TITAN Financial

2021-05-19 16:42:43 Bolt undercuts rivals in nine-city German e-scooter rollout.

Estonian start-up Bolt launched electric scooter services in nine German cities on Tuesday, saying the rollout was the biggest of its kind and challenging rivals with ultra-low pricing. Bolt will offer rides for as little as 0.05 euros ($ 0.06) per minute with no unlocking fee, undercutting competitors that typically charge 1 euro per trip plus 15-25 euro cents a minute. Bolt already has 130,000 e-scooters on Europe's roads.

Bolt is looking to expand presence into 150 European cities this year as part of a 100 million euro investment strategy, which it said would make it the region's largest micromobility provider, RTRS.

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2021-05-19 15:06:11 An investor from "The Big Short" made a big bet of more than $ 0.5 billion on the fall in Tesla shares.

Famed investor — Michael Berry, who predicted the 2008 crisis and became the prototype for one of the characters in the movie "The Big Short", announced on Monday in a regulatory document about a short position in Tesla worth more than half a billion. In December, an investor tweeted that his fund was betting on a downgrade in the automaker's stock (Burry deleted the tweet). He also recommended Elon Musk to issue more shares to the market to raise capital, while their price is at an "absurd" level, CNBC.

The company's market capitalization grew by $ 60 billion, equivalent to the value of General Motors, Burry listed in a tweet later deleted. “Enjoy, while you can,” - he advised those who continue to invest in the automaker's stock.

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2021-05-18 20:19:55 The United States has developed the world's smallest chip, the size of a dust mite.

A chip, with the size of a dust mite — is visible only under a microscope, according to researchers at Columbia Engineering. The chip was manufactured by Taiwanese TSMC, and additional modifications were made at Columbia University and the Center for Advanced Scientific Research in New York.

Implantable medical devices are already being used to monitor biological data and treat certain diseases, such as heart rhythm disturbances and others using ultrasound.

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2021-05-18 16:08:38 ​​Amazon Music has waived additional charges for HD music following Apple's announcement of uncompressed audio.

From more expensive high-quality music subscriptions, the company switched to increasing the total number of streaming users. Amazon Music HD is now available for free to regular Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers, Billboard writes. Amazon Music HD was priced at $ 14.99 per month ($ 12.99 for Prime subscribers) and was the first streaming service to cut prices for high-quality music.

This happened on the same day when Apple announced the launch of uncompressed audio on Apple Music from June at no additional cost. The next generation of audio will be available to Apple Music subscribers in June 2021 at no additional cost. At the start, “several thousand tracks” will be available in Dolby Atmos format, and gradually the company wants to transfer the entire catalog of 75 million records to the new format. A three-minute track without loss of quality will weigh up to 36 MB, and a track in high resolution - up to 145 MB, writes The Verge. Currently, a 3-minute high-quality song weighs in at 6MB.

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2021-05-17 16:33:41 Using AR technology in advertising increases conversion rates by 94%.

The surge in the popularity of AR (augmented reality) technology during a pandemic could increase global investment in this area from $12 billion in 2020 to almost $73 billion in the next three years, according to a survey of 15 thousand respondents conducted by Snap and Deloitte. Brands that use AR technology in their ads have 94% higher conversion rates than companies that don't. At the same time, consumers are 41% more likely to give preference to a product in the promotion of which AR technology is used.

Aside from Snapchat filters, the three largest areas in which users interact with AR are gaming (55%), media & entertainment (52%), and shopping (41%). Retail stores used technology to create virtual fitting rooms while physical stores were closed. Other brands have replaced physical activation technology with technology or offered customers bonus content.

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2021-05-17 12:44:17 A Paid subscription in Twitter will cost almost $ 3 per month.

The company is testing a paid subscription. If you pay $ 2.99 per month, you can use the button to cancel sending messages. Or combine messages into collections. At the same time, there is a combination of a paid subscription to Twitter with the functionality of Scroll service, which was recently acquired by Twitter. Scroll — is a paid service that allows viewing sites of partners without ads.

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2021-05-17 11:20:46 Cruise operator Royal Caribbean is canceling a new line that was supposed to run from Israel to Greece and Cyprus from next month, citing regional security concerns. In Israel and the Odyssey region, the company was unable to complete the necessary preparations due to border tensions, as reported Reuter.

The exit from Haifa Port would be the first for Royal Caribbean's new "Odyssey of the Seas" and was intended to use the travel corridor created between the three countries for travelers vaccinated against COVID-19. The ship will spend its first season in Florida.

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2021-05-16 13:17:48 ​​The DarkSide hacker group, accused of hacking the Colonial Pipeline, has ceased operations.

The DarkSide hacker group that was responsible for the ransomware attack that stopped the Colonial Pipeline and led to fuel shortages in many states America this week claims to close, according to Krebs on Security and several cybersecurity firms. Colonial Pipeline paid hackers associated with DarkSide nearly $ 5 million in crypto after a ransomware attack last week to regain access to their computer systems.

In a cybercrime forum post, the group said it had lost access to the infrastructure needed to conduct ransomware operations and that the cryptocurrency account it uses to pay out to its affiliates has been devastated. The Colonial Pipeline resumed normal work on Saturday after a ransomware attack forced it to shut down last week.

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2021-05-14 17:07:49 In Finland began produced paper bottles for whiskey.

The pulp is supplied by Finnish logging company Stora Enso and manufactured by Pulpex, a start-up launched by the British spirits producer Diageo. The packaging is made of cellulose fiber treated with a special food-grade water-based coating. When disposed of, such a bottle can be classified as paper waste.

Diageo produces products under the brands Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, J&B, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Guinness, and others. Last year, the company first announced its intention to release Johnnie Walker whiskey is fully recyclable paper bottles, writes Reuters.

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2021-05-11 16:33:36 OPEC made a monthly report.

In this regard, it became known that OPEC did not change the forecast for global oil demand in 2021 — it still expects an increase of 6 million b / d, to 96.5 million b / d. Oil production in April increased slightly — by only 30 thousand barrels per day from the level of March, to 25.08 million barrels per day. Commercial stocks of oil and petroleum products in the OECD in March increased by 10 million barrels.

OPEC expects investment in oil and gas production in 2021 to remain at its lowest level in 15 years at $ 311 billion. In April, OPEC kept the transactions of OPEC + at a level close to March, having exceeded its obligations to reduce profits by 22%, according to a report.

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