Does this sound familiar? An app goes viral on social media, often including TikTok, then immediately climbs to the top of the App Store where it gains even more new installs thanks to the heightened exposure. That’s what happened with the recent No. 1 on the U.S. App Store, Fontmaker, a subscription-based fonts app which […]
Offchain Labs raises $120 million to hide Ethereum’s shortcomings with its Arbitrum product
As the broader crypto world enjoys a late summer surge in enthusiasm, more and more blockchain developers who have taken the plunge are bumping into the blaring scaling issues faced by decentralized apps on the Ethereum blockchain. The popular network has seen its popularity explode in the past year but its transaction volume has stayed […]
TikTok owner ByteDance buys a top virtual reality hardware startup
TikTok parent company ByteDance seem to be looking to one-up Facebook anywhere it can. After taking over the mantle of most-downloaded social media app in the world with TikTok, ByteDance is coming for Facebook’s moonshot, buying up its own virtual reality headset maker called Pico. The deal first reported on by Bloomberg last week was […]
Clubhouse is adding spatial audio effects to make users feel like they’re really in the room
It’s been a busy summer for Clubhouse. The hit social audio app rolled out new messaging features and an Android app over the last few months and now the company is turning its attention to enhancing its core audio experience. Clubhouse announced Sunday that its rooms will now be infused with spatial audio to give […]
Floating wind turbines could open up vast ocean tracts for renewable power
Technology could help power a clean energy transition if it can overcome hurdles of cost, design and opposition from fishingIn the stormy waters of the North Sea, 15 miles off the coast of Aberdeenshire, in Scotland, five floating offshore wind turbine…
Why OnlyFans had second thoughts on banning sexually explicit content
Site announced last week it was suspending adult content, only to quickly change its mindFor five days, it looked as if one of Britain’s most successful tech startups was on the verge of a make-or-break gamble, one that would either see it burst on to …
‘The smartest person in any room anywhere’: in defence of Elon Musk, by Douglas Coupland
He’s the Silicon Valley Übermensch, the maverick boss of Tesla and SpaceX who wants us to colonise Mars and who can wipe out billions of dollars with a single tweet. So what’s not to love?It’s interesting whenever Elon Musk’s name comes up and people b…
Is deep-sea mining a cure for the climate crisis or a curse?
Trillions of metallic nodules on the sea floor could help stop global heating, but mining them may damage ocean ecologyIn a display cabinet in the recently opened Our Broken Planet exhibition in London’s Natural History Museum, curators have placed a s…
The real OnlyFans scandal is the unaccountable power of platforms and banks | Jillian York
The service has reversed its ban on sexual content, but valid – and legal – forms of expression for sex workers are still under threatOver the past year, the content subscription service OnlyFans exploded in popularity, as people in numerous countries …
‘Chipageddon’: how a global tech crisis came to sound quite tasty
First chickens, and now a worldwide shortage of microprocessors … the word ‘chip’ is the latest word to gain an Armageddon flavourAs if there weren’t enough disasters happening simultaneously, people are now speaking of the present “chipageddon”: the w…