Seattle Couple Indicted on COVID Business Loan Fraud Charges | Small Business Trends

November 19, 2021November 18, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A couple from Seattle have been indicted for carrying out over $1m in fraud on Covid-19 relief programs.

Brian Sparks, 40, and Autumn Luna, 22, are charged in a 16-count indictment with defrauding the Washington State Employment Security Division (ESD) of more than $500,000 in benefits and defrauding the Small Business Administration (SBA) of approximately $520,000.

As well as fraudulently claiming unemployment benefits with false bank accounts, the couple used stole identities to apply for loans, including Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

The SBA paid the couple around $520,000 in Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) proceeds.

Nintendo Is Sponsoring a Smash Bros Esports Series | Digital Trends

November 19, 2021November 18, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In a somewhat historic first, Nintendo is partnering with Panda Global on an officially licensed series of Super Smash Bros. esports tournaments. There will be official tournaments for Super Smash Bros Ultimate and, shockingly, GameCube classic Super Smash Bros. Melee.

The relationship between Nintendo and the Smash Bros competitive community has never been a smooth one. Throughout the years, the company has called for many cease and desist orders against various community events, giving it a bad image in the eyes of the tournament faithful. That rocky past makes this inaugural licensed tournament circuit even more monumental.

Paramount+ Adds 1 Million Subscribers In Single Week | Digital Trends

November 18, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Looks like the streaming adage of “new content drives subscribers” is true. Paramount+ announced that it’s had its “most successful week ever,” adding more than 1 million new subscribers, as well as setting a new record for total sign-ups since the streaming service rebranded from CBS All Access in March 2021.

While owner ViacomCBS doesn’t break out specific subscription numbers, we can put things into a little bit of context. Globally, ViacomCBS added 4.3 million subscribers in the third quarter of 2021 for a total of 47 million. So more than a million new subscribers in a single week is a big deal.

Covid-19: Pfizer to allow developing nations to make its treatment pill | BBC News

November 17, 2021November 16, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

US drug company Pfizer has penned a deal to allow its experimental Covid-19 treatment pill to be made and sold in 95 developing nations.

The deal with the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool not-for-profit could make the treatment available to 53% of the world’s population.

But it excludes several countries that have had large Covid-19 outbreaks, including Brazil.

Pfizer says the pill lessens the risk of severe disease in vulnerable adults.

Amazon to pay $500,000 for not sharing Covid data | BBC News

November 17, 2021November 16, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Amazon has reached a legal settlement in California over claims it failed to adequately inform its warehouse workers about Covid-19 cases in the workplace.

California’s attorney general said workers had been left “terrified and powerless”.

The delivery giant will pay $500,000 but did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing on the settlement.

Amazon said the law did not require it to share total numbers of cases with staff, but it had now started to do so.

What Is Imax Enhanced, and Should You Care? | WIRED

November 16, 2021November 14, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

DISNEY+ TODAY ADDED a new way to watch 13 of its biggest Marvel titles: Imax Enhanced. This new viewing mode on the platform features a larger picture, along with a standard for better image picture and sound, similar to Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos. Fortunately, you can get some benefits of this new standard on most existing TVs.

Imax Enhanced, like most of the labels on the side of your TV’s box, is actually a complex set of video and audio standards. These help studios format their movies for distribution to ensure the highest quality (at least according to whichever standard they choose). Most of the time, this process happens without viewers needing to know much except for checking for compatibility, like making sure your soundbar supports Dolby Atmos to hear audio mixed in that standard

How much money can crypto gaming absorb in the near term? | TechCrunch

November 16, 2021November 14, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.

Hello and happy weekend! Today we’re talking insurtech, SPACs and how well direct listings can manage the IPO pricing question. But first, crypto.

The crypto beat was busy this week, with Coinbase earnings giving us a good look into just how busy trading activity was for the asset class in the third quarter. If you recall Robinhood’s earnings, what Coinbase had on offer won’t prove a surprise. After the American equity investment platform’s crypto revenues fell sharply, Coinbase also posted declines in its aggregate trading volumes and revenues compared to the second quarter of the year.

Why Zillow Couldn’t Make Algorithmic House Pricing Work | WIRED

November 15, 2021November 14, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

ZILLOW’S ZESTIMATE OF home values has become a go-to reference for US homeowners. But when Zillow tried to use its algorithm to buy and sell homes, it badly misread the market.

The company’s iBuyer (or “instant buyer”) arm, where tech-first firms use algorithms to quickly value, buy, and sell homes, launched in 2018 in Phoenix. It joined a bustling market in the Arizona city: Opendoor, Redfin, and Offerpad have been buying and flipping homes there since around 2014.

The industrial data revolution: What founders got wrong | TechCrunch

November 15, 2021November 14, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In February 2010, The Economist published a report called “Data, data everywhere.” Little did we know then just how simple the data landscape actually was. That is, comparatively speaking, when you consider the data realities we’re facing as we look to 2022.

In that Economist report, I spoke about society entering an “Industrial Revolution of Data,” which kicked off with the excitement around Big Data and continues into our current era of data-driven AI. Many in the field expected this revolution to bring standardization, with more signal and less noise. Instead, we have more noise, but a more powerful signal. That is to say, we have harder data problems with bigger potential business outcomes.

And, we’ve also seen big advances in artificial intelligence. What does that mean for our data world now? Let’s take a look back at where we were.

Microscopic metavehicles are pushed and steered by light | New Atlas

November 11, 2021November 10, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Although solar-powered devices are now fairly common, Swedish scientists have created something a little different. They’ve built tiny “metavehicles” that are mechanically propelled and guided via waves of light.

Led by Prof. Mikael Käll and former PhD student Daniel Andrén, a team at the Chalmers University of Technology constructed the vehicles by coating microscopic particles with what are known as “meta-surfaces.” The latter are described by the university as “carefully designed and ordered nanoparticles, tailored to direct light in interesting and unusual ways.”