Toncoin has become the eighth largest project in the entire cryptocurrency.

With hundreds of millions of users, Telegram's TON, also known as The Open Network, is gaining momentum in simple, addictive and fun blockchain-based games. There are currently 500 million users on the TON network, according to the foundation. With a current market capitalization of $19.4 billion, Toncoin has become the eighth largest project in the entire cryptocurrency, overtaking pillars such as Polkadot, Cardano and NEAR.

How not to fall for the tricks of scammers in TON and Telegram.

Since the TON and Telegram ecosystem is rapidly gaining popularity, and now more than 38 million accounts are active, the increased interest carries with it great risks. Scammers and intruders are targeting the influx of new, inexperienced users, seeking to use the work done by TON and Telegram to make cryptocurrency accessible to everyone.

Although cryptocurrency offers exciting opportunities, it is important to keep in mind the potential risks, even in the most secure ecosystems. The most common fraud schemes and ways to protect against them - read here.

What are the most popular games on TON?

The TON blockchain has quickly turned into a dynamic ecosystem for decentralized gaming, featuring many modern games.

Let's take a look at some of the most popular examples defining gameplay in TON.

✅ Notcoin : A click-and-earn game that allows players to earn tokens by clicking
✅ Catizen : A Play-to-Airdrop game in which players breed cats to earn $Cats tokens.
✅ Fanton Fantasy Football: A "Play and Earn" game in which players assemble football teams and receive rewards.

Mercari will start accepting Bitcoin.

The Japanese e-commerce platform Mercari this summer allowed users to buy goods presented on flea market applications using bitcoin.

Bitcoin transactions are carried out through the Melcoin subsidiary crypto exchange located in Tokyo. The prices of the goods are displayed in Japanese yen, but payment will be possible in Bitcoin. Sellers will receive the paid bitcoins in the local fiat currency. Mercari is one of the largest e-commerce platforms in Japan and has already introduced cryptocurrency to its platform through the Mercari Bitcoin cryptocurrency trading service and loyalty program.

Japan is a country that supports cryptocurrencies and has more flexible rules for dealing with them, which allows companies such as Mercari and Rakuten to actively implement cryptocurrencies on their platforms.

TON Storage Marketplace: an open ecosystem for everyone.

On the TON Storage platform, any participant can act as a host, providing their own disk space to store files of other users. This contributes to the formation of an open and competitive data storage market, where everyone can choose the most suitable offer in terms of price/quality ratio.

New TON features.

At a time when data storage costs are rising and data security is at risk due to centralization by large providers such as Amazon and Google, TON Storage represents a revolutionary solution.

This platform uses the principles of decentralization to create networks where everyone can not only store, but also actively participate in managing data.

AliExpress became one of the leading advertisers at EURO-2024.

Chinese companies have become the leading advertisers at the European Football Championship currently taking place in Germany. Five of the thirteen official sponsors of EURO-2024 are companies from China.

These are the AliExpress marketplace, the AliPay payment service, the smartphone manufacturer Vivo, the electronics manufacturer Hisense, and the BYD automaker. Largely thanks to their efforts, revenue from the sale of commercial rights at the tournament amounted to €600 million. This is 15% more than at EURO-2020 and 24% than at EURO-2016.

Themed T-shirts appeared on sale on foreign marketplaces after the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

Just 2 hours after the Associated Press published a picture of Donald Trump wounded in the ear on July 13, T-shirts with a historical photo appeared on the Internet. The first batch of goods went on sale on the popular Chinese platform Taobao. Similar T-shirts are already being sold on popular marketplaces in Southeast Asia - Lazada and Shopee. The price is about $15.In addition, the HodgeTwins twin bloggers posted photos of T-shirts on the social network X (formerly Twitter), stating that "100% of the profit from the sale of goods goes to the Trump campaign."

Another American online store of trending T-shirts, Potoshirt, offers clothes with similar images. For example, one T—shirt says "Undefeated" in Russian, and the other one says "Shooting makes me stronger."

More than 70 products with a "loud print" are on sale on the Redbubble trading platform. Among the new products are hoodies, caps, bags, mouse pads, laptop and smartphone cases, watches, notebooks, even bed linen, shower curtains, aprons with the image of the wounded ex-head of the White House Donald Trump.

OpenAI is developing a secret AI called "Strawberry" that can think and reason like a human.

This will significantly improve its ability to handle requests compared to existing models. "Strawberry" is supposed to be the long-awaited general AI (AGI). The project was previously known under the AGI-focused codename Q*.

Other details are being kept under wraps for now, but according to Reuters, the beta version is ready and was shown at an internal meeting.

Amazon now has its own AI chatbot Rufus.

Amazon has launched its AI chatbot Rufus into beta for all US customers via its mobile app. After an initial testing phase that began in February, Rufus is now available to more users. Rufus primarily helps users with their shopping needs by offering product recommendations and answering specific questions about product options.

Some users find the bot functional, but somewhat "boring". Fortunately, at this stage, he refrains from promoting promotional products in his recommendations. Armed with information from Amazon's extensive catalog of products, customer reviews and various online sources, Rufus strives to "provide accurate information tailored to the individual needs of users," the press service writes.

It can also handle queries related to upcoming deliveries and other account-specific details.

Elton John decided to sell his luxurious wardrobe on eBay.

The corresponding material is published by People. Тhe 77-year-old artist is putting up for sale a collection of his favorite items from luxury brands. Thus, buyers can purchase hundreds of items of clothing, shoes and accessories. These include Gucci jackets, Versace robes, custom Prada loafers, and historic concert T-shirts and baseball caps.

“The Rocket Man Resale eBay store gives everyone the opportunity to have access to unique pieces that have a wow factor, like my favorite robe designed by my incredibly talented friend Donatella Versace,” - John said.

The New York Times presented a list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.

First place went to the novel “My Brilliant Friend” by Italian writer Elena Ferrante.

The newspaper published the list gradually, and now the full top is available on the publication’s website. To create the rating, the NYT editors surveyed more than 500 writers, poets, and literary critics. Each of them had to offer 10 works. Stephen King, John Irving, Sarah Jessica Parker and others took part in the selection of books (you can see each person's choice here).

Do you remember that the online giant Amazon started out as an online store selling books.

Chinese authorities are testing AI models for compliance with socialist values.

The country's Cyberspace Authority ordered Alibaba to test its developments. Their AI models will have to answer many questions, some of them related to politics and ideology. A year ago, the same regulator developed rules for chatbots.

They say that China supports innovation and popularization of technology, but the content created by chatbots should not contradict the norms of public morality, and also: “contain calls to undermine state power, overthrow the socialist system, incite the division of the country, and undermine national unity.”

Amazon now tracks the time employees spend in the office.

Several Amazon teams, including retail and cloud computing divisions, have been informed in recent months that at least two hours spent in the office can be considered a visit. Individual teams were told that they must stay at their workplaces for at least six hours per visit.

Last year, Amazon began requiring most employees to be in the office three times a week, without limiting the time of the visit itself.

Amazon spokeswoman Margaret Callahan said the company has started "communicating directly" with employees who don't spend enough time in the office. "More than a year ago, we asked employees to start coming to the office three or more days a week because we believe this will bring the best long-term results for our customers, business and culture. And so it is. The vast majority of employees stay in the office more often, show more energy and establish cooperation. Now that more than a year has passed, we are starting to communicate directly with employees who do not regularly spend a significant amount of time in the office to make sure that they understand the importance of spending time with their colleagues," - she said.

Amazon is flooded with hamster products.

Amazon sells products with the Hamster Kombat logo. Here you will find T-shirts, sweatshirts, and smartphone cases with the popular hamster.

Former US President Donald Trump spoke at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville and said that the US should take the lead in the cryptocurrency space. “If we don’t do it, China will,” he said. Trump announced that he would fire SEC Chairman Gary Gensler and create a “Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Advisory Board.” The conference caused a stir in the crypto world, and Trump increased his popularity among cryptocurrency supporters.

Amazon, the world's largest online commerce platform, has completely switched to renewable energy sources (RES). The company reached the goal seven years ahead of schedule, ESG Today reports.

Amazon has set a goal to switch to renewable energy in 2019. At that time, the company stated that by 2030, green energy will be used to carry out all operations, including the operation of data centers, corporate buildings and pick-up points. At the time of the announcement of the plan, Amazon was already partially relying on renewable energy sources — they accounted for 42 percent of the energy consumed by the company.

In the following years, Amazon invested in more than 500 projects dedicated to green energy. The company plans to continue investing in renewable energy sources and try new green energy sources.

Amazon is pouring billions into AI, ignoring investor skepticism.

According to a report by the Financial Times, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta have spent a combined $106 billion in the first six months of 2024 to build the infrastructure needed to develop artificial intelligence, despite growing skepticism among Wall Street investors about the return on such investments.

The company executives, ignoring stock market concerns, are planning to continue to increase their investments over the next 18 months.

In the US corporate world, there is already excitement about using large language models to further automate the hiring process. According to a 2023 survey, 10% of companies were already using AI in recruiting, and another 30% planned to start doing so in 2024.

The New York Times and other leading news sites are blocking the webbot of the new OpenAI search engine

OpenAI's new search engine SearchGPT has faced the fact that leading news sites, including New York Times, blocking its web bot. These are 14 out of 1,000 web publishers, including Wired, The New Yorker, Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ.

One of the reasons for this decision is the lack of trust in OpenAI. The company, in turn, claims that it does not train its language models on the data obtained.