Friday on Instagram Jeff Bezos shared footage from NASA’s test of Blue Origin’s BE-7 engine, which he described approvingly as “a high-performance, additively manufactured liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen lunar landing engine with 10,000 lbf [pound-force] of thrust — deep throttling down to 2,000 lbf for a precise landing on the Moon.” The test brings the program’s cumulative test time up to 1,245…
Tag: jeff bezos
Bloomberg Columnist: Bitcoin is Part of a Real Monetary Revolution
In an eloquent essay, Scottish-American historian Niall Ferguson argues that “We are living through a monetary revolution so multifaceted that few of us comprehend its full extent.” The technological transformation of the internet is driving this revolution. The pandemic of 2020 has accelerated it… Covid-19 has been good for Bitcoin and for cryptocurrency generally. First, the pandemic accelerated our advance into…
Tesla is Now Worth Half a Trillion Dollars
Surging Tesla shares have pushed the company’s market capitalization to more than $515 billion, a fivefold increase since the start of the year. From a report: The traditionally volatile stock has continued to experience price swings. But since reaching a low for the year in March, Tesla’s share price has been on an upwards trajectory that accelerated in August. Tesla’s share…
Twitch Says It’s In Talks To License Music, Tells Users To Delete Videos With Unauthorized Tracks
In a lengthy blog post, Twitch told streamers that they must stop playing recorded music on their streams (unless it’s officially licensed) and that “if you haven’t already, you should review your historical VODs and Clips that may have music in them and delete any archives that might.” Variety reports: The Amazon-owned live-streaming platform also claimed that it is “actively speaking…
Amazon Now Has More Than 1 Million Employees
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Amazon.com said it now has about 1 million employees after hiring 250,000 workers in the third quarter, part of a growth spurt driven by booming ecommerce sales during the coronavirus pandemic and a milestone for a company founded in 1995 by Jeff Bezos as an online bookseller. Despite its rapid ascent, Amazon…
Microsoft Teams With SpaceX To Push Cloud Battle With Amazon Into Orbit
Microsoft is teaming with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and others as the software giant opens a new front in its cloud-computing battle with Amazon.com targeting space customers. From a report: Microsoft would help connect and deploy new services using swarms of low-orbit spacecraft being proposed by SpaceX [Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], and more traditional fleets of satellites…
Blue Origin’s New Shepard completed its 7th launch and landing this week
Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket successfully launched an uncrewed test flight on October 13, with both its capsule and booster later executing a flawless landing. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/blue-origin-new-shepard-7th-launch-landing-oct-13-2020…
Bezos’ Blue Origin conducts successful test flight for tourism rocket
Blue Origin, the US space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, succeeded Tuesday in its latest test flight of its rocket aimed at one day taking tourists to space, even as the date of the first crewed launch remains unclear. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-10-bezos-blue-successful-flight-tourism.html…
Microsoft Is Now the ‘Adult In the Room’ Among Big Tech, Says Seattle Congresswoman
As Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google are being targeted by the House Judiciary Committee for abusing American antitrust law, one major company has managed to escape the glare: Microsoft. That’s because they are now “the adult in the room in some ways on this issue,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.), a Democratic member of the House Antitrust subcommittee, which has…
EU Lawmakers Ask Jeff Bezos Whether Amazon Spies on Politicians
A cross-party group of MEPs has written to Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, demanding information on the online retailer’s monitoring of trade union activists and politicians in response to deleted job postings that described unions as “threats.” From a report: The letter, from 37 members of the European parliament, said they were concerned Amazon deliberately targeted workers seeking to organise, and…