The Morning After: Tuesday December 6, 2016
A new way to shop.
Hey there, it's the Morning After! Oculus Touch has two pretty good reasons to stay inside this winter, and Amazon is killing checkout lines.
Amazon premieres the "Just Walk Out Shopping experience"
Amazon already has internet shopping boiled down to a single click or voice command, so what's next? Apparently, a grocery store. It's opened an employees-only shopping location in Seattle that uses " computer vision, sensor fusion, and deep learning" to track what people take. There's no check-out lane here -- just take your stuff and go, while Amazon bills your account and emails a receipt. The store will open to the public in early 2017, and if things go well, we assume it won't be the last one.
What to watch, stream and play this week
It's a big week for gamers, as Team Ico's long-awaited game is finally arriving on PS4, while Dead Rising 4 and Gigantic hit Xbox One and PC. Mythbusters fans should prepare for the first season of White Rabbit Project on Netflix Friday, and The Walking Dead wraps up for 2016 on Sunday night.
Android 7.1.1 is bringing some Pixel features to other phones
The latest version of Android is rolling out to some Nexus and Pixel devices, and it comes with some new features. Of course, there's an expanded set of emoji, a new image keyboard with GIF search for messaging apps and the previously Pixel-exclusive app shortcut feature.
Police got BMW to remotely lock a luxury sedan while the thief was inside
In Seattle, someone stole a BMW 550i after the keys were left in it, but they didn't make a clean getaway. BMW helped police track the vehicle down in an alley, then lock the doors remotely as the thief slept inside the car.
It's taken nine months, but Oculus finally has motion controls that make its VR truly immersive. Devindra Hardawar was quite impressed by these controllers, calling them "great gamepads" that are "exactly what Rift owners need." Their downsides include a lack of rechargeable battery and failure to enable true room-scale VR -- unless you invest further. Maybe next time?
Google launches "Trusted Contacts" location sharing app
Google's new "personal safety" app for Android (coming soon to iOS) may test the boundaries of trust and privacy. Trusted Contacts is obviously just for people who you don't mind giving access to your location, and it works both ways.
The contacts you enable can see if you're active, and if necessary, request to see where you are. If everything is fine, you'll see the notification and deny it, but if not, it will automatically share where you are (or your last known location) after a brief delay. Alternatively, you can share your location to contacts you choose, and it will keep broadcasting where you are until disabled.
DeepMind Lab and OpenAI's Universe give scientists a way to test their AI "agents."
Alphabet (parent company of Google, remember?) released the code of its DeepMind Lab on Github, providing a 3D game-like platform useful for AI research. At the same time, the Elon Musk-backed OpenAI team opened its Universe platform to the public, where researchers can let AI roam across browser tasks, Flash games and GTA V.
