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Chandan Lodha Contributor Chandan Lodha is co-founder at CoinTracker, a Y Combinator and Initialized Capital-backed startup that offers a secure cryptocurrency tax calculator. He was previously the Product Manager on Project Loon at Google[x]. Fred traded bitcoin, ether and a handful of other cryptocurrencies on Gemini, Binance and Coinbase last year. Unfortunately, due to the crypto downturn, his trading yielded a capital loss of more than $35,000. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Whether you call it the Genesis or the Mega Drive, Sega’s 16 bit system holds a special place in the hearts of many a gamer who came of age in the 80s and 90s. Like the NES and Super Nintendo before it, the console that gave us a ring-hoarding hedgehog is about to get miniaturized. Sega announced the Genesis/Mega Drive Mini last year, only to delay sales in order to fine tune the retro console. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Mars 2020 mission is on track for launch next year, and nesting inside the high-tech new rover heading that direction is a high-tech helicopter designed to fly in the planet’s nearly non-existent atmosphere. The actual aircraft that will fly on the Martian surface just took its first flight and its engineers are over the moon. “The next time we fly, we fly on Mars,” said MiMi Aung, who manages the project at JPL, in a news release. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of the most buzzy announcements on Apple’s stage this week was Apple Card, its in-house credit card powered by Goldman Sachs and Mastercard. Consumers, tech press, financial press and Wall Street were all intrigued for various reasons. But there are still a ton of questions around the way it works mechanically, the terms involved for consumers and its overall benefits. Though I’m not a financial reporter, I did used to cover payments and I’m a huge points hound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Works with AirPower mat”. Apparently not. Looks like Apple doesn’t treat customers with the same “high standard” of care it apparently reserves for its hardware quality. 9 days after launching its $199 wireless charging AirPods headphones touting compatibility with the forthcoming Apple AirPower inductive charger mat, Apple has just scrapped AirPower entirely. It’s an uncharacteristically sloppy move for the “it just works” company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As of 2017, there were roughly 7,000 people living without homes in San Francisco, a number that comprises minors — a lot of them. The San Francisco Unified School District estimates that as of 2017, roughly 2,100 of the children in the school system were homeless — a number that it said looked to be escalating, not shrinking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Instant print cameras have been popular for a long, long time, but they’re seeing a renaissance now — led by Fujifilm, whose Instax mini-films and cameras lead the pack. But Canon wants in, and has debuted a pair of new cameras to challenge Fuji’s dominance — but their reliance on digital printing may hold them back. The cameras have confusing, nonsensical names in both the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As promised back in January by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, the company today is rolling out an even darker version of the app’s existing dark mode. Before, Twitter’s dark theme was more of a blue-ish shade instead of a true black, which not everyone seemed to like. Now, there’s an optional setting that makes the current dark mode more of a pitch black. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Productivity nerds, rejoice! Flexibits, the company behind Fantastical, is releasing Cardhop on the iPhone and iPad today. Cardhop was originally released on macOS, and it lets you text or call your contacts as well as add information more quickly. If you have an iPhone, chances are you're using the default Contacts app. It's a pretty straightforward app, but it hasn't evolved in years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Huawei held a press conference today in Paris. And the company just unveiled its brand new flagship phone — the P30 and the P30 Pro. In many ways, this year’s update is a continuation of the P20 series — but everything has been upgraded. I played with both devices for a bit of time yesterday, here’s my experience. While Huawei’s sub-brand Honor has switched to a hole-punch design, Huawei is keeping the good old notch for its flagship device. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The iPad mini is super enjoyable to use and is the best size tablet for everything but traditional laptop work. It’s very good and I’m glad Apple updated it. Using Apple Pencil is aces on the smaller mini, don’t worry about the real estate being an issue if you like to scribble notes or make sketches. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is how much money Pinterest execs made last year Silicon Valley is known for its massive wealth. When these companies file to go public, we all finally get to know how much money these executives take home each year, and the millions they’ll take home after the IPO. In Pinterest’s S-1, which it filed earlier today, we see that co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann earned a salary of $197,100. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

According to the City of Paris, there are 15,000 free-floating vehicles of all forms and shapes in the city, from electric scooters to fluorescent bikes and motorcycle-like scooters. And the City of Paris announced today that companies that operate free-floating services will have to pay a tax depending on the size of their fleet. If the plan goes through and if you’re running a bike-sharing service, you’ll have to pay €20 per bike per year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can already find many leaked photos of Huawei’s next flagship device — the P30 and P30 Pro. The company is set to announce the new product at an event in Paris next week. So here’s what you should expect. Reliable phone leaker Evan Blass tweeted many different photos of the new devices in three different tweets: pic.twitter.com/nIlhxby1Ah — Evan Blass (@evleaks) March 20, 2019 As you can see, both devices feature three cameras on the back of the device. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dyson’s got a very specific way of doing things. The British company makes super-high-quality products for a world where price isn’t an option. Using their devices is a bit like driving a sports car for the first time. You’ve got no idea why someone would pay that much money for something until you actually try them out. Fittingly, it offered a few handfuls of reporters a chance to try out a trio of new products at a closed-door event this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Cost has always been a big part of the Kindle line’s appeal at the low end. Amazon’s very good at undercutting the competition, while still managing to provide a workhorse e-reader in the process. Of course, paying $90 for the device comes with a number of cut corners, not the least of which has been the device’s stubborn refusal to adopt the front-lighting found on the rest of the line. Amazon’s just amended that oversight with the latest version of the standard Kindle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

PC gaming has grown to be a pretty wide niche of people with some far-flung similarities and differences, one thing they all share are souped-up rigs that rely on beefy GPUs. This is fine for those with dedicated machines but PC gaming isn’t too friendly to those trying to pull double-duty on their everyday machine. Vectordash, launching out of the latest Y Combinator batch, wants to turn your Macbook Air or other underpowered rig into a formidable machine through their cloud gaming service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drones are useful in countless ways, but that usefulness is often limited by the time they can stay in the air. Shouldn’t drones be able to take a load off too? With these special claws attached, they can perch or hang with ease, conserving battery power and vastly extending their flight time. The claws, created by a highly multinational team of researchers I’ll list at the end, are inspired by birds and bats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The games we see advertised the most aren’t necessarily the best representatives for what has become an incredibly diverse medium. Yearly AAA installments and massive open worlds are all well and good, but simplicity is rarely on display — which makes two recent releases, Ape Out and Baba Is You, all the more delightful. Both are, in a way, very simple games, but from that simplicity arises complex and enjoyable gameplay concepts that can entertain (or frustrate) for hours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

French premium TV channel Canal+ is facing increased competition from Netflix in France. The company is trying to reinvent itself with a new over-the-top offering called Canal+ Séries. The new service is launching today. As the name suggests, Canal+ Séries is focused on TV series — you won’t find any movie on the streaming service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At first glance, it appeared that Tesla Model 3 had a doppelganger. After years of teasers and hints, Tesla CEO Elon Musk finally unveiled the Model Y, a mid-sized all-electric vehicle that will start at $39,000 and is slated to hit the marketplace in fall 2020. The Model Y bears a striking resemblance to Model 3. The vehicle, which will come in a standard, long range, dual-motor all-wheel and performance variants, is a bit larger, allowing it to accommodate seven people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

YSplit wants to make it so you never owe your friends money again When you live with roommates or go out often with friends, it’s common for someone to front the payment — be that for utilities, the cable bill, rent or the restaurant bill — and have everyone else pay them back via cash, Venmo or Apple Pay. But YSplit, a company launching out of Y Combinator, wants to make it so you never have to owe anyone ever again. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It’s a tricky proposition for a product launch: last year’s model, but with fewer features. But sometimes the rules of consumer electronic update cycles were made to be broken — or at the very least, a little bent. Last year’s Versa was itself a paring down from the company’s first true smartwatch, the Ionic. In that case, things worked out great. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Salesforce is celebrating its 20th anniversary today. The company that was once a tiny irritant going after giants in the 1990s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market, such as Oracle and Siebel Systems, has grown into full-fledged SaaS powerhouse. With an annual run rate exceeding $14 billion, it is by far the most successful pure cloud application ever created. Twenty years ago, it was just another startup with an idea, hoping to get a product out the door. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ten years after the launch of Foursquare at SXSW, the company is laying its technology bare with a futuristic version of its old app that doesn’t require a check-in at all. The godfather of location apps is returning to the launchpad with Hypertrending, but this time it hopes to learn what developers might do with real-time info about where people are and where they aren’t. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was only a matter of time before I let a robot enter my apartment and run wild. Roomba’s have been around since 2002, so it’s somewhat odd that it took me so long to get on board the robot vacuum train. But, alas, I’ve been testing the Roborock S5, a combo vacuum and mop, in my apartment for the last few weeks. TL;DR: I love him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Over a quarter of U.S. adults now own a smart speaker, typically an Amazon Echo U.S. smart speaker owners grew 40 percent over 2018 to now reach 66.4 million – or 26.2 percent of the U.S. adult population – according to a new report from Voicebot.ai and Voicify released this week, which detailed adoption patterns and device market share. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Elton John’s farewell tour marks the beginning for an audio augmenting wearable The good and bad of attending the legendary musician’s MSG show with headphones in your ears It’s not a great time to be a live venue. Once the only game in town, clubs, arenas and other live event spaces now have to compete with the seemingly endless on-demand entertainment options. Competing with the convenience of 4K Netflix on a 50-inch screen is a big ask, even for the biggest stars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is it happening? Is it not happening? After years of back and forth, it looks like the new tax on tech giants in France is about to become a law. Big tech companies that generate significant revenue in France will be taxed on their revenue generated in France. France’s Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire has been lobbying for a new tax so that tech giants would stop optimizing their European corporate structure to lower their effective tax rate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The president has to remember a lot of names! Some he remembers, some he forgets. But we will never forget today in the Year of Our Lord 2019 when President Trump called Apple CEO Tim Cook “Tim Apple.” Maybe we’re just losing our minds waiting for a good meme, but there’s something relentlessly good and pure about calling the executive formerly known as Tim Cook “Tim Apple.” Tim Cook: Great guy, great phones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A court in Paris has dismissed a case against Airbnb, as Le Monde reported. Last month, the City of Paris sued Airbnb for 1,010 illegal listings. According to the mayor’s office, Airbnb failed to comply with regulation in Paris. Paris has been trying to limit the effect on Airbnb on the housing market in Paris. Paris is one of the top cities for Airbnb in the world. A few years ago, many people stopped renting their apartments the traditional way in favor of Airbnb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In a recent Twitter thread, comedian Miel Bredouw recounted some shady behavior by Barstool Sports’ legal team. In fact, even Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy isn’t trying to defend it, and instead reportedly described it as “moronic,” admitting it, “makes us look like assholes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Then I took your ancestor Abraham from the other side of the Euphrates River and led him through the entire land of Canaan. I multiplied his descendants, and gave him his son Isaac.” That’s a passage from Joshua 24:3 in describing how Abraham “crossed over” the demarcation line into a spiritual awakening. It’s also the inspiration for the name of Cross River Bank (CR), led by its charismatic founder Gilles Gade. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ava Duvernay releases the first trailer for her Netflix series about the Central Park Five Celebrated director Ava DuVernay has released a harrowing first teaser trailer for her highly anticipated Netflix series about the Central Park rape case from the 1980s. The true story of the five African American and Hispanic teens who were wrongfully accused and convicted of the rape of a jogger in Central Park made headlines in 1989 in the wake of the attack and over the course of the subsequent trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Granted, this news is maybe a bit too late. Samsung’s already sold out of the free Galaxy Buds it was throwing in with S10 pre-orders. That said, the new Bluetooth earbuds are worth the $129 asking price, especially for Galaxy device owners. As with many fellow S10 reviewers, I’ve been using the Buds for about a week now. They happily hitched a ride in my ears from San Francisco to Barcelona and then back home to New York. And I’ve been digging them the whole time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to an Equity Shot, a short-form episode of the show where we dive into a single breaking news story. Guess what we’re talking about today?! It’s Lyft . You guessed correctly. The Lyft S-1 is the very first major S-1 event of 2019. As you might recall, the government shutdown gummed the IPO process by halting the Securities and Exchange Commission, an agency that plays the most active role in helping a company go public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hardworking drivers, rejoice! As part of Lyft’s initial public offering, the transportation company is deciding to reward the drivers who form the backbone of the company’s core service. The program will give a maximum cash bonus of $10,000 to drivers “in good standing” who have completed at least 20,000 rides as of Feb. 25, 2019. On the lower end, Lyft will give drivers who have completed at least 10,000 rides as of Feb. 25, 2019 a $1,000 one-time cash bonus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Believe it or not, the retention of black and Latinx employees at Google was better last year than in 2017. Though, Google’s attrition rates of black and Latinx — which indicate the rate at which employees leave on an annual basis — are still higher than the national average. For Native American employees, Google’s attrition rates significantly increased from the year prior. To be clear, that’s a bad thing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tesla buyers might have a hard time ordering a vehicle through its website for the next several hours. The “order” webpages for the Model 3, Model S and Model X vehicle all redirect to show nebulous message that reads “”The wait is almost over.” Below the main message, it reads “Great things are launching at 2 pm.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Feb. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Fortnite Season 8 is almost here. There’s a lot we don’t know — most things, really — but the long wait will be over soon. If you can’t stand the anticipation or the requisite server downtime, we’re here to speculate so you’ll be mildly less bored. It worked for us. If Fortnite’s snowy Season 7 felt like it was dragging on through winter, things look to be warming up and melting out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Party planning can be fun if you have the time for it and happen to know what you’re doing. For the rest of us, it can be a daunting, time-consuming endeavor, one that requires visits to numerous websites, in-store visits when those products invariably don’t arrive in time, then return visits to pick up those last items that you could have sworn you’d thrown in your shopping cart but did not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twitter’s new prototype testing program isn’t the only way it’s working to fix conversations on its site. The company confirmed it’s currently running another public-facing test focused on making Twitter “more conversational” – but this time with Retweets instead of Replies. The test involves using a thin line to connect a quote-style retweet to the person commenting on the tweet, instead of placing the quoted tweet in a box as before. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Microsoft is scheduled to hold a major press conference at MWC Barcelona later today. With Satya Nadella and Alex Kipman in attendance, the expectation has long been that the company would use the event to show off the next version of its HoloLens mixed reality headset. Just hours before the event, though, Twitter user WalkingCat spoiled at least some of the surprise by leaking four images of the new device. These are the first images of the new HoloLens we’ve seen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Xiaomi doesn’t want to miss the 5G bandwagon — the company just unveiled its first smartphone that comes with a 5G modem at a press conference in Barcelona. The Mi Mix 3 5G is a new variant of the Mi Mix 3, a phone that Xiaomi originally released in October 2018. The company is trying to create a bezel-less phone with the Mi Mix line. Instead of a notch or a punch-hole display, Xiaomi has opted for a sliding front-facing camera. The result is a 93.4 percent screen-to-body ratio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been teasing — and his fanbase has been making pleas — to host a meme review. And after tweeted hints, meme review has arrived via YouTube star PewDiePie. Musk tweeted last month a photo and a question “Host meme review?” Host meme review? pic.twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. What a week. It had looked a bit quiet with just a few big rounds to cover. I was looking forward to a relaxed episode, frankly. But no, as Kate and I were prepping the show notes, the News Gods opened the heavens and dropped a fifty-weight of mana right on our heads. It was a lot of news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In what may well be the most Samsung move in Samsung history, Samsung just introduced four new Samsung S10 models. For the 10th anniversary of the flagship line, Samsung is going all in on this thing. And with more information expected on Samsung’s upcoming foldable, well, that’s a lot of Samsungs, Samsung. Before we dive in to what’s bound to be a lot of words about a lot of phones, here’s the basic breakdown of the line: S10: The flagship. 6.1 inch. Starts at $900. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ride-hailing company Lyft plans to file its initial public offering in March, possibly beating rival Uber to the milestone. Two reports, one from Reuters, the other from WSJ, indicate Lyft plans to list its shares on Nasdaq next month. The WSJ, citing unnamed sources, reported Lyft may make the filing public as early as next week. Reuters also reported that the ride-hailing company plans to launch the roadshow for itsIPO during the week of March 18. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mark Zuckerberg says it might be right for Facebook to let people pay to not see ads, but that it would feel wrong to charge users for extra privacy controls. That’s just one of the fascinating philosophical views the CEO shared during the first of his public talks he’s promised as part of his 2019 personal challenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

iOS 12, Apple’s latest mobile software for iPhone and iPad, is out. The new software packs in a bunch of new security and privacy features you’ve probably already heard about. Here’s what you need to do to take advantage of the new settings and lock down your device. 1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices