All Things Tech

Ride-sharing and transportation platform Didi Chuxing announced today that it has formed a joint venture with BP, the British gas, oil and energy supermajor. to build electric vehicle charging infrastructure in China. The charging stations will be available to Didi and non-Didi drivers. The news of Didi and BP’s joint venture comes one week after Didi announced that it had received funding totaling $600 million from Toyota Motor Corporation . As part of that deal, Didi and Toyota Motor set up a joint venture with GAC Toyota Motor to provide vehicle-related services to Didi drivers. BP’s first charging site in Guangzhou has already been connected to XAS (Xiaoju Automobile Solutions), which Didi spun out in April 2018 to put all its vehicle-related services into one platform. XAS is part of Didi Chuxing’s evolution from a ride-sharing company to a mobility services platform, with its services available to other car, transportation and logistics companies. In June, Didi also opened

Microsoft has released Windows 10 build 18950 from the 20H1 branch with Japanese IME and Snip & Sketch improvements, plus the usual bug fixes. Read More from VentureBeat https://ift.tt/2ZxiEmF

The Super Nintendo recently experienced a surge in popularity, either from a combination of nostalgic 30-somethings recreating their childhoods, or because Nintendo released a “classic” version of this nearly-perfect video game system. Or a combination of both. But what made the system worthy of being remembered at all? With only 16 bits and graphics that look ancient by modern standards, gameplay is similarly limited. This video from [Nerdwriter1] goes into depth on a single part of the console – the sound chips – and uses them to illustrate a small part of what makes this console still worth playing even now. The SNES processed sound with two chips, a processing core and a DSP. They only had a capacity of 64 kb, meaning that all of a game’s sounds and music had to fit in this tiny space. This might seem impossible if you’ve ever played enduring classics like Donkey Kong Country, a game known for its impressive musical score. This is where the concept of creative limitation comes i

Pearson , the London-based educational software maker, said today that thousands of school and university accounts, mostly in the United States, were affected by a data breach. The company added that it has notified affected users already and that the vulnerability has been fixed. The Wall Street Journal reports that the data breach happened in November 2018 and Pearson was notified by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in March. The perpetrator is still unknown. According to Pearson, unauthorized access was gained to 13,000 school and university accounts on AIMSweb, the company’s student monitoring and assessment platform. The data exposed included first and last names and, in some cases, date of birth and email addresses. Each account could potentially include information about thousands of students. Pearson added that it has no evidence that any of the exposed information was misused. It will offer free credit monitoring services to affected users as a “precautionary measure.

The gaming industry is pretty terrible at preserving its rich history. The hard and thankless work of making sure classic games are still available to future generations is done by third-parties, some of whom even risk lawsuits from companies that are not at all interested in doing that but continue to close off these games to protect their IPs decades … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2YCzZ02

In May, venture capitalist Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital warned in a Financial Times column that Amazon’s recent $575 million investment in the London-based delivery service Deliveroo could prove ominous for local restaurants. Wrote Moritz: “Amazon is now one step away from becoming a multi-brand restaurant company — and that could mean doomsday for many dining haunts.” Moritz was right to attract more attention to the deal. Deliveroo has begun operating shared kitchens from which it will not simply transport food to customers but eventually prepare it, too . His warning may even have played a role in this recent decision of Britain’s competition regulator to halt work on Amazon’s investment so it can first investigate whether the deal poses competitive concerns. Moritz knows the playbook because of Sequoia’s early investment in Rebel Foods , formerly known as Faasos, a once-small Pune, India-based company that now prepares a variety of foods in its cloud kitchens. As he say

Fintech startup Revolut is launching its stock trading feature today. It’s a Robinhood-like feature that lets you buy and sell shares without any commission. For now, the feature is limited to some Revolut customers with a Metal card. While Robinhood has completely changed the stock trading retail market in the U.S., buying shares hasn’t changed much in Europe. Revolut wants to make it easier to invest on the stock market. After topping up your Revolut account, you can buy and hold shares directly from the Revolut app. For now, the feature is limited to 300 U.S.-listed stocks on NASDAQ and NYSE. The company says that it plans to expand to U.K. and European stocks as well as Exchange Traded Funds. There’s no minimum limit on transactions, which means that you can buy fractional shares for $1 for instance. You can see real-time prices in the Revolut app. When it comes to fees, Revolut doesn’t charge any fee indeed, but with some caveats. The feature is currently limited to Revolut M

Got hardware? Well then, listen up, because our search continues for boundary-pushing, early-stage hardware startups to join us in Shenzhen, China for an epic opportunity; launch your startup on a global stage and compete in Hardware Battlefield at TC Shenzhen  on November 11-12. Apply here to compete in TC Hardware Battlefield 2019 . Why? It’s your chance to demo your product to the top investors and technologists in the world. Hardware Battlefield, cousin to Startup Battlefield , focuses exclusively on innovative hardware because, let’s face it, it’s the backbone of technology. From enterprise solutions to agtech advancements, medical devices to consumer product goods — hardware startups are in the international spotlight. If you make the cut, you’ll compete against 15 of the world’s most innovative hardware makers for bragging rights, plenty of investor love, media exposure and $25,000 in equity-free cash. Just participating in a Battlefield can change the whole trajectory of your

When talking about bugs affecting operating systems, you often hear about Windows and Android, sometimes iOS, and, from time to time, even Linux. Rarely to RTOS, short for Real-Time Operating Systems, get any coverage. One RTOS, however, is used in so many critical computer systems in critical industries that big security bugs could prove to be catastrophic. That is apparently … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2K8DTpo

Much of the attention in the tech industry has been lavished on smartphones, despite what market analysts claim to be a slowly shrinking market. Other devices just aren’t cutting it, especially Android tablets. For a time, it seemed that Google’s Chrome OS was on the road to a huge resurgence but then things went silent again. Despite that, Google’s hardware … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2K5W4fk

Fitbit cut its 2019 revenue forecast, blaming disappointing sales of its cheapest smartwatch Versa Lite, sending its shares tumbling to a record low. Read More from VentureBeat https://ift.tt/2Ytx99y

It is a common situation in electronics to have a control loop, that is some sort of feedback that drives the input to a system such as a motor or a heater based upon a sensor to measure something like position or temperature. You’ll have a set point — whatever you want the sensor to read — and your job is to adjust the driving thing to make the sensor read the set point value. This seems easy, right? It does seem that way, but in realitythere’s a lot of nuance to doing it well and that usually involves at least some part of a PID (proportional, integral, derivative) controller. You can bog down in math trying to understand the PID but [Electronoobs] recent video shows a very simple test setup that clearly demonstrates what’s going on with an Arduino, a motor, a distance sensor, and a ping-pong ball. You can see the video below. Imagine for a moment heating a tank of water as an example. The simple approach would be to turn on the heater and when the water reaches the setpoint, turn

Dev Singh, Qualcomm's Head of Robotics, believes that 5G is the connective fabric that’s going to radically change the landscape for AI at the edge. Read More from VentureBeat https://ift.tt/2KhGXhW

Apple is pretty conscientious about rolling out security updates but, for one reason or another, some users may not be as enthusiastic about installing them. Some may have been burned by previous updates that may have caused more problems than they fixed. Such users, however, may want to immediately update to iOS 12.4 as soon as the coast is clear. … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2STP0oY

Smart TVs and the set top boxes that make regular TVs smarter offer all sorts of advanced features that go beyond simply changing channels but most of them seem to still be rooted in the past in one important way. The remote control and its dozens of buttons have become an indispensable part of the experience even when it’s also … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2MoECo2

The next evolution in Fortnite is upon us. After heavily teasing its upcoming tenth season (“Season X”), Epic Games has finally announced the downtime details for the major update that’ll arrive on August 1. As anticipated, the next update will be substantially larger than normal — this is due to the large number of changes the game will bring. Here’s … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2YvxKHL

Google announced a slew of security-related enhancements headed to Google Cloud Platform, including AI-informed anomoly detection. Read More from VentureBeat https://ift.tt/2YtLXVK

Honor is probably known for two things in the smartphone world. First, it is a known Huawei sub-brand. Second, it sells smartphones like crazy thanks to affordable prices that, ironically, rival its parent company. That may no longer be enough for Honor, though, and it is now jumping on the smart TV scene. But it isn’t just presenting a simple … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2Yf2yS3

[Paul Klinger] can’t seem to get enough of building tiny, amazing gaming rigs, and we love him for that. They combine two of our favorites: miniatures and portable gaming. His newest creation honors the form of the formidable ThinkPad . Of course it has the red nipple and lid LED—wouldn’t be a ThinkPad without ’em. ThinkTiny’s nipple is a 5-way joystick that plays Snake, Tetris, Lunar Lander, and more on an OLED screen. Like its predecessor the Tiny PC , [Paul] used an ATtiny1614, which (FYI) has a new one-wire UDPI interface. He can easily reprogram it through pogo pin holes built into the case. There are some nice stylistic details at play here, too. The lid LED is both delivered and diffused by a 2mm grain of fiber-optic cable. And [Paul] printed the cover with a color change to transparent filament to make the Think logo and the charging LEDs shine through. Maneuver your way past the break to see it in action. If you haven’t leveled up to AVR programming yet, introduce yourself

Visa is pitching a new way for startups in the fintech space to get to market faster by using its rails and a group of pre-approved partners. The Fast Track program, a variant of an investment commitment and ecosystem of services the company has already launched in other geographies around the world, comes to the U.S. without an investment commitment, but with a pre-defined list of partners that will help new financial services startups launch more quickly, the company said. Chiefly, the process makes it easier to integrate with Visa . It’s an attempt to put the payment processor’s network, VisaNet, at the center of a vast array of services ranging from payroll to business to business payments and online banking, online lending, and even digital wallets. “There’s about $17 trillion in cash and checks today that hasn’t gone digital and $20 trillion in business to business that’s happening over wires and check… those are all opportunities for Visa,” says Terry Angelos, a former finte

Facetune, a photo editing app that empowers users to cover their gray hairs, refine their jaw lines, and reshape their noses, was first introduced around six years ago, and it quickly climbed to the top of the download charts, becoming Apple’s most popular paid app of 2017. Despite stiff competition , it has remaining highly popular , too. That staying power hasn’t been lost Goldman Sachs Private Capital Investing, Insight Partners or ClalTech, which just gave Facetune’s parent company, Lightricks , $135 million in Series C funding at a post-money valuation of $1 billion. The investment firms — two of which led a $60 million round in the company less than a year ago —  are getting much more than Facetune in the deal. Lightricks, based in Tel Aviv, has 260 employees supporting six products across three divisions, including Facetune, whose second version was rolled out this year; Enlight, a line of mobile photography and editing tools that aims to make photo editing more accessibl

App developer Lightricks has raised $135 million at a $1 billion valuation in a series C round led by Goldman Sachs, it announced. Read More from VentureBeat https://ift.tt/2ywySjH

Motorola is no longer the darling of the mobile community, especially after it was sold to Lenovo. After its Moto Mod phase, the company has failed to put out any noteworthy premium phone. It does, however, continue to churn out acceptable mid-range handsets with nearly pure Android software on top. The latest in that line is the Moto G7 Plus, … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2LQP1t6

Spotify added 8 million new subscribers in the most recent quarter as the music streaming leader appeared to widen its lead over rival Apple Music. Read More from VentureBeat https://ift.tt/317o0W4

Samsung has a busy week ahead before it unveils its second big smartphone of the year. But before it fully announces what is one of its worst kept secrets, it is going to formally reveal its other worst kept secrets. Samsung has released a teaser video for two other Galaxy devices that will be announced tomorrow and next Monday and … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2LQlM9W

Station F is the world’s biggest startup campus and it’s based in Paris. Director Roxanne Varza first unveiled Station F at TechCrunch Disrupt back in December 2016. That’s why I’m excited to announce that Station F director Roxanne Varza is joining us at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin to give us an update and tell us about future plans. If you aren’t familiar with Station F, it starts with a beautiful building. Originally built in 1929, it is now classified as a historical monument. But now, it’s also a high-tech building and a cornerstone of the French tech ecosystem. Varza has managed to create a community of entrepreneurs, VC funds and big tech companies that work, share knowledge and collaborate. In addition to Station F’s own Founders Program and Fighters Program, you can become a Station F member by joining a partner program. Facebook, Naver (Line), Ubisoft, Microsoft and plenty of others all run their own incubator from Station F. And it’s been working really well as there ar

Playing a video game online is almost second nature now. So much so that almost all multiplayer video games have ditched their split-screen multiplayer modes because they assume you’d rather just be alone at your house than hanging out with your friends. This wasn’t always the case though. In the early days of online multiplayer, systems had to rely on dial-up internet before broadband was readily available (and still had split screen if you didn’t even have that). Almost no one uses dial up anymore though, so if you still like playing your old Dreamcast you’re going to have to do some work to get it online again . Luckily for all of us there’s a Raspberry Pi image to do almost anything now. This project from [Kazade] uses one to mimic a dial-up connection for a Dreamcast so you can connect with other people still playing Quake 20 years later. It’s essentially a network bridge, but you will need some extra hardware because phone lines use a high voltage line that you’ll have to make (

Harver today announced it had raised $15 million in a series B round of funding from Insight Partners to "reinvent the volume recruitment process." Read More from VentureBeat https://ift.tt/2YfwrBr

Nairobi based internet hardware and service startup BRCK and Egyptian ride-hail venture Swvl are partnering to bring WiFI and online entertainment to on-demand bus service in Kenya. BRCK will install its routers on Swvl vehicles in Kenya and run its Moja service, which offers free public WiFi—internet, music, and entertainment—subsidized by commercial partners. Founded in Cairo in 2017, Swvl is a mass transit service that has positioned itself as an Uber for shared buses. “Think ride hailing, but with a bus…and instead of the vehicle coming to you…you go to the bus, and the bus picks you up at a certain point and time,” Swvl’s general manager for Kenya, Shivachi Muleji, told TechCrunch via email. The company raised a $42 million Series B round in June , with intent to expand in Africa, Swvl CEO Mostafa Kandil said in an interview . In Kenya, BRCK has installed 15 of its units in Swvl buses and looks to offer its Moja WiFi service in 700 by 2020, BRCK’s chief operating officer

It has been quite a while since Samsung put out a Galaxy Active patterned after its premium flagship. The Galaxy S9 Active, rumored last year, never came to be. With the Galaxy S10 in the market and the Galaxy Note 10 coming soon, it might be time for such a rugged flagship to make its way to the market yet … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2GFivpB

There are many venerable soundchips in the chiptune pantheon, of which the AY-3-8910 is perhaps one of the lesser known. Having not served on active duty for Nintendo or Commodore it’s somewhat unloved in the USA, but it made its name in a variety of arcade and pinball machines and has quite a European following due to its appearance in machines bearing the Amstrad and Sinclair names. [TheSpodShed] decided to whip up a USB MIDI interface for the chip, with the help of the Arduino Pro Micro. The Arduino Pro Micro is a Sparkfun creation, using the ATmega32U4 microcontroller. Its USB MIDI functionality makes it a perfect candidate for such a build, and it also packs enough digital IO to run the AY-3-8910, with 13 lines required to get things going. [TheSpodShed] whipped up the project on protoboard, with only a few passives needed along with the sound chip and Arduino. The Arduino code was written with an eye to making the most of the chip’s limited polyphony. The synth prioritises the

The mobile gaming market remains a lucrative one despite having a very different business model from conventional PC or console gaming industries. While game developers and publishers are trying to aim for wide audience reach, supporting even mid-range phones for mass appeal, smartphone makers are naturally trying to push premium phones that promise to deliver “console-quality” graphics. And to power … Continue reading from SlashGear https://ift.tt/2GDYOhS

As it forecast earlier this month, Samsung reported a steep drop in its second-quarter earnings due to lower market demand for chips and smartphones. The company said its second-quarter operating profit fell 55.6% year-over-year to 6.6 trillion won (about $5.6 billion), on consolidated revenue of 56.13 trillion won, slightly above the guidance it issued three weeks ago . Last quarter, Samsung also reported that its operating profit had dropped by more than half . The same issues that hit its earnings during the first quarter of this year have continued, including lower memory prices as major datacenter customers adjust their inventory, meaning they are currently buying less chips (the weak market also impacted competing semiconductor maker SK Hynix’s quarterly earnings ). Samsung reported that its chip business saw second-quarter operating profit drop 71% year-over-year to 3.4 trillion won, on consolidated revenue of 16.09 trillion won. In the second half of the year, the company exp

There’s a double standard when it comes to the sexualities of men versus women, trans and gender non-conforming folks. Unbound and Dame Products , two sex tech startups, have teamed up to bring attention to the issue. By launching a website, “ Approved, Not Approved ” and staging a protest outside Facebook’s NYC headquarters, the two startups hope to bring more awareness to the company’s advertising guidelines that seem to favor products that cater to cisgender men. The point of the digital campaign is to show how ads for sex toys and products geared toward men are more likely to be approved than those for women, trans or gender non-conforming people. “For so long, advertisements have been how we continue to reinforce the status quo of what we view as societally desirable and validating,” Dame Products CEO Alexandra Fine told TechCrunch. “Since we’re in a category that’s often denied, we wanted to create an experience that illuminates the disparity.” On Facebook, for example, it’s