A look at Arm China, which has become a key player in China's chip industry and sources say has doubled staff since SoftBank sold control to a Chinese venture — Since SoftBank sold control, venture doubles staff and develops cryptographic IP — TAIPEI — Arm China …
India-based B2B logistics network Shadowfax raises $60M Series D from Flipkart, others, bringing its total raised to $100M, sources say at a valuation of ~$250M — Walmart's Flipkart has backed Indian startup Shadowfax in a new $60 million financing round as the retail giant works to strengthen its logistics network in the nation.
Report on the hack-for-hire market: attacks that phish 2FA to access email accounts cost $100-$400; such attacks can be prevented with physical security keys — Communications of the ACM, December 2019, Vol. 62 No. 12, Pages 32-37 … A single email address often underpins one's entire online identity …
Beijing orders all government offices and public institutions to remove foreign PC equipment and software within three years, allowing only Chinese-made tech — Yuan Yang and Nian Liu — Beijing has ordered all government offices and public institutions to remove foreign computer equipment …
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This week saw a ton of activity in the space industry, with multiple launches, key preparations for commercial crew missions, robots and much more.
Besides all the real space news, there’s also some extreme fan service for Star Wars lovers, courtesy of Disney and Boeing. Now I’m one day closer to my lifelong dream of becoming a real X-Wing starfighter pilot.
Launch startup Rocket Lab has been successfully delivering payloads to orbit for a while now, but earlier this year they announced they’d be moving to a launch system in which the booster they use to propel their spacecraft to orbit is reusable.
An Electron rocket launching during a previous test.
During their 10th mission with their Electron rocket, they took a crucial first step – testing the re-entry systems to bring the booster back to Earth’s atmosphere. Rocket Lab says the test went better than expected, which bodes well from moving to an actual test of properly recovering and refurbishing the thing.
The other big launch this week was SpaceX’s CRS-19 launch, which delivered 5,200 lbs of experiments and supplies to the ISS. This launch used a brand new Falcon 9, which SpaceX recovered with a landing at sea, and it also employed a Dragon cargo capsule that the company has flown twice before. On board, there’s a load of amazing new equipment for the ISS, like a ‘robot hotel.’
You may not have heard, but there’s an advanced Alexa for astronauts called CIMON, and after a successful first test, it’s headed back to the ISS aboard the above SpaceX launch with improvements. One of its key improvements is a new ability to detect and respond to human emotions, which is, you know, HAL territory.
SpaceX is getting closer to a key piece of the puzzle when it comes to its ability to launch astronauts on its commercial crew spacecraft. The company needs to do at least 10 parachute tests in a row to get ship-shape for its crew launch, and it’s now pretty close to getting that done before year’s end.
Boeing is also getting closer to its own commercial crew launch, and in fact completed an entire rehearsal of how the mission will go on on launch day when it does its uncrewed launch. This rehearsal including fully feeling the rocket, and next time that happens, it’ll be taking off.
X-Wing starfighters ascended through the night sky over Orlando, Florida this week as Disney celebrated the opening of its new ‘Rise of the Resistance’ attraction at Disney World. The X-Wings (2 of them!) were modified versions of a large cargo drone that Boeing has been developing, but both companies are keeping mum on any further details right now.
What’s going on with space tech, and why is it having a moment? What’s coming next, and where is the smart money going? The answers to those questions and more lie in Starburst founder and aerospace investor François Chopard’s informative deck about space and defense, available exclusively to Extra Crunch subscribers.
Gal Gadot reprises her role as everyone's favorite Amazonian demigod in Wonder Woman 1984.
Diana Prince faces off against two new formidable foes, and reunites with an old love, in the hotly anticipated first trailer for Wonder Woman 1984, with Gal Gadot reprising her titular role. Director Patty Jenkins unveiled the trailer today at Comic Con Experience (CCXP) in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Inspired by the comic book heroine created by William Moulton Marston in the 1940s for DC Comics, Wonder Woman made her big screen debut in the DCEU with 2016's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, followed by 2017's Justice League. The first fell short of box office expectations; the second bombed outright. So when Jenkins took on Wonder Woman's origin story, she deliberately departed from the grim humorlessness and dark sensibility of those earlier films, bringing a brighter energy and wit to her tale, along with the usual action. That vision paid off: Wonder Woman went on to gross $821 million worldwide, and earned critical raves, making it the most successful of the DCEU films thus far.
Jenkins first broached the possibility of a sequel shortly after the first film's release in June 2017, and principal photography began a year later. It has been described as a standalone film rather than a direct sequel, "in the same way that Indiana Jones or [James] Bond are, instead of one continuous story that requires many installments." (That standalone strategy worked well for Warner Bros' 2019 box office smash Joker, which became the first R-rated film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.)
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Dara Khosrowshahi on Uber's safety report, why two-thirds of rape cases haven't been reported to the police, and Uber's approach to driver and rider safety — Uber is a ‘reflection of society,’ says ride-hailing chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi — Uber provided many numbers this week …
Snapchat is testing Cameos, a Bitmoji alternative that lets users replace the faces of people with selfies in Snapchat-made short looping videos — Snapchat is preparing to launch a big new feature that uses your selfies to replace the faces of people in videos you can then share.
How predators are using multiplayer games and chat apps for sextortion of children; DOJ says sextortion is “the most significantly growing threat to children” — Criminals are making virtual connections with children through gaming and social media platforms.
Snapchat is preparing to launch a big new feature that uses your selfies to replace the faces of people in videos you can then share. It’s essentially a simplified way to Deepfake you into GIFs. Cameos are an alternative to Bitmoji for quickly conveying an emotion, reaction, or silly situation in Snapchat messages.
Some French users received a test version of the feature today, as spotted by Snap enthusiast @Mtatsis.
Snapchat Cameo makes you the star of videos
TechCrunch reached out to Snap, which confirmed Cameo’s existence, and that it’s currently testing in limited availability in some international markets. The company provided this statement: “Cameos aren’t ready to take the stage yet, but stay tuned for their global debut soon!”
@snapologie Cette fonctionnalité viens d'apparaître sur mon Snap ça s'appelle Caméos pic.twitter.com/F8bIrhbptb
— Arthur
(@gartr268) December 6, 2019
C’est la meilleure invention que snap est jamais faite #cameo #snapchat pic.twitter.com/EcRQmGoFsV
— FiLiPpinHo
QLF (@gregv_) December 7, 2019
With Cameo, you’ll take a selfie to teach Snapchat what you look like. Then you choose if you want a vaguely male or female body type (no purposefully androgenous option).
Cameo then lives inside the Bitmoji button in the Snapchat messaging keyboard. Snapchat has made a bunch of short looping video clips with sound that you can choose from. Snapchat will then stretch and move your selfie to create different facial reactions that Cameo can apply to actors’ heads in the videos. You just pick one of these videos that now star you and send it to the chat.
Cameo could help Snapchat keep messaging interesting, which is critical since that remains its most popular and differentiated feature. With Instagram and WhatsApp having copied its Stories to great success, it must stay ahead in chat. Though in this case, Snap could be accused of copying Chinese social app Zao which let users more realistically Deepfake their faces into videos. Then again, JibJab popularized this kind of effect many years ago to stick your face on dancing Christmas elves.
Snap is only starting to monetize the messaging wing of its app with ads inside social games. Snap might potentially sell sponsored, branded Cameo clips to advertisers similar to how the company offers sponsored augmented reality lenses.
Cameo could put a more fun spin on technology for grafting faces into videos. Deepfakes can be used as powerful weapons of misinformation or abuse. But by offering only innocuous clips rather than statements from politicians or pornography, Snapchat could turn the tech into a comedic medium.
[Image Credit: Jeff Higgins]
Enlarge / USAF Boeing B-52H Stratofortress taking-off with undercarriage retracting and trailing-edge wing flaps lowered at the 1998 Fairford Royal International Air Tattoo RIAT. (credit: aviationimages.com | Getty)
Glenn House and his colleagues spent more than four years making a new toilet for the B-1 Lancer. The challenge wasn't fitting the john into the cockpit (it went behind the front left seat) but ensuring that every part could handle life aboard a plane that can pull five Gs, break the sound barrier, and spend hours in wildly fluctuating temperatures. The end result didn't just have to work. It had to work without rattling, leaking, or revealing itself to enemy radar. Getting it OK'd for use aboard the bomber was just as complex as making it. "Getting a part approved can take years," says House, the cofounder and president of Walpole, Massachusetts-based 2Is Inc.
Until last year, 2Is was in the military parts business, furnishing replacement bits for assorted defense equipment. (Pronounced "two eyes," it sold off the parts business and now focuses on defense-related supply-chain software.) Providing spare parts for the military is a peculiar niche of the economy. Things like aircraft and submarines spend decades in service, and the companies that made them or supplied their myriad parts often disappear long before their products retire. So when something needs a new knob, seat, or potty, the military often turns to companies that specialize in making them anew.
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Ben Westcott / Bloomberg : Australia's Senate votes to pass a social media ban for children under 16, brushing aside lawmaker concern...
