Category: Tech news

 What a day for Bitcoin. 24 hours ago the cryptocurrency was trading below $3,700. About an hour ago it surged passed $4,000 and has no signs of stopping. It’s now trading around $4,135.00. For reference, a week ago Bitcoin hit an all-time high as it passed $3,000 for the first time. Check out the chart below to see what the price has done in the last 24 hours. So the million… Read More

 Amazon is issuing refunds for those who’ve purchased possibly fake solar eclipse glasses on the site in anticipation of this summer’s big solar eclipse event. A lot of folks have been gearing up for the event that will — depending on where you are — either totally block out the sun or partially block it as the eclipse moves across the North American hemisphere on… Read More

 For many of us, our first experience with fake meat involves rubbery tofu that tastes more like sneaker sole than seared filet. As we forage on, next come the veggie burgers, the soy dogs, the meatless meatballs. Eventually, we grow accustomed to these protein-dense foodstuffs. And yet, what if fake meat tasted and satiated like the real deal? Read More

 Two unconnected events that splashed controversy over the tech industry this week share the same underlying theme: Empathy. Or rather a lack of it. Read More

 Last night, OpenAI’s Dota 2 bot beat the world’s most celebrated professional players in one-on-one battles, showing just how advanced these machine learning systems are getting. The bot beat Danil “Dendi” Ishutin rather easily at The International, one of the biggest eSports events in the world, and remains undefeated against the world’s top Dota 2 players.… Read More

 If you don’t care too much about loyalty programs, chances are that you’ve been relying on platforms like Booking.com and Expedia to find the cheapest flights and hotel rooms. Moneytis wants to do the exact same thing, but for foreign exchange services. TransferWise is arguably the biggest consumer brand in international transfers. Instead of telling your bank to send money to… Read More

Aer’s upgraded backpack can accommodate your essentials plus your gym stuff.

 Shortly after a group of Uber shareholders asked Benchmark to relinquish its spot on Uber’s board of directors, Sherpa Capital’s Shervin Pishevar is petitioning Benchmark via Change.org to remove itself from Uber’s board. The petition also asks Benchmark to sell at least 75 percent of its stock so that the firm no longer has rights to appoint members to Uber’s board… Read More

Benchmark is sueing Travis Kalanick, SoundCloud gets a cash infusion and Facebook buys Fayteq. All this on Crunch Report. Read More

 The comment period for the FCC’s proposal to roll back the net neutrality rules established in 2015 was originally August 16 — next Wednesday. But after advocacy organizations asked the agency to add time to the clock in order to look through existing comments, the deadline has been extended (against the strenuous arguments of the broadband industry) by two weeks, to August 30. Read More

 The Uber saga continues, and the board of directors has weighed in on the brewing battle between early investor Benchmark and former CEO Travis Kalanick. In wake of a lawsuit filed by Benchmark against Kalanick, the company’s board has issued a statement urging both parties to resolve their differences so that employees can get back to work and the company can get back to hiring a new CEO. Read More

 A wise man once said “The hat mighta had a L V on the back but at the swap meet that ain’t jack,” and now researchers can ensure that the Louis Vuitton or Prada or Coach you bought is the real deal. The system, which essentially learns the difference between real and fake products over time, uses a small microscope connected to a phone. “The underlying principle of… Read More

 Snap, the Snapchat parent, has had a very difficult ride in the stock market since debuting in March. After pricing its IPO at $17 and then reaching highs of $27, the company has fallen to less than half that. After losing 14 percent of its value in a single day’s trading, Snap closed Friday at $11.83. Read More

 The Libreboot T400 doesn’t look like much. It’s basically a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad with the traditional Lenovo/IBM pointer nubbin and a small touchpad. It’s a plain black laptop, as familiar as any luggable assigned to a cubicle warrior on the road. But, under the hood, you have a machine that fights for freedom. The T400 runs Libreboot, a free and open BIOS and the… Read More

 Snap took a beating yesterday in its Q2 earnings, but in the midst of the disappointing financials and user growth numbers, the company’s 10-Q SEC document filed today also confirms that it purchased social maps app Zenly for $213 million, as TechCrunch first reported.
After Snapchat rolled out its location-sharing Snap Map feature in June, many were quick to point out the interface… Read More