Dear Reader,

I hope you are doing okay today. We have such wonderful weather here in the UK and it feels hot like Spain. I am definitely going to enjoy it.

This week, my reflections are as follows:

1. Technical Reflection: The Pros and Cons of the Apple Vision Pro
2. Behind the Scenes at CM Videos: How I use AI in my academic research

Let us dive into the discussion today!

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Technical Reflections

The Pros and Cons of the Apple Vision Pro

Some of you might have seen the launch of the Apple Vision Pro annouunced on 5th June 2023, at Apples 2023 World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). It is a fantastic device and something many commentators have described as truly 'magical', 'seamless', 'something never seen before' and so on. So for those who do not know, what is the Apple Vision Pro?

The Apple Vision Pro is a mixed reality headset developed by Apple Inc where digital media is integrated with the real world and physical inputs such as: motion gestures (clicking off the fingers to select an object), eye tracking (tracked by several cameras inside the headset to know what the wearer is looking at), and voice input (to receive commands). It is the next milestone in the development and integration of artificial intelligence and virtual reality tool.

Pros of the Vision Pro

Here are some of the things I like about the Vision Pro

1. Enhances virtual reality: It offers a truly accessible way for many to engage with virtual reality. This assessibility is due to the technological innovation behind the Vision Pro although price can put it out of reach for many.
2. Revolutionary invention for the metaverse: It provides a route for some truly revolutionary invention for the metaverse to be developed. I am excited about what many people can actually come up with based on deployment of the Vision Pro. Already, media houses and institutions are signing up partnerships with Apple to begin to integrate the Vision Pro in their offerings to their customers.
3. Immersive entertainment: The device will allow for users to immerse themselves in the 3D world of their entertainment by the device giving the user a real participatory feel to consumption of media.
4. Photos in 3D: Most of the photos we take today are mainly 2D, without any depth to them. Now, with the Vision Pro, we are able to start taking 3D photos which will open a whole new world of photography content creation.
5. Remote training, installation and repair in field services is another benefit of the Vision Pro. Using this, you could imagine a specialist in a London office teaching engineers at a Dubai oil platform and even effecting repairs. Also, doctors can start using it for remote surgery which can only help improve patient outcomes. The possibilities for its use are limitless.

Of course these are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to positive used cases of the Vision Pro.

Cons of the Vision Pro

As well loved as the Vision Pro is, it has come in with some real negative commentary around it and here are some of the reasons:

1. Extremely expensive: The cost of the Vision Pro at circa $3500 is a major issue with many. I am not sure who this device is targetting. As remarkable a device as it is, I can see that many might not be able to own one outrightly without getting into some form of financial arrangement to lease one. This is a clear problem for many.
2. Social isolation: Because of the immersive nature of the Vision Pro, it will certainly worsen the social isolation issues that we already see in our society. It will mean that a family could be sitting together in one room, but each is lost in the world of their Vision pro watching whatever they like. The joys of watching together and interacting/discussing the contents: a shared experience, will not be possible anymore. This can only be detrimental to the mental well-being of many.
3. Motion sickness, eye strain and headaches: Due to the proximity of the device screens to the eye, and its immersive tendencies, it is feared that the divice will cause a lot of motion sickness to users. This can lead to headaches and eye-strains.
4. Privacy and safety concerns: Since the device can track eye movements, it is possible to lead to a development where advertizers recommend videos and sell products based on your eye-tracking history. Now, we struggle with recommendations based on our clicking-history, do you imagine how damaging it will be if you are not swamped with add based on where you are looking during your browsing experience. This is rather intrusive and there are blurred lines of distiction between the privacy and safety concerns posed by the use of Vision Pro in this way.

I just wanted to share this reflection to highlight the benefits and true challenges the world faces with the introduction of the Apple Vision Pro. I will continue to monitor the evolution of Vision Pro, especially with respect to computational modelling. If you want to learn more about this, then click here.

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Behind the Scenes at CM Videos

Two ways I use AI in my research

I am a big proponent of Artificial Intelligence and since ChatGPT was launched, I have used it quite a lot. I wanted to share how I use it for my academic research.

Background study of new research directions

One part of academic work is researching around topics that one is interested in. In the past, I will normally go straight to Google scholar to find papers on topics that I am working on and read those papers. I still do, but since ChatGPT became available, I will usually go to ChatGPT and ask it questions in a conversational manner on the topics of interest. For example, recently, I was exploring the principle of high rate tensile testing. I started learning about it from ChatGPT and ended up reading the academic papers that I once read and newer ones in the area. In the end, I was able to build up the knowledge base that helped me make this youtube video about High rate tensile testing.

Coding Assistant

One of the most common way that I use ChatGPT AI is to aid my code development. I was working recently on how to create randomly distributed short fibre composites in ABAQUS. I had started the coding and wanted to explore how to introduce randomness into the orientation of the fibres. I had to ask ChatGPT for help in doing this and with a conversational and collaborative approach, ChatGPT and I were able to come up with the results shown below.

To explore wider, I decided to use ChatGPT as a coding assistant in generating MATLAB codes for creating 2D RVEs of a unidirectional composite. Initially, the result shown below (left) had fibres intersecting one another. This is not a feasible result, so I went further to work with ChatGPT to fine-tune the outcome so that we now have the other attempt without intercepts.

This is something more people should explore. These AI tools are so good but you have to work co-operatively with them to get the outcomes you want.

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That is it for this week's newsletter. I could not include the Quote for the Week as the length of the newsletter was getting too long. We will visit that next week, by God's grace.

Take care and and do enjoy your weekend. Bye bye!