eMindful Unveils New Programming and Resources to Address Burnout Head On

Published: Oct. 5, 2021 at 12:52 PM EDT|Updated: 2 hours ago

ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Employees are leaving the workforce en masse and burnout is to blame. The devastation of the pandemic has taken a toll on employees with 77% reporting that they have experienced workplace burnout and more than 42% reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression up from 11% the previous year.

eMindful, the leading provider of evidence-based mindfulness programs for everyday moments and chronic conditions, regularly takes the pulse of our participants and provides programming and resources to address their needs in real-time. More than one-third of participants surveyed recently indicated that they are experiencing different types of burnout, including difficulty balancing time spent working versus not working or that their workload exceeds their capacity.

eMindful is addressing the crisis head on with the introduction of new programming and resources. This includes a Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Training program, which uses a cognitive-behavioral therapy approach with mindfulness to address burnout and prevent depression and relapse.

The program includes 16 expert-led, live, virtual mindfulness sessions and a four-hour group workshop and retreat to build community and support. Using an evidence-based approach, the teacher helps participants build self-compassion, foster positive feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, and manage feelings of overwhelm. The program also includes a click-to-call feature for participants who need immediate access to a mental health professional.

eMindful also is introducing a Leading Through Burnout collection with a live webinar and an on-demand series for leaders to recognize signs of burnout in themselves and their employees, learn strategies to relate to difficult emotions in new and positive ways, and create a pathway for an open dialogue with their staff around workload and mental health.

"Our burned-out workforce is the latest mental health casualty of the pandemic and leaders in particular are suffering," said Mary Pigatti, President, eMindful. "These resources will allow managers to build skills and learn strategies to lead through burnout and emerge more resilient."

The next MBCT program begins on Monday, Oct. 18. Organizations that are interested in bringing this program to their population or their clients' populations, can contact sales@emindful.com.

Media Contact:Zev SuissaeMindful772-569-4540zev@emindful.com

About eMindfuleMindful, a Wondr Health company, provides evidence-based, mindfulness programs for everyday life and chronic conditions by helping individuals make every moment matter.

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SOURCE eMindful

The above press release was provided courtesy of PRNewswire. The views, opinions and statements in the press release are not endorsed by Gray Media Group nor do they necessarily state or reflect those of Gray Media Group, Inc.

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How to Lead Through Burnout and Emerge More Resilient - WITN

Twitter granted researchers working for the Defense Department access to information shared by its users for study on combating online influence operations, a defense research program manager says.

Brian Kettler, a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), said unintentional collection of Americans data is possible.

However, there are processes in place to protect Americans personally identifiable information (PII) and prevent their data from being used by government-funded researchers, he added.

DARPA-funded researchers are following Twitters terms and conditions, Mr. Kettler said.

We have an, the performer thats in charge of data provisioning has an agreement with Twitter, Mr. Kettler said. Twitter has sort of, they scrutinized how were using the information, what information were accessing, so its all going through the platform Ts and Cs with a specific agreement.

Two programs run by Mr. Kettler involve Twitter, namely the Social Simulation for Evaluating Online Messaging Campaigns (SocialSim) program and the Influence Campaign Awareness and Sensemaking (INCAS) program.

Mr. Kettler said that researchers on the SocialSim program have worked with Twitter and that those on the INCAS program intend to collect data from Twitter and plan to build algorithms to analyze data for foreign influence.

You may inadvertently collect information on U.S. persons, Mr. Kettler said. When we do that, we have procedures in place and policies to deal with that so that we are not intentionally collecting information on U.S. persons and if we unintentionally collect it thats sequestered and not used. And we have a stringent policy in place in general to protect PII information that were collecting as well so were not looking at personal details of individuals.

Mr. Kettler said the government is following Twitters rules to ensure it complies with the data it accesses on Twitter.

For example, on Twitter, when somebody deletes a tweet, you have to delete the tweet in your database so its all going through the standard public ways you can procure data from these platforms, he said. Were not scraping stuff, were working through the platforms.

Scraping on social media websites refers to the use of automated software tools to access and extract or copy data from public profiles. The practice often runs afoul of tech platforms rules, but that does not stop hackers or foes from countries like China from scraping anyway.

Last year, American researcher Christopher Balding and Australian cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0 discovered that Chinese technology company Shenzhen Zhenua Data had surveilled the social media profiles of tens of thousands of Americans and collected information on peoples whereabouts and their personal and professional relationships.

Lawmakers have since debated several proposals on how to better protect the Americans data, including its export to foreign adversaries.

Twitter declined to comment for this report, including about what information the government-funded researchers are accessing.

Twitters privacy policy encourages users to think about what they decide to make public.

You are responsible for your Tweets and other information you provide through our services, and you should think carefully about what you make public, especially if it is sensitive information, reads Twitters website. If you update your public information on Twitter, such as by deleting a Tweet or deactivating your account, we will reflect your updated content on Twitter.com, Twitter for iOS, and Twitter for Android. By publicly posting content, you are directing us to disclose that information as broadly as possible, including through our [application programming interfaces], and directing those accessing the information through our APIs to do the same.

Asked whether Twitter users were made aware that DARPA researchers looked at their tweets, Mr. Kettler said Twitter treats DARPA researchers the same as anyone else it gives access.

Before the governments selection of researchers for the INCAS program, DARPA required them to detail how they would control the collection of Americans data and apply Human Subjects Research Controls if they needed to do so, according to an October 2020 DARPA presentation.

The information accessed by the government-funded researchers looks to be tweets made available to the public.

A broad agency announcement about the INCAS program from October 2020 said INCAS will primarily use publicly available data sources including multilingual, multi-platform social media, online news sources, and online reference data sources.

We hope that ultimately the tools that we develop to better understand the online information environment we can make open source and platforms can take advantage of but were not working with any platforms other than procuring their data through standard channels, Mr. Kettler said.

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Twitter gave researchers for Defense Department access to info for use in government programs - Washington Times

How do you download apps on your Android phone? Most likely you head to the Google Play Store as its often pre-installed on your phone. Moreover, it gives you access to pretty much every kind of app or game you can think of. If not the Play Store, you probably use the Amazon Appstore.

What if you have a passion for open source software? Or, what if you dont like Google serving you ads and sponsored content as part of your experience? If either of these situations sounds like you, perhaps you should consider F-Droid.

Open Source Software (OSS), is software whose source code (the stuff that makes up the app) is made available for anyone and everyone to view, edit, or copy. This code is often managed by the git versioning system that keeps track of changes, called commits. The code is then uploaded to repositories on websites such as GitHub or GitLab.

The basic makeup of Android is open source software, known as the Android Open Source Project. Similarly, the Chrome browser is based off of an open source browser called Chromium.

F-Droid is an app store that exclusively deals in Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). That is to say that he apps you download are open source and come at no cost to you. The main F-Droid repository mostly consists of apps vetted, compiled (put together from source), and signed by F-Droid. The app in itself is free of any form of tracking, which is why youll never see any download stats on the apps you find.

First, head to to F-Droid.org on your phone and click the download button. Your phone will probably prompt you with a warning or notification. If thats the case, do what it says and go into settings and allow your browser as an app source.

Upon installation, open the app up where you will see it immediately refreshing information from the repository.

When you click on an app, youll see the name, when it was last updated, some important links about the app, permissions the app needs, and previous versions.

If you like the app, click install. Itll download the app, and then you have to allow F-Droid to install apps and then install the app manually.

Its worth noting here that this means that all updates will have to be manually installed. This may change in the future because Android 12 could introduce a permission for alternative app stores to be able to install apps without user intervention.

In your settings, you can do things like change how updates are handled, change your theme, add a proxy, and turn on anti-feature apps

These are apps that, for one reason or another, arent completely in line with the F-Droid ethos. They may contain ads or tracking, connect to a non-free network service (such as YouTube or Facebook), or rely/depend on a non-free app or service (e.g. Google Play Services).

No problem! There are a variety of extra repositories you can add on, with some only containing one or a few specific apps. The biggest one, and a favorite of mine for those hoping to more fully replace the use of Google Play, is the IzzyOnDroid Repo. This contains apps compiled by the original developers and might include dependencies on Google Play Services. In total, IzzySoft contains around 650 apps.

To add a repository, go to https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721 and copy the link to the repo you would like to add. Then go into your F-droid settings, to repositories and then click the plus sign. The link will likely populate from your clipboard, so all you have to do is click Add and let the app add and update the repository.

After that, youre good to go! Enjoy your newly-freed Android experience!

Read more:

How to download free and open source apps with F-Droid - AndroidGuys

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GitHub and Google today announced the launch of Allstar, an app that provides automated continuous enforcement of security best practices for GitHub projects. Allstar, which was created by Google and the wider Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF), can check for security policy adherence, set enforcement actions, and enact those enforcements when triggered by a setting or file change in a repository.

Allstar is a companion to Security Scorecards, a tool released by Google and comembers at the OpenSSF that assesses risk to a repository and its dependencies. While Scorecards checks heuristics like whether the project uses branch protection, cryptographically signs release artifacts, or requires code review, Allstar allows maintainers to opt into automated enforcement of specific checks.

Security gaps increasingly plague large open source projects. The number of open source software vulnerabilities more than doubled in 2019 compared with 2018, according to RiskSense, while total common vulnerabilities and exposures vulnerabilities reached 968 last year up from 421 in 2018. The implications are far-reaching, considering that an estimated 91% of commercial applications contain outdated or abandoned open source components.

Allstar works by continuously checking expected GitHub API states like repository settings, branch settings, workflow settings, and file contents against defined security policies. If the app detects that somethings amiss, it applies enforcement actions, such as filing issues and changing the project settings. For example, Allstar will spot and respond if a developer temporarily disables branch protections to commit a malicious change before reenabling the protections.

A limited number of security policy checks are currently enforced by Allstar, with additional policies including frozen dependencies and automatic dependency updates planned in the coming months. At launch, Allstar can set requirements before collaborators can push changes to a branch in a repository; enforce the presence of a security policy; require that users with admin privileges on a repository be members of the owning organization; and detect potentially compromising binary artifacts.

Allstar lets developers pick from several out-of-the-box enforcement actions including Log the security policy adherence failure with no additional action, Open a GitHub issue, and Revert the modified GitHub policy setting to match the original Allstar configuration. OpenSSF runs an Allstar instance that anyone can install and use, but developers can create and run their own instance for security or further customization.

Allstar is still in the early stages of development, so we welcome adoption and community feedback, Google senior program manager and contributor Mike Maraya wrote in a blog post. We look forward to rolling out more enforcements; in the meanwhile, taking simple steps like enforcing code review and setting branch protections can make a significant difference in protecting against supply-chain attacks. Taking these fundamental actions together can help raise the bar for security standards in open source software.

Since its founding last year, OpenSSF, which is spearheaded by the Linux Foundation, has made progress toward consolidating industry efforts to improve the security of open source projects. The list of governing board members has grown beyond Google and GitHub to include IBM, JPMorgan Chase, and Red Hat. GitLab, HackerOne, Intel, Okta, Purdue, Uber, WhiteSource, and VMware are among the initiatives other members.

Originally posted here:

OpenSFFs Allstar aims to fix vulnerabilities in open source projects - VentureBeat

Open source technology makes industries like exploration cheaper.Photo by Luca R on Unsplash In 2023, NASA will launch its Voltailes Investigating Polar Exploration Rover or VIPER, which will trek across the moon, searching for water ice to one day be used to make rocket fuel.

More recently, the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter left Earth for Mars in July 2020 - a milestone moment that signalled the first powered flight on another planet. What do these space adventures have in common, beyond the obvious? They were made possible by the power of open source technology.

Open source technology, albeit a complex concept to explain in so many words, is simply put: software whose source code is shared and made available to the public. Its increasingly being used, and produced, by global tech juggernauts, as well as at the SMB level and is projected to reach USD 66 billion by 2026. Recently, open source has come to the fore, or quite literally to the space, of interplanetary travel.

Some of the worlds foremost space agencies such as NASA have been employing open source technology in R&D projects for almost two decades. Still, as space innovation and exploration ramps up, with the likes of commercial launch providers SpaceX and RocketLabs democratising access to space, the role open source technology plays in bringing the universe closer together is becoming more pertinent.

There are a few key reasons the democratisation of space exploration is increasingly owing itself to the powers of open source technology: open source makes it less expensive, it enables collaboration, fosters endless possibilities and it signals a brighter future.

One of the most immediate thoughts that springs to mind and one of the great barriers to increased space exploration is cost. To build the technology capable of launching into space, ensuring it reaches its destination and completing a complex set of tasks is a pricey exercise. This is made more expensive when using proprietary or closed-source software. Open source on the other hand is a more inexpensive solution, as codes do not need to be built from scratch, saving money and resources, which can in turn be diverted to the final exploration itself.

Open source fosters greater transnational collaboration because it is free and open to others by its very design. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, the first powered flight on another planet, which was made possible with open source software including SciPy, Linux and F Prime, was contributed to by as many as 12,000 different developers (GitHub). Open source is a poignant real-life reflection of the saying teamwork makes the dream work. If software were to be written by an individual or a single company, the results would be slower to be seen. Open source provides an avenue in which people of all backgrounds and locations can impart their skills to address complex problems. It is this diversity which in turn makes almost unfathomable human endeavours, like travelling seven months to the red planet, possible.

Open source technology has already changed the world. The Android operating system, for example, holds almost 73% market share because of its open source nature, with parent company Google making deals to provide the software to various hardware vendors. This comes in stark contrast to biggest competitor Apple with its closed-source IOS system, which has a market share of around 26%.

With the ability to be adopted and worked upon by many, how do these possibilities translate to space? Essentially, it has allowed open source to become recognised as a safe, efficient and cost-effective method of advancing space technology. Several NASA groups are using open source to code robotic intelligence, while other groups are using it to fuel satellite activity. Whats more, as spaceflight continues to get cheaper and collaboration allows technology to proliferate and improve, space exploration will no doubt rely on this technology more and more.

Closer to home, Instaclustr has partnered with the University of Canberra to establish open-source software training and certification, as well as research and development. In an attempt to enhance Australias job ready skills, this partnership will power individuals' work in the industry, which has the great potential to translate to what the world is doing in space.

Nevertheless, endless possibilities are only as good as what they can do for the human race. This investment in training and R&D only reaffirms our belief that open source technology is paving the way to a brighter future, by allowing us to gain and share greater knowledge and insight into the murky depths of the universe. The tools that we use to explore and observe the universe around us are as critical as the minds that use them. Such has been seen with the invention of the telescope, our understanding of lenses and all the subsequent improvements to telescopes with every one of Galileo Galileis iterations. Sharing of knowledge, tools and processes can be a catalyst that greatly expands our understanding of the world and it is open source philosophy that greatly supercharges this sharing.

Ben Bromheadis CTO at Canberra-basedopen source tech startup, Instaclustr.

Continued here:

How open source is bringing the universe closer - BIT

Most outsiders see open source as one of the things they find most hard to come to terms within the IT ecosystem: an open collaboration between individuals to create software that is made available to anyone, not necessarily at no cost.

As Richard Stallman puts it: Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.

There are most definitely costed open source software solutions available. But it is perhaps one of the last bastions of the ideals that animated the early days of the internet, when people thought that a new economic model based not solely on profit was emerging. However, it's an approach that predates the internet.

For example, the motor industry has been sharing technology and patents across the industry since the days of Henry Ford, when one patent-holder was effectively blocking the development of the industry.

What one can say is that the collaboration and cooperation that underpins open source has achieved its fullest expression in the software industry, in which a robust and proven ecosystem has developed.

Open source's role in the development value chain has been growing, and the COVID-inspired move to remote working will only exacerbate the digital transformation of businesses, and thus their dependence on open source.

According to a Gartner survey, 90% of organisations rely to some extent on open source components. Other research shows that 96% of all scanned applications contain some open source components (an average of 257 per application), and that the percent of open source in application codebases grew from 36% to 57% in just one year.

In short, taking all these figures into account reveals that typical applications comprise up to 90% of open source code. Speed and cost are two of the benefits driving this seemingly unstoppable trend.

Open sources contribution to the speed with which an application can be developed is equally clear: using pre-built components will obviously reduce development time and will give developers more time to spend on ensuring the final product is more bug-free.

The need for speed is central to business today. The digital world values speed, and a new generation of consumers and employers are looking for ever-more personalisation and rapid responses to their requirements.

Getting an app to market is now a critical success lever, and this has spurred the Agile and DevOps movement in software development, which aims to make development more rapid and at the same time more accurate.

In the rush to get software apps up and running to take advantage of a market shift, or face off a competitive threat, speed is going to remain paramount. It's nearly impossible to build software entirely from scratch and still meet delivery deadlines that are consistently becoming more punishing.

At the same time, of course, building software from scratch will inevitably lead to higher development costs and best practice concerns.

Getting an app to market is now a critical success lever, and this has spurred the Agile and DevOps movement in software development.

It's also worth reminding oneself that, when it comes to open source, speed and cost are not the only drivers. Open source also offers organisations a way to access leading-edge capabilities early on. Some of the breakthrough ideas in software have originated in the open source world.

In addition, using prebuilt open source components means the development team can focus on the 10% of the project that will create competitive advantage.

The trend of relying more on open source looks set to dominate software development for the foreseeable future, as the internet of things, artificial intelligence and machine learning, combined with the cost-effective processing power provided by the cloud, ensure valuable insights are more accessible, and demonstrate the need to act on them rapidly.

At the same time, though, CIOs and CTOs need to recognise that the very things that make open source such an essential part of their arsenal also create certain vulnerabilities. By using open source code, the organisation is exposed to a very large pool of users, as well as an increased number of exposure points.

For example, the 2014 Heartbleed security bug in the OpenSSL cryptography library showed just how devastating such a security risk can be. Similarly, the open source Apache Struts exploit resulted in over 140 million US citizens personal information being compromised after Equifax was hacked in September 2017, costing them an estimated $2 billion.

Nearly 88% of Java applications have at least one vulnerability in a component, something that should make everyone sit up and take note, given their ubiquity. Or, to put it another way, 76% of apps have at least one security flaw.

However, the sheer utility of open source means it will remain very much an integral part of development. What CIOs and CTOs need to do is come to grips with how to live with open source. That means putting security at the centre of the development framework.

In my next article, I will investigate how CIOs and CTOs can develop and implement a security framework that will enable them to realise the benefits of using open source without dramatically increasing risk.

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Everything you need to know about open source - ITWeb

Facebook has taken a break from its social media shenanigans to open-source the specifications for its timekeeping device, the Open Compute Time Appliance.

Basically, it's a PCI Express card that uses a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and oscillator to provide an authoritative source of time. Stick the card into a vacant slot and hey presto an ordinary server can become a time appliance.

Facebook has been working on the problem for a while. While users might sometimes wonder at the seeming randomness of their timeline, keeping server time synchronised and accurate is important when it comes to infrastructure management and distributed databases.

Back in March 2020 the social media giant confirmed it was in the process of switching over to a new timekeeping service based on the Network Time Protocol (NTP.) The update, according to Facebook, increased the accuracy of timekeeping in its infrastructure from 10 milliseconds to 100 microseconds.

However, the new architecture uses a Stratum 1. This component is linked to a source of time such as a GNSS or a caesium clock. Facebook's idea is that, rather than depend on something like time.facebook.com for their Stratum 1, which is an one that might suffer a wobble if connectivity were lost, how about companies use a Time Appliance instead?

The approach is hardly new, and such appliances have been available off-the-shelf for years. Problems, however, include a distinct lean toward a proprietary world which, in turn, can make things expensive and more difficult to support.

Thus Facebook has designed and open sourced a Time Card. The PCI Express card includes a GNSS receiver to provide Time of Day (ToD) and one pulse per second (PPS.) An oscillator (such as an atomic clock) backs things up in the event the GNSS signal is lost and an off-the-shelf network card (the NVIDIA Mellanox ConnectX-6 Dx was Facebook's initial choice) sends the time out over the network.

It is undoubtedly a neat bit of tech and free from vendor lock-in. The specifications, source code and schematics can all be found on GitHub should one wish to roll one's own. The driver for the Time Card lurks in the Linux kernel from version 5.15, or can be built on 5.12 or later.

Hardware-wise, pretty much any PC will do the job so long as it has enough spare PCIe slots and we reckon somebody handy with a soldering iron, the necessary components and access to PCB printing could make a decent fist of making their own Time Appliance for considerably less than buying one off-the-shelf.

A weekend project, perhaps? It'd certainly be an improvement than sitting around and, er, scrolling through Facebook.

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Tick-tock, Facebook: Not a reference to that short vid horsepuckey but a literal open-source timekeeper - The Register

Israeli cyber giant Checkmarx has acquired Israeli startup Dustico -- a SaaS platform that detects malicious attacks and backdoors in open source software supply chains. The sum of the deal has yet to be disclosed.

Dustico, a startup that has run bootstrap to date, has developed an open source platform designed for analyzing code packages using a machine learning algorithm (ML) to accurately detect supply chain attacks.

The young Israeli startups solution has found increased demand, as we witness a rise in supply chain attacks, some even garnering extensive media coverage due to their tremendous scope. One of those attacks, and stop me if youve heard about this one before, was the SolarWinds debacle, which released malicious code throughout different branches of the U.S. Federal Government.

The Israeli startup has developed a platform that operates in three stages to ensure that the code packages it checks are legitimate. First, it examines the "trust" - which focuses on the identity behind the code package, as well as anyone else who contributed to the open source code. It then tests the "health" of the code package, checking that its level of maintenance meets standards. And finally, the platform performs behavioral analysis of the package; while searching for malicious code that may have been implanted in it, through backdoors, ransomware, Trojans, or code that will allow for multi-stage attacks.

Checkmarx is expected to incorporate Dusticos platform, including its supply chain behavioral analysis into its AST tool -- Designed for developers looking to perform security checks on their applications, which will now be able to expand not only to a specific application but to the entire supply chain.

Todays adversaries have zoned-in on software supply chains many of which rely heavily on open source. As the threat of tampering in third-party packages increases, development teams must operate with the proactive assumption that all code may have been maliciously manipulated, said Maty Siman, CTO, Checkmarx. With Dustico, were building on our mission to secure open source by enabling customers to perform vulnerability, behavioral, and reputational analysis from a single solution. This will give developers and security leaders the insights and confidence needed to choose safer code packages, and in turn, build more secure applications at speed.

This is a very exciting time for Dustico and our community, said Tzachi Zornstain, Co-Founder and CEO, Dustico. We founded Dustico to help organizations cope with the explosion in supply chain and dependency attacks and fortify their trust in open source software, and were thrilled to join Checkmarx to further execute on this vision and bring our capabilities to a global set of customers.

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Checkmarx acquires an Israeli startup that's securing the open source space - Geektime

Samsungs watches have long been something of an anomaly. While the company embraced Wear OS (then Android Wear) in its earliest days with the massive Gear Live, the company quickly shifted to Tizen, an open-source operating system largely used by Samsung for wearables and smart TVs.

Thats no doubt been a kind of bugbear for Google, which has long struggled to crack a significant portion of the smartwatch market. Samsung, meanwhile, has had its share of success with its products while doing its own thing. But theres always more market share to be grabbed.

Third-party apps have long been an issue for basically every smartwatch maker but Apple (its the main reason Fitbit bought Pebble, if youll recall), and clearly Samsung saw the opportunity in reigniting its partnership with Google. The deal first mentioned at I/O and discussed more recently at MWC is now seeing the light of day on the brand new Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

The companies refer to it as the new Wear OS Powered by Samsung. What that means, practically, is that Wear OS serves as the code base. Design and other elements of Tizen exist in here, but for all practical intents and purposes, its a custom built version of Googles wearable operating system, which Samsung helped build out.

The company will stress that latter bit as an important bit of clarification that it didnt just slap a new coat of paint on the OS here. The companys One UI Watch sits atop all of that, in a bid to create a unified user experience across Samsungs mobile devices and wearable line.

Per a release:

Galaxy Watch 4 Series is also the first generation of smartwatches to feature Wear OS Powered by Samsung a new platform that elevates every aspect of the smartwatch experience. Built by Samsung and Google, this cutting-edge platform lets you tap into an expansive ecosystem right from your wrist with popular Google apps like Google Maps, and beloved Galaxy services, like Samsung Pay, SmartThings and Bixby. The new platform also includes support for leading third-party apps, like Adidas Running, Calm, Strava and Spotify.

In a blog post this morning, Google breaks down its end of the partnership thusly,

Were taking what weve learned from Wear OS and Tizen to jointly build what smartwatch users need. Compared to previous Wear OS smartwatches, the Galaxy Watch4 features a 2.5x shorter set up experience, up to 40 hours of battery life, optimized performance with app launch times 30 percent faster than before and access to a huge ecosystem of apps and services.

And there are more ways to get more done from your wrist with Wear OS. Were introducing more capabilities and a fresh new look based on Material You design language for Google Maps, Messages by Google and Google Pay apps as well as launching a YouTube Music app. There are also new apps and Tiles coming to Wear OS for quicker access to your favorites.

The software giant singles out turn-by-turn directions on Google Maps, the ability to download and listen to songs on YouTube Music and improved app discovery via Google Play. The news also finds Google Pay on Wear OS coming to 16 additional countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine and United Arab Emirates.

The other key focus on the line continues to be health its the field on which all smartwatches are currently competing. The monitoring is built around a smaller version of the companys BioActive Sensor, which measures optical heart rate, electrical heart (ECG) and Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis. The trio of sensors measure a bunch of different metrics, including blood pressure, AFib monitoring, blood oxygen and now body composition/BMI. So now, for better or worse, your watch will tell you your body fat percentage [post-pandemic grimace face emoji]. Says Samsung, In about 15 seconds, your watchs sensor will capture 2,400 data points.

Image Credits: Brian Heater

Design is the primary distinction between the two models. The Galaxy Watch 4 is the thinner and lighter of the two more in line with the Galaxy Watch Active. It sports a touch bezel, versus the Classics physical spinning bezel arguably Samsungs best innovation in the category.

Also, of note: Both models come in two sizes. Thats always been a bit of a sticking point for me on Samsung Watches. If your devices are large and only come in the one size, youre essentially knocking out a sizable portion of your customer base right off the bat. The Watch 4 comes in 40mm and 44mm and the Classic is available in 42mm and 46mm. The models start at $250 and $350, respectively. Another $50 will get you LTE connectivity.

The watches go up for preorder today and start shipping on August 26. Preordering will get you a $50 Samsung Credit. The company is also launching a limited-edition Thom Browne version of the Classic in September, which will almost certainly cost an arm and/or leg.

Read this article:

Samsung returns to Wear OS with the Galaxy Watch 4 - TechCrunch

Nvidia on Tuesday announced a series of ways it plans to bring the Omniverse design and collaboration platform to a vastly larger audience. Those plans include new integrations with Blender and Adobe, companies that will extend the potential reach of Omniverse by millions. Nvidia is also introducing the new RTX A2000 GPU, bringing the RTX technology that powers Omniverse to a wide range of mainstream computers.

Nvidia rolled out Omniverse in open beta back in December, giving 3D designers a shared virtual world from which they can collaborate across different software applications and from different geographic locations. Earlier this year, the company introduced Omniverse Enterprise, bringing the platform to the enterprise community via a familiar licensing model.

"We are building Omniverse to be the connector of the physical and virtual worlds," Richard Kerris, VP of Omniverse for Nvidia, said to reporters last week. "We believe that there will be more content and experiences shared in virtual worlds than in physical worlds. And we believe that there will be amazing exchange markets and economic situations that will be first built in the virtual world... Omniverse is an exchange of these vital worlds. We connect everything and everyone, through a baseline architecture that is familiar to existing tools that are out there and existing workflows."

Nvidia unveiled the RTX A2000 GPU to bring RTX technology to mainstream workstations.

In a blog post, Nvidia VP Bob Pette wrote that the new A2000 GPU "would serve as a portal" to Omniverse "for millions of designers." The A2000 is Nvidia's most compact, power-efficient GPU for standard and small-form-factor workstations.

The GPU has 6GB of memory capacity with an error correction code (ECC) to maintain data integrity -- a feature especially important for industries such as healthcare and financial services.

Based on the Nvidia Ampere architecture, it features 2nd Gen RT Cores, enabling real-time ray tracing for professional workflows. It offers up to 5x the rendering performance from the previous generation with RTX on. It also features 3rd Gen tensor cores to enable AI-augmented tools and applications, as well as CUDA cores with up to 2x the FP32 throughput of the previous generation.

Speaking to reporters, Pette said the A200 would enable RTX in millions of additional mainstream computers. More designers will have access to the real-time ray tracing and AI acceleration capabilities that RTX offers. "This is the first foray of RTX into what is the largest volume segment of GPUs for Nvidia," Pette said.

Among the first customers using the RTX A2000 are Avid, Cuhaci & Peterson and Gilbane Building Company.

The A2000 desktop GPU will be available in workstations from manufacturers including ASUS, BOXX Technologies, Dell Technologies, HP and Lenovo, as well as Nvidia's global distribution partners, starting in October.

Meanwhile, Nvidia is encouraging the adoption of Omniverse by supporting Universal Scene Description (USD), an interchange framework invented by Pixar in 2012. USD was released as open-source software in 2016, providing a common language for defining, packaging, assembling and editing 3D data.

Omniverse is built on the USD framework, giving other software makers different ways to connect to the platform. Nvidia announced Tuesday that it's collaborating with Blender, the world's leading open-source 3D animation tool, to provide USD support to the upcoming release of Blender 3.0. This will give Blender's millions of users access to Omniverse production pipelines. Nvidia is contributing USD and materials support in Blender 3.0 alpha USD, which will be available soon.

Nvidia has also collaborated with Pixar and Apple to define a common approach for expressing physically accurate models in USD. More specifically, they've developed a new schema for rigid-body physics, the math that describes how solids behave in the real world (for example, how marbles would roll down a ramp). This will help developers create and share realistic simulations in a standard way.

Nvidia also announced a new collaboration with Adobe on a Substance 3D plugin that will bring Substance Material support to Omniverse. This will give Omniverse and Substance 3D users new material editing capabilities.

Nvidia on Tuesday also announced that Omniverse Enterprise, currently in limited early access, will be available later this year on a subscription basis from its partner network. That includes ASUS, BOXX Technologies, Dell Technologies, HP, Lenovo, PNY and Supermicro.

The company is also extending its Developer Program to include Omniverse. This means the developer community for Nvidia will have access to Omniverse with custom extensions, microservices, source code, examples, resources and training.

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Nvidia expands Omniverse with a new GPU, new collaborations - ZDNet