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Category: internet – Page 130

NVIDIA Explains Why it Believes a Pixar-invented Protocol is the “HTML of the metaverse”

NVIDIA, one of the tech sector’s power players, is pushing the Universal Scene Description protocol as the foundation of interoperable content and experiences in the metaverse. In a recent post the company explains why it believes the protocol, originally invented by Pixar, fits the needs of the coming metaverse.

Though the word metaverse is presently being used as a catchall for pretty much any multi-user application these days, the truth is that the vast majority of such platforms are islands unto themselves that have no connectivity to virtual spaces, people, or objects on other platforms. The ‘real’ metaverse, most seem to agree, must have at least some elements of interoperability, allowing users to seamlessly move from one virtual space to the next, much like we do today on the web.

To that end, Nvidia is pushing Universal Scene Description (USD) as the “HTML of the metaverse,” the company described in a recent post.

FBI: Hackers increasingly exploit DeFi bugs to steal cryptocurrency

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning investors that cybercriminals are increasingly exploiting security vulnerabilities in Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms to steal cryptocurrency.

“The FBI has observed cyber criminals exploiting vulnerabilities in the smart contracts governing DeFi platforms to steal investors’ cryptocurrency,” the federal law enforcement agency said.

“The FBI encourages investors who suspect cyber criminals have stolen their DeFi investments to contact the FBI via the Internet Crime Complaint Center or their local FBI field office.”

FBL69: David Weinberger — Using Technology To Thrive in Chaos

This week our guest is author and technologist, David Weinberger, who has spent years lecturing at Harvard as well as acting as a fellow and senior researcher at the renowned Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. And just prior to covid, David released his latest book, Everyday Chaos: Technology, Complexity, and How We’re Thriving in a New World of Possibility. In this episode, David and I explore some of the key ideas he focused on in Everyday Chaos. This includes looking at the ways in which we have historically used reductionist thinking to make generalizations for society, products, and technology, and how the latest technologies like the internet and Machine learning are revealing how much more we can thrive when we embrace chaos and customization. This means letting individuals and data tell us what people want by exploring all the possibilities rather than attempting to predict and shape outcomes beforehand.

** Find out more about David at his website weinberger.org and buy his book at everydaychaosbook.com.

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NTT unveils what it calls the ‘first edge and private 5G’ service

Were you unable to attend Transform 2022? Check out all of the summit sessions in our on-demand library now! Watch here.

In today’s enterprise, even just a split second in latency can impact performance and access to data — and, thus, the ability to manage and immediately act on it.

But the physics and costs of multicloud and hybrid cloud environments make near-instantaneous response times all but impossible.

Satellite hackers can see every email you get

Modern satellites are becoming a collection of mass-produced computers floating in space. By the end of the decade, thousands more will be out there. But with the increasing reliance on orbital technology comes a growing appetite for hacking it.

Data relayed via satellites is not immune to hacking. James Pavur, an Oxford PhD focusing on satellite systems security, has proven the above statement to be disturbingly evident. With his team, he used $300 worth of satellite TV equipment to intercept vast amounts of information distributed along the larger part of the Northern hemisphere.

“When you’re eavesdropping on satellite internet signals, you’re effectively seeing what someone’s ISP would see. You see every website that a customer browses to, or every email that they receive for every account that they own,” Pavur told CyberNews.

A US Propaganda Operation Hit Russia and China With Memes

It’s rare that Western disinformation efforts are discovered and exposed. This week, the Stanford Internet Observatory and social media analysis firm Graphika detailed a five-year operation that was pushing pro-Western narratives. The research follows Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as they remove a series of accounts from their platforms for “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The propaganda accounts used memes, fake news websites, online petitions, and various hashtags in an attempt to push pro-Western views and were linked to both overt and covert influence operations. The accounts, some of which appear to use AI-generated profile pictures, targeted internet users in Russia, China, and Iran, among other countries. The researchers say the accounts “heavily criticized” Russia following its nvasion of Ukraine in February and also “promoted anti-extremism messaging.” Twitter said the activity it saw is likely to have originated in the US and the UK, while Meta said it was the US.

#WesternPropaganda

Plus: An Iranian hacking tool steals inboxes, LastPass gets hacked, and a deepfake scammer targets the crypto world.

The creation of the metaverse: What’s real, what’s hype and where we’re headed

Were you unable to attend Transform 2022? Check out all of the summit sessions in our on-demand library now! Watch here.

To those that were part of the dot-com era tech scene, 2022 has a familiar energy. But now it’s all about the metaverse. And, just as they did in 1993 when the World Wide Web was launched into the public domain, many are asking themselves, “what is it, anyway?” What’s real, what’s hype and where are we headed?

The truth is, much like Internet 1.0 and all of its subsequent iterations, the metaverse is being defined as it’s being built. And contrary to what many believe, it’s more than just VR headsets and avatars. The metaverse is a place, an ecosystem, and above all else, an entirely new dimension. But to better understand this, it’s important to know how the metaverse is being developed.

NASA, Boeing target February for first crew flight on Starliner spacecraft

One of the larger SpaceX disasters was eight months ago, a Falcon 9 was heavily damaged in rough high seas and there was a question of whether it would fly again. It was enough of a problem that SpaceX changed their landings to the Caribbean instead of the Atlantic Ocean during the winter to avoid high seas. (This reduced the amount of payload the rocket could support.)

Well, the rocket is going to fly again tomorrow as the 4th flight in a streak of at least 7 consecutive Starlink launches. SpaceX is launching faster and faster as their need for Starlink launches grows. They are hiring more technicians so they can launch faster from their 3 Falcon 9 launch towers.

SpaceX rolled a Falcon 9 rocket to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral and test-fired its engines Thursday, prepping for liftoff Saturday night carrying another group of Starlink internet satellites into orbit. The Falcon 9 booster has been repaired after a rough recovery in December knocked it out of SpaceX’s rocket reuse rotation.

The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) rocket fired up its nine Merlin 1D engines at 9:10 a.m. EDT (1310 GMT) Thursday on Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The engines ignited for about seven seconds, ramping up to 1.7 million pounds of thrust as hold-down restraints kept the Falcon 9 firmly on the ground.

SpaceX loaded a million pounds of densified kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants into the Falcon 9 during the final 35 minutes of the mock countdown Thursday. The Falcon 9 was already stacked with its payload of more than 50 Starlink internet satellites during the static fire test.

The Internet of Things needs ultra-compact supercapacitors

Increased demand for super tiny electronic sensors coming from healthcare, environmental services and the Internet of Things is prompting a search for equally tiny ways to power these sensors. A review of the state of ultracompact supercapacitors, or “micro-supercapacitors,” concludes there is still a lot of research to be done before these devices can deliver on their promise.

The review appeared in the journal Nano Research Energy.

The explosion of demand in recent years for miniaturized , such as health monitors, environmental sensors and wireless communications technologies has in turn driven demand for components for those devices that have ever smaller size and weight, with lower energy consumption, and all of this at cheaper prices.

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