Bitcoin will soon be an official currency in El Salvador
El Salvador has passed a resolution to make Bitcoin a legal currency, making it the first country to do so. According to the law, citizens will be able to use Bitcoin to do everything from paying taxes and paying off debts to buying goods and services. The move was championed by President Nayib Bukele, who says it's a way to help those who don't have access to banks and those who want to send money back to the country from abroad.
Seoul-based Ringle raises $18M Series A for its one-on-one English tutoring platform
The South Korea-based startup Ringle has raised an $18 million Series A led by returning investor Must Asset Management, at a valuation of $90 million. creating a niche for itself by focusing on adults first, with courses like business English and interview preparation, preparing to launch a program for school kids later this year.
“Alzheimer’s is open for business.” Controversial FDA approval could pave the way for future drugs
Aduhlem was approved by the FDA on Monday after a 17-year drought in the world of Alzheimer's drugs. The approval of Aduhelm came after conflicting results from clinical trials, but it doesn’t seem to be spooking drug developers who are now narrowing in on the degenerative brain disease.
How to sign up for Amazon Prime
Amazon has announced that its annual Prime Day sales are scheduled for Monday, June 21st and Tuesday, June 22nd. This year, Prime Day happened on October 13th and 14th, three months later than usual, due to the coronavirus pandemic, but as before, Amazon will be dropping prices on a lot of its products for its Prime members.
Facebook offers 'extra cash' for creators who stream more
Instagram is working on new tools to help its creators earn more money from the platform, introducing new features that will help influencers to earn “extra cash” for meeting specific goals. With the new program influencers can earn additional payouts “for hitting certain milestones”
10 Hot Identity And Access Management Products You Need To Know About
The vision for identity and access management had always been remote-work-centric, but the market has begun embracing this long term. The identity andaccess management market supports more diversity in user authentication models and flows and can also manage basic access to IoT devices, contextual and comprehensive adaptive access, mobile computing and API target services.
Microsoft Outlook on iOS adds voice dictation for emails, search and calendar invites
Since 2019, Microsoft's Cortana personal assistant has allowed you to listen to emails that land in your Outlook mobile inbox, and can use your voice to dictate emails, schedule meetings and conduct searches. The announcement aligns with Microsoft's push to reframe Cortana as a productivity assistant instead of a competitor.
The six-year-old iPhone 6S will get iOS 15, and that rules
The iPhone 6S will turn six years old this September, and will be eligible for the iOS 15 upgrade when it arrives for the public this fall. This puts the 6S in the running for the longest supported phone to date, but there are a lot of new features that won't work with 6S's processor.
Jeff Bezos and his brother will fly on Blue Origin's first tourist flight
Jeff Bezos and Mark Bezos will be passengers on Blue Origin's first suborbital tourist flight next month. The flight will take six passengers 62 miles above the surface of the Earth, with the highest bid at $2.8 million. The bidding is set to conclude with a live auction on June 12th.
Apple adds virtual IDs on iPhone, video plans that rival Zoom, Teams
Apple outlined plans to increase user privacy and keep consumer data out of other companies' hands, laying out features including expanded video conferencing and storing virtual government IDs on iPhones, allowing users to safeguard data, trusting the Apple brand. Apple also introduced what it calls in-app events to host live events within apps and have those events featured in real time in the App Store.
Disney has removed some of its pandemic safety measures from its US theme parks as more Americans become vaccinated, but people who participated in an Insider poll said they still had concerns about contracting COVID-19 at Disney theme parks. The survey was done through SurveyMonkey among 1,086 respondents, with a 3% margin of error.
Apple WWDC 2021 : What to expect
WWDC will begin on June 7th with a keynote where Tim Cook and the rest of Apple’s execs will walk us through some of the biggest changes going into iOS, iPadOS, and more. These addresses typically last a shade over two hours, so be sure to block out plenty of time. While WWDC is technically free to attend, it's only open to registered developers who have paid out the $100/year fee.
Climate tech is about to fly commercial
Hiring private contractors to sample greenhouse gases from the air is an important aspect of NOAA’s climate research, with the tools would measure concentrations of planet-heating pollution in the air, helping federal scientists get even more information about how we’re changing the climate.
Aurora brings in outsiders to boost safety efforts, public trust of driverless vehicles
Aurora, the autonomous vehicle company that acquired Uber ATG last year, has assembled a team of outside experts, shared new details about its operations in a self-assessment safety report and launched a website as part of a broader effort to win over consumers wary of the technology that they may someday share the road with.
Drivers in the US and UK have very different strategies for pressuring Uber
Uber recognized a union of its own drivers in the UK, but drivers will not be automatically enrolled in the union, and Uber will not engage in collective bargaining over earnings, but the union will negotiate for holiday pay, pensions and a minimum wage. The recent move will give more strength to the global movement to organize so-called gig workers, as companies like Uber and Deliveroo face growing pressure from regulators.
Microsoft will unveil the next version of Windows on June 24th
Microsoft announced on June 24th that it will officially unveil its new Windows 10 OS. CEO Satya Nadella and chief product officer Panos Panay will be headlining the event. This follows news that Microsoft killed development of Windows 10X, an OS variant that was initially meant for dual-screen devices.
Walmart accidentally unveiled its own bargain-priced FHD streaming stick and 4K player
Walmart accidentally published product listings for its own, onn-branded, low-cost Android TV streaming stick to the Walmart.com website, where it was soon spotted, alongside an upcoming 4K streaming device. Both items are officially arriving next week in stores and online, but it seems the website revealed them a bit earlier than planned.
Apple asks staff to return to office three days a week starting in early September
Apple employees are being asked to return to the office three days a week starting in early September, with the option of working remotely on Wednesdays and Fridays. The change is not entirely unexpected for Apple staff, while employees have worked remotely during the coronavirus pandemic.
Twitter Blue, a $3 monthly subscription service, could be coming soon
Twitter Blue, a $2.99 monthly subscription, appears to be coming soon to a Timeline near you. This service will include a reader mode, which turns tweet threads into “easy-to-read text” and also allow users to change the color of the Twitter app icon.
Fitbit may soon be adding snoring detection to its devices
Fitbit may soon add snoring and noise detection to its devices, a move that will likely please the spouses and partners of the snoring population and be of interest to people for whom snoring is a sign of a possible health condition, allowing a Fitbit’s microphone to listen to “ambient noise including your potential snoring” after you’ve fallen asleep.
Logitech CEO says chip shortage could last for up to a year - paper
Logitech CEO Bracken Darrell said that the global shortage of semiconductor chips could last three to six months with some industries facing shortages of up to a year. The computer peripheral maker has used new suppliers for some parts as some suppliers did not have enough capacity.
Google Photos' free unlimited storage ends on June 1st.
Google Photos is ending its free unlimited storage on June 1st, with any photo you upload counts toward your Google Drive storage limit unless it comes from a Pixel phone. Google has also made it easier to delete unwanted photos through a tool that finds blurry snapshots, screenshots and other items you can usually remove.
Intel’s latest 11th Gen processor brings 5.0GHz speeds to thin and light laptops
Intel announced a pair of new U-series chips at Computex 2021, marking the first 5.0GHz clock speed for the company's lower voltage chips. The new chips are four core / eight thread configurations and feature Intel's Iris Xe integrated graphics. The Core i7-1195G7 and the Core i5-1155G7 are the top of the U-Series range, with the new chips operating in the 12W to 28W range.
Car companies are ‘greenwashing’ their plug-in hybrid vehicles
Hybrid vehicle sales skyrocketed in Europe during the first quarter of 2021, reaching roughly 256,000 (up 264% year-over-year), a study by the European Federation for Transport and Environment and Greenpeace found that CO2 emissions from plug-in hybrid vehicles are up to 2,5 times greater than official tests and manufacturer marketing suggests.
Prepare to Pay More for Uber and Lyft Rides
As the coronavirus pandemic recedes, more people are discovering that cheap and quick rides have become more costly and not so readily available, Uber and Lyft have poured money into extra incentives for drivers, including cash bonuses for completing a certain number of rides. Some customers say their Uber rides from airports cost as much as their plane tickets.
The chip shortage is pitting bitcoin miners against gamers
In the niche world of customers for high-end semiconductors, a bitter feud is pitting bitcoin miners against hardcore gamers, with the latest line of NVIDIA graphics cards being powerful, cutting-edge chips with the computational might to display the most advanced video game graphics on the market.
Google reportedly made it difficult for smartphone users to find privacy settings
Arizona's lawsuit against Google showed that executives and engineers were aware of the search giant's location data collection and privacy settings were difficult for users to find. The documents suggest that Google collected location data even after users had turned off location sharing and made privacy settings difficult to find, according to the documents.
Sign In with Apple is a must for iPhone users. Here's how it works
Sign In with Apple is a privacy tool that gives iOS users more security when using third-party apps and websites with their Apple ID. Instead of signing in with Facebook, Google or making a brand new account, you can choose the Sign In With Apple option to use your Apple ID to verify your credentials.
How a largely untested AI algorithm crept into hundreds of hospitals
Epic, a private electronic health record giant and a key purveyor of American health data, accelerated the deployment of a clinical prediction tool called the Deterioration Index, designed to help physicians decide when to move a patient into or out of intensive care, and is influenced by factors like breathing rate and blood potassium level.
Watch Intel's Computex 2021 Keynote Live Here at 10pm ET, 7pm PT
Intel's EVP Michelle Johnston Holthaus will present Intel's 'Innovation Unleashed' keynote for Computex 2021 before the show officially kicks off Monday. We know that the presentation will cover consumer CPUs and Xeon processors, but we could hear more about the company's upcoming Alder Lakeprocessors.
NASA’s autonomous lunar vehicle will be made by GM and Lockheed Martin
NASA is planning to return humans to the Moon for the first time since 1972, picking General Motors and Lockheed Martin to develop the Artemis program's lunar vehicles. The goal is to enable astronauts to travel further on the Moon than ever before. The vehicles must be electric and support autonomous driving.
Is Telegram becoming the new alternative to the Dark Web?
An investigation into Telegram has revealed that private data of millions of people is being openly shared in the app's groups and channels with thousands of members, further cements Telegram’s position as a safe haven for cybercriminals.
Clearview AI hit with sweeping legal complaints over controversial face scraping in Europe
Privacy International and several other European privacy and digital rights organizations announced today that they’ve filed legal complaints against Clearview AI, claiming that the company’s method of documenting and collecting data - including images of faces it automatically extracts from public websites - violates European privacy laws.
Watch 14 minutes of stunning Horizon Forbidden West gameplay
Sony showed off 14 minutes of Horizon Forbidden West gameplay on a PS5 in a new State of Play presentation on Thursday. The game is expected to be one of Sony's biggest titles this year, but it is still not known when it will be released in 2021.
Amazon brings James Bond, Rocky to fight Netflix with $8.5 bln MGM buy
Amazon.com Inc will buy MGM, the fabled U.S. movie studio home to the James Bond franchise, for $8.45 billion, giving it a huge library of films and TV shows andamping up competition with streaming rivals led by Netflix and Disney+.
Microsoft claims Edge is now ‘the best performing browser on Windows 10’
Microsoft is now claiming the performance crown in the desktop browser battle, adding new features to Edge over the past year to improve performance and launch times, allowing Microsoft to claim itself the performance winner, even as Google releases Chrome 91 today. Microsoft also submitted 5,300 commits to the Chromium browser project, which will also benefit Chrome and other Chromium-based browsers.
Twitter teases its upcoming ‘premium’ service, which it plans to release globally
Twitter will soon roll out a new subscription service that will present users with an expanded feature set available only to paid subscribers. This is a different offering than Twitter’s previously announced Super Follow subscription plans, which will allow users to subscribe to individual creators for access to exclusive content.
Google isn’t ready to turn search into a conversation
The future of search is a conversation, and it was the centerpiece of last week's I/O developer conference, demoing two “groundbreaking” AI systems that it hopes to integrate into all its products. Users will be able to “talk to Google” using natural language to retrieve information from the web or their personal archives of messages, calendar appointments, photos, and more.
Huawei plans to launch new operating system for phones in June
Huawei Technologies will launch its new Harmony operating system for smartphones on June 2, its biggest move yet aimed at recovering from the damage done by U.S. sanctions to its mobile phone business. The use of its own operating system will mean it will no longer be reliant on Android.
Tesla is already shipping cars without radar sensors
Tesla has stopped building forward-facing radar sensors into its Model 3 sedans and Model Y SUVs in North America, after CEO Elon Musk expressed a desire to rely on cameras to power the company’s advanced driver assistance system, Autopilot. Tesla has been developing the vision-based version of Autopil during the limited beta test of its "Full Self-Driving" software.
The iPhone 13 might get a new battery, cameras and display
Every year at this time, there are an increasing number of rumors about the next iPhone, and 2021 is no exception. The iPhone 12 family is six months old, but there are already a plethora of leaks and speculation about the iPhone 13's rumored cost, a potential release date, and how the iPhone13 might compare to the iPhone 12.
Getty Images leads $16M investment in Promo.com, a social video template tool
Promo.com raised $16 million in a Series B round led by Getty Images, providing both the video clips and tools for non-editors to craft a basic edit with a little bit of customization. The company also offers its own library of stock videos as well.
New Instagram Insights make its TikTok competitor Reels more appealing
Instagram has added a slew of features to help independent creators make a living, including Insights for Reels and Live on its Professional Dashboard, giving businesses and creators essential data about the reach of their content. These tools will help Reels catch up with its competitor TikTok, which already offers users detailed analytics.
Analysis: How the Mobile World Congress hopes to reboot conferences post COVID
Next month’s Mobile World Congress is shaping up as an early test of how quickly the global business events industry will bounce back from the pandemic, with a range of hi-tech solutions being rolled out to try to keep visitors safe. There will be regular rapid COVID-19 tests, a digital badge that will give access to the venue, and a contact-tracing app if there are any infections.
Elon Musk and Bitcoin miners say they want to address crypto’s sustainability problem
After a weekend meeting with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and “leading Bitcoin miners in North America,” the group has agreed to form a Bitcoin Mining Council, “to promote energy usage transparency [and] accelerate sustainability initiatives worldwide” The group included representatives from Argo Blockchain, Blockcap, Core Scientific, Galaxy Digital, Hive Blockchain Technologies, and Marathon Digital Holdings, and Riot Blockchain Technologies.
