Author: azeeadmin

Listen, everyone. It’s not every day that a new fact comes to light regarding a game that came out more than 30 years ago. And I happen to love it when retro games get broken in fabulous and entertaining ways. So the news that The Legend of Zelda for NES has a minus world like Super Mario Bros. and others hit me like a freight train.

The phenomenon was discovered by YouTuber SKELUX, who starts off his video with a quick explanation of how minus worlds work. If you think about an NES game as a big file, there are places where graphics are stored, sounds and music are described and, of course, level layouts and enemy logic are kept.

As a player, you are expected to navigate the structured parts of this file, namely the game world — level 1, 2, 3, this or that dungeon or town, etc. But there are ways to escape that structure by exploiting flaws in the game’s code, letting you run free in portions of the game’s data that aren’t meant to be “real” levels — yet the game’s engine will interpret the data as best it can, producing in some cases pretty wacky but still navigable levels. This type of thing gets its name from Super Mario Bros., where you could easily warp to a buggy level “-1” and progress from there.

Zelda and other games often use data trickery to get around the natural limitations of 8-bit computing and severely restricted storage space. For instance, did you know that in order to store them more efficiently, Zelda’s dungeons all fit together like giant tiles?

I just about lost my mind when I found out about that. Note that the above is two 16×8 grids set one on top of the other.

As SKELUX explains, the overhead map is similarly divided, except the bottom “half” isn’t actually filled with map data. And although there are cheats that let you walk through walls, the game’s code detects when you reach an invalid map coordinate and returns you to the starting location. But a little hackery takes that safety measure out of play and the result:

A new world!

And a horribly buggy one, as it turns out right from the start. Octoroks are shooting boomerangs out of their snouts; the old man on one screen tells you it’s dangerous to go alone, then next door says “leave your life of money”; a Molblin caterpillar shoots fireballs at you; glitchy inverted witch women swarm the statues of Death mountain; and so on.

It’s a strange, hilarious world, and one that obviously was not crafted but is simply created on the fly by the game’s engine attempting to make sense of the data it’s reading. It isn’t canon.

This type of video game archaeology is endlessly fascinating to me, because it demonstrates both the fragility and the robustness of these venerable pieces of software — and, of course, the enduring love and interest they engender in fans. Another one that recently absorbed my attention was the explanation of parallel dimensions inside Super Mario 64 and how sliding between them lets you beat a level with only half a press of the jump button.

That’s all. Please return to your ordinary lives, which likely seem just a bit more ordinary now that you know one more magical secret of the Legend of Zelda.

Bad news from Apple and signs of slowing international and domestic growth sent stocks tumbling in Thursday trading on all of the major markets.

Investors erased some $75 billion in value from Apple alone… an amount known technically as a shit ton of money. But stocks were down broadly based on Apple’s news, with the Nasdaq falling 3%, or roughly 202.44 points, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting 660.02 points, or roughly 2.8%.

Apple halted trading yesterday afternoon of its stock to provide lower guidance for upcoming earnings.

Apple’s news from late yesterday that it would miss its earnings estimates by several billion dollars thanks to a collapse of sales in China was the trigger for a broad selloff that erased gains from the last trading sessions before the New Year (which saw the biggest one day gain in stocks in recent history).

Apples China woes could be attributed to any number of factors, D.A. Davidson senior analyst Tom Forte said. The weakening Chinese economy, patriotic fervor from Chinese consumers, or the increasingly solid options available from domestic manufacturers could all be factors.

Sales were suffering in more regions than China, Forte noted. India, Russia, Brazil, and Turkey also had slowing sales of new iPhone models, he said.

Investors have more than just weakness from Apple to be concerned about. Chinese manufacturing flipped from growth to contraction in December and analysts in the region expect that the pain will continue through at least the first half of the year.

“We expect a much worse slowdown in the first half, followed by a more serious and aggressive government easing/stimulus centred on deregulating the property market in big cities, and then we might see stabilisation and even a small rebound later this year,” Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura in Hong Kong, wroe in a report quoted by the Financial Times.

U.S. manufacturing isn’t doing much better, according to an industrial gauge published by The Institute for Supply Management. The institute’s index dropped to its lowest point in two years.

“There’s just so much uncertainty going on everywhere that businesses are just pausing,” Timothy Fiore, chairman of ISM’s manufacturing survey committee, told Bloomberg. “No matter where you look, you’ve got chaos everywhere. Businesses can’t operate in an environment of chaos. It’s a warning shot that we need to resolve some of these issues.”

The index, remains above the threshold of a serious contraction in American industry, but the 5.2 drop from the previous month in the manufacturing survey is the largest since the financial crisis and was only exceeded one other time — following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the U.S.

Founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey says Square has poached Amrita Ahuja from Blizzard Entertainment, a division of the gaming company Activision Blizzard, to lead finance at the merchant services and mobile payments company.

Ahuja will join Square later this month, about three months after long-time Square chief financial officer Sarah Friar exited the company in favor of a CEO opportunity at Nextdoor, a neighborhood social networking site. Friar, often described as Dorsey’s right-hand woman, joined Square in 2012 and led the startup through an initial public offering that valued the company at about $3 billion.

Prior to an eight-year stint at Blizzard, Ahuja clocked in a few years at Fox Networks Group, the Walt Disney Company and Morgan Stanley, where she was an analyst in the investment banking division.

“In Amrita, we have found an amazing, multidimensional business leader,” Dorsey said in a statement. “Amrita brings the ability to consider and balance opportunities across our entire business, and she will help strengthen our discipline as we invest, build, and scale.”

Shares of Square [NYSE: SQ] dropped more than 8 percent on Thursday.

Longtime political operative Bradley Tusk got his start in Silicon Valley in 2011, when a little-known founder of a transportation startup requested his help surmounting regulatory barriers. That founder, Travis Kalanick, couldn’t afford Tusk’s $25,000 fee, so Tusk agreed to accept half of his payment in equity. As you can imagine, that deal worked out pretty well for Tusk, whose shares in Uber are now said to be worth $100 million.

Tusk (pictured) spent several years advising Uber’s expansion strategy and, in 2015, decided to turn his efforts into a full-fledged business: part venture fund, part political strategy. Today, Tusk and his partner, Jordan Nof, filed paperwork to raise $70 million for their second venture fund, Tusk Venture Partners II.

A spokesperson for Tusk Ventures declined to comment.

The New York-based firm previously brought in $36 million for its debut fund — capital it used to back scooter “unicorn” Bird; medical marijuana delivery company Eaze; the marketplace for household service providers Handy; cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase; and fintech startup Grove.

In addition to deploying capital into startups, Tusk Ventures lends its political expertise to support companies plagued with regulatory barriers and communications issues, as well as help with grassroots organizing, opposition research and partnerships. Bird, of course, is an excellent example of a company that’s struggled with local politics as it has scaled across the U.S. and beyond. The scooter-sharing company was banned from San Francisco after releasing scooters without permits and has upset local leaders in Santa Monica, Los Angeles and more.

“Our diverse team of regulatory and political experts take on entrenched interests and politicians trying to stifle innovation so our companies don’t have to,” the firm writes on its website. “Our unique model provides startups with access to political, investment and operational expertise that is second to none.”

Prior to transitioning into startup advising and investing, Tusk served as campaign manager for Mike Bloomberg, as deputy governor of Illinois and as communications director for Senator Chuck Schumer. He also penned the book, The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups from Death by Politics, released last year.

Tusk joined us last week on TechCrunch’s Equity podcast to discuss mobile voting, his thoughts on Uber’s upcoming initial public offering and sky-high valuation and Saudi money in VC. Listen to that episode below.

Well, what have we here? If it isn’t the Samsung Galaxy S10, courtesy of perennial smartphone outer, EVLeaks. This marks one the first good looks we’ve got at the phone, which is likely due out in a couple of months at Mobile World Congress.

It’s a pretty rough photo — the icons are all blurred out and the cropping job isn’t great, likely in an effort to conceal the source. But it’s a pretty decent shot of the front — and hey, we probably have month and change to go for the thing to start leaking like crazy.

The most interesting bit here is probably the least surprising. After holding off on the notch last generation, Samsung has skipped it over entirely, instead opting for the hole-punch camera design we recently noted would be all the rage in 2019 smartphones. Huawei, notably, already beat Samsung to the proverbial hole-punch late last year with the Nova 4.

The “Beyond 1” mentioned here is the working title for the flagship phone. “Beyond 2” will likely be the S10 Plus, while the “Beyond 0” is expected to be a budget version, akin to the iPhone XR.

Another tidbit from the new leak is the phone’s apparent ability to wirelessly charge compatible handsets and perhaps even Samsung wearables. That would put the product in line with another recent Huawei handset, the Mate 20 Pro.

Well, what have we here? If it isn’t the Samsung Galaxy S10, courtesy of perennial smartphone outer, EVLeaks. This marks one the first good looks we’ve got at the phone, which is likely due out in a couple of months at Mobile World Congress.

It’s a pretty rough photo — the icons are all blurred out and the cropping job isn’t great, likely in an effort to conceal the source. But it’s a pretty decent shot of the front — and hey, we probably have month and change to go for the thing to start leaking like crazy.

The most interesting bit here is probably the least surprising. After holding off on the notch last generation, Samsung has skipped it over entirely, instead opting for the hole-punch camera design we recently noted would be all the rage in 2019 smartphones. Huawei, notably, already beat Samsung to the proverbial hole-punch late last year with the Nova 4.

The “Beyond 1” mentioned here is the working title for the flagship phone. “Beyond 2” will likely be the S10 Plus, while the “Beyond 0” is expected to be a budget version, akin to the iPhone XR.

Another tidbit from the new leak is the phone’s apparent ability to wirelessly charge compatible handsets and perhaps even Samsung wearables. That would put the product in line with another recent Huawei handset, the Mate 20 Pro.

Several weeks ago, the WSJ reported that SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, was set to raise $500 million from earlier shareholders and the Scottish money management firm Baillie Gifford & Co. in a bid to help get its internet-service business off the ground.

The Hawthorne, Ca. company still hasn’t announced the round, but it nevertheless made things official today, filing more details about the fundraise with the SEC. Though the filing doesn’t confirm Baillie Gifford’s involvement, it does show that the company has secured at least $273.2 million toward a planned $500 million round from 8 investors.

It also, notably, lists the involvement longtime investor Steve Jurvetson, who has been on the board of both SpaceX and Musk’s car company, Tesla Motors, for 10 and 13 years, respectively. Why it’s worth mentioning: After Jurvetson left DFJ, the venture capital firm he co-founded, in 2017 amid questions about his personal conduct, there was uncertainty around whether he would keep those director positions. Indeed, at the time, a Tesla spokesperson told the outlet Recode that Steve Jurvetson “is on a leave of absence from the SpaceX and Tesla boards pending resolution of these allegations.”

DFJ’s investigation into those allegations led the firm to later apologize for an event hosted at the Half Moon Bay home of Jurvetson, which reportedly featured sex and drug use. Musk, however, who attended the event, suggested that it was far more sedate, telling WIRED at the time, “If there are ‘sex parties’ in Silicon Valley, I haven’t seen or heard of one . .  If you want wild parties, you’re in the wrong place. Obviously. That DFJ party was boring and corporate, with zero sex or nudity anywhere.”

Either way, Jurvetson wasted little time in forming a new venture firm, Future Ventures, which has been up and running for 11 months and looks to fund startups in commercial space exploration, deep learning, quantum computing, robotics, AI, blockchain, sustainable transportation, synthetic biology and clean meat.

Now we know that he remains very involved in SpaceX, too.

It’s not so surprising, given that Musk and Jurvetson have enjoyed a long relationship. In fact, because SpaceX remains privately held and Musk holds super-voting shares, he has extra power in corporate decison-making, as Recode noted in a more recent report.

Meanwhile, publicly traded Tesla has also stuck by Jurvetson. Despite changes to the board’s composition that were brought about as part of its settlement with the SEC — late last year, it added new board members Larry Ellison and Kathleen Thompson-Wilson, and Robyn Denholm replaced Musk as chairman — Jurvetson remains a director.

Assuming SpaceX closes its newest round of funding, it will have raised $2.5 billion in equity funding altogether, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

Other outside directors listed on the new filing include Luke Nosek of Founders Fund; Donald Harrison, a longtime Googler who is currently the company’s president of global partnerships and corporate development; and Antonio Gracias of Valor Equity Partners, who, like Jurvetson, also sits on the board of Tesla.

Several weeks ago, the WSJ reported that SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, was set to raise $500 million from earlier shareholders and the Scottish money management firm Baillie Gifford & Co. in a bid to help get its internet-service business off the ground.

The Hawthorne, Ca. company still hasn’t announced the round, but it nevertheless made things official today, filing more details about the fundraise with the SEC. Though the filing doesn’t confirm Baillie Gifford’s involvement, it does show that the company has secured at least $273.2 million toward a planned $500 million round from 8 investors.

It also, notably, lists the involvement longtime investor Steve Jurvetson, who has been on the board of both SpaceX and Musk’s car company, Tesla Motors, for 10 and 13 years, respectively. Why it’s worth mentioning: After Jurvetson left DFJ, the venture capital firm he co-founded, in 2017 amid questions about his personal conduct, there was uncertainty around whether he would keep those director positions. Indeed, at the time, a Tesla spokesperson told the outlet Recode that Steve Jurvetson “is on a leave of absence from the SpaceX and Tesla boards pending resolution of these allegations.”

DFJ’s investigation into those allegations led the firm to later apologize for an event hosted at the Half Moon Bay home of Jurvetson, which reportedly featured sex and drug use. Musk, however, who attended the event, suggested that it was far more sedate, telling WIRED at the time, “If there are ‘sex parties’ in Silicon Valley, I haven’t seen or heard of one . .  If you want wild parties, you’re in the wrong place. Obviously. That DFJ party was boring and corporate, with zero sex or nudity anywhere.”

Either way, Jurvetson wasted little time in forming a new venture firm, Future Ventures, which has been up and running for 11 months and looks to fund startups in commercial space exploration, deep learning, quantum computing, robotics, AI, blockchain, sustainable transportation, synthetic biology and clean meat.

Now we know that he remains very involved in SpaceX, too.

It’s not so surprising, given that Musk and Jurvetson have enjoyed a long relationship. In fact, because SpaceX remains privately held and Musk holds super-voting shares, he has extra power in corporate decison-making, as Recode noted in a more recent report.

Meanwhile, publicly traded Tesla has also stuck by Jurvetson. Despite changes to the board’s composition that were brought about as part of its settlement with the SEC — late last year, it added new board members Larry Ellison and Kathleen Thompson-Wilson, and Robyn Denholm replaced Musk as chairman — Jurvetson remains a director.

Assuming SpaceX closes its newest round of funding, it will have raised $2.5 billion in equity funding altogether, according to Dow Jones VentureSource.

Other outside directors listed on the new filing include Luke Nosek of Founders Fund; Donald Harrison, a longtime Googler who is currently the company’s president of global partnerships and corporate development; and Antonio Gracias of Valor Equity Partners, who, like Jurvetson, also sits on the board of Tesla.

With all of the advances made by computer vision tech in the past few years, it might seem a little crazy that so much of the x-ray security equipment being used at sensitive locations is leaning so heavily on human workers to stop weapons from slipping through.

Synapse Technology is creating computer vision tech which can interface with existing x-ray machines through a hardware add-on that doesn’t void the warranty but does add a neural net-powered assistant to lend a second set of eyes to the items being scanned.

The startup has announced the close of a $6 million seed round led by Founders Fund, 8VC and Village Global.

While the company’s largely focused on security checkpoints for “critical infrastructure” sites like government buildings or schools, the company has key interests in getting their tech into airports, another clear market for the tech. Synapse is running a pilot program at Tokyo’s Narita airport and the company says that the scanners are pulling in 14 percent more prohibited items as a result of using their technology.

The startup has helped scanned more than 5 million bags to date and is pushing to expand the scope of what they can detect. The company has been performing lab test to detect 3D-printed weapons with their technology.

“[X-ray machines] are relying on human beings which are just fundamentally limited,” Synapse President Ian Cinnamon told TechCrunch in an interview. “With our software and AI, they can now automatically be detecting weapons with a much higher degree of accuracy.

Synapse’s tech isn’t analyzing luggage to make sure you aren’t packing toiletries over 3 oz. in your carry-on. For now the team’s really focused on detecting the more high-profile threats such as guns and sharp objects like knives. Beyond improving the quality of life for airport security workers, the company says that their AI tech makes it easier for them to detect objects behind large electronics, meaning that Synapse tech could one day let people leave their laptop in bags without compromising security.

For airports, the list of prohibited items stretches into the dozens so Synapse isn’t really looking to replace workers but give them fewer things to worry about. “The more that our algorithms take on, the better that humans are able to perform,” Cinnamon tells us.

The startup will be using this funding to get its product into more critical infrastructure location and ramp up hiring.

With all of the advances made by computer vision tech in the past few years, it might seem a little crazy that so much of the x-ray security equipment being used at sensitive locations is leaning so heavily on human workers to stop weapons from slipping through.

Synapse Technology is creating computer vision tech which can interface with existing x-ray machines through a hardware add-on that doesn’t void the warranty but does add a neural net-powered assistant to lend a second set of eyes to the items being scanned.

The startup has announced the close of a $6 million seed round led by Founders Fund, 8VC and Village Global.

While the company’s largely focused on security checkpoints for “critical infrastructure” sites like government buildings or schools, the company has key interests in getting their tech into airports, another clear market for the tech. Synapse is running a pilot program at Tokyo’s Narita airport and the company says that the scanners are pulling in 14 percent more prohibited items as a result of using their technology.

The startup has helped scanned more than 5 million bags to date and is pushing to expand the scope of what they can detect. The company has been performing lab test to detect 3D-printed weapons with their technology.

“[X-ray machines] are relying on human beings which are just fundamentally limited,” Synapse President Ian Cinnamon told TechCrunch in an interview. “With our software and AI, they can now automatically be detecting weapons with a much higher degree of accuracy.

Synapse’s tech isn’t analyzing luggage to make sure you aren’t packing toiletries over 3 oz. in your carry-on. For now the team’s really focused on detecting the more high-profile threats such as guns and sharp objects like knives. Beyond improving the quality of life for airport security workers, the company says that their AI tech makes it easier for them to detect objects behind large electronics, meaning that Synapse tech could one day let people leave their laptop in bags without compromising security.

For airports, the list of prohibited items stretches into the dozens so Synapse isn’t really looking to replace workers but give them fewer things to worry about. “The more that our algorithms take on, the better that humans are able to perform,” Cinnamon tells us.

The startup will be using this funding to get its product into more critical infrastructure location and ramp up hiring.