RT @nycmedialab The holograms being touted by companies like Base and Eyellusion are glorified Pepper’s ghosts – illusions that bend light in certain ways to make 2D images look 3D from certain angles, a technique used since the 1500s.

Several recent works have shown how highly realistic human head images can be obtained by training convolutional neural networks to generate them. In order to create a personalized talking head model, these works require training on a large dataset of images of a single person. However, in many practical scenarios, such personalized talking head models need to be learned from a few image views of a person, potentially even a single image.

Amazon.com Inc. is developing a voice-activated wearable device that can recognize human emotions.

Amazon is conducting body scanning research in conjunction with Body Labs, a 3D imaging startup that the ecommerce giant acquired two years ago.

WaPo (which, incidentally, is also owned by Mr. Bezos) has a write-up of an “experimental” video game designed to motivate workers to fill orders. The game, which is apparently optional for employees, lives on workstation screens, awarding points for fulfilling orders and pitting teams against one another in the process.

GitHub Sponsors, a Patreon-like funding model, is the means to financially support developers through recurring monthly payments.

Always-streaming reporters, a searchable past, and new internal tools and external products: 5G will have a big impact on news, just as previous-generation networks did.

Over the past six months, publishers ranging from HuffPost and BuzzFeed News to more specialized sites such as The Intercept and Texas Tribune have all put up job listings for membership editors

“Consistently, across the board, almost 0% of users said that they would pay for royals content. As it turns out, it’s one of our biggest drivers for conversion.”

Amazon unveiled a new portal in the Kindle store for Traditional Chinese and is launching with 20,000 Traditional Chinese titles. It includes translations of popular books like George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series. You don’t need to be in China – you can access the Chinese ebooks from any country in the world, which is really good for a large population of readers that spread all over the world.

When it comes to promoting its adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s and Neil Gaiman’s novel  Good Omens, Amazon is pulling out all the stops. The retailer is going to open an immersive secret bookshop experience at 19 Greek Street in London on 6/1-6/2. Styled after the bookshop mentioned in the book, it will feature an “escape room, immersive performance, interactive sets, prop exhibition, hidden treasures, and surprises”. You’ll be able to identify the shop by the 1934 Bentley Derby Coupe, the same model as used in the miniseries, which will be parked in front. While the shop will be open to the public, the escape room requires a ticket (which is sold out).

Subscribers to Nuuly will pay $88 a month to rent up to $800 worth of merchandise.

Since 1999, Amazon’s disruptive bravado has made “getting Amazoned” a fear for executives in any sector the tech giant sets its sights on. Here are the industries that could be under threat next.

Apply now for the PEN America Literary Awards, Grants, and Fellowships Program for works in translation, oral history, YA/children’s books, emerging voices, and writing for justice.

On May 22, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that the Harriet Tubman $20 bill would be postponed until at least 2026. A Designer created 3D stamps for the public for a free download and print their own versions of the stamp on Thingiverse, and also selling them on Etsy. For anyone quick to decry the project as an illegal defacement of U.S. currency, here’s a comprehensive analysis of how you’re wrong.

Don’t miss the free Bronx Book Festival on June 8 – check out the schedule and RSVP.