Business
Currently a contributor at SourcedFact and MotorBiscuit, Matt Salter is a journalist, blogger, grantwriter and communications expert. A professional writer since 2009, Matt has been full-time freelance since 2016, writing everything from grant RFPs and comprehensive tech and finance journalism to gaming content, screenplays and comedy. Areas of expertise include arts, culture, tech and gaming, finance and cryptocurrency.
Based in South Austin, Matt has a global clientele but can generally be found somewhere in Texas with good WiFi and all-day breakfast.
Business
Horacio Villalobos/Getty Images This last will-they-won't-they deal between Binance and FTX is in many ways a product of longstanding issues between the two cryptocurrency exchanges. At the heart is a culture conflict between the exchanges and their CEOs. The two companies began in radically different settings.
Biden administration's crackdown on Chinese-made electronics may take major phone manufacturers off the American market.
Whenever it seems like the media marketplace has hit some kind of cosmic limitation on complicated business pertaining to Elon Musk, somehow reality provides. For instance, it turns out Sam Bankman-Fried of the collapsing, possibly felonious FTX cryptocurrency exchange, could have owned a sizable chunk of Musk's mess had events turned out just a little bit differently.
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock Can Matter change the IoT game? Probably! Based on what's been released to the press, the technology seems solid and the development tools are both clear and user-friendly. Will it? Good question. Close observers of the smart home market, or frankly any competitive market, might have doubts.
Blockchain is the generic term for a particular decentralized approach to storing and accessing information online. The process is complex and requires a network of computers (via IBM), but, in the most basic sense, blockchain scatters information across a network, then encrypts it so that only the whole network working together can read it.
The cloud isn't forever, and may not last as long as businesses are betting. What's next?
With help straight from SpaceX, a new cryptocurrency wants to go global - and beyond.
Drones have several valuable applications in real estate. Don't miss your flight!
Culture
Anelovski/Shutterstock As we consign Google Hangouts to digital posterity, we see two lessons in its successes and ultimate failure. The first is that Hangouts - and Google+ as a whole - simply never got buy-in on the scale it needed to be sustainable.
Neilson Barnard/Getty Images It might seem strange to mention a free-to-play video game in the same digital breath as something meant to reinvent the entire concept of interacting online. However, Nick Statt at Protocol rightly points out that "Fortnite" has hit goals Meta is nowhere near.
false/Shutterstock At the heart of this problem was the yellow sac spider, a particularly common variety of spiders in the Americas. Yellow sac spiders are nocturnal and prefer tube-shaped sites for their nests, where they weave silk shelters to wait out the day (via AnimalDiversity.org).
Smile Fight/Shutterstock Seattle City Light was well ahead of the marketplace when it came to electric-powered cars. As Seattle's public power utility, City Light has consistently been well-funded and well regarded, giving it time and resources to experiment. One notable innovation hit the streets in 1968.
Saudi Arabia gave a robot citizenship. What happens if she gets hacked?
According to a new study, a chemical treatment from the world's largest seed and pesticide supplier may be destroying competing crops.
Without major changes, the legal marijuana market is risks recreating the same racial, class and cultural prejudice that plagues drug enforcement.
Gaming
Sascha Schuermann/Getty Images The EU brief lays out several areas of concern, all valid, though some do seem a little late. For instance, EU watchdogs would like to investigate whether Microsoft holds an effective monopoly over PC operating systems, a question that was answered ("yes, but customers seem content to live with it") before the EU existed.
Peter Summers/Getty Images In a talk with Sarah Needleman at WSJ Tech Live, Spencer addressed the Keystone's future: "Keystone was the codename of something we were incubating internally, which was, think of it as a streaming console, so there's no local gameplay, low cost, plug it into your television and you'd be able to stream to your television the Xbox games that are available."
For diehard fans of Konami's psychological horror series, the biggest news of the transmission might have been the announcement, complete with trailer, of a ground-up remake of "Silent Hill 2." Widely regarded as the best "Silent Hill" game and one of the best horror games of all time, "Silent Hill 2" holds a special place in horror fans' shriveled black hearts.
The world's most popular roleplaying game can be fun for the whole family. Here's how.
New to Wordscapes? No worries! Our resident word nerd walks you through the game.
Crosseyed over crosswords? These four steps will take you to mastery.
Music
Written by Matt Salter On March 16, Tokyo-based singer/songwriter and rapper, Haru Nemuri, made her debut appearance at the Mohawk, one of the venues for South by Southwest, the Austin, TX festival of art, technology, and culture. Austin's reputation as the Live Music Capital of the World (that's our trademarked motto.
Seven Spires' This God Is Dead feat. Roy Khan properly puts "symphonic" in "symphonic metal." In places the 10 minute track is almost theatrical, showing as much DNA from Andrew Lloyd Webber and neoclassical experiments like Trans-Siberian Orchestra as Nightwish and Maiden, particularly in the harmonies early in the song.
Written by Matt Salter Pom Pom Squad had already grabbed the attention of the great and the good when they played their first SXSW show on March 16. By the time we caught their Channel 3 show, word had gotten around about the sweetly sinister, proudly queer pop/grunge act.
Kevin McKeown and Eric Owen may have grown up in North Toronto, but the work they've done as duo Black Pistol Fire does honor to their adopted home. Their latest video, "Look Alive," is pure Austin -- a little bit hick, a little bit hipster, plenty of punk.
Texas Textbooks' "Birds" is a warm, twangy, surprisingly smart album just right for summer 2021. The band's staunch localism, which might have been off putting in a less welcoming package, instead provides a solid roadmap for songs to please listeners in and out of Bat City.
Bbymutha, brought everything she had to a killer set at SXSW. Her heavy-as-Hell mashup of rap, R&B and electric blues hit a hot, packed room just right. Austin may have a hipster reputation, but it's still Texas. Serve up thick, heavy Southern heat in those beats, lay down those brilliant too-real lyrics about love, death, sex and God, and we will shout out.
Right from the title, Mobley's new release is a mouthful. "Young and Dying in the Occident Supreme" has a great deal to say about America, capitalism, religion and sundry Big Ideas™. It doesn't always hit. Mobley apparently recorded "Occident Supreme" sojourning in Thailand. You can kinda tell.
Let's get right to it -- the first song on this album features the line "All this crazy border madness/That makes a country create laws/without looking at the faces of the children." Earnest, we're saying. If that's your jam, allow us to recommend Leti Garza's latest, "Borderland." Musically, "Borderland"'s Spanish-language tracks hit hardest.
Funny fact - as of writing, Google lists Austin indie rockers Thanks Light as "classical." And y'know what? They're not wrong. That's not to say Thanks Light, who recently dropped a new video for their single "I Get High (Off You)," are in danger of adding contrabass or harpsichord to their current four-piece featuring lap steel and Moog.
In the Spotify Age, musicians looking to sell hardcopy releases are well-advised to bring extra assets to play. "L'Aventura," the latest box set from songwriter and composer Tyson Swindell comes correct for lovers of musical minutiae, with a bound book of poetry and an honest to Memorex mixtape of pre-release material alongside his sweet, new lo-fi lament "Binary Stars."
Furman's performance, it may have been that the music didn't quite fit the room. Lustre Pearl was classic Austin on the 15th, a freewheeling, slightly vague crowd pointing their collective attention at everything from dates to drinks to several games of ping pong in front of the outdoor stage.
Danilo's "All I Want" EP is classic late-night makeout music, and there's not a damn thing wrong with that. Bedroom R&B in all senses of the term, every track is carefully constructed, showcases Danilo Riggs's lovely tenor and righteous songwriting chops, and has every intention of getting in your pants.
Even if you have your computer and phone locked down tight, there may be a hole in your data security. Follow our guide to secure the biggest, easiest hack in your home - the TV.
Graham Wilkinson has never been shy about exploring the antecedents and outer fringes of the AOR idiom. Wilkinson's 2009 "YEARBOOK" memorably ranged from ballads to heavy riffs to ska, snagging appearances from local luminaries Alejandro Escovedo and Hayes Carll for even more variety. 2016's effort "Because of You'' brought as much reggae to the table as rock.
Tech
Musk's first Twitter blog strategically ignores organizational chaos.
New paperwork indicates major changes on the horizon for Tesla's huge Texas factory.
The Matter software protocol may change the smart home business forever.
Apple's war on buttons and analog control may have claimed another victim.
Apple may be skirting legality in a secret arrangement with a major competitor.
Struggling Metaverse could learn from the immersive success of Fortnite.