US Defence Contractor in Talks To Take Over NSO Group’s Hacking Technology

The US defence contractor L3Harris is in talks to take over NSO Group’s surveillance technology, in a possible deal that would give an American company control over one of the world’s most sophisticated and controversial hacking tools. From a report: Multiple sources confirmed that discussions were centred on a sale of the Israeli company’s core technology â” or code â” as well as a possible transfer of NSO personnel to L3Harris. But any agreement still faces significant hurdles, including requiring the blessing of the US and Israeli governments, which have not yet given the green light to a deal. In a statement, a senior White House official said: “Such a transaction, if it were to take place, raises serious counterintelligence and security concerns for the US government.” If agreed, the deal would mark an astounding turnaround for NSO, less than a year after the Biden administration placed the company on a US blacklist and accused it of acting “contrary to the foreign policy and national security interests of the US.”

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Jack Dorsey’s TBD Announces Web3 Competitor: Web5

Jack Dorsey’s beef with Web3 has never been a secret. In his view, Web 3 — blockchain boosters’ dream of a censorship resistant, privacy-focused internet of the future — has become just as problematic as the Web2 which preceded it. Now, he’s out with an alternative. From a report: At CoinDesk’s Consensus Festival here in Austin, TBD — the bitcoin-focused subsidiary of Dorsey’s Block (SQ) — announced its new vision for a decentralized internet layer on Friday. Its name? Web5. TBD explained its pitch for Web5 in a statement shared with CoinDesk: “Identity and personal data have become the property of third parties. Web5 brings decentralized identity and data storage to individual’s applications. It lets devs focus on creating delightful user experiences, while returning ownership of data and identity to individuals.”

While the new project from TBD was announced Friday, it is still under open-source development and does not have an official release date. A play on the Web3 moniker embraced in other corners of the blockchain space, Web5 is built on the idea that incumbent “decentralized internet” contenders are going about things the wrong way. Appearing at a Consensus panel clad in a black and bitcoin-yellow track suit emblazoned with the numeral 5, TBD lead Mike Brock explained that Web5 — in addition to being “two better than Web3” — would beat out incumbent models by abandoning their blockchain-centric approaches to a censorship free, identity-focused web experience. “This is really a conversation about what technologies are built to purpose, and I don’t think that renting block space, in all cases, is a really good idea for decentralized applications,” Brock said. He continued: “I think what we’re pushing forward with Web5 — and I admit it’s a provocative challenge to a lot of the assumptions about what it means to decentralize the internet — really actually is back to basics. We already have technologies that effectively decentralize. I mean, bittorrent exists, Tor exists, [etc].” The full presentation is here.

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Concept Touchscreen Uses Temperature To Create Feel of Friction

Researchers at Texas A&M have come up with a novel way for touchscreens to feel more than just perfectly smooth by fooling a user’s sense of touch through temperature changes. Gizmodo reports: In a recently published paper in the Science Robotics journal, they found that by regulating the temperature of the surface of a touchscreen, they can increase or decrease the amount of friction a finger feels like it’s experiencing. The sensation of friction can be increased by as much as 50% by increasing a touchscreen’s surface temperature from 23 degrees Celsius to 42 degrees Celsius, while the actual temperature changes are imperceptible to the user, assuming they’re sticking to taps or quick swipe gestures on the screen.

The current prototypes don’t facilitate temperature adjustments in fine detail, but the eventual goal is to be able to manipulate and quickly change the temperature on any region of a touchscreen so that as a finger is sliding across it the changes in friction that are felt fool the brain into thinking it’s feeling physical buttons like keyboards, playback controls, even joysticks and action buttons for gaming.

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Samsung Submits Patent Application On a Rollable Smartwatch With a Camera

According to recently-submitted patent application spotted by LetsGoDigital, Samsung may be working on a rollable smartwatch equipped with a camera and two separate displays. PhoneArena reports: The device looks like a regular Galaxy Watch with a display that features two parts on the top and bottom of the screen that can be expanded both independently or simultaneously. The watch also is equipped with a camera located in the middle portion between the two “rollable” portions of the display that can take photos and record videos.Besides optional sensors that could be built into the watch, a flash also could be part of the watch’s photography system.

A patent titled “Electronic device comprising rollable display and display method therefor” was submitted to the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) on June 2, 2021. To expand the watch display, the user presses the crown on the side of the watch. When fully opened the screen is 40% larger than the size when closed. The screen can also be expanded or reduced by making a swiping gesture across the display. When fully opened, the rollable Galaxy smartwatch has an oval shape allowing for additional content to appear. The user can decide whether he wants one side extended or both sides. This can also depend on a particular app being used. The large portion of the display (the part extended) could show the app while the part that is not extended can show the app controls.

As Lets Go Digital points out, the timepiece depicted in the patent is not the first to offer a flexible screen. That honor goes to the Nubia Alpha which was worn on the wrist but featured a long bendable display. The device featured a camera that could allow users to take part in a video chat, and also could make or take phone calls, get the time, set alarms, and more.

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