One of the most infamous Trojans / malicious / droppers in the world, Emotet seems to be losing some energy when the holidays start.
Check Point Research’s recent Global Threat Index in July 2022 showed that Emotet’s global impact compared to June had decreased by 50% – but warned that it is still the reigning champion of malware and will not change anytime soon.
“Emotet continues to dominate our monthly malware lists,” said Maya Horowitz, vice president of research at Check Point Software. “This botnet is constantly evolving to maintain its persistence and avoidance. Its latest developments include a credit card theft module, which means that businesses and individuals need to be extremely careful when shopping online. In addition, as Microsoft now confirms that it blocks macros by default, we are waiting to see how malware like Snake Keylogger can change its tactic. “
Emotet is still far ahead of us
Last month was the peak of Emotet, the researchers said, adding that the Trojan has now reverted to its standard global impact indicators. While it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what caused this decline, researchers speculate that most likely it is only due to the vacation, not because the cybercriminal is withdrawing. Emotet constantly introduces new features is proof of such claims.
That being said, Emotet is still the most widespread malware in the world, with a global impact of 7%. Formbook ranks second with 3%, followed by XMRig with 2% global impact. Formbook is a six-year-old information stealer for Windows sold as malware as a service that can steal data from web browsers, collect screenshots, log keystrokes, and download and run files.
On the other hand, XMRig is a well-known cryptocurrency, software that mines the XMR (Monero) cryptocurrency for attackers. Though XMRig isn’t exactly a virus (opens in a new tab)and does not necessarily steal data or destroy the endpoint on which it is installed, it consumes most of the computing power, leaving the device sluggish and weaker.
Mercury Research’s latest forecast shows AMD intends to continue its hot streak in server processor market, which further weakens Intel’s advantage.
The company’s analysis suggests that AMD has increased its server processor market share to 13.9% this quarter, marking the 13th consecutive period of growth.
According to our sister site Tom’s gear (opens in a new tab)the latest quarterly profit is potentially the largest in AMD’s history, suggesting the dynamics of the company’s EYPC chip line is only on the rise.
Intel is going through hard times
While Pat Gelsinger’s return to CEO last year seemed to breathe new life into Intel, the company is suffering from recent turbulence.
In July, Intel released a grim quarterly earnings report, with a 22% year-on-year drop in revenue as the highlight. The performance was so bad that Gelsinger took to Twitter to apologize publicly.
“This quarter’s results were below the standards we set for the company and our shareholders. We have to and we will do it better, ”he wrote.
The server processor market has traditionally been the mainstay of Intel, whose Xeon chips dominate virtually all subsectors, from Cloud to HPC. However, the implementation of the next-generation Team Blue processors codenamed Sapphire Rapids remained punctuated by delays. Originally scheduled for release in 2021, the new server chips are expected to hit the market in the first quarter of 2023.
Meanwhile, AMD grew stronger with high-core EPYC processors, far ahead of Intel.
Nvidia’s impending market entry, as well as the arrival of Arm-based chips built by hyperscalers like AWS, will only increase the level of competition among vendors – and put pressure on Intel.
In Q&A with TechRadar Pro Last month AMD’s EMEA sales chief Roger Benson outlined the company’s strategy to take over an even bigger slice of the pie in the coming months and years.
“After successfully establishing AMD EPYC in HPC and the cloud, we are now accelerating in mainstream enterprise IT and telecommunications,” he said.
“In enterprises, we’ve seen customers use AMD EPYC servers for storage and software-defined virtualization, and now we’re seeing customers increasingly using our products for database and analytics solutions. In the telecommunications industry, customers are certifying AMD EPYC servers for backbone solutions and we expect to see edge server solutions in the 5G era as well.
“We work with customers to ensure that they have the right computing engine for the right workload in their data centers. AMD’s fourth generation EPYC processors will continue this path for our next generation. ”
If you’re looking for an external monitor for your home office, Meta thinks this may be the answer – provided you’ve already purchased one of the most malicious products out there.
The company revealed that its Meta Portal devices can now be used as a second screen for PC and Mac users, offering significant performance gains.
Both Meta Portal Plus (Gen 2) and Meta Portal Go can be used as an external monitor, giving users more screen space, allowing them to run more applications, videoconferencing, edit documents or run more windows.
Second portal screen
The change is made easy with Meta support for the Duet Display app, which already allows users to turn a PC, Mac, iPad or Android smartphone into a remote desktop or wireless secondary display.
Users simply need to install the free application via the App Store on both their Portal devices and on a PC or Mac. Once set up, users can drag open windows from their main devices to Meta Portal Plus or Portal Go just like a typical second monitor.
The Duet Display app is available in the US, Canada, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Australia and New Zealand for Meta Portal Plus (Gen 2) and in the US, Canada, UK, France, Spain and Italy for Meta Portal Go.
(Photo credit: Meta)
Portal and Mac
Mac users will also be able to share their screen with a wider range of Meta Portal touch devices by launching the new free Meta Portal Companion app for Mac computers. Users can now connect their device to any Meta Portal device with a touchscreen (Meta Portal Go, Meta Portal Plus, Meta Portal and Meta Portal Mini), allowing screen sharing with one click.
Operating on platforms such as Zoom, Google Workspace, and BlueJeans, the app also allows users to control Raise Hand access, mute and volume control, as well as send browsing links on the portal device.
“In today’s hybrid work environment, having a comfortable and comfortable workspace is more important than ever,” the company said in blog post (opens in a new tab) announcing the news. “The Meta Portal is now an even more useful productivity tool in your home office.”
The launch is Meta’s latest move to push the Portal as a business-focused device, months after the company announced it would no longer sell products to consumers.
The portal was originally launched as an impetus to help connect Facebook users around the world, but he raised his eyebrows with some questionable privacy decisions, which meant many consumers stayed away and motivated the company to lean towards corporate use cases.
Editing Microsoft Office files such as Word documents and Excel spreadsheets is much smoother for Google Workspace users.
The company announced a number of improvements to the way Workspace users interact with Microsoft Office files, including better file type and edit notifications, which hopes to fix overwrite and restore issues.
As explained in the update blog post (opens in a new tab)in the future, Google Workspace users will see many new notifications and warnings if they open a Microsoft Office format file in Office editing mode.
Google Workspace and Office
Google says the notifications that appear in Docs, Sheets, and Slides will help explain the differences users may see and help them edit or restore content.
Among the notifications is a new Office-format alert that alerts you to compliance details that will appear all the time in your document, spreadsheet, or slide. These issues can become potential compatibility issues or mean that some Office features are not available.
A pop-up alert will also be triggered, allowing users to quickly view and restore an earlier version of the document, spreadsheet, or slide. Users will also be able to view the version history and revert to a specific edit of the document if necessary.
Google says new edit notifications will be turned on by default and will always be present when a user opens a Microsoft Office document.
The update is already rolling out and should be available to all Google Workspace customers, legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers, and users with personal accounts within the next few weeks.
This move is Google Workspace’s latest game as it aims to reduce the gap between it and Microsoft Office.
The company recently revealed that users will now enjoy the ability to edit Microsoft Office files from within Google Workspace without the need for an internet connection, offering more functionality and increasing productivity for users worldwide.
Fitbit announced it would stop syncing the wearable device with PC and Mac computers, preventing users from downloading their own music from computers to their devices.
Fitbit has declared it will kill the feature on October 13, writing on your site (opens in a new tab) that “We’re removing the option to sync Fitbit device with the Fitbit Connect app on your computer. Download and use the Fitbit app on your phone to sync your device. “
So how do you import your own music into the best Fitbit without doing it the old-fashioned way, using a cable and a computer? The short answer is no.
Fitbit writes on its own help page (opens in a new tab) for music and podcasts that “On October 13, 2022, we will remove the option to transfer playlists to your Fitbit watch via your computer. You can still play your personal music stored on your watch and transfer music to your watch with the Deezer app and the Pandora app. ”
These apps don’t have the largest user base, so it feels like a really short-sighted move to entice people to subscribe to even more streaming services and subscriptions to access the basic features of the watch ad-free, as if paying for Fitbit Premium already was not enough. How much paywall can reasonably be expected that people will be able to bypass one of the wearable devices in addition to purchasing the tracker itself?
(Photo credit: Future)
However, I believe Fitbit will be working on it soon. Anyone who has closely followed Fitbit over the past few years knows it has been acquired by Google and there are many new devices (thought to be the Fitbit Sense 2, Inspire 3, and Fitbit Versa 4) on the track that will be released soon.
While they’re very unlikely to be true Wear OS watches, they can at least have Spotify and YouTube Music offline enabled, covering a wide range of streaming services so you can at least get your music somewhere.
If you own a Fitbit with an older device who likes to listen to your music library on that device, you have two months to stuff it with as many songs as will fit before the October 13 cutoff. Fitbit won’t delete your existing song library, but it will shut down Fitbit Connect on that date, the app that allows you to connect your device to your computer.
Fitbit apparently has its reasons for doing this, and it had to learn from the data its devices were collecting that more people use streaming services on their devices than listen to music natively. I don’t know how much of the Fitbit user base is downloading their own songs to the watch, but I suspect it’s not very large. It is likely that new devices will appear on the horizon and the adoption of the new status quo is in a hurry.
Even so, it will frustrate some long-term users at a time when Fitbit just can’t get out of its own way. Even though we can’t wait to see the new Fitbit devices in September, between the problems with the Charge 5, recalling the Ionic headlines, its terrible graph update that convinced users that they had sleep apnea, and now it’s the wearable manufacturer that certainly seems that there are some technical issues at the moment.
Hopefully these are just teething issues caused by Alphabet’s acquisition of the brand, not long-term issues. Otherwise, the most popular name in fitness tracking will have another bad year.
Understandably, you miss the iPhone 14, but the iPhone Photography Awards 2022 has just landed to prove that you don’t really need that alleged 48MP camera to take amazing photos.
The annual competition, which is held independently of Apple but has been going on for 15 years, has just announced its impressive list of winners. And it’s not dominated by the latest iPhones at all, with the winners reaching all the way to the 2015 iPhone 6S Plus.
We did some counting and 44% of the winners actually ended up on models from the iPhone 11 or earlier series. That said, by far the best represented phone is the iPhone 12 Pro Max, which ranked behind 23% of the competition’s award-winning photos.
The 2020 iPhone 12 Pro Max was the best-represented model among this year’s winners of the iPhone Photography Awards. (Image Credit: Apple)
The IPPA 2022 Award Policy states that photos “should not be altered in any computer imaging program like Photoshop”, so how is there such a varied range of styles in terms from “abstract” to “travelers”?
This is because the policy allows you to “use any iOS apps” meaning some of the best photo editing apps and the best camera apps are almost certainly behind some of the shots you can see in our gallery below . That said, many of the photos are likely “off-camera” as well, and together the set shows what is possible with iPhone cameras, regardless of the model you have.
Analysis: Find a topic and learn the basics
Our guide to taking portrait photos with iPhone includes some professional tips for taking photos like the ones above. (Photo credit: Future)
Besides emphasizing that you don’t need the latest iPhone to take great photos, the lesson of this year’s iPhone Photography Awards is that you only need two things to take a great photo: an interesting topic and an understanding of the basics of photography.
You will notice that the effects like portrait mode and filters are clearly absent in the photos below. Instead, the winners show knowledge of the main principles of composition, a sense of good light and an openness to looking for new perspectives on familiar topics.
We’d bet most of the winning entries were shot using the iPhone’s main camera rather than a telephoto or super wide angle lens. IPPA rules state that “you can use extra lenses for an iPhone,” so it’s possible that some people have used some of the best iPhone lenses for extra coverage. But in general, a little bit of light editing is enough given the touching topics.
If you’d like to enter next year’s competition, check out our guides on how to take professional portrait photos with your iPhone and how to take epic landscape photos with your iPhone. For now, however, we present a gallery of this year’s iPhone Photography Awards winners (use the navigation bar on the left to navigate to your favorite category).
Overall winner
Winner of the main prize “Photographer of the Year”. Author: Antonio Denti (Italy). Location: Mosul, Iraq. Filmed on an iPhone 11. (Photo credit: Antonio Denti / IPPAWARDS)
Abstract
Winner of the “First place – abstraction”. Author: Marcello Raggini (San Marino). Filmed on an iPhone 11. (Photo credit: Marcello Raggini / IPPAWARDS)
Animals
Winner of the “First place – Animals”. Author: Pier Luigi Dodi (Italy). Filmed with iPhone 11 Pro Max. (Photo credit: Pier Luigi Dodi / IPPAWARDS)
Architecture
Winner of the “First Place – Architecture”. Author: Kaustav Sarkar (India). Location: Empire State, New York. Filmed on an iPhone 12 Pro. (Photo credit: Kaustav Sarkar / IPPAWARDS)
Kids
Winner of the “First Place – Children”. Huapeng-Zhao (China). Filmed with iPhone 13 Pro Max. (Photo credit: Huapeng-Zhao / IPPAWARDS)
Life in a city
Winner of “First place – Life in the city”. Yongmei Wang (China). Filmed with iPhone 12 Pro Max. (Photo credit: Yongmei Wang / IPPAWARDS)
Environment
Winner of “First place – environment”. Yang Li (China). Location: Hegang, Heilongjiang Province. iPhone 11 Pro max. (Photo credit: Yang Li / IPPAWARDS)
Landscape
Winner of the “First place – landscape”. By Linda Repasky (USA). Location: Articles, Massachusetts. Filmed on an iPhone 13 Pro. (Photo credit: Linda Repasky / IPPAWARDS)
Lifestyle
Winner of “First place – lifestyle”. Laila Bakker (The Netherlands). Filmed with iPhone 11 Pro Max. (Photo credit: Laila Bakker / IPPAWARDS)
Nature
Winner of the “First place – Nature” award. Andrea Buchanan (USA). Location: Utah. Filmed with iPhone 12 Pro Max. (Photo credit: Andrea Buchanan / IPPAWARDS)
Portrait
Winner of “First place – portrait”. Author: Arevik Martirosyan (USA). Filmed with iPhone 12 Pro Max. (Photo credit: Arevik Martirosyan / IPPAWARDS)
The sunset
Winner of “First place – sunset”. Leping Cheng (China). Location: Xiamen, China. Filmed with iPhone 12 Pro Max. (Photo credit: Leping Cheng / IPPAWARDS)
Journey
Winner of “First place – journey”. Via Marina Klutse (USA). Location: Caño de la Guasa, Colombia. Taken on iPhone 11 Pro (Photo credit: Marina Klutse / IPPAWARDS)
Fittingly for the camera that will be the last to bear the ‘Olympus’ badge, the OM System OM-1 is one of the best mirrorless cameras we’ve seen this year – and rumors suggest it could soon become a smaller, more affordable sibling called OM System OM-5.
Seasoned fans of Olympus cameras, which were sold to an investment firm last year and reborn as the OM System, will notice a familiar pattern in the naming of this alleged camera. Once upon a time, Olympus cameras were driven by the flagship E-M1 and the E-M5 series offered some of that power in a smaller body for travelers and hobby shooters.
Despite this, rumors of the OM System OM-5 indicate something slightly different. Speculation so far points to the “mini OM-1”, including key features that made the OM-1 ahead of all previous Olympus cameras when it comes to autofocus, continuous shooting and video performance: a new 20-megapixel sensor.
Similar OM-5 specification of the OM system
– 20MP BSI Live MOS Four Thirds sensor – Continuous shooting 15 fps – AI autofocus tracking on the subject – 3.6MP electronic viewfinder – one card slot – the same battery as the OM System OM-1 – announcement at the end of September – apparently shipping will start in October
Of course, it’s all just speculation at the moment. But if the supposedly OM-5 is actually as close to the OM-1 as rumors suggest, it has the potential to be one of the best travel cameras out there. The OM-1 is already at the top of our guide to the best speed cameras you can buy, so if the OM-5 packs some of its speed, compute modes, and stabilization into a smaller body, we’ll be very eager to take it for a spin on our journeys.
Here’s everything we know about the OM OM-5 system so far, sprinkled with our rumor analysis, as well as a wish list of what we hope to see from the first “Olympus” camera without that legendary name.
OM System OM-5 release date and price
We don’t have an official release date for the OM System OM-5 yet, but it’s pretty reliable 43 Gossip (opens in a new tab) he said in June that he “is 99.9% sure that OM Digital will announce the new OM-5 at the end of September.” The website added that “it has been announced that the camera will begin shipping in October.”
Of course, delays are always possible, and supply chain problems and chip shortages are out of sync with many of the launch schedules this year. However, that would be six months after the OM-1 came out and would not be an unusual window for an “Olympus” camera. Both the original Olympus E-M1 and E-M5 Mark III were launched between September and November.
The recently launched Canon EOS R7 (above) could be one of the main rivals of the OM System OM-5, if the rumors are true. (Photo credit: Canon)
There have been no leaks yet about the possible price of the OM System OM-5. The OM-1 was launched for $ 2,199 / £ 1,999 / AU $ 3,299 (body only), which is quite a steep price tag for a Micro Four Thirds camera. Of course, the OM-5 is expected to be cheaper than that, but how much depends on whether or not it has an OM-1 20MP stack sensor.
If so, then the OM-5 is unlikely to be significantly cheaper than the OM-1 given that stacked sensors are an expensive component. That said, we expect the OM-5 to be the OM system’s answer to the Canon EOS R7 ($ 1,499 / £ 1,349 / AU $ 2,349) and the Fujifilm X-T4 ($ 1,699 / £ 1,549 / AU $ 2,999). While not a direct indicator of the possible price of the OM-5, they do give us an idea of the type of golf course it would have to play.
Specifications and rumors of the OM System OM-5
So far, there have only been a few rumors about the specifications of the OM-5 system, but they are quite big.
June 30 43 Gossip (opens in a new tab) stated quite firmly that “the new OM-5 will use the same OM-1 sensor.” If so, it would mean the camera would get the same 20MP BSI (backlit) chip that impressed the OM-1 and would open up impressive shooting power.
The stacked sensor is only one part of the image capturing equation, and another important factor is the camera processor. There haven’t been any rumors of the OM-5 on that front yet, but we doubt it will manage to pack the same TruePix X processor as the OM-1.
The OM-5 is said to have the same 20MP sensor as the OM-1 (above) which also oscillates to be dust free (Photo credit: OM System)
This processor is, according to OM System, up to three times faster than the one in the E-M1 Mark III. Our factory? The OM-5 will have a refined version of the TruePix IX processor seen in the latter.
This brings us to one of the more interesting rumors about the OM-5 – that it will have the ability to shoot continuously at 15 frames per second. This suggestion, again from 43 Gossip (opens in a new tab) in July it was not specific whether it could be a mechanical shutter or an electronic shutter, or whether it would include autofocus and automatic exposure.
But looking at the specs of the E-M1 Mark III – which shoots at a maximum speed of 10fps with a mechanical shutter – we suspect that this means the OM-5 will get a speed of 15fps in that mode, with the faster speeds available thanks to the electronic shutter .
The OM-5 is said to have similar AI-tracking capabilities to the OM-1 (above) (Photo credit: OM Digital Solutions)
Some newer rumors (opens in a new tab) claimed that the OM-5 would support this with AI object tracking, which we liked on the OM-1. Our review of the OM OM-1 system made some criticisms, stating that “AF tracking is far from perfect” in-camera and “not as sticky as some other systems when line of sight is disturbed.” Even so, we found the object acquisition to be a big improvement over the earlier Olympus cameras, so it would be a very welcome addition to the more affordable body.
Speaking of the body, what kind of construction can we expect from the OM System OM-5? This remains one of the big question marks regarding the camera. Tradition suggests that, as a simple and cheaper alternative to the OM-1, it would have a smaller and more travel-friendly body. The fact that it is expected to only have one card slot and not two in the OM-1 supports this.
Will the OM System opt for a retro body like the E-M5 Mark III (above), or will it bring the OM-5 closer to the OM-1? (Photo credit: Future)
On the other hand, the OM-5 is expected to have the same OM-1 BLX-1 battery as the flagship OM System camera, and the OM-1 is already quite small and light. In fact, the design of the OM-1 is one of our favorite things about the camera, and our review states that “you’ll have a hard time finding another camera that is better built or more comfortable in the hand than the OM-1.”
The most likely scenario is that the OM System will follow tradition and make the OM-5 a slightly smaller, retro version of the OM-1 with a bit more polycarbonate to keep the price and weight down. But we can’t wait to see what he does here.
Overall, then, it seems that the OM-5 will not be a replacement for the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III, but rather a more premium alternative – and possibly a follow-up to the E-M1 Mark III instead. considering how far the OM-1 has come. It’s a pretty good paper-based travel camera recipe, but we’ll update this guide as we hear more specific rumors. In the meantime, here are a few things we’d love to make it work.
OM System OM-5: what we want to see
1. OM-1 Calculation Modes
Apart from their compact size, one of the biggest advantages of OM System (and Olympus) cameras is their computational photography modes. It’s a bit like portrait mode on your phone, just a little more engaged and designed for avid photographers. Think “Live ND” to create the effect of a long exposure or focus stacking in a macro camera.
(Photo credit: Future)
There is no reason to expect them to be dumped on the OM-5. But despite the supposedly arranged sensor, it is possible that their effects will take longer to process if it is for an older processor. This is something we would certainly accept if all five of them were available on a cheaper body with a stacked Four Thirds sensor.
2. Weather sealing
Another traditional feature of Olympus cameras and the OM OM-1 system is their impressive weather resistance. Unusually for a mirrorless camera, the OM-1 even has an IP53 rating – not that it’s fully waterproof, but we were happy to take it out during the London rainstorms.
(Photo credit: Future)
Will the OM-5 receive the same rating? We hope so, because we were impressed with the durability of the E-M5 Mark III before. This may also help it compete with rivals such as the Canon EOS R7 and Fujifilm X-T4, which are weatherproof but not as weatherproof as the OM-1.
3. Image stabilization in the body
Another of our favorite features of the OM-1 system is its In-Body Image Stabilization (IBIS), which provides an impressive eight degrees of compensation. What does this mean in the real world? You can take handheld shots such as the one below with shutter speeds of about 1/4 second without the need for a tripod.
(Photo credit: Future)
Realistically, we couldn’t expect the OM OM-5 to provide the same level of stabilization, especially if it has a smaller body. The E-M1 Mark III also offered two additional compensation stops compared to the E-M5 Mark III (seven stops versus five).
But we would certainly like to see an IBIS system that can give us at least six degrees of compensation given that it is possible on the Fujifilm X-S10. The latter has a larger APS-C sensor than those found in OM System cameras, and is also impressively affordable ($ 999 / £ 949 / AU $ 1,699).
*Update: Google called us back and explained the questions we had. For starters, new fragments are available for Android, iOS, and computers. According to a company representative, work on them is currently underway and Google will continue to improve them.
Changes Information on this is divided into two parts. About This score is available on mobile and desktop devices with plans to expand language support to include German and Dutch. The information about this page is now only available on iOS, with Android support coming soon. This feature is also available to French, Italian and Spanish users worldwide, but no specific date has been provided.
Finally, content advice has been confirmed to be available on mobile devices and computers as well, but only in English. Notifications are also available in five countries: US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It is unknown if and when these tips will be implemented elsewhere.
The original story continues below.*
Google is updating its search engine to cut down on misleading snippets and improve the ways people educate by adding more contextual information. In other words, Google is expanding its efforts to eradicate disinformation in its amazing search service.
Snippets are text that you see at the top of the search results page and are designed to respond quickly. Although sources have been included to back up the information, there seem to have been cases where excerpts have stated a source that contradicts common scientific consensus. Which is possibly the biggest change in the update (opens in a new tab)featured excerpts will contain information based on “multiple high-quality sources”.
The improved snippets will be backed by an artificial intelligence from Google called United multitasking model (MUM). The AI will actively check the featured snippets and compare this information with other sources to see if they all match or if changes are needed. Google claims that this “technique has significantly improved the quality and usefulness …” of the featured snippets.
Skipping disinformation
MUM will also help fight misleading information by not displaying excerpts for unanswered questions or which are considered “false assumptions”. Google offers a strange user scenario looking for the day Snoopy of Peanuts murdered President Abraham Lincoln. This has never happened so it is not possible to inform the user exactly and may result in a confusing excerpt or create a bad impression.
The company acknowledges that occasions where a search engine creates misleading snippets are rare, but it does happen. He wants to prevent this situation in a preventive manner. Google says snippets of claims based on these “false assumptions” have already dropped 40 percent as part of the update.
Add context
Other changes to Google Search affect page information and content recommendations.
Information This feature will now let you know how widespread the source is, reviews of the source, whether it is owned by the parent company, and whether any information is missing. Google says all of this is important to provide context. The search function is also supported in eight other languages that will be launched later this year. Language support includes Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, and Indonesian.
Content advice extends beyond compiling news to include results of questionable quality and sources. The announcement explains that this does not mean that there is no good or bad information for the search query. This is just a reminder to be more skeptical of the things you will find on this page.
The release date of the update has not been disclosed but may be soon. When we checked Google on desktop and mobile, we didn’t notice any differences: no new content advice or About this site. We asked Google when people can expect changes. This story will be updated if we get a reply.
Google is working hard to combat misinformation in its search engine. In the last questions and answersPublic Liaison for Search revealed that the Google search engine reduced the number of irrelevant results by more than 50 percent. And recently, the tech giant revealed that it is making big changes to the Google Play Store to get rid of annoying ads and spoofing. Be sure to check our coverage.
While the video industry seems to be doing well with its current digital technology, it will soon be re-experiencing an irreversible technological shift that will disrupt almost every aspect of the manufacturing process as we know it.
This is an all-too-familiar shift for an industry that is just emerging from a similar earth-shaking evolution less than 20 years ago.
At that time, the digital age was demolished by the film camera and changed the industry for good. But now the disruptions in the virtual age will be more significant than you can imagine.
From filmmaking to video editing and post-production, get ready for a roller coaster ride.
In the early 2000s, many industry experts predicted that digital cameras were a vogue and lacking the quality required to replace a 50-year-old film tradition. Admittedly, they were right then. The fact was that digital cameras initially had poor quality, were unreliable, and modern film cameras have seen many promising improvements recently.
However, after just a few years of innovation, the benefits of digital camera systems clearly outweighed film cameras in almost every category and ultimately proved to be a much more efficient solution.
Today we are seeing early signs that virtual systems are about to disrupt their digital counterparts in the same way.
Virtual production is a process that uses large-format LED screens with in-camera visual effects, simulating photorealistic environments in real time as a virtual background.
And these are just the first steps in Virtual Evolution. But how and why does this happen?
1. Industry recommendations
For the new technology to take full advantage of it, it needs industry support. Take LED lights for example. LED lighting has become a standard in studios around the world today, but when Chinese manufacturers first introduced LED lighting to the video production industry more than 15 years ago, the industry didn’t even consider it. It wasn’t until 5 years later that major manufacturers such as Arri, Mole Richardson and KinoFlo started offering LED lights that LED lights really caught on.
The lesson we have learned time and time again is that for innovation to take over the industry, change must come from within, not from the outside.
When it comes to virtual production, major insider recommendations have already been made by industry leaders such as Arri and Sony, who not only publicly endorse virtual production as the future, but are actively investing hundreds of millions of dollars in creating products specifically designed for it.
Another important data point is that we are seeing the market adoption rate increase at an ever faster pace. This can be seen in several areas. The two most important of these are the number of productions currently being shot in virtual production and the number of virtual production studios built around the world, which has increased by over 300% in the last year alone.
Even the mention of virtual production in industry articles has risen sharply in the past two years, suggesting that this is no longer just a technological whim, but a growing industry trend. In addition, many industry-wide surveys such as this Adoptive Sentiment Survey below authored by Altman Solon (opens in a new tab)suggest that most video professionals are open to adopting virtual production. These numbers are expected to increase as the industry continues to transition to virtual manufacturing in the next 18-24 months.
2. We are approaching the tipping point
However, changing the industry is not an easy task. New technology entering the market has to counter the forces of gravity in an attempt to disrupt the behavior of the “old ways of doing things” in the mainstream.
According to Geoffrey Moore Crossing the gulf, the tipping point is the point at which a new technology becomes prepared to take over the legacy technology. This is where the technology becomes commercially viable, quickly available, and the adoption of the technology begins to penetrate the early majority of the industry segment.
For many years in the video industry, the broadcasting market has been a gatekeeper for accepting or rejecting new technologies. This was certainly the case with 3D, which was adopted by many in the fictional market but never gained popularity in the TV market and then was not adopted in the consumer market.
Today we are already seeing how major broadcasters such as ESPN, FOX and even the Weather Channel are building their own virtual production studios and proving the effectiveness of this technology in the broadcasting sector and pointing to an impending tipping point.
3. Setting industry standards
Any new technology requires standards to go from technically feasible to universally accepted and truly successful.
One of the main arguments many critics point out as to why virtual manufacturing has not entered the mainstream is the lack of universally accepted standards that are essential to the industry’s growth. After all, without the standard way to build virtual environments, manage color settings, and handle virtual scenes, interoperability will be almost impossible.
Simply put, standards need to be set for new technology to be mainstreamed, but where are they?
(Photo credit: SMPTE)
For decades, the Society of Film and Television Engineers (SMPTE (opens in a new tab)) is the organizational body of the video industry that sets the standards for codecs, color science, and other important protocols.
Last year, SMPTE brought together a group of over 100 top brands and professionals in the video industry to accelerate the creation of standards for virtual production. These standards are essential not only for the entire industry, but also for scaling and educating future employees to support virtual production.
However, despite the lack of these standards, it is estimated that more than 50 of the best film universities will offer courses in virtual production in 2023. The race to set industry standards is fully successful.
4. Accelerated innovation and growth
Ultimately, innovation was and will always be a self-fulfilling cycle. If a sufficient number of studies decide to invest in virtual production, manufacturers will be encouraged to create products for them, and if companies need a talent to handle technology, education is encouraged to teach virtual production, and if all these things already exist, more studies are encouraged to do so. investing in virtual production.
For this correct loop to work, several important things in the technology implementation lifecycle need to go right. Of all the reports to date, experts say it is already happening.
Major early adopters at Virtual Studios such as Pixomondo, Final Pixel, XR Stage, Orbital Studios, PRG, and Vū not only proved the business model, but have all already invested in additional studios to expand their business, which is a key indicator of where the industry will go further.
For example, Vū witnessed this, starting with one virtual production studio in Florida in 2021, the video production company now runs four corporation-owned studios across the United States and is helping build another 11 additional virtual production studios after seeing strong demand from corporate and educational clients. All this while working with specialized system builders in a joint effort to standardize virtual production equipment for the entire industry.
From our point of view, on the front lines of virtual manufacturing, day by day, we’ve seen the implementation lifecycle evolve faster than ever, now that digital manufacturing has become more and more popular.
5. Productive workflows are changing
Traditional studio giants such as Disney, Paramount, and Warner Brothers have built their empires, creating clusters of physics studies over the years. Having a large campus of studios has made productions more efficient and easier to manage by having all studio resources collectively in one place.
Today, however, the landscape is fundamentally changing. Work is no longer a place, it’s a verb. Rather than investing in the Brick and Mortar campus of studios, many are investing in building a network of virtual studios across North America, allowing operational and technology standards to exist in the network, and enabling remote operation, pooling of resources, and sharing of virtual assets across the network. This paradigm shift allows anyone, anywhere, to access and work in the studio without actually being physically there.
It is possible that the future of virtual production is a cloud-based virtual studio network that fully dematerializes the entire production process as we know it. That’s right, everything is virtual. If that sounds crazy, consider the fact that it was already in the early 2000s.
When Netflix moved to DVD by mail, movie rentals dematerialized, making the demand for physical stores negligible. Then, just a few years later, they dematerialized the entire video delivery process by delivering video via streaming. This made even the need for physical media or physical transportation completely irrelevant.
In a similar way, today’s video session requires a lot of physical elements such as lights, microphones, cameras, props, and so on. Thanks to virtual production, as we now recognize, we were only able to dematerialize one physical element of a session: location.
Inevitable shift to video production virtualization
As the real-time rendering of the game engine becomes more and more photorealistic, it is inevitable that we will soon be able to dematerialize the entire production process, allowing us to produce everything virtually in the cloud. Instead of streaming to deliver, think streaming to author.
In the future, the camera will be virtual, lighting will be virtual, actors will be virtual, and location will be virtual.
It’s fair to say that the virtual production we know today is like the DVD mailed in the early 2000s, an interesting transitional innovation, but far from what Netflix is today.
The next innovation in virtual production will be full virtualization, where we go beyond the physical components that were once required for production, to a fully virtual video production process that will be quickly available to anyone from anywhere, enabling creators around the world to create content in pace of thought.
Although we are several years away from this reality, it is a future that we work on every day. In many ways, the future of virtual production is already here, and yet, on the other hand, there is so much more to virtual production.
We know for sure that video production as we know it today will soon be disrupted by its virtual counterpart in the same way that it was disrupted by the digital age and in the same way that it was disrupted in the film age and time and time again. that. Video production is an industry that has emerged as a result of technological evolution and will evolve over many years.
The Motorola Razr 2022 has the potential to be the most exciting foldable phone of the year, so it’s disappointing to have only been announced in China so far. But several leaks have suggested it will hit Europe, and possibly even on a global scale.
Roland Quandt – leak with good track record – tweeted (opens in a new tab) saying that “he will certainly come to Europe as well.” Then they sound very confident and in answer (opens in a new tab) Ross Young – who also has a solid record of leaks – said Motorola intends to sell many of them, so “there should be a global release eventually.”
This claim of a global launch sounds more like speculation, but at least a launch in Europe seems likely, with a global launch being very possible.
It has no idea why some media say that “Motorola RAZR 2022” is only available in China. It will definitely be coming to Europe as well, so I have no idea what Moto is communicating, but …….August 11, 2022
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As usual, we would take these leaks with a grain of salt, but both sources are reputable and it has always seemed likely that Motorola would be pinning the Razr 2022 out in other regions.
After all, this is one of Motorola’s most famous phones, and the previous models in this line have been introduced on a larger scale. The original Motorola Razr foldable landed in the US, UK and Australia, while the Motorola Razr (2020) was sold in both the US and UK. So it would seem strange if Razr 2022 was limited to China.
The big question now is exactly when the Motorola Razr 2022 will get a wider launch, but we don’t think the company will wait too long.
Analysis: what the Motorola Razr 2022 has to offer
In case you missed our previous coverage of the Razr 2022, the phone has a 6.7-inch 1080 x 2400 OLED foldable screen with a very high refresh rate of 144Hz, along with HDR10 + support.
It also has a 2.7-inch 573 x 800 second screen and uses the powerful Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset paired with up to 12GB of RAM.
There’s also up to 512GB of data space, as well as a 50MP main camera, a 13MP ultra wide camera, and a 32MP selfie camera. The battery has a capacity of 3500mAh and supports 33W fast charging.
Most potential buyers will likely choose between this and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4, and on paper the Motorola Razr 2022 likely wins. It has a larger screen, higher refresh rate, faster loading, more potential RAM, and more megapixels in its cameras.
However, Samsung’s phone offers better water resistance and can be generally more durable as it also uses Gorilla Glass Victus Plus and Armor Aluminum. The battery in the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 is also slightly larger.
So there’s no clear-cut winner considering the home screen size and chipset are the same on both.
What it really can come down to is price. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 starts at $ 999.99 / £ 999 / AU $ 1,499 and we don’t know yet how much the Razr 2022 will cost, but considering the Chinese price, it might be a bit less.
Either way, they look like two of the best foldable phones you can buy – assuming they meet their specifications.
