Новости за 02.04.2019

Gotta be careful with April Fool’s Day announcements — most companies know just how to push gamers’ buttons and won’t hesitate to do so on the one day a year we’re all supposed to laugh it off. But Sony apparently wasn’t fooling when it quietly changed its refund policy yesterday. It was so difficult to tell because the rules, while mostly reasonable, come with two strict caveats. According to the new rules, all purchases from the store — including games, DLC, and other add-ons — now come with a... Читать дальше...

Is it too early to call time on the loathed smartphone display notch? Maybe. There’s an growing trend for companies to find innovative workarounds, like the punch-hole display now favored by Huawei’s Honor and Samsung. And now Nokia – or, at least, the resurrected form of Nokia – is getting in on the action with the tantalizing Nokia X71. The Nokia X71 is a bit of a mid-ranger. At its heart is the power-efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 platform. This chipset is also present on other similarly-priced handsets... Читать дальше...

The discovery of life on Mars would get pretty much everyone excited. But the scientists hunting for it would probably be happy no matter what the outcome of their search – whether life turned out to extinct, dormant or extant. They’d even consider finding no evidence of life whatsoever to be an important discovery. But, as the saying goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and it will take many decades of detailed exploration of Mars to be reasonably sure that life has always been absent there. Читать дальше...

PayPal is getting in on the blockchain craze. The payments giant has invested in Cambridge Blockchain, a budding startup developing digital identity management software for financial institutions. In an announcement on its website, Cambridge Blockchain said the investment will help the two companies explore potential collaborations powered by blockchain tech. The investment was part of a Series A funding round, which also included backing from Foxconn’s HCM Capital, Partech Partners, FuturePerfect Ventures and Digital Currency Group. Читать дальше...

Security, networking, cloud systems...the top-notch tech expert can make a nice living working in any of those sectors. So why not get some background in all of it?  Ambitious students can get thorough training in all the most sought-after arenas and prep to earn key credentials as well with The CompTIA Certification Prep Bundle. It’s on sale now at over 90 percent off, just $59 from TNW Deals.

We just revealed the official schedule for TNW2019, our tech conference in Amsterdam! You can now check out what our lineup of over 200 speakers will talk about – how exciting is that? Build your dream itinerary With the schedule live, it’s time to plan out your experience at TNW2019. Find out what your favorite speakers will talk about, and explore the times and locations of their keynotes. If you have a particular track that you’re interested in, the schedule lets you see which track each speaker is on! Читать дальше...

Bitcoin has been pumping. Over the past six hours, its value has jumped as much as 20 percent, and a recent report has claimed a “mystery buyer” is responsible. During Asian trade, Bitcoin‘s value broke $5,000 for the first time since November last year, marking the biggest one-day gain in the past year, Reuters reports. Trade has since calmed, with the price remaining steady at around $4,700 across major exchanges. The last time Bitcoin was over $4,500 was back in November 2018, around five months ago. Читать дальше...

Welcome to CHEAP, our brand-new series about things that are good, but most of all, cheap. CHEAP! We’re all sad over the death of Airpower. But no need to keep shedding tears, Anker PowerWave Fast Wireless Charging Pad the Anker PowerWave Fast Wireless Charging Pad selling at $16(with a 35 percent discount) The wireless charger is is Qi certified, and works with all popular phones supporting wireless charging including the new iPhones, the new Samsung Galaxy devices, and the updated AirPods. The... Читать дальше...

When I entered a snow-covered military base in Tallinn, Estonia, on a crisp winter morning to do interviews on cyberwarfare, I didn’t expect the fourth Die Hard movie to be part of my research. “The movie came out more than 10 years ago, so you’d expect it to be outdated, but its depiction of cyberwarfare is actually very realistic,” said Siim Alatalu, a Strategy Researcher at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE). Wait… Live Free or Die Hard, a movie where John McClane battles a fighter jet with a semi truck... Читать дальше...

As drones have become more common and affordable, many animal-loving people have worried about their tendency to scare wildlife. Yet that problem may have a silver lining: drones might be used to scare animals away from crops, resolving conflicts with fright rather than lethal force. In a study published in the journal Crop Protection, researchers led by Zihao Wang, an aerospace engineer at the University of Sydney, describe their deployment of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) at Australian vineyards... Читать дальше...

China appears to be edging ahead as a world leader in blockchain technology. As of November last year, the country was leading the world with 263 active blockchain projects, China.rog.cn reports. Indeed, China accounts for about 25 percent of all blockchain projects, according to figures from Beijing-based data service provider Blockdata. Beijing think tank, EO Intelligence, reported in December that there were 615 blockchain companies in China. Half of those are developing blockchain technologies for the financial industry. Читать дальше...

It’s finally April 2. Congratulations, you survived the epic bullshit that is cryptocurrency April Fool’s Day – and hopefully without falling for the swath of intentionally fake news. The same can’t be said for a string of media outlets caught peddling an April Fool’s prank pulled by Swiss publishing house Netzmedien, which (through a fintech subsidiary) bombastically announced it would be paying employees’ salaries entirely in cryptocurrency, starting with Bitcoin. “The publishing house Netzmedien... Читать дальше...

It probably won’t come as too much of a surprise that tech leaders, a notoriously male group,  follow mostly men on Twitter — it wasn’t until 2016 when Elon Musk followed a woman. While we should be mindful that social media presents a warped view of the world, for many people in the tech industry, their Twitter timelines reflect their reality — one that is predominantly male. Yesterday, Matt Steinglass, Europe Correspondent at The Economist, tweeted about the gender ratio of his Twitter following and followers... Читать дальше...

Remember Apple Newton? Neither could we. This mobile tablet, released in 1993, is often hailed as Apple’s biggest flop. Its hefty price tag, large size, and blatantly inaccurate handwriting recognition software were to blame for its inglorious demise. Innovation is a high-risk game, and even the biggest players get it wrong sometimes. Will your new product resonate with your audience? You can wait until the actual launch and find out the hard way — running the risk you’ve invested a lot of time and money in another Apple Newton. Читать дальше...

Rajan Anandan, Google‘s vice president for South East Asia and India, is leaving the company after eight years. Anandan has been in charge of or involved in numerous major projects at the firm for one of its largest markets. That includes reviving the Android One program in India, bringing free Wi-Fi to hundreds of railway stations across the country, and growing Google Pay (formerly Tez in India) to achieve a transaction value run rate of $30 billion with 22 million users as of last August. He is... Читать дальше...

Over the weekend, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sounded the alarm, calling for increased government regulation for internet platforms — including his own. Facebook, as you may have heard, has run into a few issues in recent years that would make it an unlikely advocate for this sort of regulation. You’d be forgiven for assuming that it’s another instance of Zuckerberg talking out of both sides of his mouth. This is a company, after all, that declares a commitment to privacy, while looking the other... Читать дальше...

Usually, being a gamer on the first of April is good fun — jokes, memes, pranks about Half-Life 3. But the moderators of Reddit’s r/Games subreddit made it very clear when they shuttered the community today that they were dead serious. Their cutting of the proverbial phone wires wasn’t just a protest against hate speech, it was an incitement aimed at a gaming community that occasionally gets a little too complacent the terrible things said by its members on a regular basis. The moderators presented... Читать дальше...