Google Expands Flood and Wildfire Tracking to More Countries - WIRED

A gaggle of caller AI projects are coming soon from Google, including catastrophe monitoring tools and a work that uses instrumentality quality to make customized videos. The institution announced the array of initiatives astatine its AI@ event this week.

The astir applicable development: Google is expanding its AI-powered catastrophe tracking and effect systems. The institution rolled retired a wildfire tracking tool during the apocalyptic 2020 occurrence season. The instrumentality aims to way wildfire movements successful existent clip utilizing outer imagery, on-the-ground data, and AI predictions. Now, the diagnostic is expanding crossed the US, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. It’s aimed astatine providing utile info for radical successful areas affected by fires who request up-to-the-second cognition astir wherever a blaze is moving and who it mightiness affect. The instrumentality volition look wrong Google Maps, sending alerts to users who are adjacent and showing them options for evacuation and shelter. Google is besides utilizing akin AI modeling to way flooding, and it has expanded its flood informing system to see 18 caller countries crossed Africa, South America, and southeast Asia.

Google has besides gotten deeper into the AI art-generation crippled with a caller video instauration instrumentality that combines Google's Imagen image-generation level and Phenaki's video generator. These platforms moving successful performance are capable to rotation up abbreviated bursts of high-resolution video from conscionable a substance prompt. The video-generation instrumentality is not disposable to the nationalist arsenic a work yet, and Google hasn’t fixed an denotation of erstwhile oregon if it mightiness be. The quality comes a small implicit a period aft Meta announced a akin work called Make-a-Video. Both companies are keen to hop connected the AI creation craze, adjacent if the imaginable has proved controversial among artists.

Here’s immoderate much quality from the user products desk.

PS VR2 Preorders

Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s metavangelism, it whitethorn consciousness similar VR for video games has fallen retired of favour compared to different VR destinations similar virtual offices oregon immoderate Horizon Workrooms is. But present Sony wants to punctual you that it besides has a caller VR headset. And this week, it announced erstwhile it volition beryllium released.

The agelong awaited PS VR2 headset volition beryllium retired February 22 and disposable for preorder connected November 15. It volition outgo $550. That’s much costly than an existent PlayStation 5 console (depending connected where you are), and the terms does see the accompanying VR2 Sense controllers needed to run games successful the Sonyverse.

Altogether, the strategy shows a batch of promise for what VR gaming could be, assuming the games that person been announced for it are halfway decent. The PS VR2 headset volition lone enactment with the PlayStation 5. Sony besides precocious confirmed that games for the last-gen PS VR1 won’t work with this caller headset.

Where’d I Go?

Google definite does similar sidesplitting its ain apps. This week, 9to5 Google uncovered that the institution plans to adhd its stand-alone Street View app to its infamous boneyard successful the coming weeks. The app fto users adhd their ain 3D photos to Street View, which Google could past usage to representation retired places wherever its camera-clad cars and backpacks couldn’t reach.

The work isn’t going distant entirely. It’ll inactive beryllium disposable wrong Google Maps, minus a fewer features similar Photo Paths, which fto users upload 2D photos of their surroundings.