sandbagger shares a report from The Register: FingerprintJS, maker of a browser-fingerprinting library for fraud prevention, on Thursday said it has identified a more dubious fingerprinting technique capable of generating a consistent identifier across different desktop browsers, including the Tor Browser. Konstantin Darutkin, senior software engineer at FingerprintJS, said in a blog post that the company has dubbed the privacy vulnerability "scheme flooding." The name refers to abusing custom URL schemes, which make web links like "skype://" or "slack://" prompt the browser to open the associated application. "The scheme flooding vulnerability allows an attacker to determine which applications you have installed," explains Darutkin. "In order to generate a 32-bit cross-browser device identifier, a website can test a list of 32 popular applications and check if each is installed or not."

Visiting the schemeflood.com site using a desktop (not mobile) browser and clicking on the demo will generate a flood of custom URL scheme requests using a pre-populated list of likely apps. A browser user would typically see a pop-up permission modal window that says something like, "Open Slack.app? A website wants to open this application. [canel] [Open Slack.app]." But in this case, the demo script just cancels if the app is present or reads the error as confirmation of the app's absence. It then displays the icon of the requested app if found, and moves on to its next query. The script uses each app result as a bit to calculate the identifier. The fact that the identifier remains consistent across different browsers means that cross-browser tracking is possible, which violates privacy expectations.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Back in 2018, researchers from Brigham Young University demonstrated a device called an Optical Trap Display that used lasers to create free-floating holographic images that don't need a display. That same team is now demonstrating a new technique that allows those holographic images to be animated: goodbye TVs, hello holodecks. Most 3D holograms require a special screen to be displayed, and even then the 3D effect is limited to a small field of view. Images genuinely look like they exist in 3D space, but step to the side and suddenly you see nothing at all. The approach taken by the researchers at Brigham Young University is radically different. Screens are replaced by lasers: an invisible one that manipulates a tiny opaque particle floating in the air, and a visible one that illuminates the particle with different colors as it travels through a pre-defined path, creating what appears to be a floating image to a human observer. Unlike the restricted viewing angle of traditional holograms, an observer can see these free-floating Optical Trap Display images from any angle and can walk all the way around them without the 3D effect disappearing because the floating images are actually drawn in 3D space.

Three years of improving the technology used in the Optical Trap Displays has now allowed the BYU researchers to take the effect to the next step with animations that play out in front of an observer's eyes in real-time. The team demonstrated the amazing effect with tiny recreations of Star Trek spaceships engaged in a mid-air photon torpedo battle (complete with simulated explosions that look like vector animations straight out of Tron) and even miniature versions of Obi-Wan and Darth Vader dueling with glowing lightsabers made from actual lasers. The researchers have even come up with ways to track the movements of a real-life object and make the free-floating holograms appear to interact with its movements, like an animated stick figure character walking across a human finger. Using optical tricks like playing with perspective and parallax motions, the holograms could even be made to appear much larger than they really are when projected in front of a pair of eyes, so there are some potentially interesting applications when it comes to making viable smart glasses.

Long-time Slashdot reader DesertNomad summarizes a report from EE Times: It's been known for a long time that the various Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) systems are easily jammed; the more "interesting" problem is the potential to spoof a GNSS signal and by spoofing use that to cause GNSS receivers to determine incorrect positions. The challenge lies in the observation that the navigation messages can be constructed by bad actors on the ground. Work going on for several years now has been to provide crypto signatures that have the potential to authenticate valid transmissions. Current commercial receivers can't take advantage of that, so there may be industry-wide needs to update the receiver devices.
"The vulnerability of the global positioning system, or GPS, is widely acknowledged..." reports EE Times: Spoofing creates all kinds of havoc. For example, it can be used to hijack autonomous vehicles and send them on alternate routes. Spoofing can alter the routes recorded by vehicle monitors, or break geofences used to guard operational areas. It also poses a risk to critical infrastructure, including power, telecommunication and transportation systems. Jan van Hees, business development and marketing director for GNSS receiver maker Septentrio, provided these analogies: "Jamming involves making so much noise that the [satellite signal] disappears. Spoofing is like a phishing attack on the signal."

The U.S. Coast Guard has recently tracked a growing number of high-profile incidents involving GPS interference. For example, the loss of GPS reception in Israeli ports in 2019 left GPS-guided autonomous cranes inoperable, collateral damage from the Syrian civil war. In 2016, more than 20 ships off the Crimean peninsula were thought to be the victim of a GPS spoofing attack which shifted the ships' positions on electronic chart displays to land.
The article recommends real-world auditing, testing, and risk assessment, adding that one pending fix is signal encryption "including a framework called open service navigation message authentication (OSNMA)." The OSNMA anti-spoofing service developed for the European GNSS system, enables secure transmissions from Galileo satellites to encryption-enabled GNSS receivers. In the midst of final testing, OSNMA will soon be available free to users... A secret key on the satellite is used to generate a digital signature. Both the signature and key are appended to navigation data and transmitted to the receiver. OSNMA is designed to be backward-compatible, so that positioning without OSNMA still works.

A potential class-action lawsuit will go forward for Apple's fragile 2016 MacBook Pro display cables. Judge Edward Davila ruled that "Apple should have known that they would fail and yet kept selling them anyhow," reports The Verge. It follows a recently-certified class action lawsuit for the MacBook Pro's infamous butterfly keyboards. From the report: "The court finds that the allegations of pre-release testing in combination with the allegations of substantial customer complaints are sufficient to show that Apple had exclusive knowledge of the alleged defect," the judge wrote. [The issue is] sometimes called the "stage light" issue because of how the cable damage would produce those dark spots.

Part of the flexgate controversy is around how Apple addressed the issue when it first got publicity in late 2018 -- first by silently swapping a new, slightly longer cable into newer MacBooks, and only opening up one of its typical free repair programs months after 15,000 users signed a petition and it was called out in the press. The company's been a lot more responsive with issues ever since, such as with this free battery replacement program for a small number of those 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro laptops that won't charge anymore. Unlike the butterfly keyboard suit, the flexgate one doesn't appear to be a certified class-action lawsuit yet -- but there are now nine different plaintiffs lined up in this single case, and the judge is inviting them to submit a new amended complaint.

An anonymous reader shares a report from Decrypt about BitClout, an ambitious decentralized social network that tokenizes Twitter personalities. Here's an excerpt from the report: At first glance, BitClout looks and feels like primitive mashup of Twitter and Robinhood, including a stream of messages and buttons to like or share what other people post. Anyone can create a profile and begin participating in the network by providing a phone number. But BitClout has already created 15,000 profiles based on popular Twitter personalities, including ones for Elon Musk and influencers in the cryptocurrency world -- all without asking anyone's permission. Diamondhands [the man behind BitClout who asked for anonymity even though his real identity is well known] says BitClout created the profiles to prevent impostors from creating fake accounts and squatting on them.

Every BitClout account is also tied to a "coin" that rises and falls in value depending on how many people use it. Anyone can follow a given account -- as they would on Twitter or Instagram -- but the coin means they can also own an asset that is hypothetically tied to the person's public reputation. "What you get to do is monetize yourself," says Diamondhands. "All the positive things you put out in the world will cause people to like you and buy your coin. You can monetize pent up enthusiasm for you, and let fans ride the rocket ship with you." BitClout users who feel inclined to being bought and sold in this way can create a profile to earn a portion of the coins associated with their image. In the case of those Twitter personalities whom BitClout already added to the platform, they can claim their profile (and a portion of the coins associated with it) by tweeting that they have joined the network -- a requirement that conveniently provides free marketing for BitClout. [...] A tracking site called BitClout Pulse has already sprung up to track the value of more popular coins.

BitClout's unusual twist on social networking extends beyond adding people without their permission. The project also stands out for its technical operations, which rely on dozens of autonomous blockchain-based nodes scattered around the world -- a very different architecture than Facebook or Twitter, which rely on centralized servers to keep their networks running. Every message or transaction is recorded to BitClout's blockchain, which Diamondhands describes vaguely as custom-built software similar to Bitcoin's, but with greater capacity for social networking functions. He says BitClout's code is open source and the team will soon publish it. All of this, says Diamondhands, will eventually lead to brand-name organizations hosting BitClout nodes that will display feeds tailored to various interests. For instance, he says, ESPN could run a node that displays a feed heavily populated with sports figures, while Politico might do the same with a focus on political leaders. But Bitclout's node structure also means it will lack centralized moderation policies like those found on platforms like Twitter or Facebook. Yes, we're on BitClout: bitclout.com/u/slashdotorg

An anonymous reader shares a report from Motherboard, written by Ben Munster: When you buy an NFT for potentially as much as an actual house, in most cases you're not purchasing an artwork or even an image file. Instead, you are buying a little bit of code that references a piece of media located somewhere else on the internet. This is where the problems begin. Ed Clements is a community manager for OpenSea who fields these kinds of problems daily. In an interview, he explained that digital artworks themselves are not immutably registered "on the blockchain" when a purchase is made. When you buy an artwork, rather, you're "minting" a new cryptographic signature that, when decoded, points to an image hosted elsewhere. This could be a regular website, or it might be the InterPlanetary File System, a large peer-to-peer file storage system.

Clements distinguished between the NFT artwork (the image) and the NFT, which is the little cryptographic signature that actually gets logged. "I use the analogy of OpenSea and similar platforms acting like windows into a gallery where your NFT is hanging," he said. "The platform can close the window whenever they want, but the NFT still exists and it is up to each platform to decide whether or not they want to close their window." [...] "Closing the window" on an NFT isn't difficult. NFTs are rendered visually only on the front-end of a given marketplace, where you see all the images on offer. All the front-end code does is sift through the alphanumeric soup on the blockchain to produce a URL that links to where the image is hosted, or less commonly metadata which describes the image. According to Clement: "the code that finds the information on the blockchain and displays the images and information is simply told, 'don't display this one.'"

An important point to reiterate is that while NFT artworks can be taken down, the NFTs themselves live inside Ethereum. This means that the NFT marketplaces can only interact with and interpret that data, but cannot edit or remove it. As long as the linked image hasn't been removed from its source, an NFT bought on OpenSea could still be viewed on Rarible, SuperRare, or whatever -- they are all just interfaces to the ledger. The kind of suppression detailed by Clements is likely the explanation for many cases of "missing" NFTs, such as one case documented on Reddit when user "elm099" complained that an NFT called "Big Boy Pants" had disappeared from his wallet. In this case, the user could see the NFT transaction logged on the blockchain, but couldn't find the image itself. In the case that an NFT artwork was actually removed at the source, rather than suppressed by a marketplace, then it would not display no matter which website you used. If you saved the image to your phone before it was removed, you could gaze at it while absorbing the aura of a cryptographic signature displayed on a second screen, but that could lessen the already-tenuous connection between NFT and artwork. If you're unable to find a record of the token itself on the Ethereum blockchain, it "has to do with even more arcane Ethereum minutiae," writes Ben Munster via Motherboard. He explains: "NFTs are generally represented by a form of token called the ERC-721. It's just as simple to locate this token's whereabouts as ether (Ethereum's in-house currency) and other tokens such as ERC-20s. The NFT marketplace SuperRare, for instance, sends tokens directly to buyers' wallets, where their movements can be tracked rather easily. The token can then generally be found under the ERC-721 tab. OpenSea, however, has been experimenting with a new new token variant: the ERC-1155, a 'multitoken' that designates collections of NFTs.

This token standard, novel as it is, isn't yet compatible with Etherscan. That means ERC-1155s saved on Ethereum don't show up, even if we know they are on the blockchain because the payments record is there, and the 'smart contracts' which process the sale are designed to fail instantly if the exchange can't be made. [...]"

In closing, Munster writes: "This is all illustrative of a common problem with Ethereum and cryptocurrencies generally, which despite being immutable and unhackable and abstractly perfect can only be taken advantage of via unreliable third-party applications."

The Drive reports on an "unprecedent exercise" which included a Russian nuclear submarine firing a torpedo underneath Arctic ice, which it calls "a bold statement of Russia's presence and capabilities in the increasingly tense Arctic region." Three Russian ballistic missile submarines surfaced next to each other from beneath the ice near the North Pole as part of a recent major Arctic exercise. The head of the country's Navy said that event was a first for his service. It also underscores the growing geopolitical competition in this highly strategic region... A pair of MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors, supported by an Il-78 aerial refueling tanker, also flew over the North Pole and troops have been conducting maneuvers on the ground in extreme cold weather conditions as part of Umka-2021. Average temperatures in the exercise area, at present, are ranging between -13 and -22 degrees Fahrenheit, with winds gusting up to just over 70 miles per hour, according to state-run media outlet TASS....

[A]ll of this is magnified by the ever-increasing strategic significance of the Arctic and growing geopolitical competition there, as a result. Much of this has been driven by the emergence of new economic opportunities as global climate change has caused ice in the region to recede. This has made the prospect of sending commercial shipping via the Northern Sea Route more viable and offers the possibility of greater access to untapped natural resources, including oil and natural gas. Just this week, Russia's state nuclear agency Rosatom has been promoting the Northern Sea Route as an alternative to traditional routes in light of the very serious situation in the Suez Canal...

The Umka-2021 drills come as Russia and the United States, among others, are working to expand their abilities to project military power into the Arctic. Russia has been working particularly hard to build new facilities and expand existing ones, especially air bases, in the region. The U.S. military, in cooperation with Canada, just recently demonstrated its ability to conduct more routine combat aviation operations out of the strategic Thule Air Base in Greenland, as well.
The article notes that U.S. Navy also conducts Ice Exercises each year with submarines surfacing from under Arctic the ice, "though not with ballistic missile boats. However, this particular drill is, nevertheless, a significant show of force and general demonstration of the Russian Navy's strategic capabilities...."

"We're in competition... and to be competitive with Russia and China, specifically in the Arctic, you have to be on the field," said the U.S. Air Force general who heads NORAD in remarks to Congress last week. The Drive quotes him as saying "And, so it's crucial that we do that and we continue producing capabilities that will allow us to be in the Arctic." The Russian Navy sending three ballistic missile submarines punching through the Arctic ice together in a row near the North Pole provides a very clear look at this competition and more such displays are likely to come as the geopolitical friction in the region continues to increase.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: YouTube is always running experiments. One of its latest: testing an automated list of products detected in videos uploaded to the site. As of March 22nd this year, that test is being expanded to "people watching videos in the US," according to YouTube. In one of its blogs, a YouTube representative gave a little more detail about how this particular feature will be deployed: "We are experimenting with a new feature that displays a list of products detected in some videos, as well as related products. The feature will appear in between the recommended videos, to viewers scrolling below the video player. The goal is to help people explore more videos and information about those products on YouTube.

Firefox's "Compact density" option, which reduces the size of the user interface, is set to disappear when Mozilla rolls out its Proton visual redesign for the browser later this year. PCMag reports: A bug was posted on Mozilla's bug tracking system entitled "Remove compact mode inside Density menu of customize palette." The reasons given for its removal include the fact it's "currently fairly hard to discover" and "we assume gets low engagement." The development team wants to "make sure that we design defaults that suit most users and we'll be retiring the compact mode for this reason." The Bugzilla thread highlights a desire for compact density to be retained as an option, but it doesn't seem likely to survive right now.

When Proton arrives, the Normal and Touch density options are expected to remain, with Touch increasing the size of the user interface to make it more finger-friendly. Meanwhile, the development team is optimizing the Normal density for displays that use 768 pixels for height, while most displays now use a higher resolution than that. Hopefully this doesn't mean the UI will be larger than it is now by default.

Elon Musk is getting in on the NFT gold rush by selling a new electronic music track he's apparently produced as an NFT. The Verge reports: Yes, you've heard that right -- it's a song about non-fungible tokens, which Musk appears to have minted (or plans to mint) on the blockchain. Musk did not include a link to the NFT, so it's not clear if it's already live or if Musk plans to initiate the sale at a later date. It's also not clear on which platform Musk intends to sell the NFT.

We also don't know if the song has a name, but we have some clues. The looping video attached to the song Musk posted to Twitter on Monday displays the words "Vanity Trophy" orbiting around a golden orb affixed to the top of a literal trophy reading "HODL," short for the phase "hold on for dear life." [...] At various points in the short video, the words along the trophy shift from "computers" to "never sell" while a female vocalist sings lyrics over top like "NFT for your vanity" and "computers never sleep." Did I mention that the trophy also has little gold dogs, or "doges" if you will, rotating around it, too? The techno song drop is appropriate considering Musk named himself the "technoking" of Tesla in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. Meanwhile, chief financial officer Zach Kirkhorn's new position is "Master of Coin."

Both Elon and Zach "will also maintain their respective positions as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer," the filing concludes.

According to Bloomberg, Nintendo is planning to unveil a model of its Switch gaming console equipped with a bigger Samsung OLED display and support for 4K. It's expected to arrive before Christmas. From the report: Samsung Display Co. will start mass production of 7-inch, 720p-resolution OLED panels as early as June with an initial monthly target of just under a million units. The displays are slated for shipment to assemblers around July. The gaming community has speculated online about the introduction of an OLED or organic light-emitting diode screen, but Nintendo has stayed mum and President Shuntaro Furukawa said in February his company has no plans to announce a new Switch "anytime soon." Samsung's involvement is the strongest indication that Nintendo is serious about updating the console, and on a large scale.

Nintendo decided to go with rigid OLED panels for the new model, the people said, a cheaper but less flexible alternative to the type commonly used for high-end smartphones. The latest model will also come with 4K ultra-high definition graphics when paired with TVs, they said. That could intensify a longstanding complaint of developers, who have struggled with the difference in resolution between handheld and TV modes and now face a bigger gap between the two.

Netflix today launched Fast Laughs, a new feature for its mobile apps that presents a string of comedy clips from its stand-up specials, TV series and movies. From a report: Netflix's Fast Laughs displays full-screen vertical video in an auto-playing feed, borrowing a page from apps likes TikTok, and lets users share their favorite bits with friends and social media. The company says the section will provide up to 100 curated clips per day. The main goal, obviously, is to nail up yet another entry point for Netflix subs to find new content to binge on.

Fast Laughs lets you add specific titles to your Netflix watch list or click to start watching a program immediately. But Netflix also built Fast Laughs as a destination unto itself to watch entertaining moments on-the-go, calling to mind a key idea of now-defunct startup Quibi. You can just lean back and watch the jokes fly in a scrolling montage. The length of each video segment will vary, as short as around 15 seconds and up to 45 seconds or even longer.

Amazon has quietly changed the design of its new app icon, replacing the blue ribbon on top that drew some unfavorable comparisons. From a report: Users of the Amazon Shopping app will now see a brown box that resembles a parcel with a blue strip that looks like packaging tape above the company's signature arrow in the shape of a smile. Amazon introduced the initial new icon in a handful of international markets in late January, but has now changed the design of the blue tape after some said it resembled a toothbrush-style mustache, similar to the one worn by Adolf Hitler. "I completely missed that amazon quietly tweaked its new icon to make it look... less like hitler," wrote Alex Hern, a technology editor for the Guardian, on Twitter. The new icon, the first design change in more than five years, replaces the shopping cart and ditches the word "Amazon," but displays the company's smiling arrow logo more prominently. The blue tape looks like it's being torn off, as if opening the package.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple could be launching a folding iPhone in 2023, and that the phone could have a screen between 7.5 and eight inches. The Verge reports: There have been numerous reports about Apple prototyping a folding iPhone, but according to MacRumors, Kuo says that the product has "not yet officially kicked off." According to Kuo, the screen will be iPad Mini-sized when folded out, so it seems as if Apple is going for the Galaxy Fold approach of having a regular-sized phone that folds out into a small tablet, rather than the Z Flip or Razr approach of having a compact folding phone. (This is a bummer to me, but it seems like the folding phablet approach is the most popular at the moment.) It's unclear who would be making those folding displays -- there have been rumors of Apple working with both LG and Samsung.

While the rumors of a prototype and this report from Kuo indicate that Apple is indeed working on a folding phone, it's not something to wait around for just yet. Kuo's 2023 launch date is dependent on Apple being able to figure out "key technology and mass production issues." As we've seen, folding phones can be hard to get right. If Apple can do it, though, it could be in the position to do what it does best: adopt a technology after other companies have figured out the bugs and pitfalls, and release a product that seems polished in comparison.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Tattoos are usually considered a form of personal expression, but a team of researchers in Europe have created what they're calling the world's first light-emitting tattoo based on OLED screen technology that, besides presumably looking kind of cool, could also serve as a visible warning about potential health concerns. In a recently published paper in the Advanced Electronic Materials journal, "Ultrathin, UltraConformable, and FreeStanding Tattooable Organic LightEmitting Diodes," scientists from the University College London in the UK and the Italian Institute of Technology detail how their new approach to tattoos relies on the same organic light-emitting diode technology featured in devices like more recent iPhones, as well as the recent crop of mobile devices featuring folding screens. The flexibility of an OLED display is important for this application given human skin is so pliable and flexes and folds as the body moves.

The actual electronics of the light-emitting tattoos, made from an extremely thin layer of an electroluminescent polymer that glows when a charge is applied, measure in at just 2.3-micrometers thick, which, according to the researchers, is about one-third the diameter of a red blood cell. The polymer layer is then sandwiched between a pair of electrodes and sits atop an insulating layer, which is bonded to temporary tattoo paper through a printing process that isn't prohibitively expensive. The tattoos can be easily applied to surfaces using the same wet transfer process that temporary tattoos designed for kids use, and can be easily washed off when no longer needed or wanted using soap and water.

With a current applied the OLED tattoos in their current form simply glow green, but eventually could produce any color using the same RGB approach that OLED screens use. However, while the researchers acknowledge that the potential for glowing tattoos is there, taking that art in a whole new direction, they also see even more potential for them as a medical tool. When combined with other wearable technologies the light-emitting tattoos could start flashing when an athlete needs to rehydrate, or change color when applied to foods providing obvious warnings when expiration dates have passed. The researchers note that the OLEDs polymers can quickly degrade when exposed to the air, and "there's an even bigger issue of finding a way to power them using tiny batteries or supercapacitors, as so far in the lab they've been wired to an external power source," adds Gizmodo.

LG will make its webOS software available to other companies. From a report: The proprietary software on LG's own sets will be able to be licensed by outside TV brands, the company announced Wednesday. Notably, TV brands that choose to bring LG's software to their televisions will also get its Magic Motion remote, LG's very good cursor-like wand. It would also see the same voice control tools, algorithms, and apps -- including LG Channels -- included on those displays as well, the company said. "By welcoming other manufacturers to join the webOS TV ecosystem, we are embarking on a new path that allows many new TV owners to experience the same great UX and features that are available on LG TVs. We look forward to bringing these new customers into the incredible world of webOS TV," Park Hyoung-sei, president of the LG Home Entertainment Company, said in a statement.

Rumors have swirled about potential VR or AR hardware from Apple for years now. But today, The Information has published perhaps the most extensive account of what the company is working on, and it paints an ambitious picture. Engadget: According to a source with direct knowledge of the device, Apple's mixed-reality headset will contain more than a dozen cameras for tracking movement and showing real-world video to the person wearing it. It is also said to include two 8K displays, giving it an effective resolution that would far outstrip anything currently on the market. [...] The Information believes that the device is in the later stages of development and could ship as soon as 2022. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Apple's first headset isn't targeted at a wide audience -- its price point is rumored to come in around $3,000. Given the hardware specs quoted in today's report, that's not unreasonable, but it's clear that this is less a device for consumers and more a competitor to Microsoft's $3,500 Hololens 2. That headset is focused on business customers more than something the average consumer would use.

Just months after their first passenger testing, Virgin Hyperloop today unveiled its vision for the future hyperloop experience. Yahoo Finance reports: The newly-released concept video takes the viewer step-by-step through a hyperloop journey, from arriving at the portal to boarding the pod. Virgin Hyperloop worked with world-class partners across disparate industries -- including Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) for the portal designs, Teague for the pod designs, SeeThree for the video and animation, and Man Made Music for the score and sonic identity -- to design a comprehensive, multi-sensory passenger experience that surpasses that of any other form of mass transit.

Far from a dystopian future where dark colors, stark lighting, and screens abound, Virgin Hyperloop's counter narrative is a more optimistic view of the future: a greener, smoother, safer, and more pleasant mass transit experience. "We leveraged decades of experience designing how people and things move across various modalities -- taking some of the best aspects from aviation, rail, automotive, and even hospitality to create a new and better passenger experience that is distinct to Virgin Hyperloop," said John Barratt, CEO & President, Teague. "Recessed seat wells provide a greater sense of space, while the raised aisle is a touch of the unexpected and unique. Bands of greenery and wood textures subvert the aesthetic of typical mass transit materials with something optimistic and fresh. All lighting in the pod -- including the unassuming information displays -- are dynamic and adjust based on traveler activity and journey milestones."

"Through proprietary research and a design thinking approach to creating sound and sonic solutions for Virgin Hyperloop, Man Made Music was able to address a myriad of potential challenges for this new mode of transportation, from how to evoke a sense of privacy and space to an enhanced sense of safety and calm," said Joel Beckerman, Founder and Lead Composer at Man Made Music. "We respond to sound quicker than any other sense, so sound actually drives the multi-sensory experiences. The sonic cues of the Virgin Hyperloop identity system serves as a guide for passengers throughout their experience while instilling confidence, safety, and clarity -- you 'feel' it rather than 'hear' it. Just like a great movie score, it tells you the story. We know when we've got it right when you don't notice the sound at all: the interface is humanized in ways that are both fresh and familiar."

Google has started rolling out Chrome OS 88. The update includes a couple of enhancements, the most notable of which is a new screen saver you can use to get more functionality out of your computer's lock screen. Engadget reports: By enabling the feature, your Chromebook will be able to display images from your Google Photos library, including those you've organized into specific albums. You can also choose from a selection of default images put together by Google. If you use the Google Photos functionality built into the Pixel Stand and Nest Hub, you'll have a good idea of how the screen saver works.

The lock screen also displays the time and local weather and provides you with easy to access media controls so you can pause or play a song. You'll find your WiFi and battery status on the bottom right corner and the option to sign out from your account if you want. You enable the feature by digging into the settings menu of Chrome OS and finding your way to the Personalization section. Once enabled, it will turn on when the operating system detects that your device has been idle for some time. The update also introduces a feature that allows you to use your pin or fingerprint, instead of a password, to log into websites that support the WebAuthn standard.

MojoKid writes: This morning, NVIDIA lifted its embargo on the performance and experiences of new GeForce RTX 30 Series-powered gaming laptops. Thinner, higher-performance form factors aren't the only features NVIDIA is touting with this launch. A number of new laptops will also sport 1440p, high refresh rate IPS displays like the MSI GS66 Stealth with a GeForce RTX 3080 mobile GPU tested at HotHardware. This machine features a 15.6-inch IPS, 1440p panel with a 240Hz refresh rate and G-Sync support. However, the biggest difference between these new laptop GeForce RTX 30 series GPUs and their desktop counterparts, are their core counts. Desktop GeForce RTX 3080, 3070, and 3060 series GPUs have 8,704, 5,888, and 3,584 CUDA cores, respectively, whereas these new laptop offerings have 6,144, 5,120, and 3,840 -- it is only the RTX 3060 laptop GPU that has more cores than its similar-branded desktop counterpart.

In the benchmarks, with a retail-ready Alienware m15 R4 gaming laptop powered by a GeForce RTX 3070 mobile GPU, the new platform offered sizable performance gains of 15-25% over the previous generation RTX 20 series mobile offering, and an even stronger performance lift with ray tracing enabled, sometimes in excess of 40%. NVIDIA GeForce 30 Series laptops are in production now and available in the next few weeks from major OEMs like Alienware, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte and others.