If you’ve got a yearning to add a few more monsters, space explorers, magically gifted teens, supernatural detectives, alien translators, superheroes, cosplayers, and mages on missions to your summer reading list, look no further: io9 has got you covered with a giant avalanche of shiny new books for June!
Source: Gizmodo – 58 New Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Books for Your Summer Reading Pleasure
Another week, another malware attack vector has become increasingly popular amongst malicious software distributors. The vector has existed since late 2021, but it is potentially bad for Linux enthusiasts who use Windows.
Said attack vector that has gained in popularity is a utilization of the Windows Subsystem for Linux. There are a few
Source: Hot Hardware – Windows Subsystem For Linux Malware Feasts On Your Browser Auth Cookies
The higher you climb, the harder you fall — and that spells trouble across the board for fintech startups right now. From a report: Already fintech multiples plummeted faster, and harder, than the rest of the tech sector. A chart published by a16z shows that the peak of forward revenue multiples for fintech companies was in October 2021 when it hit near 25x. Now, it’s nosedived to below 5x. This is a worse slide than sectors like the cloud, according to data from F-Prime Capital. Up until 2019, fintech had been in relative lockstep with the emerging cloud index, but it ballooned in 2020 and 2021 to be way above the performance of cloud companies. But since the beginning of the year, F-Prime’s fintech index has been crashing. It fell below the cloud index at the end of March. As public fintech companies are seeing their market caps shrink, it’s going to be harder for private companies to justify their own rich valuations. Publicly traded Marqeta has a market cap now around $6 billion and processed over $100 billion in transactions last year. There are similar startups doing a sliver of Marqeta’s volume but with valuations at or near $1 billion, Sacra’s Jan-Erik Asplund pointed out — an outsized mismatch.
The trickle-down from the public market’s reset hit extra hard this week. More fintech startups began to make cuts. Some might find themselves raising a down round. Of the 19 layoffs listed on Layoffs.FYI this week, nine were at financial companies. Klarna told employees it would lay off 10% of its workforce via a video message this week. “When we set our business plans for 2022 in the autumn of last year, it was a very different world than the one we are in today,” CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in the video. It was rumored that the company was going to try to raise its valuation from last summer’s $46 billion to $60 billion in February, but it’s now facing a potential valuation cut down to $30 billion. Fast was the first to collapse, but now its rival Bolt has had to lay off hundreds. Its layoffs are a particularly nasty kind after many employees took out loans to exercise their stock options. MainStreet, which helps startups discover tax credits, already laid off 30% of its staff weeks ago. Now TechCrunch reports that it’s potentially facing a 60% discount in its valuation as part of a recap.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Fintech Startups Are in Serious Trouble
There are about a million and one different gaming headsets on the market (rough estimate, slight exaggeration), and aside from affording you a whole bunch of different choice, it increases the chances of finding one at a discount. That’s the case right now with a popular wireless headset for the Xbox Series X being marked down 33 percent
Source: Hot Hardware – Grab An Xbox Wireless Headset For Off And Other Awesome Memorial Day Gaming Deals
Whether you have a century-old, freestanding clawfoot model, a colorful midcentury drop-in, or something more modern, your bathtub probably takes up a good portion of your bathroom. Even if you don’t take baths regularly (and if that’s the case, why not?), you still are spending a lot of time in its vicinity.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Fix a Chip in Your Bathtub
The ID-mapped mounts feature was added to
Linux in 5.12, but the general idea behind it goes back a fair bit
further. There are a number of different situations where the user and
group IDs for files on disk do not match the current human (or process) user of those
files, so ID-mapped mounts provide a way to resolve that problem—without
changing the files on disk. The developer of the feature, Christian
Brauner, led a discussion at the
2022 Linux Storage,
Filesystem, Memory-management and BPF Summit (LSFMM) on ID-mapped mounts.
Source: LWN.net – [$] ID-mapped mounts
For a frustrating minute (figuratively), it seemed like graphics cards would never be in stock at anywhere close to MSRP levels ever again. It’s been depressing, to say the least. But over the course of 2022, prices have been steadily falling and are now at the point where the average cost for both GeForce RTX 30 and Radeon RX 6000 series
Source: Hot Hardware – NVIDIA GeForce And AMD Radeon Graphics Card Prices Decline Again Approaching MSRP
With 27 feature films and six Disney+ shows in 14 years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe dominates pop culture through its shared comic book worlds. Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness was released on May 6, and the hype train keeps moving with Thor: Love and Thunder arriving July 8. Fans are amped up with…
Source: Gizmodo – Marvel Release Dates: When to See Upcoming MCU Movies and Disney+ Shows
Lotus-1-2-3, an ancient spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (and later IBM), has been ported to a new operating system. drewsup writes: As reported by The Register, a Lotus 1-2-3 enthusiast called Tavis Ormandy (who is also a bug-hunter for Google Project Zero), managed to successfully port the program onto Linux, which seems to be quite the feat of reverse engineering. It’s important to stress that this isn’t an emulated program, but rather the original 1990 Lotus 1-2 — for x86 Unix running natively on modern x86 Linux.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Lotus 1-2-3 Ported To Linux
Many of us remember moments on screen when all of a sudden you sit up because a song you recognize has come on. Music is universal, after all, and even when new characters are embodying the emotions of those songs, they can connect. Personally, I love a good needle drop (you can read my interview with Our Flag Means…
Source: Gizmodo – io9’s 15 Favorite Needle Drops, Ranked
Back in February, Nintendo made a very out-of-character move and provided access to a huge library of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl’s sound effects and music, even encouraging people to use them in their own (non-commercial) projects. What a lovely thing to do! So of course, three months later, it’s closing it down.
Source: Kotaku – It’s Your Last Chance To Grab The Pokémon Diamond/Pearl Sound Library
Source: LifeHacker – Five of the Most Overrated US Tourist Destinations (and Where to Go Instead)
The Mozilla Firefox 101 open-source and cross-platform web browser is now available for download as a minor update that introduces a handful of changes and various improvements.
Source: LXer – Mozilla Firefox 101 Is Now Available for Download, This Is What’s New
Samsung’s upgrades through the first three generations of its Z Fold smartphone have been modest at best. But leaks are pointing at the fourth iteration of the foldable phone including true flagship worthy upgrades.
The foldable phone market continues to grow and evolve as new generations continue to be released. With each new generation,
Source: Hot Hardware – Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 Specs Leak In Full And It’s A Flagship Beast
Now is a good time to shop for a high-end media streamer. Amazon is once again selling the latest Apple TV 4K at a record-low price of $150 for the 32GB model, or $29 off. However, the 64GB model is also on sale for $170 — an easy choice if you need extra storage for apps and games. We’ve seen Amazon sell the base model at this price on occasion, but rarely with a similar discount for its higher-end counterpart.
Buy Apple TV 4K (32GB) at Amazon – $150Buy Apple TV 4K (64GB) at Amazon – $170
The most recent Apple TV 4K fixes some of the few issues with what was already a powerful media player. The new Siri remote is much more intuitive, and the speedier A12 Bionic chip both enables HDR video at 60 frames per second (for the handful of content that supports it) and better game performance. This is the living room device you want if you’re interested in more than basic media playback, particularly given Apple’s tight integration and robust app ecosystem. You can get in a Fitness+ workout, control your smart home or use a niche streaming service.
Apple TV’s main caveat remains the price. At $150, it’s expensive if you just want something to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime Video Apple TV+ and other common services. You can buy a Chromecast, Fire TV Stick or Roku player that will handle 4K HDR video and some other popular apps for considerably less. If you’re heavily invested in Apple’s products or just want the most powerful media box you can get, though, this is still an obvious pick.
Follow @EngadgetDeals on Twitter for the latest tech deals and buying advice.
Source: Engadget – The latest Apple TV 4K is back to a record low of 0
As a periodic meteor shower, the Tau Herculids tend to be quite boring, but astronomers have reason to believe that this year’s version might be different. Here’s what you need to know about when, where, and how to watch this promising celestial spectacle.
Source: Gizmodo – How to Watch the (Potential) Tau Herculids Meteor Shower Tonight
The landscape of relatively affordable handheld PC gaming consoles is beginning to expand. Up to this point, Valve’s popular Steam Deck has largely flown solo in this space (other handhelds on par with its power and capabilities have been priced much higher up to this point), but just within the past week at least two new contenders have emerged—the
Source: Hot Hardware – AYA Neo Air Plus Takes On Steam Deck At 9 Powered By AMD RDNA 2 Infused Mendocino
Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes just scored a major coup in his quest to end Australia’s use of coal energy. The Wall Street Journalreports AGL Energy, Australia’s worst emissions producer, has withdrawn plans to ‘demerge’ its retail power and generation units (thus keeping coal power plants running longer) after Cannon-Brookes bought over 11 percent of the company’s stock. The breakup plan is unlikely to pass a shareholder vote after the tech executive’s move, AGL said.
Both the chairman and CEO of AGL are stepping down as a result of the failed demerger. The board of directors is also conducting a review of the company’s strategy, and plans broader changes to the board as well as overall management. The directors want to deliver the best value in light of “Australia’s energy transition,” the company added.
Cannon-Brookes hopes AGL can shut down the coal plants about 10 years sooner than the company’s 2045 goal. He originally tried to buy AGL outright with help from Canadian investment giant Brookfield Asset Management, but resorted to buying stock after the energy provider rejected the offers.
The Atlassian exec’s renewable energy push began in 2017, when he learned of Tesla’s proposal to end southern Australian blackouts using large-scale battery storage. He has long singled out AGL as a target. According to Cannon-Brookes, AGL represents about 8 percent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than every car in the country, and more than some entire developed countries.
The stock ploy won’t guarantee that AGL shuts down its coal plants ahead of schedule. Still, it’s a relatively unique effort in the tech world to accelerate the shift toward clean energy. Companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and others have generally focused on reducing their own emissions by either buying renewables or installing solar and wind power at their facilities — Atlassian’s co-creator is trying to engineer change across an entire country.
Source: Engadget – Atlassian co-founder takes big step toward shutting down Australia’s coal power
A garbage disposal’s job is to remain out of sight, and make food waste disappear. So when it’s working properly, it’s easy to forget about it. This, in turn, makes it difficult to remember that your garbage disposal is an appliance that requires at least minimal maintenance.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Keep You Garbage Disposal From Crapping Out on You
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out in 2017 but there is still apparently more to explore in the game over five years later. There continue to be a few secrets, especially for those who like to push games to their limits. A gaming YouTube channel recently posted a way for players to explore an inaccessible area in The Legend of
Source: Hot Hardware – A Skillful Zelda Player Discovered This Stunning Breath Of The Wild Secret