Samsung vice chairman and the company’s heir apparent Jay Y. Lee has left prison after a South Korean high court suspended his bribery sentence. Lee, whose father is Samsung’s chairman, was previously sentenced to five years after being found guilty of bribery, embezzlement, capital flight and perjury charges. His sentence was reduced to 2.5 years today on appeal, and he was… Read More
February 4, 2018
Elon Musk shows off Falcon Heavy’s Roadster-loving artificial astronaut via @TechCrunch
Elon Musk is in Florida getting ready for the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, the first ever flight of the big new space freight beast. He’s making some final inspections of the cargo, it seems, including a new addition to the cherry red Tesla Roadster that’s going to be on board in the cargo area atop the rocket. Said new addition is a dummy wearing one of… Read More
Cloverfield Paradox review: Netflix combines every space scream via @TechCrunch
Where did Cloverfield’s don’t-call-it-Godzilla come from? This Gravity meets Event Horizon flick mashes up the scariest things outside our planet to provide an answer. New Netflix original film The Cloverfield Paradox is now available after a surprise announcement during the Super Bowl. Producer J.J. Abrams back for a third-installment that’s tense and eerie, leaving… Read More
Solve a Problem by Thinking About the Worst Possible Solution
If you need to come up with a new idea, stop trying to think of the best one. Instead, imagine the worst idea possible: What would be the wrong way to solve this problem? What do our customers absolutely not want? How could we make all of our stakeholders angry? Try to come up with […]
Nike ramps up membership benefits with Apple Music, ClassPass and Headspace unlocks for app users via @TechCrunch
The top line is that Nike is rolling out some membership related updates to its app for iPhone and Android today. The updates will come in the form of new unlocks with partnerships like ClassPass, Apple and Headspace. There will also be a bunch of new unlocks coming for exclusive shoes and clothing. NikePlus Unlocks, the official name for these cards that appear in the Nike+ app Members… Read More
Stripe will establish an engineering hub in Dublin via @TechCrunch
Stripe will open its first engineering center outside the United States in Dublin, the company told Reuters today. Dublin isn’t a surprising choice. Though the online payment processing provider is based in San Francisco, its founders are Irish and Stripe’s European headquarters are already in the Irish capital, where it has about 100 employees. Reuters says Stripe will hire… Read More
Gillmor Gang: Day Zero via @TechCrunch
The Gillmor Gang — Denis Pombriant, Esteban Kolsky, Keith Teare, Gené Teare, and Steve Gillmor. Recorded Saturday, February 3, 2018. G3: BlameThrower — Halley Suitt Tucker, Francine Hardaway, Elisa Camehort Page, Denise Howell, and Tina Chase Gillmor. Recorded Thursday, 2.1.18. @stevegillmor, @ekolsky, @kteare, @DenisPombriant, @geneteare Produced and directed by Tina Chase… Read More
Meet the Tiny Adventuring Companions of @encolhiaspessoas For… via #Instagram Blog
Meet the Tiny Adventuring Companions of @encolhiaspessoas For more stories from the Brazilian community, follow @instagrambrasil. (This interview was conducted in Portuguese.) Some say the world is small. For Renan Viana’s micro characters (@encolhiaspessoas), it’s gigantic. In 2014, the 28-year-old photographer found a box of miniature figures in an antique shop in Belém, Brazil. Renan customized each with paint, glaze and glue then started taking photos of them on wild adventures. “The miniature figures are my companions to discover new places,” he says. “I carry a few around in a little box, and whenever I go out, I set up scenes on my walks. But I plan more specific scenes in advance.” “Taking pictures of such little ‘people’ on the street draws a lot of…
Stop blaming Apple and take responsibility for tech addiction via @TechCrunch
I know intimately that if we want to achieve tech-life balance, people must start taking responsibility for their choices. No one is forcing consumers to buy an iPhone, use Facebook, stare at Twitch or masturbate to porn. Every one of those actions is a choice we make, and it’s nearly impossible to help someone who doesn’t want help. Read More
Stop blaming Apple and take responsibility for tech addiction via @TechCrunch
I know intimately that if we want to achieve tech-life balance, people must start taking responsibility for their choices. No one is forcing consumers to buy an iPhone, use Facebook, stare at Twitch or masturbate to porn. Every one of those actions is a choice we make, and it’s nearly impossible to help someone who doesn’t want help. Read More
Here’s how to stream the Super Bowl tonight via @TechCrunch
The NFL season ends tonight with the New England Patriots losing to facing off against the Philadelphia Eagles in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The game starts at 6:30pm ET / 3:30pm PT and this year will be aired on NBC, meaning if you have cable or an HD antenna you can just tune into NBC to watch. If you want to watch it on a device like a phone, tablet or smart TV you can download the NBC… Read More
Voice assistants weigh in on Super Bowl LII via @TechCrunch
Today marks the 52nd Super Bowl, and quite a bit has changed since that first big game. Then, it was called the AFL-NFL World Championship Game. In 1967, the cost of a movie ticket was $1.25, and color TV was just starting to become popular. Today, more than fifty years later, we can now stream the big game to our pocket computers and have artificially intelligent assistants sitting around in… Read More
The rise of chaos engineering via @TechCrunch
How do you build reliable software? It is a question that has been at the top of my mind the past few weeks, as I seem to be increasingly confronted by software that just doesn’t work anymore. Bugs, crashes, errors, data leaks: they are so common in our every day lives that they can seem completely unremarkable. The existing tools — unit tests, application performance monitoring,… Read More
Here comes the sun via @TechCrunch
Let’s talk about the side effects of the creeping apotheosis of solar power. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we’re a ways away yet — but we’re definitely heading in that direction. “Renewables are about to become our cheapest form of energy,” Wired UK observes. “We expect $7.4 trillion to be invested in new renewable energy plants by 2040 – 72%… Read More