Oct 22 12:11pm
Teen injured in Evans shooting
Four teenagers were walking near 41st Street Road and Belmont Avenue when someone in a vehicle shot at them, according to police.
Oct 21 10:14pm
Next with Kyle Clark full show (10/21/21)
Changing the way Coloradans are notified of danger. - Candidate turns name into political statement. - Colorado has some beautiful places with some ugly names.
Oct 21 10:00am
9Preps Game of the Week: 10/22
The 9Preps Game of the Week rolls on! Vote to determine which high school football game we showcase on Friday, Oct. 22.
Oct 19 10:19pm
Google Maps focuses on fuel efficiency
Colorado researchers showed how topography and elevation change can improve a route, and how traffic reduces fuel efficiency. Google Maps put the research to use.
Oct 16 7:27pm
How to help Afghanistan refugees
Refugees from Afghanistan are in need of winter clothing, and Coloradans can help by dropping off new or gently used clothing in Aurora.
Oct 15 4:54pm
Jury reaches verdict in I-70 crash case
Rogel Aguilera-Mederos testified in his own defense on Thursday after he was charged in connection with a 2019 crash that killed four people.
Oct 12 7:14pm
Woman killed in crash on I-70 in Aurora
A passenger was killed and a driver was seriously injured in a crash on Interstate 70 in Aurora Monday night, according to the Aurora Police Department.
Oct 12 3:51pm
Bailey residents without water
A pipe broke Sunday and has yet to be located so that repairs can begin, according to the Bailey Water and Sanitation District.
Oct 11 9:14pm
Pedestrian killed in Wheat Ridge crash
A suspect has been arrested after a man was hit and killed by a vehicle around 1:15 p.m. in the area of 32nd Avenue and Youngfield Street.
Oct 11 10:36am
Loveland Ski Area is making snow
It typically takes about two weeks for snowmakers to cover the opening day run from tree-to-tree with an 18-inch base.
Oct 9 10:33pm
DIA parking nears capacity
The airport is asking travelers to consider options other than driving there and parking.
Oct 9 4:25pm
DIA parking nearing capacity
The airport is asking travelers to consider options other than driving to the airport and parking.
Oct 8 10:37pm
Next with Kyle Clark full show (10/8/21)
Something radioactive was stolen in Colorado. - Douglas County, with its new health department, takes action on mask mandates. - We explore the impact of telling a person of color that they "act white."
Oct 8 9:45pm
Missing Wheat Ridge man found safe
CBI said 89-year-old Keith Meakins had last been seen Friday afternoon in the 4300 block of Tabor Street. He was found Friday night.
Oct 8 7:47pm
Bear captured in Denver neighborhood
Colorado Parks and Wildlife said they received multiple reports of a bear in the University Park area, beginning Thursday evening.
Oct 7 9:52pm
Next with Kyle Clark full show (10/7/21)
A school board candidate and anti-mask activist wins the right to go maskless at school events. - And a possible solution for health care workers fighting burnout.
Sep 30 10:24pm
The past, present & future of La Raza Park
After decades of advocacy, the park officially received its name change to La Raza Park in the Sunnyside neighborhood. But the advocacy doesn’t stop there.
Sep 30 10:00am
9Preps Game of the Week: Oct. 1
The 9Preps Game of the Week rolls on! Vote to determine which high school football game we showcase on Friday, Oct. 1.
Sep 29 3:49pm
Salida High School principal arrested
Talmage Trujillo was off campus with a Horizons Exploratory Academy student who was threatening to kill himself, the arrest affidavit says.
Sep 24 5:04pm
Aurora PD aims to tackle staffing shortages
Aurora PD has lost more than 100 officers in the last year. Their staffing is at a critical level. The department is working to add leaders to the hiring process.
Sep 23 10:01am
9Preps Game of the Week: Sept. 24
The 9Preps Game of the Week rolls on! Vote to determine which high school football game we showcase on Friday, Sept. 24.
Sep 22 12:13pm
Man pleads guilty to harboring a minor
The 36-year-old Buena Vista man received credit for time served, and was also assessed $258.50 in fines and costs, court documents say.
Sep 20 2:15pm
Josey Jewell likely out for season
The Broncos inside linebacker had started 18 consecutive games. Jewell is third starter to be placed on IR in the past week.
Sep 19 7:00pm
2 dead after Aurora crash
Aurora Police said two cars collided at East 38th Avenue and North Windsor Drive early Sunday.
Sep 18 4:08pm
Longmont bicyclist dies after crash
Police said the car and the bicycle were heading in the same direction on Clover Basin Drive when the crash happened Saturday morning.
Sep 17 4:47pm
9Preps Game of the Week: Sept. 17
The 9Preps Game of the Week rolls on! Vote to determine which high school football game we showcase on Friday, Sept. 17.
Sep 16 10:34pm
Next with Kyle Clark full show (9/16/21)
Two weeks until City of Denver employees have to get vaccinated. What happens if tons of people are fired or quit? - A surge in COVID testing; a big demand and some places are trying to catch up... again. - Has anyone seen this phone booth?
Jun 16 2:19pm
U.S. wants face-to-face meeting with Iran on prisoners
The United States would like a face-to-face meeting with Iran to discuss prisoner releases and it wants the U.N. Security Council to impose an indefinite arms embargo on the Islamic Republic, a senior U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday.
Jun 16 12:55pm
Turkey accuses France of exacerbating Libya crisis
Turkey angrily accused France on Tuesday of exacerbating the crisis in Libya and violating U.N. and NATO decisions by supporting the forces of Khalifa Haftar against the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).
Slashdot Oct 23 12:34pm
Can Windows 11 Run on a 2006-Era Pentium 4 Chip?
"Microsoft has been mainly telling consumers that Windows 11 is meant for newer PCs," reports PC Magazine. "However, an internet user has uploaded a video that shows the OS can actually run on a 15-year-old Pentium 4 chip from Intel." Last week, Twitter user "Carlos S.M." posted screenshots of his Pentium 4-powered PC running Windows 11. He then followed that up with a video and benchmarks to verify that his machine was running the one-core Pentium chip with only 4GB of DDR2 RAM. To install the OS onto the system, Carlos S.M. said he used a Windows 10 PE Installer, which can be used to deploy or repair Windows via a USB drive. "Windows 11 is installed in MBR (Master Boot Record)/Legacy Boot mode, no EFI emulation involved," he added. Of course, the OS runs a bit slow on the Pentium 4 chip. Nevertheless, it shows Windows 11 can easily run on decade-old hardware... Officially, Microsoft has said a PC must possess a newer security feature called TPM 2.0 in order to run Windows 11. To underscore the point, the company released a list of eligible CPUs, and the processors only go as far back as late 2017. However, the company has also quietly acknowledged that older PCs without TPM 2.0 can run Windows 11 — so long as the user decides to manually install the OS onto their machine... If you do install Windows 11 on an unsupported PC, Microsoft warns your machine may not be eligible to receive automatic updates. But apparently Carlos S.M. has had no problems receiving updates for his own Pentium-powered PC. "Windows update still works on this machine and even installed the Patch Tuesday," Carlos S.M. said in a follow-up tweet. Thanks to tlhIngan (Slashdot reader #30,335) for the tip!

Oct 23 4:00am
Audio Tape Interface Revives Microcassettes As Storage Medium
Zack Nelson decided to go back in time and add a suitably classic storage medium to a retrocomputing project, in the form of a cassette interface. Hackaday reports: The cassette player he had available was a Pearlcorder L400, which uses the smaller microcassette instead of the familiar audio tapes used in your Walkman or boombox. [Zack] designed the entire thing from the ground up: first he decided to use differential Manchester encoding, which provides immunity against common disturbances like speed variations (which cause wow and flutter). The data is encoded in the frequency range from 1 kHz to 2 kHz, which suits the bandwidth of the cassette player. Next, he designed the interface between the computer and the tape recorder; built from an op-amp and a comparator with a handful of discrete components, it filters the incoming signal and clips it to provide a clean digital signal to be read out directly by the computer. The system is demonstrated by hooking it up to an Arduino Nano, which reads out the data stream at about 3000 baud. The noise it makes should bring back memories to anyone brought up with the "PRESS PLAY ON TAPE" message.

Oct 21 4:00am
Indianapolis Motor Speedway To Host Autonomous Car Race On Saturday
New submitter Motard writes: Dallara Indy Lights racing cars outfitted as autonomous vehicles by Clemson University and programmed by various international collegiate teams will participate in a 20-lap race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday, Oct. 23rd 2021. The event will be livestreamed by the Indy Autonomous Challenge website. Nine teams representing 21 universities from 9 different countries will compete for a $1 million prize. [The second and third-placed teams will receive $250,000 and $500,000 respectively. Only those that complete the race in 25 minutes or less will be eligible for prize money.]

Oct 21 1:00am
Sony Patent Lets Viewers Vote and Pay To Boot Players From Games
Sony has been granted a patent that would allow livestream spectators and participants to remove players from a game. "Besides removing unskilled players, the system would allow spectators to pay for the privilege of removing players," reports Kotaku. From the report: In the patent document, Sony outlined a system in which spectators to a livestream can vote to remove a player from an ongoing game. The player would have no veto power over this decision, and they may be reassigned to a different match. The system would display the skill level of the current players and their statistics for the game, such as time played, ratings, and achievements. All of this would take place through "the cloud gaming system," whatever that means. To avoid audience abuse of this system, a 60% voting threshold needs to be met in order to bench a player from a game. Spectators with a higher skill level will also have their votes counted more heavily in the election. Despite Sony claiming that this system would be beneficial for removing disrespectful "griefers" from matches, the patent also includes the ability for spectators to pay a fixed price or bid for the ability to remove players from a game. The text also mentions a system in which spectators can warn active players to improve their gameplay. Damn.

Oct 20 11:05am
Sinclair Broadcast Hack Linked To Notorious Russian Cybergang
A weekend cyberattack against Sinclair Broadcast Group was linked to one of the most infamous Russian cybergangs, called Evil Corp, Bloomberg reports. From the report: The Sinclair hackers used malware called Macaw, a variant of ransomware known as WastedLocker. Both Macaw and WastedLocker were created by Evil Corp., according to the two people, who requested anonymity to discuss confidential matters. Evil Corp. was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2019. Since then, it has been accused by cybersecurity experts of rebranding in an attempt to avoid the sanctions. People in the U.S. are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with sanctioned entities, including paying a ransom. "Sinclair appears to have been hit by Macaw ransomware, a relatively new strain first reported in early October," said Allan Liska, a senior threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future Inc. "There have not been any other Macaw victims publicly reported."

Oct 20 9:58am
PayPal Exploring a Purchase of Pinterest, Valuing Social Media Firm at $39 Billion
PayPal is exploring an acquisition of social media company Pinterest, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday. From a report: San Jose, California-based PayPal has recently approached Pinterest about a potential deal, the people said, asking not to be identified because the talks are private. The companies have discussed a potential price of around $70 a share, which would value Pinterest at roughly $39 billion, one of the people said.

Oct 20 9:25am
Micron To Build $7 Billion Plant in Japan To Expand DRAM Production
U.S. memory chip maker Micron Technology will build a new factory at its Japanese production site in Hiroshima at a cost of 800 billion yen ($7.0 billion), the Nikkan Kogyo newspaper reported on Wednesday. Reuters: The new facility will make DRAM chips, which are widely used in data centres, with production set to begin in 2024, the report said, without citing sources. COVID-19 pandemic stay-at-home demand for electronic devices is causing shortages of non-memory chips that has forced some manufacturers, such as automakers and smartphone makers, to curtail production. That has also reduced sales of DRAM memory chips, but some industry watchers expect demand to rebound helped by an expansion of data centres.

Oct 19 7:40pm
Microsoft Officially Deprecates UWP
Microsoft continues to baby-step around the obvious, but it has officially deprecated the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) as it pushes the desktop-focused Windows App SDK (formerly called Project Reunion) and WinUI 3 as the future of Windows application development. Paul Thurrott reports: For those unclear on the matter, the Windows App SDK basically takes key UWP technologies and new technologies like WinUI 3 that will not be backported to UWP and makes them available to developers in a way that is not tied to specific Windows releases (as was the case with individual UWP features). In this way, Microsoft can "deliver on the agility and backward compatibility developers need to reach across the entire Windows ecosystem" while not leaving developers behind. Going forward, UWP will only receive "bug, reliability, and security fixes," and not new features, Microsoft says, indicating that it is now deprecated. Developers with UWP apps in the market who "are happy with [the] current functionality in UWP" can of course continue to keep using UWP. But those who want "the latest runtime, language, and platform features," including WinUI 3, WebView 2, .NET 5, full compatibility with Windows 10 version 1809 or newer, and any upcoming new features will have to migrate their apps to the Windows App SDK.

Oct 19 11:26am
99.9% of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused by Humans
knaapie writes: It may still be fuel for hot debate on social media, but 99.9% of scientist actually agree on the fact that humans are altering the climate. The Guardian reports that the degree of scientific certainty about the impact of greenhouse gases is now similar to the level of agreement on evolution and plate tectonics, the authors say, based on a survey by Cornell University of nearly 90,000 climate-related studies. This means there is practically no doubt among experts that burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas, coal, peat and trees, is heating the planet and causing more extreme weather. "It is really case closed. There is nobody of significance in the scientific community who doubts human-cased climate change," said the lead author, Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell University. In contrast, the paper cites a 2016 study by the Pew Research Center that found only 27% of US adults believed that "almost all" scientists agreed the climate emergency was caused by human activity. And according to the Center for American Progress, 30 US senators and 109 representatives "refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change." Several big media organisations and social networks also promote climate-sceptical views that have little or no basis in science. Lynas said the study should encourage them to review their policies. "This puts the likes of Facebook and Twitter in a quandary. It is pretty similar to vaccine misinformation; they both lack a basis in science and they both have a destructive impact on society. Social networks that allow climate misinformation to spread need to look at their algorithms and policies or to be forced to do so by regulators."

Oct 18 2:45pm
US Treasury Says It Tied $5.2 Billion in BTC Transactions To Ransomware Payments
The financial crimes investigation unit of the US Treasury Department, also known as FinCEN, said last week it identified approximately $5.2 billion in outgoing Bitcoin transactions potentially tied to ransomware payments. From a report: FinCEN officials said the figure was compiled by analyzing 2,184 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed by US financial institutions over the last decade, between January 1, 2011, and June 30, 2021. While the initial SAR reports highlighted $1.56 billion in suspicious activity, a subsequent FinCEN investigation of the Top 10 most common ransomware variants exposed additional transactions, amounting to around $5.2 billion just from these groups alone.

Oct 18 8:44am
Canon Sued For $5 Million For Disabling Scanner When Printer Runs Out of Ink
couchslug writes: Canon, best nown for manufacturing camera equipment and printers for business and home users, is being sued for not allowing customers to use the scan or fax functions in multi-function devices if the ink runs out on numerous printer models. David Leacraft filed a class action lawsuit against Canon USA, alleging the company engaged in deceptive marketing and unjust enrichment practices.

Oct 16 4:34pm
Ransomware Summit Eyes Tighter Global Scrutiny for Crypto
Officials from 32 countries "recognize that ransomware is an escalating global security threat with serious economic and security consequences," according to a statement issued Thursday: From malign operations against local health providers that endanger patient care, to those directed at businesses that limit their ability to provide fuel, groceries, or other goods to the public, ransomware poses a significant risk to critical infrastructure, essential services, public safety, consumer protection and privacy, and economic prosperity. As with other cyber threats, the threat of ransomware is complex and global in nature and requires a shared response. But the Wall Street Journal also reports the officials (who met virtually this week) blame another factor in the boom of ransomware: "uneven cryptocurrency standards." The representatives pledged to share information about cyberattacks and investigations, push firms to shore up security, and disrupt the financial infrastructure of a criminal hacking economy that has flourished in recent years. Consistent international scrutiny of cryptocurrencies will be key, the officials said, as ransomware groups that extort victims for digital payments can quickly transfer the funds to countries with lax standards for monitoring illicit transactions. âoeWe are dedicated to enhancing our efforts to disrupt the ransomware business model and associated money-laundering activities,â the representatives said in a joint statement Thursday... Hacking groups have increasingly targeted U.S. critical infrastructure, disrupting the East Coastâ(TM)s largest gas pipeline in May and a major meat processor in June. Law-enforcement officials are sometimes able to track crypto payments made by such victims, which can reach into the millions, across a public ledger known as a blockchain. The Counter-Ransomware Initiative convened by the White House this week called on countries to use such techniques alongside more aggressive enforcement of anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer rules that prevent cryptocurrency companies from facilitating such transactions... Cybersecurity experts say international collaboration will be key to slowing criminal groups that often operate across borders and with relative impunity in countries such as Russia.

Oct 16 1:34pm
American Bumblebees Have Disappeared From 8 States and Could Face Extinction
Long-time Slashdot reader phalse phace quotes USA Today: The dwindling populations of the American bumblebee and their complete disappearance from eight states has led to a call for the bee to be placed under the Endangered Species Act before they face extinction. Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon each have zero or close to zero American bumblebees left, according to a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity and Bombus Pollinators Association of Law Students... Over the last two decades, the American bumblebee population has decreased by 89% across the U.S. New York had a decline of 99% and they disappeared from the northern part of Illinois that has seen a 74% decrease in population since 2004, the petition said. Climate change, pesticides, disease, habitat loss and competition from honey bees are listed as driving the bee to extinction... The loss of the insect could cause serious repercussions to the environment and crop production due to them being essential pollinators in agriculture. If the American bumblebee is added to the endangered species list, it will join the rusty-patched bumblebee, and If granted federal protection, anyone found to have killed or harmed the bee could face up to $13,000 in fines.

Oct 15 9:22am
US Govt Reveals Three More Ransomware Attacks on Water Treatment Plants This Year
Ransomware gangs have silently hit three US water and wastewater treatment facilities this year, in 2021, the US government said in a joint cybersecurity advisory published today by the FBI, NSA, CISA, and the EPA. From a report: The attacks -- which had been previously unreported -- took place in March, July, and August and hit facilities in Nevada, Maine, and California, respectively. The attacks led to the threat actors encrypting files, and in one case, even corrupting a computer used to control the SCADA industrial equipment deployed inside the treatment plant. The three new incidents were listed as examples of what could happen when water treatment facilities ignore and fail to secure their computer networks.

Oct 15 8:45am
New Zealand Council Ends Contract With Wizard After Two Decades of Service
The official Wizard of New Zealand, perhaps the only state-appointed wizard in the world, has been cast from the public payroll, spelling the end to a 23-year legacy. From a report: The Wizard, whose real name is Ian Brackenbury Channell, 88, had been contracted to Christchurch city council for the past two decades to promote the city through "acts of wizardry and other wizard-like services," at a cost of $16,000 a year. He has been paid a total of $368,000. The Wizard, who was born in England, began performing acts of wizardry and entertainment in public spaces shortly after arriving in New Zealand in 1976. When the council originally tried to stop him, the public protested. In 1982, the New Zealand Art Gallery Directors Association said he had become a living work of art, and then, in 1990, the prime minister at the time, Mike Moore, asked that he consider becoming the Wizard of New Zealand. "I am concerned that your wizardry is not at the disposal of the entire nation," Moore wrote on his official letterhead.

Oct 14 3:21pm
Canonical Releases Ubuntu Linux 21.10 Impish Indri
Following a brief beta-testing period, Ubuntu 21.10 has finally become available to download in the "final" stable form. BetaNews: Code-named "Impish Indri," this version of Ubuntu is not a Long Term Support (LTS) version, so it is only supported for nine months. Ubuntu 21.10 features Linux kernel 5.13 and a Snap variant of the Mozilla Firefox browser. "Ubuntu 21.10 brings the all-new PHP 8 and GCC 11 including full support for static analysis, greatly improving everyday developer security awareness in low-level programming. With Gnome 40 desktop users gain dynamic workspaces and touchpad gestures. The new Firefox snap, published by Mozilla, improves security and guarantees access to both the latest and the extended support release versions of the browser. The exact same versions of the browser are available on multiple different versions of Ubuntu, simplifying enterprise developer platform management," says Canonical.

Oct 14 10:42am
Boeing Finds New Defect in Ongoing Struggle To Produce Dreamliner 787
Boeing and U.S. regulators said Thursday that some titanium 787 Dreamliner parts were improperly manufactured over the past three years, the latest in a series of problems to plague the wide-body aircraft. From a report: The quality issue does not affect the immediate safety of flights, the company and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said. Boeing said the parts were provided Leonardo, which bought the items from Italy-based Manufacturing Processes Specification (MPS). MPS is no longer a supplier to Leonardo, Boeing said. The parts include fittings that help secure the floor beam in one fuselage section, as well as other fittings, spacers, brackets, and clips within other assemblies. Undelivered aircraft will be reworked as needed, Boeing said, adding that any fleet actions would be determined through its normal review process and confirmed with the FAA. The defect was found as the planemaker grapples with other problems in its 787 that have caused it to cut production and halt deliveries since May.

Oct 14 4:00am
The Mega65: A Modernization of the Canceled Commodore 65 Computer From 1991
Slashdot reader TommyROM writes: The Commodore 65 was a never-released computer slated to follow the fabled Commodore 64 from 1982. Developed between 1990 and 1991, it would have been the most powerful 8-bit computer on the market with 128K RAM, high-resolution graphics (up to 1280x400), and stereo sound. A few prototypes were made before Commodore canceled the project in 1991. Now an updated version of the Commodore 65 has been realized. Project founder Paul Gardner-Stephen began working on recreating the C65 in 2014, and eventually teamed up with the non-profit Museum of Electronic Games & Art to create the FPGA-based Mega65, a modernization of the original Commodore 65 featuring a custom main board, mechanical keyboard, and injection molded case. It uses the original C65 ROMs but improves on the design with SD card support, Ethernet, and HDMI output. It is about 40 times faster than a C64 and backwards compatible, including cartridge and joystick ports. The design is open-sourced for long-term compatibility. Additionally, there is a hand-held version in the works that is also a cellphone. They are currently taking pre-orders for the Mega65 at a price of 666.66 euros ($742 plus shipping). The Retro Hour podcast has an interview with founder Paul Gardner-Stephen where he discusses the impetus of the project and goes into more details of the design.

Oct 13 9:30pm
Biden Administration Plans For Massive Expansion of Wind Farms Off US Coasts
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The Biden administration is planning to aggressively expand offshore wind energy capacity in the United States, potentially holding as many as seven new offshore lease sales by 2025. The move was announced Wednesday by US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and first reported by The New York Times. Haaland said the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is exploring leasing sales along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, in the Gulf of Maine, New York Bight, central Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, as well as offshore the Carolinas, California and Oregon. As part of that initiative, which spans multiple government agencies, the Departments of the Interior, Energy and Commerce committed to a shared goal of generating 30 gigawatts of offshore wind in the US by 2030. The Interior Department estimates that reaching that goal would create nearly 80,000 jobs.

Oct 12 9:29am
Spectrum Threatens Former Customers In Renewal Shakedown
An anonymous reader writes: Spectrum has been sending former customers strange letters threatening to report them to the credit agencies unless they renew services, in attempt to win back their business. The letters say that "as a one-time courtesy," the company will cancel debt it claims they owe and stop reporting them to credit agencies -- if they agree to resume cable service. The threat continues by stating that "You have worked hard to build a great future for yourself and your family" "We look forward to welcoming you back."

Oct 11 2:09pm
Microsoft Warns of New Windows 11 Problems With Apps Using Unusual Registry Keys
Microsoft has shared details of a new known issue with Windows 11. The company has confirmed that a problem exists with apps that use certain characters in registry keys. From a report: As a result of the discovery, Microsoft has put a compatibility hold in place that means people with problematic apps installed will not be offered Windows 11 via Windows Update. The issue is under investigation. It seems that the issue is related to, or is an extension of, one of the three initial known issues with Windows 11.

Oct 8 6:02pm
136 Countries Agree To Minimum Corporate Tax Rate
A group of 136 countries have agreed to a global treaty that would tax large multinationals at a minimum rate of 15% and require companies to pay taxes in the countries where they do business. CNN reports: Estonia, Hungary and -- most notably -- Ireland joined the agreement Thursday. It is now supported by all nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the G20. The countries that signed on to the international treaty represent more than 90% of global GDP. Four countries that participated in the talks -- Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka -- have not yet joined the agreement. The Biden administration breathed new life into the global initiative earlier this year and secured the support of the G7 countries in June, paving the way for a preliminary deal in July. Ireland, which had declined to join the initial agreement in July, has a corporate tax rate of 12.5% -- a major factor in persuading companies such as Facebook, Apple and Google to locate their European headquarters in the country. Ireland signed up after the preliminary agreement was revised to remove a stipulation that rates should be set at a minimum of "at least 15%." The new rate would apply to 1,556 multinationals based in Ireland, employing about 400,000 people. More than 160,000 businesses making less than $867 million in annual revenue and employing about 1.8 million people would still be taxed at 12.5%. Alongside a minimum corporate tax rate, the pact includes provisions to ensure that multinational companies pay tax where they generate sales and profits, and not just where they have a physical presence. That could have major ramifications for tech companies such as Google and Amazon, which have amassed vast profits in countries where they pay relatively little tax. The OECD expects implementation of the agreement to begin in 2023. But even with Ireland and other previous holdouts now on board, the deal still requires countries to pass domestic legislation.

Oct 8 4:01pm
Mathematicians Prove Melting Ice Stays Smooth
After decades of effort, mathematicians now have a complete understanding of the complicated equations that model the motion of free boundaries, like the one between ice and water.

Oct 8 1:00am
WSU Will Lead $125 Million Global Project To Find, Analyze Animal Viruses
Washington State University this week launched a new $125 million program to collect and analyze animal viruses with the aim of preventing the next pandemic. GeekWire reports: The program is funded with an award from the U.S. Agency for International Development and includes researchers at the University of Washington and the Seattle-based nonprofit PATH. The project will partner with up to 12 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to build up lab capacity for surveillance of animal viruses that have the potential to "spillover" into humans and cause disease. The project will survey wildlife and domesticated animals for three families of viruses -- coronaviruses, filoviruses (which includes Ebola), and paramyxoviruses (which are in the same family as the measles and Nipah viruses). Researchers will not be working in the lab with the live viruses and will kill them as part of the collection process. The team aims to collect more than 800,000 samples in the five years of the project, called Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens -- Viral Zoonoses, or DEEP VZN. The project is expected to yield 8,000 to 12,000 novel, previously unknown, viruses for analysis. The program has parallels with another USAID-funded program, STOP Spillover, which assesses risk factors for animal-to-human disease transmission and implements interventions to stop it. DEEP VZN will select partner sites outside the U.S. based on factors such as commitment to data sharing and whether there are lots of interactions between humans and animals in the region. Other partners for the project include Washington University in St. Louis and the nonprofit FHI 360.

Oct 6 5:20pm
Apple Says Apps Must Offer a Way To Delete Your Account Starting In Early 2022
Apple says that as of January 31st, 2022, all applications will need to offer people a method of deleting their accounts. This applies to all iOS, iPadOS and macOS apps. Engadget reports: The company announced this requirement alongside other App Store guideline changes at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in June as part of a push to give users more control over their data. As The Verge notes, Apple is only requiring developers to let people "initiate deletion of their account from within the app," so apps might send you to a website or even a chat with an agent before you can actually close your account.

Oct 5 7:25pm
Google Is About To Turn On Two-Factor Authentication By Default For Millions of Users
Google is reminding us that it will enable two-factor authentication for 150 million more accounts by the end of this year. The Verge reports: In 2018, Google said that only 10 percent of its active accounts were using two-factor authentication. It has been pushing, prodding, and encouraging people to enable the setting ever since. Another prong of the effort will require more than 2 million YouTube creators to turn on two-factor authentication to protect their channels from takeover. Google says it has partnered with organizations to give away more than 10,000 hardware security keys every year. Its push for two-factor has made the technology readily available on your phone whether you use Android or iPhone. A tool that also helps users keep their accounts secure is using a password manager, and Google now says that it checks over a billion passwords a day via its built-in manager for Chrome, Android, and the Google app. The password manager is also available on iOS, where Chrome can autofill logins for other apps. Google says that soon it will help you generate passwords for other apps, making things even more straightforward. Also coming soon is the ability to see all of your saved passwords directly from the Google app menu. Last but not least, Google is highlighting its Inactive Account Manager. This is a set of decisions to make about what happens to your account if you decide to stop using it or are no longer around and able to make those decisions.

Oct 4 1:21pm
Company That Routes Billions of Text Messages Quietly Discloses It Was Hacked
A company that is a critical part of the global telecommunications infrastructure used by AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and several others around the world such as Vodafone and China Mobile, quietly disclosed that hackers were inside its systems for years, impacting more than 200 of its clients and potentially millions of cellphone users worldwide. From a report: The company, Syniverse, revealed in a filing dated September 27 with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission that an unknown "individual or organization gained unauthorized access to databases within its network on several occasions, and that login information allowing access to or from its Electronic Data Transfer (EDT) environment was compromised for approximately 235 of its customers." A former Syniverse employee who worked on the EDT systems told Motherboard that those systems have information on all types of call records. [...] The company wrote that it discovered the breach in May 2021, but that the hack began in May of 2016.

Oct 3 3:34pm
Ancient Footprints Could Be Oldest Traces of Humans in the Americas
Opyros writes: Fossil footprints in New Mexico have been dated to 21,000-23,000 years before present. As a result, human habitation of the Americas can be pushed back several thousand years. The footprints were found in sedimentary rock at White Sands National Park, near the location of a long-vanished lake. Since the rock contains seeds of ditchgrass, it was possible to apply radiocarbon dating, leading to the remarkably early date. Until now, the oldest unequivocally dated signs of human presence in the New World were only 16,000 years old. Hence the great significance of the find.

Oct 1 11:27am
Google Is Scrapping Its Plan To Offer Bank Accounts To Users
Google is abandoning plans to pitch bank accounts to its users, marking a retreat from an effort to make the tech giant a bigger name in finance. The Wall Street Journal: The Alphabet unit announced almost two years ago that users of its Google Pay digital wallet would be able to sign up for enhanced checking accounts and debit cards at a handful of financial institutions large and small, including Citigroup and Stanford Federal Credit Union. The new offerings, called Plex accounts, would sync with Google Pay, carry both Google and bank branding and provide a digital dashboard of where and how users spent and saved. Plex was billed as a new way to bank, with an emphasis on simplicity and financial wellness and without monthly or overdraft fees. The project was initially expected to debut in 2020. A series of missed deadlines, along with the April departure of the Google Pay executive who championed the project, prompted Google to pull the plug on Plex, people familiar with the matter said. A Google spokeswoman said the company would now focus primarily on "delivering digital enablement for banks and other financial services providers rather than us serving as the provider of these services."

Sep 30 7:25pm
Chip Shortage Leads Carmaker Opel To Shut German Plant Until 2022
Carmaker Opel, which is part of the Stellantis group, said on Thursday it will close one of its plants in Germany until at least the end of the year due to chip shortages. Reuters reports: Production at the Eisenach plant, which makes internal combustion engine and hybrid electric cars, should start again in 2022, although an Opel spokesperson could not specify a date. Some 1,300 workers employed at the plant will be temporarily laid off, Opel said, with a separate plant in France picking up some of the production. Stellantis has halted production at other plants, including in Europe and Canada, forecasting that it would make 1.4 million fewer vehicles this year due to the chip shortage.

Sep 28 5:20pm
Apple Watch Can Detect Arrhythmias Other Than AFib, Study Shows
According to new research published this week in American Heart Association Journal, Apple Watch can detect arrhythmias other than Atrial Fibrillation (AFib). The Apple watch irregular pulse detection algorithm was found to have a positive predictive value of 0.84 for the identification of atrial fibrillation (AFib). MyHealthyApple reports: The Apple Heart Study investigated a smartwatch-based irregular pulse notification algorithm to identify AFib. For this secondary analysis, the researchers analyzed participants who received an ambulatory ECG patch after index irregular pulse notification. Among 419,297 participants enrolled in the Apple Heart Study, 450 participant ECG patches were analyzed, with no AF on 297 ECG patches (66%). Non-AF arrhythmias (excluding supraventricular tachycardias [less than] 30 beats and pauses [less than] 3 seconds) were detected in 119 participants (40.1%) with ECG patches without AFib. 76 participants (30.5%) reported subsequent AF diagnoses. In participants with an irregular pulse notification on the Apple Watch and no AF observed on ECG patch, atrial and ventricular arrhythmias, mostly PACs and PVCs, were detected in 40% of participants.

Sep 28 1:25pm
Air Pollution Likely Cause of Up To 6 Million Premature Births, Study Finds
Air pollution is likely to have been responsible for up to 6 million premature births and 3 million underweight babies worldwide every year, research shows. From a report: The analysis, which combines the results of multiple scientific studies, is the first to calculate the total global burden of outdoor and indoor air pollution combined. Indoor pollution, mostly from cooking stoves burning solid fuel such as coal or wood, made up almost two-thirds of the total pollution burden on pregnancies in 2019, according to the latest findings. This is especially true in developing areas, such as in some parts of south-east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. "At an individual level, indoor air pollution exposure appears to carry a much higher burden compared to outdoor levels," said Rakesh Ghosh, an epidemiologist at University of California, San Francisco and lead researcher on the paper, published in the journal Plos Medicine. "So, minimising household pollution exposure, to the extent possible, should be part of the message during prenatal care, especially where household pollution is prevalent." Air pollution is usually measured according to exposure to particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns: once inhaled, the minuscule size of these particles allows them to be absorbed deep into the bloodstream, potentially causing far-reaching health problems.

Sep 27 11:27am
US Agrees Not To Pursue Fraud Charges Against Huawei CFO
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou would appear in a Brooklyn federal courtroom today via streaming video and enter a plea regarding US charges against her. From a report: Canadian authorities arrested the Chinese executive in December 2018 on suspicion of violating US sanctions, and she has remained there on house arrest ever since, fighting US attempts at extradition. Hearings in her extradition case ended in August, with the ruling scheduled for October 21st. Meng was indicted on fraud charges claiming the Chinese technology and telecommunications company misrepresented its relationship with an Iranian affiliate, along with accusations it stole intellectual property from T-Mobile. The 13-count indictment named Meng, Huawei, and two of its subsidiaries -- Huawei USA and Skycom. On Friday afternoon, Meng pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors submitted a statement of facts asserting that in 2013 she told financial institutions the Iranian company Skycom was a partner of Huawei while knowing that Skycom was owned and controlled by a Huawei subsidiary to act as its agent in the region. As part of the deal in making this admission, the prosecution says "Meng has agreed to the accuracy of a four-page statement of facts that details the knowingly false statements she made to Financial Institution 1."

Sep 24 8:02pm
Chinese Scientists Synthesized Starch From Carbon Dioxide
AltMachine shares a report from Phys.Org: Chinese scientists recently reported a de novo route for artificial starch synthesis from carbon dioxide (CO2) for the first time. Relevant results were published in Science on Sept. 24. The new route makes it possible to produce starch, a major component of grains, by industrial manufacturing instead of traditional agricultural planting and opens up a new technical route for synthesizing complex molecules from CO2. The artificial route can produce starch from CO2 with an efficiency 8.5-fold higher than starch biosynthesis in maize, suggesting a big step towards going beyond nature. It provides a new scientific basis for creating biological systems with unprecedented functions. "If the overall cost of the process can be reduced to a level economically comparable with agricultural planting in the future, it is expected to save more than 90% of cultivated land and freshwater resources," said MA Yanhe, corresponding author of the study. In addition, it would also help to avoid the negative environmental impact of using pesticides and fertilizers, improve human food security, facilitate a carbon-neutral bioeconomy, and eventually promote the formation of a sustainable bio-based society.

Sep 24 2:05pm
Americans Ramp Up Google Searches for Covid Tests Amid Scarcity
Searches for Covid-19 tests on Google are surging as the delta variant spreads in the U.S. and more employers and large-scale events require testing. From a report: The number of Americans looking up "at-home Covid test near me" on the platform has doubled in the past month, according to Google Trends, while those asking how long rapid test results take is up by 250%. In the past week, users were also more interested in searches related to tests, rather than vaccines, in most states, with Louisiana and Mississippi as exceptions. The highly contagious delta variant has kept cases high in the U.S. This is creating the need for more tests as children return to school, workplaces resume activities and consumers head back to concerts and events. This appears to have taken manufacturers by surprise after months of flagging demand. The Biden administration also recently announced plans to require either vaccination or weekly testing for companies with 100 or more employees. That comes on top of the federal-worker mandate.

Sep 23 6:02pm
California Passes Law Targeting Amazon Labor Algorithms
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill Wednesday that would block Amazon and other companies from punishing warehouse workers who fail to meet certain performance metrics for taking rest or meal breaks. The California Senate approved the measure earlier this month. The law allows warehouse workers to challenge performance goals that many say discourage them from taking bathroom breaks or other rest breaks throughout the work day. The bill was written in response to high rates of reported injuries at Amazon warehouses where performance quotas are algorithmically enforced. The law does not explicitly name Amazon in its text, but both Republican and Democratic lawmakers recognize that the e-commerce giant would be greatly affected by the enactment of the legislation. Over the last few years, Amazon has come under intense criticism for its performance quotas with several outlets reporting that workers have peed in bottles as a means of meeting their warehouse fulfillment goals and maintaining their jobs. The law will also force companies like Amazon to make these performance algorithms more transparent, disclosing quotas to both workers and regulators.

Sep 23 3:25pm
Hackers Leak LinkedIn 700 Million Data Scrape
A collection containing data about more than 700 million users, believed to have been scraped from LinkedIn, was leaked online this week after hackers previously tried to sell it earlier this year in June. From a report: The collection, obtained by The Record from a source, is currently being shared in private Telegram channels in the form of a torrent file containing approximately 187 GB of archived data. The Record analyzed files from this collection and found the data to be authentic, with data points such as: LinkedIn profile names, LinkedIn ID, LinkedIn profile URL, location information (town, city, country), and email addresses. While the vast majority of the data points contained in the leak are already public information and pose no threat to LinkedIn users, the leak also contains email addresses that are not normally viewable to the public on the official LinkedIn site.

Sep 21 2:41pm
Apple is Working on Mental Health Monitoring Using iPhone Data
Apple is working on ways to help detect and diagnose conditions such as depression, anxiety and cognitive decline using an iPhone, WSJ is reporting. Techcrunch: Researchers hope that analysis of data such as mobility, sleep patterns and how people type could spot behaviors associated with those conditions, according to The Wall Street Journal. ther measurements could include facial expression analysis and heart and respiration rates. All of the processing would take place on the device, with no data sent to Apple servers. The company is working on research projects that could lead to the development of these features. The University of California, Los Angeles, is studying stress, anxiety and depression, with Apple Watch and iPhone data for 3,000 volunteers being tracked in a study that starts this year. A pilot phase that began in 2020 recorded data from 150 participants.

Sep 21 2:01pm
EU Plans To Legislate for Common Phone Charger Despite Apple Grumbles
The European Commission will on Thursday present a legislative proposal for a common charger for mobile phones, tablets and headphones, a move likely to affect iPhone maker Apple more than its rivals, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing a person familiar with the matter. From the report: The European Union executive and EU lawmakers have been pushing for a common charger for over a decade, saying it would be better for the environment and more convenient for users. The Commission wants the sale of chargers to be decoupled from devices, and also propose a harmonised charging port, the person said. Apple, whose iPhones are charged from its Lightning cable, has said rules forcing connectors to conform to one type could deter innovation, create a mountain of electronic waste and irk consumers.

Sep 21 8:44am
Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 Each Get a Decade of Support from Canonical
Canonical has announced that it is extending the life of Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 to a decade. BetaNews: In other words, Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 are getting longer Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) periods as Canonical pushes back their End of Life (EoL) dates. The former will now get security updates until 2024, while the latter will receive them until 2026. "This lifecycle extension enables organizations to balance their infrastructure upgrade costs, by giving them additional time to implement their upgrade plan. The prolonged Extended Security Maintenance (ESM) phase of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and 16.04 LTS enables a secure and low-maintenance infrastructure with security updates and kernel livepatches provided by Canonical. The announcement represents a significant opportunity for the organizations currently implementing their transition to new applications and technologies," says Canonical.

Sep 20 8:02pm
The Chinese Version of TikTok Is Limiting Kids To 40 Minutes a Day
The Chinese version of TikTok is introducing a "teenage mode" that will limit the amount of time children under the age of 14 spend on the short-form video app to 40 minutes a day. CNN reports: The measure will apply to all Douyin users under the age of 14 who have registered for the app using their real names, Beijing-based ByteDance announced in a statement on Saturday. Douyin will also be unavailable to those users between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., the owner of TikTok and Douyin added. The company also urged parents to help their children register with real names, or otherwise manually enable "teenage mode." The app also said it would introduce new content -- ranging from science experiments and museums to art gallery exhibition and natural scenery -- to "inspire" younger teens. Limiting usage of Douyin is a "proactive measure" by ByteDance to get ahead of potential regulation, analysts at Citigroup Global Markets wrote in a Monday research note. They suggested that the decision could push other internet platforms with short video content to look at implementing similar restrictions.

Sep 20 3:25pm
US COVID-19 Death Toll Surpasses That of 1918 Pandemic
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has surpassed that of the 1918 flu pandemic, according to a tracker from Johns Hopkins University. The Hill reports: The U.S. has passed 675,000 deaths, the estimated toll from the 1918 pandemic, which for a century had been the worst pandemic to hit the country. "The number of reported deaths from Covid in the US will surpass the toll of the 1918 flu pandemic this month," Tom Frieden, the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, tweeted earlier this month. "We cannot become hardened to the continuing, and largely preventable, tragedy." Deaths from COVID-19 are also far from over. The U.S. is averaging about 2,000 more deaths from the virus every day, according to a New York Times tracker. Those deaths are overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated, though, highlighting that the continuing toll of COVID-19 is now largely preventable now that vaccines are widely available in the U.S. In 1918, there was no vaccine to help stop the flu pandemic. Still, the U.S. population was far smaller a century ago, meaning that the death rate from the 1918 pandemic is still higher than for COVID-19. E. Thomas Ewing, a Virginia Tech history professor, wrote in Health Affairs earlier this year that the death rate from the 1918 pandemic was about six in every 1,000 people, given the U.S. population at the time of around 100 million. The death rate from COVID-19 in the U.S. is about two in every 1,000 people. A disproportionate share of COVID-19 deaths are also in the United States. Worldwide, the 1918 flu killed far more people than COVID-19 has so far, at about 50 million compared to about 5 million.

Sep 18 1:00am
ITER Nuclear Fusion Reactor Hit By COVID Delay, Rising Costs
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) currently under construction in Cadarache, southern France, will see cost overruns and delays due to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, its top official said on Friday. Euractiv reports: When the ITER project was launched in 2015, the schedule was to have the first plasma by the end of 2025 and full nuclear fusion by 2035, said Bernard Bigot, the director general of ITER. "We were on track until the end of 2019 but unfortunately, as you know, the world has been impacted by COVID-19," Bigot told journalists during an online press conference on Friday (17 September). As a result of the pandemic, factories were stopped and ships that took on average 45 days to deliver components from Korea took 90 days to arrive, he indicated. "While we were progressing on a monthly rate of nearly 0.7% on average during the last five years, last year in 2020 we were only able to achieve 0.35%," he explained. "So clearly, first plasma in 2025 is no longer technically achievable." The delay means the costs of ITER will also likely go over budget, because of "running costs that cannot be eliminated," Bigot explained, saying he was preparing a full review for the ITER Council in November 2022. That said, Bigot expressed confidence that with the COVID-19 crisis receding, "we will be able to keep to the real target," which is to attain full fusion power by 2035. [...] The goal of the experimental plant is to demonstrate that fusion power can be generated sustainably, and safely, on a commercial scale. "Fusion provides clean, reliable energy without carbon emissions," said a statement from the 35 ITER partners.

Sep 17 8:20pm
US, EU Pledge 30% Cut In Methane Emissions To Limit Global Heating
The US and the EU made a joint pledge on Friday to cut global methane emissions by almost a third in the next decade, in what climate experts hailed as one of the most significant steps yet towards fulfilling the Paris climate agreement. The Guardian reports: Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, about 80 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, and emissions have been rising in recent years. Natural gas production and fracking, meat production and other forms of agriculture are among the chief sources. The pact between the US and the EU sets a target of cutting at least 30% from global methane emissions, based on 2020 levels, by 2030. If adopted around the world, this would reduce global heating by 0.2C by the 2040s, compared with likely temperature rises by then. The world is now about 1.2C hotter now than in pre-industrial times. The UN published a report on Friday that found current pledges on emissions from national governments would result in an increase of 16% in emissions in 2030 compared with 2010 levels, whereas scientists warn that emissions must fall by 45% in that period to stay within 1.5C. The OECD also published a report on Friday showing that climate finance -- funding from private and public sources that flows from the rich world to developing countries, to help them cut emissions and cope with the impacts of extreme weather -- was falling about $20 billion short of a longstanding target of $100 billion a year.

AVC Oct 22 4:33am
Funding Friday: Posterized
My friend Stephen sent me a text with a link to this Kickstarter project. I backed it immediately and went one step further than I ordinarily do, I bought a pre-order copy of the book. The NBA is back in season, I went to the opener on Weds night here in NYC, and it was […]
Oct 20 4:34am
The Mainstreaming Of Crypto
We started looking at crypto ten years ago, starting investing nine years ago, and have had a front-row seat to its development ever since. It has been enlightening, exciting, rewarding, but definitely not mainstream. I think that is changing quickly now and yesterday I saw this tweet: Though I am on the board of Coinbase, […]
Oct 18 4:48am
Working Multiple Jobs
Since 2016, I have been working “half time” at USV and taking half of a partner’s carry. That has allowed me to allocate more time to things like building green buildings with the Gotham Gal, building a philanthropic organization with the Gotham Gal, sitting on non-profit and civic boards, and a few other things. The […]
Oct 13 6:59am
Tracking Crypto For Taxes
For the last ten years, my tax prep on crypto was pretty easy. I have always had a buy and hold mindset and have custodied with Coinbase. So a simple report on Coinbase was all I needed to send to my tax folks. Pretty simple. But as DeFi and NFTs have exploded on the scene, […]
Oct 12 4:49am
NYC’s Tech Resurgence (continued)
A few weeks ago, I wrote about NYC’s Tech Resurgence. I observed that NYC continues to develop as one of the world’s leading centers of tech innovation. And then yesterday, I saw this tweet: NYC startups are getting funded at 2/3 the rate of Silicon Valley startups. That’s a huge change from where NYC was […]
Oct 6 7:54am
IRAs and Wealth Creation
A couple of years ago, I wrote about buying crypto in an IRA. I went and did that with an old unused IRA that was sitting in cash and I have 8x’d the value of that IRA in the last 18 months. While my family is fortunate that we don’t have to rely on our […]
Oct 4 8:32am
Dapper Collectives
Our portfolio company Dapper Labs, creator of CryptoKitties, the Flow Blockchain, and the NBA Top Shot collectible game, is announcing Dapper Collectives today. Dapper Collectives comes by way of an acquisition of Brud, a company that has been developing “community-owned media and collectively built worlds” for the last five years. Dapper Collectives will be led […]
Sep 30 5:09am
NYC’s Tech Resurgence
Early in the pandemic, we were all deluged with stories of tech workers, companies, and founders leaving Silicon Valley for Miami and Austin. And that was true. But from my personal experience, they also left for many other places too, including Los Angeles and New York City. I met with a founder last week who […]
Sep 28 4:50am
The Token Race
Our portfolio company Mirror has been using a “game mechanic” called The Write Race to onboard users to the Mirror service. Mirror is something between a blogging platform, a crowdfunding platform, and a community platform, built for the crypto sector. Mirror is built on decentralized protocols and is a web3 version of all of those […]
Sep 27 4:48am
E-Bikes
I used to ride a Vespa around NYC. I rode it to work and back for about ten years, from roughly 2003 to 2013. I stopped riding it when Bloomberg’s Traffic Enforcement people starting towing it when it was parked between cars on the street (something I had been doing since I started riding it). […]
Sep 24 4:20am
Funding Friday: Newly Finite Themes
My friend Mike Masnick, founder and leader of Techdirt, is crowdfunding a new paper on NFTs. I backed the project just now with 0.1 ETH and you can do the same here.
Sep 22 5:13am
Citibiking (Continued)
Yesterday I wrote about NYC’s Citibike system, which I love, and said this: There should be financial rewards for taking a bike from a kiosk that is completely full or nearly full and returning to a kiosk that is empty or nearly empty. There should also be a financial reward for docking an E-Bike in […]
Sep 21 4:36am
Citibiking (Continued)
I have written about my love for NYC’s Citibike service many times. This will be one more. Yesterday I left the USV office at the end of the day and hopped onto a Citibike E-Bike at the brand new kiosk that has been installed in the “no cars” section of Broadway between 23rd and 21st. […]
Sep 20 6:05am
Blinking
Back in 2005 Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Blink that was about how our subconscious allows us to make fast decisions that are often as good or better than slow considered decisions. I was talking to someone yesterday evening about how the venture capital business has changed over the last decade and I explained […]
Sep 17 4:54am
Funding Friday: Honk NYC! 2021
I just backed this project to support a festival of street musicians in NYC in late October. Street bands have been picking up the slack for the last year in NYC, performing for outside diners and more throughout the city. This festival celebrates them and puts them front and center. Email readers can see the […]
Sep 15 4:39am
Large Group In-Person Meetings
I have been doing a bunch of large group in-person meetings in the last few weeks and I must say that it feels great to be doing these large group meetings in person. There is a different energy in the room than on the screen. In order to make everyone comfortable meeting like this, the […]
Sep 13 4:35am
The Apple Epic Decision Is A Breakthrough For Crypto
In her decision last week on the Epic vs Apple case, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wrote this: I am not a lawyer, but I read that to say that apps that use crypto rails for payments cannot be blocked by Apple anymore. If so, that is a decision of enormous consequences for the crypto sector […]
Sep 9 5:53am
Generalist vs Specialist
At USV, we have a fairly narrow thesis that sets out what we want to invest in, but all of us work across all of our thesis areas. We see ourselves as generalists not specialists. In an environment when everything is moving so fast, that can be challenging, as I wrote about on Tuesday. But […]
Sep 7 4:57am
Staying Plugged In
I wrote in my 60th birthday post that my late career mantra is less hustle more conviction. It has been working for me and has kept me in the game. But there are times, usually after an opening emerges, when a market moves so fast it is hard to stay on top of it all. […]
Sep 3 4:34am
Funding Friday: land to sea
I backed this project to fund a creator space and coffee shop in Williamsburg Brooklyn this morning. As many companies make the decision to move to hybrid and remote workforces, we will need more of this kind of space to work in. I am excited to see entrepreneurs stepping in and filling that role. And […]
Aug 31 4:34am
Diversification
I am a fan of and a practioner of investing in risky assets. I believe you must take significant risk to earn significant returns. But I also am a huge fan of diversification when holding a lot of risky assets. It has been easier for USV to get into new sectors, like crypto and climate […]
Aug 30 5:50am
The World After Capital
My partner Albert has been writing a book in public over the last decade called The World After Capital. There have been alpha and beta versions which he has put out there, gotten feedback on, and revised. Yesterday he tweeted that he has now finished the book and will have it printed. That means I […]
Aug 27 4:58am
Funding Friday: EcoFlow DELTA Pro
This project on Kickstarter is cool. A UPS (uninterrupted power supply) for your entire home. I backed it this morning along with almost 2,400 other people who have backed it so far. You can see the video and back it here.
Aug 25 6:11am
Bright Moments DAO
Occasionally, I will write at USV.com and today is one of those days. I wrote about an investment in a DAO called Bright Moments that we made this week. DAOs are interesting and we plan to do a bunch of DAO investing going forward. You can read the post here.
Feld Thoughts Jun 14 10:45am
Summer Vacation

This blog has decided to take a summer vacation. I’ve been blogging regularly since 2005 (typical 15 – 20 posts a month.) I’m going to take a break for a while. Now that The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors is out, I’ve started working on my next book. I’m trying some different stuff with this new book and decided to focus all of my writing over the summer on it. If you want a hint, I’m taking inspiration from two books. The first is one of my favorite books: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The other is from Michael Lewis’ awesome new book The Premonition: A Pandemic Story Whenever I’m writing a lot, I read a...

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Jun 11 12:12pm
Why Philosophy and Entrepreneurship?

Since releasing my newest book The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors I’ve been continually getting the questions “Why Philosophy and Entrepreneurship?” and “Why Nietzsche?” Dave and I cover this right off the bat in the book, so I thought I’d toss up an excerpt that addresses the question with part of my own origin story with Dave. It follows. Nietzsche? For entrepreneurs? It was the end of January 1988, about nine months since we had embarked on turning Brad’s solo consulting shop, Feld Technologies, into a real business. We were fraternity brothers and close friends and opened our first office directly across the street from our fraternity chapter house in Cambridge. We planned to use smart yet inexpensive...

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Jun 9 6:42am
Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company’s Critical Functions and Teams

Matt Blumberg has a new book out titled Startup CXO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company’s Critical Functions and Teams. It’s a follow-up to his previous book, Startup CEO: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business. I’ve been working with Matt since 2000. That year, we merged two companies: Return Path and Veripost. Matt was the co-founder/CEO of Return Path. Fred Wilson was his lead investor. I was the lead investor for Veripost. The two companies did the same thing and were the only two competitors in a nascent category called “email change of address” (Veripost’s original name was IECOA which stood for “Internet Email Change of Address”). They were bashing each other over the head in...

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Jun 8 9:21am
Investment vs. Speculation

I reread Enough.: True Measures of Money, Business, and Life by John C. Bogle over the weekend. I’d read it in 2012 and it had a huge impact on me. If you aren’t familiar with John C. Bogle, he founded The Vanguard Group, is credited with inventing the index fund and is a spectacular writer (every one of his books is worth reading.) He passed away in 2019 at the age of 89, but I expect his legacy will last a very long time. I was pondering some things that were bothering me, specifically about crypto, but more generally about current themes around investing. I thought I’d revisit Enough. to see if it helped me work them out. I found...

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Jun 7 12:07pm
Twitter Spaces and Nietzsche

Last week I was scheduled to do a live interview with Eliot Peper about The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche. He opted to use Twitter Spaces and diligently tested it out a couple of days beforehand to confirm that it would work. Nevertheless, we immediately ran into difficulties, and after ten minutes, we decided to bail on the interview and reschedule. This reminded both me and Dave about our chapter in the book, “Play to the Audience.” Nietzsche says: It is not sufficient to know how to play well; one must also know how to secure a good hearing. A violin in the hand of the greatest master gives only a little squeak when the place where it is heard is too...

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Jun 2 6:31am
Colorado Startup Summer 2021 – Request for Companies

CU’s Silicon Flatirons Center Startup Summer is back! Startup Summer provides a fantastic experience for college-age students and interns interested in entrepreneurship and the Front Range emerging company scene. Startup Summer is a free offering that enhances your company’s internship program. Your company hires and pays your intern(s). You can hire an intern out of your own pool of candidates or, alternatively, let us know and we will get you student resumes from individuals who have reached out to us. This program is free – there is no charge for companies or interns. Now in Year 10, Startup Summer is one of CU Boulder Silicon Flatirons’ most popular programs. Startup Summer pulls college-age students together on Tuesday nights from 5:30 – 7:30 pm during the summer....

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Jun 1 6:47am
No TV Summer

“Turn off the TV and go outside and play.” I expect these are words that have been said in almost every household in America. Amy and I hit the bottom of the TV barrel last week while watching Army of the Dead. It was so awful it was good. But it was awful. And … It’s June 1 and I’m done for the summer. No TV until Labor Day weekend. And then, maybe no TV after that. TV is a weird construct since I can watch videos on my laptop or my iPad. But, that’s a different thing, since they are generally short and a deliberate thing that I’m watching on video, vs. just vegging out in front of the...

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May 26 12:41pm
Monsters

Most of the quotes we discuss in The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche we found by reading his work, but a few are well-known lines that you may have heard before. This is one, used in our chapter “Monsters”: He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. The quote leads quickly to questions of ethics. In the chapter, we discuss the fact that we each have our own views of what constitutes ethical or unethical behavior in business. It is a line-drawing game – there is no reference that everyone agrees on. The choices have both short- and long-term consequences for...

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May 25 11:05am
Shipped! The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche

My newest book, The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche: A Book for Disruptors, shipped today. It’s available on Amazon in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardcover. If you are so inclined, go buy a copy today! I’m particularly proud of this book, as it is a more philosophical approach to entrepreneurship than my other books. I wrote it with Dave Jilk, the co-founder of our first company (Feld Technologies, 1987) and one of my closest friends for 38 years. The book contains 52 individual chapters (hence the “Weekly” in the title) and is divided into five major sections (Strategy, Culture, Free Spirits, Leadership, and Tactics). Each chapter begins with a quote from one of Nietzsche’s works, using a public domain translation, followed by our...

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May 24 10:22am
Google Enters Hologramland

Six months ago I wrote When The Big Companies Show Up about Sony releasing their first holographic display and what I thought about that development, given my role as an investor via Foundry and board member in the 40-person purveyor of fine holographic interfaces in Brooklyn called Looking Glass. In that post, I wrote: “When I ponder my life in 2040, I am confident that I will not be spending 12 hours a day in videoconferences on a 2D display. I’m also not going to have a headset encapsulating my face. I’m ready for my holographic future, and I’m having fun being an investor in a company that helps create it.” That future is coming fast, and last week I...

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