Asus joins the Windows Mixed Reality party with its own official headset

Windows Mixed Reality, Microsoft’s own take on consumer-oriented and relatively low-cost virtual reality, was introduced in 2017 with a host of Microsoft’s original equipment manufacturers making very similar headsets. Software support officially arrived in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, and hardware also went on sale on October 17. One manufacturer that was slightly behind the curve was Asus, which has now announced the availability of its own Mixed Reality Headset.

All of the headsets enjoy very similar specifications, and they all retail for around $450. That is the price point of Asus’s offering as well and its specifications are as follows:

Display:
Two 2.89-inch high-resolution LCDs

Resolution:
1,440 x 1,440 each

Field of view:
95 degrees horizontal

Refresh rate:
Up to 90Hz (native)

Ports:
1x HDMI 2.0
1x USB 3.0 Gen1 Type-A
1x headphone / microphone jack

Other features:
Front hinged display
Detachable HDMI/USB combo cable
Inside-out tracking

What all of this means is that the Asus Mixed Reality Headset doesn’t require external sensors to provide a full six-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) position tracking, thanks to its dual front-facing cameras. As with all Windows Mixed Reality headsets, all of the software needed to run the system is baked right into Windows 10, making installing, configuring, and running a VR setup as easy as plugging in and firing up a compatible application.

As we indicated in our Windows Mixed Reality review, the platform is very much a VR solution today when it comes to the current crop of headsets. That means VR gaming as well as over 20,000 Windows 10 apps that provide a variety of VR functionality. The platform can also support augmented reality like that provided by Microsoft’s HoloLens, but for now, the headsets are focused on purely digital representations of the world and not mixing in external data.

If you’re in the market for a Windows Mixed Reality headset, then you will find the Asus model to offer a unique look with its 3D polygons adorning the front. The company also built in cool-touch and quick-drying fabrics to keep everything comfortable, and an antibacterial coating on various surfaces should also keep things clean. The headset weighs less than a pound, to make it comfortable to wear for longer sessions.

What you won’t get from Asus at the moment is a low price. Its Mixed Reality Headset is coming in at $429, whereas many vendors are currently pricing their headsets at under $300. Asus does include two motion controllers in their price, which helps. You will be able to order the Asus Mixed Reality Headset at the Asus Store, while some online retailers, such as B&H Photo, are currently running pre-orders.

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Samsung beefs up the data center with a new SSD packing 31TB of storage

Samsung recently introduced a new solid-state drive (SSD) for the enterprise packing a hefty 30.72 terabyte (TB) storage capacity. Labeled as the PM1643, it relies on the company’s V-NAND storage technology, promising higher storage capacities and faster data access than the standard SSD. It follows the company’s 15.36TB SSD released in March 2016. 

Although data centers still mostly rely on clunky mechanical hard drives, storage manufacturers are pushing NAND flash-based products to serve as the new norm. But the endgame may take some time given standard hard drives still have a cheaper per-gigabyte price point than current SSDs. 

The use of 3D-flash technology is also pushing to become the norm. A typical SSD relies on memory cells spread out like a city block packing up to three floors each. Meanwhile, 3D-flash technology crams storage cells onto layers, creating a stacked skyscraper of up to 64 “floors.” And instead of using streets to reach a particular office, data travels up and down elevators. 

That is an extremely simplified explanation, but the end result means storage capacities aren’t locked to the physical, horizontal real estate of the SSD. Data travels to and from memory cells faster too given the straight elevator-type pathway. 

On a more technical level, Samsung’s new SSD contains 32 physical NAND flash “packages” with a 1TB capacity each. Dig a little deeper, and each package contains 16 layers with a single 512-gigabit chip installed on each layer. These 512-gigabit chips contain 64 “floors” playing host to memory cells with three layers. Crazy, right? That is the miracle of modern technology. 

But that is not all — the SSD relies on a single controller chip that crams together nine memory controllers previously used in the company’s other high-capacity SSDs. You will find new firmware too supporting metadata protection, and data retention and recovery protection against sudden power loss. 

“The PM1643 drive also applies Through Silicon Via (TSV) technology to interconnect 8Gb DDR4 chips, creating ten 4GB TSV DRAM packages, totaling 40GB of DRAM,” the company says. “This marks the first time that TSV-applied DRAM has been used in an SSD.” 

According to Samsung, the new SSD provides double the performance than the previous 15.36TB model (PM1633a) with a sequential read speed of up to 2,100MB per second, and a sequential write speed of up to 1,700MB per second. The 15.36TB model provides read and write speeds of up to 1,250MB per second. 

In the case of both SSDs, they are standard 2.5-inch form factor drives that connect via the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface. That connection is faster than what is typically used by hard drives and older SSDs, providing data transfer speeds of up to 12 gigabits per second versus six gigabits per second via the older SATA interface. More specifically, both SSDs support the SAS-3 interface. 

Samsung didn’t say when the drive will go live for the enterprise, nor did the company reveal pricing. It’s currently in mass production, so stay tuned for more details as the ship date nears. 

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Crypto-mining malware nets hacker group $3.4 million worth of Monero coins

Israeli security firm Check Point uncovered a large-scale cryptocurrency mining operation which installed malware on servers running Jenkins, an automation software designed for web development. The mining operation has, to date, mined around $3.4 million worth of Monero using malware installed on internet-connected Jenkins servers.

Unlike other illicit cryptocurrency mining operations, this one targeted servers rather than personal computers, which is why it went undetected long enough to earn some serious cash — $3.4 million as of this reporting.

The mining operation, which Check Point tracked to China, exploited a known vulnerability in Jenkins servers which allowed them to essentially ask the automation software to download and install the crypto-mining software. Jenkins, the ever-faithful automation software happily obliged.

Though this mining operation didn’t target personal computers, Check Point speculates that its presence on these Jenkins servers could still have some negative effects for everyday people.

“The JenkinsMiner could negatively impact the servers, causing slower load times and even issuing a Denial of Service. Depending on the strength of the attack, this could prove to be very detrimental to the machines,” Check Point reports.

While this kind of vulnerability might not be of concern to most people, it should definitely raise some eyebrows for web developers. It’s not the first time Jenkins servers have been exploited, and according to Bleeping Computer, exposed Jenkins servers pose a serious security risk to the web at large.

Citing research from security expert Mikail Tunç, Bleeping Computer reports that the researcher detected 25,000 exposed and vulnerable Jenkins servers as of mid-January. These servers are vulnerable not only because of the known exploits which hackers can use to turn them to their own ends but because of their connection to the internet. Insulating a Jenkins server from the web would be a big step in the right direction and keep hackers from repurposing a benign automation tool into a crypto-mining powerhouse.

This cryptocurrency mining operation is just one of many similar operations, siphoning clock cycles to mine Monero or other cryptocurrencies. According to Bleeping Computer, illicit Monero mining is already seeing an enormous uptick in 2018, with no signs of slowing down.

Why Monero? Well, Monero is an open-source cryptocurrency designed to be untraceable, private, and highly secure. Its security features make it an excellent choice for privacy-minded individuals, and sadly, illicit operations like this malicious mining operation.

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Swype discontinues its keyboard app for Android and iOS

Swype Keyboard

The popular third-party keyboard app known as Swype is no longer up and running, XDA Developers reports. Owned by Nuance Communications, the company confirmed it’s discontinuing the app for both Android and iOS.

While Swype is similar to many of the other keyboard apps on the market today, it led the way for swipe-gesture typing. When using the Swype keyboard, you were able to type one-handed by swiping your finger along the keys without having to lift it. The feature was originally built into smartphones but was then released as an app for both iOS and Android — it has since been pulled from both the App Store and Google Play Store.

A user had taken to Reddit to share an email from Nuance support in reference to Swype crashing on their Pixel 2. In response, Nuance explained that Swype+Dragon for Android has faced the end of development and will no longer be receiving updates.

Even though the Reddit post confirmed the discontinuation of Swype for Android, the response didn’t clarify whether the same meant iOS. XDA Developer discovered another announcement from Nuance that confirmed the iOS version of the app was also coming to an end.

But the end of Swype means Nuance is able to focus more on its other projects. The company is no longer involved in the direct-to-consumer business in an effort to concentrate on developing artificial intelligence solutions for the business-to-business space.

Some of the A.I. solutions Nuance is working on are specifically targeted for the medical space, which uses speech recognition technology to translate to text. Using its Dragon Dictation technology, the software can translate a doctor’s voice into the patient’s electronic health record.

Nuance also provides A.I. solutions within the automotive space as well. With Dragon Drive, users have an automative assistant that uses A.I. to get to know the driver. It can discover specific traits and preferences such as the types of restaurants the driver would like to stop at on their way home, along with calendar entries or best routes.

But the end for Swype doesn’t mean the end for other keyboard apps that allow you to glide your finger across the screen while typing out texts. Both iPhone and Android users can download other third-party apps such as GBoard, SwiftKey, and more.

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Citymapper ditches London bus service to go after Uber instead

Citymapper is best known as a public transit app but last year the outfit expanded its horizons by starting a bus service using its own vehicles in London.

But nine months after launch, the company is ditching the effort and switching instead to private hire taxis, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, February 20.

The company was granted an operating license this week just as Uber announced changes to its own service as it battles to retain its license in the U.K.’s biggest city.

Details of Citymapper’s entry into ridesharing are yet to be unveiled but are expected soon. The company has just posted two of three articles reflecting on its bus-based efforts, while the third post is expected to detail its next initiative, including the type of transportation service it’s aiming at, the scale of that service, and a launch date.

Citymapper invested a lot of time, effort, and money in its night-time bus service, creating a special app, tracking software, scheduling systems, and a bus kitted out with USB ports and smart displays. It tried to make the ride fun for passengers, pumping pop music through speakers and creating personal “busmojis” that alerted riders via the displays to their approaching stop.

In the first of its three blog posts on February 20, the company said it had managed to run its service “at a fraction of the cost of what traditional bus systems do,” but that regulatory hurdles specific to the bus industry meant it was too hard to develop its service in the way that it wanted.

So it’s turning to private hire vehicles.

“Carry 9+ people in London and you’re a bus and have to follow strict regulations on fixed routes, schedules, and service frequency,” the company noted in its second post. “Carry 8 people or fewer, and you’re a private hire vehicle that can go wherever you want, however you want, how often you want.”

It added: “As a result, a private hire vehicle can respond to demand, a bus cannot. That makes it hard for a bus, even a smart green minibus, to be part of the ‘demand-responsive’ future.”

Now we’re waiting to what details it offers up in post number three …

Taking on Uber

Regulator Transport for London (TfL) refused to grant a new license for Uber when it came up for renewal in September, 2017, citing a number of problems, including its approach to reporting serious criminal offenses to the police.

The ridesharing company can continue to operate until its appeal is heard in the spring, and this week it announced changes to its service that it says improves safety for both riders and drivers.

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Qualcomm’s ‘Always On’ PCs are coming to T-Mobile and AT&T

Matt Smith/Digital Trends

Qualcomm’s forthcoming LTE-enabled PCs are coming to a new set of U.S. phone carriers, adding T-Mobile, and AT&T to a growing list of vendors. At CES, Qualcomm already confirmed Sprint and Verizon would be offering access to the new PCs, adding T-Mobile and AT&T to the list completes the set for Qualcomm. That means every major U.S. phone carrier will offer Qualcomm’s new ultra-mobile laptops as early as this year.

“Consumers around the world will be able to experience firsthand how the Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered Always Connected PC are designed to bring the best smartphone features to their PC,” Don McGuire, Qualcomm’s vice president of Global Product Marketing, said in a statement.

In addition to the new carriers, Qualcomm revealed a couple new retailers which will be offering the Always On PCs online and at  brick-and-mortar locations nationwide. First up, the Always On PCs will be available on Amazon starting this calendar quarter and you will also be able to find them at physical Microsoft Stores.

“Our collaboration together with Microsoft has continued to build momentum for the Always Connected PC category,” McGuire continued. “With the growing list of commitments from leading mobile operators worldwide, Snapdragon-powered Always Connected PCs are engineered to offer consumers a compelling and powerful mobile computing experience, with instant-on capability, always-on connectivity and ‘beyond all-day’ battery life in innovative, thin and light designs.”

Qualcomm first announced its Always On PCs in late 2017, promising a new generation of laptop computing. Qualcomm touted the upcoming laptops, developed in partnership with Microsoft, as mobile workstations which behave more like smartphones than laptops. These new Always On, or Always Connected PCs all feature 24/7 LTE connectivity and due to their ultra-low-power Qualcomm processors, they’re set to feature battery life that could eclipse anything currently available in a standard laptop.

We’re still waiting for this new generation of laptops to hit store shelves, but recently Microsoft leaked a comprehensive list detailing precisely how they differ from their traditional laptop counterparts. Unfortunately, Microsoft was quick to backpedal and take down the leaked list of limitations, but if you’re curious about how Qualcomm’s PCs stack up to their competitors, we have the goods.

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Wear your keyboard like a pair of brass knuckles with Tap Strap

In the near future, you may not need to touch your phone, tablet, or keyboard when you want to type. That’s the concept behind the Tap Strap, a wearable Bluetooth keyboard that converts finger movements into keypresses, so you can tap out messages using any surface as a virtual keyboard.

Don’t expect a visual prompt, or some laser-projected keyboard to guide you. It’s all done using gestures. You start by putting on the Tap Strap. It slides over your fingers like a glove and is made from a soft smart-fabric that has sensors inside to analyze finger movements. It can go on either hand, or you can wear two for faster two-handed typing.

Tapping with each finger will see a character or number appear on the screen, and it’s possible to punctuate and insert special characters using different gestures. While Tap Systems, the company behind the Tap Strap, hasn’t said exactly how it works, a Bloomberg report says a single tap from each of your five fingers translates into a vowel, and combinations add consonants.

There are apparently 31 possible finger taps, and although an accuracy of 99 percent is promised, we expect a strong predictive text element to play a part of the Tap Strap’s typing skills. Most people struggle to remember more than a handful of gestures, let alone 31. Tap Systems sees the Tap Strap as an alternative to voice control, emphasizing the privacy aspect of using gestures to type messages as one of its major benefits.

Bluetooth connectivity

The Tap Strap connects using Bluetooth and therefore should operate with almost any mobile device, but the real advantage here could be for use with VR headsets. Anyone who has tried typing on the Gear VR — where you must look at each individual character on the screen — will know how laborious the process can be. Wear the Tap Strap, and you could tap out commands on your leg. It also negates the problem of how to type on a smartwatch’s small screen and is already compatible with smart TVs, Windows and Mac OS X, plus Android and iOS devices.

Its use goes beyond virtual keyboard control, and Tap Systems founder Ran Poliakine envisages it being used for playing music on digital devices and being incorporated into mixed reality hardware such as Microsoft’s HoloLens headset. To promote the Tap Strap’s multiple uses, a development kit and a reference design will be available to developers and hardware manufacturers.

If you’ve heard Poliakine’s name before, it’s because he also founded Powermat Technologies, one of the companies still battling for wireless charging supremacy.

Tap Strap is now shipping to those that pre-ordered it. Those that didn’t can get it for themselves for $150 at the Tap Strap website.

Updated February 21: The Tap Strap is now shipping to pre-orders and available for purchase.

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Wear your keyboard like a pair of brass knuckles with Tap Strap

In the near future, you may not need to touch your phone, tablet, or keyboard when you want to type. That’s the concept behind the Tap Strap, a wearable Bluetooth keyboard that converts finger movements into keypresses, so you can tap out messages using any surface as a virtual keyboard.

Don’t expect a visual prompt, or some laser-projected keyboard to guide you. It’s all done using gestures. You start by putting on the Tap Strap. It slides over your fingers like a glove and is made from a soft smart-fabric that has sensors inside to analyze finger movements. It can go on either hand, or you can wear two for faster two-handed typing.

Tapping with each finger will see a character or number appear on the screen, and it’s possible to punctuate and insert special characters using different gestures. While Tap Systems, the company behind the Tap Strap, hasn’t said exactly how it works, a Bloomberg report says a single tap from each of your five fingers translates into a vowel, and combinations add consonants.

There are apparently 31 possible finger taps, and although an accuracy of 99 percent is promised, we expect a strong predictive text element to play a part of the Tap Strap’s typing skills. Most people struggle to remember more than a handful of gestures, let alone 31. Tap Systems sees the Tap Strap as an alternative to voice control, emphasizing the privacy aspect of using gestures to type messages as one of its major benefits.

Bluetooth connectivity

The Tap Strap connects using Bluetooth and therefore should operate with almost any mobile device, but the real advantage here could be for use with VR headsets. Anyone who has tried typing on the Gear VR — where you must look at each individual character on the screen — will know how laborious the process can be. Wear the Tap Strap, and you could tap out commands on your leg. It also negates the problem of how to type on a smartwatch’s small screen and is already compatible with smart TVs, Windows and Mac OS X, plus Android and iOS devices.

Its use goes beyond virtual keyboard control, and Tap Systems founder Ran Poliakine envisages it being used for playing music on digital devices and being incorporated into mixed reality hardware such as Microsoft’s HoloLens headset. To promote the Tap Strap’s multiple uses, a development kit and a reference design will be available to developers and hardware manufacturers.

If you’ve heard Poliakine’s name before, it’s because he also founded Powermat Technologies, one of the companies still battling for wireless charging supremacy.

Tap Strap is now shipping to those that pre-ordered it. Those that didn’t can get it for themselves for $150 at the Tap Strap website.

Updated February 21: The Tap Strap is now shipping to pre-orders and available for purchase.

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Wear your keyboard like a pair of brass knuckles with Tap Strap

In the near future, you may not need to touch your phone, tablet, or keyboard when you want to type. That’s the concept behind the Tap Strap, a wearable Bluetooth keyboard that converts finger movements into keypresses, so you can tap out messages using any surface as a virtual keyboard.

Don’t expect a visual prompt, or some laser-projected keyboard to guide you. It’s all done using gestures. You start by putting on the Tap Strap. It slides over your fingers like a glove and is made from a soft smart-fabric that has sensors inside to analyze finger movements. It can go on either hand, or you can wear two for faster two-handed typing.

Tapping with each finger will see a character or number appear on the screen, and it’s possible to punctuate and insert special characters using different gestures. While Tap Systems, the company behind the Tap Strap, hasn’t said exactly how it works, a Bloomberg report says a single tap from each of your five fingers translates into a vowel, and combinations add consonants.

There are apparently 31 possible finger taps, and although an accuracy of 99 percent is promised, we expect a strong predictive text element to play a part of the Tap Strap’s typing skills. Most people struggle to remember more than a handful of gestures, let alone 31. Tap Systems sees the Tap Strap as an alternative to voice control, emphasizing the privacy aspect of using gestures to type messages as one of its major benefits.

Bluetooth connectivity

The Tap Strap connects using Bluetooth and therefore should operate with almost any mobile device, but the real advantage here could be for use with VR headsets. Anyone who has tried typing on the Gear VR — where you must look at each individual character on the screen — will know how laborious the process can be. Wear the Tap Strap, and you could tap out commands on your leg. It also negates the problem of how to type on a smartwatch’s small screen and is already compatible with smart TVs, Windows and Mac OS X, plus Android and iOS devices.

Its use goes beyond virtual keyboard control, and Tap Systems founder Ran Poliakine envisages it being used for playing music on digital devices and being incorporated into mixed reality hardware such as Microsoft’s HoloLens headset. To promote the Tap Strap’s multiple uses, a development kit and a reference design will be available to developers and hardware manufacturers.

If you’ve heard Poliakine’s name before, it’s because he also founded Powermat Technologies, one of the companies still battling for wireless charging supremacy.

Tap Strap is now shipping to those that pre-ordered it. Those that didn’t can get it for themselves for $150 at the Tap Strap website.

Updated February 21: The Tap Strap is now shipping to pre-orders and available for purchase.

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Click around sweet 3D Facebook posts as update adds more VR to News Feed

Virtual reality content isn’t just for Facebook Camera anymore. On Tuesday, February 20, Facebook added support for the GITF 2.0 file format — which means more interactive 3D posts are coming straight to your News Feed. The change brings more detailed interactive posts that allow users to scroll around in a 360 view of an object, all without leaving the News Feed.

Facebook announced 3D compatibility on the News Feed last fall, but the latest update adds support for an industry-standard file format. This format, Faceboook says, allows for more detailed interactive graphics to enter the News Feed, including 3D art that includes texture and lighting effects. Inside the News Feed, the more detailed 3D posts can be explored by tapping or clicking to explore every angle of the graphic.

Besides just the cool factor, the 3D posts open up potential real-world uses made possible by exploring the graphic from any angle. Wayfair, for example, has already used the new feature to allow Facebook fans to see furniture from every angle.

With the updated file format support, tech companies are already launching ways to use the new format. Sony has made the Xperia XZ1 3D Creator App scans compatible and Modo, a modeling software, has already built-in a Facebook-ready file feature. Facebook’s own Oculus Medium now allows users to share objects from the web gallery. Facebook is updating the GRAPH API to allow third-party apps to build the new format into their programs, so the number of 3D programs that can share to Facebook in-app will likely grow.

Facebook says the latest file format support is just the beginning — the social media giant is already discussing support for higher-quality 3D as well as mixing those 3D objects into the real world using augmented reality. “In the future, we envision a seamless digital world where people can share immersive experiences and objects like these across VR, AR and Facebook News Feed,” Facebook’s Aykud Gonen wrote on Facebook’s developer blog. “To get there, we’ll work on supporting even higher-quality 3D models, enabling interactive animations and bringing 3D content into the real world using AR. This is only the beginning, and we look forward to seeing the ecosystem of 3D content grow on Facebook as people, developers and artists contribute their creativity.”

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