Month: July 2018

The platform reportedly collected bets over the course of eight months, bringing in 330,000 users from around the world. Over 8,000 individuals were named as agents, earning commissions when they attracted new members. While this is apparently the first ring to be busted that used cryptocurrency, authorities in the country have been working to crack down on gambling, which is largely illegal across China. So far, they have reportedly arrested 540 suspects and frozen 260 million yuan (~$39 million) as part of an effort to stem illegal World Cup betting.

Chinese authorities haven’t been big fans of cryptocurrencies. The country banned initial coin offerings last year and has been making moves to shut down access to domestic and foreign cryptocurrency exchanges.

BlackFly is powered by “eight propulsion systems, spread across two wings,” which will provide redundancy in the case of failure. The craft can take off from the water and is fully amphibious, but it’s designed to work best over grassy spaces. The flying vehicle can Super Charge in less than 30 minutes and has an automatic-return-to home feature.

Opener hasn’t disclosed exactly what the BlackFly will cost, but according to the BBC, it will be comparable to the price of a sports utility vehicle. Prices on early models will, of course, be higher, but the company wants to keep this personal aircraft affordable. “We will offer competitive pricing in an endeavor to democratize three-dimensional personal transportation,” said Marcus Leng, CEO of Opener.

Larry Page, the Google co-founder, is one of Opener’s backers. Page is also involved in another personal aerial vehicle startup, called Kitty Hawk. But those are just two of the companies working on a personal aircraft. Uber, Airbus, Volvo, Toyota and other companies are also frantically working on this tech. It remains to be seen which ones will emerge as the winners.

Titanium is an ideal material for the industry, because it’s lightweight and can withstand the harsh conditions of space travel. However, manufacturers end up wasting 80 percent of the material using traditional manufacturing techniques — plus, each component could take years to build. Rick Ambrose, the company’s executive VP, said they were able to cut down the total delivery timeline for a titanium fuel tank dome from two years to an incredibly impressive three months. “Our largest 3D-printed parts to date show we’re committed to a future where we produce satellites twice as fast and at half the cost.”

3D printing has the potential to transform the space industry by giving contractors a way to build spacecraft more quickly and for a much smaller amount of money. In fact, Lockheed Martin plans to build NASA’s Orion crew capsule with 100 3D-printed parts, while Boeing announced way back in early 2017 that its Starliner space taxi will have over 600.

On the surface, Roku’s wireless speakers looks like a typical pair of affordable bookshelf units. They’re black and fairly nondescript, save for a Roku logo up top. They’re meant to disappear beside your TV, not stand out. In a brief demo in New York City, they sound… well, like a pair of bookshelf speakers. They’re obviously a huge upgrade over the built-in speakers in one of TCL’s Roku TVs. There’s a noticeable amount of stereo separation (obviously), and they sound well balanced across the low-end and high-end. The speakers add a healthy dose of bass to action movies, and Roku also designed them to enhance dialog too.

Yes, they’re also Bluetooth speakers, though I didn’t get to see that feature during my demo. Strangely enough, they’re not compatible with standard Roku set-top boxes. Since this is its first foray into home audio, Roku says it wanted to focus on rolling out the speakers to one set of products first. The speakers will ship with a Roku Voice Remote, as well as a new Touch controller, which is meant to sit on your coffee table and offer quick access to common features, like volume controls, video playable and voice commands.