A Russian airline has achieved a world’s first by using the Ethereum blockchain to sell tickets. S7 Airlines, in conjunction with Russia’s Alfa-Bank, has implemented the Ethereum blockchain to simplify payments and to speed up payment settlement times between airlines and agents. The customized platform automatically processes all stage of bookings including execution of payment application, verification of adequacy of ...

Google Inc. has shut down a newly discovered form of Android spyware linked to an Israeli company that specializes in “cyberwarfare.” Called “Lipizzan,” the spyware was found to be bundled with 20 apps and is claimed to exfiltrate a user’s email, SMS messages, location, voice calls and media. In a blog post, the Google Android team said ...

Amazon.com Inc. wants a slice of the emerging healthcare tech market and has a secret lab working on products in the space, according to a report published Wednesday. CNBC claims that the e-commerce and cloud hosting giant is operating a “secret skunkworks lab” called 1492, likely named after the year Christopher Columbus discovered the new ...

A Russian man believed to have been the operator of the BTC-e bitcoin exchange has been arrested in Greece on money laundering charges, some of which may relate to stolen funds from failed Japanese bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox. Alexander Vinnik, 38, was arrested in northern Greece Tuesday by local police in cooperation with U.S. authorities. Reports ...

Australian hearing device maker Cochlear Ltd. has announced a new hearing implant processor that is natively compatible with Apple Inc.’s range of iOS devices such as the iPhone. The newly announced Nucleus 7 Sound Processor, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June, allows users to gain access to sound automatically ...

Slack Technologies Inc. is raising $250 million in a round led by SoftBank Group and Accel Partners, according to a report published Wednesday. Bloomberg, quoting people familiar with the matter, said the round will be raised at a valuation of more than $5 billion. It also said the deal allows employees and other shareholders of the ...

Legal, regulated bitcoin options trading will soon be a reality after the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued an order granting LedgerX LLC registration as a derivatives clearing organization under the Commodity Exchange Act. Founded in 2013, LedgerX already offers a range of services akin to a bitcoin exchange, but the new regulatory approval means that it’s ...

In another sign of growing interest in self-driving cars, Chinese vehicle technology startup Momenta Tuesday announced it has raised $46 million. The Series B round was led by NIO Capital and included Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse Capital, Shunwei Capital, Sinovation Ventures, Unity Ventures and, most notably, Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz. Founded in 2016, Momenta is using ...

Artificial intelligence startup Vicarious FPC Inc. has raised $50 million in a Series C funding round led by Khosla Ventures. Founded in 2010, Vicarious is developing the “recursive cortical network,” a system that the company claims uses the theorized computational principles of the brain to build software that can think and learn like a human. The network ...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has finally waded into the murky, unregulated world of crowdfunded “initial coin offerings,” ruling Tuesday that cryptocurrency units or “tokens” offered in a recent ICO constituted financial securities and are therefore subject to securities law. The particular case, which has far broader implications, related to units, known as “tokens” ...