Quantic’s Weekly Roundup is a satisfying mix of the latest breaking news, business, STEM and social science stories. Here are your headlines for this week: 

Mars is partnering with Acquia to create a digital spooktacular Halloween. Mars wanted to digitize the physical experience of Halloween trick-or-treating, but make it more engaging than a website. To build on that idea, the company held a one-week hackathon. Treat Town was created, which is a platform that can be experienced on the free app or through a browser. Candy-givers and trick-or-treaters sign up and create profiles. Candy-givers can design and decorate their virtual door, purchase candy credits from Mars, and decide whether anyone on Treat Town can visit their door (or friends and family only). People can even set different levels of rewards for friends and family and even donate to charities

Samasource, a training data and validation company based in San Francisco, believes AI technology can enhance human-centered work instead of threaten it. Artificial intelligence is an emerging force in the business world that has the potential to either replace humans in certain industries or empower humans with better tools, depending on how the technology is utilized. The company’s philosophy is to use artificial intelligence to empower the human workforce. AI will simply remove more mundane tasks, so that humans can focus on tasks that require higher cognition and focus on higher value areas of work.

The company, PORTL Hologram, has raised $3M to put a hologram machine in every home. PORTL’s projector can transmit images any time of the day or night with its “studio-in-a-box.” Anyone with $60,000 to spend and a white background can beam themselves into any portal, anywhere in the world. The company plans to create miniature versions that will be the size of a desktop computer and will be bundled with entertainment systems like Peloton and Mirror. 

Need something to read this weekend? Sports writer, Jon Bois, used his platform on SB Nation to write his latest multimedia story: 20020: What is the Future of College Football. This is the sequel to his 25-part fiction story about the future of America where football games last for thousands of years and span the continent. The digital science fiction piece explores what would happen if humans lived in a utopian meditation with endless time…and sports!