The ultra-affordable LG Fortune 2 is now available from Cricket Wireless

Looking for a decently high-quality device but don’t have a ton of cash to spend? The new LG Fortune 2 may be the phone for you. The device launched Friday, April 13, on Cricket Wireless and it offers some nice features for the affordable price of $100.

Of course, you won’t get a flagship-quality phone at $100, but the phone seems to be relatively powerful. You get 16GB of internal storage, along with a MicroSD card slot that can expand that storage by up to 32GB. We don’t know which specific processor is used in the device, but Cricket Wireless notes that it’s a 1.4GHz quad-core chip — which isn’t bad for the money you’re paying here.

Key Specs

CPU: 1.4GHz quad-core

Memory: Unknown

Storage: 16GB

MicroSD storage: 32GB

Screen size: 5 inches

Resolution: 1,280 x 720

Connectivity: Bluetooth 4.2

Battery: 2,500mAh

Size: 145 mm x 74 mm x 8 mm

Operating system: Android 7.1.2

A smartphone’s camera is becoming increasingly important. On the back of this phone, you will find an 8-megapixel camera with a flash, while on the front you get a 5-megapixel selfie camera. The 5-inch display doesn’t have a super high resolution, though for under $100 it’s not all that bad.

The main downside to this phone is that it’s only available on Cricket Wireless, and there are a few other options from the carrier that might be worth considering too. For example, Cricket also offers the ZTE Blade X Max, which also comes at $100 if you transfer your number over, and offers a 1.4GHz octa-core processor, 3,400mAh battery, 6-inch display, 13-megapixel rear-facing camera, and 5-megapixel front-facing camera. In general, the ZTE Blade X Max seems to be a better device — though not everyone will be into the larger display.

Still, that doesn’t mean that the LG Fortune 2 isn’t a good deal — just that if you want raw power, there are better options. If, however, you like the idea of a smaller device and still don’t want to pay too much cash, then the Fortune 2 is definitely a decent option.

You can get the new LG Fortune 2 for yourself by heading to Cricket Wireless. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though the device is available through any other carrier at this time, though it’s likely similar devices will be.

Editors’ Recommendations

• The best cheap phones you can buy
• ZTE debuts budget-friendly Blade V9, and its first Android Go-powered phone
• MWC 2018: Everything we saw from Samsung, Sony, Motorola, and more
• Best mobile plans and cell phones for seniors who just want to stay in touch
• Everything you need to know about the budget Honor 7X

Scientists figure out how to monitor the brain activity of bats in midflight

Recently we wrote about a portable brain scanner that’s able to record a person’s neural activity while they’re on the go. That’s pretty impressive, but as far as on-the-move brain scanning is concerned, it may have just been one-upped by research coming out of the Johns Hopkins University. Researchers there have developed technology which lets them study what happens in the brains of bats as they fly.

The breakthrough is the culmination of a 25-year dream by Cynthia Moss, professor in Psychological and Brain Sciences and Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins. It involves using a tiny wireless brain signal recording device, weighing less than one ounce. The bat’s flight is carried out in a special “flight room,” boasting high-speed cameras and microphones for picking up the bat’s echolocation calls. By combining the bat’s brain activity, its location and the timing of its vocalizations, the team was able to determine which objects were triggering the bat’s neurons to fire and, as a result, what it was paying attention to.

John Hopkins University

“We are interested in how the external three-dimensional environment is represented in the brain and how these representations are used by the animal as it moves through space, while attending to the location of objects to guide its path,” Moss told Digital Trends. “A vast majority of research on how the brain determines the location of an object has been conducted in restrained animals, using 2D stimuli and simplified behaviors. Our work is exciting because we use an animal performing a naturalistic real-world task.”

Among the researchers’ discoveries was the fact that neurons in the brain represent the 3D locations of objects in space, and that when bats increase their attention on an object, these neural representations sharpen. This is the first time that such brain activity has been recorded in an animal as it moves through 3D space, inspecting and reacting to objects in its path.

The work isn’t just of interest to bat researchers, though. Moss said that potential applications may exist in the field of autonomous sensing. “A variety of robotic and self-guided systems take in information from the outside world, and use this information to react accordingly,” she noted. “Our research shows that the brain dynamically adjusts representations of the sensory world depend on action selection, and we believe that these results would be beneficial in the development of new autonomous regimes that adjust according to task demands.”

A paper describing the research was recently published in the journal eLife.

Editors’ Recommendations

• This cyberpunk spartan helmet is actually a portable brainwave scanner
• Crime-predicting A.I. isn’t science fiction. It’s about to roll out in India
• Can a phone A.I. control a car? We hopped in a Huawei-driven Porsche and found out
• The DroNet algorithm teaches drones to navigate city streets like cars
• Assistive tech is progressing faster than ever, and these 7 devices prove it

Huawei MateBook X Pro vs. MacBook Pro

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Huawei is a major Chinese company that’s best-known in the U.S. for its smartphones. But that’s not all it makes — the company is also trying to make inroads into the PC market, with its first two efforts going after the Surface Pro with the MateBook detachable tablet and the 12-inch Apple MacBook with the MateBook X.  Huawei’s latest effort is the MateBook X Pro, a larger notebook that appears aimed mostly at the MacBook Pro 13, although the company seems to have widened its range a bit with its newest offering.

To the extent that Huawei is going after the MacBook Pro, it’s biting off a lot, of course. The MacBook Pro is a great machine with excellent build quality, great support, and of course, it’s what you’ll choose if MacOS is your platform. Today’s model has the same understated elegance as always and confirms Apple’s reputation for outstanding quality.

So, which one of these premium notebooks is worth your hard-earned money? We compared the Huawei MateBook X Pro against the MacBook Pro 13 to find out.

Specifications compared

Huawei MateBook X Pro

MacBook Pro 13

Dimensions
12 × 8.5 × 0.57 (in)
11.97 × 8.36 × 0.59 (in)

Weight
Starting at 2.93 pounds
3.02 pounds

Processor
Up to 8th-generation Intel i7
Up to 7th-generation Intel Core i7

RAM
Up to 16GB RAM
Up to 16GB RAM

Display
13.9-inch FullView display
13.3-inch IPS display

Resolution
3,000 x 2,000 or 259 PPI
2,560 × 1,600 or 227 PPI

Storage
Up to 512GB PCIe SSD
Up to 1TB PCIe SSD

Touch
Touch display
Touch Bar

Ports
1 x USB-A 3.1, 2 x USB-C (1 x Thunderbolt 3), 3.5mm combo headset
Touch Bar: 4 x USB-C (Thunderbolt 3)
Non-Touch Bar: 2 x USB-C with Thunderbolt 3
3.5mm combo headset

Webcam
720p HD
720p FaceTime HD

Operating System
Windows 10
MacOS Sierra

Battery
57.4 watt-hour
Touch Bar: 49.2 watt-hour
Non-Touch Bar: 54 watt-hour

Price
 TBD
$1,199+

Review
3.5 out of 5 stars
3 out of 5 stars

Design

Apple last updated the basic design of MacBook Pro line in late 2016, building on a mostly unchanged silver aluminum chassis with the usual Apple elegance and conservative aesthetic — albeit with smaller bezels and therefore a more modern look. Thus, the MacBook Pro still looks good in a coffeehouse or a conference room, and you’ll enjoy the typical Apple fit and finish and solid-as-a-rock build quality.

We find the MateBook X Pro to be reminiscent of the MacBook Pro, but not a direct copy. It’s an all-metal design a silver color scheme with black keys and speaker grills that are a lot like those on Apple’s notebook. But oddly enough, we found the MateBook X Pro to be even more attractive while being so similar, and although it doesn’t have quite the same solidity it’s still a well-built notebook. The MateBook X Pro’s display bezels are even smaller and more modern, and its design strikes us as more functional overall.

The notebooks are just about the same size and weight, although Huawei manages to pack in a larger display. Overall, we think these two notebooks are evenly matched even while they’re not clones of each other.

Winner: Tie

Performance

The MacBook Pro 13 is still using Intel’s seventh-generation dual-core Intel Core processors with stepped-up Iris Plus GPUs for slightly improved graphics. The MateBook X Pro, on the other hand, is built around Intel’s eighth-generation Core CPUs, which are quad-core models and therefore much faster at multitasking while also managing to sip power for more mundane tasks. Just as important, Huawei has opted for a discrete GPU, the entry-level but still capable Nvidia GeForce MX150 that promises significantly faster graphical performance.

When it comes to storage, both notebooks utilize very fast PCIe NVME solid-state drives (SSDs) that provide great performance when reading and writing information. They both deliver in benchmark tests, and you won’t find any slowdown with either notebook when working with large files and demanding database applications.

Huawei has faster graphics and a CPU with significantly better performance. It wins this round handily.

Winner: Huawei MateBook X Pro

Keyboard, Mouse, and Pen

The MacBook Pro 13’s butterfly keyboard design, created to fit into the thinnest possible chassis, tends to evoke either love or hate from most users. Compared to past MacBook keyboards, which were considered the ultimate in typing perfection, today’s version is very clicky (and loud) but it also has extremely short travel. The touchpad, on the other hand, is among the largest you’ll find on notebooks today and it probably remains the most responsive touchpad around.

Of course, there are two versions of the MacBook Pro 13, one with the OLED Touch Bar strip along the top of the keyboard and that adds in task-specific touch input and one without it. The Touch Bar version also adds a Touch ID fingerprint scanner for logging in without a password.

The MateBook X Pro’s keyboard is much more like the old-school MacBook Pro’s, with plenty of key travel and a comfortable feel, although we did find its bottoming action to be a bit vague. Nevertheless, if you’re in the “I hate that typing-on-wood feeling” camp regarding Apple’s latest keyboard, then you’ll find Huawei’s version a better fit. The notebook’s touchpad is also very good, with a surface area that’s almost as large as the MacBook’s and with strong Microsoft Precision touchpad support and Windows 10 gestures. Finally, a fingerprint embedded conveniently in the power button provides Windows 10 Hello password-less login support.

If Huawei intended to evoke fond memories of how great MacBook keyboards used to be, then it’s mostly succeeded. It wins this round. Oh, and we’ll add that the choice to embed the webcam into the keyboard and make it easy to physically hide from prying eyes is an interesting one, although it does result in an up-the-nose videoconferencing perspective. The MacBook Pro has the better webcam and touchpad, while we prefer the MateBook X Pro’s keyboard.

Winner: Tie

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Connectivity

Apple’s latest MacBook Pros don’t even pretend to support legacy peripherals without needing to purchase and plug in a dongle. The MacBook Pro 13 offers only USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 3 support, with four of them on the Touch Bar version and two the version without the Touch Bar. Then there’s a 3.5mm combo audio port to go with the usual 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios.

The MateBook X Pro is a little more connected, with a single USB-A 3.1 port for legacy devices, a USB-C 3.1 port, and a USB-C with Thunderbolt 3 support. Add in a 3.5mm headset jack, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, and that’s your connectivity configuration.

We like the fact that we can connect a USB-A device without a dongle to the MateBook X Pro, and we also like that there’s at least one Thunderbolt 3 port. Huawei wins this round as well.

Winner: Huawei MateBook X Pro

Display

Simply put, Apple’s MacBook Pro has one of the best displays around. It’s a 13.3-inch display with a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution (227 PPI) that’s also bright, offers up a wide color gamut with superior accuracy, and has strong contrast. While it’s not a 4K display, it’s very sharp and is an excellent panel in particular for photo editors.

Huawei went in an interesting direction with the MateBook X Pro, building in a 3,000 x 2,000 display that’s in the same productivity-friendly 3:2 aspect ratio as Microsoft’s Surface line. In fact, it’s the same resolution as the Surface Book 2 13.5-inch version, although it’s a bit larger at 13.9 inches. It’s also just as incredibly bright as the MacBook Pro 13’s display and it has even better contrast. It doesn’t match the MacBook’s color gamut or accuracy, however.

It’s tough to call a winner in this category. If you edit photos for a living, then you’ll appreciate the great colors on the MacBook Pro 13. But if you do productivity work, then the MateBook X Pro’s higher resolution and 3:2 aspect will win you over. Ultimately, we give the nod to Huawei for providing a high-quality display that’s ultimately more useful to more people.

Winner: Huawei MateBook X Pro

Portability and Battery Life

The MacBook Pro 13 and the MateBook X Pro are almost the same size. Only fractions of an inch and a few ounces separate them, in spite of the MateBook X Pro building in a larger display. That makes them both equally easy to toss into a backpack and carry around.

However, Apple decreased battery life in its redesign, in an effort to make the machine even thinner. The Touch Bar version, in spite of adding in its powered OLED strip, actually has the smallest battery capacity at 49.2 watt-hours. The non-Touch Bar version enjoys more, at 54 watt-hours. Unsurprisingly, the MacBook Pro 13’s battery life is good but no longer dominates as it once did.

The MateBook X Pro has slightly more battery capacity, at 57.4 watt-hours, while enjoying a more efficient CPU. We don’t run all of the same tests on MacOS as we do on Windows, and so our benchmarks are hard to compare. The one common test, looping a local video, just slightly favors the MateBook X Pro, while the Huawei competes fairly well against other Windows notebooks.

Both notebooks will last most of a full working day, and they’re almost identical sizes. This category is a tie.

Winner: Tie

Availability and Price

The MacBook Pro 13 is undoubtedly a premium machine. The Touch Bar version starts at $1,800 and comes with a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. Pricing goes all the way up to $2,900, which nets you a Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. The non-Touch Bar version is a less expensive option (and the one we prefer), starting at $1,300 for a Core i5, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD.

We don’t yet have confirmed pricing on the MateBook X Pro, as it hasn’t yet been officially released in the U.S. If we look at European pricing, though, and extrapolate to dollars, then the MateBook X Pro should start out at around $1,850 and top out at $2,090.

If the MateBook X Pro’s pricing ends up where we expect, then it will be significantly less expensive at the high end than the MacBook Pro 13 while starting out at more of a premium. However, Huawei’s notebook isn’t yet available in the U.S., and so it’s essentially disqualified.

Winner: Apple MacBook Pro 13

Huawei’s MateBook X Pro brings more power and better input options

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

One day soon, Apple should introduce a revamped MacBook Pro 13 with eighth-generation Intel processors and hopefully some other upgrades that will make it a more competitive option. As it stands, though, it suffers when competing with today’s best Windows notebooks.

The MateBook X Pro is an example of just such a machine. It’s faster, offers a better keyboard, is more productivity-friendly, and last as long on a charge. There’s not a ton of room separating these two notebooks, but overall Huawei takes the win.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Huawei MateBook X Pro review
• Huawei MateBook X Pro vs. Dell XPS 13
• MacBook Air vs. MacBook Pro 13 (non-Touch Bar)
• Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon vs. Apple MacBook Pro 13
• Dell XPS 13 vs. MacBook Pro 13

Grosser than ever, hot-air hand dryers spread fecal matter throughout buildings

Getty Images/Roberto Pangiarella

Think twice about using restroom hot-air hand dryers. The high-force air flow through dryer nozzles spreads all sorts of nasty particles, including tiny bits of poop light enough to travel in the air.

But the grossness doesn’t stop at your hands. In a study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Connecticut researchers found bacteria dispersed by hot-air dryers spread throughout buildings.

The researchers tested bacteria dispersion in 36 University of Connecticut School of Medicine bathrooms. Rather than feces flakes, the scientists searched for a harmless, lab-engineered bacteria called PS533. At the UConn school, spores of this strain of Bacillus subtilis are produced in a single basic science research lab.

University of Connecticut professor Peter Setlow, one of the study authors, told Newsweek the spores probably spread through the air. The research team found PS533 spores in all 36 bathrooms.

When the researchers installed high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters to hand dryers, the collected spore amounts were reduced by 75 percent, but 25 percent still circulated.

The implications of the UConn research, not the first to call out hand dryer feces flow, are that surfaces in whole buildings can be contaminated by airborne matter, especially when pushed by high-force hand drying appliances.

It’s understandable forced-air hand dryers are used in public restrooms in the same room as toilets, adjacent to sinks. Employees at restaurants in many states are required by law to wash and dry their hands every time they use the restroom and before returning to food preparation or serving areas.

“Bacteria in bathrooms will come from feces, which can be aerosolized a bit when toilets, especially lidless toilets, are flushed,” Setlow told Newsweek. He added that microbes shed from the skin of the many people who travel in and out of public restrooms add to the contaminant mess in the air.

It doesn’t seem logical to position sinks and hand dryers outside bathrooms, perhaps in a separate room with a different ventilation system. Removing washup areas away from rooms with toilets could be a good idea, although it wouldn’t solve the whole problem.

The problem of bacteria air-dispersion lacks simple answers, but the University of Connecticut has taken a logical step: The UConn School of Medicine installed paper towel dispensers in the all of the bathrooms in the study.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Former employees warn Model 3 battery could catch fire; Tesla denies claims
• The best survival gear
• Got an old cardboard box? Make your own VR goggles for under $10
• Our ‘Fortnite: Battle Royale’ building tips and tricks will help you survive
• GM says it’s serious about commercializing self-driving cars

Leaked internal memo warns Apple employees about the dangers of leaking

Apple, the world’s largest tech company, issued a very stern memo to its employees warning about the consequences of leaking future product and software road maps to the press and analysts. The confidential memo, leaked to Bloomberg, comes after a series of embarrassing leaks in 2017 and 2018 leading up to the launch of the iPhone X, iOS 11, EarPods, and iPad Pro.

This isn’t the first warning the company has issued. In 2012 Apple CEO Tim Cook pledged to double down on secrecy shortly after replacing the company’s founder, Steve Jobs. The company also held a private meeting with employees in 2017 in attempts to stop internal leaks, though many of the leaks mentioned in the memo appear to have taken place after the meeting.

Apple acknowledged product and software leaks are not limited to internal employees. The memo states Apple’s Global Security team “caught 29 leakers. Twelve of those were arrested. Among those were Apple employees, contractors and some partners in Apple’s supply chain.”

A few examples of internal leaks listed in the memo include that of an employee who leaked the golden master of iOS 11 in 2017 and was caught by the company’s internal investigations team within a matter of days. It also calls out 9to5Mac by name as a recipient of multiple product leaks from employees.

Apple advises of the consequences of leaking in the memo, stating that leakers will not only be fired, but can face felony prosecution as well. Tom Moyer of Global Security also warns “the potential criminal consequences of leaking are real, and that can become part of your personal and professional identity forever.”

Apple also warns employees of the possibility  of “being played” by journalists and analysts who may attempt to befriend them on social media to gain trade secrets. “The success of these outsiders is measured by obtaining Apple’s secrets from you and making them public. A scoop about an unreleased Apple product can generate massive traffic for a publication and financially benefit the blogger or reporter who broke it. But the Apple employee who leaks has everything to lose.”

While Apple uses its own internal investigations to sniff out internal leakers, the memo also discusses the steps the company is taking to protect its intellectual property when working with suppliers and vendors. Apple’s Global Security division works closely with these third-parties to pinpoint vulnerabilities and ensure its safety practices, both technological and physical, meet or exceed the exacting demands of the tech giant. The approach appears to be working as Apple reported the “programs have nearly eliminated the theft of prototypes and products from factories, caught leakers and prevented many others from leaking in the first place.”

Editors’ Recommendations

• Apple demands DMCA takedown of secret iBoot code leaked on Github
• Leak shows Inno3D cryptocurrency mining card based on the GTX 1080 Ti
• Panera Bread’s data leak might affect more than 37 million customers
• AMD’s leaked road map shows plans for Ryzen, Threadripper processors until 2020
• Leak reveals list of upcoming Samsung Galaxy devices in 2018

Forget cloning dogs, A.I. is the real way to let your pooch live forever

Once superintelligence arrives, we don’t know if it’s going to be on our side or against us. But in the meantime, you could do a lot worse than training artificial intelligence to respond like humanity’s best friend, the dog. That’s what researchers from the University of Washington and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence set out to do recently with a new deep-learning A.I. that is designed to predict how dogs would respond in any given situation.

“The goal of the project is to train statistical models that behave like the brain of a dog,” Kiana Ehsani, one of the researchers on the project, told Digital Trends. “We try to predict, based on what the dog sees, how she will move her joints, follow the owner, fetch treats and toys, and in general react to the outside world.”

To create their unlikely A.I., the researchers fixed a range of sensors to an Alaskan Malamute named Kelp M. Redmon. These included a GoPro and microphone on its head, inertia sensors on its body, legs and tail, and an Arduino unit on the back to collect the data. They then let the dog go about its data activities, such as playing in the park.

Once more than 20,000 frames of video had been collected, the researchers used this to train their A.I. They were interested in three main goals: Predicting future movements, planning tasks, and learning doggy behavior. The hope is that they will be able to present the dog A.I. with scenarios — like spotting a squirrel — and then accurately modeling a response. Of the 24,500 frames of video collected, 21,000 were used to train the A.I., and the remainder to test its performance.

Right now, the A.I. isn’t hooked up to a physical body, but that could soon change. The team is interested in using their A.I. to create a realistic robot dog. This might have applications in training robots to carry out tasks like route planning with greater efficiency. There is also an altogether more intriguing use.

“Another application would be making a robot dog that acts exactly the same as your real dog,” Ehsani said. “The emotional reactions and their interests will be the same. It’s like making your dog live forever.”

Hey, that certainly beats Barbra Streisand’s Black Mirror-come-to-life scenario of just cloning her dog over and over again.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Baidu’s new A.I. can mimic your voice after listening to it for just one minute
• Smart toys accurately predict whether a guide dog will make it through training
• Don’t be fooled by dystopian sci-fi stories: A.I. is becoming a force for good
• Deep learning vs. machine learning: what’s the difference between the two?
• Science fiction’s 5 most haunting A.I. villains, ranked

Forget cloning dogs, A.I. is the real way to let your pooch live forever

Once superintelligence arrives, we don’t know if it’s going to be on our side or against us. But in the meantime, you could do a lot worse than training artificial intelligence to respond like humanity’s best friend, the dog. That’s what researchers from the University of Washington and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence set out to do recently with a new deep-learning A.I. that is designed to predict how dogs would respond in any given situation.

“The goal of the project is to train statistical models that behave like the brain of a dog,” Kiana Ehsani, one of the researchers on the project, told Digital Trends. “We try to predict, based on what the dog sees, how she will move her joints, follow the owner, fetch treats and toys, and in general react to the outside world.”

To create their unlikely A.I., the researchers fixed a range of sensors to an Alaskan Malamute named Kelp M. Redmon. These included a GoPro and microphone on its head, inertia sensors on its body, legs and tail, and an Arduino unit on the back to collect the data. They then let the dog go about its data activities, such as playing in the park.

Once more than 20,000 frames of video had been collected, the researchers used this to train their A.I. They were interested in three main goals: Predicting future movements, planning tasks, and learning doggy behavior. The hope is that they will be able to present the dog A.I. with scenarios — like spotting a squirrel — and then accurately modeling a response. Of the 24,500 frames of video collected, 21,000 were used to train the A.I., and the remainder to test its performance.

Right now, the A.I. isn’t hooked up to a physical body, but that could soon change. The team is interested in using their A.I. to create a realistic robot dog. This might have applications in training robots to carry out tasks like route planning with greater efficiency. There is also an altogether more intriguing use.

“Another application would be making a robot dog that acts exactly the same as your real dog,” Ehsani said. “The emotional reactions and their interests will be the same. It’s like making your dog live forever.”

Hey, that certainly beats Barbra Streisand’s Black Mirror-come-to-life scenario of just cloning her dog over and over again.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Baidu’s new A.I. can mimic your voice after listening to it for just one minute
• Smart toys accurately predict whether a guide dog will make it through training
• Don’t be fooled by dystopian sci-fi stories: A.I. is becoming a force for good
• Deep learning vs. machine learning: what’s the difference between the two?
• Science fiction’s 5 most haunting A.I. villains, ranked

Another initial coin offering ‘exit scam’ steals $660M from Vietnam’s investors

A budding cryptocurrency firm located in Vietnam is accused of raising funds from an initial coin offering and disappearing with the money. Modern Tech, based in Ho Chi Minh City, set out to launch two cryptocurrency platforms: iFan for making payments between celebrities and fans, and Pincoin for general transactions backed by a rewards system. The company raised $660.79 million from around 32,000 investors before throwing on its invisibility cloak. 

An initial coin offering is a means to raise funds to launch a cryptocurrency platform. Investors shell out money in return for tokens (think stocks) that appreciate in value over time. Once the cryptocurrency platform is fully funded and goes live, these tokens can convert into virtual currency. The tokens served up by Modern Tech promised to “skyrocket” once the platforms went live. 

On the iFan front, the value of this specific cryptocurrency was expected to rise “on a daily basis” as the company signed on Vietnamese singers. Meanwhile, the value of Pincoin would rise as investors brought other individuals into the network, providing an 8 percent commission for each new Pincoin member. Ultimately, investors were promised a profit rate of 48 percent a month, and a full recoup all investments within four months. After that, investors could seemingly shower in money. 

At first, Modern Tech began paying commissions with real money. Investors watched as both cryptocurrency platforms increased in value on a daily basis, as promised. But eventually the company replaced cash payments with tokens that couldn’t be withdrawn for real world money. That suddenly raised a red flag for all investors. 

Victims turned to social media and forums to report their investment loss in Pincoin and iFan while on Sunday many parked in front of Modern Tech’s headquarters with signs to denounce the company and demand a refund. Victims are also currently signing an official complaint demanding a return of their investments. 

According to a report from Vietnam, the team behind the Pincoin and iFan initial coin offerings consist of seven Vietnamese nationals that lured investors by holding conferences in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and other remote areas.  

Using initial coin offerings to raise cash for cryptocurrency platforms and disappearing with the money isn’t anything new. The method is called an “exit scam” and previously used by Confido, LoopX, Prodeum, Starscape Capital, Knoxcoin, and many others. The problem is that initial coin offerings, along with all cryptocurrency platforms, aren’t regulated, so there are no federal laws protecting investors. 

In North America, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) admitted that it was investigating companies and individuals for possibly violating securities laws through initial coin offerings. The SEC says virtual currencies should be listed as securities and registered with regulators given all promoters of initial coin offerings and cryptocurrencies won’t “act responsibly” and abide by federal laws. 

“The SEC is undertaking significant efforts to educate the public that unregistered securities investments offered by unregistered promoters, with no securities lawyers or accountants on the scene, are, in a word, dangerous,” stated SEC chairman Jay Clayton. 

Editors’ Recommendations

• Companies, lawyers probed for selling cryptocurrency initial coin offerings
• SEC shuts down AriseBank initial coin offering after it made fraudulent claims
• Hackers steal as much as 10 percent of new cryptocurrency funds
• CryptoCelebs: Famous people who’ve bought the cryptocurrency craze
• Facebook bans advertisements for cryptocurrency exchanges

Facial recognition tech picks a suspect out of a crowd of 50,000 in China

Police in southeast China have reportedly arrested a fugitive spotted in a crowd of 50,000 people attending a pop concert — thanks to some eerily accurate facial recognition technology. According to local reports, the man was arrested while attending a show by Hong Kong singer Jacky Cheung in the Nanchang, Jiangxi province.

The man’s full name hasn’t been released but he is described in reports by his family name, Ao. “Ao was suspected to be involved in an economic crime and was listed on a national online system,” police officer Li Jin is quoted as saying. “He was very shocked and had a blank face when we caught him.” Ao had reportedly thought that he was safe to attend the crowded event because he considered that there was minimal chance that he would be identified in such a large group of people.

China has invested heavily in facial recognition technology for its law enforcement. Provided that this story is accurate — and not simply overstating the technology’s abilities to keep people in line — it suggests that this technology is incredibly well integrated. Not only is the ability to pick individual faces out of a crowd of 50,000 people some serious CSI-level tech, but it indicates that China is keeping a massive country-wide database of criminal identities which can be accessed by security cameras. According to the original report, 31-year-old Ao had driven between cities to attend the concert.

China’s Ministry of Public Security launched its facial recognition tech in 2015. Since then, it has been used in a variety of different contexts. Earlier this year, it was reported that police in Beijing are being kitted out with facial recognition smart glasses that let them identify individuals and match them up with a police database of wanted suspects. Visitors to a restroom in Beijing have also been subject to facial recognition tech intended to stop them from using too much toilet paper.

China’s President Xi Jinping is supposedly enthusiastic about ways to use artificial intelligence, including facial recognition technology, to track behavior which is viewed as running counter to the interests of the ruling Communist Party.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Chinese police are using facial-recognition tech to catch criminals
• Facial recognition has a race problem — here’s how Gyfcat is fixing that
• Crime-predicting A.I. isn’t science fiction. It’s about to roll out in India
• Horizon Robotics’ smart security camera uses A.I. for serious facial recognition
• North Carolina police force asks Google for data from devices near crime scenes

Facial recognition tech picks a suspect out of a crowd of 50,000 in China

Police in southeast China have reportedly arrested a fugitive spotted in a crowd of 50,000 people attending a pop concert — thanks to some eerily accurate facial recognition technology. According to local reports, the man was arrested while attending a show by Hong Kong singer Jacky Cheung in the Nanchang, Jiangxi province.

The man’s full name hasn’t been released but he is described in reports by his family name, Ao. “Ao was suspected to be involved in an economic crime and was listed on a national online system,” police officer Li Jin is quoted as saying. “He was very shocked and had a blank face when we caught him.” Ao had reportedly thought that he was safe to attend the crowded event because he considered that there was minimal chance that he would be identified in such a large group of people.

China has invested heavily in facial recognition technology for its law enforcement. Provided that this story is accurate — and not simply overstating the technology’s abilities to keep people in line — it suggests that this technology is incredibly well integrated. Not only is the ability to pick individual faces out of a crowd of 50,000 people some serious CSI-level tech, but it indicates that China is keeping a massive country-wide database of criminal identities which can be accessed by security cameras. According to the original report, 31-year-old Ao had driven between cities to attend the concert.

China’s Ministry of Public Security launched its facial recognition tech in 2015. Since then, it has been used in a variety of different contexts. Earlier this year, it was reported that police in Beijing are being kitted out with facial recognition smart glasses that let them identify individuals and match them up with a police database of wanted suspects. Visitors to a restroom in Beijing have also been subject to facial recognition tech intended to stop them from using too much toilet paper.

China’s President Xi Jinping is supposedly enthusiastic about ways to use artificial intelligence, including facial recognition technology, to track behavior which is viewed as running counter to the interests of the ruling Communist Party.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Chinese police are using facial-recognition tech to catch criminals
• Facial recognition has a race problem — here’s how Gyfcat is fixing that
• Crime-predicting A.I. isn’t science fiction. It’s about to roll out in India
• Horizon Robotics’ smart security camera uses A.I. for serious facial recognition
• North Carolina police force asks Google for data from devices near crime scenes