Month: August 2022

Enlarge / Craig Wright, self-declared inventor of bitcoin, center, arrives at federal court with his attorney Andres Rivero, right, in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Friday, June 28, 2019. (credit: Bloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg)

In 2016, when Craig Wright promised to provide “extraordinary proof” that he is bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, he was met with a lot of skepticism. Some had doubts when Wright fabricated evidence, and many weren’t surprised when he failed to bring forward the supposed proof he promised. Instead, he apologized for lacking the “courage” to share any real evidence. Then, in 2018, he committed perjury, further inflaming public perceptions that he could be a fraud.

By 2019, Wright began fighting back at critics by threatening to take them to court for defamation. Among Wright’s most vocal skeptics is bitcoin expert Peter McCormack, who became the first target of Wright's litigiousness. In 2019, Wright sued McCormack for libel for tweeting things like “Craig Wright is a fucking liar, and he’s a fraud; and he’s a moron; he is not Satoshi.” Wright expected that a successful libel lawsuit against McCormack would finally prove he founded bitcoin.

This week, a verdict was delivered by a UK high court—where Justice Martin Chamberlain wrote that “the identity of Satoshi is not among the issues” determined. The libel lawsuit, in the end, was a victory for Wright; he was awarded damages for the "serious harm" McCormack caused to his reputation. But it also proved that, once again, Wright is not being forthcoming about evidence in his public fight to be acknowledged as bitcoin’s creator.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

For much of the automobile's existence, speed was the statistic that sold. But the move to electric vehicles is emphasizing range over performance—ironic given the EV's inherent performance advantage here. While range remains a barrier to EV adoption, it takes second place to charging logistics. For about two-thirds of US drivers, the answer is simply to charge at home, parked in a garage or carport. But for the remaining third, that's not possible, and that's a problem.

From the post-war decades, a win at the racetrack or a new speed record translated to showroom success, both in the US and Europe. In turn, horsepower wars between automakers erupted every few years, steadily making our cars quicker and quicker. That trend is arguably accelerating—the near-instant torque of an electric motor means even SUVs that aren't supposed to be that sporty are capable of 0-to-60 times that would rival a supercar not too long ago.

But when every EV can launch from a stoplight fast enough to give you whiplash, pretty soon everyone needs a new reason to one-up each other. The range fixation makes plenty of sense, given the long charging times and the difficulty that would ensue from completely running out of charge while out in the world. But in practice, most of us drive fewer than 30 miles a day, and many EVs fill their days running errands and commuting, returning home to recharge to 100 percent overnight.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | SimoneN)

The US Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday filed a lawsuit against 11 people accused of creating and promoting a crypto pyramid and Ponzi scheme known as "Forsage." The fraudulent scheme "raised more than $300 million from millions of retail investors worldwide, including in the United States," the SEC's announcement said.

The SEC alleged that "in January 2020, Vladimir Okhotnikov, Jane Doe a/k/a Lola Ferrari, Mikhail Sergeev, and Sergey Maslakov launched Forsage.io, a website that allowed millions of retail investors to enter into transactions via smart contracts that operated on the Ethereum, Tron, and Binance blockchains." Forsage allegedly "operated as a pyramid scheme for more than two years, in which investors earned profits by recruiting others into the scheme." Forsage also "used assets from new investors to pay earlier investors in a typical Ponzi structure," the SEC said.

The SEC filed a complaint in US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against the four alleged co-founders and seven other people, accusing them of violating the registration and anti-fraud provisions of the federal securities laws. The complaint seeks permanent injunctions, disgorgement, and civil penalties.

Enlarge (credit: Hyper/Kickstarter)

For power users juggling a high-resolution monitor or two, large data transfers, multiple PC accessories that need power, and, perhaps, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, a Thunderbolt dock can add helpful high-speed ports while powering a supporting PC, like a MacBook. This helps streamline an office setup but also typically comes with a clunky power brick to add to the mix. Hyper's gallium nitride (GaN)-powered HyperDrive Thunderbolt 4 Hub, which started crowdfunding on Monday, is hoping to change that.

Hyper, a 7-year-old maker of PC hubs, docks, portable chargers, and the like, is seeking to crowdfund a Thunderbolt 4 hub that it claims is the first "Thunderbolt 4 hub with an integrated GaN power source." The dock is a small, rounded-edge square offering one Thunderbolt 4 upstream port and three Thunderbolt4 downstream ports with up 40Gbps operation and accompanied by zero clunky power bricks.

However, Hyper isn't ready to release its dock yet; it's currently undergoing a Kickstarter campaign.

Enlarge / Real Racing running on a Vulkan-powered Raspberry Pi 4. (credit: Raspberry Pi)

The Raspberry Pi 4 has hit a major graphics milestone, adding support for a more modern Vulkan 3D API. While that doesn’t mean a smooth Doom (2016) experience on the single-board wonder, it does help Pis running Android and points to some future powers.

Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton announced the Pi 4’s Vulkan 1.2 conformance on Monday. Support isn’t available yet in downloadable Pi-friendly operating systems but should be coming soon.

For most people using their Pi as a server, a DIY controller, or a light desktop, Vulkan 1.2 conformance won’t be noticeable. Desktop graphics on the standard Raspberry Pi OS are powered by OpenGL, the older graphics API that Vulkan is meant to replace. There is one group that benefits, says Upton: games and other 3D Android applications. Android uses Vulkan as its low-overhead graphics API.

Enlarge / Apple's Studio Display. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Developer and blogger Michael Tsai has been collecting anecdotes about a new problem with Apple's Studio Display: recurring audio glitches. Symptoms include audio playback becoming "choppy" or cutting out entirely, and some users have reported similar difficulties with the built-in microphone and even the webcam.

MacRumors reported today that Apple circulated a memo to service providers acknowledging the issue and recommending that affected users power cycle their Studio Displays. This recommendation is made somewhat awkward because the Studio Display has no physical power button and can't be completely shut down or restarted through macOS. But if you unplug the display's power cable, wait at least 10 seconds, and plug it back in, that ought to straighten things out while Apple develops a fix.

The Studio Display has more internal smarts than typical computer monitors—it's essentially a low-end iPad on the inside, complete with an A13 chip, 64GB of storage, and an iOS-derived operating system. That means it can do some unique things, like supporting the pan-and-scanning Center Stage feature or always-on Hey Siri, regardless of the capabilities of the Mac it's connected to. But it also means that, like any computer, it can have software bugs.