Daily Tech Snippet: Thursday, December 31

• Few Computers Are Powerful Enough to Support Virtual Reality: VR headsets are almost ready to hit stores, but less than 1 percent of PCs will be capable of running them. Virtual reality has a very real problem. With several technology giants preparing splashy introductions for the first VR headsets in 2016, few people own hardware capable of fully supporting Facebook’s Oculus Rift or other systems. Just 13 million PCs worldwide next year will have the graphics capabilities needed to run VR, according to an estimate by Nvidia, the largest maker of computer graphics chips. Those ultra-high-end machines account for less than 1 percent of the 1.43 billion PCs expected to be in use globally in 2016, according to research firm Gartner. VR headsets, which create immersive 3D environments the wearer can interact with and explore, are poised to be a star of CES 2016. The massive consumer electronics trade show, which kicks off in Las Vegas on Jan. 6, will have more than 40 exhibitors demonstrating VR products, a 77 percent increase from 2015. Taiwanese gadget maker HTC is expected to show off a new version of its Vive headset at CES before releasing it in stores in April. Facebook is still on track to sell its first VR product to consumers by the end of March, Oculus co-founder Palmer Luckey tweeted on Dec. 22. “I think the technology has significant potential, but I also think we have to be realistic about how strongly it will be adopted in the short term,” Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst for researcher IHS, wrote in an e-mail. “The hype is somewhat understandable considering the investment some big technology companies are making in VR. However, VR headsets come to market with a number of specific challenges.” IHS estimates that 7 million VR headsets will be in use by the end of 2016. The Consumer Technology Association, which organizes CES, forecasts VR headset sales of 1.2 million units in 2016. While that's a sixfold increase from last year with total revenue of $540 million, that’s a ways short of covering the $2 billion Facebook paid for Oculus VR in 2014. There’s a very good reason why VR demands such processing power: Anything less, and you might hurl. Early VR prototypes caused many testers to suffer from motion sickness due to slight delays in the screen’s responses to the user’s movements. A standard PC game runs at 30 frames per second. But to deliver the fluid, natural motion our brains need to be convinced an image is real, VR needs to achieve 90 frames per second on two video projections (one for each eye). Right now, that means a $1,500 laptop.

• App differentiates a baby's crying sounds: Why's this baby crying? Well, there's an app that can tell us. It's called the 'Infant Cries Translator'. It was developed at Taiwan's National Yunlin University of Science and Technology by a team led by Chang Chuan-Yu. "The Infant Cries Translator can differentiate four different statuses of sounds of a baby's cry, including hunger, a wet diaper, sleepiness, and pain." An audio recording of the baby crying is uploaded to a Cloud Drive. It's then analyzed in a database of around 200,000 crying sounds Chang and his colleagues collected over two years. And moments later, the results are in......This baby's hungry. Chang warns the app is not foolproof yet. But the results, he says, are promising. So far, according to our user feedback, the APP's accuracy can reach to 92 percent for the babies under two weeks. As for the babies under one to two months, the APP's accuracy can also reach up to 84 to 85 percent. Even for a four-month-old baby, the accuracy can reach up to 77 percent." The accuracy rating varies because over time the baby adapts to new conditions. But for new parents, the app can be a valuable resource. 

• With Car-Sharing Service Via, Sharing More Than Just a Ride: The back seat of a Via functions as Joanne Gamel’s mobile office. It is where Ms. Gamel, a New York real estate agent, checks email, calls clients and gets listings, all while being chauffeured to appointments in Manhattan. But the best part of a shared car service like Via is the business she does with fellow brokers who are also in the back doing the same thing. “I’ve gotten at least 15 different business cards from other agents,” said Ms. Gamel, 35. “It’s great for networking, especially if they share their listings or refer a client. I love getting in the car with another agent. And if he has a nice smile, even better.” Inside an UberPool car last month, Tanner Wells met the woman of his dreams. He was riding from a Brooklyn party back to his apartment in Manhattan when she hopped in. “We flirted on the way back to the city,” said Mr. Wells, 37. “She was telling me about some guy she was going to visit. We were talking about goofy stuff. When we got to her stop, she said, ‘It was nice meeting you,’ and got out. The driver turned to me and said, ‘Why didn’t you get her number?’” The next day Mr. Wells created a “missed connections” post on Craigslist in the hope she would find him. (So far, no answer.) Within the last year, ride-sharing services like Via, Lyft Line and UberPool have exploded onto New York streets as an alternative to pricey taxi rides and unreliable public transportation. Their fleet of S.U.V.s has created a new vision of car-pooling that is luxurious, cost-effective and timesaving. Executives are taking them to work. Parents are taking them on school runs. Packs of young professionals are taking them home after happy hour. Compared with taxis, where rides are on the decline, the price of a shared ride is worth the middle seat and constant pickups. A Via ride costs just over $5 for any two points throughout Manhattan south of 110th Street. But convenience aside, these shared cars are also prime breeding grounds for scandalous, titillating exchanges, where New Yorkers sandwiched together are networking, flirting and sparring in a seemingly consequence-free environment where nearly anything goes.