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A Bitcoin exchange partnership designed to smooth the trading process and show the security of the virtual currency has apparently collapsed with a lawsuit.

After struggling to crack the U.S. market, Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, announced in February that it had reached an arrangement with CoinLab in which the Seattle-based startup would manage the Bitcoin exchange's operations in the U.S. and Canada. Along with the support of Silicon Valley Bank and $500,000 in VC funding, it was hoped that the arrangement would help increase customer confidence in the decentralized digital currency.

However, … Read more

The value of Bitcoin has been skyrocketing of late, gaining more than 50 percent in the last few days, but two unrelated events today knocked the virtual currency back down a bit.

The peer-to-peer currency, which was languishing in the midteens in January, surged past $100 on Monday and was trading as high as $147 today before an hour-long outage at Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, pushed its value down to $115. The currency rebounded a bit to close at $123, a 500 percent increase in the past two months.

Mt. Gox initially blamed the outage on … Read more

Bitcoin has staged a dramatic comeback in the past two months, more than doubling its value against the dollar in that time and trading at record levels.

The virtual currency was trading above $32 a share today after languishing in the mid-teens in January. The record was reached on the same day that Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange, reached an agreement with CoinLab to manage the exchange's operations in the U.S. and Canada.

Bitcoin sprang up in 2009 as a peer-to-peer currency that intentionally avoided the prying eyes of law enforcement officials. In order to … Read more

MediaTek will take on Samsung and Nvidia in the emerging market for mobile quad-core chips.

The Hsinchu, Taiwan-based company today announced the MT6589, a quad-core system-on-a-chip (SoC) that integrates a modem supporting HSPA+ and other international standards.

Integration of a modem into a quad-core chip is a first, the company says.

The processor is based on ARM's Cortex-A7 design, the same technology used in Qualcomm's upcoming quad-core S4 processors.

But that Qualcomm chip won't be available commercially until well into next year. The MediaTek chip, on the other hand, will appear in smartphones that are expected to … Read more

Thanks to a number of leaks, the preliminary details and images for three unannounced Motorola smartphones have arrived online. Likely to end up in international markets, the three models bear the familiar form factor that is seen in handsets like the Atrix 2 and Droid Razr.

Up first, we have a device that looks strikingly similar to the recently leaked Droid Fighter. Details are light for this model, though the display appears to be in the realm of 4.5 inches or larger with space across the bottom for soft keys. … Read more

Bitcoins aren't just an abstract financial instrument living somewhere in the digital ether anymore. They're now a physical currency capable of taking a ride in your pocket or scratching off your lottery tickets.

The physical Bitcoins, called Casascius Bitcoins and created by a guy in Utah named Mike Caldwell, are made of brass, with gold electroplating on the 25 Bitcoin denomination. And, of course, they're tied to the peer-to-peer, open-source digital currency that's been exchanged on the Internet for a while now.

Each coin has a unique Bitcoin address and a redeemable "private key" under a hologram on the coin. That key can be used to redeem the value of the Bitcoins online, but the hologram sticker leaves a honeycomb mark when peeled back, so you'll know if your Bitcoins have been tampered with.

The coins play a function similar to a gift card or certificate with a magnetic strip or bar code. In other words, it provides a tangible means of carrying around the digital key that contains the actual value. There's just one problem--the physical Bitcoins may well be illegal. … Read more

Altec Lansing has added another new portable iPhone/iPod speaker to its growing lineup with the $149.99 inMotion iMT630 Classic and Sport.

Continuing with Altec's trend of creating more distinctive-looking speaker docks, the iMT630 has a slim yet curvy design, a built-in rechargeable battery, and comes in multiple trim colors (the Sport version is available in red and teal, and the Classic is black).

Like other Altec speaker docks, this one becomes "app-enhanced" by adding Altec's free iOS apps, which include its Music Mood and Alarm Rock apps. The Music Mood app incorporates an ambient … Read more

Back in 2009, we reviewed the $300 Mix iMT800, a modern iPod/iPhone speaker dock with the look and feel of an old-school, crank-it-till-your-ears-bleed boom box. Now Altec's updated that portable speaker system with some small tweaks--the new model is known as the Mix BoomBox iMT810. Since the two systems are so similar, a lot of this review will sound the same as the review for the older model. But let's start with the differences. Here's what the new iMT810 has versus the previous system.… Read more

Back in 2009, we reviewed Altec Lansing's $300 Mix iMT800, a modern iPod/iPhone dock with the look and feel of an old-school, crank-it-till-your-ears-bleed boom box. Now Altec's updated that portable speaker system with some small tweaks and is shipping the new Mix iMT810.

In our review of the previous model, we said the design of Altec Lansing's Mix iMT800 "may not appeal to everyone, but its winning combination of good performance, lots of oomph, and portability makes it one of the best iPod speaker options out there."

While we haven't tested the new … Read more