Lifeboat Foundation

When users want to send data over the internet faster than the network can handle, congestion can occur—the same way traffic congestion snarls the morning commute into a big city.

Computers and devices that transmit data over the internet break the data down into smaller packets and use a special algorithm to decide how fast to send those packets. These congestion control algorithms seek to fully discover and utilize available network capacity while sharing it fairly with other users who may be sharing the same network. These algorithms try to minimize delay caused by data waiting in queues in the network.

Over the past decade, researchers in industry and academia have developed several algorithms that attempt to achieve high rates while controlling delays. Some of these, such as the BBR algorithm developed by Google, are now widely used by many websites and applications.

Thirty seconds of sunlight could boost the battery life of future smartwatches and other wearables by tens of minutes, thanks to a renewable and rechargeable battery prototype developed by the University of Surrey.

Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) has demonstrated how its new photo-rechargeable system, which merges zinc-ion batteries with perovskite solar cells, could allow wearables to spring back to life without the need to plug in.

Jinxin Bi, a Ph.D. candidate at ATI and the first author of the paper, says that “this technology provides a promising strategy for efficient use of clean energy and enables wearable electronics to be operated continuously without plug-in charging. Our prototype could represent a step forward to how we interact with wearables and other internet-of-things devices, such as remote real-time health monitors.”

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In a paper distributed via ArXiv, titled “Exploring the Unprecedented Privacy Risks of the Metaverse,” boffins at UC Berkeley in the US and the Technical University of Munich in Germany play-tested an “escape room” virtual reality (VR) game to better understand just how much data a potential attacker could access. Through a 30-person study of VR usage, the researchers – Vivek Nair (UCB), Gonzalo Munilla Garrido (TUM), and Dawn Song (UCB) – created a framework for assessing and analyzing potential privacy threats. They identified more than 25 examples of private data attributes available to potential attackers, some of which would be difficult or impossible to obtain from traditional mobile or web applications. The metaverse that is rapidly becoming a part of our world has long been an essential part of the gaming community. Interaction-based games like Second Life, Pokemon Go, and Minecraft have existed as virtual social interaction platforms. The founder of Second Life, Philip Rosedale, and many other security experts have lately been vocal about Meta’s impact on data privacy. Since the core concept is similar, it is possible to determine the potential data privacy issues apparently within Meta.

There has been a buzz going around the tech market that by the end of 2022, the metaverse can revive the AR/VR device shipments and take it as high as 14.19 million units, compared to 9.86 million in 2021, indicating a year-over-year increase of about 35% to 36%. The AR/VR device market will witness an enormous boom in the market due to component shortages and the difficulty to develop new technologies. The growth momentum will also be driven by the increased demand for remote interactivity stemming from the pandemic. But what will happen when these VR or metaverse headsets start stealing your precious data? Not just headsets but smart glasses too are prime suspect when it comes to privacy concerns.

Continue reading “Metaverse Headsets and Smart Glasses are the Next-gen Data Stealers” »

Elon Musk, often known to break the Internet by his statements or acts recently tweeted what seemed like a futuristic invention. Being one of the wealthiest people on the planet was not enough for the CEO of Tesla as he thought two of his brains would be better. One would always wonder how a brain can be transferred into a man-made machine, but with his recent tweet, Elon Musk confirmed he copied his brain to the machine and talks to his digital version.

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A recent tweet by Shibetoshi Nakamoto, known as the creator of Dogecoin with an account named, @BillyM2k asked, “If you could upload your brain to the cloud, and talk to a virtual version of yourself, would you be buddies?”. In the second continuation of the tweet, the user posted, “would be cool to have a competitive game buddy of approximately the same skill level. Except he would be a computer and have infinite time so I would more just see him get better at everything while I am busy with dumb life things.”

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A US Robotics company is adding new artificial intelligence anomaly detection capabilities to its autonomous Scout System drone. A leading US provider of private wireless data, drone and automated data has announced that the new containment capabilities will enable oil and gas customers to minimize environmental risks, clean-up costs, fines, and litigation expenses.

Suasnews.com reports that the loss of containment analytics feature will accelerate early detection and location of crude oil leaks before they become critical to customers by providing frequent, autonomous inspections of oil and gas pumpjacks, heater treaters, tanks, pipes, pumps, and more via the autonomous Scout System. Autonomous drones have become a crucial component to ensuring safety and conducting regular inspections within the oil and gas industry.

SpaceX shared how it’s making its Starlink satellites less bright. The space exploration company published a document titled, Brightness Mitigation Best Practices for Satellite Operators that outlines how it’s working with the astronomy community to reduce light pollution.

New document from @SpaceX https://api.starlink.com/public-files/BrightnessMitigationBe…rators.pdf explaining what they have been doing to make their satellites less bright. I applaud SpaceX for their work on this (and for making the document public), while remaining concerned to see how bright the Gen2 Starlinks end up being.

— Jonathan McDowell (@planet4589) July 29, 2022

The ubiquity of electronic devices makes it essential to use encryption and anti-counterfeiting tools to protect the privacy and security of users. With the growing expansion of the Internet of Things, protection against attacks that violate the authenticity of products is increasingly necessary. Traditionally, message protection has been based on different systems: passwords, digital signatures or encryption. This cryptography is based on unknown keys to a possible attacker, but unfortunately these systems are becoming obsolete as new more invasive attacks appear: malware, API attacks or physical hardware attacks.

While quantum computing slowly progresses towards the cryptographic paradigm, the so-called physically unclonable functions (PUFs) are presented as the choice to ensure unique and effective identification. A PUF is a device that has unique and non-repeatable physical properties that can be translated into usable bits of information. The idea of applying random physical characteristics to identify systems or people is not new: for example, the identification of individuals using the fingerprint dates from the 19th century. More recently, the identity of electronic devices has been established using PUFs, which are “electronic fingerprints” of an integrated circuit.

Authentication based on PUFs comprises a chip manufactured by intrinsically random processes that make cloning almost impossible, even though all the details of the manufacturing process are known. The measurements of the various physical properties of the PUF depend on the properties of the chip at the nanoscale, thus constitute a very powerful anti-fraud and anti-counterfeiting technology. To be implementable at an industrial level, this chip must be low cost, scalable and its properties must be easily measurable by means of an identifiable function.

“In the nearly 22 years that I’ve served in Congress, we have come a long way in cyberspace,” said Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I.

Sometimes you need to display a number nice and large, making it easily readable at a good distance. [Lewis] has just the thing for that: a big expandable 7-segment display.

The build is modular, allowing it to be extended from 2 to 10 digits and beyond. The digits themselves are made of 3D-printed parts assembled onto acrylic. These can then be ganged up in a wooden frame for displaying larger numbers with more digits. Individual elements are lit by addressable LEDs, and the project can be built using an Arduino Nano or an ESP8266 for control. The latter opens up possibilities for controlling the screen over WiFi, which could prove useful.

Continue reading “You Can Build A Giant 7-Segment Display Of Your Very Own” »