Greetings! The year is coming to an end, but news from the world of technology and technology continues to flow in a wide stream. The Indian government, following the European Union, intends to approve USB-C as a single standard for connectors for connecting mobile equipment. If the process continues at this pace, then this type of connection could become the global standard for many years to come. TSMC is considering moving production to Europe and is celebrating the release of its first 3nm chipsets as the world celebrates reaching the 1 billion 5G user mark. Meanwhile, Russian authorities have allocated frequencies for Wi-Fi 6E, and British researchers have found that if you play sports in VR glasses, you will be less hungry. Juvenile delinquency is infiltrating cyberspace in games, McDonald’s has been robotized in Texas, and the first autonomous orbital factory could go live in 2025. Suzuki Motor Company is mastering the moon, while your phone will be able to eavesdrop on you, even if you deprive it of microphones. And now about all this in more detail!
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Is USB-C the next global standard?
As you remember, European legislators have been concerned for a long time with the issue of ensuring that all mobile devices have a single connection standard for both data transfer and charging. Years passed, but only in 2022 the idea acquired the status of a law, according to which, from December 2024, it will not be possible to start selling gadgets in the European Union if they do not have a USB-C connector. Notebook manufacturers have a separate relaxation in terms, but in the end they will also have to use this type of connection without fail. The Indian Ministry of Consumer Affairs did not conduct such long disputes and immediately issued a legislative act that orders all manufacturers of smartphones and other small gadgets to switch to USB-C by March 2025. Three months behind the EU. There is also an exemption for laptop developers, but only until 2026. The ministry itself plans to spend the remaining time developing requirements for unified charging standards for electronic devices. Actually, in India they do not hide the fact that they simply copied the European principle, because globalization is needed. Considering that of the major electronics manufacturers, only Apple fundamentally does not use the USB-C standard (but has already admitted that it will be forced), a global transition to it as a single charging standard is very likely. With India joining this standard, there are only two significant and large markets left (Chinese and American), where such initiatives have not yet been announced, but most likely they will accept USB-C as a standard, even if they do not impose legislative restrictions on the use of alternatives.
3nm chips already in production
Taiwanese company TSMC has launched mass production of chips using 3nm technology. The launch ceremony was held at Fab 18, located in the southwest of Tainan County. This was reported by the news agency TASS with reference to the publication of the Taiwan Central News Agency. According to TSMC experts, within five years, 3-nm chips will create devices with a total market value of about $ 1.5 trillion. At the same time, TSMC chairman Mark Liu said that the demand for 3nm products is “very large.” We add that the Fab 18 plant is currently undergoing the eighth stage of expansion, and investments in the project will amount to $60 billion.
First billion 5G users
According to research company Strategy Analytics, the global number of users of 5G communication networks has exceeded 1 billion. As early as June of this year, the number of users of 5G communication networks was 820 million. It is noted that about 36% of the total population of the planet will be covered by 5G communication networks in the world. Sales of 5G-enabled mobile phones already account for more than half of all models sold. It is expected that the development of 5G communication networks will actively continue in 2023. This will also be facilitated by the connection of new markets, for example, 5G communication services were launched in the Indian market in November this year. The largest number of 5G users is recorded in China, where 542 million subscribers use 5G, which is 32.2% of the total number of mobile users.
Your phone eavesdrops on you, not with microphones
The fact that your smartphone can eavesdrop on you is not a secret or news, but the fact that it does not have to use microphones for this will probably surprise many. The developers of the EarSpy application have demonstrated that almost any modern flagship smartphone can be a means of listening to conversations, even if the attackers have not gained access to any system that may be involved in this. The problem almost does not concern budget-level devices and inexpensive smartphones in general, since motion sensors are used for wiretapping. In top-end devices, they are highly sensitive and capture vibrations that occur when talking on the phone and coming from a person and smartphone speakers. Moreover, a few years ago, such wiretapping was impossible – the sensitivity of the sensors was less, so decoding the conversation through the motion sensor, for example, in OnePlus 3T did not work out. But for the more recent OnePlus 7T and OnePlus 9, the decryption accuracy ranged from 51.8% to 56.4% and from 33.3% to 41.6%, respectively. At the same time, both devices confidently made it possible to determine the gender and even the identity of the interlocutor.
Wi-Fi 6E legalized in Russia
The State Commission on Radio Frequencies at a meeting on December 23 decided to allocate the 5.9-6.4 GHz band for the Wi-Fi 6E communication standard indoors – including in offices and residential buildings, informs Portal “Kommersant” with reference to the Ministry of Digital Development. The main difference between Wi-Fi 6E and its predecessor Wi-Fi 6 is its operation at 6 GHz and a greater number of channels within the frequency. Devices with Wi-Fi 6E appeared on the market in 2021, this standard is supported by all the latest models of smartphones from Apple, Samsung, Honor, Xiaomi and others, as well as laptops from Asus, Acer, Lenovo and others. However, for Russia, vendors turned off the functionality, since the technology was not legalized in the country. From the point of view of the availability of routers with Wi-Fi 6E support in Russia, there are no big problems. A significant amount of Wi-Fi equipment is produced by Chinese and Taiwanese companies that have not imposed restrictions on imports to Russia. Otherwise, these are mass devices, and their import can be arranged from third countries. The Ministry of Digital Development states that routers are supplied in sufficient quantities through existing supply chains.
The first McDonald’s restaurant without people
First automated restaurant opens in Texas McDonald’s. The restaurant is fully automated and has no human employees. The restaurant is open only for the issuance of orders for motorists. The whole process from ordering to receiving food does not involve contact with the staff. Such a decision will help reduce the likelihood of the spread of infections in a pandemic. However, some clients express concern that in the future this may lead to the fact that thousands of people will lose their jobs. It is noted that some customers are unhappy with the fact that they will pay for the work of robots, depriving people of the opportunity to earn money, and suggest that companies raise the minimum wage instead of introducing robotic systems.
Orbital robot factory will start working in 2025
Thales Alenia Space and Space Cargo Unlimited will develop the REV1 automated spacecraft factory, which should be launched as early as 2025. It is expected that this will be a very compact model the size of a small car, but adapted for reusable flights. The payload of the space factory can be up to 1000 kg, and the small size and weight savings are achieved through an unmanned design. Robotic production at REV1 will work in conjunction with an unmanned orbital station developed by Thales Alenia Space, commissioned by the same Space Cargo Unlimited. The latter does not yet provide details on what is planned to be produced or developed on board the space factory, but claims that it already has agreements for the industrial production of products that require weightlessness in the manufacturing process. More details promise to inform immediately before the start of operation. By the way, it is planned for a long time. REV1, under the terms of the contract, should be designed for approximately a 10-year operation cycle, which implies 20 orbital missions. Those. once every six months, it will go into orbit, dock with the station, and then, having completed the production or research cycle, undock and parachute down with cargo to Earth.
Suzuki on the moon
The Japanese HAKUTO-R lander from ispace (investor – Suzuki Motor Corporation) successfully launched from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral in Florida (USA) and is currently on its way to the Moon, the corporation’s press service reports. The HAKUTO-R module has two global missions – landing on the moon in 2022-2023 and collecting data on it in 2024. They, in turn, are divided into several stages: the first three of the planned ten stages of the first global mission have been completed: preparation for launch, deployment after launch, establishment of a communication channel. On December 11, the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle successfully launched with the Japanese lunar lander, then it will maneuver in orbit, stay in space for a month, enter the orbit of the Moon, and at the end of April the module is expected to land, developed and launched by the world’s first private company . “As a member of the HAKUTO-R program, a team that is challenging the new frontier of lunar exploration, we want to support the development of landers to take our specialized ‘small car’ technologies into a ‘big future’,” it said.
Juvenile delinquency moves to games
Children are actively exploring the virtual space, so it is not surprising that juvenile delinquents have moved from the yards of disadvantaged areas to computer games, and instead of stealing money received by their peers for school breakfasts, they are now stealing game items and accounts. However, in the end, everything returns to money from the real world. And the term in case of capture for a juvenile hacker will not be virtual. While it is difficult to judge how many juvenile delinquents use the social component of games, but an investigation conducted by IGN journalists suggests that, at least in Roblox, criminal groups of children are by no means a rarity. While tackling the typical problem of selling expensive in-game items and hijacked accounts on Discord channels, they were surprised to learn that the “hacker” was only 13 years old. At the same time, the mechanics of the game make juvenile delinquents (and the game Roblox is popular among children, but not adults) organize peculiar societies necessary for “laundering” game items. To do this, the RBXFlip virtual casino is used – the items put on the line get their history reset, which allows you to hide the traces of the “hijacking”, after which the criminals, by agreement, can exchange items among themselves, as well as put them up for sale. In the case of stolen accounts (and they can contain items with a real value of thousands of dollars), typical schemes for such sales are used, in which the age of the seller of the stolen goods does not matter. According to the estimates of the criminals themselves, with whom representatives of IGN managed to communicate, illegal earnings in Roblox can be up to 2 thousand dollars a week.
VR technology helps you eat less
British scientists are divided into scientists and “British scientists” of anecdotes. You can decide for yourself what type of specialists from the University of Bristol are. They conducted a scientific study that refutes the myth that virtual reality lovers are necessarily lovers of junk food in excess of the body’s needs. After conducting a survey of a group of 34 volunteers, they found that if virtual reality is used for sports, then the desire to overeat, on the contrary, is reduced. After exercising on an exercise bike in VR glasses, the subjects ate 12% fewer calories than after the same exercise, but without them. In addition, it has been recorded that virtual reality training is more enjoyable than when you habitually look at the wall of the gym or out the window. The researchers propose to take into account the result obtained for the preparation of weight loss programs.
