Distributed ledger blockchain technology may be be known for its original use for powering bitcoin and more recently for its financial technology implementations. Now, it’s being applied to supply chain management and tracking. IBM Corp. and retailing giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. have teamed up to utilize the blockchain to track Walmart’s pork supply chain in ...

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has asked bitcoin exchange Coinbase Inc. for a copy of all of its U.S. users and their transactions. A petition filed by the Department of Justice on behalf of the IRS in the District Court for the Northern District of California on Nov. 17 seeks approval to request the identities of U.S. Coinbase ...

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash of a drone built by Facebook Inc. to provide Internet access to remote areas. Facebook’s solar-powered Aquila drone has a wingspan roughly equivalent to a Boeing 737, coming in at 141 feet. It is designed to be able to fly at altitudes of around 60,000 to ...

Fintech blockchain development group R3CEV LLC (R3) has taken a blow as a number of leading banks have decided to leave the consortium, limiting the startup’s ability to raise funding. At the top of the list was merchant banking giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which left the group in October by choosing not to renew ...

What if distributed cloud resources running the Ethereum blockchain to deliver supercomputer-scale power could be a way to make scientific discoveries and run artificial intelligence? That’s the goal of the highly ambitious Golem Network (Golem Factory GmhB), a startup that has raised 820,000 ether, roughly $8.6 million, in a crowdfunding sale earlier this month, making ...

Security software maker Symantec Corp. has acquired identity theft protection firm LifeLock Inc. for $2.3 billion. The deal equates to $24 a share for LifeLock stock, 16 percent above its closing price on Friday. Founded in 2005, LifeLock offers identity theft monitoring services that helps customers detect suspicious uses of their identity information to get loans, ...

Blockchain-based card payment systems may be coming to retail banking in 2017 following a successful trial of such a system in the United Kingdom this week. The system is based on technology from SETL Development Ltd. in conjunction with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd.’s blockchain ID platform and Metro Bank PLC, which provided a connected client ...

Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, has filed paperwork with the Federal Communications Commission to launch a staggering 4,425 satellites into space. The satellites, first announced in January 2015, would be launched into low earth orbit and will provide speedier Internet access than is available from current satellites, which are at ...

A group of bitcoin companies has joined together to launch the Bitcoin Development Grant, a $1.2 million grant fund for bitcoin protocol development. The fund will be used to support teams working on bitcoin protocol development, foster greater diversity of innovation and, according to the grant page, improve freedom of choice for bitcoin users. It’s led ...

Google Inc. senior security engineer Darren Bilby isn’t a fan of antivirus software, telling a conference in New Zealand that more time should be spent on more meaningful defenses such as whitelisting applications. Speaking at the Kiwicon hacking conference, Bilby said that antivirus apps are simply ineffective and the security world should concentrate its efforts ...