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Mark Zuckerberg wants to live a bit more like Tony Stark. In a post on Facebook this afternoon, Zuckerberg wrote that he intends to build an AI that can run his home and present him with virtual reality visualizations of his work. “You can think of it kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man,” Zuckerberg writes.

Zuckerberg’s vision starts basic but gets a lot more ambitious. “I’m going to start by exploring what technology is already out there,” he writes. That should be able to handle his initial goals, like controlling “music, lights, temperature, and so on.” He also wants this system to recognize when friends are at the front door and let them in, alert him if his newborn daughter needs attention, and to do all of this only when it recognizes the person speaking. For the most part, that’s all doable even for the non-billionaire home builder. Zuckerberg has already found one product that he likes: “For just music, the Amazon Echo is pretty great. It’s been very useful for controlling music with my voice while both hands are occupied taking care of Max.”

The more challenging aspects of the project include making it work without direct input by him or Priscilla Chan, his wife. “I’m very interested in using voice and face recognition to set lights and temperature as well depending on who is in what rooms, etc,” he writes. “For example, I like rooms colder than Cilla, and but it’s possible to just see who is in what room and adjust the temperatures automatically.”

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=FLzdsp2FHoo

The feeling you got when you first saw your newborn’s face. That glorious moment when the entire family was laughing over dinner. The epiphany you had when you reached the peak of your favorite mountain. If only you could travel back and experience those instances again.

A group of engineers is hoping to do just that with a virtual reality (VR) system that lets you take 3D videos with your phone and an accompanying virtual reality headset that lets you experience those memories again, whenever you want.

“Family started the idea,” said Justin Lucas, one of the technology’s creators. “Viewing 2D videos is how we look back at past moments. We wanted to create a more immersed feeling when viewing those favorite past moments.” [Best Apps for Virtual Reality Newbies].

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Society isn’t ready to take a medium seriously until it can provide certain things. The first, and most obvious, achievement is it must work with porn. Virtual reality passed that benchmark a long time ago, and it seems to have no problem revisiting it over and over again. So what’s the next trial that virtual reality must face on its quest to becoming a true consumer medium?

Someone has to try and make me exercise with it.

That someone are the makers of the Virzoom, an exercise bike and app suite for the Oculus Rift headset. The VirZOOM is available for preorder today, with the first 300 units are $200 (it’s regular price $250).

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