A bunch of Google will soon announce new AI projects. These include disaster monitoring tools, and a service that uses machine Intelligence to generate custom videos. At its AI@ event, this week, Google announced a number of new initiatives.
Google’s AI-powered disaster response and tracking systems are expanding. This is the most practical move. The company released a wildfire tracking program during the 2020 post-apocalyptic season. The tool tracks wildfire movements in real-time using satellite imagery, ground data, and AI predictions. The feature is now available. expanding The US, Canada and Mexico are all covered. It’s aimed at providing useful info for people in areas affected by fires who need up-to-the-second knowledge about where a blaze is moving and who it might affect. This tool will be available in Google Maps. It will send alerts to nearby users and show them options for evacuation or shelter. Google has also expanded its flood warning system to 18 countries in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia using AI modeling similar to flooding.
Google has also entered the AI art-generation field with a new video creator tool. It combines Phenaki’s video generator with Google’s Imagen image generation platform. These two platforms can work together to create short bursts with high-resolution video, using just a text prompt. The video-generation tool is not available to the public as a service yet, and Google hasn’t given an indication of when or if it might be. This news comes just a month after Meta had announced a similar service called Make-a-Video. Both companies are eager to jump on the AI art craze even though it has been controversial among artists.
Here’s some more news from the consumer products desk.
PS VR2 Preorders
Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s metavangelism, it may feel like VR for video games has fallen out of favor compared to other VR destinations like virtual offices or whatever Horizon Workrooms is. Sony reminds you that it has a new VR headset. It also announced the release date this week.
The long-awaited PS VR2 headset is due out February 22nd and will be available for preorder starting November 15. It will cost $550. That’s more expensive than an actual PlayStation 5 console (depending on where you are), and the price does include the accompanying VR2 Sense controllers needed to operate games in the Sonyverse.
The system has a lot to offer VR gaming. However, it is only halfway decent. Only the PlayStation 5 will work with the PS VR2 headset. Sony also recently confirmed that games for the last-gen PS VR1 won’t work with this new headset.
Where’d I Go?
Google does love to kill its apps. This week, Google 9to5 It was discovered that Google plans to add its Street View app, a standalone application, to its famous boneyard within the next weeks. The app let users add their own 3D photos to Street View, which Google could then use to map out places where its camera-clad cars and backpacks couldn’t reach.
The service isn’t going away entirely. It’ll still be available within Google Maps, minus a few features like Photo Paths, which let users upload 2D photos of their surroundings.
