According to a report from Business Insider, Google’s parent company Alphabet’s X Lab is quietly developing a top-secret Augmented Reality (AR) device that will allow humans to gain enhanced hearing capabilities. The insider code name of this project is “Wolverine”, inspired by the movie “X-Men: Wolverine”. In the movie, Wolverine gains sensitive superhuman hearing after a genetic mutation.
The team began to study this project seriously in 2018 and launched a number of prototypes, which have won the favor of executives such as Google co-founder, Sergey Brin. The X spokesperson confirmed that the early project aims to “explore the future of hearing,”. However, the official outrightly declined to comment on the details of the project.
The source claims that the “Wolverine” team is developing a device to be worn on the ear. Furthermore, the report shows that this device will integrate multiple sensors. The technology will have multiple applications. However, there will be multiple challenges in developing this feature. One of the biggest early challenges will be voice separation. This feature should allow the wearer to focus on one speaker in an environment with overlapping conversations. This feature is really important if this device is to offer a “superhuman hearing”.
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If you use Google Photos, you need to read this new quality warning
With the Google Drive High Quality compressed mode, users can upload an infinite number of photos to Google Drive. The company has been encouraging users to make use of this storage platform for quite some time. Google even promises that the High Quality storage offers “near-identical visual quality” as the original image. With this storage, users do not have to keep images on their phones. They can always download these images at any time they desire.
However, as time went on, the pressure on Google became enormous. After Google Drive hit 4 trillion images of multiple sizes each, it made some changes to the rules. The number of images to be uploaded was no longer infinite. Google also had to charge users who exceed the 15GB limit from June 1st, 2021.
With the new financially beneficial rules in place for Google, its preference for image storage seems to be changing. The company no longer prefers the High Quality storage facility and there is now a warning for users. According to Google, users could risk damaging their photos if they don’t switch from High Quality to Original Quality uploads. This information is in an advertisement email for Google Photo users. The company is currently advertising its new premium photo editing features.
The email contains a sample image of an Original Image as well as a “High Quality compression” image. Google says that “Original quality photos preserve the most detail and let you zoom in, crop and print photos with less pixelation”. It’s an unfortunate situation for Google Photos users. To say the least, millions of Android users will be affected.
