A Tesla Megapack caught fire at the Victorian Big Battery facility in Australia

A 13-tonne Tesla Megapack caught fire on Friday morning at a battery storage facility in south-east Australia. The blaze occurred during testing at between 10 and 10.15am local time, according to Victorian Big Battery. The regional fire service said a specialist fire crew had been dispatched to the

Elon Musk calls Apple’s App Store fees ‘a de facto global tax on the Internet’

Elon Musk is siding with Epic Games in the App Store monopoly case, with the Tesla CEO firing off a tweet Friday morning that called Apple’s Store fees “a de facto global tax on the Internet,” also adding that “Epic is right.” Epic Games legal battle with Apple is sure

Gillmor Gang: Social climbing

Fear is back with the deadly combination of pandemic politics and a vicious variant. The good news is that if enough people took the shots we could cut the damage to something manageable. The other good news is progress on the twin issues of Trump and social media. In both cases some semblance of

EU hits Amazon with record-breaking $887M GDPR fine over data misuse

Luxembourg's National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD) has hit Amazon with a record-breaking €746 million ($887 million) GDPR fine over the way it uses customer data for targeted advertising purposes. Amazon disclosed the ruling in an SEC filing on Friday in which it slammed the decision

Cheltenham's GCHQ to get a massive, cyber-oriented tech startup campus right next door

Since U.K. spying headquarters GCHQ was established in Cheltenham in the 1950s, the city has attracted large firms like IBM, Raytheon, Microsoft and BAE Systems to the region, and startups like Truststamp, Bamboo Technologies, Ripjar, Hub8 and CYNAM have emerged from the city. All of these firms dr

Daily Crunch: Scarlett Johansson sues Disney, says streaming release of 'Black Widow' breaches contract

To get a roundup of technewss's biggest and most important stories delivered to your inbox every day at 3 p.m. PDT, subscribe here. Hello and welcome to Daily Crunch for July 29, 2021. Between the IPO cycle and earnings it has been quite the day. And Nikola's founder was indicted on three

Horizon Blockchain Games raises $4.5M for its NFT trading card game and wallet

Horizon Blockchain Games is — as the name implies — a company building games on the blockchain, along with tools to help others do the same. The company announced today that it has raised another $4.5 million, bringing its total raised to a little over $13 million. Horizon’

Biofourmis receives FDA breakthrough device designation for heart failure “digital therapy”

Kuldeep Singh Rajput, the founder of Boston-based Biofourmis, is imagining a future where heart failure patients go home with a prescription, a wearable sensor and an app. Today, a new FDA designation gets the company one step closer to that goal.  Founded in 2015, Biofourmis is a digital therapeu

Panic sells 20,000+ Playdate handhelds in under 20 minutes

As we’ve known for about a week, today was the day Panic’s charming/whacky/curious/all-of-the-above Playdate gaming device (and its crank!) went up for pre-order. The buzz around the little retro-inspired handheld seemed strong — but would that translate into actual sales? The answer,

Uber will offer free Rosetta Stone language courses to drivers

Uber wants to overcome the language barriers you’ll sometimes encounter when hailing a ride. The Verge says Uber has partnered with Rosetta Stone to offer free language lessons through its Driver app. Both Uber and Uber Eats drivers can use the feature to learn any of Rosetta Stone’s 24

Old Amazon Kindle devices will soon lose 3G access

If you have an older Amazon Kindle with 3G internet, take note that you may not be able to wirelessly access and download new content anymore starting in December. As The Verge reports, Amazon has sent out emails to owners with old Kindles, telling them that previous-generation devices will lose in

Early-stage founders: Beat the clock & buy a $79 Founder pass to TC Disrupt 2021

If you're an early-stage founder, you'd be wise to make technewss Disrupt 2021 (September 21-23) your must-attend virtual destination. It's the OG of tech startup conferences, draws more than 10,000 attendees from around the world and features some of the most gifted, visionary minds a

Facebook’s next product will be its long-awaited Ray-Ban smart glasses

Facebook’s booming business is dominated by digital ads, but it also has hardware ambitions beyond VR. During the company’s latest earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said its next product release would be a pair of smart glasses from Ray-Ban. “The glasses have their iconic form

Connected car insurance startup Flock raises $17M Series A led by Chamath Palihapitiya

Cast your mind back to that scene in “Minority Report” where all those autonomous cars are whizzing through the city. The more practically minded of you may well have gone: “Yeah, but what about the insurance?” Among the startups building the on-demand, connected insurance world