Fouad joined the show from Nexa and we talked about the tech that has caught our attention this week.
Is this the dream team of tech?
Yea he is a tech geek!
The Show notes and links.
Back From the Mobile World Congress WOW!
- Some good free visual content tools.
2. 22 snap tricks this is cool
3. Start creating virtual reality content!
For VR content, males over 35 years old gravitate to virtual tourism. Many (48%) females in the same age group try headsets at home, often using a family member’s device. Female millennials are most engaged when content features their favorite celebrities and artists (24%).
In terms of money, VR hardware, software and services will combine for a total of $5 billion globally, with projections to more than double next year.
As a breakdown, global VR hardware revenue is expected to hit $3.6 billion this year, up 142% over last year. Virtual reality revenue from software is another story, increasing to just over $1 billion, with North American sales accounting for almost half of that.
Longer term, virtual reality software is expected to reach $20 billion by 2020, surpassing hardware earnings for the first time.
Augmented reality is expected to stay flat in revenue this year, with the decreasing sales of Pokémon Go, which accounted for 96% of all AR software revenue in 2016.
As might be expected, millennials make up the majority (63%) of virtual reality consumers in the U.S.
The key is that the overall market has no signs of slowing.
VR and AR revenue is projected to reach $68 billion three years from now. And that’s not in virtual dollars.
4. Smart glasses that act as a monitor!
Samsung is showcasing four new augmented reality and virtual reality concepts this week at Mobile World Congress in Spain.
The concepts were designed at Samsung’s C-Lab as future products that could be realized within the next four years.
The concepts range from a system that connects smart glasses to content to one to help visualize what furniture might look like in a home.
One of the concepts, called Monitorless, comprises glasses that can pair wirelessly to a smartphone and computer to display the screen content from the devices on the glasses as a HUD (Heads-Up Display). The glasses can function as an augmented reality device, allowing the user to see the real-world along with the content being displayed, or as a virtual reality device, blocking out the real-world view.
The glasses use electrochromic glass for the lenses, enabling this functionality, according to Samsung. Electrochromic glass, also referred to as ‘smart glass,’ can change its opacity from transparent to blocking light transmission. Samsung refers to blocking light transmission through the lenses as virtual reality, but the glasses appear to not function as an immersive VR headset.
The glasses pair to a smartphone using Wi-Fi Direct and the smartphone pairs to the computer using 4G LTE, according to Samsung. As a result, the idea is for the computing power to remain on the computer, but stream the content to the glasses through the phone. With the 4G LTE connection, the phone can also then act as a touch input device with the computer in real-time, while the screen content is displayed on the glasses from the smartphone.
One example use case of this would be playing a computing-intensive game. In that case, the computer would do the processing for the game, the smartphone would act as a touch-based controller and the game would be displayed on the glasses.
5. Why we all need a USB firewall!
More than likely, your computer automatically trusts any USB device that’s plugged into it. Hackers can use malicious code that’s injected to the USB’s drivers that will compromise a system.
In the case of the Stuxnet virus that temporarily sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program, it was brought into Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility on a thumb drive by an Isreali double agent. Russia was able to break into a classified network by distributing virus-filled USB drives at retail kiosks around NATO headquarters in Kabul. Eventually, the right employee bought one and plugged it into the system that was completely unconnected to the internet.
Not everyone is running a classified server or a nuclear program, so a USB firewall might be a bit of overkill for some. But who hasn’t bought a cheap thumb drive in a hurry. That thing could be loaded with bad programs that you’ll never notice and is feeding your personal info to outside party.
Antivirus scanners cannot detect BadUSB because there is no virus to detect. Malicious USB commands reach directly into your USB driver stack, exploiting your computer before file-based scanners realise anything happened.
You can protect yourself from BadUSB by using virtualised operating systems such as Qubes. But the USG is the only plug-and-play BadUSB protection that does not require you to switch operating systems. It can even protect your legacy and embedded systems running out-of-date software...
The USG contains two STM32F4 microprocessors communicating over a high-speed serial link. This internal link forms a firewall barrier that effectively blocks malicious USB commands from reaching your computer.
Why should you trust this device? You shouldn’t! Trust nothing. But while, Fisk is selling them for 60 bucks a pop, the project is open source. You can know exactly what’s going on under the hood, and build it yourself. Or maybe there’s an IT guy at work that could help out. The project also comes recommended by Jamie Zawinski, a veteran programmer who has contributed to Mozilla, XEmacs, and early versions of the Netscape Navigator.
Whether it’s this project that catches on or an improved version of the same concept, USB firewalls are a thing that needs to happen.
6. iPhone 8 may be huge and expensive!
7. Sony Experia Touch!
8. Samsung Galaxy Book, wow!
10 app overlay INSERT
https://www.insert.io/
11. 5G
-go to the end!
4G simply cannot deliver an uninterrupted, lag-free experience. The fifth gen of mobile tech is being built out so it can send massive amounts of data with little downtime in between, allowing the notion of video displaying wearables to become more of a reality.
5G will be "the equivalent on what the browser did for the internet," Mr. Sherrard added. "I really think it is going to explode with IoT and all kinds of other things and innovation we haven't even imagined yet. When you get people out there working on new tech, and creating new content and integrating it into our lives in new ways, I feel we're all going to be surprised by it."
One of the very coolest things we spoke about in this hour were Flir and the iPhone camera, this is infrared tech that I really want to give a try.
Super easy and useful, FLIR.
And this app overlay.
Really this may be the best APP tool we saw at MWC17.
