Mike Wheatley
Latest from Mike Wheatley
BTC China back in business, now accepting cash deposits again
Just when we thought China’s Bitcoin bubble had bitten the dust following a government clampdown on banks and third-party payment processors, it could be on the verge of a comeback with a bang. The big news is that BTC China, which once briefly had the honor of being the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange by transaction ...
Google dumps Motorola on Lenovo in $2.91 billion deal
The tech world was taken by surprise last night when Google announced the sale of Motorola, the smartphone maker it acquired just two years ago for $12.5 billion, to China’s Lenovo in a cut-price $2.91 billion deal. The sale was first reported by the New York Times before being confirmed by Google’s Larry Page in ...
New Java-based malware can infect Windows, Mac OS X and Linux systems
Botnets have been all over the news in recent weeks, as have Java-related security issues. So it’s not surprising really that someone’s been busy building a botnet by exploiting one of the numerous vulnerabilities that keep cropping up in Java. In case you’re wondering, a botnet is a network of compromised computers that have been ...
Hacked off: how GoDaddy and PayPal cost one man his prized ‘@N’ Twitter handle
Until last week, Naoki Hiroshima was the proud owner of one of the coolest usernames on Twitter: the “@N” handle. With only 26 letters in the alphabet, one-letter Twitter handles are extremely rare, making them highly valuable and susceptible to numerous purchase offers and hack attempts. According to Hiroshima, he was once offered $50,000 to ...
New York wants to make a ‘BitLicense’ for Bitcoin users
New York could become the first state to effectively “legitimize” virtual currencies like Bitcoin. At the moment, authorities are struggling to come to grips with most cryptocurrencies, as there are no rules or regulations governing how businesses must deal with them. To simplify things, the state is now mulling over the creation of a special ...
OpenStack doesn’t need a leader, it just needs to evolve
One of the most common arguments made against OpenStack is that it has no dominant leader to set a clear direction. In other words, OpenStack lacks a cohesive vision, and that could lead to it fizzling out some day. This might be the case, but there are several reasons why this argument is flawed. While ...
Bitcoin Bust: BitInstant CEO Charlie Shrem nabbed on money laundering charges
Another major Bitcoin-related bust went down last night when US law enforcement officials arrested the operator of exchange website BitInstant.com, alongside a second individual, charging them with money laundering tied to the sale of illegal drugs, the Washington Post reported last night. Charlie Shrem, CEO, and Robert Faiella, were apparently arrested for planning the sale ...
Google gets smarter, acquires AI firm DeepMind for $400M
Google is said to be acquiring a somewhat secretive startup that goes by the name of DeepMind for a reported $400 million. Re/code reports that DeepMind is a London-based Artificial Intelligence company that specializes in games and e-commerce algorithms. While it might seem a puzzling acquisition for Google at first glance, closer analysis reveals that ...
Big Data gone wrong: Facebook is doomed! And so is Princeton! And air!
Here’s a stark warning to anyone who thinks they can outwit one of Facebook’s very own data scientists… Earlier this week, a pair of researchers at Princeton University made the news with the rather stunning claim that Facebook was on its last legs, and would lose almost 80 percent of its users within just three ...
Samsung’s profits slide on slower smartphone sales
Things are no longer looking quite so rosy and beautiful over at Samsung, although it remains the world’s number one smartphone maker by some distance. Even so, its business has taken a knock in recent months, with Bloomberg reporting that the Korean company has posted its slowest growth since 2011. Samsung’s operating profits for Q4 ...