This week, Elon Musk’s company is selling a new fire toy, Google signed a $1.1 billion deal with HTC and crytpocurrencies are not having a very fun week.
The legend of Elon Musk and the Boring Fire
The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s tunnelling company is selling flamethrowers.
Considering that The Boring Company sold 50,000 hats late last year at $20 a pop, flamethrowers are probably an ambitious extension to the merchandise business.
Even though it is still in pre-order stage at $500 per unit, CNBC reported on Monday that 7,000 pieces have already been sold. That’s $3.5 million; quick maths. On Wednesday, CNET updated that number to 15,000 and $7.5million large.
And as you read this, the 20,000 flamethrowers are sold out.
A Californian lawmaker is outraged about it and says as much on Twitter.
Meanwhile, as Elon is playing with fire toys, Mercedes Benz has set its scope on Tesla.
Tech Insider reports the car manufacturer’s plans to conquer electric cars.
The $1 billion Google – HTC marriage
In September last year, Google signed an agreement with HTC towards product innovation in the hardware department. The deal also included a non-exclusive license for HTC intellectual property.
On Tuesday, a blogpost by Google’s Vice President for hardware confirmed the finalization of this deal which a TechCrunch report pegs at $1.1 billion
This is a big step towards consolidating Made by Google products.
What’s “cryptocurrenting”?
This week has not been very favourable for cryptocurrencies on many crucial fronts. First Bitcoin crashed below $9,000 and that was only the beginning.
On Tuesday, Facebook banned all ads advertising cryptocurrencies. A Forbes report says this ban was to remove the possibility of scams.
In the same vein, India’s finance minister said his country does not recognize cryptocurrencies as a legal tender.
SnapCommerce
Selling company merchandise seems to be the new cool these days. As Elon Musk is selling flamethrowers, Snapchat now has an in-app store.
The Snap Store is in the Discover section of the app and will sell things like a $20 Dancing Hot Dog Plushie and $30 Dog Lens T-shirt.
A TechCrunch report says that even though this venture is not particularly geared towards immediate profit, it is not a flash in the pan.