Payment platform Klarna has unveiled plans to cut its staff footprint by over half as the Swedish firm bets big on AI.

The Stockholm-based ‘buy now, pay later’ firm said it will use an attrition downsizing policy, which means departing staff will no longer be replaced with new hires.

Instead, Klarna plans to leverage artificial intelligence and automation to replace departing roles in various departments. It has already reduced its headcount from 5,000 to 3,800 in the past year.

Chief executive Sebastian Siemiatkowski heralded the benefits of AI as Klarna revealed its second-quarter results earlier this week.

“Not only can we do more with less, but we can do much more with less. Internally, we speak directionally about 2,000 [employees]. We don’t want to put a specific deadline on that,” he told the Financial Times.

Read more…

Will Meta’s Puffin be a new competitor to Apple Vision Pro?

Meta has started developing a new mixed-reality headset that is intended to compete directly with the Apple Vision Pro.

According to The Information, the Meta headset, codenamed Puffin, will resemble a pair of glasses more than a traditional VR headset.

The Facebook parent — which already sells headsets following its 2014 acquisition of Oculus — is developing a mixed-reality device that will weigh less than 110g, significantly lighter than the Meta Quest 3’s 515g.

It will achieve this by using a tethered “puck” containing the Puffin’s batter and processor, leaving just the display in the headset, the report claims, although it is unlikely to launch until 2027 at the earliest.

Read more…

Why Uber was fined $324 million for GDPR violations

According to the Dutch data protection regulator, Uber has been fined $324 million for violating EU data protection rules.

The Dutch DPA accused the ride-hailing firm of transferring the personal data of its European drivers to US servers, calling it a “serious violation” of the EU’s General Data Protection Rule (GDPR).

Uber said it would appeal the fine, which it claimed was “completely unjustified” as the transfer was “compliant with GDPR during a period of immense uncertainty between the US and EU.”

The watchdog claims Uber transferred information, including ID documents, taxi licences and location data, to its US headquarters over a two-year period but failed to safeguard it.

It launched the investigation after more than 170 French drivers complained to a French human rights group, which issued a complaint to France’s data watchdog.

Read more…

Musk’s Grok chatbot tweaked to address election misinformation concerns

The social media platform X has changed its AI chatbot after five secretaries of state in the United States warned it was spreading election misinformation.

Top election officials from Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Washington sent a letter this month to Elon Musk complaining that the platform’s AI chatbot, Grok, produced false information about state ballot deadlines shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.

The secretaries of state requested that the chatbot instead direct users who ask election-related questions to canivote.org, a voting information website run by the National Association of Secretaries of State.

Before listing responses to election-related questions, the chatbot now says, “For accurate and up-to-date information about the 2024 U.S. Elections, please visit vote.gov.”

The five state secretaries said in a shared statement that both websites are “trustworthy resources that can connect voters with their local election officials.”

Read more…

The post Klarna plans to halve workforce with AI, Meta developing headset to challenge Apple Vision Pro appeared first on TechInformed.

Of course, Apple has always had this power to capture the public’s imagination. Prior to its entry into the smartphone market, most mobile models still had buttons. The US tech giant also took tablets from being a vague idea on Star Trek into millions of households.

Six months on, however, and the zeitgeist seems to have moved back towards artificial intelligence and Vision Pro sales have reportedly underwhelmed. But businesses are still highly interested in the opportunities afforded by immersive technology, according to an expert from French telecoms giant Orange.

Morgan Bouchet is Orange’s global head of immersive and gen AI marketing, and he tells TI the French company has already began exploring the opportunities offered by the Vision Pro, even though it has (yet) to launch in Europe.

“We are exploring the Vision OS with our partners and our internal developers to be sure of all the opportunities and capabilities offered by this device,” he says when I ask him if Apple has moved the dial on immersive.

“We are working to explore what can be done for our own business clients. Large enterprises are already exploring use cases around digital twins, such as city management and factories, but also our own internal needs to connect spatial computing with our own offering.”

With Apple due to hold its Worldwide Developers Conference next week, rumours abound that the iPhone-maker will announce a global version of its spatial computer, likely to go on sale before the end of the year.

Orange has long been a partner of Apple’s having been one of the first European carriers to offer the first-generation iPhone in 2007. But Bouchet wouldn’t be drawn on what Apple is set to announce – only praising the doors that the Apple device opens for the future of VR/XR.

“We are very excited by it, it is a high-quality device, even if the price is very expensive,” he says. “But it is also the OS – we want to understand all the possibilities and opportunities presented by this platform.”

Big enterprises, according to Bouchet, are already working with Orange to develop solutions that can operate with the Vision Pro, but his interest goes beyond just the Californian vendor.

Training itself for others

Not only is Orange a technology supplier, but it is also one of France’s biggest employers, and its reach can be seen across the globe, serving around 287 million customers.

Before offering immersive technologies to b2b customers, Orange started using it internally – most notably as a way of training staff.

In its domestic market, the telco wanted to train its staff to better deal with uncivility and conflict on calls or in-store. It turned to VR service provider Pitchboy to train staff in how to validate appointments with customers and refine them.

Bouchet says: “Training is also an important use case. For example, we partnered with Belgium’s PitchBoy. We started working with this startup four years ago for our own employees to improve sales, training and to train staff on generative AI.

“This exploration internally is also a way for us to get an understanding of the different possibilities offered by the technology, so we can then help our clients to adopt these kinds of use cases.”

Another project that Orange has led on is the opening its first virtual store through its op-co in Spain, which has now merged with MasMovil.

The virtual metaverse store – which was opened in September 2022 – displays products from its handset vendor partners, as well as offering a 3D visualisation, accessing demos, promotions and the online store.

“VR commerce could be a way to minimise travel when going to one place or another,” notes Bouchet. “We are exploring this use-case in other countries, because when we discuss immersive products, we are looking beyond just VR and XR at other platforms, such as Fortnite and Roblox.”

These gaming platforms will be at the forefront of the metaverse, Bouchet claims, because gaming environments are “very advanced” in offering new kinds of experiences.

The fact that these platforms are already home to digitally native generations means they will play an integral role in metaverse adoption.

Bouchet also highlighted VR experiences, including its location-based Notre Dame experience, which Bouchet guided TechInformed around last year. It has since began offering a version of this experience through Meta Quest, meaning those who want to tour the Old Lady of Paris no longer need to visit  the French capital to learn about its history or the current restoration project.

Twins and data

One building block of the metaverse that Bouchet thinks will be vital for businesses is digital twins. Industries such as construction, healthcare, manufacturing, and transport have all led the way with digital twin adoption, leading Orange Business to launch its digital twin platform aimed at supporting Industry 4.0.

“More and more, we are seeing interest in digital twins,” he explains. “It is very valuable for the future and a key area of focus for Orange Innovation.”

Companies already using 3D models – he pointed to firms such as Airbus – will find it easier to move to the metaverse, he adds, because “they already have assets in 3D”.

Orange has already launched a digital twin platform that has seen success, especially in manufacturing. Here, the digital twin platform has been designed to address several use cases and it fits industry 4.0 use cases, such as tracking, recycling materials, predictive maintenance.

The Thing’in research platform is a data platform which, Orange claims,  maintains a thorough structural and semantic description of the environments, such as cities or buildings, that are leveraging connected devices (internet of things).

The platform produces a graph that plots data about people, objects (connected or unconnected), physical entities and relevant systems that, in the case of manufacturing, help create new business applications or streamline processes.

It is integrated into Orange’s digital twin platform – one example of this in action in a fabrication factory can be read here.

So why should a telco like Orange be driving this change? Are they just the connectivity provider, or is there a greater role for a business currently undergoing its own digital transformation journey?

“Collaborations are vital in the metaverse,” he answers. “Big companies are willing to develop metaverse projects, but it is on the telcos to provide the connectivity, security, and identity as well, to support these experiences.

“At the moment much of it is showcasing the possibilities, but we need to be able to scale these projects. It is very important for us to connect our enablers to every part of the wider metaverse vision. And we bring more than a 30-year legacy of doing that – integrating security and connectivity with technology.”

So, will the metaverse and spatial computing finally replace the mobile/ cell phones that have been a core part of Orange’s offering for the past three decades?

Taking a “long-term vision” is “necessary” he says coyly. “We see the real impact of the network and cloud solutions here, but it is a long-term vision to have everything in the cloud.”

The mobile will continue to be at the middle for “the next few years at least” though this could remain the same for a long time, he adds, due to latency and the need to process some things locally.

The post Apples and Oranges: the role of spatial computing in the industrial metaverse appeared first on TechInformed.

The concept is also applied to virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR), adding another dimension to virtualised environments and used for a variety of non-entertainment applications – including healthcare and the military.

The Audio Engineering Society (AES) describes spatial sound as “an essential underlying technology for VR and AR” that can be used to deliver not only a “sense of reality” but also “hyper-reality”.

For virtualisation in enterprise applications, spatial audio offers the same immersive qualities consumers experience in films, games, and VR/AR experiences at theme parks – plus a high degree of isolation, blocking out extraneous noise and allowing the user to hear only what is relevant to what they are doing.

Object-based audio: a brief history

The main technologies for spatial sound are object-based audio (OBA), binaural and Ambisonics.

Dolby Atmos is the most common OBA system currently in use and is based on a combination of audio channels – either 5.1 or 7.1 – and multiple ‘objects’, which can be placed or moved anywhere in a sound picture.

The earlier 5.1 systems, including Dolby Digital, produced surround sound that covered the length and width of a cinema. Atmos, and other OBA systems, add the dimension of height through the addition of ceiling loudspeakers, making for a more immersive experience.

As a side note, the terms ‘spatial audio’ and ‘immersive audio’ are often used interchangeably but there is a subtle difference between them; spatial is a technological term, while immersive refers to the experiential aspects of a system.

The main difference between OBA and the other main spatial systems is that the audio image is created in a mixing studio from multiple individual tracks, while binaural and Ambisonics capture the sound in a space as it happens.

Binaural was the earliest attempt to reproduce sound as it is heard by the human ears, dating back to the late 19th century. The process traditionally involves a dummy head fitted with two microphones, one for the left ear and one for the right, which pick up all the sounds- and reflections – in each environment.

This produces a very accurate sonic image but one which can only be listened to on headphones, with the individual sounds fixed to their original recorded positions. This initially made binaural unsuitable for VR – but this problem has been solved by the development of head-tracking systems, which are now found, with spatial audio, on Meta Quest (formerly Oculus) and Microsoft Hololens headsets.

Ambisonics was developed in the early 1970s by mathematician and tape recorder enthusiast Michael Gerzon with the aim of going beyond what he saw as the restrictions of stereo.

Gerzon’s theory was that proper spatial imaging could only be achieved if the acoustical signals in the recording environment were captured. Identifying what he called the ‘soundfield’ as comprising the absolute sound pressure level and the three pressure gradients (left/right, front/back and up/down), Gerzon designed a specialised four-capsule microphone to pick up a true multi-dimensional audio image.

The SoundField mic is still used today, manufactured by Australian company RØDE as the NT-SF1. Other Ambisonic microphones aimed at VR work include Sennheiser’s AMBEO, the Nevaton and the VRH-8 capsule for the H8 recorder and the mic array on the H3-VR recorder from Zoom (not the video conferencing system).

Binaural dummy heads and microphones are manufactured by Brüel & Kjær (part of HBK), Neumann (owned by Sennheiser) and Binaural Enthusiast. Alternative – and cheaper – options without the heads are Sound Professionals’ in-ear MS-TFB-2 and the 3Dio EM-172 binaural microphones.

Dolby says it is not currently looking at audio for VR in the enterprise sectors. It is possible there could be future implementation because Atmos is an option on both Microsoft Hololens 2 and Meta Quest 2, along with what both companies describe as ‘spatial audio’.

Getting a headset in enterprise

These headsets are being used in healthcare today but usually without the audio component, although spatial sound was used as far back as 2018 for the Stanford Virtual Heart VR project based round the then Oculus headset.

The military is also beginning to deploy spatial sound VR simulations to add more realism to simulated combat situations for training purposes.

To provide this additional dimension, security and defence contractor QinetiQ has established a dedicated team to work on immersive technologies, including VR, AR and mixed reality (XR), for a range of military applications, including training and simulation.

David Taylor, capability lead for immersive technologies at QinetiQ, explains that because much of its recent work in XR is based on the Unity and Unreal games engines, audio spatializers are used to represent the sources of sound associated with the images.

Both Unity and Unreal can work with binaural and Ambisonics, either natively or through plug-ins.

“We use the relevant plug-in supplied for the game engine we’re working in at the time,” says Taylor.

“For the Unity platform, when deploying to a Meta Quest device, we would use the Oculus Audio Spatializer. The ability to correctly represent the sound of a vehicle, aircraft or even wildlife in an environment and then reinforce that with the correct audio characteristics contributes towards the overall effect to the user of a virtual environment.”

Directional sound cues can also provide some real value from a training perspective, such as attempting to provide distraction by other devices or even people/avatars, reflecting a real-world scenario.”

Taylor highlights the value of having ambient sound in an XR space, which enables the user to be surrounded with audio and reinforces the overall experience.

“Rarely is a real-world space completely silent and neither should a virtual space be,” he says.

“Using spatial sound can also better simulate a location – such as the rear of a vehicle or aircraft – even when the user is in a very different physical location, like a training room.”

In many ways, these are still relatively early days in the use of spatial audio for VR and AR in the enterprise, healthcare, and military sectors. But as people already know what it has added to films, TV, and games, it cannot be long before it is more widely used elsewhere.

The post Is spatial audio the missing link in enterprise VR? appeared first on TechInformed.

In this episode of TI:TALKS, Thomas Dexmier, the AVP for Business Development and Enterprise Solutions at HTC Vive, discusses the future of VR and XR technology.

TI’s Ricki Lee spoke with Dexmier at MWC24 in Barcelona about how VR and XR are revolutionising industries like healthcare, mining, agriculture, education, and government agencies, offering immersive training experiences and enhancing workforce skills.

Dexmier also delves into the potential of spatial computing platforms for business collaboration and communication and discusses the importance of content creation, device accessibility, and the role of 5G in shaping the future of VR and XR technology.

He also discusses what Apple’s entry into the VR field with its Vision Pro means for the industry as a whole and whether it sparks horror or hope for HTC.

Join us as we explore the innovative advancements in VR and XR technology and the exciting possibilities they hold for the future, like training butchers how to slice meat! Don’t miss out on this insightful discussion with Thomas Dexmier on the latest trends and developments in the world of virtual and augmented reality.

Also, listen on Spotify & Apple Music!

Watch more episodes like this by clicking here!

The post The future of VR & XR with Thomas Dexmier, HTC Vive appeared first on TechInformed.

The iPhone maker announced its new “spatial computer” at an event in September, claiming the Vision Pro will transform how people work, collaborate, and consume entertainment.

Apple’s latest offering is powered by visionOS — which powers iOS, macOS and iPadOS — to deliver spatial experiences at work and at home. The Vision Pro also features a 3D user interface and input system controlled entirely by a user’s eyes, hands, and voice.

Apple reveals its Vision for the future of immersive tech

Intuitive gestures allow users to interact with apps by simply looking at them, tapping their fingers to select, flicking their wrist to scroll, or using a virtual keyboard or dictation to type, Apple claimed.

“The era of spatial computing has arrived,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “Apple Vision Pro is the most advanced consumer electronics device ever created. Its revolutionary and magical user interface will redefine how we connect, create, and explore.”

Apple added that its Vision Pro offers “industry-leading” privacy and security. Optic ID is a new authentication system that analyses a user’s iris to unlock Vision Pro, autofill passwords, and complete payments with Apple Pay.

Tech firms must do more to protect young children in the metaverse, says NSPCC

Where a user looks stays private while navigating Vision Pro, and eye tracking information is not shared with Apple, third-party apps, or websites. EyeSight also includes a visual indicator that makes it clear to others when a user is capturing a spatial photo or video.

The post Apple releases its long-awaited Vision Pro to US next month appeared first on TechInformed.

In the open letter, Sweeney revealed that Epic Games ­— which also publishes Fortnite — had been actively seeking cost reductions by freezing hiring and curtailing expenditures on marketing and events.

“For a while now, we’ve been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators,” he said.

“I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect, I see that this was unrealistic,” he added.

Sweeney noted that while the creator economy that Epic has opened on Fortnite was thriving, the revenue share model meant that the publishing side of its business received lower margins. This led to “a major structural change” in their economics.

In addition to the layoffs, the company is selling the music store and community platform it acquired in 2022, Bandcamp, to the music marketplace Songtradr.

Sweeney said that Epic Games would also spin off most of SuperAwesome, the kids digital marketing company that Epic bought in 2020.

As well as games development, Epic’s Unreal Engine is used in the industry for architectural and automotive visualisation, as well as training and simulation.

Architectural firm BDP used Unreal recently to create an immersive experience from a digital twin of the Houses of Parliament, allowing architects and clients to move around the virtual version in real time.

To read more stories on the metaverse click here

The post Another chink in the metaverse as Epic lays off 830 staff appeared first on TechInformed.

The French telecoms firm is deploying 5G in shipping ports and factories to help reduce carbon footprint and allow inspectors to work remotely with the help of robots and virtual reality.

Belgian ship management company Seafar will be using Orange’s private 5G in order to help captains control unmanned vessels remotely by using connected 360 cameras to link up to virtual reality headsets.

Within its control centre in Antwerp, the ship management firm currently control its vessels remotely by using footage sent from their cameras via 4G.

With the upgrade to the 5G network, Seafar will be able to deploy the 360 cameras with high image quality that will allow captains in the control centre to experience the ships through virtual reality headsets.

Lower latencies offered by 5G will enable ships to respond faster and easier to the captain’s commands from distances as far as 100km away.

This capability is augmented by network slicing – which means the ship will have access to its own network “highway” instead of using saturated 4G frequencies or public networks.

“We really see this project as a game changer,” says Ghazaleh Kia, R&D project manager at Seafar. “Thanks to 5G, we can have even more unmanned inland shipping vessels, which will cut costs, make the use of the vessels more efficient and reduce carbon emissions.”

Orange Belgium is also deploying 5G to help the inspections of Industrial sites, tank terminals, container terminals, and infrastructure thanks to the use of drones for robotics inspections.

The Antwerp-based firm, SkyeBase, has already deployed automated drones and robotics for its inspections, however, the process still involves manual tasks such as a need to remove the SD card from the drones in order to see the footage it has taken on a desktop or laptop.

With this, if a report turns out to be incomplete, the drone operator would have to travel back to site to repeat the inspection.

With standalone 5G, the drone can automatically upload footage straight to the inspector.

The brand also wants to simplify remote communication with experts, Tom Daniëls, co-founder and CIO of SkyeBase, explains: “Experts cannot always be on-site, but a live stream allows them to follow an inspection from a distance and share their knowledge in a secure manner. The 5G standalone network ensures a guaranteed bandwidth, which is crucial for connection reliability”

“We inspect critical infrastructure in the port and the petrochemical industry, amongst other locations. It is therefore crucial that the expert receives real-time footage, especially when an incident occurs.”

Similarly, telecoms firm Ericsson partnered with Telia earlier this year to build a private 5G network in order to help monitor and manage numerous devices in factories through sensors.

The post Orange Belgium to deploy private 5G for industry drones and robotics and VR appeared first on TechInformed.

At the Meta launch, Zuckerberg painted a picture of what the future could look like: A virtual world reached through virtual reality headsets where people could meet as 3D avatars, play games, attend events, go shopping, and perhaps go to work.

“We believe the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet, we’ll be able to feel present – like we’re right there with people no matter how far apart we actually are,” Zuckerberg enthused in his announcement.

As we approach the two-year anniversary of the social media firm becoming a “metaverse company”, the world has already seen changes across enterprise.

Brands such as drinks-maker Coca-Cola, luxury-fashion houses Gucci and Burberry, car firm Hyundai, and many more, have built their own metaverse platforms to be accessed in virtual reality, with the options to buy virtual clothes, drinks, and cars.

“We’ve been really surprised by how much the headsets and the VR have been used by enterprises and companies,” says vice president of Meta Reality Labs at Meta, Christine Trodella, speaking at the Economist’s Enterprise Metaverse Summit. “The way that companies are using this, and the innovation that they’re doing, is truly mind-blowing.”

From Meta’s point of view, enterprises are using the metaverse in four key areas: community, design and creativity, training, and in the core of their businesses as part of employee collaboration.

From a community side of things, companies are using it to gather employees for town halls, Q&A’s, and conferences, Trondella adds. “[They] are using it for collaboration, and for having meetings to bring people together where they may be in disparate locations.”

“We’re starting to see more and more companies that are really putting this technology at the core of their business, both in terms of how they interact with their employee, how their employees use the technology, but also how they engage with their consumers,” Trondella says.

Take German tech giant Siemens as an example of how enterprises are using the technology. Projects have included an underwater greenhouse startup that uses VR headsets, digital twins, and metaverse technology to “access” their underwater domes through virtual reality.

Using sensors, the startup, Nemo’s Garden, can monitor CO2 levels, oxygen levels, and the temperature so it can monitor its subsea farms in real-time.

For Trodella, the design and creativity in the metaverse is what she loves most about this burgeoning platform.

“There’s an example with an auto manufacturer that has actually shaved their auto design by using 3D collaboration, from weeks to actually days,” Trondella smiles.

Learning and development

Then there’s the training side: “This is a pretty well-known and widespread use case.”

For example, in healthcare, virtual reality training allowing medics to “touch” a patient remotely is under development by medical and tech experts at the University of South Wales.

With this, medical students can practice dealing with an injured patient, for example, and carry out a physical examination, and then operate an ultrasound machine correctly and produce a scan, all from a completely remote location.

“You’re not only seeing efficacy and efficiency, but you’re also seeing a massive, huge, cost saving,” she adds.

This is especially useful for “training instances where you can’t put somebody in an actual situation, but you’re able to simulate that so they don’t have to react based on something they’ve seen or read, but by something they’ve actually done.”

“As you’re replicating training instances where you can’t put somebody in an individual, actual situation, but you’re able to simulate that so that they don’t have to react based on something that they’ve only seen or ready, but by something that they’ve actually done,” Trondella explains.

Another example recently highlighted by TechInformed is the UK’s Ministry of Justice, which is exploring VR technologies to train prison staff ahead of entering the actual prisons to prepare them for environment in every sense, including smell.

For Trondella, early metaverse adopters are set to see the greatest competitive advantage, with the Meta exec comparing the oncoming rush of immersive technologies to the advent of the internet.

“A lot of companies were left behind then, and a lot of companies now are forming metaverse teams, with third parties,” she explains.

With Apple set to jump on the VR bandwagon through the launch of its Vision Pro headset next year, the market could be set to open up even more. Trondella admits that she’s happy to see it: “It really validates the space.”

“It’s starting to really feel that it’s not just use case adoption, but a broader sense of including it into every part of a business with employees.”

The post Meta’s vision: How the Metaverse will impact businesses appeared first on TechInformed.

In partnership with the International Observatory on Vulnerable People in Data Protection (Vulnera) the rights body has published a research paper on the possibilities for the metaverse (in the broadest sense, not Meta’s version) and the potential impacts of this space on the lives of individuals.

The paper calls for tech companies and governments to take a “measured approach” to building out the metaverse rather than one of “unconditioned enthusiasm” which could lead to decisions that negatively impact vulnerable groups.

To ensure Big Tech does not repeat the sins of web. 2.0, which has been plagued with trolling, harmful algorithms  a lack of privacy, cyber attacks and biases, the report has called for businesses developing the metaverse to follow the UN Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights.

“Technology companies should be required to assess the impact of the metaverse on the human rights of people who are vulnerable or marginalised and conduct meaningful consultation with affected groups and other stakeholders,” the report’s summary stated.

Safeguards

Human rights organisations also want assurances that companies involved in the metaverse’s creation will be able to monitor the impact they have on the human rights of vulnerable groups and to involve them in the design processes.

The paper – published on Wednesday – also urged lawmakers to clarify whether the current laws which prohibit sexual violence are applicable in the metaverse and to address any gaps by enacting new laws and policies.

The alliance also advised a clampdown on AI-based emotional recognition technologies and harmful algorithms that may affect a user’s mental health.

According to the alliance’s global coordinator and digital rights champion Emma Gibson, the burden of responsibility to ensure these safeguards happen lies currently with the tech companies.

But she argued this could lead to people accepting unfair or undesirable terms and conditions, or choices that are favourable to Big Tech, but not to individuals.

“It may seem that the debate around digital ethics has moved away from the metaverse and onto ethics of large language models. But the ambition of creating an immersive experience replicating every aspect of our physical lives has not disappeared,” she said.

“More work is needed by governments to make sure that our experiences in the metaverse don’t mirror the negative things that happen to so many socially disadvantaged people on the internet and social media. Including checking whether our current laws which prohibit sexual violence apply in the metaverse,” she added.

The post Rights body demands safeguards as metaverse expands appeared first on TechInformed.

As one of the biggest central government departments in the UK, employing 90,000 staff, the Ministry of Justice is a huge organisation with many different stakeholders: for starters, it is responsible for around 80,000 prisoners in UK jails and also 250,000 people on probation.

The department is also supported by 34 different agencies – including the Prison and Probation Service – as well as many other public bodies – including the parole board and the Law Commission.

According to MoJ’s chief digital and Information officer Gina Gill, when it comes to “exploring the possible” with any new technology, the first hurdle the Ministry’s digital arm, Justice Digital, faces is explaining to its largely non-technical workforce how innovation can transform and return value back to the business.

A few years ago, the department decided to foster a culture of innovation within its far-reaching ecosystem, kicking off with a series of demos and talks from outside organisations. They included the likes of EasyJet, The Danish prison service and the Estonian government as well as nuggets from Big Tech players themselves – such as Google, AWS and Reply – a global firm specialising in designing solutions in the digital services, tech and consulting fields.

As a follow up to these initial set of talks, Gill and her team worked with suppliers, colleagues and other stakeholders on a series of bespoke demos that could highlight possible use cases.

Smelly prison VR

According to Reply client partner manager Hannah Fisher, one challenge that came up in the user research was the fact that 40% of trainee prison officers leave after their basic training – one of the main reasons cited is the sensory overload they experience on their first day at work.

Gill adds that it’s not the prisoners’ behaviour that’s the problem, but the heavy jackets the officers must wear combined with the noise, and – most notably – the sheer smell of the place.

It’s not documented in countless films, books and TV shows about life on the inside, but, according to those who work in them, the average men’s prison in the UK smells of disinfectant mixed in with a whiff of male locker rooms and a strong hint of beef-flavoured Pot Noodle (which, it turns out, is a permitted and much-favoured in-cell snack enjoyed by Britain’s prison population).

“It varies from prison to prison – sometimes they’re allowed cans of tuna or tabasco, so they’ll often mix things in with these ingredients – but that whole mix together is something many trainee prison officers say is hard to deal with,” Fisher notes.

To immerse would-be prison officers into the full day one experience, Justice Digital and Reply designed a demo for a VR experience.

The digitisation of the prison experience was spun up within 18 hours and built on pre-existing gaming blocks, although the initial research took longer.

The dimensions of the rooms, the widths of the corridors, finding out what the lighting was like and what prisons have in terms of bedding, toilets and sinks in their cells was all vital information, but hard to get hold of – given the limited-on site access.

Noises were also added to the experience – as was the smell, which was recreated using a mixture of smell jars which were released into the atmosphere at different points.

“You can buy off-the-shelf attachments that release smells for VR – but they always smell of roses or something beautiful – not awful, and you certainly can’t buy a mix of different awful smells. So, we spent a lot of time getting the scent just right before we even commissioned it.” says Fisher.

The Day One experience

The resulting experience, which I got to test at Reply’s annual Exchange event last week at a venue in East London, has been designed to give trainee prison officers some idea of how they might feel on their first day at work.

The user wears a heavy flack jacket before donning a headset which takes them into the realm of the prison. The touch/ hand gesture element of the experience was particularly user friendly – enabling you to use keys to lock and unlock a cell and take objects in and out of boxes.

Because it was a public event, while the jars were on display at Exchange they weren’t opened. Reply may work on digitising the scent element – but for the purposes of the demo and “getting the conversation going” the jars were deemed effective.

Fisher adds that the feedback the Justice Digital team received from officers was that it was an all-too-familiar smell – and it raised eyebrows in Reply’s London Victoria offices when the scent was released – those rooms remained empty for days afterwards!

While the use of VR in training isn’t something new, spinning up a sector-specific example that might screen out inappropriate candidates and give those that are interested a 360 view of life as a prison guard as part of their training is a clear illustration of how this technology could add value.

The demo also led to further conversations among MoJ policy makers who also have restricted access to actual prison visits. “The feedback was that the policies they write would be much more effective if they were able to immerse themselves into the prison environment,” says Fisher.

VR caves are used for some of Reply’s Italian healthcare clients for rehabilitation purposes and Fisher and Gill are now looking at how this might transfer to a prison environment. Could VR, for instance also be used to teach prisoners service long spells about what life is now like on the outside?

Gill reasoned that prisoners who are more engaged in this process pre-release are more likely to cope in the ‘real world’ lowering their likelihood of reoffending.

Puppy power

To explore the future of work the MoJ also loaned a quadruped robot from Reply – not that sinister-looking dog bot from Boston Dynamics (although the robotics firm is one of Reply’s suppliers) but a smaller, cuter version from Chinese firm Unitree, nick-named ‘Dogital’.

“We worked hard to try and make it move differently so that it didn’t appear threatening like some of bigger robots,” Fisher adds.

Dogital was first set to work in a marketing capacity. To attract sign ups to the MoJ’s Justice Digital tech events they slapped a QR code on the mechanical mutt and sent it into the lobby of the department’s central HQ building.

“We used the attention of the robot dog and the VR headset as an opportunity to push the events, to get the word out there and encourage people to sign up,” noted Gill in an MoJ blog.

“I was surprised and encouraged at how many people got their phone out and scanned the QR code on the back of the robot dog, even if it was hesitant as it hopped around,” she added.

The digital pooch caught the attention of the MoJ’s Permanent Secretary as well as its Second Permanent Secretary Jo Farrar, who took a selfie and posted it on twitter.

It also started a conversation about how the bot might be used to help prison officers with their patrolling work.

Reply had talked about how the dogs were used by the German police force to search for drugs and by the German fire service to carry out surveys in charred buildings still too hot for human occupation.

“We then worked on a concept for prison dogs with cameras and different attachments that have been configured to sniff out illegal items,” Fisher adds.

“You could use Raspberry Pi, for instance, to check for mobile signals. There are also attachments that pick-up particles in the air that allow you to detect drug possession.”

For Gill, clearly a rising star within the MoJ, her campaign started with bold ideas and a blank piece of paper and ended engaging a collective audience of 3,500 people.

Many of these stakeholders left feeling that the latest innovations in tech had real-world applications and could play a part in fixing some of the bigger and smaller problems that its staff are facing.

And while the Smelly VR prison experience started out as a demo, Fisher is confident that by this time next year, it may well help the prison service in their recruitment processes.

The post A nose for trouble appeared first on TechInformed.