Denoising diffusion models (DDMs) have shown promising results in 3D point cloud synthesis. To advance 3D DDMs and make them useful for digital artists, we require (i) high generation quality, (ii) flexibility for manipulation and applications such as conditional synthesis and shape interpolation, and (iii) the ability to output smooth surfaces or meshes. To this end, we introduce the hierarchical Latent Point Diffusion Model (LION) for 3D shape generation. LION is set up as a variational autoencoder (VAE) with a hierarchical latent space that combines a global shape latent representation with a point-structured latent space. For generation, we train two hierarchical DDMs in these latent spaces.

In media news today, Katie Couric admits she protected Ruth Bader Ginsburg by editing out remarks on anthem kneelers, a former Obama ethics official slams the Biden White House for avoiding questions on Hunter Biden's artwork, and Facebook says it will treat journalist and activists as public figures CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta sought to explain the reasoning behind his appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience" this week, claiming he felt he "needed to go into the lion's den" to communicate to people about public health. Gupta faced intense criticism stemming from his appearance on the show, in which he admitted that CNN shouldn't have referred to Rogan's use of the drug ivermectin to treat the coronavirus as him using "horse dewormer." CNN did not immediately respond when asked if Gupta was forced to justify the appearance in his Wednesday piece following the backlash. In the piece titled "Why Joe Rogan and I sat down and talked -- for more than 3 hours," Gupta detailed his conversation with Rogan, including his "futile" attempt to convince the popular radio host to take the coronavirus vaccine, and compared it to being in a mixed martial arts (MMA) bout. "I realized that if I was serious about trying to communicate public health, I needed to go to a less comfortable place. I needed to go into the lion's den and accept an invitation to sit down with Joe Rogan for more than three hours," Gupta wrote before admitting that many of his friends advised him not to accept Rogan's invitation.

For many people, artificial intelligence is the Wizard of Oz of our time--a mysterious and threatening power behind the curtain, ominous and seemingly omnipotent. The entertainment industry has done more than its fair share to feed us horrific futuristic scenarios about AI: HAL in 2001, Ava in Ex Machina, humans used as batteries in The Matrix. Our primal fears have been manipulated and magnified by the big screen. Should we be so afraid of AI? Buddhist teachings offer many sophisticated tools and strategies to work with fear. One is wisdom and understanding.

Very few people would add The Lion's Song in their Nintendo Switch wish list, but those who would now only have to wait a few more days. The critically acclaimed point-and-click adventure title by Austrian indie developer Mipumi Games is set in a sepia-toned early 20th century version of the company's native country. It features four episodes, each about a different character with creative and brilliant minds. One of them is a musician working on her composition before a big performance, another is an artist who sees the layers of someone's personality, while the other is a female mathematician who was turned down by a renowned math group due to her gender. These characters' decisions impact one another and will determine how the fourth and final episode of the game, which connects their stories together, plays out.

Worry not, because our Five to Try column is here to spotlight the Play Store's most enticing new picks. Minecraft: Story Mode's second season leads the week's offerings, as Telltale's episodic affair builds a fun narrative from the block-building sensation. Elsewhere, the official Shake Shack app is finally on Android for mobile ordering, Hinge puts a different spin on the familiar dating app, The Lion's Song is an intriguing indie adventure, and freemium game Valerian: City of Alpha can get you ready for the upcoming sci-fi flick. Give these a look, and if you need even more recent picks, then loop back on last week's column as well. Minecraft is beloved for its open-ended design, letting players build their own adventures in blocky worlds--but last year's Minecraft: Story Mode handled most of the heavy lifting with a five-part episodic adventure series.

Transportation investment has moved into the fast lane. Venture and growth investing in transport-related companies accelerated in the third quarter, fueled by momentum in the autonomous driving and ride-hailing spaces, as well as the prospect of big acquisitions. VCs and seed investors poured more than 6.2 billion into more than 150 companies across the globe with transportation-related business models in Q3, according to Crunchbase data. That exceeds the 6.1 billion invested in the space during all of 2015. Transport VC activity has been speeding up for a couple of quarters.

What if the computer algorithms could tell more compelling stories than journalists, writers or business analysts? Well, this is increasingly becoming a reality. A new generation of Big Data tools are being put to automate story telling. The ideas behind this application of analytics were first put to use generating automated news reports, covering sports and financial stories. Take the recent Wimbledon tennis championships as an example.