Author: GT

Prototyping large structures with integrated electronics, like a chair that can monitor someone’s sitting posture, is typically a laborious and wasteful process.One might need to fabricate multiple versions of the chair structure via 3D printing and laser cutting, generating a great deal of waste, before assembling the frame, grafting sensors and other fragile electronics onto it, and then wiring it up to create a working device.If the prototype fails, the maker will likely have no choice but to discard it and go back to the drawing board.MIT researchers have come up with a better way to iteratively design large and…

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have seen billions in outflows in recent weeks, but Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas says investors — particularly boomers — are proving to be stronger holders than many expected. Speaking on TheStreet Crypto Roundtable with Scott Melker, Balchunas broke down the numbers behind Bitcoin ETF flows, explaining that despite a sharp price drop, most investors are holding firm. “The ETFs collectively took in $40 billion cumulative flows,” he said. “That’s now down to $35 billion, so you had $5 billion of outflows. But if you average out the assets, that’s 5% of the assets leaving.…

If you’ve ever spent way too long scrolling through endless feeds about nothing, you may have been advised to touch grass. It’s a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, basically telling you to log off and go outside. But one developer took the concept to the next level. Rhys Kentish launched an iOS app last week called Touch Grass, which locks distracting apps until you literally walk outside and take a photo of grass. Image Credits:Touch Grass (opens in a new window) “I struggled with my screen time and worked out that I’d spend seven years of my life looking down at my phone…

In a crypto landscape marked by political battles and regulatory uncertainty, former Massachusetts Senate candidate John Deaton sees a pivotal shift. “The anti-crypto army lost. We can officially say that,” Deaton recently declared. Reflecting on the evolving regulatory climate, he noted, “We’ve got a president of the United States who has said they’re going to make America the crypto capital of the world.” Deaton pointed to the establishment of an executive order to create a strategic Bitcoin reserve, a policy that goes beyond mere asset holding. “It’s not just HODLing the 200,000 Bitcoin that America has, but actually saying to…

The world is bad sometimes, but it feels even worse if you can’t stop staring into the all-consuming abyss that is the 6-inch screen of a smartphone, following you through space and time. It taunts you with its compact, light build that’s small enough to slip into your pocket and take anywhere, and its siren call is so strong that for some reason, we cannot sleep without our phone on our nightstands. As we weather the horrors around us, it may occur to you that you would feel calmer and more attentive and balanced if you did not pick up…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As a wounded Democratic Party struggles to regroup, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is holding mostly chummy conversations with prominent conservatives on a new podcast he’s touting as a way for the party to grapple with the MAGA movement’s popularity.In doing so, he appears intent on showing he is more than a progressive warrior. But he has stunned some members of his own party by agreeing with his guests on issues such as restricting transgender women and girls in sports. Newsom called dismantling police departments “lunacy” and remained silent when Steve Bannon, an architect of President Donald…

It’s gloves off in one of the more tense rivalries in the world of startups. HR company Rippling Monday morning announced a lawsuit against Deel, another big player in the same space. The dramatic 50-page complaint alleges racketeering, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unfair competition, and aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty. The lawsuit is largely centered on an employee whom Rippling claims was working as a spy for Deel. Deel has denied the allegations in a statement to TechCrunch in an equally florid way, setting the stage for the airing of yet more dirty laundry: “Weeks…

(Reuters) -Wall Street’s top regulator is considering changing or scrapping regulations proposed under the prior administration that would require investment advisors keeping custody of cryptocurrencies and other assets to meet stricter standards, the agency’s interim chief said on Monday. Mark Uyeda, acting chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, also said the agency was developing possible changes to a recent rule that requires mutual and exchange-traded funds to report portfolio holdings on a monthly rather than a quarterly basis. His address to an investment industry conference in San Diego laid out plans for a sharp divergence from the way…

Google’s parent company Alphabet is again in advanced talks to acquire cloud cybersecurity startup Wiz, a person familiar with the deal told TechCrunch. The two companies were close to securing a deal at a $23 billion valuation last summer, but the transaction failed to materialize.  This time, the price being discussed is higher, the person said. A price of around $30 billion was reported by The Wall Street Journal. Thomas Kurian, head of Google’s cloud division, is again leading the effort. Google Cloud sees Wiz’s cloud security products as a good fit for its customer base, and Wiz’s annual recurring…

Securitize and Ethena Labs, two firms working closely with BlackRock’s money market token BUIDL, have created an Ethereum-compatible blockchain called Converge, designed to house tokenized assets and provide institutional investors with the innovation of decentralized finance (DeFi). Ethena, which offers a yield-bearing USDe token as well as a BUIDL-backed USDtb stablecoin, will migrate its $6 billion DeFi ecosystem to Converge, while Securitize, the transfer agent for BlackRock’s BUIDL token, will bring its suite of tokenized real world assets (RWAs), like the recently-issued Apollo credit fund token, to the new chain. From in the early days of DeFi there has been…