AtmosVR Event

We are pleased to announce that Daden have been invited to the ‘Reality in Virtual and Augmented worlds, Present and Future States’ event hosted by AtmosVR, as part of Birmingham Tech Week on Thursday 10th October 2019. 

Birmingham Tech Week is a collaborative series of events taking place across the City (and wider Greater Birmingham Region) between October 7th – 11th 2019. The week will highlight Birmingham’s burgeoning Tech Scene and focus on a number of innovative topics. AtmosVR presents a day of virtual and augmented reality discussions, networking and live demonstrations to offer attendees an insight into present status and future developments in these areas.

Daden will be at the event to showcase our products and the uses of them for key industries. If your interested in coming along and taking a look, we'd love to see you. 

Sign up here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reality-in-virtual-and-augmented-worlds-present-and-future-states-tickets-64627982034?ref=ecount

My Work Experience at Daden

My name is Moonis, I am a student from Bishop Vesey's Grammar School at Birmingham and for the last 2 weeks I have been here at Daden helping develop a project utilising the built-in speech recognition, text-to-speech and video APIs in the browser to produce an interactive experience for users, responding to questions asked by an animated figure.

Over these two weeks, the work has helped to develop my knowledge of both asynchronous JavaScript and NodeJs programming. I was also able to learn more about how a small business operates and the format of both company meetings and proposals for clients. I also had an amazing hands-on experience of the fairly recently released Oculus Quest technology.

More than anything else, however, I believe that these last 2 weeks were great because of the people, whom I have enjoyed being working with. There is a very pleasant atmosphere at Daden and you can tell the team truly take interest in their projects.

I enjoyed my time and felt that I was in good hands here at Daden. I would certainly be willing to come here again in the future.

Trainingscapes at the Future Education Trust for Leadership Summer Symposium

We were delighted to be invited by our client Bournemouth University to help showcase the work we are doing for them in VR training for midwives and nurses at the Future Education Trust for Leadership (FELT) Summer Symposium on "How technology will change teaching and education" held at the UK Parliament yesterday.

We'd rashly promised that we'd have Trainingscapes working on Oculus Quest for the event and we managed it, just! Denyse (left of picture, with Policy Connect CEO Jonathan Shaw trying the system out) brought BU's shiny new Quest and we brought 2 of our own (and a third turned up at the office today). Space-wise we only had two running in the end, but this is a far cry from the Rift demo's we've been doing as the Quests need minimal set-up, provide a stable environment, lots of good UI (showing real-world imagery whilst you define the guardian space and find the controllers) and all of a sudden VR is easy and you can afford to have multiple people try it at once!

Kneeling down to engage with a virtual 9 year old at eye-level

The content of the main symposium gave some interesting perspectives on technology in schools, FE and HE. Highlights for me were:

• Excellent chairing by Paralympian Lord Chris Holmes, and highlighting the ongoing need for assisstive technology, and including the best use of Peter Gabriel song (and album) titles ever
• Paul McKean from JISC providing a great future "day in the life" highlighting the role of tech, and also the fact that most tech mentioned is already in use somewhere (the old Gibson quote about the future is here already, its just not evenly distributed yet). Also some interesting thoughts on micro-credentials (mini/module-level qualifications) and how to aggregate those in the future.
• Maren Deepwell from ALT talking about how to make users of learning technology into critical users, so that they are aware of potential issues of bias from AI etc
• Deborah Millar from the Grimsby Institute of FE/HE talkign about their "Level Up" programme to upskill teachers in both LT and productivity and communications tools.
• Dick Palmer from TEN Group and FELTAG talking about how past visions haven't panned out (must look up the Learning 2020 one he mentioned), and the opportunities for new tech in the land-based industries (didn't have time to show him our virtual cows!)
• Interesting questions from the floor about personalisation of future LT, and the lack of skills in the current workforce and coming out of institutions in edutech learning design and authoring.

All in all a great day out!

Office4AI Ministerial Roundtable Discussion

On the 24th June 2019 Daden  attended an AI Roundtable Discussion with Margot James MP, Minister for Digital and the Creative Industries, on the Industrial Strategy AI Sector Deal Anniversary. The event was held to help the Office for AI plan its Year Two strategy.

The Roundtable explored how Government and Industry can build on the successes of the AI Sector Deal.  The AI Sector Deal which aims to realise AI potential in the UK with a support package of up to £0.95 billion for the sector including improving institutions that support AI, building a skilled workforce and stimulating access to data. The Roundtable included a discussion on regional opportunities and involved participants based in the Midlands from the tech sector, academia and public sector.

Topics discussed included issues around AI development in the UK, in particular the conflict between the need to access large amounts of data versus the users right to privacy. The need for data lakes (vast quantities of data stored in it’s raw format) from which AI can learn was stressed and that the time to begin capturing the data is now! 

It was also good to see some of the AI projects that local businesses are working on as well as being able to demonstrate the A.I. technologies that Daden are working on such as Virtual Life coaches and Virtual Personas.

All in all a valuable opportunity for us to contribute to these national AI initiatives, and we were honoured to have been asked to take part.

Daden selected by Thales as a Digital Maritime Pioneer

Daden are proud to have been selected as one of the Digital Maritime Pioneers by Thales.

Digital Transformation is changing the way both Defence and commercial organisations are operating in the maritime, land and air environments. Artificial Intelligence, Machine speed decision making and Virtual, Augmented and Mixed reality visualisation tools will all be part of Thales' digital offers in the future. Thales has been looking to rapidly assess these new technologies and build collaborative relationships with best of breed partners from wider markets, and to that end ran a Maritime Pioneers day in June at the Digital Catapult in London.

Thales reviewed 21 applications from some of the UK’s brightest and best start-ups and scale-ups in digital technologies, down selecting the six that responded most closely to the criteria, and whose products and expertise impressed the selection panel the most - one of whom was Daden!

Our pitch was based around the AViD project that we did for MOD DASA last year, which showed both 3D/VR subjective visualisation of maritime, aviation and -social media data, and conversational AI support in both the watch-keeping task and in controlling the visualisation environment.

We look forward to networking with the other winners and exploring with Thales how digital technologies such as AI, Augmented/Virtual Reality and Mixed Reality can be applied to maritime operations management.

Oculus Quest - First Impressions

We’ve just taken delivery of our first Oculus Quest. This could actually be the “breakthrough” VR headset we’ve all be waiting for. Like last year’s Oculus Go it’s a completely self-contained device – no slipping in your phone, no wires to connect to a big expensive PC, it’s just the headset. You use your ordinary phone to control what software is loaded on it – but that just Wifi connects when you want to make a change. The big step up from the Go though is that the Quest has 6 degrees of freedom tracking – this means that not only does it track you as you look around, up and down, it also tracks you as you peer forwards, lean back – or even walk around the room. It does all this through hidden cameras in the headset which “map” the room in 3D (similar to the Hololens), and then track your movement within it – so no need for those Oculus desk sensors or Vive tripods. Graphically it looks fine unless you’re a real purist, and it takes ordinary glasses better than previous models.

Of course the proof will come when we use it for more than games, and the team is already hard at work getting it hooked up to Trainingscapes and Fieldscapes. One key question is how well it works when you have multiple users, each with a Quest headset, in the same room – all not only not trying to bump into other people but also not confusing the tracking. Another potential issue is any hurdles on getting Trainingscapes onto the Quest store – but that should keep us busy over the summer!

For clients Oculus Quest really could be the best solution out there. Slip-in phone devices have never been popular outside of schools, and PC+headset solutions have been too expensive and too cumbersome to deploy. But with Quest you could easily have a box of 6 or 12, turn up at a site or office, hand them out and let training commence!

Virtual Humans Book Launch Report

We had a great (if late) launch for David's Virtual Humans book in Trinity College, Oxford on a lovely sunny Tuesday this week (hence the dark photos in a wood panelled college room!). David gave a brief overview of the history of the book and then there was a fascinating panel discussion chaired by Dame Glenys Stacey (HM Chief Inspector of Probation)(busy week for her!), followed by insightful questions from the floor before we all broke for drinks.

Some brief highlights from the panel session:

Carl Ohman (from Professor Luciano Floridi team at Oxford Internet Institute) spoke about “virtual humans as a new member of the human family” and  problem that there are already too many ethical frameworks for ethical AI ( just like technical standards!).

Sir Anthony Seldon (Vice-Chancellor of The University of Buckingham):

• talked about AI as being a potentially bigger issue for the future than global warming
• discussed the idea that humanness/consciousness was the residue once everything else has been transferred to the computer
• and said that "every Vice Chancellor should get this book” - couldn't agree more!

Dr Elaine Kasket (author of All the Ghosts in the Machine: Illusions of Immortality in the Digital Age) talked about:

• The After Wife by Cass Hunter and its exploration of the creation of a virtual human as a transitional grief object
• The difference between passive, one way, digital grief entities (such as Facebook memorial pages) and more interactive or even active types (such as the Digital Immortals discussed in the book)
• How some people see the commercial opportunities in Digital Grief - "100% of people die, so just think of the market” - talking about the digital grief industry, and questioning the various motivations within it

Dame Glenys Stacey gave a very favourable review of the book and was particularly struck by the 3 challenges identified: humanness (actually the easier one!), general purposeness and sentience - and the books accessibility to the interested lay reader.

Sir Anthony Seldon addressing the audience

Questions from the floor included:

• Catfishing by digital immortals
• AI ethical frameworks
• The lack of chatbot/AI education in schools & FE/HE
• When do these debates move out of academic/intellectual circles?
• How the church confessional model relates to our engagement with chatbots and the objectivisation of roles
• The potential abuse of power and virtual humans by those with malevolent intent, and
• A Transhumanist perspective on what our lives will be like dealing with virtual humans #AI

Our thanks to all our friends, colleagues and interested readers and researchers who attended.

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Maggi and David

We've also been sent this review  and photo of the event by Professor Liz Gilchrist ( Academic Head of Psychology, Criminology and the Centre for Violence Prevention (CVP) at the University of Worcester).


Professor Maggi Savin-Baden, School of Education held a book launch and signing of her co-authored book, ‘Virtual Humans’ David Burden, Daden Limited and Maggie Savin-Baden, University of Worcester, published by Taylor & Francis, New York , yesterday at Trinity College Oxford.

The event at the Oxford College included a book signing and a debate across a range of academics interested in various aspects of this area within AI, debating the issue: virtual humans a force for good or evil?

Those involved ranged from those studying chat bots, those interested in posthumous virtual identities, theological considering the implications for definitions of humanness and senior academics considering why academia has not engaged with this topic more fully, given the likely impact virtual humans will have on us in the future. The debate covered ethics, philosophy and educational policy and prompted a great deal of deep thinking.   

David and Maggi’s book was described as  a comprehensive and appealing read and summarised as  explaining the present situation in relation to virtual humans and making a good job of signalling the future, including posing some thought provoking questions.  It is said to be written for the intelligent lay reader – and includes a definition of a virtual human, considers the relationship between virtual humans and artificial intelligence more broadly and highlights 3 big issues around virtual humans improving humanness, contributing to increased intelligence, but questioned whether virtual humans could realise ‘sentience’ and achieve full consciousness.

Sir Anthony Seldon the Vice Chancellor of Buckingham  University commended the book and suggested that all VCs across universities in Britain should have a copy of this book to inform their thinking of where we should looking to move in HE….