Facebook Smartwatch May Release Next Year; To Feature Two Cameras

Earlier in February, we saw reports that say Facebook may be working on a smartwatch of its own. New reports provide more details on what this wearable may entail, as well as when it may be released. And it’s not anytime soon, to be sure.

The Verge reports that the smartwatch by Facebook will come with a detachable display. This display will also come with two cameras . Detaching the module will then let users take pictures and videos, Naturally, you’ll be able to upload them to the company’s many platforms, including Instagram. It may also come with LTE connectivity for this purpose, so that it can work without a phone.

One camera will sit in front, the way a front-facing camera on a phone will. This one exists mostly for video calls, which probably means a lower resolution. Another sits at the back of the module, allowing for 1080p recording with auto-focus. Facebook will also be working with other companies to make accessories to allow the module to be attached to things like backpacks. Which makes it sound like an action cam.

The Verge reports that the smartwatch by Facebook will come with a detachable display. This display will also come with two cameras . Detaching the module will then let users take pictures and videos, Naturally, you’ll be able to upload them to the company’s many platforms, including Instagram. It may also come with LTE connectivity for this purpose, so that it can work without a phone.

One camera will sit in front, the way a front-facing camera on a phone will. This one exists mostly for video calls, which probably means a lower resolution. Another sits at the back of the module, allowing for 1080p recording with auto-focus. Facebook will also be working with other companies to make accessories to allow the module to be attached to things like backpacks. Which makes it sound like an action cam.

The report also states that this is the social media company’s plan to circumvent Apple and Google, going straight to users. Which also goes to explain why, despite it being a smartwatch, the detachable module behaves quite like a dumbed down smartphone.

Facebook is also reportedly already working on second and third generations of the device. Which sounds like the company is confident of its success. But the first generation will not be seeing the light of day until some time in summer 2022.

Kaspersky Says 2020 Most Productive Year For Ransomware 2.0 In Asia Pacific

It’s no surprise that you’ve been hearing about a lot more ransomware attacks lately. Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky confirmed a significant increase in Ransomware 2.0 attacks in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region last year.

Ransomware 2.0 refers to the hacker shift from locking data to stealing data and holding it for ransom. “2020 was the most productive year for ransomware families who moved from hostaging data to exfiltrating data, coupled with blackmailing,” said Kaspersky Lead Malware Analyst Alexey Shulmin.

He added, “In APAC, we noticed an interesting re-emergence of two highly-active groups, REvil and JSWorm. Both resurfaced as the pandemic raged in the region last year and we see no signs of them stopping anytime soon.”

REvil, in particular, has achieved quite a bit of infamy in the last few months. The hacker group reportedly claimed they breached Acer and demanded from the company the largest known ransom ever of US$50 million (~RM205.6 million). Separately, it was reported that REvil ransomware can apparently change Windows passwords and then automate a system’s file encryption via Safe Mode.

Kaspersky noted that, back in 2019, REvil hackers mostly targeted victims in the Asia Pacific – particularly in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. Last year, however, the cybersecurity firm detected the group’s presence in almost all countries and territories.

According to Kaspersky, the biggest chunk of REvil’s industrial targets falls under the Engineering and Manufacturing category (30%) followed by Finance (14%) and Professional and Consumer Services (9%).

Steam Hinted To Port Games Over To Consoles Later This Year

 

There’s a chance that Steam, Valve’s popular digital storefront on PC, might be porting its exclusives to video game consoles later in 2021. This was hinted, albeit vaguely, by none other than the company’s president Gabe Newell a few days back during a talk at Sancta Maria College in Auckland, New Zealand.

“You will have a better idea of that by the end of this year,” Newell replied when asked by a student if Steam would be porting games to consoles. Seeing that the PlayStation 4 being the only console to feature virtual reality capabilities via its PSVR peripheral, it could be possible for Valve to port Half-Life: Alyx over to it. That, or to the PS5 since Sony had recently teased the next iteration of its virtual reality system for the new console.

It’s also worth noting that earlier in January, Newell revealed that several newer games are currently being worked on by his company. Although no further details were shared in regards to this, he did mention that Valve will announce them eventually. That being said, Newell’s response to the student’s question could be referring to these upcoming yet unannounced games, which may see a multi-platform release.

There’s also a long-shot speculation from others who believe that Valve might also bring its Steam digital storefront to consoles. However, such a move is quite unlikely and wouldn’t make sense as video game consoles feature their own closed stores such as Nintendo sShop, PlayStation Store, and the Microsoft Store on Xbox consoles.

Regardless, we’ll only find out what Valve actually has in store for home video game consoles in late 2021.

Pfizer COVID-19 Antiviral Pill Could Be Ready By The End of This Year

Pfizer’s new oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19 could be made available by the end of this year according to its Chairman and CEO, Albert Bourla. The American pharma company has already begun the Phase 1 trial for the antiviral treatment in the United States since early this year.

Speaking to CNBC’s Squawk Box, Albert pointed out that the oral medication which is currently being designated as antiviral candidate PF-07321332 could be used at home. This is unlike the traditional vaccine injection which needs to be administered at a hospital or a specially designated location.

Pfizer has previously noted that the new oral antiviral medication is essentially a protease inhibitor which is a type of drug that has also been used to treat HIV and hepatitis C virus. Designed to stop the SARS-CoV-2 virus from replicating itself, research has shown that the new medication not only has the potential to be used as COVID-19 treatment but also for future coronaviruses.

When asked whether the Malaysian government will procure the new COVID-19 antiviral pill from Pfizer, Minister Khairy Jamaluddin who is the coordinator of the National COVID-19 Immunisation Programme said during the COVID-19 Immunisation Task Force’s media session yesterday that the government is constantly evaluating all new vaccine candidates. But for now, Malaysia already has enough vaccine to cover 110% of its population according to the minister.

AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution Reportedly Set To Debut Later This Year

AMD’s RDNA2 GPU architecture has been around for exactly half a year now, with its Radeon RX 6000 series lineup very recently welcoming the RX 6700XT to the fold. But for all its real-tracing capabilities, its FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) supersampling technology – basically, AMD’s answer to NVIDIA’s DLSS – is still nowhere to be seen.

Well, it seems that we not have to wait much longer, if the words of Scott Herkelman, vice president of AMD’s Graphics Business Unit, are to be believed. During an interview with PC World, Herkelman said that internal development of FSR is progressing very well and that he and his team were currently evaluating its upscaling algorithm. More to the point, Herkelman also hints at the possibility that FSR should be out and about for Radeon enthusiasts by this year. Although, when exactly was left ambiguous.

Real-time ray-tracing first came on to the scene when NVIDIA introduced RTX with its Turing GPU architecture back in 2018. While it makes games that support the feature look far prettier visually, it still puts a considerable amount of strain on the graphics card. In order to alleviate this, the GPU maker launched its Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS, along with RTX. For the uninitiated, DLSS is an anti-aliasing technology that utilises NVIDIA’s Deep Neural Network (DNN), which upscales games from lower to higher resolutions. All while preserving details that would normally appear in the latter with the help of AI.

As we said at the start of this article, AMD finally jumped on to the ray-tracing bandwagon with its Radeon RX 6000 series, but unlike NVIDIA, the feature was not escorted with its own upscaling technology at the time.

One other interesting point Herkelman made during the virtual meeting was that, unlike NVIDIA’s Turing and Ampere cards, AMD’s FSR would necessarily be based on machine learning. In other words, FSR has the potential of working with 1st generation RDNA cards, as well as RDNA2 cards. To that end, we’ll just have to wait until we get to test out the feature.