• 1,545

• Bitcoin and other digital currencies have continued to tumble in value, amid concerns that Wall Street institutions are shunning cryptocurrencies.
• The British-built Aeolus satellite has begun firing its laser down on Earth to map the planet's winds.
• An autonomous vehicle billed as “the future of transportation” is spending the month ferrying passengers between two neighbouring tourist attractions in Calgary, Alberta.
• We may not have colonies on Mars and faster-than-light travel yet but, if you have a Vizio TV, you will get a taste of a bizarre future where gadgets turn against their makers after first betraying their owners. Also: a pop-up informing you that your TV has been spying on you will prompt you to sue its own manufacturer.

Top Stories for the Week of September 5, 2018

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• Mozilla says it will soon be modifying its Firefox browser to block all user-tracking on websites by default.
• Microsoft's long journey away from Intel reached escape velocity over the past week, as the first traditional laptop with Qualcomm's Arm processor was revealed by Lenovo: the Yoga C630 WOS.
• Uber says it plans to focus more on its electric scooter and bike business, and less on cars, despite the fact it could hurt profits.
• Scientists have for the first time used gene-editing to treat Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in a large mammal, a significant step towards effective treatment for people with the disorder.

Top Stories for the Week of August 29, 2018

• 1,473

• In a statement Friday, T-Mobile admitted that hackers have breached its systems and stolen customer data, including names, addresses, account numbers, and billing zip codes. The company said that it discovered the security breach on August 20th and immediately shut it down.
• IBM has filed a patent for a mood-sensing coffee delivery drone. It features Facial recognition, psychological profiling—and scalding liquid flying through the air.
• We've been keeping an eye on some of the accessibility enhancements coming to smart devices lately, and this week, Google Go, the tech giant's search app optimized for emerging markets, can read web sites out loud.
• Happy 27th birthday, Linux! Yes, it is, once again, the time of the year when we celebrate the hero of modern computing, the Linux Kernel.

Top Stories for the Week of August 22, 2018

• 1,472

• A bitcoin investor is suing AT&T for $240m after it allegedly ported his phone number to a hacker, allowing the criminal to steal $24m in cryptocurrency.
• A security plug-in for the Firefox browser is under fire after users discovered it was collecting and uploading their online activity.
• After a number of well documented hiccups, Linux 4.18 is now available.
• You’re not the only one feeling run down by the news of the day. The folks at Google apparently believe we could all use a dose of good news at times, too. The company has announced it is testing a new Google Assistant feature called “Tell me something good” that will allow users to hear a summary of more uplifting news stories.

Top Stories for the Week of August 15, 2018

• 1,364

• A neat feature of many modern laptops is the ability to power them up through the USB port. Unlike the rectangular USB ports of old, the newer type—USB-C—can carry enough power to charge your machine.
• A flaw in a US bank's computer software led to 625 customers not receiving government loan assistance to which they were entitled—and 400 of those lost their homes as a result.
• In a lawsuit filed in late July by Nintendo of America against two ROM distributing websites, the company states that the sites are “built almost entirely on the brazen and mass-scale infringement of Nintendo’s intellectual property rights.” Those who run the sites though, have a different story.
• Sir Patrick Stewart will reprise his iconic role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in a new Star Trek series for CBS All Access.

Top Stories for the Week of August 8, 2018

• 1,468

• Two men who masterminded various Coinvault ransomware infections will carry out 240 hours of community service as punishment for compromising thousands of computers and profiting around $12,000 from their users.
• The German state of Lower Saxony plans to follow Munich's example, and migrate 13,000 users from Linux back to Windows.
• Google has followed the lead of Apple by banning crypto-mining apps from its Play Store.
• Microsoft is finally doing something about the way Windows 10 handles updates. And it’s using machine learning to accomplish the task. If it’s successful, updating Windows 10 should, in the future, become much less annoying.