Technology news

A new report from the U.S. government on the impacts of climate change on society indicates that unless action is taken, climatological events could cost the country nearly half a trillion dollars annually by 2090.The National Climate Assessment is a Congressionally mandated report on the impacts of climate change and was culled from the work of 300 authors in a dozen federal agencies. The 1,000-page report covers the effect of climate change on agriculture, labor, geography and health in t

The card game company Cards Against Humanity has a long history of pulling Black Friday stunts. In 2013, it actually raised the price of their game by $5; in 2014, it sold literal bull shit. In 2016, it raised $100,00 to dig a hole for as long as consumers would fund the backhoe. Last year, it claimed to have given up on selling card games in favor of a not-at-all-copyright-infringing brand of potato chips called Prongles. (Note: the chips were actually manufactured and sold at Target.) “

Climate change continues to pose major risks to many aspects of American life, according to a major government climate report that was released today.“Climate-related risks will continue to grow without additional action,” The report says. “While Americans are responding in ways that can bolster resilience and improve livelihoods, neither global efforts to mitigate the causes of climate change nor regional efforts to adapt to the impacts currently approach the scales needed to

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. (This one’s a little shorter than usual — it’s a holiday weekend in the United States.) If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here:1. Black Friday predicted to hit $5.9B in online sales, $645M spent so far
After a record-breaking Thanksgiving with $3.7 billion in digital sales across desktop and mobile devices, it looks l

Next week, BlockShow is returning to Singapore for the second time after successful events in Berlin and Las Vegas. But BlockShow Asia 2018—which will take place Nov. 28 and 29—already stands out. The 3,000 expected attendees can buy tickets via ethereum-based smart contracts thanks to a partnership with Trustee, the secure and easy-to-use blockchain service providing the interface. Booking tickets on the blockchain The smart contract DApp enables users to book tickets directly, wit

Holiday pet peeve No. 1,043: wrapping presents. Those people in the mall make it look so simple, but cutting paper just so, folding around awkwardly-shaped objects, endlessly scraping to find the edge of the masking tape — it’s a hellish process. This year, save yourself the embarrassment of delivering a gift that looks like it was wrapped by a third-grader and go all digital. We’ve pulled together five killer sales on these non-tangible gift ideas from TNW Deals. You’ll

More and more web-browsers in the contemporary age are beginning to rely on virtual private networks (VPNs) for a myriad of reasons, which has led to a boom in their proliferation. Many people still don’t know anything about VPNs, however, and certainly don’t know where to start when it comes to learning about them and whether they can be trusted. More than almost anything else, a VPN will keep you secure in a digital age defined by data breaches and surveillance. Virtual private ne

An unprecedented international grand committee comprising 22 representatives from seven parliaments will meet in London next week to put questions to Facebookabout the online fake news crisis and the social network’s own string of data misuse scandals.
But Facebook founder Mark Zuckerbergwon’t be providing any answers. The company has repeatedly refused requests for him to answer parliamentarians’ questions.
Instead it’s sending a veteran EMEA policy guy, Richard Allan,no

There are so many streaming options available these days, and so many conflicting recommendations, that it’s hard to see through all the crap you could be watching. Each Friday, The Verge’s Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting through the overwhelming multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services and recommending a single perfect thing to watch this weekend.
What to watch
Sólo con Tu Pareja, the debut feature film from Mexican director Alfonso Cuar

Meet BlueCargo, a logistics startup focused on seaport terminals. The company was part of Y Combinator’s latest batch and recently raised a $3 million funding round from 1984 Ventures, Green Bay Ventures, Sound Ventures, Kima Ventures and others.
If you picture a terminal, chances are you see huge piles of containers. But current sorting methods are not efficient at all. Yard cranes end up moving a ton of containers just to reach a container sitting at the bottom of the pile.
BlueCargowant

Fledging web browser Brave, which doubles as an ecosystem for rewarding content creators with its native cryptocurrency, has drawn heavy criticism for the way it intends to combat fraudsters looking to exploit its platform for profit. Riccardo Spagni, spiritual leader of privacy-focused cryptocurrency Monero, says those in charge of Brave may have inadvertently afforded themselves power to “steal” unclaimed Basic Attention Tokens (BAT), Brave’s internal ERC-20 token.

We’re inviting blockchain and cryptocurrency startups, projects, and organizations to battle it out. Our blockchain and cryptocurrency event, Hard Fork Decentralized, is taking place in London on December 12-14. Together with our lineup of speakers (including Thomas Power, Kavita Gupta, and Mustafa Al-Bassam) we’ll be answering the unanswered questions about the industry – from scalability to diversity, and everything in between. The concept is simple: leading industry compani

At last, Black Friday‘s here! Okay, that might’ve been a bit too enthusiastic, but what can you do? Whether the day fills you with dread or desire, it’s not hard to argue that there are some good bargains nestled amongst the trash. The problem is that a lot of Black Friday deals are for expensive items, like TVs and computers. What if you’re just in the market for something small and cheap? Well, we’ve got your back. Here are some great deals on groovy products und

A small group of Ethereum developers had a rendezvous to discuss a previously undisclosed upgrade that could streamline the scaling of the blockchain. The solution will purportedly be called “Ethereum 1x,” but the developers are reluctant to share more details as it is still too early-stage, people familiar with the matter told CoinDesk. Among other people, co-founders Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Lubin were in attendance. The report suggests that at least three private development wo

It always pays to find a good deal on video games, consoles, and accessories, especially on newer titles and hardware. This year, GameStop has the usual round of deals on controllers and some slightly older titles, but there’s also some standout deals, like a sharp discount on Forza Horizon 4 and other recent games, deals on Xbox One X and One S bundles, as well as a deal on a new PS4 Slim bundled with Spider-Man.
These deals started before most Black Friday specials, and GameStop claims

If you’re a Costco member, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re already paying attention to the retailer’s Black Friday sales. But if you’re not, some of the deals below might just warrant a membership purchase.
After getting a start in early November before most retailers started holiday sales, Costco’s second and final batch of deals have begun, and last until Friday, November 26th.
We’ll be adding and removing deals to reflect what’s curren

HTC, the maker of the first ever commercially available Android phone, is still keen on making new devices, even after a disappointing year that saw it lose $330 million in the fourth quarter. A report from DigiTimes suggests that the company has waved off any suggestions of quitting the smartphone business. Indeed, a cursory glance at HTC shows a company continuing to launch new devices. Just this year alone, it released the Desire 12 and 12+, the U12 life, the U12+, and its yet-to-be availabl

Amazon has cut prices on several of its own devices, along with several more discounted products in celebration of Black Friday. Included in the sale so far are iPads, Fire TV Edition televisions, Chromebooks, and much more. To attract shoppers, Amazon is offering free shipping during the holiday period for non-Prime members. Gone is the $25 purchase minimum.
As its daily Black Friday sales continue throughout the weekend, we’ll be adding and removing items in order to reflect what’

Ugh, the Gregorian calendar is so boring. That’s why we’re disrupting monthly series with a lunar cycle-based series about the best patents of the last synodic month, picked by the PatentYogi team. Get ready when that moon gets gibbous, y’all. This November-ish roundup lands on the beautiful Beaver Moon! Since my last post, the US patent office issued over 27,454 patents and published over 29,731 patent applications. Each patent asset adds a little something new to the hu

Amazonwarehouse workers in several countries in Europe are protesting over what they claim are inhuman working conditions which treat people like robots. It’s the latest in a series of worker actions this year.
They’ve timed the latest protest for Black Friday, one of the busiest annual shopping days online as retailers slash prices and heavily promote deals to try to spark a seasonal buying rush.
In the UK, the GMB Union says it’s expecting “hundreds” to atten

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.
It’s the day after Thanksgiving, so if you are reading this in America I hope there is a pet leaned up against your legs and that you are sitting next to a fire while staring down one more plate of leftovers.
We made this episode for just such a moment. Welcome to our take on a relaxed episode of Equity, a show normally featuring four people arguing

It’s not often trades unions and employers are equally worried about an issue threatening workers’ rights. But recently, the UK’s Trades Union Congress and the main body that represents British businesses, the CBI, have both voiced concerns about the budding practice of implanting employees with microchips. Initially, the chips are being used in place of ID cards as a way of opening secure doors. But there’s good reason to think the use of implants could expand to more s

After a record-breaking Thanksgiving with $3.7 billion in digital sales across desktop and mobile devices, Black Friday pulled in a bumper year for e-commerce. Adobe — which tracks trillions of transactions across a range of retail sites — says that $6.22 billion was spent in the day, up just over 23 percent on a year ago.
That was in line with estimates earlier in the day, after tracking sales that saw $4.1 billion was already spent online by 5pm Pacific time.
More than one-thi

The US government is attempting to persuade allies to stop using Huawei equipment due to security fears, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Sources claim that US government officials have met with counterparts in Germany, Japan, and Italy, and are reportedly considering offering financial incentives to countries who opt not to use equipment from the Chinese manufacturer.Already this year the US has banned government use of Huawei-made equipment and refuses to let retail stores on

Google has announced it will publicize the identity of organizations paying for political ads during the 2019 EU Parliamentary Elections. Any ad that mentions a political party, candidate, or office holder will have to tell users who paid for it, with Google also introducing a new process to verify these identities. The Election Ads Transparency Report which summarizes which organizations are spending the money in which locations, will also be returning from 2017’s US Midterm Elections.Go

A major player in the race to transport Chinese people around is losing steam. Meituan Dianping, the Tencent-backed, all-encompassing platform for local services, continues to put the brakes on bike-sharing and ride-hailing, the company said on its earnings call on Thursday.
The eight-year-old firm is best known for competing with Alibaba-owned Ele.me in food deliveries — the segment that makes up the majority of its sales — and hotel booking, but it’s aggressively branche

Video game publisher Square Enix has pulled a trio of titles from Belgium after the European nation passed legislation cracking down on loot boxes earlier this year.
According to a report from The Guardian, Square Enix has pulled three free-to-play mobile games from the country: Mobius Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts Union X, and Dissidia Final Fantasy Opera Omnia. In a statement given to the paper, Square Enix cited “the present uncertain legal status of ‘loot boxes’ under Belg