Dropping into the market
If you’ve ever “dropboxed” a file to someone, then you’ve likely used the popular file transfer and storage service that just had its long-awaited IPO on Wall Street. The Xerox of file sharing companies isn’t exactly a startup: Dropbox first popped up way back in 2007, when founder Drew Houston forget his USB thumb drive at home and created a simplistic file transfer scheme. The rest, as they say, is history.
Shares of Dropbox actually started trading Thursday and were hovering at about $21 a share, giving the company a market cap of about $8.2 billion. The value rose considerably today. Analysts think Dropbox could be a solid investment, mostly because its nearly profitable already, has a huge installed base and it’s already very well known.
A Hatch full of fun
As you might have guessed, we love us some flashy cars here at Digital Trends, but occasionally, something a little more… ordinary gets our attention – and exceeds our expectations. That’s certainly the case with the 2019 Toyota Corolla Hatch, a spunky four-seater that should prove to be a perfect urban machine, with its small footprint but large interior space that puts into competition with the Chevy Cruze, VW Golf and the ubiquitous Honda Civic.
The Hatch sports a 2-liter 4-banger mated to a unique transmission: It combines the efficiency of a CVT system with an actual “first gear” that it shifts into and out of, giving the car a more familiar shifting feel. You can also “shift” the CVT with some steering wheel paddles. For true control freaks, there is a six-speed manual available as well. The car also boasts a lot of in-cabin tech as well, as well as Toyota’s new Safety Sense 2.0 suite of driver aides. Check out our first look.
We’re ready
Hey it’s Friday and we know a lot of people are going to be in line tonight for Ready Player One, the adaptation of Ernest Cline’s pop-culture-meets-VR page turner that topped a lot of best seller lists. The Man himself, Steven Spielberg, directs, and the movie does not disappoint.
DT film critic Rick Marshal got an early peek at the sci-fi thriller, which follows Wade Watts as he journeys through the OASIS, a sprawling virtual world built by a genius tech titan, who has hidden three keys to the city (as it were) that will give whoever finds them ownership of the vast world, one that’s infused with endless ‘80s pop culture bits. As you can expect, nefarious forces are also after the big prize. .
Marshall says that Spielberg has basically done it again, crafting a fun ride of a movie with the expected eye-popping environments one might expect from a virtual world where anything is possible. But there are also solid characters, a lot of humor and even some lessons to learn within all the action sequences.
We’ve got more news on our Facebook page and YouTube channel, and be sure to tune in to this week’s DT podcasts: Trends with Benefits (general tech shenanigans) on Thursdays, and Between the Streams (movie and TV topics) every Friday.
