China’s central bank has begun cautiously testing a digital currency

Speeches and research papers from officials at the People's Bank of China show that the bank’s strategy is to introduce the digital currency alongside China’s renminbi. But there is currently no timetable for this, and the bank seems to be proceeding cautiously. Nonetheless the test is a significant step. It shows that China is seriously exploring the technical, logistical, and economic challenges involved in deploying digital money, something that could ultimately have broad implications for its economy and for the global financial system.
Read more: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608088/chinas-central-bank-has-begun-cautiously-testing-a-digital-currency/?source=Snapzu

How "Scott's Cheap Flights" went from an unknown to a behemoth

Scott and Brian explain how they grew a small side project into a booming businesses with over 600,000 subscribers.
Read more: https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/scotts-cheap-flights?source=Snapzu

A Wide World of Winless War

Globe-Trotting U.S. Special Ops Forces Already Deployed to 137 Nations in 2017. By Nick Turse.
Read more: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176300/?source=Snapzu

Walgreens scraps Rite Aid merger, will instead buy half its stores

Drugstore chain Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) scrapped its deal to buy Rite Aid Corp (RAD.N) after failing to win antitrust approval, but said it would instead buy nearly half of the smaller rival's U.S. stores for $5.18 billion.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-riteaid-m-a-walgreens-boots-idUSKBN19K1DK?source=Snapzu

In Detroit, Artists Explore the Riches of the 99-Cent Store

For a summer exhibition titled “99 Cents or Less,” the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit has begun to resemble a dollar shop. By Chris Hampton.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/28/arts/design/museum-of-contemporary-art-detroit-99-cents-or-less.html?rref=collection/sectioncollection/arts?source=Snapzu

Trump’s crackdown on immigration is terrible news for anyone who eats food

And it’s particularly bad news for farmers. By Tom Philpott.
Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/06/immigration-farm-workers-employment-trump/?source=Snapzu

Sony to start making records again 30 years after abandoning vinyl

Factory south-west of Tokyo will be pressing records by March as demand for format surges
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/29/sony-making-records-30-years-abandoning-vinyl?source=Snapzu

Emmanuel Macron’s new tech visa will make France an unlikely laboratory for globalization

Emmanuel Macron wants France to become a country of startups, and not just for French founders. That’s why the newly elected president is talking up a new tech visa intended to make it easier for fast-growing companies to hire foreign talent and for entrepreneurs to set up shop in France.
Read more: https://qz.com/1016742/emmanuel-macrons-new-tech-visa-is-designed-to-make-france-more-friendly-for-startups-than-the-us-or-uk?source=Snapzu

Pesticides damage survival of bee colonies, landmark study shows

The world’s largest ever field trial demonstrates widely used insecticides harm both honeybees and wild bees, increasing calls for a ban. By Damian Carrington.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/29/pesticides-damage-survival-of-bee-colonies-landmark-study-shows?source=Snapzu

They Built the First Phone You Loved. Where in the World Is Nokia Now?

The Finnish giant missed the smartphone revolution. Now it wants to power a new world of driverless cars and telemedicine.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-29/they-built-the-first-phone-you-loved-where-in-the-world-is-nokia-now?source=Snapzu

"Microsoft" Scam Callers Arrested After Years of Terrorising the Technically Challenged

Those shameless scammers that cold-call people pretending to be from Microsoft and demanding money after walking users through supposed problems with their computers? They're going down, it seems, with four people arrested in the UK for enabling the rip-off.
Read more: http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/06/microsoft-scam-callers-arrested-after-years-of-terrorising-the-technically-challenged/?source=Snapzu

Billionaire Warren Buffett says 'the real problem' with the US economy is people like him

Warren Buffett says people like him are the problem with the U.S. economy. With a net worth of more than $75 billion, Buffett is currently the second richest man alive, according to Forbes. As the CEO of investing house Berkshire Hathaway, he is hallowed as the Oracle of Omaha. But for all his personal success, Buffett says the issue really is the 1 percent.
Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/27/warren-buffett-says-the-problem-with-the-economy-is-people-like-him.html?source=Snapzu

Mysterious stealth gaming startup Wonder announces $14 million in funding

Ah, another day, another stealth mobile gaming startup getting funded by Shakira. LA-based Wonder announced today that it has closed a Series A round of funding led by Grishin Robotics and TCL Communication Holdings Ltd.; Wonder announced they had raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding in July of last year, but we now know that they have raised about $14 million in funding to date.
Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/28/mysterious-stealth-gaming-startup-wonder-announces-14-million-in-funding/?ncid=rss?source=Snapzu

The True Tale of an Ayahuasca Quest

Writer Wells Tower traveled to the jungles of Peru to experience an ancient ritual. What happened next pushed him to his limits. 
Read more: https://www.afar.com/magazine/a-quest-for-clarity-in-the-peruvian-jungle?source=Snapzu

I Could Kill You with a Consumer Drone

As a former intelligence soldier who now sells drones for a living, I can tell you that this problem is bigger than almost anyone realizes. By Brett Velicovich.
Read more: http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/06/i-could-kill-you-consumer-drone/139012/?oref=d-topstory?source=Snapzu

'Everyone predicted the end': How Ireland's Indie Bookshops are surviving in the Amazon age

When online bookselling began to dominate the market in the early 2000s, many were predicting that the bookshop would simply die away. Now, however, Irish independent book shops are not only managing to survive. In fact, they are flourishing. Ahead of Independent Book Shop week, we spoke to several independent booksellers on how they’re surviving in the Amazon age, how they differentiate themselves and the joys of a good book.
Read more: http://www.thejournal.ie/indie-bookshops-ireland-3454504-Jun2017/?source=Snapzu

Google must alter worldwide search results, per orders from Canada’s top court

Vancouver tech company seeks to de-list a website selling alleged counterfeits.
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/canadas-supreme-court-orders-google-to-alter-search-results-worldwide/?source=Snapzu

Microsoft, please stop doing things for our own good

Kaspersky claimed Microsoft has been disabling its antivirus software in Windows 10. Microsoft replied it was its duty to make sure antivirus protection was ‘always on.’
Read more: http://www.computerworld.com/article/3204027/microsoft-windows/microsoft-please-stop-doing-things-for-our-own-good.html?source=Snapzu

GROWING PAINS: Why $345 million HR startup Namely lost its CFO, CTO and many others

For weeks we've been hearing about a top-level executive exodus and a lot of employee turnover at highly-funded human resources software startup Namely.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-345-million-hr-startup-namely-lost-its-cfo-cto-and-others-2017-6?source=Snapzu

Ringless voicemail spam won’t be exempt from anti-robocall rules

After heavy opposition, robocall company gives up attempt to avoid FCC rules.
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/06/ringless-voicemail-spam-wont-be-exempt-from-anti-robocall-rules/?source=Snapzu

Infarm wants to put a farm in every grocery store

To paraphrase science fiction writer William Gibson, the farm of the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed.
Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/26/infarm/?source=Snapzu

Cambodian female workers in Nike, Asics and Puma factories suffer mass faintings

Women working in Cambodian factories supplying some of the world’s best-known sportswear brands are suffering from repeated mass faintings linked to conditions. Over the past year more than 500 workers in four factories supplying to Nike, Puma, Asics and VF Corporation were hospitalised. The most serious episode, recorded over three days in November, saw 360 workers collapse. The brands confirmed the incidents...
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jun/25/female-cambodian-garment-workers-mass-fainting?source=Snapzu

Pro-Trump group launches new attack ad against special counsel Robert Mueller

A Southern California group backing President Trump is out with a new ad attacking special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, criticizing the investigation into the Trump campaign's possible cooperation with Russian interference in the 2016 election. The ad, called "Witch Hunt," features conservative favorite Tomi Lahren reflecting Trump's own language to complain about the probe. The more than $400,000 ad buy is expected to start running Sunday.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essential-washington-updates-1498343348-htmlstory.html?source=Snapzu

Long before iPhones, this 19th-century gadget made everyone a mobile addict

Kaleidoscopes had kids walking into walls.
Read more: https://qz.com/1007704/long-before-iphones-this-19th-century-gadget-made-everyone-a-mobile-addict/?source=Snapzu

Testosterone Wars

A seller of dietary supplements is succeeding by promising power to the aggrieved.
Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/06/testosterone-wars/531252/?source=Snapzu

EpiPen’s 400 percent price hike tells us a lot about what’s wrong with American health care

The EpiPen was invented in the 1970s by a biomedical engineer, Sheldon Kaplan, who was searching for a way to treat allergic reactions quickly. What he came up with was the EpiPen we know today: a pen-like device that delivers a premeasured dose of the hormone epinephrine in emergency situations. The device is ubiquitous in our country, carried by those with asthma or life-threatening allergies.
Read more: https://www.vox.com/2016/8/23/12608316/epipen-price-mylan?source=Snapzu

The key to jobs in the future is not college but compassion.

Technology-driven efficiency has achieved wonderful things. It has brought people in developed countries an astonishingly rich standard of living, and freed most of us from the work of growing the food we eat or making the products we use. Human jobs in the future will be the ones that require emotional labour: currently undervalued and underpaid but invaluable. The NHS could employ hundreds of thousands of staff with the right technological skills, but without the compassion to care, then we will have failed to meet the needs of patients.’
Read more: https://aeon.co/essays/the-key-to-jobs-in-the-future-is-not-college-but-compassion??source=Snapzu

Sci-Hub Ordered to Pay $15 Million in Piracy Damages

'Pirate' sites Sci-Hub and LibGen have been ordered to pay millions of dollars in damages to Elsevier, one of the largest academic publishers. A New York District Court granted Elsevier's request for a default judgment of $15 million in damages. Sci-Hub's founder says that she can't pay the damages even if she wanted to, and for now, the "Pirate Bay for science" isn't going anywhere.
Read more: https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-ordered-to-pay-15-million-in-piracy-damages-170623/?source=Snapzu

NASA Calls Bullshit on Goop's $120 'Bio-Frequency Healing' Sticker Packs

There’s no shortage of things to be mad about in late capitalism. Pretty high on the list, though, is the Eat, Pray, Love brand of pseudoscience promoted by Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop.
Read more: http://gizmodo.com/nasa-calls-bullshit-on-goops-120-bio-frequency-healing-1796309360?source=Snapzu

Ford Announces New Focus Manufacturing Plans, Shifts Production From Mexico To China

Ford is shifting production of its next-generation Focus from Mexico to China, planning to import the small car to the United States. While other U.S. companies such as Apple have been manufacturing products in China, Ford's decision to source the Focus from the country in East Asia is likely to draw more attention than the others. That's because this marks the first time that the carmaker will make a vehicle in China targeted at U.S. consumers.
Read more: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/210420/20170621/ford-announces-new-focus-manufacturing-plans-shifts-production-from-mexico-to-china.htm?source=Snapzu

Google Will Stop Reading Your Emails for Gmail Ads

Google is stopping one of the most controversial advertising formats: ads inside Gmail that scan users’ email contents. The decision didn’t come from Google’s ad team, but from its cloud unit, which is angling to sign up more corporate customers.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-23/google-will-stop-reading-your-emails-for-gmail-ads?source=Snapzu

Comcast accused of cutting competitor’s wires to put it out of business

A tiny Internet service provider has sued Comcast, alleging that the cable giant and its hired contractors cut the smaller company's wires in order to take over its customer base.
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/06/lawsuit-comcast-sabotaged-small-isps-network-then-took-its-customers/?source=Snapzu

Foxconn narrowed US factory locations to seven states, will decide next month

Foxconn says that it is still planning to set up U.S. manufacturing plants in ‘several’ states, in a deal worth $10B. Some $7B of that investment is earmarked for display production, with the balance allocated to a mix of other products. Foxconn chairman Terry Gou initially said that the company was looking at midwest states, before later naming seven states as candidates...
Read more: https://9to5mac.com/2017/06/22/foxconn-us-factory-location/?source=Snapzu

George Clooney just sold his tequila business for up to $1 billion

George Clooney is selling his tequila company Casamigos to Diageo for as much as $1 billion, the company said Wednesday. "If you asked us four years ago if we had a billion dollar company, I don't think we would have said yes," Clooney told CNBC via email. "This reflects Diageo's belief in our company and our belief in Diageo. But we're not going anywhere. We'll still be very much a part of Casamigos. Starting with a shot tonight. Maybe two."
Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/21/george-clooney-just-sold-his-tequila-business-for-1-billion.html?source=Snapzu

McDonald's hits all-time high as Wall Street cheers replacement of cashiers with kiosks

McDonald's shares hit an all-time high on Tuesday as Wall Street expects sales to increase from new digital ordering kiosks that will replace cashiers in 2,500 restaurants. Cowen raised its rating on McDonald's shares to outperform from market perform because of the technology upgrades, which are slated for the fast-food chain's restaurants this year. McDonald's shares rallied 26 percent this year through Monday compared to the S&P 500's 10 percent return.
Read more: http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/20/mcdonalds-hits-all-time-high-as-wall-street-cheers-replacement-of-cashiers-with-kiosks.html?source=Snapzu

For Thousands of U.S. Auto Workers, Downturn is Already Here

Wall Street is fretting that the U.S. auto industry is heading for a downturn, but for thousands of workers at General Motors Co factories in the United States, the hard times are already here.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-workers-analysis-idUSKBN19C2R2?source=Snapzu

Gartner shows us a world of public cloud haves — and have-nots

The public cloud market is maturing, which is another way of saying the biggest companies are getting bigger while the smaller ones are shrinking or disappearing.
Read more: https://blogs.dxc.technology/2017/06/20/gartner-shows-us-a-world-of-public-cloud-haves-and-have-nots/?source=Snapzu

How to tell job applicants they didn't get the job

How to give compassionate feedback to applicants who didn't get the job
Read more: https://insights.hpe.com/articles/what-to-tell-that-it-job-applicant-kindly-when-the-answer-is-no-1706.html?source=Snapzu

Ivanka Trump shoes slated for production at China factory despite brand's denial

When three activists investigating labour abuses at a factory that makes Ivanka Trump shoes in China were arrested, the brand stayed silent for a week and then attempted to distance itself from the controversy by saying it had been months since its products were manufactured there.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/21/ivanka-trump-shoes-slated-for-production-at-china-factory-despite-brands-denial?source=Snapzu

The world's biggest coal company just shut down 37 mines because they are not economically viable anymore

The largest coal mining company in the world has announced it will close 37 mines because they are no longer economically viable. Coal India, which produces around 82 per cent of India's coal, said the mines would be decommissioned by March 2018. The closures, of around 9 per cent of the state-run firm's sites, will reportedly save around 8,000,000,000 rupees (£98m).
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coal-india-closes-37-mines-solar-power-sustainable-energy-market-influence-pollution-a7800631.html?source=Snapzu

Red Hat jumps to highest price levels since dot-com boom

Red Hat shares jumped more than 9% in after-hours trading Tuesday following a quarterly earnings report that beat expectations and raised projections for the year, sending prices to levels unseen since the dot-com boom went bust.
Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/red-hat-jumps-to-highest-price-levels-since-dot-com-boom-2017-06-20?mod=mw_share_twitter?source=Snapzu

Ethereum flash-crashes to $13 before bouncing back to $296

Ethereum is up 3,601% so far in 2017.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/ethereum-price-flash-crash-2017-6?source=Snapzu

My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

This is the story all about how my life got flip turned upside down. When my Uber driver robbed me I saw clear, I had to take them to court and resolve it there.
Read more: https://fymhotsauce.rocks/blogs/news/my-uber-driver-robbed-me-so-i-took-uber-to-court-and-won?source=Snapzu

America’s Hungriest Wind and Solar Power Users: Big Companies

Major U.S. corporations such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) and General Motors Co (GM.N) have become some of America’s biggest buyers of renewable energy, driving growth in an industry seen as key to helping the United States cut carbon emissions.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-companies-renewables-analysis-idUSKBN19C0E0?source=Snapzu

Uber Founder Travis Kalanick Resigns as C.E.O.

The company’s co-founder had been under increasing pressure, and several major investors demanded that he resign from the company immediately.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/21/technology/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick.html?_r=0?source=Snapzu

Leaked recording: Inside Apple’s global war on leakers

A recording of an internal briefing at Apple earlier this month obtained by The Outline sheds new light on how far the most valuable company in the world will go to prevent leaks about new products.
Read more: https://theoutline.com/post/1766/leaked-recording-inside-apple-s-global-war-on-leakers?source=Snapzu

Twitch nabs exclusive streaming deal with Blizzard for 20+ major esports events

Twitch, the popular game-streaming site owned by Amazon, just inked a deal with one of the most popular game developers to broadcast a host of game..
Read more: https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/20/twitch-nabs-exclusive-streaming-deal-with-blizzard-for-20-major-esports-events/?source=Snapzu

In a first, Ford to import Focus small car from China

Ford Motor Co. will export vehicles from China to the U.S. for the first time starting in 2019. Ford said Tuesday it plans to move production of its Ford Focus small car from the U.S. to China, where it already makes the Focus for Chinese buyers. Sales of small cars have dropped sharply...
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/ford-import-focus-small-car-china-2019-48153140?source=Snapzu

Nihilist Start-Up Haikus

I am freemium – I have a proof of concept – My life is on brand
Read more: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/nihilist-start-up-haikus?source=Snapzu

​Amazon vs Walmart: It's on!

Retail will never be the same as the two giant retailers battle over the merger of online and brick-and-mortar shopping.
Read more: http://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-vs-walmart-its-on/?source=Snapzu