After Math: Goodbye, Grumpy Cat, whoa oh oh
Terrible news, everyone! The internet’s favorite maladjusted kitteh has gone to the Great Cat Tree in the sky after succumbing to a urinary tract infection earlier this week. She — yes, Grumpy Cat was a girl — will be missed. Likewise, Cray Supercomputers’ independence, Japan’s phone number system and China’s access to Wikipedia have come to similar ends over the past seven days.
Japan is running out of phone numbers
Since the total number of possible permutations of an 11-digit phone number are no longer sufficient for the nation of Japan, the country’s government announced on Thursday that it will begin phasing in 14-digit phone numbers starting with an initial round of 10 billion come 2021. But since, thanks to smartphones, nobody needs to remember anybody else’s number anyway so the changeover should proceed without much fanfare. Or it could be Y2K^14.
‘Minecraft’ has sold 176 million copies worldwide
So I guess Minecraft is still pretty popular with the youths. Microsoft announced on Thursday that it has eclipsed 176 million copy sales of the blocky video game. Incredibly, some 20 million sales have come in just the last 7 months. The company is hoping for an even bigger response to its next iteration, Minecraft Earth, when the closed beta launches later this summer.
HP Enterprise is acquiring supercomputing giant Cray
HP Enterprise, a spinoff division of Hewlett Packard is working to make inroads to academia and government. The company announced this week that it will be acquiring legendary supercomputer designer Cray in a $1.3 billion takeover bid.
International effort busts $100 million malware crime network
Remember kids, crime doesn’t pay… so long as you don’t count the first $100 million or so.
Amazon is backing UberEats rival Deliveroo in the UK
Remember that bit from Demolition Man where Taco Bell was the only survivor of the Franchise Wars so then every restaurant in San Angeles was a Taco Bell? The same thing is starting to happen in real life except its Amazon buying up food delivery services.
China is blocking Wikipedia in every language
As we approach the 30th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests, China remains chuffed that the rest of the world still remembers the actions of the student demonstrators and the brutal retaliation by government forces, so it’s apparently taking its frustrations out on Wikipedia by banning each and every one of its various language sites.
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