Sunday, June 20, 2021

Wristcam, which makes a $299 Apple Watch band with a camera capable of taking 4K images and recording 1080p video, raises $25M led by Marker LLC (Brian Heater/TechCrunch)

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:
Wristcam, which makes a $299 Apple Watch band with a camera capable of taking 4K images and recording 1080p video, raises $25M led by Marker LLC  —  Last week word got out that Facebook was taking another big step into first-party hardware with the planned launch of its own smartwatch.



Air conditioners and coolers from Samsung, Voltas, Thomson and others launched recently

https://ift.tt/3gM8jwJ

Interview with Jim Keller, a chip expert lauded for his work at AMD and Apple, on ARM vs x86 vs RISC-V, managing 1,000 people at Intel, and plans at Tenstorrent (Dr. Ian Cutress/AnandTech)

Dr. Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
Interview with Jim Keller, a chip expert lauded for his work at AMD and Apple, on ARM vs x86 vs RISC-V, managing 1,000 people at Intel, and plans at Tenstorrent  —  I've spoken about Jim Keller many times on AnandTech.  In the world of semiconductor design, his name draws attention …



Some power companies in Texas are remotely adjusting the smart thermostats of users enrolled in their energy saving programs to reduce strain on power grids (Matt Dougherty/KHOU-TV)

Matt Dougherty / KHOU-TV:
Some power companies in Texas are remotely adjusting the smart thermostats of users enrolled in their energy saving programs to reduce strain on power grids  —  Some said they didn't know their thermostats were being accessed from afar until it was almost 80 degrees inside their homes.



Amber Group, a Hong Kong-based crypto finance startup that provides trading and asset management services, raises $100M Series B at $1B pre-money valuation (Rita Liao/TechCrunch)

Rita Liao / TechCrunch:
Amber Group, a Hong Kong-based crypto finance startup that provides trading and asset management services, raises $100M Series B at $1B pre-money valuation  —  More mainstream venture capital firms are jumping on the crypto bandwagon as investors increasingly consider bitcoin an investable asset …



Analysts say the dominance of TSMC, which makes ~92% of the world's most sophisticated chips and 60% of chips used in cars, poses risks to the global economy (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Analysts say the dominance of TSMC, which makes ~92% of the world's most sophisticated chips and 60% of chips used in cars, poses risks to the global economy  —  Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s dominance poses risks to the global economy, amid geopolitical tensions and a major chip shortage



A look at El Zonte, a surfing village in El Salvador dubbed Bitcoin Beach after an anonymous 2019 donation turned it into a controlled alt-currency experiment (Ezra Fieser/Bloomberg)

Ezra Fieser / Bloomberg:
A look at El Zonte, a surfing village in El Salvador dubbed Bitcoin Beach after an anonymous 2019 donation turned it into a controlled alt-currency experiment  —  An anonymous donor turned a tiny Pacific coast town without a bank into the world's biggest Bitcoin experiment.  Up next: the entire country.



Pandemic boosted the "phone-ization" of PCs, which are adopting power efficient CPUs and thin designs, a trend which will accelerate with broader adoption of 5G (Christopher Mims/Wall Street Journal)

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal:
Pandemic boosted the “phone-ization” of PCs, which are adopting power efficient CPUs and thin designs, a trend which will accelerate with broader adoption of 5G  —  Apple is dragging Microsoft, Google and the entire PC industry into the 21st century



Researchers developing new low-cost Covid test that will use saliva only

It was inspired by the glucose test strips used to check blood sugar levels in diabetics. https://ift.tt/3cTRVJs

A look at some Twitch streamers using the service to showcase minority languages like Galician, Welsh, Basque, and te reo Māori (Kristen Sinclair/The Verge)

Kristen Sinclair / The Verge:
A look at some Twitch streamers using the service to showcase minority languages like Galician, Welsh, Basque, and te reo Māori  —  Minority languages are often associated with aging rural communities, thought to have fallen out of use or confined to textbooks.



An analysis of the usage of COVID-19 contact tracing apps in 25 US states and DC finds that only 13 have enough usage to benefit from exposure notification (Betsy Ladyzhets/MIT Technology Review)

Betsy Ladyzhets / MIT Technology Review:
An analysis of the usage of COVID-19 contact tracing apps in 25 US states and DC finds that only 13 have enough usage to benefit from exposure notification  —  A year ago, engineers built apps to track potential virus exposure.  Our research shows the impact has been mixed—but there's still potential.



How to Book COVID-19 Vaccine via Paytm App

In this article, we are providing steps on how you can book a COVID-19 vaccine using Paytm app. It is possible across both Android and iOS platforms. https://ift.tt/3cV64Gd

Mark Zuckerberg lamented the rise of "culturally neutered" companies that have sought to distance themselves from "masculine energy" (Riley Griffin/Bloomberg)

Riley Griffin / Bloomberg : Mark Zuckerberg lamented the rise of “culturally neutered” companies that have sought to distance themselves ...