Your glimpse into the ever-advancing world of technology.
This week has been slightly slow-moving for the tech world (due to the coronavirus pandemic), but there are a few very interesting news, that you might want to know about.
3D printing & COVID
Test swabs
Yet again the 3D printing community finds a way to help fight against the COVID-19 virus.
Due to the existing swab tests manufacturing companies being impacted by the virus, they are having trouble ramping up production to meet the current demand. And that is where the 3D-printed swabs come in, they offer a compelling alternative as they can be manufactured quickly and in large quantities while being quite cost-effective.
The swabs are made from a single material with a Voronoi lattice design, a design typically found in other medical application. The material behaves differently based on how it is printed. The swabs are made such that they are firm at the bottom where they are held while being soft and flexible at the tips so that they are comfortable for the patient when the swab test is being performed.
Formlabs and Origin are currently leading in manufacturing these swabs in enough numbers to offset the shortage. You can find out more about this technology here.
Finally an upgrade to Wi-Fi
The biggest update to Wi-Fi in 20 years, Wi-Fi 6. The FCC recently voted to open up the plot of spectrum in the 6GHz range for unlicensed use.
The Wi-Fi 6 does not offer increased speeds, as the theoretical speed for 6GHz and 5GHz, is almost the same. However, 6GHz Wi-Fi will reduce traffic congestion in the network & the spectrum. Also as the channel size is much larger, many more devices can connect to the same connection without having any issues or impact on the network performance. You can find out more about Wi-Fi 6 here.
Single-Board Computer
The latest release of Raspberry Pi the RPI 4 has seen a spike in sales due to people wanting tinker with cheap computing projects while staying in during this lockdown. And now HARDKERNEL has come up with a newer release of its own SBC, the Odroid-C4 a cheaper outperformer of the RPI 4.
The Odroid-C4 has much faster CPU and GPU and offers all the same functionalities as the RPI 4 while costing $5 less than its counterpart. The only drawback is that the Odroid-C4 does not have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth functionality onboard, however, optional adapters have been made available. You can find more about the C4 here.
Open-Source
ProtonMail
Proton announced it made ProtonMail open-source across all platforms.
In a statement, the firm explained their reason behind the transition:
“One of our guiding principles is transparency. You deserve to know who we are, how our products can and cannot protect you, and how we keep your data private. We believe this level of transparency is the only way to earn the trust of our community."
Though this transition does not mean much to a general user, the move will attract open source enthusiasts and allow security researchers to take a look at the code to find and report any vulnerabilities they find making the service much more reliable and trustworthy of our privacy. You can find out more about this here.
Space
Starlink
By now most of you know about the glowing train that beams across the night sky called Starlink, it's the brainchild of Elon Musk that will beam broadband internet service across the globe and provide internet connectivity where there is none.
SpaceX just launched 60 more Starlink satellites yesterday, that adds up the total count to 420 operational Starlink satellite in orbit as of now. And with that news Elon dropped a message (on twitter) saying that the private beta testing of the satellites will begin in the next 3 months and soon be followed by a public beta. You can find out more about it here.
Bugs & exploits
Symlink bug
We hope our computers are kept safe from digital threats by our trusted antivirus, but what if the antivirus is cause for concerns?
An exploit uncovered by RACK911 Labs shows how using the simple method of directory junctions (Windows) and symlinks (macOS & Linux) on an antivirus program can cause the antivirus to delete important files related to the antivirus itself or that of the OS, rendering it useless or crash respectively.
Almost all types of antivirus are susceptible to this attack, however, a small number of antivirus software like Windows Defender & Norton for Windows are safe. Also notable is that both of the above software are vulnerable to the exploit on macOS. You can find out more about the exploit and a list of vulnerable antivirus software here.
A quick side note, starting from today I will be posting daily updates on the Coronavirus Pandemic, covering everything from stats on the number of cases and death to medical advancements and news on the COVID-19 virus. So if you are interested in it follow me to know when I post the updates and not miss out on any.