Sky Launches Sky VR Studio

Dedicated Virtual Reality Production Unit – Sky VR Studio

It has been reported by Sky that they have begun making some of the programming in VR stating playfully that we would be seeing this year around 20 pieces of VR content. The first bits of virtual reality filming would be released on Friday by Sky, featuring a pits-eye view of Formula 1 testing just in time for the start of the season in Barcelona. Sky had been in virtual reality for some time now.

It had invested in Jaunt VR in September of last year and since then had been filming some VR footage. A very popular behind the scene footage of The Hobbit had been shown at the premiere of the film, last year. Presently, Sky is making attempts in taking its VR commitment further with dedicated virtual reality production unit known as Sky VR Studio which is led by executive produce Neil Graham.

A website was permitted early access to Sky’s first batch of VR footage on a Samsung Gear VR and it’s impressive. Sky will not go in for static VR shots though would actually offer movement. Few of the footage had been taken by a journalist moving around the pit area, coming close to the car action and other shots were on the car itself.

Sky – A Reason for Investing

Other footage was more grounded and portrayed how virtual reality could bring one closer to places one may not actually want to be though should experience them. Neil Graham, while speaking at the launch of Sky VR had explained that due to Sky’s investment in Jaunt, he had early access to VR cameras, leading to the first VR piece that had been filmed in New Zealand.

Graham stated that when they got the prototype camera, he quickly spoke to Warners and all involved and managed to quickly experiment with filming a documentary on The Hobbit.He further informed that they had the opportunity where they could show the film a week thereafter at the premiere of the final Hobbit movie. With the creation of the camera technology together with the headsets made available, it would mean that Sky has a reason for investing in a proper production unit with internal as well as external folks

Need to Populate VR with Mind Blowing Content

Director Richard Nockles, is one of those who have been brought inwho seems to be too dedicated to VR wherein he has also shot the birth of his second child in VR. Graham goes on to explain that Richard would be joining a VR creative director meaning that they can create a new content for VR.

He added further that Sky is uniquely place and that they have always been looking at new ways to get content, there is access to movies, TV and sport and there is a need to populate VR with mind blowing content. Regarding what footage will we see, Sky is dedicated in creating 20 pieces this year with the F1 footage which is the first part of the batch and the footage would be made available from Friday on YouTube 360, the Oculus Rift Store and Facebook’s 360 Video platforms.

Though Sky would ultimately look into developing its own app for this footage and is anticipating in offering additional footage than assured, Graham seems to be realistic on how much they could do.

Xolo Era X: Pocket Friendly Phone With 4G Support

Xolo, a subsidiary of Lava mobiles, is an Indian smartphone brand that has been creating ripples in the Indian mobile market. It was the first company to produce an Android based phone equipped with an Intel processor. The company has launched Android as well as Windows smartphones. Recently, the company also developed its own user interface for Android based smartphones. The brand’s latest offering is Xolo Era X. If you have been searching for a budget-friendly phone with decent features and performance, here’s why you should check out this phone:

Camera

One of the most important aspects for a customer purchasing a smartphone is camera. This is because more and more people are using only their phones to capture images. Those days are now a history when people were required to carry a camera with them everywhere to shoot images. All thanks to the rising fame of camera phones, they are definitely in vogue. For the price tag at which Xolo Era X is available at, it has more than decent camera specs. It has an 8 mega pixel rear camera equipped with auto focus and flash. There are different modes and features like smile detection, burst mode, audio note, panorama, location capture and more. The front camera has 5 mega pixels and flash too so that you can capture bright images even in low light conditions. Indulge in Amazon promotional codes to purchase this phone with the added benefit of Cashback.

Performance

There are numerous tasks being done via a smartphone today such as shooting images, accessing various apps, storing notes, storing files, playing games, watching movies, texting and so much more. This fast paced era has made “multi-tasking” the need of the hour. A user expects the same from a smartphone. Xolo Era X is powered by 1.5GHz ARM Cortex A-7 quad core processor and 2GB RAM so that you can enjoy a smooth performance here. You will be able to switch on and off between different apps and multi-task easily on this handset. It runs on Android Lollipop v5.1 and can be upgraded to Android Marshmallow v 6.0.

Display and design

Xolo Era X is a 5 inch HD IPS display phone. It has a protection of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to provide protection against everyday scratches.It also adds to the durability factor. It also comes with an inbuilt K-class amplifier and box speakers to enhance your listening experience. Avail offers for Paytm present on CashKaro to buy Xolo phones at discounted prices with the advantage of Cashback offers.

Memory

With so much being done via a smartphone today, there’s also a lot of data being stored on it. Be it pictures or music, movies or games, apps or notes; there’s an ever-rising need for storage capacity. Xolo Era X has an internal capacity of 8GB which can be further expanded up to 32 GB using a micro SD card.

Superior speed

You can bid goodbye to slow internet speed with Xolo Era X! Enjoy browsing on web, downloading files and quality audio/video with the superior 4G VoLTE technology.

Battery

Xolo Era X is backed up by a 2500 mAh battery which provides talk time of 16 hours 43 minutes on 2G. On 3G, it offers 10 hours 35 minutes. So you can be assured of not holding a dead battery phone at the end of the day, provided you are not a heavy user.

Xolo Era X sure seems a good choice for people who want a good camera performance with decent specs without breaking their bank. It is priced at Rs 5,777.

Spies can steal objects by recording the sound of a 3D printer

Industrial espionage isn’t a new thing rather it has been going for ages since the old age. Over the years the technological advancement has opened up a new frontier for the industrial spies to discreetly spy over the industries secrets without even being there. Researchers have discovered that industrial spies can easily and accurately steal the 3D objects by simply recording the sound produced by the 3D printer when printing such objects.

University of California shows the method of reversing the work done by 3D printer

University of California researchers have shown a simple yet mind blowing method which reverse engineers the 3D design by carefully analyzing the vibrations made a 3D printer. Industrial spies are likely to perform the same trick to get hold of 3D objects by using this very method for their own end.

Shedding more light on this research the director of the UCI’s Adavanced Integrated Cyber Physical Systems Lab, Mohammand Al Faruque, said that industrial spies can even make use of the smartphone to record the vibrations made by the 3D printer to develop their own 3D object.

Researchers had made the use of recording wherein data recorded included things like how a 3D printer parts move and the very same logic can be used recreating the 3D objects with an accuracy of almost 90% which is more than enough to know what is being created.

3D print theft are becoming more commonplace

Over the years 3D print theft signs have been raised throughout the globe but this research will only help in cementing the idea of 3D print theft more convincingly. The losses incurred due to this kind of cybercrime are relatively small or not much known about it at the present.

Another point which doesn’t go positive with the thought of rampant 3D print theft without getting under the radar is that 3D file come heavily encrypted. But some of the system has been developed which can be used to unscramble and remove the encryptions from the 3D files with ease and simplicity. Companies can invest huge amount in securing the printing networks but it is not possible to protect the vibrations and sound made by the 3D printers.

This research turns head of the US agencies

Following the publication of the results of this research some of the US agencies and other researchers had shown active interest in the possible 3D thefts. Al Faruque has stated that the prospects of the 3D printing theft technology can be used in the surveillance and military sector which will help in making the 3D printer networks much more secure and better than before.

Researchers have concluded that 3D printer manufacturers should use some precautionary measures like adding white noises or some other distant and random vibration in order thwart the likelihood of 3D printing theft. Furthermore companies should also term the 3D printing machine zones as the ‘no smartphone’ zone which will help in minimizing the 3D print theft to a great extent.

Soundcloud has Signed a Licensing Deal With Sony Music

SoundCloud - Licensing Deal Signed with Sony Music

According to sources with information of the situation, licensing deal has been signed with Sony Music by SoundCloud, providing its deals with all three main labels, making way for the subscription service it had scheduled to launch later this year. It is said that Sony Music would be getting equity from SoundCloud in the deal.

As per the agreement SoundCloud will give access to Sony Music artists comprising of Beyoncé, The Weeknd, Future, Calvin Harris, Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Miguel and Justin Timberlake. The streaming music service intends to launch a paid subscription plan and a source close to the situation informed that the deals SoundCloud had struck with the majors does not permit it to build a full on-demand service akin to Spotify or Apple Music.

It is said that SoundCloud has already struck deals with Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group as well as Merlin, an independent network of labels; Sony Music had been the last holdout. But obtaining a deal with Sony Music had been challenging. According to Billboard, the label pulled its music of SoundCloud last year when the reports revealed that Sony Music had not been happy with the lack of monetization opportunities.

A Mid-Tier Service

Since the deal is done and SoundCloud has obtained the blessings of the music industry, it needs to figure out how to monetize the services without isolating the 175 million users who seemed to be using it without any cost.

 According to sources, it is said that the company seems to be serious regarding monetizing the service and one industry source has informed The Verge that they need to make this work if SoundCloud has a long term future. Initial discussions had SoundCloud’s paid offering at $10 a month when it launches later this year. There had also been talks of a mid-tier service which were priced less than that.

Together with the excess of songs which live only on SoundCloud already, SoundCloud tends to have an advantage over competing streaming services that largely offer the same music catalog. SoundCloud had refrained from commenting on rumours and Sony Music did not respond to request for comment.

Goal of Launching Subscription Tier

Sealing a related pact in January with No. 1 recording company Universal over its 2015 deal with Warner, Sony agreement seemed to the final obstacle between SoundCloud and its goal of launching a subscription tier. SoundCloud known as the YouTube for audio draws a great number of music listeners online though in the past it has annoyed the music due to its early reputation of being careless with regards to royalties.

SoundCloud had experienced some of the same industry tension which YouTube had encountered while it handled to manage unauthorised uploads of copyrighted material at a particular site where the users can upload their own sound files. This made it difficult for SoundCloud to repair deals together like Sony and Universal. But service’s growing popularity made it difficult for the music industry to tune out. SoundCloud presently has a limited advertising business and intends to introduce subscription services in the U.S. as well as other markets later in the year.

Adobe Issues Emergency Patch For Flash Bug

Adobe Issued Emergency Patch for Flash Media Player

Emergency patch for Flash media player had been issued by Adobe to close the loopholes in the most popularly used software. Adobe had mentioned in its security advisory, that they are aware of a report that an exploit for CVE-2016-1010 is being used in limited targeted attacks and the notice advised Flash users to install the update at the earliest. The patch in total closes 23 separate security bugs in Flash player.

Those invading the security holes would be in a position of overtaking a computer and steal valuable data or spy on the owner of the system. For updates, users need to apply the patch quickly since several of the problem related seems to be critical and of the highest level. The holes are found in Flash and in versions of the other Adobe programs utilised on several platforms and devices.

Those devices at risk comprise of Windows machines, Macs and Linus computers together with phone running Android and iOS. Several different security researches inclusive of experts at Alibaba, Kaspersky Labs, Google and Microsoft had alerted Adobe to the issue with its Flash player. Most of the security firms have suggested that users could uninstall the flash player in order to refrain from being victim to malicious attachments or booby-trapped webpages.

Recommended to Uninstall Flash/Java/Silverlight

The patch brings about the latest version of Flash to 21.0.0.182 for Windows and Mac and 11.2.202.577 for Linux. Readers are recommended to uninstall Flash, Java and Silverlight browser extensions to check if they are essential. For several individuals, it is not essential and the reduced attack surface had lowered the chances of being visited by remote code-execution attacks.

Those who tend to depend on Flash in order to access the intranet of a company or any other site should consider utilising a dedicated browser for the same. In an effort at preventing attackers, several of the web firms have now stopped using Flash. Recently most of the other companies had issued security patches and the update of Firefox closed 40 single susceptibilities, which were over half of those considered as critical.

Security Bulletin Released By Adobe

Besides, Google has also issued for Chrome an update which among others had closed three security holes considered as `high’ severity and paid bug bounties amounting to $13,000 to the two researchers who had exposed the loopholes. Microsoft had recently issued its steady monthly security update which had attempted 13 issues in various programs comprising of the Internet Explorer as well as Edge browsers.

A security bulletin APSB16-08 had been released by Adobe acknowledging Kaspersky Lab for reporting CVE-1015-1010. The exposure could probably enable an attacker to take control of the affected system. The researchers of Kaspersky Lab researchers observed the usage of this weakness in a limited number of target attacks.

Adobe had mentioned in a December statement that though standards such as HTML5 would be the web platform for the future for all devices, Flash tends to continue to be utilised in main categories like Web gaming as well as premium video wherein fresh standards would have to be fully mature.