Tech Digest daily roundup: PayPal allows cryptocurrencies
Online payment company PayPal is to allow users in the UK to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies using its platform. Available on both its app and website, the service will initially be limited to four cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash. It comes after the launch of the same service in the US which was then followed by a Checkout with Crypto feature, enabling PayPal users to actually spend their crypto when making purchases with online merchants. The volatility and lack of regulation around cryptocurrencies, which are considered private money under English law, has often been seen as an impediment to their adoption by large payment companies such as PayPal. SkyNews
OnlyFans has plenty of cooking tutorials and fitness classes, but it’s best known for one thing – porn. But that’s all going to change soon. The subscription site has announced it will block sexually explicit photos and videos from October – although some nude content will still be allowed. OnlyFans creators have told Radio 1 Newsbeat the changes are a “kick in the teeth”. Tezza Williams, 22, from Birmingham, started making explicit OnlyFans content with his boyfriend earlier this summer, to repay financial debts he’d racked up. This month he says he made about £4,000 from the site. BBC
A Call of Duty: Vanguard PlayStation Alpha has been announced for 27 – 29 August. The alpha was announced yesterday (August 22) via a brief trailer that teased a brand new multiplayer mode Champions Hill. Every PS4 and PS5 player will have access to the limited alpha from 10AM PT / 1PM ET / 5PM BST 27 August to the same times on 29 August, giving them the chance to be the first to play the new Call of Duty, which we revealed more about in our Call of Duty: Vanguard preview. The new mode builds on the foundations of Modern Warfare’s Gunfight by focusing on small scale multiplayer matches – the alpha will support 2v2 and 3v3 games – and introducing a round-robin style tournament across one map split into multiple sections. Games Radar
OneWeb’s internet-satellite constellation continues to grow. An Arianespace Soyuz rocket carrying the 34 satellites of OneWeb’s Launch 9 mission lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Saturday (Aug. 21) at 6:13 p.m. EDT (2213 GMT; 3:13 a.m. Aug. 22 local time at Baikonur) following a two-day delay. The launch was originally targeted for Thursday (Aug. 19), but that attempt was aborted late in the countdown clock due to “a non-nominal event during the final automatic sequence,” Arianespace representatives wrote in an update that day. The issue was soon identified and fixed, and the liftoff was rescheduled for Friday afternoon (Aug. 20). But launch was soon pushed another 24 hours at the request of OneWeb “to allow for additional time for mission planning preparation linked to the updated liftoff,” Arianespace said via Twitter on Friday. Space
A start-up founded by Euan Blair, the son of former prime minister Tony Blair, is on the verge of announcing a lucrative funding investment after securing a £65m tranche of cash. The investment, understood to be the first part of an upcoming financing, is expected to elevate the value of his start-up, Multiverse, to hundreds of millions of pounds. Mr Blair, 37, owns about 28pc of Multiverse Group according to company filings. Although the new round may dilute his holding, his stake will still be worth tens of millions of pounds. Pitchbook, a database of start-up funding rounds, estimated its most recent valuation at £520m. Multiverse disputed the valuation. Telegraph
