The Download: Apple Vision Pro, and how AI judges gymnastics

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Apple Vision Pro: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2024 History is littered with doomed face computers. Google Glass, Microsoft HoloLens, and even Meta’s Quest line all flopped. Now, it’s Apple’s turn to try.  At the…
The Download: Apple Vision Pro, and how AI judges gymnastics

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How AI is changing gymnastics judging 

The 2023 World Championships last October marked the first time an AI judging system was used on every apparatus in a gymnastics competition. There are obvious upsides to using this kind of technology: AI could help take the guesswork out of the judging technicalities. It could even help to eliminate biases, making the sport both more fair and more transparent.

At the same time, others fear AI judging will take away something that makes gymnastics special. Gymnastics is a subjective sport, like diving or dressage, and technology could eliminate the judges’ role in crafting a narrative.

For better or worse, AI has officially infiltrated the world of gymnastics. The question now is whether it really makes it fairer. Read the full story.

—Jessica Taylor Price

Why everyone’s excited about household robots again

Building truly useful household robots that we can easily offload tasks to has been a science fiction fantasy for decades, and is the ultimate goal of many roboticists.