Aftermath
Latest
After Math: The best kind of falling star
Gavin McInnes and his gang of Proud Boys, newly minted stars of the Alt-Right, took their first steps back toward irrelevancy this week when they got themselves banned from Facebook. At the same time, we've had to say goodbye to a pair of space-based telescopes (Kepler and Dawn), as they reached the end of their operational lifespans; Roscosmos blamed the recent Soyuz launch failure on a bent sensor pin and Apple announced that it would no longer report the sales numbers for the stars of its product lineup -- iPhones, iPads and Macs -- after it was reported that smartphone sales slumped six percent globally this year.
After Math: Life imitating art imitating life
Between the political theater and unreal earnings reports, this has been a surreal week for the ages. But while you were glued to the news feeds, an AI-generated art piece sold for silly money, NASA fixed the Hubble by jiggling its handle and a band of clever thieves perpetrated a multimillion-download ad scam that would put the Ocean's crew to shame.
After Math: Paying more for less
The rent is too damn high unless you're living in a van down by the river, medical care routinely puts people into bankruptcy, gas prices are still floating around $3 a gallon nationwide and Senator Ted "Zodiac Killer" Cruz is worried that his six figure salary won't enable him to buy a second house anytime soon. Times are tough for everybody so one has to wonder why the companies below are seemingly trying to make things actively worse.
After Math: It's Spooky Season
The air is crisp, the leaves are changing and everywhere you look, you'll find decorative gourds on display. And y'all know what that means: we're just a few weeks from Halloween! Plenty of companies are already getting into the frightful mood. French researchers figured out how to fingerfy a phone, Telltale's staffing levels have been reduced to a shambling corpse, and Toyota once again warned that its Priuses could go all Christine on their drivers.
After Math: Hello Darkness, my old friend
Well, this week lasted years. While we weren't being bludgeoned by the cantankerous Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, we were learning about how 50 million Facebook users had their accounts hacked, that Elon Musk is being sued by the SEC for his Twitter posts (the ones about privatizing Tesla, not the ones wherein he libels a rescue diver), and that Red Dead Redemption 2 will rustle the remainder of your hard drive's free space.
After Math: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
This has been quite the "disruptive" week with TechCrunch's marquee event going on at the San Francisco Moscone Center, and not just for startups. InfoWars was disinvited from yet another social media platform, Walmart is drastically expanding its self-driving Tesla truck order, and the world's largest wind farm just opened for business.
After Math: This is the end
All good things must come to an end, often not nearly soon enough. Unfortunately for you, generous reader, this week's deadpool does not include After Math. But we are, however, witnessing the death knells of long-haul driving, fossil fuel energy and Mr. Robot, among others.
After Math: Gaming the system
With Gamescom 2018 now wrapping up and IFA 2018 just getting started, there's more than enough video game news to go around. But the latest salvos in the console wars weren't the only things going on in the tech industry this week. VW announced that it's investing $4 billion in a proprietary connected car architecture, Facebook phased out 5,000 ad options in an effort to fight discrimination on its platform and the CBP actually did something right for once. I know, I'm shocked too.
After Math: Space Farce
It takes a special breed of bureaucrat to look upon the majesty of the cosmos and think to themself, "man, I can't wait to get up there and start a war," but these are the times in which we live. So while the Trump administration spent this week eyeing the stars for something to shoot, NASA and the private space industry continued in their missions to explore the solar system without blowing everything up along the way.
After Math: Score one for the good guys
Oh what a week it's been. Apple is now valued at one trillion dollars, the NES Classic is still selling like hotcakes, one plucky hacker garnered a seven figure income from a single ransomeware attack, and whackadoodle conspiracy peddler Alex Jones was shown the door at two more streaming platforms.
After Math: The price of doing business
Elon Musk just can't seem to stay out of the news. After last week's tirade against the Thai cave rescue diver, his girlfriend took to Twitter to defend his large donations to the GOP as "the price of doing business in america [sic]." But that price differs depending on who you ask. For right-wing troll Alex Jones, that price is a 30-day timeout from Facebook and Yahoo, but for MoviePass that price could well be the company's entire operation.
After Math: Redemption songs
Self-inflicted SNAFUs are an inevitable, albeit cringe-inducing, aspect of life -- whether that's referring to the veteran who helped save a squad of young soccer players as "pedo guy" or wondering aloud if maybe holocaust deniers are simply misunderstood. So yeah, it was a good week for mea culpas as well as countries and companies alike stepping up to do the right thing (for once).
After Math: Stage 4 capitalism
It's been another fun-filled week of plebes like us being crushed under the heel of big business. Want to take a trip into orbit? You're gonna need to mortgage your house and your children's futures. Want to own the last decent MacBook Pro? Tough, Apple now says that the garbage touch panel version is the only one for sale. Trying to watch the World Cup on YouTubeTV? NOPE. NO SOCCER FOR YOU. COME BACK FOUR YEARS!
After Math: Stay cool
It's been a sweltering week with much of the country swaddled in a record-setting heat wave but that hasn't slowed the tech industry. Netflix is reportedly considering a new HDR-enabled pricing tier for its service, a pair of people were awarded $5 million in their lawsuit against the Fyre Festival, NASA debuted a new heat shield to keep its sun-bound probe from burning up, and Facebook is in talks to host a reality show starring the hottest man on the pitch, Cristiano Ronaldo.
After Math: Huge hamster balls
While the Overwatch community debated this week as to whether or not Top Gear's Richard Hammond could actually fit inside the Hammond the Hamster's mech (hint: yes he can, with room to spare), there was no shortage of news throughout the rest of the gaming industry. Alexa got its own board game, ToeJam and Earl are slated to return to consoles this fall, and Fortnite -- for one gloriously brief moment -- opened a tutorial sandbox for its neophyte players.
After Math: It's trade show season
Ah June, the January of summer. With Computex winding down and E3 getting started, the weeks are just going to be packed with new gadgets and forward-looking announcements. Oh yeah, Apple had a keynote this past week as well but since there weren't any hardware announcements, most folks just sorta tuned that one out. Numbers, because it's only 6 months until CES!
After Math: 'Musked' opportunities
It was a week of near misses and closer hits than the tech industry probably would have wanted. Amazon's Alexa "accidentally" recorded more than a few customers' private conversations, Apple's iPhones turned out to be bendier than anticipated, and that PUBG chicken dinner of yours wound up being harder fought than anybody had previously thought.
After Math: Well, that's one way to do it
It was a big week for interesting calls. Facebook is reportedly looking to hop on the cryptocurrency bandwagon, AT&T admitted that it hired Michael Cohen's firm for "insights" into the administration, and somehow enough folks watched the YouTube Karate Kid reboot to earn it a second season. Great job everybody?
After Math: Get rich or die tryin
This was a big week for huge corporate profits. Microsoft and Nintendo reported healthy business growth to start off the latest earnings season. Amazon announced that it will be bumping the subscription cost for Prime by 20 percent. And a knockoff Mark Zuckerberg separated a number of fools from their hard earned money. Numbers, because how else are you supposed to calculate your net worth, acts of altruism?
After Math: The golden age of streaming
We're winding down a freaky week of bad omens, unconvincing congressional testimony and sterling new streaming services. While most eyes were fixated on Mark Zuckerberg doing his best real boy impression, GTA IV lost most of its Russian tunes, ESPN debuted a new mobile app and vinyl got a high tech upgrade that nobody asked for. Numbers, because how else are you going to stretch your entertainment dollar?
