Tech. World

How much price for giottus crypto apps upgrade premium account?

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 09:47:00 +0000

Still, there is no premium account available. You can register here and start to Buying and Selling in Crypto Coins.

Do we get kind of dividend benefits in cryptocurrency?

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 09:42:00 +0000

One thing to keep in mind is that cryptocurrency awards (as well as digital money acquired through mining) are, on average, more volatile than corporate stock dividends (but sometimes pay a higher yield). Cryptocurrency awards are taxed as conventional income as well.

Diablo Immortal for Android and iOS Announced at BlizzCon 2018

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 09:18:00 +0000

Diablo Immortal for Android and iOS was announced at BlizzCon 2018. It takes the action role-playing franchise to smaller screens for the first time. Diablo Immortal is being developed by Blizzard in collaboration with NetEase, the studio behind PUBG clone Rules of Survival. In terms of series lore, it takes place between Diablo 2 and Diablo 3. While Diablo Immortal is the series' mobile debut, Principal Design Chief Wyatt Cheng confirmed during a presentation for the game that it won't be coming to PC anytime soon.

That said, it's unlikely that the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch would get the game either. Traditionally, NetEase has stayed away from PC and console development. No Diablo Immortal release date has been revealed just yet, though Blizzard claims it would be coming 'soon' with an upcoming beta test on the way.

Gameplay for Diablo Immortal seems familiar to Arena of Valor with the use of virtual buttons. In terms of visuals it looks on par if not better than Diablo 3. There's no Diablo Immortal price yet though given NetEase's expertise in free-to-play games, we won't be surprised to see Diablo Immortal be a free-to-play game with micro-transactions.

Interestingly, it appears that Diablo Immortal focusses on player choice and touts drop-in, drop-out gameplay. Familiar classes such as the monk, demon hunter, and necromancer were present in the game's trailer. Diablo's mobile debut comes as no surprise considering that the Nintendo Switch is able to run Diablo 3 just fine, and it was something we speculated at length during our latest episode of Transition - Gadgets 360's gaming and pop culture podcast.

orld of Warcraft Classic Is Out in Summer 2019

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 09:17:00 +0000

At BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard announced when you can play World of Warcraft Classic. The much awaited recreation of the massively multiplayer online role-playing gaming (MMORPG) is out in Summer 2019. If you're already a subscriber to World of Warcraft, you get it for free. Aside from taking the gameplay back to a time before World of Warcraft's seven expansions, it comes with modes conveniences such as Blizzard friends lists, UI improvements, and what Blizzard refers to as 'enhancements designed to ensure stability and fair play; and all the latest under-the-hood engine updates to support players' current hardware.' In World of Warcraft Classic you'll be able to roam areas like the Barrens before it was sundered in two, raid Molten Core with level 60 heroes complete with their original abilities and talents, and much more. There have been several third-party vanilla servers in the past that Blizzard has shut down and World of Warcraft Classic appears to be the company's way of catering to its many fans who want an old school experience. In addition to this, Blizzard announced that World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth would be getting a new content update called Tides of Vengeance. With it comes Horde and Alliance assaults, new island expeditions, Dwarf and Blood Elf heritage armour, as well as new story and character quests.

Hearthstone Rastakhan's Rumble Announced at BlizzCon 2018

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 09:15:00 +0000

Digital card game Hearthstone gets a brand new expansion in Rastakhan's Rumble. Announced at BlizzCon 2018, it takes the game to Gurubashi Arena and is steeped in lore regarding trolls, their loa (ancient spirits worshipped by trolls in Hearthstone), the titular Rastakhan — king of trolls, and introduces new gameplay mechanics that reward flashy play style. Hearthstone Rastakhan's Rumble release date is December 4 and is priced at $20 (around Rs. 1,400) for the 17-pack Challenger's Bundle that includes a Ready to Rumble card back. There's a $50 (approximately Rs. 3,500) version that comes with a new playable Shaman Hero —King Rastakhan called the 50-pack Rumble Bundle.

Like recent Hearthstone expansions, there's a single-player campaign too allowing players to square off against the strongest troll champions in Rumble Run. It will be available soon after launch. What's more is, Hearthstone Rastakhan's Rumble features a new over the top finisher called Overkill. It rewards players for dealing extra damage to enemies.

With Hearthstone seeing expansions aplenty, Rastakhan's Rumble is yet another eclectic entry in Blizzard's card game. It's available for pre-order on Android, iOS, Windows PC, and macOS right now.

Hearthstone Rastakhan's Rumble follows up the last Hearthstone expansion, Puzzle Lab which we lauded for its superlative single-player experience particularly if you're the sort who is coming back to the game after a long time.

Elon Musk says Tesla won’t make e-scooters, but might consider electric bikes

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 07:43:00 +0000

Tesla won’t be joining the scooter wars. But electric bikes? Yeah, maybe.

During a lengthy podcast with Recode’s Kara Swisher, Tesla CEO Elon Musk talked about everything from AI and his fights on Twitter with journalists to Saudi Arabia and Mars. Even scooters. Of course, scooters.

But don’t get your hopes up for a Tesla scooter. According to Musk, they lack dignity. Swisher’s persistence on the topic wasn’t enough to dissuade him.

Here’s the exchange. You can listen to the entire 80-minute session here.

Kara: Make a scooter. Make a scooter and I’ll go for it. They actually are electric, what am I talking about?

Elon: I don’t know, there was some people in the studio who wanted to make a scooter, but I was like, “Uh, no.”

Kara: I love the scooter, no, get on the scooter.

Elon: It lacks dignity.

Kara: No, it doesn’t lack dignity.

Elon: Yes, they do.

Kara: They don’t lack dignity, what are you talking about?

Elon: Have you tried driving one of those things? They —

Kara: Yes, I do it all the time, I look fantastic.

Elon: They do not, you are laboring under an illusion.

Kara: All right, well, everybody at Lime, don’t worry, Elon Musk is not coming for you.

Elon: Electric bike. I think we might do an electric bike, yeah.

Sequoia leads $10M round for home improvement negotiator Setter

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 07:43:00 +0000

You probably don’t know how much it should cost to get your home’s windows washed, yard landscaped or countertops replaced. But Setterdoes. The startup pairs you with a home improvement concierge familiar with all the vendors, prices and common screwups that plague these jobs. Setter finds the best contractors across handiwork, plumbing, electrical, carpentry and more. It researches options, negotiates a bulk rate and, with its added markup, you pay a competitive price with none of the hassle.

One of the most reliable startup investing strategies is looking at where people spend a ton of money but hate the experience. That makes home improvement a prime target for disruption, and attracted a $10 million Series A round for Setter co-led by Sequoia Capital and NFX. “The main issue is that contractors and homeowners speak different languages,” Setter co-founder and CEO Guillaume Laliberté tells me, “which results in unclear scopes of work, frustrated homeowners who don’t know enough to set up the contractors for success, and frustrated contractors who have to come back multiple times.”

Setter is now available in Toronto and San Francisco, with seven-plus jobs booked per customer per year costing an average of over $500 each, with 70 percent repeat customers. With the fresh cash, it can grow into a household name in those cities, expand to new markets and hire up to build new products for clients and contractors.

I asked Laliberté why he cared to start Setter, and he told me “because human lives are made better when you can make essential human activities invisible.” Growing up, his mom wouldn’t let him buy video games or watch TV so he taught himself to code his own games and build his own toys. “I’d saved money to fix consoles and resell them, make beautiful foam swords for real live-action games, buy and resell headphones — anything that people around me wanted really!” he recalls, teaching him the value of taking the work out of other people’s lives.

Meanwhile, his co-founder David Steckel was building high-end homes for the wealthy when he discovered they often had ‘home managers’ that everyone would want but couldn’t afford. What if a startup let multiple homeowners share a manager? Laliberté says Steckel describes it as “I kid you not, the clouds parted, rays of sunlight began to shine through and angels started to sing.” Four days after getting the pitch from Steckel, Laliberté was moving to Toronto to co-found Setter.

Users fire up the app, browse a list of common services, get connected to a concierge over chat and tell them about their home maintenance needs while sending photos if necessary. The concierge then scours the best vendors and communicates the job in detail so things get done right the first time, on time. They come back in a few minutes with either a full price quote, or a diagnostic quote that gets refined after an in-home visit. Customers can schedule visits through the app, and stay in touch with their concierge to make sure everything is completed to their specifications.

The follow-through is what sets Setter apart from directory-style services like Yelp or Thumbtack . “Other companies either take your request and assign it to the next available contractor or simply share a list of available contractors and you need to complete everything yourself,” a Setter spokesperson tells me. They might start the job quicker, but you don’t always get exactly what you want. Everyone in the space will have to compete to source the best pros.

Twitter removes thousands of accounts that tried to dissuade Democrats from voting

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 07:40:00 +0000

Twitter has deleted thousands of automated accounts posting messages that tried to discourage and dissuade voters from casting their ballot in the upcoming election next week.

Some 10,000 accounts were removed across late September and early October after they were first flagged by staff at the Democratic Party, the company has confirmed.

“We removed a series of accounts for engaging in attempts to share disinformation in an automated fashion – a violation of our policies,” said a Twitter spokesperson in an email to TechCrunch. “We stopped this quickly and at its source.” But the company did not provide examples of the kinds of accounts it removed, or say who or what might have been behind the activity.

The accounts posed as Democrats and try to convince key demographics to stay at home and not vote, likely as an attempt to sway the results in key election battlegrounds, according to Reuters, which first reported the news.

A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee did not return a request for comment outside its business hours.

The removals are a drop in the ocean to the wider threats that Twitter faces. Earlier this year, the social networking giant deleted 1.2 million accounts for sharing and promoting terrorist content. In May alone, the company deleted just shy of 10 million accounts each week for sending malicious, automated messages.

Twitter had 335 million monthly active users as of its latest earnings report in July.

But the company has faced criticism from lawmakers for not doing more to proactively remove content that violates its rules or spreads disinformation and false news. With just days before Americans are set to vote in the U.S. midterms, this latest batch of takedowns is likely to spark further concern that Twitter did not automatically detect the malicious accounts.

Following the publication of Reuters’ report, Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of site integrity, said in a tweet thread that public research identifying bots is often “deeply flawed” and that many are identifying bots “based on probability, not certainty,” since “nobody other than Twitter can see non-public, internal account data.”

Twitter does not have a strict policy on the spread of disinformation in the run-up to election season, unlike Facebook, which recently banned content that tried to suppress voters with false and misleading information. Instead, Twitter said last year that its “open and real-time nature” is a “powerful antidote to the spreading of all types of false information.” But researchers have been critical of that approach. Research published last month found that more than 700,000 accounts that were active during the 2016 presidential election are still active to this day — pushing a million tweets each day.

A Twitter spokesperson added that for the election this year, the company has “established open lines of communication and direct, easy escalation paths for state election officials, Homeland Security, and campaign organizations from both major parties to help us enforce our policies vigorously and protect conversational health on our service.”

GM is getting into the electric bike business

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 07:39:00 +0000

General Motors said it plans to bring two new electric bikes to market next year — one folding and one compact — as the automaker makes a broader push into electrification and other ideas that try to move beyond its traditional business model of producing and selling gas-power vehicles.

The automaker didn’t have a lot of information to share about the e-bikes or its ultimate plans. For instance, Hannah Parish, director of General Motors Urban Mobility Solutions, wouldn’t say if GM plans to launch a bike-sharing service as a result of these two new products. “I can’t say anything is on or off the table at this point,” she added.

Here’s what is on the menu. The bikes will be “smart” and “connected” and somehow inspired by GM’s OnStar, the company’s subscription-based communications, in-vehicle security and emergency services feature found in cars. Parish wouldn’t elaborate what that might look like. We’ll have to wait until next year.

The bikes are also equipped with safety features including rechargeable front and rear LED lights. And the electric propulsion on the bikes were designed by GM engineers who created a proprietary drive system.

“We know that people who live in urban areas, like myself in downtown Toronto need different opportunities to use different types of transportation when they going and doing different things. We know that congestion in cities is a problem and the e-bikes feed right into our efforts,” Parish, director of General Motors Urban Mobility Solutions told TechCrunch.

GM revealed two eBikes – one folding and one compact.

For now, GM is focused on naming the e-bikes. And it’s turning to the public to help. The company launched a brand-naming campaign Friday as part of its broader e-bike announcement. Folks who want to name the e-bikes can go to www.eBikeBrandChallenge.com. The participant with the winning selection will receive $10,000. Nine other runners-up will each receive $1,000.

Entries will be accepted until November 26. The winning submissions will be announced January 31, 2019.

tencent weishi smart spectacles glasses Some were surprised to see Snap release a second version of its “face-camera” Spectacles gadget, since the original version failed to convert hype into sales. But those lackluster sales — which dropped to as low as 42,000 per quarter — didn’t only fail to dissuade the U.S. social firm from making more specs, because now Tencent, the Chinese internet giant and Snap investor, has launched its own take on the genre. Tencent this week unveiled its answer to the video-recording sunglasses, which, you’ll notice, bear a striking resemblance to Snap’s Spectacles. Called the Weishi smartglasses, Tencent’s wearable camera sports a lens in the front corner that allows users to film from a first-person perspective. Thankfully, the Chinese gaming and social giant has not made the mistake of Snap’s first-generation Spectacles, which highlighted the camera with a conspicuous yellow ring. View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter Matthew Brennan @mbrennanchina #Tencent's version of Snap Spectacles will go on sale Nov 11th 12:24 PM - Nov 2, 2018 27 26 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy Tencent, which is best known for operating China’s massively popular WeChat messenger, has been an investor in Snap for some time after backing it long before it went public. But, when others have criticized the company and its share price struggled, Tencent doubled down. It snapped up an additional 12 percent stake one year ago and it is said to have offered counsel to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel on product strategy. We don’t know, however, if the two sides’ discussions have ever covered Spectacles and thus inspired this new Tencent take on then. The purpose behind Tencent’s new gadget is implicit in its name. Weishi, which means “micro videos” in Chinese, is also the name of the short-video sharing app that Tencent has been aggressively promoting in recent months to catch up with market dominators TikTok and Kuaishou . TikTok, known as Douyin in China, is part of the entertainment ecosystem that Beijing-based ByteDance is building. ByteDance also runs the popular Chinese news aggregator Toutiao and is poised to overtake Uber as the world’s most-valued tech startup when it closes its mega $3 billion funding round. Weishi’s other potential rival Kuaishou is, interestingly, backed by Tencent. Kuaishou launched its own video-taking sunglasses in July. Alongside the smart sunglasses, Tencent has also rolled out a GoPro-like action camera that links to the Weishi app. Time will tell whether the gadgets will catch on and get more people to post on Weishi. Snap Spectacles V1 (top) and V2 The spectacles will go on sale November 11, a date that coincides with Singles Day, the annual shopping spree run by Tencent’s close rival Alibaba. Tencent does not make the gadget itself and instead has teamed up with Shenzhen-based Tonot, a manufacturer that claims to make “trendy” video-taking glasses. Tonot has also worked with Japan’s Line chat app on camera glasses. “There isn’t really a demand for video-recording glasses,” says Mi Zou, a Beijing-based entrepreneur working on an AI selfie app. That’s because smartglasses are “not offering that much more to consumers than smartphones do,” she argues. Plus, a lot of people on apps like Douyin and Kuaishou love to take selfies, a need that smartglasses fail to fulfill. “Tencent will have to work on its marketing. It could perhaps learn a few things from the Apple Watch, which successfully touts a geeky product as a fashionable accessory,” suggests Mi, who points out Snap Spectacles’ so-far dim reception. Weishi had not responded to TechCrunch’s request for comment at the time of writing, but we’ll update this story with any additional information should the company provide it.

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 07:39:00 +0000

Shouting “women’s rights are worker’s rights” and a number of other #TimesUp and #MeToo chants, upwards of 1,000 Google employees gathered at San Francisco’s Harry Bridges Plaza Thursday to protestthe company’s handling of sexual harassment and misconduct cases.

Staffers from all of Google’s San Francisco offices were in attendance. An organizer who declined to be named told TechCrunch there were 1,500 Google employees across the globe that participated in the 48-hour effort to arrange a worldwide walkout. The effort was a success. More than 3,000 Googlers and supporters of the movement attended the New York City walkout alone. The organizers said that the 1,000 people who came out for the San Francisco walkout was double the number they expected.

Cathay Bi, a Google employee in San Francisco and one of the walkout organizers, told a group of journalists at the rally that she was conflicted with participating in the walkout and ultimately decided not to go public with her own story of sexual harassment.

“I experienced sexual harassment at Google and I didn’t feel safe talking about it,” said Bi, pictured above. “That feeling of not being safe is why I’m out here today. I’d love it if everyone felt safe talking about it.”

View 7 Photos

“There were many times over the course of the last 24 hours that I emailed the group and said ‘I’m not doing this because I’m scared,’ but that fear is something everyone else feels,” she said. “I said to myself last night, I hope I still have a career in Silicon Valley after this.”

Other organizers declined to go on the record.

There were protests around the globe today, including in London, Dublin, Montreal, Singapore, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and Cambridge, following a New York Times investigation that revealed Google had given Android co-creator Andy Rubin a $90 million exit package despite multiple relationships with other Google staffers and credible accusations of sexual misconduct made against him. That story, coupled with tech’s well-established issue of harassment and discrimination toward women and underrepresented minorities, was a catalyst for today’s rallies.

At the rally, Google employees read off their list of demands, which includes an end to forced arbitration in cases of harassment and discrimination, a commitment to end pay and opportunity inequity, and a clear, inclusive process for reporting sexual misconduct safely and anonymously.

They’re also requesting that the search giant promote chief diversity officer Danielle Brown to a role in which she reports directly to chief executive officer Sundar Pichai, as well as the addition of an employee representative to the company’s board of directors.

Here’s the statement from Pichai that Google provided to TechCrunch this morning: “Earlier this week, we let Googlers know that we are aware of the activities planned for today and that employees will have the support they need if they wish to participate. Employees have raised constructive ideas for how we can improve our policies and our processes going forward. We are taking in all their feedback so we can turn these ideas into action.”

Now, employees around the globe await Google’s highly-anticipated course of “action.”

“These types of changes don’t happen overnight,” Bi said. “If we expected them overnight we would have the wrong expectations of how these movements take place.”

Tencent is launching its own version of Snap Spectacles

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 07:38:00 +0000

Some were surprised to see Snap release a second version of its “face-camera” Spectacles gadget, since the original version failed to convert hype into sales.

But those lackluster sales — which dropped to as low as 42,000 per quarter — didn’t only fail to dissuade the U.S. social firm from making more specs, because now Tencent, the Chinese internet giant and Snap investor, has launched its own take on the genre.

Tencent this week unveiled its answer to the video-recording sunglasses, which, you’ll notice, bear a striking resemblance to Snap’s Spectacles.

Called the Weishi smartglasses, Tencent’s wearable camera sports a lens in the front corner that allows users to film from a first-person perspective. Thankfully, the Chinese gaming and social giant has not made the mistake of Snap’s first-generation Spectacles, which highlighted the camera with a conspicuous yellow ring.

Tencent, which is best known for operating China’s massively popular WeChat messenger, has been an investor in Snap for some time after backing it long before it went public. But, when others have criticized the company and its share price struggled, Tencent doubled down. It snapped up an additional 12 percent stake one year ago and it is said to have offered counsel to Snap CEO Evan Spiegel on product strategy. We don’t know, however, if the two sides’ discussions have ever covered Spectacles and thus inspired this new Tencent take on then.

The purpose behind Tencent’s new gadget is implicit in its name. Weishi, which means “micro videos” in Chinese, is also the name of the short-video sharing app that Tencent has been aggressively promoting in recent months to catch up with market dominators TikTok and Kuaishou .

TikTok, known as Douyin in China, is part of the entertainment ecosystem that Beijing-based ByteDance is building. ByteDance also runs the popular Chinese news aggregator Toutiao and is poised to overtake Uber as the world’s most-valued tech startup when it closes its mega $3 billion funding round.

Weishi’s other potential rival Kuaishou is, interestingly, backed by Tencent. Kuaishou launched its own video-taking sunglasses in July.

Alongside the smart sunglasses, Tencent has also rolled out a GoPro-like action camera that links to the Weishi app. Time will tell whether the gadgets will catch on and get more people to post on Weishi.

Snap Spectacles V1 (top) and V2

The spectacles will go on sale November 11, a date that coincides with Singles Day, the annual shopping spree run by Tencent’s close rival Alibaba. Tencent does not make the gadget itself and instead has teamed up with Shenzhen-based Tonot, a manufacturer that claims to make “trendy” video-taking glasses. Tonot has also worked with Japan’s Line chat app on camera glasses.

“There isn’t really a demand for video-recording glasses,” says Mi Zou, a Beijing-based entrepreneur working on an AI selfie app. That’s because smartglasses are “not offering that much more to consumers than smartphones do,” she argues. Plus, a lot of people on apps like Douyin and Kuaishou love to take selfies, a need that smartglasses fail to fulfill.

“Tencent will have to work on its marketing. It could perhaps learn a few things from the Apple Watch, which successfully touts a geeky product as a fashionable accessory,” suggests Mi, who points out Snap Spectacles’ so-far dim reception.

Weishi had not responded to TechCrunch’s request for comment at the time of writing, but we’ll update this story with any additional information should the company provide it.

Elon Musk says soon Teslas will come when you call them

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 07:38:00 +0000

Tesla CEO Elon Musk promised in a series of tweets that an advanced version of its auto-parking technology Summon, which will let owners remotely control their car through their phones, will be ready in six weeks. Or even follow you like a pet.

The Summon parking feature is available in Tesla vehicles with the advanced driver assistance system known as Autopilot or the upgraded version called “enhanced Autopilot.”

In a separate set of tweets that appear to be unrelated from the upgrade coming next month, Musk said by next year Summon should be able to drive a Tesla around a parking lot, find an empty spot and read signs to confirms it’s valid and park.

Summon is an auto-parking technology that lets Tesla owners park or retrieve their vehicles by using the Tesla mobile app or key fob. The company introduced Summon way back in January 2016 in its 7.1 software update for its hardware 1-equipped vehicles. At the time, the capability was rather limited, essentially allowing owners to prompt a parked Tesla to roll out of a garage or parking space. An owner standing outside of the vehicle could also hit a button and have it roll into the parking spot.

It certainly wasn’t capable of autonomously driving through a parking garage until it found an empty space.

In October 2016, Tesla began producing hardware 2 vehicles equipped with a more robust suite of sensors, radar and cameras that Musk said would deliver new levels of capability and eventually drive autonomously. Summon was just one feature that would become more capable as a result.

That goal has taken much longer than expected as the company has worked for years to develop its own vision system that relies on image processing via an onboard neural net for object identification and avoidance.

Tesla subpoenaed by SEC over Model 3 production forecasts

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 07:37:00 +0000

Tesla said Friday in a regulatory filing that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice are investigating projections made last year about Model 3 production rates. The SEC has issued subpoenas for information related to Model 3 production estimates. The DOJ, which is running a separate investigation over Model 3 production targets, has stopped short of taking that action.

The information contained in Tesla’s 10Q filing backs up an October 26 article by The Wall Street Journal that reported the FBI was investigating whether the company misstated information about Model 3 production and misled investors. The FBI is the investigating arm of the DOJ.

Tesla issued a statement at the time of the article, acknowledging that it had received a voluntary request for documents from the Department of Justice about its public guidance for the Model 3 ramp. “We were cooperative in responding to it,” the statement issued last week said. “We have not received a subpoena, a request for testimony, or any other formal process, and there have been no additional document requests about this from the Department of Justice for months.”

This latest filing provides further confirmation and clarifies the extent of the investigations. It’s also the first time Tesla has said that the SEC has issued subpoenas to the company for information about the Model 3 production.

Here’s the whole nugget in the SEC filing:

We receive requests for information from regulators and governmental authorities, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, the SEC, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and various state agencies. We routinely cooperate with such regulatory and governmental requests.

In particular, the SEC has issued subpoenas to Tesla in connection with (a) Mr. Musk’s prior statement that he was considering taking Tesla private and (b) certain projections that we made for Model 3 production rates during 2017 and other public statements relating to Model 3 production. The DOJ has also asked us to voluntarily provide it with information about each of these matters and is investigating. Aside from the settlement with the SEC relating to Mr. Musk’s statement that he was considering taking Tesla private, there have not been any developments in these matters that we deem to be material, and to our knowledge no government agency in any ongoing investigation has concluded that any wrongdoing occurred. As is our normal practice, we have been cooperating and will continue to cooperate with government authorities. We cannot predict the outcome or impact of any ongoing matters. Should the government decide to pursue an enforcement action, there exists the possibility of a material adverse impact on our business, results of operation, prospects, cash flows, and financial position.

We are also subject to various other legal proceedings and claims that arise from the normal course of business activities. If an unfavorable ruling or development were to occur, there exists the possibility of a material adverse impact on our business, results of operations, prospects, cash flows, financial position and brand.

This didn’t stop CEO Elon Musk from blasting the WSJ for the report during a lengthy podcast interview released Friday with Recode’s Kara Swisher.

“The amount of untruthful stuff that is written is unbelievable. Take that Wall Street Journal front-page article about, like, ‘The FBI is closing in.’ That is utterly false. That’s absurd. To print such a falsehood on the front page of a major newspaper is outrageous. Like, why are they even journalists? They’re terrible. Terrible people.”

Tesla recently reached a settlement with the SEC, which began with a now infamous “funding secured” tweet by Musk about taking the electric automaker private. A federal judge approved October 16 Musk’s settlement with the SEC over securities fraud allegations. The SEC alleged in a complaint filed in September that Musk lied when he tweeted on August 7 that he had “funding secured” for a private takeover of the company at $420 per share.

TikTok surpassed Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat & YouTube in downloads last month

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Sat, 03 Nov 2018 07:37:00 +0000

Beijing-based ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of tween and teen-focused social app Musical.ly is paying off. The company this year merged Musical.ly with its own short video app TikTok as a means of entering the U.S. market. Today, the result of that merger is sitting at the top of the U.S. App Store, ahead of Facebook. More importantly, it recently surpassed Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat in monthly installs for the first time in September.

According to data from app intelligence firm Sensor Tower, TikTok’s installs were higher than those of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube in the U.S. last month.

It surpassed the four other apps in terms of daily downloads on September 29, with 29.7 percent the downloads from this cohort of apps, the firm says.

Since then, it has continued to increase its market share among this group of apps, reaching as high as 42.4 percent of downloads among the apps just days ago, on October 30.

In September, TikTok’s installs grew around 31 percent from the prior month to reach approximately 3.81 million on the App Store and Google Play combined. This beat No. 2 Facebook, which had 3.53 million first-time installs.

Year-over-year, TikTok’s U.S. installs were up 237 percent from 1.13 million in October 2017.

As floods of new users join TikTok, the app has also flirted with passing some of these leading social apps in the App Store’s Top Charts, at times, too. Today, it’s ahead of Facebook (No. 7) and Messenger (No. 5) as it sits in the No. 4 position, for example. But it’s behind YouTube (No. 1), Instagram (No. 2) and Snapchat (No. 3).

However, at other times it’s gotten as high as No. 3 in the Overall Free Apps Top Chart, according to App Annie data.

App researcher Apptopia reports similar findings, in terms of TikTok’s surge. However, it noted that the app’s engagement rates (the portion of monthly users who open the app daily) was still behind the rest of the group. Apptopia said TikTok had a 29 percent engagement rate, compared with Facebook’s 96 percent, Instagram’s 95 percent, Snapchat’s 95 percent and YouTube’s 95 percent.

It also noted the app’s gains have come, in part, from increased ad spend across Facebook, Google’s mobile ad platform AdMob, in-app ad platform Vungle and others. Other gains are attributed to the merger.

In June, TikTok (known as Douyin in China) reported reaching a global monthly active user count of 500 million across 150 countries and regions, which is around the time when Instagram reached one billion monthly actives, for comparison’s sake.

Samsung Foldable Phone Mass Production to Start This Year; Display May Fold Two-Third: Report

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 08:09:00 +0000

Samsung appears all set to launch the Galaxy X, the smartphone with a foldable display. Samsung's plans to launch a foldable smartphone have been rumoured for years, and the company confirmed it had plans to launch it in 2018. While the tech world has been anticipating a foldable smartphone from Samsung for a long time, the South Korean giant is now said to be ready for the mass production of foldable OLED panels. While a new report out of South Korea claims to reveal the plans by Samsung Display, it does not indicate the exact device where the OLED panels will be used. However, rumours mills suggest that they could be used in the upcoming Galaxy X, said to get launched next year.

As per an ETNews report, sources have claimed that Samsung Display is finally gearing up for mass production of foldable OLED displays, with the aim to supply the folding phone next year. Of course, these display panels will differ from the ones seen in the likes of Galaxy S9 and iPhone X. They will actually be bendable, making it possible for users to fold a smartphone. While the alleged Samsung Galaxy X is expected to be launch in 2019, and mass-production of the foldable displays will kick off in time for that, the report says.

Source: NDTV

OnePlus 6 Red Colour Variant Launch Teased for July 2

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 07:22:00 +0000

OnePlus 6 was launched to the world back in May this year in Mirror Black and Midnight Black colour options, followed by a Marvel Avengers Limited Edition variant as well as a Silk White Limited Edition model. But, it seems, the Chinese phone maker has plans to launch yet another colour variant in a shade of red as soon as July 2. The development was teased by OnePlus itself and could point towards the launch of an OnePlus 6 Lava Red variant. As is tradition, we could expect this edition to launch in India.

In a video teaser on its official Twitter account, OnePlus wrote, "Now initiating: C61422. Do you wish to continue?" A simple Google search reveals that C61422 is, in fact, the RGB code for Dark Red. This almost gives away the upcoming launch of a red-coloured OnePlus 6 next month, on July 2. OnePlus India has shared the same tweet, indicating the India launch will be around the same time. Even tech YouTuber MKBHD posted a tweet that shows the silhouette of the OnePlus 6 red variant hidden behind the Midnight Black variant. While the RAM/ storage combination is currently not known, we could expect it to arrive in the 8GB RAM/ 256GB storage configuration, much like the recently refreshed Midnight Black variant. Price is also expected to be the same as the Midnight Black at Rs. 43,999. Separately, a live photo of what's alleged to be the OnePlus 6 Red colour variant has been shared on Slashleaks.

Source: NDTV

Microsoft’s New Lumia 650 Is A $199 Windows 10 Phone

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 11:16:00 +0000

Microsoft unveiled its first Lumia phones running Windows 10 back in October, and today it offered up a third and much cheaper variant.

If last year’s Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL looked impressive — impressive for phones running on a ‘dead’ platform — then the Lumia 650, which was outed today, is the budget version, coming in as it does at $199 — far cheaper than the $549 and $649 of the 950 and 950 XL.

That $199 gets you five-inch OLED screen, eight- and five-megapixel cameras and the front and back, and a Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 212 which doesn’t support Microsoft’s ‘Continuum ‘ phone-to-PC feature.

http://techcrunch.com/

Microsoft’s New App “Fetch!” Tells You What Kind Of Dog You Are (And It Can ID Your Dog, Too)

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 11:15:00 +0000

Even Microsoft’s new image recognition app has no idea what kind of dog I have. Oh well! If you don’t own a mixed-breed mutt saved from the kill shelter, however, you might have fun with the company’s latest Microsoft Garage project: Fetch!, a new iPhone app that looks at photos of dogs to identify its breed. Or, in the case when it can’t make an exact match, the app will show you a percentage of the closest match.

Oh yes, in case you’re wondering – you can use it with people, too.

The app is the latest in a series of fun projects that are meant to highlight machine learning’s potential. In this case, that’s the ability to look at an image and make some sort of determination about its contents – basically, it’s teaching machines to make the sort of intuitive leaps that people naturally do.

http://techcrunch.com/

Amazon Acquires Emvantage To Build Its Online Payment Platform In India

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 11:12:00 +0000

Amazon will acquire startup Emvantage for an undisclosed amount to develop its Indian e-commerce site’s payment platform. In a press announcement, Amazon said the Noida-based company’s employees will start working for Amazon’s payment team after the transaction is completed.

Founded in 2012 by chief executive officer Vivek Sagar, Emvantage’s platform includes a payment gateway for online transactions made using credit or debit cards, mobile payment tools that integrate into merchant apps, and a prepaid wallet.

Making it easier for customers to pay for online purchases is a key point of focus for India’s top e-commerce businesses, which include Amazon, Snapdeal, and Flipkart. India’s e-commerce market is expected to be worth $100 billion by 2020, but the country’s credit card penetration rate is still extremely low. Instead, many shoppers pay for e-commerce purchases using online wallets that can be topped up at brick-and-mortar stores, pre-paid cards, or cash on delivery.

Paytm, an online payments company backed by Alibaba, is positioning its mobile wallet as an alternative to credit and debit cards, but it competes with several payment gateways owned by India’s major e-commerce players. These include Snapdeal’s Klickpay and Freecharge; FX Mart, which was acquired by Flipkart last September; and now Emvantage (Amazon is expected to close the transaction by the end of March).

In a statement, Srinivas Rao, the director of Amazon Payments India, said “Emvantage is a valuable addition to our team as we accelerate our payment offerings, ensuring the best in class online payment experience anywhere that customers shop with us.”

http://techcrunch.com/

Reddit Hires Twitter’s Former News Manager As Head Of Journalism And Media

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 11:11:00 +0000

Reddit has hired Mark S. Luckie, the former news manager at Twitter and the person behind Today in Black Twitter, as its first-ever head of journalism and media. Journalists and media organizations have been using Reddit for years to discover and source content, but sifting through the loads of information on Reddit isn’t the easiest of tasks. Luckie’s new role will entail working with media organizations, as well as government organizations, to understand how they’re currently using Reddit and what their needs are from the platform, Luckie told me. He’ll then take that feedback and build it into Reddit’s product, with the goal of making Reddit more accessible to a broader community of people.

“A lot of it is delving into the community and figuring out how news spread within subreddits,” Luckie said. “I’ve been on Reddit for 8 years now as a lurker. It’s crazy. I don’t think I’ve done anything for eight years, including Twitter. Now, I want to look at it in an official capacity. I’ll delve into data, analyze the links going in, profile pages — all of this stuff that can be used to quantify news. I’m a spreadsheet kind of guy. I want to get in there and get my hands my dirty.”

http://techcrunch.com/

Impact, Investment And Demand: Three Pillars For Civic Tech Success

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 12:01:00 +0000

Last year was one of great momentum for civic tech. We saw more people and resources than ever enter the space, garnering interest from startups, corporations, government agencies and investment firms. Kicking off 2016, civic tech is a fast-growing field with tangible potential to improve the relationship between citizens and government.

As the field works to become a sustainable, scalable ecosystem, there are three key trends to keep an eye on — areas where civic tech can start to cement its impact and provide critical proof points.

The 2016 election effect — proving the power of civic tech

This year’s presidential election will usher in a new wave of citizen engagement tools and platforms aimed at educating voters and boosting voter turnout. These tools and platforms deployed on a national scale in 2016 will provide valuable lessons in what works and what doesn’t work when trying to increase citizen participation.

With the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, Change.org is hoping to get more than political pundits engaged this election season. The petition website recently launched Change Politics, a new website and mobile platform aimed at empowering voters with more valuable, curated information — beyond what we typically learn through campaign ads and party affiliation.

Change Politics will allow voters to pose questions directly to candidates, will show candidates’ endorsements and will help users create a personalized ballot guide they can use on election day with their smartphones.

A growing number of acquisitions are proving that civic tech is a viable field.

While new tools such as Change Politics will help reshape what it means to be an engaged citizen, what will be truly game-changing is if entrepreneurs can take the lessons learned from civic tech’s application during the presidential election and apply them at the local level, both in the United States and abroad. For cities and states, these lessons can help build tools and platforms that engage citizens on issues they care about — and can help foster these interactions on a regular basis, rather than just every four years.

Increased funding and exits — accelerating growth and scale

From early stage funding to completed exit strategies, today’s civic tech companies have more funding opportunities than ever. A growing number of acquisitions are proving that civic tech is a viable field, attracting real interest from investors and entrenched companies.

A prime example of this kind of investment in civic tech comes from GovDelivery, the 15-year-old digital communication platform for government. Recognizing over the last several years the need for more cloud-based, user-centered tools, the company acquired NuCivic andTextizen in an effort to create more points of access between citizens and government.

These types of acquisitions will enable GovDelivery to deploy civic tech that better fits government and citizen needs. And combining forces with civic tech startups is part of a strategy that propelled the company to its strongest year ever in 2015, with 100 million subscribers and an estimated record revenue of $35 million.

In forecasting for the year ahead, 2016 will likely see this virtuous cycle of investment continue to grow — an estimated $285 million was raised in capital for U.S. civic tech companies in 2015 (according to Omidyar Network’s internal analysis using database PitchBook. Omidyar Network researchers identified 23 companies as related to civic tech and totaled investment capital raised in 2015). For the greater civic tech movement, this influx of funding enables civic tech companies to scale more quickly and reach more people, which, in turn, will grow acquisition opportunities and strengthen investor confidence in the field overall.

Greater government adoption rates — breaking down barriers and driving demand

In many communities around the country, a wall exists between government agencies and civic tech startups. Procurement policies and a general lack of awareness between the two groups often mean that the best solution to a city’s problem may never get discovered and implemented. This divide is potentially the biggest obstacle still facing civic tech in 2016.

Civic tech entrepreneurs and investors undoubtedly have their work cut out for them.

We’re starting to see the wall being chipped away in cities like New York, San Francisco, London and Barcelona, thanks to local government agencies’ growing willingness to rethink procurement. Working with online platform Citymart, governments are implementing problem-based procurement, where instead of issuing a list of specifications for a pre-determined — and often quite limited — solution, agencies make an open call for new ideas around a challenge facing their communities, such as excessive noise in residential areas, bicycle theft and food waste.

By the end of 2015, Citymart had completed more than 100 challenges with more than 50 cities around the globe, resulting in 10 times more solutions for cities’ problems and 98 percent of contracts going to SMEs, startups and social entrepreneurs.

As more cities start to bear the fruits of a problem-based procurement, other government agencies will gain the confidence they need to work with civic entrepreneurs. And as cloud, open data and IoT technologies become an increasing need for local government, civic tech companies will find more inroads for successful relationships with local government. For civic tech to truly reach its tipping point, this symbiotic relationship between government, entrepreneurs and innovators is mission critical.

In the year ahead, civic tech entrepreneurs and investors undoubtedly have their work cut out for them. In addition to procurement, strict regulations and varying success metrics leave many at risk of falling into a pilot-stage purgatory, never able to fully scale their innovations. However, if stakeholders can hold tight to the opportunities ahead of us with the presidential election, continue attracting capital and forge new relationships with government, 2016 can be a watershed year for the sector.

The Evolving Technology Of The Super Bowl

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 12:00:00 +0000

As football fans gear up for the 50th anniversary of the Super Bowl this Sunday, we can expect to see not only a great athletic game, but a host of dazzling new technology at play behind the scenes, working to seamlessly bring the game to millions of viewers. To really appreciate how sophisticated this sport has become, here’s a look at some of the ways Super Bowl technology has evolved in the last fifty years.

Camera Tech Has Come a Long Way

Back in 1967, Super Bowl 1 aired to viewers simultaneously on NBC and CBS—the only game to have been aired by two major networks at the same time. Unfortunately most of the footage from the game was wiped, as was standard practice at the time. Just this year the NFL was able to locate all 145 plays of the game on a few dozen different sources, stitch them together, enhance and color correct the footage, to bring the game back to life for the first time. The daytime game features tons of empty seats, despite $12 tickets, and of course no jumbo screen or pyrotechnics filled halftime show.

While Super Bowl 1 is a fun throwback for film buffs, camera technology has come a long way in the past fifty years, and so too has the viewing experience. For this year’s 50th anniversary, CBS Sports is debuting exciting new cameras to bring television viewers even closer to the live event experience. With last year’s game bringing in a record 140 million viewers, this year’s anniversary match between the Panthers and the Broncos is the perfect time to show off new technology.

CBS will have a suite of 70 cameras filming the Super Bowl, which is a big jump from the 40 cameras that covered last year’s game. The showstopper from the new cameras is sure to be the Eye Vision 360, a replay camera that can freeze any moment of play and circle 360 degrees around it, and then continue the play.

With a fleet of 36 cameras mounted near the red zone at the 25 yard line, the placement will allow the cameras to capture the entire field, and then render together into 360 degree views for replays.

Instant replay has become such a pivotal part of how football is both watched and played, so it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t until 1986 that the NFL first implemented a limited instant replay system.

Graphene Shows Promise For Brain Implants

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 11:59:00 +0000

Graphene, the super thin carbon material that’s been exciting scientists in the decade+ since single-atom thick graphene crystallites were successfully extracted from the bulk material, continues to give hints of a promising future blending electronics and biology.

In a new study, conducted by researchers at the Cambridge Graphene Centre and the University of Trieste in Italy, and published in the journal ACS Nano, the suggestion is it could be used to make highly effective, flexible brain implants in future — biodevices that avoid the loss of signal problem associated with the scar tissue that can form around modern electrodes made from more rigid substances, such as silicon and tungsten.

Point is, human brains are made of soft tissue so it helps if your electrodes can flex too. Graphene is also considered to have excellent biocompatibility properties (although research into potential toxicity is not conclusive at this stage).

The implication of the Cambridge-Trieste research is that graphene-based electrodes could, in future, be safely be implanted in the brain — offering promise for the restoration of sensory functions for amputee or paralysed patients, for example, or to help individuals with motor disorders such as epilepsy or Parkinson’s disease. So the future potential being glimpsed here is pretty exciting — albeit, theoretical and a long way out (plus, it should be stressed, the successful experiments were also conducted on rat brain cultures).

The researchers note that previously other groups have shown it is possible to use treated graphene to interact with neurons in the brain, however the problem with using treated graphene was the signal to noise ratio was very low. Working with untreated graphene retains the material’s much lauded electrical conductivity — resulting in a significantly better electrode. And one that was seen to interface well with rat neurons.

“For the first time we interfaced graphene to neurons directly,” said Professor Laura Ballerini of the University of Trieste in Italy, in a statement. “We then tested the ability of neurons to generate electrical signals known to represent brain activities, and found that the neurons retained their neuronal signalling properties unaltered. This is the first functional study of neuronal synaptic activity using uncoated graphene based materials.”

The scientists couch the research as a “first step” towards using pristine graphene-based materials as an electrode for a neuro-interface. So again, graphene-based biodevices aren’t going to be coming to CES next year — perhaps in a couple of decades…

They say their next steps will be to investigate how different forms of graphene are able to affect neurons, and whether tuning the material properties might alter the biological response (in terms of synapses and neuronal excitability).

“Hopefully this will pave the way for better deep brain implants to both harness and control the brain, with higher sensitivity and fewer unwanted side effects,” added Ballerini.

Meet The Voting Board Of The 9th Annual Crunchies

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 11:58:00 +0000

TechCrunch is excited to announce the 100-person Crunchies Board who collectively picked the winners of the 9th Annual Crunchies award.

Early last month the law firm Perkins Coie delivered ballots to these TechCrunch editors, entrepreneurs, investors and other tech notables. The law firm then tallied the ballots and is keeping the winners secret until tonight, when the awards will be handed out at the 9th Annual Crunchies.

Here’s the full list of all the voting members.

Super Bowl Technology Mishaps And Real Time Rescues

noreply@blogger.com (Arun Sharma) — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 11:56:00 +0000

The Super Bowl is the crowning glory of sports in the United States, but it hasn’t been without it’s mishaps. They aren’t the last minute fumbles, missed field goals, or obvious interceptions either. They’re those unfortunate outside incidents that stopped or changed the course of the game.

In many cases, today’s real time technologies could have been applied for simple fixes to the unforeseen mishaps of modern technologies.

In 2013, there was a power outage during Super Bowl XLVII. The outage was ironically caused by a device specifically made to stop power outages. The equipment sensed an ‘abnormality’ and decided to open a breaker which cut the power to the field for 34 minutes.

Smart Grids could have saved the day.

Multiple sensors would have been measuring voltage and current levels throughout the stadium and correlating this with expected usage. Multiple breakers for redundant circuits would have been in place, with analytics software checking for normality and rerouting power as necessary. The lights may have dimmed, or non-critical systems like indoor heating or bar lighting, turned off, but the game would have gone on.

In 1982, the teams were travelling by bus to the Silverdome for Super Bowl XVI. The buses took different routes and the bus carrying the SF 49er’s was caught up in traffic due to bad weather and then VP George HW Bush’s motorcade. Despite arriving with less than an hour to go, the 49er’s still managed to win 26-21.

Crowd-sourcing apps, real-time road-sensors, and streaming analytics would have enabled them to dynamically reroute and avoid the worst of the traffic; and GPS with real-time location tracking could have notified the NFL of their predicament (or, of course, they could have called from a cell phone).

Honorable mentions in football, but not directly related to the Super Bowl, have to go to the 1968 Heidi Bowl and the 2014 Seahawks opening games.

The increasing popularity of Smart Phones, coupled with a love for sharing, and the ubiquity of photos and videos has put an increasing strain on cellular networks. So much so that, in 2014, for the opening game of the Seattle Seahawks, city officials asked citizens to limit their “non-essential mobile conversation”. No tweeting that grainy fumble-vid you took from 100 yards away, even if you did apply the Fade filter and edit in the Benny Hill theme music.

The city was concerned that large amounts of highly localized mobile photo and video interchange would put a strain on networks and limit the capabilities for 911 or other emergency calls.

Adding additional LTE-capable Distributed Antenna Systems at the stadium would have helped.

And finally – in 1968 the Oakland Raiders were playing the New York Jets. Airing on NBC, the executives wanted to piggy back on the popularity of the game to drive audiences into the showing of their new movie Heidi.

They had highly publicized this film and secured exclusive sponsorship from Timex. In those days games typically didn’t exceed two and half hours, so with a start time of 4pm Heidi was scheduled to start at 7pm. Timex had (being watchmakers) insisted the movie must begin on-time and had included such clauses in their contract.

However, there were more injuries and penalties than usual, and at 6:45pm it appeared the last quarter was going very slowly. A nervous technician, whose job it was to switch to the Heidi feed, tried to get word from the NBC executive to check if he should keep the game running.

Unfortunately, so many people called NBC (either wanting Heidi to start on time, or to continue watching the game) that the switchboard fuses blew and they were without phones. Unable to contact anyone, he followed orders and at 7pm switched to Heidi. In the last minute of the game the Raiders scored twice in 9 seconds and won 43-23.