Monthly Archives: January 2022

Facebook-backed Diem Association confirms it’s ‘winding down’

Posted on by

Diem, the ambitious crypto project funded by Facebook has collapsed. The Diem Association confirmed that it’s selling its assets to Silvergate, the bank that had previously partnered with the group, and that it would “begin the process of winding down.” Bloomberg had reported talks of a sale last week. A Diem Association spokesperson alleged at the time that the report had unspecified "factual errors."

Now that the sale is official, it marks the end of a more than two year effort to launch the stablecoin championed by Mark Zuckerberg. Though the Diem Association was a separate organization from Facebook and parent company Meta, much of its funding came from Facebook. “I believe that this is something that needs to get built, but I get that I’m not the ideal messenger for this right now,” Zuckerberg told Congress in a 2019 hearing about his cryptocurrency ambitions.

The group previously known as the Libra Association had reportedly hoped to launch its stablecoin last January. But it ran into repeated roadblocks from lawmakers and regulators around the world, and the project was delayed and scaled back numerous times. Among officials’ top concerns was that Diem could be used for money laundering and other illicit purposes.

In a statement, Diem CEO Stuart Levey blamed US regulators for Diem’s demise, and defended the organization’s work to minimize risk with “industry-leading controls to protect consumers and combat financial crime.”

“Despite giving us positive substantive feedback on the design of the network, it nevertheless became clear from our dialogue with federal regulators that the project could not move ahead,” Levey. “As a result, the best path forward was to sell the Diem Group's assets, as we have done today to Silvergate.”

It’s unclear what this means for Facebook’s cryptocurrency wallet Novi, which launched a “small pilot” last year with the Pax Dollar stablecoin. At the time, Facebook’s former crypto chief David Marcus said the company remained committed to launching Diem. Marcus left the company a month later. Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Update 1/31 9:25pm ET: "The Diem journey has been an ambitious and challenging one to date," Meta's head of Novi, Stephane Kasriel wrote on Twitter. "We hope that the Association’s sale of their assets to @silvergatebank will allow the project’s vision to live on. Because we still believe in the shared financial inclusion mission."

Facebook-backed Diem Association confirms it’s ‘winding down’

Posted on by

Diem, the ambitious crypto project funded by Facebook has collapsed. The Diem Association confirmed that it’s selling its assets to Silvergate, the bank that had previously partnered with the group, and that it would “begin the process of winding down.” Bloomberg had reported talks of a sale last week. A Diem Association spokesperson alleged at the time that the report had unspecified "factual errors."

Now that the sale is official, it marks the end of a more than two year effort to launch the stablecoin championed by Mark Zuckerberg. Though the Diem Association was a separate organization from Facebook and parent company Meta, much of its funding came from Facebook. “I believe that this is something that needs to get built, but I get that I’m not the ideal messenger for this right now,” Zuckerberg told Congress in a 2019 hearing about his cryptocurrency ambitions.

The group previously known as the Libra Association had reportedly hoped to launch its stablecoin last January. But it ran into repeated roadblocks from lawmakers and regulators around the world, and the project was delayed and scaled back numerous times. Among officials’ top concerns was that Diem could be used for money laundering and other illicit purposes.

In a statement, Diem CEO Stuart Levey blamed US regulators for Diem’s demise, and defended the organization’s work to minimize risk with “industry-leading controls to protect consumers and combat financial crime.”

“Despite giving us positive substantive feedback on the design of the network, it nevertheless became clear from our dialogue with federal regulators that the project could not move ahead,” Levey. “As a result, the best path forward was to sell the Diem Group's assets, as we have done today to Silvergate.”

It’s unclear what this means for Facebook’s cryptocurrency wallet Novi, which launched a “small pilot” last year with the Pax Dollar stablecoin. At the time, Facebook’s former crypto chief David Marcus said the company remained committed to launching Diem. Marcus left the company a month later. Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Update 1/31 9:25pm ET: "The Diem journey has been an ambitious and challenging one to date," Meta's head of Novi, Stephane Kasriel wrote on Twitter. "We hope that the Association’s sale of their assets to @silvergatebank will allow the project’s vision to live on. Because we still believe in the shared financial inclusion mission."

Ember, the smart coffee cup maker, enters the healthcare field with refrigerated vaccine shipping boxes

Posted on by

The brand synonymous with keeping your coffee hot also wants to ensure that vaccines and other critical medicines are safely transported in the perfect cold environment.

To be honest, although the use-cases seem vastly different, Ember’s company mission statement remains the same – to harness the power of temperature control to transform how the world eats, drinks and lives. The California startup made its mark with the eponymously named Ember Mug, a slick, award-winning temperature-controlled beverage mug designed in collaboration with Ammunition Group. However, with Ember Health, the company embarks on a new venture that runs parallel to its Drinkware brand. Its debut product, the Ember Cube, is a self-refrigerated, cloud-based, trackable shipping box that’s ideal for the cold-chain logistical requirements of medicines and vaccines. Designed to be effective but also be durable and reusable, the Cube is set to offset nearly 3000 tonnes worth of medical shipping containers from entering landfills… in just the first year of its use.

Ember’s experimentation with developing battery-powered heated mugs for coffee ended up directly influencing and informing its healthcare product. The Ember Cube uses the same microprocessors, sensors, and algorithms found in the Ember mugs, but flips the parameters by ensuring the contents within stay cool instead of warm. It uses a vacuum-insulated design, lined with phase-change gel-packs on the inside that help the container’s contents stay 41°F degrees for up to 72 hours, even in warm desert-like climate conditions. However, that’s what helps the boxes retain their cool temperature. What actively cools them is a vented refrigerating system, where multiple boxes plug into a specialized rack with enough breathing room to allow air to flow through. To actively cool each box, a refrigerated mixture of water and ethanol is passed through the phase-change gel packs, bringing their temperature down to the desired value. Each individual Cube is also cloud-connected and trackable, offering a unique advantage over current traditional medical shipping boxes, while practically weighing the same as them.

The Ember Cube’s design process, described in vivid detail by Fast Company, was a bit of a challenge, considering the most obvious way to go about it was to create a plastic outer housing with a foam-lined interior that would help absorb shock and protect the precious vials on the inside. The problem with this, mentioned Ember founder and CEO Clay Alexander, was that the plastic boxes would end up getting horribly scratched and scuffed during the logistical process, looking terrible after just a few shipments. The less-obvious alternative was, however, to flip the materials inside out and use a foam exterior. The Cube’s black-box-inspired exterior now uses EPP (Expanded PolyPropylene), the same material used on the inside of bicycle helmets. This material is wonderful at absorbing shock and taking on impact, making the boxes act “like a rubber bouncing ball”, according to Alexander. “If I drop this box on its corner, there are several inches of EPP foam, and it compresses like a spring, and bounces back.”

The Ember Cube truly is a marvel of modern design and engineering. Its internal tracking systems allow you to remotely monitor its location as well as each individual cube’s temperature and humidity. The Cubes can comfortably survive a 72-hour journey, allowing them to be shipped by road, sea, or even air to any location, and once they’ve been received and their contents extracted, a simple ‘Return To Sender’ button lets the Cube alert the carrier for a pickup, while automatically generating its own shipping label and displaying it on the electronic ink display on the front. Considering how critical medical shipping can be, the Ember Cube ensures a snag-free, lag-free efficient shipping process from start to finish!

The Ember Cube comes in partnership with Cardinal Health, one of the largest distribution companies in healthcare, with a yearly revenue of $162 billion through shipping medical supplies and prescription medication to hospitals and drug stores (1/3rd of that business comes from CVS). Cardinal Health aims to have the Cube reach critical mass by the end of 2022, practically replacing up to 7 million pounds of packaging waste each year, including single-serve cardboard boxes, styrofoam protectors, and disposable ice-packs.

Designers: Ember Health & Cardinal Health

The post Ember, the smart coffee cup maker, enters the healthcare field with refrigerated vaccine shipping boxes first appeared on Yanko Design.

Wordle, the game everyone’s obsessed with, gets bought by the New York Times

Posted on by

Wordle, the once-a-day word game that's been delighting puzzle nerds (and cluttering Twitter feeds) since launching in October of last year, has been purchased by the New York Times... reportsThe New York Times. So long, old buddy. 

The game is the brainchild of Josh Wardle and his partner Palak Shah, and once day it gives players six chances to guess a five-letter word. In an interview with the Times earlier this month, Wardle admitted that the project was inspired in part by Spelling Bee, one of the paper's subscription games which Wordle will likely appear alongside shortly. 

In part, the appeal of Worlde was that — unlike much of the internet today — it was in no way ad- or subscription-supported. There was no app (even though some clones attempted to capitalize on that fact.) It was, two years into a global pandemic, a rare, unalloyed good. The Times did not disclose the exact terms of the Wordle acquisition, though it stated in a press release that it paid "in the low-seven figures." We've reached out for comment to the Times on if any changes are slated. 

On Twitter, Wardle stated that while "it has been incredible to watch [Wordle] bring so much joy to so many" he has found the experience "a little overwhelming," given that he's been maintaining the free, highly-trafficked game himself. He notes that once it migrates to the Times, Wordle "will be free to play for everyone," and win streaks will likely be preserved.

Wordle became an overnight sensation, thought it was hardly its creator's first brush with mass online fame. While employed by Reddit, he was responsible for both "Place" and "The Button," both of which garnered plenty of positive attention, though neither with the scale or staying power of Wordle, which is estimated to have millions of daily users. A bot (run by another former Reddit employee, Kevin O'Connor) tracks the number of solves that are shared to Twitter via the now-ubiquitous black, green and gold emojis. It regularly cracks 250,000 such tweets daily. 

The game has itself become a sort of template for a new variety of word puzzles, spawning a variety of offshoots that range from legitimately interesting challenges — like the two-column Dordle, the work-backwards Crosswordle or the adversarial Absurdle — to silly or absurd riffs such as Sweardle and Lewdle. More variations are seemingly released every week. Still, it's the end of an era for the game that started it all, even if functionally for players it seems things will remain much the same. 

Wordle, the game everyone’s obsessed with, gets bought by the New York Times

Posted on by

Wordle, the once-a-day word game that's been delighting puzzle nerds (and cluttering Twitter feeds) since launching in October of last year, has been purchased by the New York Times... reportsThe New York Times. So long, old buddy. 

The game is the brainchild of Josh Wardle and his partner Palak Shah, and once day it gives players six chances to guess a five-letter word. In an interview with the Times earlier this month, Wardle admitted that the project was inspired in part by Spelling Bee, one of the paper's subscription games which Wordle will likely appear alongside shortly. 

In part, the appeal of Worlde was that — unlike much of the internet today — it was in no way ad- or subscription-supported. There was no app (even though some clones attempted to capitalize on that fact.) It was, two years into a global pandemic, a rare, unalloyed good. The Times did not disclose the exact terms of the Wordle acquisition, though it stated in a press release that it paid "in the low-seven figures." We've reached out for comment to the Times on if any changes are slated. 

On Twitter, Wardle stated that while "it has been incredible to watch [Wordle] bring so much joy to so many" he has found the experience "a little overwhelming," given that he's been maintaining the free, highly-trafficked game himself. He notes that once it migrates to the Times, Wordle "will be free to play for everyone," and win streaks will likely be preserved.

Wordle became an overnight sensation, thought it was hardly its creator's first brush with mass online fame. While employed by Reddit, he was responsible for both "Place" and "The Button," both of which garnered plenty of positive attention, though neither with the scale or staying power of Wordle, which is estimated to have millions of daily users. A bot (run by another former Reddit employee, Kevin O'Connor) tracks the number of solves that are shared to Twitter via the now-ubiquitous black, green and gold emojis. It regularly cracks 250,000 such tweets daily. 

The game has itself become a sort of template for a new variety of word puzzles, spawning a variety of offshoots that range from legitimately interesting challenges — like the two-column Dordle, the work-backwards Crosswordle or the adversarial Absurdle — to silly or absurd riffs such as Sweardle and Lewdle. More variations are seemingly released every week. Still, it's the end of an era for the game that started it all, even if functionally for players it seems things will remain much the same. 

‘World of Warcraft’ will finally let Alliance and Horde players raid together

Posted on by

There's always been a strict wall in World of Warcraft between Alliance and Horde players — you can only cooperate with people from your own side. Blizzard is ready to (partly) remove that barrier, though. As Polygonexplains, WoW's 9.2.5 update will allow cross-faction dungeon crawls, raids and rated PvP matches. You won't be cut off from your friends just because they chose the 'wrong' allegiance for their characters.

You'll have the option to both directly invite people from an opposing faction or join premade groups in the Group Finder listings for a given event type. Group leaders can limit instances to same-faction players, however. And don't expect to be living in harmony with rivals outside of these controlled circumstances. Guilds, matchmaking-based events and the regular world will behave as usual, so you'll still need to be on your guard most of the time.

The feature is available regardless of level, although there will be a few old instances where multi-faction parties can't enter, such as Battle of Dazar’alor, Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel. They'll need to be "reworked" to eliminate single-faction elements, Blizzard said.

There's no release date for the 9.2.5 update at this stage. It's a long-requested update, and it's well-timed in a post-Battle for Azeroth environment where the Alliance and Horde have reached a delicate truce. Whether or not it boosts player counts is another story. Dexertonotes Blizzard's total monthly active base dropped by 20 million between 2017 and 2021, and WoW likely played a large role in that drop. Toss in an ongoing sexual harassment scandal and cross-faction WoW may only have a limited effect, even as it fulfills the hopes of many subscribers.

‘World of Warcraft’ will finally let Alliance and Horde players raid together

Posted on by

There's always been a strict wall in World of Warcraft between Alliance and Horde players — you can only cooperate with people from your own side. Blizzard is ready to (partly) remove that barrier, though. As Polygonexplains, WoW's 9.2.5 update will allow cross-faction dungeon crawls, raids and rated PvP matches. You won't be cut off from your friends just because they chose the 'wrong' allegiance for their characters.

You'll have the option to both directly invite people from an opposing faction or join premade groups in the Group Finder listings for a given event type. Group leaders can limit instances to same-faction players, however. And don't expect to be living in harmony with rivals outside of these controlled circumstances. Guilds, matchmaking-based events and the regular world will behave as usual, so you'll still need to be on your guard most of the time.

The feature is available regardless of level, although there will be a few old instances where multi-faction parties can't enter, such as Battle of Dazar’alor, Trial of the Crusader and Icecrown Citadel. They'll need to be "reworked" to eliminate single-faction elements, Blizzard said.

There's no release date for the 9.2.5 update at this stage. It's a long-requested update, and it's well-timed in a post-Battle for Azeroth environment where the Alliance and Horde have reached a delicate truce. Whether or not it boosts player counts is another story. Dexertonotes Blizzard's total monthly active base dropped by 20 million between 2017 and 2021, and WoW likely played a large role in that drop. Toss in an ongoing sexual harassment scandal and cross-faction WoW may only have a limited effect, even as it fulfills the hopes of many subscribers.

This tiny gaming console lets you relive all your nostalgic GameBoy titles in a modern compact design

Posted on by

With a name as mysterious as OBJKT-2, this little gizmo from the mind of designer Sushant Kumar lets you relive all your golden GameBoy memories. Styled to be even smaller than the Analogue Pocket, OBJKT-2 makes classic gaming even more portable, letting you load all your popular GameBoy titles via an SD card, and even add modules that enhance your gaming experience. The little device is roughly the size of a GameBoy Color cartridge but sports a vivid color display that measures roughly 2.2-inch diagonally, and two thumbsticks on the bottom that can independently be used as a D-pad and XYAB keys, as well as two shoulder keys on the upper left and right corner. For good measure, the OBJKT-2 even has a USB-C and 3.5mm port crammed into its base, making it the most feature-dense console for its incredibly compact size.

The compact little gaming console can be used independently, as shown above, but also supports a nifty set of modules that enhance the gaming experience. The first two modules fit right into the two tiny joysticks, giving them much more surface area and making them a lot more comfortable to rest your thumbs on for long gameplays. As an added bonus, the USB-C port on the bottom lets you plug in an extra battery pack so you can go for hours without worrying about losing progress to a low battery. The battery pack even supports pass-through charging in case you plan on stretching your gameplay to the maximum limits. (that Super Mario speed run record isn’t going to beat itself)

The name OBJKT-2 begs the question – where’s OBJKT-1? Well, the console is a part of Sushant’s experimental TINY OBJECTS series (OBJKT-1 is a retromodern speaker about the size of a keycap, with a gear-shaped volume ring on the side). For now, the TINY OBJECTS series is just a 3D modeling and rendering exercise within Blender (Sushant is also selling NFTs on the side), although who said we can’t be optimistic about a prototype in the near future? You can follow Sushant aka SooshiPasta on Instagram for more.

Designer: Sushant Kumar

The post This tiny gaming console lets you relive all your nostalgic GameBoy titles in a modern compact design first appeared on Yanko Design.

PS4 and PS5 users can show Discord friends what they’re playing

Posted on by

Starting today, PS4 and PS5 players can connect their PSN account to Discord. At the outset, that means you'll be able to display your PlayStation game activity on your Discord profile and let friends there see what you're playing — something Xbox players have been able to do since 2018. If you like, you can display your PSN ID on your Discord profile to make it easy for folks to add you as a friend there.

To get started, open the Discord app or website on PC or mobile, then go to the Connections section of the User Settings. If you can connect your PSN account, you'll see a PlayStation icon. Discord is gradually rolling out the feature to everyone, starting with folks in the US, so you might not have access right away.

These are useful features, especially with crossplay becoming more commonplace and friends playing games together on different platforms. If you're an Xbox owner, for instance, you'd be able to hop on Discord and see if your friends are playing Destiny 2 or Rainbow Six Extraction on PC or PlayStation, and hop in to play with them.

A screenshot showing a pop-up browser window with the PSN login screen in Discord.
Discord

We're starting to see the results of a partnership Sony and Discord announced last May. "Our goal is to bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer together on console and mobile starting early next year, allowing friends, groups, and communities to hang out, have fun, and communicate more easily while playing games together," Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said at the time. SIE also made a minority investment in the messaging and voice and video chat platform.

Microsoft was previously said to be in talks to buy Discord for at least $10 billion. Though other potential suitors were reportedly interested, Discord remains an independent company. Still, with so many enormousgamingdeals being agreed already this year, who knows what the future holds?

In the meantime, Discord and Sony are looking at other ways to collaborate. "We’re excited to continue our partnership with PlayStation and explore how we can collectively create great shared experiences for your friends and communities," Discord wrote in a blog post.

PS4 and PS5 users can show Discord friends what they’re playing

Posted on by

Starting today, PS4 and PS5 players can connect their PSN account to Discord. At the outset, that means you'll be able to display your PlayStation game activity on your Discord profile and let friends there see what you're playing — something Xbox players have been able to do since 2018. If you like, you can display your PSN ID on your Discord profile to make it easy for folks to add you as a friend there.

To get started, open the Discord app or website on PC or mobile, then go to the Connections section of the User Settings. If you can connect your PSN account, you'll see a PlayStation icon. Discord is gradually rolling out the feature to everyone, starting with folks in the US, so you might not have access right away.

These are useful features, especially with crossplay becoming more commonplace and friends playing games together on different platforms. If you're an Xbox owner, for instance, you'd be able to hop on Discord and see if your friends are playing Destiny 2 or Rainbow Six Extraction on PC or PlayStation, and hop in to play with them.

A screenshot showing a pop-up browser window with the PSN login screen in Discord.
Discord

We're starting to see the results of a partnership Sony and Discord announced last May. "Our goal is to bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer together on console and mobile starting early next year, allowing friends, groups, and communities to hang out, have fun, and communicate more easily while playing games together," Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan said at the time. SIE also made a minority investment in the messaging and voice and video chat platform.

Microsoft was previously said to be in talks to buy Discord for at least $10 billion. Though other potential suitors were reportedly interested, Discord remains an independent company. Still, with so many enormousgamingdeals being agreed already this year, who knows what the future holds?

In the meantime, Discord and Sony are looking at other ways to collaborate. "We’re excited to continue our partnership with PlayStation and explore how we can collectively create great shared experiences for your friends and communities," Discord wrote in a blog post.