Taking your wild sneaker ideas from thoughts to display just got significantly easier. A Nike store in Paris recently unveiled a new device which allows customers to customize sneaker colors and see them projected on the sneaker, in real time, using augmented reality.
French immersive technology company SmartPixels installed two augmented video-mapping devices to project in the Nike Store on the fashion hub of Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, France. Customers can customize sneaker colorways on the tablet attached to the video-mapping devices using the NikeID online service. SmartPixels connected the video mapping with NikeID’s configurator so customers need only place an all-white sneaker in the device and they will see the colors projected on the sneaker, in real time, as they select them on the tablet.
Read more: They’re real. We slipped on Nike’s HyperAdapt 1.0 self-lacing sneakers
Even though Nike’s online tool for customizing hundreds of sneaker models is being used, the number of sneakers you can customize in augmented reality is limited. Customers at the shop are only able to customize AirMax, LunarEpic Low, and Cortez sneaker models. When it is not being used the machine turns into a glorified shoe display, flashing different color schemes on the sneaker.
Nike has slowly been testing how augmented reality can help customers. Last year, the company filed a patent application for an augmented reality system that helped people reach their exercising goals. In the system, “a virtual representation of that user’s performance [is] to be displayed during a future exercise routine to motivate the user,” according to the patent filing.
Nike has imagined a future where customers could 3D print sneakers from files sold by the company, and the firm recently proved that sneakers tying themselves is more fact than fiction. Makes you wonder what other pieces of the future the crew in Beaverton, Oregon is designing.
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.
Military working dogs charge into places the rest of us would flee. So, I understand why anyone would want to breed tougher, healthier dogs for the job.
Warhound, a new startup from Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, has stepped out of stealth with $200 million to clone and gene-edit working dogs for American troops, police departments, and emergency services (via TechCrunch).
AI can describe a picture, identify objects, and answer questions about what a camera sees. But when a blind user needs a quick answer, getting an entire spoken essay about the scene isn't exactly helpful. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have found that AI-powered visual assistance can leave blind users doing too much work to get the information they actually need.
The study, titled Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users, examined how people interact with Be My AI, an AI-powered feature of the Be My Eyes app. The researchers found that users often received lengthy descriptions that didn't adequately address their immediate goals, forcing them to ask follow-up questions or find ways to steer the AI towards a more useful answer.