It should come as no surprise that amusement parks have embraced virtual reality technology in a big way, adding another layer of “thrill” to their rides. But The Great Lego Race Coaster, which just opened at Legoland Florida, may be the most ambitious and amazing VR roller coaster yet.
Previously known as Project X, the roller coaster is unchanged, but the VR veneer drops riders into a wacky and colorful race reminiscent of a Mario Kart game. “The Great Lego Race was inspired by the way kids play with Lego toys at home,” Candy Holland of Legoland said to Attractions Magazine. “It’s a unique Lego adventure that lets kids enter an epic, imaginary would made entirely from Lego bricks, featuring a host of different themes and fun Lego characters all mixed up together.”
“What we did is painstakingly map out every inch of this roller coaster,” Keith Carr of Legoland told the Orlando Sentinel. “What you feel and what you see are actually in sync with each other. That’s what makes the virtual reality work. What we wanted to do was take and enhance the drops and take and enhance the turns, and that’s what the VR allows us to do.”
The VR headsets — adorned with googly Lego minifig eyes — are optional and you can ride in “reality mode” if you want, but why would you do that?
The ride begins with an intro video showcasing a wizard, surfer, pirate, pharaoh, and other racers and characters you’ll encounter. You’ll also get instructions on attaching the VR headset, which is cleaned before each use. The coaster is catered to children under 12, so don’t expect any inversions or high-speed helix turns.
Once strapped into your four-person go-kart, the race twists and turns through a variety of detailed Lego landscaped, smashing through walls and taking unexpected detours. The action takes place all around you in a full 360-degree view, so you can look behind you and see the destruction you’ve caused.
For an at-home preview of The Great Lego Race, as well as other cool theme parks around the world, you can download MackMedia’s Coastiality mobile app for Android, iOS, and Oculus.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.