Million

Amazon crosses $100 billion in sales in huge first quarter

Amazon had a wildly successful 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and that blazing trail shows no signs of stopping for 2021. The company shared its financial results for Q1 2021, and it brought in $108.5 billion in net sales. That’s a 44 percent increase from the $75.5 billion reported in the first quarter of last… Read more

The math isn’t adding up on forests and CO2 reductions

More evidence surfaced this week that shows that forests are struggling to do humans’ dirty work when it comes to climate change. Although companies and countries are increasingly relying on forests to draw down their planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions, the math isn’t adding up to show big benefits. California might have oversold the success of… Read more

Feds arrest founder of bitcoin ‘mixer’ they say laundered $335 million over ten years

The Department of Justice said it has arrested a Russian-Swedish national who allegedly operated a long-running cryptocurrency laundering site. According to a news release from the DOJ, Roman Sterlingov ran Bitcoin Fog, a cryptocurrency tumbler or “mixer”— which hides a cryptocurrency’s source by mixing it with other funds. Bitcoin Fog gained “notoriety as a go-to… Read more

HPE to Build Supercomputer with 100K AMD Zen 3 Cores

Home News (Image credit: NSCC) Hewlett Packard Enterprise this week said it had landed an order to build a new supercomputer for the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore. The new system is powered by AMD’s Epyc ‘Milan’ processors as well as Nvidia’s A100 compute GPUs; it is eight times more powerful than its predecessor. NSCC’s supercomputer uses… Read more

How the video game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. inspired a wave of real-world Chernobyl tourists

A virtual world leads to IRL excursions By Darmon Richter Apr 29, 2021, 12:32pm EDT Illustration by Alex Castro At the entrance to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine, 35 years on from the worst nuclear disaster in history, a yellow souvenir van sells T-shirts, key rings, and glow-in-the-dark “Chernobyl condoms,” all branded with gas… Read more

HBO Max’s new ad-supported tier will cost $9.99 per month, according to reports

Home News (Image credit: HBO) HBO Max’s new ad-supported tier will cost just $9.99 per month, according to a report from CNBC. The new service, set to launch in June, will be $5 cheaper than the standard HBO Max tier ($14.99 per month), giving Warner Media a platform that can compete more readily with competitors… Read more

Endgame Gear XM1r Review

Introduction With the XM1r, Endgame Gear presents another revision of their critically acclaimed XM1. Most of the changes have been made under the hood: PixArt’s PAW3370 sensor capable of 19,000 CPI is used, specifically tuned for the lowest latency possible. For the main buttons, Kailh GM 8.0 switches rated for 80 million clicks are used,… Read more

The Mustang Mach-E is helping Ford find new customers

Ford has sold more than 7,000 Mustang Mach-E SUVs so far, and it says 70 percent of those buyers have never owned one of the company’s cars. For comparison, Ford told The Verge that 39 percent of people who bought the more affordable 2020 Escape were new to the brand. So what does that 70… Read more

Peacock signs up 9 million after adding WWE and The Office

Comcast said that The Office and WWE were to thank for its new-ish streaming service, Peacock, adding 9 million signups during the first three months of 2021. Peacock now has 42 million members total in the United States. That looks strong compared to HBO’s 44.2 million US customers, but it comes with a huge caveat:… Read more

Samsung loses over $270M from Texas plant shutdown as quarterly profits boom

Shutting down its semiconductor plant in Austin, Texas lost Samsung over 300 billion won (around $270 million), Yonhap News reports. Speaking during a conference call, a senior vice president at Samsung’s foundry business Han Seung-hoon said that the shutdown affected around 71,000 wafers, corresponding to “around 300 to 400 billion won in damage.” The statement… Read more

Amazon’s pay raise for over 500,000 workers comes at an interesting time

Amazon has announced that over 500,000 of its workers will get a permanent increase in their hourly wages starting in mid-May, from as low as an additional 50 cents an hour to as much as three extra dollars per hour (via GeekWire). That’s a substantial chunk of its 1.3 million person workforce getting at least… Read more

Fortnite’s cash cow is PlayStation, not iOS, court documents reveal

Earlier this month, we learned that the iOS version of Fortnite was a huge revenue driver for Epic Games — the game earned more than $700 million from iOS customers over the two years before it was pulled by Apple, according to court documents (PDF) released ahead of Epic’s trial against the iPhone maker. But… Read more

AMD and Intel Invest in Substrate Production to Fight Shortages

Home News (Image credit: JCET Group) There a numerous causes that have led into the ongoing computer component shortage, one of which is the lack of availability of materials called ABF substrates. The Good news is that companies like AMD and Intel are taking the problem seriously and are investing in packaging facilities and production… Read more

Telegram’s group video calls will finally launch in May

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced today that the iOS version of Telegram will be updated to support group video calls in May (via Yahoo Finance). The company originally planned to add the video call feature to its messaging service at some point in 2020, but the feature never materialized. Telegram did at least make it… Read more

Uber will let you book a vaccine appointment through its app

You can now book a vaccine appointment — and a ride to that appointment — in the Uber app. The new feature is part of a host of product news that Uber announced today under the rubric “go anywhere, get anything.” With more people getting vaccinated, the company is banking on a big comeback to… Read more