 Cheap, Highly Efficient New EV Motor Uses No Magnets
"An EV motor has been developed that uses no magnets, thus lessening the United States' reliance on Chinese magnets (which make up 97% of the world's supply)," writes Slashdot reader nickwinlund77, adding: "I wonder what the motor's performance is like on high grade roads?" New Atlas reports: German company Mahle has just announced a new electric motor that sounds like it solves a lot of problems in a very tidy manner. The new Mahle design uses no magnets, instead using powered coils in its roto
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Microsoft Is Shutting Down Its Azure Blockchain Service
Microsoft is shutting down its Azure Blockchain Service on September 10, 2021. Existing deployments will be supported until that date, but as of May 10 this year, no new deployments or member creation is being supported. ZDNet reports: Microsoft's initial foray into Azure Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) began in 2015 with an offering on the Etherum Platform with ConsenSys. In late January 2016, Microsoft made available a preview of a lab environment in Azure's DevTest Labs so that Blockchain-rela
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Pentagon Surveilling Americans Without a Warrant, Senator Reveals
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The Pentagon is carrying out warrantless surveillance of Americans, according to a new letter written by Senator Ron Wyden and obtained by Motherboard. Senator Wyden's office asked the Department of Defense (DoD), which includes various military and intelligence agencies such as the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), for detailed information about its data purchasing practices after Motherboard revealed
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Disney Patents Blockchain-Based Movie Distribution System To Stop Pirates
A few days ago, Disney added a new anti-piracy patent to its arsenal: a blockchain-based distribution system that aims to make it harder for pirates to intercept films being distributed to movie theaters. TorrentFreak reports: The patent in question, titled "Blockchain configuration for secure content delivery," focuses on the distribution of content to movie theaters. This is a vulnerable process where pirates with the right connections can make copies during or after delivery. There are alread
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SpaceX Partners With Google Cloud On Starlink, Placing Ground Stations At Data Centers
Elon Musk-founded SpaceX is in the process of rolling out Starlink as a satellite internet provider around the world. As part of a new partnership, Google Cloud data centers will be home to key Starlink infrastructure in order to let enterprise users better access key services. 9to5Google reports: This partnership starts with SpaceX building Starlink ground stations inside Google data centers for "secure, low-latency, and reliable delivery of data" from existing fiber networks to space and back
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Hackers Used Fake GPU Overclocking Software To Push Malware
Computer hardware maker MSI is warning gamers not to visit a website that's impersonating the brand and its graphics card overclocking software, Afterburner, to push malware. From a report: On Thursday, MSI published a press release warning of "a malicious software being disguised as the official MSI Afterburner." "The malicious software is being unlawfully hosted on a suspicious website impersonating as MSI's official website with the domain name afterburner - msi [ . ] space," the com
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VLC Media Player 3.0.14 Fixes Broken Windows Automatic Updater
New submitter imcdona writes: VideoLan has released VLC Media Player 3.0.14 to fix an issue affecting Window users and causing the widely-used software's auto-updater not to launch the new version's installer automatically. "VLC users on Windows might encounter issues when trying to auto update VLC from version 3.0.12 and 3.0.13," VideoLan explained."We are publishing version 3.0.14 to address this problem for future updates."
This issue is caused by a bug introduced in the automatic updater
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Binance Faces Probe By US Money-Laundering and Tax Sleuths
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Binance Holdings Ltd. is under investigation by the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service, ensnaring the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange in U.S. efforts to root out illicit activity that's thrived in the red-hot but mostly unregulated market. As part of the inquiry, officials who probe money laundering and tax offenses have sought information from individuals with insight into Binance's business, according to people with knowl
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Extraterrestrial Plutonium Atoms Turn Up on Ocean Bottom
Scientists studying a sample of oceanic crust retrieved from the Pacific seabed nearly a mile down have discovered traces of a rare isotope of plutonium, the deadly element that has been central to the atomic age. From a report: They say it was made in colliding stars and later rained down through Earth's atmosphere as cosmic dust millions of years ago. Their analysis opens a new window on the cosmos. "It's amazing that a few atoms on Earth can help us learn about where half of all the heavier e
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Spencer Silver, an Inventor of Post-it Notes, Is Dead at 80
Spencer Silver, a research chemist at 3M who inadvertently created the not-too-sticky adhesive that allows Post-it Notes to be removed from surfaces as easily as they adhere to them, died on Saturday at his home in St. Paul, Minn. He was 80. From a report: His wife, Linda, said that he died after an episode of ventricular tachycardia, in which the heart beats faster than normal. Mr. Silver had a heart transplant 27 years ago.
Since their introduction in 1980, Post-it Notes have become a ubiq
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CDC Says Fully Vaccinated People Don't Need To Wear Face Masks Indoors or Outdoors in Most Settings
Fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a face mask or stay 6 feet away from others in most settings, whether outdoors or indoors, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in updated public health guidance released Thursday. From a report: There are a handful of instances where people will still need to wear masks -- in a health-care setting, at a business that requires them -- even if they've had their final vaccine dose two or more weeks ago, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensk
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A Podcast App is Exposing Subscribers-only Shows
The beauty and misery of private RSS feeds. An anonymous reader shares a report: There's only supposed to be one way to hear exclusive podcast content from sports host Scott Wetzel: by paying $5 a month to subscribe to his Patreon. But the show's also been available on a smaller podcasting app for free. In fact, leaked podcast feeds from dozens of subscription-only shows, including Wetzel's and The Last Podcast On The Left, are available to stream through Castbox, a smaller app for both iOS and
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System76 Unveils Open Source 'Launch Configurable Keyboard' for Linux, Windows, and macOS
System76 today unveiled its newest product -- the "Launch Configurable Keyboard." It is a mechanical keyboard made in the USA with a focus on open source. The Launch has both open source firmware and hardware. Even the configuration software -- which runs on Linux, Windows, and macOS -- is open source. From a report: "With a wide swath of customization options, the Launch is flexible to a variety of needs and use cases. The keyboard's thoughtful design keeps everything within reach, vastly reduc
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Climate Change Is Making Big Problems Bigger
New data compiled by the E.P.A. shows how global warming is making life harder for Americans in myriad ways that threaten their health, safety and homes. From a report: Wildfires are bigger, and starting earlier in the year. Heat waves are more frequent. Seas are warmer, and flooding is more common. The air is getting hotter. Even ragweed pollen season is beginning sooner. Climate change is already happening around the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency said on Wednesday. And in
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Colonial Pipeline Paid Hackers Nearly $5 Million in Ransom
Colonial Pipeline paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country's largest fuel pipeline, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing two people familiar with the transaction. From the report: The company paid the hefty ransom in untraceable cryptocurrency within hours after the attack, underscoring the immense pressure faced by the Georgia-based operator to get
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WeWork CEO Says Least Engaged Employees Enjoy Working From Home
The CEO of WeWork thinks there is an easy way for companies to spot their most engaged employees: They're the ones who want to come back to the office. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Sandeep Mathrani said, "Those who are uberly engaged with the company want to go to the office two-thirds of the time, at least. Those who are least engaged are very comfortable working from home. [...] People are happier when they come to work. The bigger issue is do you come to work five days a week
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Michigan GOP Lawmaker Floats Bill To Register and Fine 'Fact Checkers'
A Michigan lawmaker who's been at the center of efforts to question the 2020 election introduced a bill Tuesday that would require "fact checkers" to register with the state. From a report: Rep. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, wrote the legislation, which was co-sponsored by eight other Republican House members, about five months after Maddock floated the idea of licensing fact checkers on Twitter. The "Fact Checker Registration Act" defines a fact checker as someone who publishes in print or online in
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South Korea Unveils $450 Billion Push for Global Chipmaking Crown
South Korea unveiled ambitious plans to spend roughly $450 billion to build the world's biggest chipmaking base over the next decade, joining China and the U.S. in a global race to dominate the key technology. From a report: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will lead more than 510 trillion won of investment in semiconductor research and production in the years to 2030 under a national blueprint devised by President Moon Jae-in's administration. They'll be among 153 companies fueling the decade-l
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 SpecTrust raises millions to fight cybercrime with its no-code platform
Risk defense startup SpecTrust is emerging from stealth today with a $4.3 million seed raise and a public launch. Cyber Mentor Fund led the round, which also included participation from Rally Ventures, SignalFire, Dreamit Ventures and Legion Capital. SpecTrust aims to "fix the economics of fighting fraud" with a no-code platform that it says cuts […]
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The fulfilling world of warehouse robotics
With the pandemic finish line in sight — at least for some — now is a good time to start assessing which segments have been most impacted by the events of the past year and a half. In terms of robotics, investments have been all over the place — and for good reasons. COVID-19 seems […]
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Hacker Group Behind Colonial Pipeline Attack Claims It Has Three New Victims
PolygamousRanchKid shares a report from CNBC: The hacker group DarkSide claimed on Wednesday to have attacked three more companies, despite the global outcry over its attack on Colonial Pipeline this week, which has caused shortages of gasoline and panic buying on the East Coast of the U.S. Over the past 24 hours, the group posted the names of three new companies on its site on the dark web, called DarkSide Leaks. The information posted to the site includes summaries of what the hackers appear t
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These are the 25 companies presenting at Alchemist Accelerator's 27th Demo Day today
Enterprise-focused Alchemist Accelerator is back with another one. Today marks its 27th Demo Day, with over two dozen companies expected to take the (virtual) stage. Coming in at 25 companies, this is Alchemist’s largest cohort so far. Meanwhile, Alchemist Director Ravi Belani tells me that applications to the accelerator have grown by over 100%, and […]
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Google Cloud teams up with SpaceX's Starlink for enterprise connectivity at network's edge
SpaceX’s bourgeoning Starlink satellite-based broadband internet service just got a big boost from a significant new partner: Google Cloud. Thanks to a new partnership between the two, SpaceX will now be locating Starlink ground stations right within Google’s existing data centers, providing the Starlink network with direct access to ground-based network infrastructure to help facilitate […]
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Framework's repairable laptop is up for preorder, starting at $999
Repairability has been a big sticking point for consumer electronics over the past several years. As devices have gotten thinner — and companies have pushed to maintain control over proprietary systems — many devices have become near impossible for an every-day person to repair. It's an issue for a number of reasons — not the […]
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Morressier wants academic conferences to feel cutting-edge
While a unicorn named Hopin tends to dominate the virtual conferencing space, a new startup just raised millions of dollars by focusing on what it believes is an untapped niche in the same universe: academic conferences. Morressier, a virtual conference and publishing platform specifically for the scientific community, announced today that it has raised $18 […]
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Busy day at VMware ended yesterday with Ragurham as CEO and COO Poonen exiting
They say for every door that opens another closes and the executive shuffle at VMware is certainly proving that old chestnut true. Four months after Pat Gelsinger stepped down as CEO to return to run Intel, the virtual machine pioneer announced yesterday that long-time exec Raghu Raghuram was taking over that role. That set in […]
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After another canceled year in the desert, Burning Man plans for a virtual event
Last month, the organization behind Burning Man announced that the festival/experience would not be returning to the desert of Nevada this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and would instead be attempting a virtual event, once again aiming to bring attendees access to a handful of web-based experiences. Today, the Burning Man org released tickets […]
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Legionfarm, pairing pro gamers with amateurs, raises $6 million Series A
Legionfarm, the gaming platform that lets gamers play with pro players in their favorite games, has today announced the close of a $6 million Series A round. Investors in the round include SVB, Y Combinator, Scrum VC, Kevin Lin, Altair Capital, Ankur Nagpal and more. Legionfarm launched out of Y Combinator at the beginning of […]
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Pinterest to test livestreamed events this month with 21 creators
Pinterest is expanding into live events. The company is planning to host a three-day virtual event that will feature livestreamed sessions from top creators, including big names like Jonathan Van Ness and Rebecca Minkoff, among others. The virtual event will run inside the Pinterest app from May 24th through May 25th, and will serve as […]
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GTA 5 Graphics Are Now Being Boosted By Advanced AI At Intel
Researchers at Intel Labs have applied machine learning techniques to GTA 5 to make it look incredibly realistic. Gizmodo reports: [I]nstead of training a neural network on famous masterpieces, the researchers at Intel Labs relied on the Cityscapes Dataset, a collection of images of a German city's urban center captured by a car's built-in camera, for training. When a different artistic style is applied to footage using machine learning techniques, the results are often temporally unstable, whic
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Google Analytics prepares for life after cookies
As consumer behavior and expectations around privacy have shifted — and operating systems and browsers have adapted to this — the age of cookies as a means of tracking user behavior is coming to an end. Few people will bemoan this, but advertisers and marketers rely on having insights into how their efforts translate into […]
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Worksome pulls $13M into its high skill freelancer talent platform
More money for the now very buzzy business of reshaping how people work: Worksome is announcing it recently closed a $13 million Series A funding round for its “freelance talent platform” — after racking up 10x growth in revenue since January 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic sparked a remote working boom. The 2017 founded […]
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Short seller says Lemonade website bug exposed insurance customers' account data
An activist short seller has written a letter to the chief executive of insurance giant Lemonade with details of an “accidentally discovered” security flaw that exposes customers’ account data. Carson Block, founder of investment research firm Muddy Waters Research, sent the letter to Lemonade co-founder and chief executive Daniel Schreiber on Thursday, describing the bug […]
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Advanced tax strategies for startup founders
Here are some advanced equity planning strategies that you can implement at different stages of your company life cycle to reduce tax and optimize wealth for you and your family.
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First Fully Civilian Flight To Space Station Moves Forward With NASA Contract
NASA and Houston-based Axiom Space have signed a "mission order" setting the stage for four civilians to visit the International Space Station early next year, the first fully commercial flight to the orbiting lab complex, agency managers said Monday. CBS News reports: Axiom's "AX-1" mission and an upcoming charity-driven flight to low-Earth orbit, both aboard SpaceX Crew Dragon capsules, represent "a renaissance in U.S. human spaceflight," said Phil McAlister, NASA's director of commercial spac
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Is there a creed in venture capital?
When faced with shifting terms, I apply four basic principles to frame my approach. First: avoid any escalation that endangers the overall success of the enterprise.
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Sylvera grabs seed backing from Index to help close the accountability gap around carbon offsetting
UK-based startup Sylvera is using satellite, radar and lidar data-fuelled machine learning to bolster transparency around carbon offsetting projects in a bid to boost accountability and credibility — applying independent ratings to carbon offsetting projects. The ratings are based on proprietary data sets it’s developed in conjunction with scientists from research organisations including UCLA, the […]
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Facebook-Backed Diem Abandons Swiss License Application, Will Move To the US
Facebook-backed digital currency project Diem -- formerly known as Libra -- said Wednesday it has withdrawn its application for a Swiss payment license and will instead shift its operations to the United States. From a report: The Diem Association, which oversees development of the Diem digital currency, had been pursuing a payment system license with Switzerland's FINMA watchdog. Diem has now dropped plans to secure Swiss regulatory approval, while its U.S. subsidiary has partnered with Silverg
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Substack acquires team from community consulting startup People & Company
New media poster child Substack announced today that they’ve added a small community-building consultancy team to its ranks, acquiring the Brooklyn-based startup People & Company. The small firm has been working with clients to build up their community efforts, and its team will now be tasked with building up some of the newsletter company’s upstart […]
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Neural Implant Lets Paralyzed Person Type By Imaging Writing
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, the academic community provided a rather impressive example of the promise of neural implants. Using an implant, a paralyzed individual managed to type out roughly 90 characters per minute simply by imagining that he was writing those characters out by hand. Somewhere in our writing thought process, we form the intention of using a specific character, and using an implant to track this intention could potentially work. Unfortunate
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Neural Implant Lets Paralyzed Person Type By Imagining Writing
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: This week, the academic community provided a rather impressive example of the promise of neural implants. Using an implant, a paralyzed individual managed to type out roughly 90 characters per minute simply by imagining that he was writing those characters out by hand. Somewhere in our writing thought process, we form the intention of using a specific character, and using an implant to track this intention could potentially work. Unfortunate
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Vietnamese flexible pay startup Nano raises $3M seed round
Nano Technologies, a startup that lets workers in Vietnam access their earned wages immediately through an app called VUI, has raised $3 million in seed funding. The oversubscribed round was led by returning investors Golden Gate Ventures and Venturra Discovery, and included participation from FEBE Ventures, Openspace Ventures and Goodwater Capital. Nano recently took part […]
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BluBracket nabs $12M Series A to expand source code security platform
BluBracket, an early-stage startup that focuses on keeping source code repositories secure, even in distributed environments, announced a $12 million Series A today. Evolution Equity Partners led the round, with help from existing investors Unusual Ventures, Point72 Ventures, SignalFire and Firebolt Ventures. When combined with the $6.5 million seed round we reported on last year, […]
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China's WeRide secures more funding, pushing valuation to $3.3 billion
Only four months after securing Series B fundraising of $310 million, Chinese autonomous driving company WeRide says it has achieved its Series C funding round that brings its post-money valuation to $3 billion. This is first time the company has disclosed its value. The company did not share how much it has raised this round, […]
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