Lifeboat Foundation

Facebook has announced some exciting connectivity technologies that will enable the company to provide access to fast and affordable internet service to the next billion people as well as enhance existing infrastructure projects.

The company said that Facebook Connectivity has helped provide quality internet connectivity to over 500M people since 2013. Now, the company aims to enable affordable, high-quality connectivity for another one billion people at less cost and with greater speed by leveraging emerging technologies.

Commenting on the new connectivity technologies during the unveiling, Dan Rabinovitsj, VP of Facebook Connectivity said: “We have seen that economies flourish when there is widely accessible internet for individuals and businesses.”

If you follow the latest trends in the tech industry, you probably know that there’s been a fair amount of debate about what the next big thing is going to be. Odds-on favorite for many has been augmented reality (AR) glasses, while others point to fully autonomous cars, and a few are clinging to the potential of 5G. With the surprise debut of Amazon’s Astro a few weeks back, personal robotic devices and digital companions have also thrown their hat into the ring.

However, while there has been little agreement on exactly what the next thing is, there seems to be little disagreement that whatever it turns out to be, it will be somehow powered, enabled, or enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI). Indeed, the fact that AI and machine learning (ML) are our future seems to be a foregone conclusion.

Yet, if we do an honest assessment of where some of these technologies actually stand on a functionality basis versus initial expectations, it’s fair to argue that the results have been disappointing on many levels. In fact, if we extend that thought process out to what AI/ML were supposed to do for us overall, then we start to come to a similarly disappointing conclusion.

But if you’re in an area already full of Starlink users, don’t expect availability until SpaceX launches more satellites.

Imagine a place where you could always stay young, name a city after yourself, or even become the president — sounds like a dream? Well, if not in the real world, such dreams can definitely be fulfilled in the virtual world of a metaverse. The metaverse is believed by some to be the future of the internet, where apart from surfing, people would also be able to enter inside the digital world of the internet, in the form of their avatars.

The advent of AR, blockchain, and VR devices in the last few years has sparked the development of the metaverse. Moreover, the unprecedented growth of highly advanced technologies in the gaming industry, which offer immersive gameplay experiences, not only provides us a glimpse of how the metaverse would look like but also indicates that we are closer than ever to experience a virtual world of our own.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has put Big Tech giant Facebook on notice following the massive crash on Monday, warning them that he is going to set the Internet free from their authoritarian grip.

Speaking on behalf of Putin, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the fault the massive Internet shutdown earlier this week highlights the dangers of giving a ‘liberal’ authoritarian California-based company control over the world’s Internet. He said Russia is preparing to make the internet sovereign again.

Data infrastructure technology solutions from the Santa Clara, California-based company Marvell have already become an industry benchmark. Now the company has expanded its 5nm data infrastructure portfolio with a line of high-performance Prestera carrier switches and its OCTEON 10 data processing units (DPUs).

Marvell’s Prestera switches combine high-bandwidth, high-availability, and resilient switching systems with speed and high-precision synchronization benefits. In particular, the Prestera family’s optimization capability helps network operators scale with their 5G infrastructure needs. The new DX 7,321 Ethernet switch is another significant addition to the Prestera line.

Traditional networks are unable to keep up with the demands of modern computing, such as cutting-edge computation and bandwidth-demanding services like video analytics and cybersecurity. In recent years, there has been a major shift in the focus of network research towards software-defined networks (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV), two concepts that could overcome the limitations of traditional networking. SDN is an approach to network architecture that allows the network to be controlled using software applications, whereas NFV seeks to move functions like firewalls and encryption to virtual servers. SDN and NFV can help enterprises perform more efficiently and reduce costs. Needless to say, a combination of the two would be far more powerful than either one alone.

In a recent study published in IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, researchers from Korea now propose such a combined SDN/NFV network architecture that seeks to introduce additional computational functions to existing network functions. “We expect our SDN/NFV-based infrastructure to be considered for the future 6G network. Once 6G is commercialized, the resource management technique of the network and computing core can be applied to AR/VR or holographic services,” says Prof. Jeongho Kwak of Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Korea, who was an integral part of the study.

The new network architecture aims to create a holistic framework that can fine-tune processing resources that use different (heterogeneous) processors for different tasks and optimize networking. The unified framework will support dynamic service chaining, which allows a single network connection to be used for many connected services like firewalls and intrusion protection; and code offloading, which involves shifting intensive computational tasks to a resource-rich remote server.

Stimulating STEM Innovation & Securing U.S. High-Tech Economy — Kimberly A. Reed, Fmr President and Chairman Export-Import Bank of the United States.

Kimberly A. Reed just finished up a 2-year term as President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM — https://www.exim.gov). She was the first woman to lead EXIM in the agency’s 87-year history, was the first recipient of EXIM’s highest honor, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Award, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2019 on a strong bi-partisan basis.

Continue reading “Kimberly A Reed — Fmr EXIM Chairman / President — Stimulating STEM & Securing U.S. High-Tech Economy” »

Researchers track 6 satellites to get location with accuracy of 8 meters.