Back in March, Dorsey tweeted that Square was actively recruiting a modest team of cryptocurrency developers and designers to work on open-source contributions to the ecosystem. In the months that followed, Square’s kept quiet about its progress. — jack ??? (@jack) March 20, 2019 On Monday, I met with Jack Dorsey at Square’s chic Central London headquarters, situated on the bustling Tottenham Court Road. For thirty minutes, I grilled the enigmatic Twitter and Square founder about his progress in building a cryptocurrency A-Team, and his overall goals for this exciting nascent market....

Rowling warns that this isn’t Harry Potter. Judging from the first chapter, it’s got much more in common with fairy tales aimed at younger children — the chapter even begins “Once upon a time.” The story is being released chapter-by-chapter on its own dedicated site, and you can read each for free. Read: Disney debuts Zenimation, which mixes soothing sounds with familiar art According to Rowling, she originally wrote the story for her children, and later stored it when she chose to publish adult novels instead, presumably referring to Casual Vacancy or her Cormoran Strike series....

I truly don’t want to be able to go online during flights — no matter how long the flight is. This might be a controversial opinion, but hear me out before you denounce me as a backwards luddite. First of all, I’ll admit that part of the reason is a sliver of nostalgia. I find it appealing that there’s still one place in the world — or above it — where I can’t whip out my phone and impulsively comb through social media, messages, and emails....

The only question is: Which side hustle grabs your interest? We’ve got four you might want to think about — and you can get trained in any of them for hundreds of dollars off right now with these TNW Deals. Be a copywriter — for $39 The Complete Digital Copywriting Master Class Bundle outlines how to craft a message, engage an audience and start up your own freelance copywriting business....

It’s 2019, and data is kind of a big deal. From the recommendations you get on Spotify to the ads Facebook decides to serve you in your feed, data informs much of what you interact with on a daily basis, and unsurprisingly, the jobs that collect, analyze, and put this data to use pay big. So, if you’re itching to break the six-figure mark on your annual salary but don’t know where to start, looking to a big data career isn’t a bad move, especially when training in dirt cheap....

Yep, a stylus. The Galaxy Note is finally getting a bit more competition. Though a few challengers have appeared over the years, no phone has really managed to make the stylus a highlight the way Samsung has. There’s no visible button, which makes me wonder if the stylus is more of a one-off gimmick than a serious option for note-takers. Unfortunately, we don’t know anything else about the device. There’s no telling whether it’s a flagship device meant to seriously compete against the Note line, or a midrange device meant to assuage those of us who still appreciate a having a stylus without having to burn a hole in our wallets....

The report from national police forces of 10 EU member states, led by Austria, called for new EU legislation that would enable this interconnected database to be created “as quickly as possible.” The document was circulated among officials last November. The Intercept reports that preparatory work on the legislation is already underway. The report was produced as part of discussions to add facial images to the remit of the Prüm Convention, which currently allows member states to exchange DNA, fingerprints, and vehicle registration data....

Back in caveman times, if you wanted to sell something, you rented a storefront, bought some inventory, hired a staff and then threw open your doors, ready for business. But like we said, that was back in the day. Nowadays, if you want to start a business, all you need is a great idea, a reliable supply chain, a website and some organization, hustle and smarts. You can work out all the steps of selling in the digital age with the training found in The Ultimate Shopify and E-commerce Expert Bundle, available for just $39 (over 90 percent off) from TNW Deals....

I haven’t had the chance to test ride the XPremium myself yet, but I did a double-take when I saw the specs and components on offer for $1,999 ($1,799 for the first few days). The bike packs three features that are rare for the price bracket and are nearly unheard of on a folding bike: a mid-drive motor, a torque sensor, and nearly 1,000 Wh of battery capacity. This isn’t a case of crowdfunding shenanigans either....

[Read: UK takes next step toward world of e-scooters, self-driving cars, and autonomous drones] Lime is reportedly also taking the same action across North America, as the coronavirus (COVID-19) has lead to a drop in user numbers. Following the increase in public self-isolation, to slow the spread of the virus, demand for e-scooter rentals has floundered. Lime first started removing its hardware from streets in California and Washington late on Monday night....

London hit the target of adding 300 more electric vehicles (EV) rapid charging points to its network before the end of 2020, bringing the total number of rapid chargers in the UK capital to over 500. The chargers, which are primarily used by commercial vehicles such as taxis and delivery drivers, are designed to provide a quick charge in 30 minutes. London’s boroughs have also delivered more than 2,000 on-street residential charge points through the Go Ultra Low City Scheme, with more than 3,000 forecast to be delivered by spring this year....

And, by the way, this Chinese game has more combinations than predicted atoms in the universe or, in short, this game can’t be won just by running through all the possible moves, what IBM Blue did in 1997, defeating world champion Gary Kasparov. Then, the rise of OpenAI’s bot in DOTA2 and other fun (potentially harmful) stuff like Deepfake. Research communities are thriving in ML, from 100 papers submitted annually 10 years ago, to 100 per day in 2019 on arXiv alone....

Micromobility — including electric scooters — is the latest quick and clean way to get around urban areas. But one big problem is managing where the fleets of shared scooters go and where they’re parked. Fantasmo has a solution — camera vision-based positioning. Fantasmo enables it by first mapping cities at the ground level, and then scooter riders use the camera on their phone to accurately record their exact position when it comes time to park....

What’s worse, it forecasts that growth in the third quarter could fall even more, in the range of $26-28.5 billion. Who’s to blame? Meta attributes this to “the continuation of the weak advertising demand environment” they experienced throughout the second quarter, which they believe “is being driven by the broader macroeconomic uncertainty.” In a Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg also blamed Apple’s latest anti-tracking feature for iOS, which makes it difficult for Meta’s social platforms to connect their users with third-party ads and content....

The two companies had already been working closely before the acquisition. Nuance had built several of its products on top of Microsoft’s Azure cloud. And Microsoft had been using Nuance’s Dragon service in its Cloud for Healthcare solution, launched last year in the midst of the pandemic. The acquisition is Microsoft’s biggest since the $26-billion purchase of LinkedIn. And it tells a lot about Microsoft’s AI strategy. AI in healthcare Most of the focus in the announcement was on AI in healthcare, which makes sense because Nuance is a leading provider of AI services in the sector....

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) August 23, 2020 To set the scene, Epic owns the Unreal Engine, the very popular game engine used by several developers in the mobile and non-mobile realms. Since it’s now suing Apple over the Fortnite ban — you can read about it all here if you’ve been living under a rock — Apple’s has threatened to revoke support for the Unreal Engine on iOS and MacOS....

“Since its first orbit in 2016, Juno has delivered one revelation after another about the inner workings of this massive gas giant. With the extended mission, we will answer fundamental questions that arose during Juno’s prime mission while reaching beyond the planet to explore Jupiter’s ring system and Galilean satellites,” Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute, states. Juno what? The Juno spacecraft, first proposed in 2003, launched to Jupiter in 2011....

According to the survey, N-Plus would include “text, image, and video feeds you can sign up for news, interviews, analysis, deep dives, games, how-tos, audience conversations, music, podcasts and more.” The survey also notes that N-Plus results might show up on Google searches and that the Netflix app may send you notifications about new behind-the-scenes content. It doesn’t seem everything on N-Plus will be behind a paywall. Netflix also says “parts of it could be viewed by anyone with a web browser,” so it seems the platform is considering expanding to more editorial written content, instead of just videos....

When astronomers examined the eruption, they found evidence of a magnetar — an ultradense neutron star, roughly the size of a city, housing a powerful magnetic field. I’m still going to need your insurance information… The discovery — the first time a collision of neutron stars has ever been seen — was made through studies conducted in visible wavelengths of light, as well as infrared, radio, and X-ray frequencies. The first light from the event, 7....

The project — called AI|Writer — uses OpenAI’s new text generator API to create simulated conversations with virtual historical figures. The system first works out the purpose of the message and the intended recipient by searching for patterns in the text. It then uses the API’s internal knowledge of that person to guess how they would respond in their written voice. The digitized characters can answer questions about their work, explain scientific theories, or offer their opinions....