Technology

More or less sinceNietzsche declared God &dead&nearly 140 years ago, popular wisdom has held that science and religion are irreparably misaligned. However, at arecent conferencehosted by the Vatican, I learned that even in the era of artificial intelligence and gene splicing, religious institutions and leaders still have much to contribute to society as both moral compass and source of meaning.

In April this year, the Vatican launchedUnite to Cure: A Global Health Care Initiativeat the Fourth International Vatican Conference. This international event gathered some of the worldleading scientists, physicians and ethicists — along with leaders of faith, government officials, businesspeople and philanthropists. The goal was to engage about the cultural, religious and societal implications of breakthrough technologies that improve human health, prevent disease and protect the environment. I had the privilege of participating as a board member of theXPRIZE Foundation.

We are living at a phenomenal point in human history. Ita moment when our machines are flirting with godlike powers. AI and ever-accelerating innovations in medical technology are enabling humans to live longer than ever. Yet with increased machine capabilities and human longevity come heavy questions of morality and spirituality.

When bodies live longer, so do the souls inside of them. What are the spiritual implications for people who are given an additional 30 or even 50 years of life Is enhanced longevity meddling with creation, or a complement to it

It is here, at this nexus of technology and spirituality, that the Vatican wisely decided to bring together thinkers from both science and faith.

It was humbling to sit inside the tiny and unconventional country that we call Vatican City, surrounded by the worldleading scientists, ethicists, venture capitalists and faith leaders. We talked about regenerative medicine, aging reversal, gene editing and cell therapy. We discussed how humanity is shifting from medicine that repairs and remediates toward a system that overtly changes our physical composition. We discussed the incredible augmentations available to the disabled — for example 3D-printed prosthetic limbs. How long before the able-bodied begin to exploit these enhancements to augment their own competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded world To what extent, if any, should society attempt to control this paradigm shift

One of the more interesting discussions surrounded how to ensure that humans don&t just livelonger, but alsobetter.

What exactly does &living better& entail Does it imply physical comfort, spiritual well-being, financial security At this moment in history, we have more instant and unlimited information than the kings and queens of ancient Greece or the Middle Ages could have ever imagined. That technological power is allowing more and more people to become enormously wealthy, at a speed and magnitude that would have been unthinkable for anyone other than a monarch just a century ago.

But are these people living &better&

In as much as longer-living humans use their accrued wealth to support and encourage the creation of projects as audacious and ambitious as — for example — the Coliseum, I believe the answer is yes. If longevity and riches encourage the average human being to create change on a scale that matches the enormous potential of our exponential times — all the more so.

Yet, others in the room had a different take. For many religious leaders, &better& meant a more sharply defined relationship with God. For some scientists, &better& meant a life that creates fewer emissions and embraces better and smarter technology.

It was astounding, really. In one of the most hallowed spots on earth for the Catholic Church, sharing oxygen and ideas with cardinals and future saints, stood the worldleading researchers, scientists and corporate leaders, who hold in their hands the technology to extend human life. Together with the clergy of the worldgreat monotheistic religions, we held an open dialogue about how to improve the heart and soul of human life while the technology we create continues to advance beyond our ancestors& wildest imaginations.

As technology disrupts the way we relate to the few remaining physical and spiritual mysteries of humanity, it also disrupts the way we embrace religion. In this conference, the Vatican very correctly leveraged the opportunity for organized religions to disruptthemselvesby thinking about how they can be meaningful contributors to the conversation on spiritual, physical and mental well-being in the future.

After wrestling for more than a decade with the development of a technology that would create a three-dimensional map of the physical world, the team at 6D.ai is finally ready to open up to developers its toolkit that the company says has done exactly that.

When company chief executive Matt Miesnieks announced the launch of 6D in March, he laid out a vision for its growth that had three goals: The company would build APIs to capture the three-dimensional geometry of the world; it would apply that three-dimensional data to build semantic APIs so applications can understand the world; and it would partner and extend those APIs to create an operating system for reality.

Having achieved the first goal, the company is now working on the second.

&The whole purpose of this company wasn&t ‘Hey therethis new technology!& Itwhat can AR do in its fully realized form and what is a native experience for AR that hadn&t worked in prior mediums and whatstopping that stuff from being effective and how do you solve those problems,& says Miesnieks.

For Miesnieks the problems confronting augmented reality come down to creating believable visual objects that integrate seamlessly into the world. That act of creation depends on persistence, occlusion and interaction, according to Miesnieks.

Interactivity, to Miesnieks should happen seamlessly rather than requiring a multi-step process that the 6D chief executive calls &just a bridge too far.&

&What needs to happen is you say, ‘Hey join my game.& And it just works.&

Miesnieks argues that the kind of precision that synchronization requires demands a kind of on-device localization, which is exactly what 6D has claimed it enables.

&Once you have that 3D model then the virtual content can bounce off the 3D model. You can do shadows correctly. Extend that over large areas so that it doesn&t just work in a corner of my living room, but that it can work everywhere,& Miesnieks said. &We need these models and the only way to get there is to use a depth camera or offline photogrammetry.&

6D has already done some work with bands like Massive Attack and Aphex Twin that put its technology through some early paces. And the Victoria and Albert Museum have also used the technology. Soon it will launch a game with an undisclosed Japanese game developer (which has intellectual property similar to Pokémon) and a virtual YouTube-like application with the Japanese social network,Gree.

For Miesnieks perhaps the most interesting application is with a big, undisclosed transportation company that is interested in navigation for terrestrial and other mobility.

&When we set the company up, we are pretty convicted that we want to say to the developers that this is reality. We will give you shared coordinates for multi-player,& said Miesnieks.

Underlying all of this are concerns about security related to who can see what in the space that users map. But Miesnieks said that the company had solved that problem as well.

&You can only get the data for a space if you&re physically in that space,& said Miesnieks. &I hold my phone up, it looks at your living room, based on what it sees it queries the server and if therea match it will serve that data up to that location.&

Based on research, the point cloud that 6D generates isn&t directly connected to the geographic structure. Itslightly randomized so a user can&t look at the point cloud and see what is what.

&Itunable to be reverse engineered by any known science into a human readable image,& said Miesnieks. &All the image would look like is a whole bunch of dots and blobs. Thatkind of what we&re doing so far.&

As the company builds out its three-dimensional map of the world, itencouraging developers to think of it as a new kind of augmented reality platform.

&Our business is web services meet Waze,& said Miesnieks.

More bad news for MoviePass .

At the direction of New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood, MoviePass parent company Helios and Matheson is now the subject of a fraud probe in New York state.

&We&ve launched a securities fraud investigation into ⁦@MoviePass⁩& parent company,& Underwood confirmed in a tweet. &My office is committed to protecting New York investors and the integrity of our financial markets.&

The probe will examine whether the company misrepresented its financial situation to investors. The probe will leverage the Martin Act, a powerful New York statute that allows the attorney general to aggressively pursue suspected instances of fraud in the state.

&We are aware of the New York Attorney Generalinquiry and are fully cooperating,& Helios and Matheson said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. &We believe our public disclosures have been complete, timely and truthful and we have not misled investors. We look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate that to the New York Attorney General.&

Underwoodoffice declined to provide further details to TechCrunch, pointing us toward the CNBC report that originally reported the probe.

MoviePass and parent companyHelios and Matheson (HMNY) has flailed wildly throughout 2018, abruptly making major changes to the movie subscription service, watching its stock prices walk off a cliff and seeking emergency infusions of cash in the process.

In Q2, Helios and Matheson posted losses of $126.6 million compared to a net loss of roughly $150 million in all of 2017. Its 2017 losses were attributed to its acquisition of a majority stake in MoviePass, but the 2018 losses are obviously a different story. Shares of Helios and Matheson were down 8.5 percent at the time of writing.