Tech News Blog

With vocal skeptics now abundant, the early, easy days of the blockchain revolution are over. But Ed Felten, a Princeton professor who also served as deputy chief technology officer in the Barack Obama White House, thinks his startup has an answer for some of the database technology's problems. He co-founded the six-person Offchain Labs to try to profit from technology called Arbitrum that moves a lot of blockchain transactions into a separate domain. That liberates them from the slow transaction speeds and data-privacy problems that burden the Ethereum Project while still linking with that widely used blockchain foundation, Felten said. "It is our goal to operate at the speed of native processing -- as fast as the computer you have, but in a blockchain setting," Felten said. For nontechies, blockchain is about as exciting an innovation as double-ledger accounting, but it could dramatically cut problems like transaction fees, counterfeit concert tickets a...

Check out these deals on Fire TV Stick, Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Recast DVR and Fire TV Cube. As we count down the days to  Prime Day 2019 , which we expect to come sometime in mid-July, we're already seeing discounts on a variety of Amazon devices. At the moment, most of the deals are on the company's  media streamers . And some, but not all, of them are exclusive to members of  Amazon's Prime service . We've rounded them up below. Whether you're buying a  graduation gift  for seeking out early  Father's Day deals , these are all pretty great prices. Amazon also recently  updated its $50 Fire 7 tablet  -- but that one can dip down as low as $35 during sales, so you might want to wait before picking that up. Note that CNET may get a share of revenue from the sale of the products featured on this page. Prime members only: Fire TV Stick for $25 (save $15) Sarah Tew/CNET The Fire TV Stick isn't quite as good as Roku in our book,...

When  Samsung  unveiled the  Galaxy Fold , it didn't just announce another  phone -- it kicked off a revolution in the way we interact with mobile devices. But the Fold soon  suffered screen breakages  and  other glitches , and the revolution stalled. It's been nearly four weeks since we've heard any details from Samsung about the Fold. An  AT&T  email to customers suggested that the phone would come next month. Samsung mobile CEO D.J. Koh said it "will not be too late." And a Samsung spokeswoman told CNET only that the company plans to announce the release date "in the coming weeks." Consumers, industry players and reviewers alike are waiting with bated breath. If Samsung wants to ensure that the Fold is free of problems, it should spend the appropriate time and resources on fixing everything, regardless of internal deadlines or pressure from carrier partners, consumers or the press. Samsung needs to get the  Galaxy Fold ...

If you're upgrading from Apple Photos or Google Photos, you'll face a fork in the road: Lightroom or Lightroom Classic. Adobe released a slew of  Lightroom updates  last week. But one thing didn't change: the awkward split between two versions of the photo editing and cataloging software. Lightroom got its start in 2006  on MacOS and later Windows, storing the photo library right there on your personal computer. But modernizing for smartphones, tablets and cloud computing put Adobe in a pickle. It needed to decide whether to retool the existing Lightroom software or make a fresh start. Adobe chose a combination of both routes, forcing Lightroom customers to make the decision instead.  If you want more power than Apple Photos or Google Photos can offer, you must choose between the newer, internet-savvy Lightroom and the older, beefier version now called Lightroom Classic. And you must choose carefully because moving your photos from one to the other isn't eas...

Commentary: Huawei's latest phones have outshone Samsung's flagship models. Perhaps not for long if President Trump's executive order targeting Huawei holds. Huawei's ambitions to unseat Samsung as the world's largest phone brand by 2020 came crashing to the ground on Sunday following a report that Google will pull support for Huawei's Android phones. Sidelining its most enthusiastic rival could prove to be a windfall for Samsung -- assuming the blacklist status lasts. Heeding an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week, Google has cut Huawei off from a longtime business relationship that gives the Chinese brand, and other phone makers, access to Android OS updates , Reuters first reported. It'll also largely deprive Huawei of security updates as well as Google services such as Gmail, Google Assistant, the Google Play store, Google Maps and Google Search. In addition, Google will withhold technical support for future phones. Intel, Qualco...