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TECH CRUNCH
How Duolingo became a $2.4B language unicorn At the heart of Duolingo is its mission: to scale free education and increase income potential through language learning. However, the same mission that has helped it grow to a business valued at $2.4 billion with over 500 million registered learners, has led…

How one founder realized the potential of sustainable energy stored deep below our feet On this week’s Found podcast, we sat down with Dandelion co-founder and President Kathy Hannun. Kathy came up with the idea for Dandelion while working at Google X, tackling some of the world’s most intractable problems, and making them tractable through the …

This Week in Apps: App Store advertising expands, Google Play plans for safety, Epic v. Apple trial begins Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the weekly TechCrunch series that recaps the latest in mobile OS news, mobile applications and the overall app economy. The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consu…

Cowboy launches the Cowboy 4 e-bike, with a step-through version and built-in phone charger E-bike startup Cowboy has launched the Cowboy 4, its newest generation of urban electric bikes. The bike will come in two different frames, a traditional frame, and a step-through. The C4 is basically an upgrade on the previous version 3, while the ‘C4 ST’ is…

When the Earth is gone, at least the internet will still be working The internet is now our nervous system. We are constantly streaming and buying and watching and liking, our brains locked into the global information matrix as one universal and coruscating emanation of thought and emotion. What happens when the machine stops…

Daily Crunch: A huge fintech exit as the week ends Hello friends and welcome to Daily Crunch, bringing you the most important startup, tech and venture capital news in a single package.

Tesla refutes Elon Musk's timeline on 'full self-driving' What Tesla CEO Elon Musk says publicly about the company’s progress on a fully autonomous driving system doesn’t match up with “engineering reality,” according to a memo that summarizes a meeting between California regulators and employees at the automaker. T…

Betting on upcoming startup markets Welcome back to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter for your weekend enjoyment.

Extra Crunch roundup: How Duolingo became an edtech leader The pandemic has just pushed edtech mainstream, but language-learning startup Duolingo had already spent the past decade figuring out how to build a successful edtech app. In our latest installment of the EC-1 series, Natasha Mascarenhas goes deep with the co…

Sennheiser sells off its consumer brand Long-running German audio company Sennheiser today announced that it has found a buyer for its consumer brand. Swiss holding company Sonova — a giant in the hearing aid business — will be acquiring the brand in a deal expected to close by end of year. The dea…

WIRED
The Colonial Pipeline Hack Is a New Extreme for Ransomware An attack has crippled the company’s operations—and cut off a large portion of the East Coast’s fuel supply—in an ominous development for critical infrastructure.

Microsoft Will Soon Kill Flash on Windows 10 for Good Plus: A Peloton data leak, Russian hacker details, and more of the week’s top security news.

Microsoft’s 15-Inch Surface Laptop 4 Is a Battery Champion This fourth-gen notebook lacks Thunderbolt and has a spongy keyboard, but it delivers where it matters most.

ISPs Funded 8.5 Million Fake Comments Opposing Net Neutrality The secret campaign, backed by major broadband companies, used real people’s names without their consent.

What’s the Point of Wasps, Anyway? A new study says the reviled stinging insects play a critical ecological role—and their venom might even be useful to people.

These 5 Weighted Blankets Are on Sale Right Now Weighted blankets are comforting, but they're usually pricey. We found discounts on one for kids, a king-sized model, and more.

Trump Abused the System. Facebook Created It The company's oversight board failed to mention one thing in its ruling this week: Facebook's responsibility for making the tools to wield undue influence and power.

Pfizer's FDA Request, Vaccine Diplomacy, and More Coronavirus News Catch up on the most important updates from this week.

It Began as an AI-Fueled Dungeon Game. It Got Much Darker The game touted its use of the GPT-3 text generator. Then the algorithm started to generate disturbing stories, including sex scenes involving children.

They Told Their Therapists Everything. Hackers Leaked It All A mental health startup built its business on easy-to-use technology. Patients joined in droves. Then came a catastrophic data breach.

HACKER NEWS
Eating sardines regularly helps prevent type 2 diabetes Nutrients such as taurine, omega 3, calcium and vitamin D help to protect against the diseaseThe study was carried out on a group of participants aged 65 and above. However, investigators claim the results could be extrapolated to other age groupsSardine cons…

Gnuplot Is Not GNU None

What did Einstein mean by “spooky action at a distance”? Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science

Background Twitter engineers found and fixed a Linux kernel bug in memory shrinker which caused OOM for us.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup – An open-source roguelike adventure None

Child's burial 78,000 years ago in Kenya was a Homo sapiens milestone It is a scene that exudes sadness: a child perhaps 2-1/2 or 3 years old buried in a shallow grave under the sheltered overhang of a cave, head resting on a pillow and the upper part of the body carefully wrapped in a shroud.

How Gravity Is a Double Copy of Other Forces | Quanta Magazine An enigmatic connection between the forces of nature is allowing physicists to explore gravity’s quantum side.

There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically) Dendronization – Evolving into a tree-like morphology. (In the style of “carcinization”.) From ‘dendro’, the ancient Greek root for tree.

How I Practice Piano This is my usual method of practicing, gleaned from my teacher, old posts on the Piano Street forums, Graham Fitch’s Practising the Piano, and various other books and resources. It’s ra…

Staying on the path to high performing teams. A friend is six months into supporting a sixty person engineering group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of their teams believe they have urgent hiring needs. It’s a great question, and captures a deeply challenging aspect of leading an organization: keeping th…

WALL STREET JOURNAL
Chinese Rocket Returns to Earth Over Indian Ocean Re-entry eases days of anxiety that pieces would fall on densely populated areas

Shooter in Times Square Injures Two Women and a Child Saturday afternoon shooting in New York City adds to concerns about rising crime

Afghanistan Bomb Attack Targeting Schoolgirls Kills at Least 30 People The attack on Shiite area amplifies concerns that Afghanistan will slip into sectarian violence as U.S. withdraws

Cyberattack Forces Closure of Largest U.S. Refined-Fuel Pipeline Operator of the Colonial Pipeline, the leading fuel conduit to the East Coast, said it had temporarily halted operations after discovering the threat Friday

Covid-19 Vaccines in U.S. Beckon Foreigners Seeking Shots and Shops Tourism from Texas to Florida gets a boost as tens of thousands from Mexico and elsewhere arrive for jabs

Andrew Cuomo Investigation Expands as State Attorney General Looks at Aide’s Calls Inquiry into sexual-harassment allegations looks at whether a top adviser linked access to Covid-19 vaccines to support for the governor

Many Women of Color Use Social Media, Peers for Investment Advice As financial advice becomes popular on social-media platforms, some women say they don’t need an adviser

Why DoorDash and Uber Eats Delivery Is Costing You More Apps are shifting some costs to customers; restaurants are raising prices on apps and offering cheaper direct orders

Cannabis Goes Corporate: Lobbyists, Unions Seek to Shape Marijuana Industry Lobbying on federal marijuana policy picked up in the first quarter of 2021, as banks and tobacco and alcohol companies begin to weigh in

What Happens to Stocks and Cryptocurrencies When the Fed Stops Raining Money? An unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus led by the Federal Reserve is fueling a new investor euphoria. Is this a new bubble? And when could it burst?

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Election officials face fines, charges in GOP voting laws In 2020, election officials tried to make voting easier and safer amid a global pandemic. Next time, they might get fined or face criminal charges. Republicans are creating a new slate of punishments for the county officials who run elections, arguing they ov…

In a small New Hampshire town, the 2020 election still rages WINDHAM, N.H. (AP) — Meetings of the Windham Board of Selectmen are usually as sleepy as they sound — a handful of residents from the New Hampshire town, a discussion of ambulance fees, maybe a drainage study...

Stefanik's political evolution mirrors story of today's GOP NEW YORK (AP) — There was a time, not long ago, when Elise Stefanik would not say Donald Trump's name...

States scale back vaccine orders as interest in shots wanes MADISON, Wis. (AP) — States asked the federal government this week to withhold staggering amounts of COVID-19 vaccine amid plummeting demand for the shots, contributing to a growing U.S. stockpile of doses...

Elon Musk shows humility and hubris as 'SNL' host Elon Musk showed a combination of humility and hubris as he opened his highly anticipated hosting gig on “Saturday Night Live.”The 49-year-old Tesla CEO, SpaceX founder and one of the world’s richest men opened his monologue by mocking his monotonal speaking …

Major US pipeline halts operations after ransomware attack WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is working with the Georgia-based company that shut down a major pipeline transporting fuel across the East Coast after a ransomware attack, the White House says...

Death toll soars to 50 in school bombing in Afghan capital KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The death toll in a horrific bombing at a girls’ school in the Afghan capital has soared to 50, many of them pupils between 11 and 15 years old, the Interior Ministry said Sunday...

China says most rocket debris burned up during reentry BEIJING (AP) — China's space agency said a core segment of its biggest rocket reentered Earth’s atmosphere above the Maldives in the Indian Ocean and that most of it burned up early Sunday. Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who tracked the tumbling ro…

As cases grow, India's vaccination campaign falters BENGALURU, India (AP) — Since India opened vaccinations to all adults this month, hoping to tame a disastrous coronavirus surge sweeping across the country, the pace of administering the shots has dropped with states saying they only have limited stock to giv…

Vaccine deserts: Some countries have no COVID-19 jabs at all N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) — At the small hospital where Dr. Oumaima Djarma works in Chad's capital, there are no debates over which coronavirus vaccine is the best.There are simply no vaccines at all...

BUSINESS INSIDER
Dogecoin plummets during Elon Musk's 'Saturday Night Live' hosting gig as Robinhood experiences issues Robinhood said crypto trading was "back up and running" about 30 minutes after reporting difficulties.

Deputy campaign manager for former Sen. Martha McSally stole over $115,000 from her campaign Anthony Barry is facing up to five years in prison for "fraudulently" directing the campaign to give him additional payments beyond his salary.

Chinese rocket debris reenters atmosphere, lands in the Indian Ocean The rocket had been hurtling towards Earth for a week with no one knowing when or where it would land.

The travel industry is capitalizing on people coming to the US to get COVID-19 vaccines Thousands of tourists, mainly from Mexico, have made long trips to get COVID-19 vaccine shots in the states due to limited supply in their home countries.

A woman and young child were shot in Times Square Police said two people were injured in a Times Square shooting. No arrests have been made, and an investigation is ongoing.

McConnell won't support corporate tax hikes to fund Ky. bridge project McConnell is pushing for a more targeted $600 billion infrastructure plan, devoid of corporate tax increases, that Senate Republicans could support.

Silicon Valley VCs are at war with the 'far left radicals' running California Forget Arnold Schwarzenegger, Silicon Valley VCs are the new celebrities at the center of California's political recall campaigns.

Employees describe Amazon's ambiguous, unrealistic 'Focus' coaching Amazon's performance coaching programs are unfair, unclear, and give managers too much power over their careers, insiders say.

Eric and Lara Trump spent $3.2 million on mansion in Jupiter, Florida The home is located in the gated community of Trump National Golf Club, which is owned by former president Donald Trump.

China says rocket will mostly burn in atmosphere, harm unlikely China's Long March 5B rocket took off on April 29, and a big chunk is now heading back to Earth in an uncontrolled reentry.