Hasta La Gadget!

It would appear that the Google Pixel Fold wasn’t nixed after all. The latest set of rumors suggest that this might be a foldable smartphone worth its salt.

DreamWorks has been open sourcing some of its technology in recent years, and now its animation division is preparing to make more tools freely available. DreamWorks Animation said it will release its MoonRay ray-tracing renderer as open-source software later this year. As The Hollywood Reporter notes, DreamWorks will offer up its Arras cloud rendering framework in the code base too.

“We are thrilled to share with the industry over 10 years of innovation and development on MoonRay’s vectorized, threaded, parallel and distributed code base,” Andrew Pearce, DreamWorks vice president of global technology said in a statement. “The appetite for rendering at scale grows each year, and MoonRay is set to meet that need. We expect to see the code base grow stronger with community involvement as DreamWorks continues to demonstrate our commitment to open source.”

DreamWorks used MoonRay in movies including How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Croods: A New Age and The Bad Guys, as well as the upcoming Puss In Boots: The Last Wish. It’s always welcome to see proprietary software being opened up for anyone to use. Whether dedicated hobbyists can create animation on par with the quality of visuals DreamWorks knocks out remains to be seen, but at least they’ll have another helpful tool to add to their belt. If you’re interested, you can ask to be considered for early access to MoonRay or sign up for updates.

A new map from the U.S. Drought Monitor shows vast areas of the Western, Southwestern, and Central U.S. in dark red and bright red, representing exceptional drought and extreme drought.

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A report from FEMA suggested that the U.S. Emergency Alert System (EAS) could be the target of attack due to a vulnerability that’ll be on demo at DEFCON 2022.

The UK government may soon start using facial recognition smartwatches to monitor migrants who have been convicted of crimes. The offenders would need to scan their faces up to five times per day, according to The Guardian. The measures may come into effect as soon as this fall.

Those subject to the conditions would need to take photos of themselves throughout the day and have their locations tracked around the clock, according to documents obtained by The Guardian. The photos will be compared with ones the Home Office has on file. If the government’s systems can’t verify the person’s identity, a manual check would be required. The photos — along with migrants names, nationalities and dates of birth — will be stored for up to six years, under the Home Office and Ministry of Justice plans.

The rules will only apply to foreign nationals who have been convicted of crimes. The UK government reportedly won’t monitor others, such as asylum seekers, in this fashion.

In May, the government gave a £6 million ($7.2 million) contract to a company called Buddi Limited to secure “non-fitted devices” to track “specific cohorts” under the Home Office’s Satellite Tracking Service. “A non-fitted device solution will provide a more proportionate way of monitoring specific cohorts over extended periods of time than fitted tags,” the contract reads. “These devices will utilize periodic biometric verification as an alternative to being fitted to an individual.” The number of smartwatches Buddi will supply and the cost of each has been redacted.

The Home Office hasn’t explicitly said it will use smartwatches with facial recognition functions to track convicted migrants. A spokesperson told The Guardian that the Home Office will soon implement a “portable biometrically accessed device” that will work alongside ankle tags.