Silicon Valley’s trial of the century came to a close on Monday, when Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty on four of 11 charges of fraud. The disgraced entrepreneur has had a remarkable rise and fall. After dropping out of Stanford to found blood-testing startup Theranos at the age of 19, Holmes was named the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire in 2014. Her company, meanwhile, had reached a valuation of around $9 billion. Just four years later, however, Theranos had coll
It’s been a busy week for Hyundai, who had to refute claims it was breaking up with hydrogen. This week, we saw yet another claim by an “industry insider” that Hyundai had suspended their R&D in 3rd generation hydrogen fuelcells. An article by Korean news outlet Chosun Biz claimed that Hyundai had suspended R&D in 3rd generation hydrogen fuel cells due to technical problems and a lack of marketability. That’s apparently not true; an unnamed Hyundai Motor official issued a statement today to the
It was like the Formula 1 finale all over again. But instead of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, the popular Python and C# programming languages were fighting to get the TIOBE programming language of the year award. In December, C# looked almost certain to win the crown, but tables turned by the end of the year, and Python grabbed the pole position. For the uninitiated, TIOBE, a software quality measurement company based in the Netherlands, produces a monthly index of popular languages across
While digital transformation has been on the agenda for legacy institutions for over a decade, tech adoption has now become a do or die situation for traditional banks. The fintech revolution has brought about worthy adversaries in the form of neobanks and fintech apps that address the needs of a younger, digitally savvy generation. This coupled with the pandemic, which put the transition to digital banking services into warp-speed, has meant banks need to offer something new today or risk losin
Last night, Apple became the first US company to breach the mark of a $3 trillion market cap. The party lasted only a brief while, as the firm’s stock brought the valuation down to $2.99 trillion within a few hours. Over the years, the iPhone has been the major force behind the Cupertino-based tech giant’s bottom line. More recently, its services business has also become an important contributor. Last quarter, services generated $18.2 billion in revenue for Apple, with 25.6% year-on-year growth.
Early-stage founders often struggle with prioritizing and structuring their brand work – and admittedly, the feat can seem pretty overwhelming if you’re building your entire visual identity from scratch. Color choices, fonts, and imagery can seem like petty details when you’re simultaneously building your product, fundraising, and headhunting for key roles, but overlooking your brand can be an expensive mistake for a startup with only one shot to woo a potential investor or customer. At the same
A pair of researchers from the University of Montreal today published a pre-print research paper on creating “more intelligent artificial agents” by imitating the human brain. We’ve heard that one before, but this time’s a little different. The big idea here is all about giving artificial intelligence agents more agency. According to the researchers: Despite the progress made in social neuroscience and in developmental psychology, only in the last decade, serious efforts have started focusing on
For many years, Samsung divided its phone lineup with the S-Series in the first half of the year and the Note series in the second half. But after the company hinted it was abandoning the Note series to sell more folding phones in 2021, the truth is not so tragic for Note fans: Samsung is basically turning the Galaxy Ultra into the new Note, as evidenced by the latest batch of leaks. We already saw the first indications of this last year, as the S21 Ultra supported a newfangled external S-Pen. B
With carmakers committed to sustainability targets for incoming decades, they are finding second life use cases for discarded cars and their components. Recently, Hyundai has found a new way to give a second life to preproduction prototypes. Rather than conventionally crushing them or using them for accident testing, it’s released a video showcasing a “rebirth” of various Ioniq 5 car components to create an air purifier. Hyundai originally built the test car for noise, vibration, and harshness
All of us at TNW were over the moon when we heard about Samsung’s new remote powered by a Solar panel last year. Saving us the trouble of hunting for AAA batteries is truly the Lord’s work, so thank you Samsung. This year, the Korean tech giant has upped its remote game by including a new ability: Wi-Fi Charging. Yes, the new remote can literally charge through your routers useless signals that bounce around your house. How cool is that! If you’re thinking about how this magic happens, the answe