Unbound: No 118
Microsoft partners with Meta to bring Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox to VR
by Tom Warren | The Verge
Microsoft and Meta looked like they were on a collision course last year, poised to compete heavily for the future of work in the metaverse. But today, both companies announced they are partnering to collaborate on how people will work and even game in virtual reality. That starts with Microsoft bringing its biggest services — Teams, Office, Windows, and even Xbox Cloud Gaming — to Meta’s Quest VR headsets.
It’s a surprise partnership that will see Microsoft and Meta combine their strengths. Microsoft sees an opportunity to bring Teams and its other productivity experiences to a capable VR headset, and Meta gets a key partner in its grand metaverse plan.
Crypto Activity Exploding In Russia And Ukraine Due To War, Study Shows
by Christian Encila | Bitcoinist
Crypto activity in Russia and Ukraine is escalating as fast and as high as the missiles fired at each other in the face of an ongoing war between the two countries.
New York-based blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis released a study on the highly increasing use of crypto – a large part them illicit in nature – in Eastern Europe in an excerpt from its upcoming 2022 Geography of Cryptocurrency Report.
The noticeable increase in activity among residents of the two countries started shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
As the war escalated, their economies began to suffer, pushing inflation upwards to suffocating levels.
Commercial Availability, Consequences Best Approach for Post-Quantum Transition
By Alexandra Kelley | Nextgov.com
The technological research arm of the Department of Homeland Security is working to better understand what it will take for a successful transition to post-quantum cryptography across all agency components, focusing on education and use case testing.
Ann Cox, the technical lead at DHS’s Science and Technology Directorate, spoke with Nextgov about her office’s initiatives surrounding quantum technologies, particularly how to best usher in a widespread migration to secure post-quantum cryptography prior to the advent of working quantum computers.
Describing quantum technologies as both a threat and a promise, Cox said the migration for public and private sector networks will require a large overhaul of the equipment to evaluate if it is capable of functioning securely with future quantum machines.
🌙 NASA - Best Photo from Last Week
Hubble Snaps a Pair of Interacting Galaxies
The two interacting galaxies making up the pair known as Arp-Madore 608-333 seem to float side by side in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Though they appear serene and unperturbed, the two are subtly warping one another through a mutual gravitational interaction that is disrupting and distorting both galaxies. Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys captured this drawn-out galactic interaction.
The interacting galaxies in Arp-Madore 608-333 are part of an effort to build up an archive of interesting targets for more detailed future study with Hubble, ground-based telescopes, and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. To build up this archive, astronomers scoured existing astronomical catalogues for a list of targets spread throughout the night sky. They hoped to include objects already identified as interesting and that would be easy for Hubble to observe no matter which direction it was pointing.
Deciding how to award Hubble observing time is a drawn-out, competitive, and difficult process, and the observations are allocated to use every last second of Hubble time available. However, there is a small but persistent fraction of time – around 2-3 percent – that goes unused as Hubble turns to point at new targets. Snapshot programs, such as the one which captured Arp-Madore 608-333, exist to fill this gap and take advantage of the moments between longer observations. Snapshot programs not only produce beautiful images, they enable astronomers to gather as much data as possible with Hubble.
Text credit: European Space Agency (ESA)
Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Dark Energy Survey/Department of Energy/Fermilab/Dark Energy Camera (DECam)/Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory/NOIRLab/AURA
Media Contact:
Claire Andreoli
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
301-286-1940
Last Updated: Oct 13, 2022
Editor: Andrea Gianopoulos
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