To the Moon? Dogecoin Leaps 46% in 24 Hours After Tweets From Elon Musk, Snoop Dogg

Friday the 71-year-old former lead singer of the band Kiss tweeted “I bought Dogecoin…six figures,” to his 922,000 followers, along with other supportive tweets. Saturday rap artist Snoop Dogg tweeted an image of “Snoop Doge” to his 19.2 million followers. Later Elon Musk tweeted a picture from the Lion King with Musk’s head appearing on a monkey holding up a monkey…

23andMe Is Going Public As It Pushes Further Into Healthcare

23andMe is becoming a publicly-traded company through a merger with Virgin’s VG Acquisition. Engadget reports: The deal values 23andMe at about $3.5 billion and should give the company the finances it wants to boost its personal healthcare and therapeutics plans. It should have over $900 million in cash, for instance. The merger is expected to close in the second quarter of…

Police Dismantle World’s ‘Most Dangerous’ Criminal Hacking Network

International law enforcement agencies said on Wednesday they had dismantled a criminal hacking scheme used to steal billions of dollars from businesses and private citizens worldwide. Reuters reports: Police in six European countries, as well as Canada and the United States, completed a joint operation to take control of Internet servers used to run and control a malware network known as…

BP Slashes Its Oil Exploration Team by 85%, Starts Switching to Renewables

Reuters reports on big changes at BP (the company formerly known as British Petroleum):
Its geologists, engineers and scientists have been cut to less than 100 from a peak of more than 700 a few years ago, company sources told Reuters, part of a climate change-driven overhaul triggered last year by CEO Bernard Looney. “The winds have turned very chilly in the…

Pandemic Paved the Way for Sim Racing, but Will It Last?

It takes more than gasoline to make a racecar run. It requires money. And money requires sponsors. And sponsors require spectators who they hope will become customers. Which became a problem for motorsports when Covid-19 shut down tracks worldwide early last year. The cash drought put teams, tracks and race series in danger of extinction. From a report: The industry turned…

Netflix Is Finally Adding a Streaming Roulette Feature As It Clinches 200 Million Subscribers

Netflix has officially amassed 200 million subscribers, sending shares soaring 12%. As it continues to compete with rival services, Netflix says it’s preparing to roll out a new feature that will allow the service to pick a title based on a user’s preferences rather than requiring them to browse for something to watch. Gizmodo reports: Netflix said in its fourth-quarter shareholders…

ECB’s Christine Lagarde Blasts Bitcoin’s Role In Facilitating Money Laundering

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde took aim at Bitcoin’s role in facilitating criminal activity, saying the cryptocurrency has been enabling “funny business.” “For those who had assumed that it might turn into a currency — terribly sorry, but this is an asset and it’s a highly speculative asset which has conducted some…

Lost Passwords Lock Millionaires Out of Their Bitcoin Fortunes

Stefan Thomas, a German-born programmer living in San Francisco, has two guesses left to figure out a password that is worth, as of this week, about $220 million. From a report: The password will let him unlock a small hard drive, known as an IronKey, which contains the private keys to a digital wallet that holds 7,002 Bitcoin. While the price…

Staples Offers To Buy Office Depot For $2.1 Billion

For the third time, Staples is proposing to buy rival Office Depot in a $2.1 billion deal. CNN reports: The $40-per-share offer price for Office Depot’s parent company, ODP Corp., is a roughly 60% premium over its average closing price for the last 90 trading days. The all-cash transaction, according to Staples, is a “compelling value proposition” and is a “superior…

Elon Musk is Now the Richest Person in the World

Elon Musk just became the richest person in the world, with a net worth of more than $185 billion. From a report: Thursday’s increase in Tesla’s share price pushed Musk past Jeff Bezos, who had been the richest person since 2017 and is currently worth about $184 billion. Musk’s wealth surge over the past year marks the fastest rise to the…