobit, NVIDIA, Time Inc.'s The Drive, Porsche Consulting and Microsoft, as well as the LA Auto Show executive team. Previous finalists, such as Spatial.ai and HAAS Alert, have gone on to receive significant funding rounds after participating in the competition.

Once the Top Ten Startups have been selected, this team of esteemed jurors will go on to narrow the list of ten to three company finalists, followed by determining the grand prize winner. The grand prize winner will then participate in an advisory session with the judges during AutoMobility LA, and receive significant prizes to help further grow their business.

"We're excited to have Magna International Inc. as an official sponsor of the Top Ten Automotive Startups Competition," said Lisa Kaz, President and CEO of the LA Auto Show and AutoMobility LA. "By adding Magna and having judges and mentors from some of the most well-known executives in their respective industries, we are taking this competition to the next level. We are looking forward to finding the next-generation of disruptive startups that will move the auto-tech needle."

Due to the high volume of applications for this year's Top Ten competition, AutoMobility LA has extended the submission deadline until Friday, August 11. For more information or to apply, please visit http://ift.tt/2vn3ykP.

About the Los Angeles Auto Show and AutoMobility LA

Founded in 1907, the Los Angeles Auto Show (LA Auto Show®) is the first major North American auto show of the season each year. In 2016, the show's Press & Trade Days merged with the Connected Car Expo (CCE) to become AutoMobility LATM, the industry's first trade show converging the technology and automotive industries to launch new products and technologies and to discuss the most pressing issues surrounding the future of transportation and mobility. AutoMobility LA 2017 will take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center Nov. 27-30, with manufacturer vehicle debuts intermixed. LA Auto Show 2017 will be open to the public Dec. 1-10. AutoMobility LA is where the new auto industry gets business done, unveils groundbreaking new products and makes strategic announcements in front of media and industry professionals from around the globe. LA Auto Show is endorsed by the Greater L.A. New Car Dealer Association and is operated by ANSA Productions. To receive the latest show news and information, follow LA Auto Show on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LAAutoShow, via Facebook at http://ift.tt/2bNfmD9 or on Instagram at http://ift.tt/2ecr63y and sign up for alerts at http://ift.tt/tO2Lyt. For more information about AutoMobility LA, please visit http://ift.tt/1VYQnk3.

Media Contacts: Sanaz Marbley/Brian Alexander JMPR Public Relations (818) 992-4353 [email protected] [email protected]

Read this news on PR Newswire Asia website: AutoMobility LA(TM) Announces Sponsor And Prizes For 2017 Top Ten Automotive Startups Competition(TM)

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