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Rod Furlan 12:15 pm on April 8, 2013 Permalink | Reply

Streaming VR from the Cloud

Oculus Rift A while ago I was working on a fully immersive stereoscopic “remote head”. On one side the user wears a HMD and on the other side there would be a servo-actuated stereoscopic camera programmed to match the orientation of the user’s head-tracking device. Sadly even if I used very fast servos it wouldn’t be possible to move the camera fast enough to accurately match the perspective of the user. The head-tracking lag would be quite disorienting, unacceptably so even before we factor in the network lag.

On the second prototype, I decided to use a monoscopic 360 degree camera instead. The remote head would transmit the whole image-sphere to the user’s machine and I would clip the viewport on the client-side using the tracker information – effectively eliminating head-tracking lag by doing it locally. The overall experience should be great even though the video feed from the remote head could be several milliseconds behind real-time.

NVIDIA Grid Server And here is how all of this intersects with VR: a cloud-VR server could render a 360 degree image sphere around the player, transmit the whole frame to the client which would then clip the viewport based on the orientation of the user’s head. It could even be done adaptively to save bandwidth – instead of transmitting the whole image-sphere it could send only a portion of it based on how fast the user is likely to turn his head in the next N milliseconds or at a reduced frame rate, and since the raster viewport is clipped by the client, the user would still be able to look around at 60fps. Input-to-display lag would still exist but developers could overcome at least some of it by designing around this limitation.

The potential end-game could be something like a cloud-powered Oculus Rift style HMD with no console or PC required – in other words: no hassle VR that is just plug & immerse. The required tech is already available, both NVIDIA and AMD have announced support for GPU cloud rendering, OculusVR is finally shipping the $300 Rift development kits worldwide and all the required client-side processing could easily be handled by a $100 Android board.

So who is going to be the pioneer who will make cloud VR a reality?

Rod Furlan 10:43 am on October 29, 2012 Permalink | Reply

Intermission – Asia Tour 2012

I will be away for a while travelling around Asia. If you are interested in travel photography be sure to follow me on 500px.
Rod Furlan 10:40 pm on September 3, 2012 Permalink | Reply

DIY Oculus Rift – Because Reality is Overrated

UPDATE: You can find the first draft of the “official” building guide here.

Yesterday Hack-a-Day featured one of my summer projects – a do-it-yourself immersive virtual reality head-mounted display based on the upcoming Oculus Rift. This is a collaborative effort with several contributors from the MTBS3D community, including Palmer Luckey from OculusVR. You can follow these instructions to build your own – enjoy!
Rod Furlan 10:35 pm on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Reply

DIY Personal HUD / “Google Glass”

Back in 2009 I was working on a DIY personal head-up display (HUD) driven by a Sony Vaio VGN-UX380N ultraportable PC. I ended up shelving the project because I felt the technology wasn’t there yet – the prototype was bulky, uncomfortable to wear and battery life was terrible.

Luckily we are living in exponential times and mobile technology has advanced so much since 2009 that with just a bit of research I was able to build a much better wearable computing device than the one I was experimenting with 3 years ago. Below are pictures of prototype #2, which is basically a wearable microdisplay driven by a smartphone.

For prototype #3 I will be keeping the wire (for now) and I will add a camera, a microphone, speakers and a 9dof inertial tracker to match Google Project Glass‘ known capabilities. It should serve as a good platform to explore the applications of a head-mounted wearable computer.
Rod Furlan 9:46 pm on August 2, 2012 Permalink | Reply

I, Robot Whisperer

Last week I spent some quality time with the PR2 robot at Willow Garage. Since I don’t particularly like doing laundry, I quite enjoyed programming it to fold towels, albeit poorly. World domination is certain to come next.
Rod Furlan 2:09 pm on February 3, 2012 Permalink | Reply

Will Artificial Intelligence be America’s Next Big Thing?

I was just mentioned on an article published by the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.

“In economic terms, automation in general should be seen as a leveraging factor that amplifies the output of workers,” says Rod Furlan, an AI researcher and machine-learning expert based in Vancouver.

“Thanks to the availability of legal software, one lawyer can do today work that required a team of assistants 10 years ago. Ten years from now, an individual lawyer may be able to service as many cases as a small firm does today, all thanks to AI advancements. Going forward, we can expect to do less boring work and have more time for truly intellectual tasks which are less likely to be automated in the near term.”

Furlan says that as more businesses embrace aggressive automation opportunities through AI and advanced robotics, we’re likely to see more companies that, like Google, have an astronomical revenue-per-employee ratio. He adds that he’s still “bullish” on AI and is confident that businesses and individuals will be able to adapt to the new era of increased worker capability.

Read the full article.
Rod Furlan 10:57 pm on July 22, 2011 Permalink | Reply

How algorithms shape our world

Great TED talk on algo trading, AI and the brave new world of computational finance.
Rod Furlan 6:32 pm on April 12, 2011 Permalink | Reply

My National Geographic Interview On Human Augmentation

“Right now it’s easy to distinguish between a human being and a machine. However this line will become increasingly blurry in the future. [20 years from now] You will start by getting visual and auditory implants, then you are going to have your midlife crisis, and instead of going out and buying a sports car, you will instead buy a sports heart to boost your athletic performance.

The transition will happen little by little as you opt-in for more enhancements. Then one day you will wake up and realize that you’re more artificial than natural.

Eventually we will be unable to draw a crisp line between human beings and machines. We will reshape ourselves and by changing our bodies we will change the way we relate to the world.

This is just evolution – artificial evolution.“

On that note, here is a terrific TED talk by Aimee Mullins – “How my legs give me superpowers”:
Rod Furlan 11:12 am on June 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply

Changing the world, one grand challenge at the time

“If I was a student this is where I would want to be.” – Larry Page, Google co-founder regarding Singularity University (video below)
Rod Furlan 11:40 am on June 20, 2010 Permalink | Reply

Advancing Substrate Independent Minds 2010

ASIM (Advancing Substrate Independent Minds) is a new series of workshops and activities that will cover the current state of the art in the fields of whole brain emulation, brain scanning, gradual replacement techniques, and brain preservation.

The sessions of the ASIM workshop will run after the Singularity Summit workshop on Monday and Tuesday, as a satellite event to the main Singularity Summit (August 14-15). The Singularity Summit workshop finishes at 5pm on both days, so there will be time to find some dinner before joining us for our evening sessions.If you are interested in attending and would like more information, please feel free to contact the organizers.
Rod Furlan 11:24 am on April 12, 2010 Permalink | Reply

Taking a stand against the unthinking
Rod Furlan 5:08 pm on April 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply

Can science answer moral questions?
Rod Furlan 11:13 pm on January 7, 2010 Permalink

Exploring the Brain-Computer Interface: Singularity University Partners with X Prize Labs @ MIT

Imagine a direct connection between the human brain and the world’s most powerful computers… What if you could type with your thoughts? Or help the blind to see? Or give an amputee control over his bionic arm? How can the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) positively affect humanity’s grandest challenges?

Singularity University partnered with X Prize Lab @ MIT for the 2-day “Brain-Computer Interfaces: Igniting a Revolution” workshop that kicked off today to discuss these questions and more with some of the leading minds in neurobiology. Special guests included SU co-founder and CEO of the X Prize Foundation, Ed Boyden, Director of the MIT Synthetic Neurobiology Group, and Gerwin Schalk, Director BCI2000, Wadsworth Center.

SU Graduate Studies Program alum Rod Furlan interviewed a few of the BCI experts to get their thoughts on the state of BCI, where it’s headed, and how it can affect “humanity’s grand challenges.” Check back soon for those videos, as well as the lively panel discussion on the future of BCI with Peter Diamandis, Ed Boyden, and SU instructor and Omneuron founder Christopher deCharms.
Rod Furlan 2:42 pm on January 1, 2010 Permalink | Reply

Welcome to the Man-Machine University

I was just featured on an article published by the Estado de Sao Paulo, one of Brazil’s largest newspapers:

Welcome to the Man-Machine University

(Translated by Amazon Mechanical Turk)

He taught himself to write computer programs when he was 9 years old. At 10, he devoured books in English on the subject, using a dictionary to translate it word by word. At age 15, he founded his first company, an online bulletin board system which was precursor service of the Internet. At 22, then a director of a large technology company, he left everything behind to live abroad and “conquer the world.”

The curriculum of Rod Furlan, 30, impressed the directors of one of the boldest educational institutions in the world, Singularity University (SU) in California.

Starting with the name, inspired by the book The Singularity is Near by futurist and founder of SU, Dr. Ray Kurzweil, nothing is conventional in the institution, which is also known as the “Google University” because the Internet giant is one of the founders and supporters of the institution, located within the NASA Ames Research Center in the Silicon Valley.

“We seek enterprising people, willing to face great challenges,” says the executive director of SU, Salim Ismail, who was in Sao Paulo this month to establish a partnership with the Faculty of Information Technology (Fiap). After the program, students must submit a proposal that to positively impact on the lives of at least 1 billion people in the following decade.

Participating in this dream team university is not easy. The applicant must be an expert in matters such as networks and computer systems, biotechnology and nanotechnology, medicine and neuroscience, robotics and artificial intelligence, public policy, law or finance. Last year 1,200 candidates competed for 40 seats, this year 1600 to compete with 80 available.

“It was the best time of my life,” said Furlan. According to the Brazilian student, he alternated days of talks with senior officials from companies like Google itself with yoga classes and site visits. And at night, the participants met at the NASA lodge to discuss for hours all that they had learnt about the future. “SU is also known as Sleepless University, because students do not sleep,” jokes Ismail.
Rod Furlan 3:30 pm on December 17, 2009 Permalink | Reply

Greetings From Future Camp

Popular Science have just published a cool article about our summer at Singularity University. Late but great!

“According to Ray Kurzweil, the Singularity is a point at which man will become one with machine and then live eternally—which makes Singularity University, a nine-week academic retreat named for the concept, sound a little cultish. Our writer traveled west to investigate and found 40 stunningly sane brainiacs out to change the world.” – Popular Science [read full article]
Rod Furlan 1:04 pm on October 19, 2009 Permalink | Reply

Supercomputing the brain’s secrets

“Henry Markram says the mysteries of the mind can be solved — soon. Mental illness, memory, perception: they’re made of neurons and electric signals, and he plans to find them with a supercomputer that models all the brain’s 100,000,000,000,000 synapses.”
Rod Furlan 2:34 pm on October 8, 2009 Permalink | Reply

Towards a silicon brain

“Researcher Kwabena Boahen is looking for ways to mimic the brain’s supercomputing powers in silicon — because the messy, redundant processes inside our heads actually make for a small, light, superfast computer.”

Brains in Silicon lab @ Stanford
Rod Furlan 5:12 pm on September 7, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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How to give a Nano-Talk

I find it hard to imagine anything more disruptive to capitalism as we know it than nanotechnology. This summer at Singularity University we had the pleasure of meeting Ralph Merkle who taught us how to give a “nano-talk” in order to explain the benefits of nanotech to anyone:

The field of [field] is critically dependent on [product].

[Product] are made from atoms. Nanotechnology will let us make [product] that are lighter, stronger, smarter, cheaper, cleaner and just better.

This will have a huge impact on [field], for example, we could even have [product] that are [astonishing parameter] and cost only [remarkably cheap]!

Here is an example to drive the point home:

The field of [bicycling] is critically dependent on [bicycles].

[Bicycles] are made from atoms. Nanotechnology will let us make [bicycles] that are lighter, stronger, smarter, cheaper, cleaner and just better.

This will have a huge impact on [bicycling], for example, we could even have [bicycles] that are [just half a pound] and cost only [a dollar]!
Rod Furlan 1:59 pm on September 6, 2009 Permalink | Reply

My Summer at Singularity University
Rod Furlan 7:52 pm on June 29, 2009 Permalink | Reply

Singularity University

This is going to be a very special summer

I am one of the 40 candidates admitted to the inaugural class of the Singularity University at the NASA Ames Research Center starting today.

Singularity University (SU) is a joint effort of NASA, Google, and some of the foremost authorities in science and technology. Its objective is to expose a group of promising graduate students and professionals to a broad range of cutting-edge research that is likely to lead to disruptive technological innovation in the near future.

Or according to their own words:

Singularity University aims to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply, focus and guide these tools to address humanity’s grand challenges.