Remember Rollercoaster Tycoon? Imagine a game like that, but instead of building a theme park full of thrilling roller-coasters and awe-inspiring attractions, you decorate a basement and fill it with Bitcoin mining equipment. That is what you get with Bitcoin Tycoon, a tongue-in-cheek Bitcoin mining simulator from independent developer 99 Game Studio.
“The early access version will contain a basic mining system, which includes PC building, hardware store and a mining pool. Later on, we may keep working on hardware, running an exchange website, and cloud mining builds,” the developer states on the game’s Steam page.
In Bitcoin Tycoon, you play as a person who jumped into the cryptocurrency market in early 2014, when things were moving quickly for early investors. The protagonist learns knowledge from “elders” and grows to understand the bitterness behind bitcoin mining, according to the developer’s synopsis on the Steam store. Not only do you get to build a crypto mining setup, but it appears you’ll be able to customize your hardware, and maybe even join different mining pools.
There is not a lot to go on here, but that is partially because the game is still in Steam Early Access. Very Early Access, it seems.
“Due to some issues with time and cost, we have to publish the early access. We apologize that this game is not well-polished, can only be called playable, but please be kind to an early access game, we are still working on it,” the developer states on the Steam page. “Currently, we are halfway done of the system design. We don’t have a save/load system yet, which is a pain.”
Clearly, the game is in its infancy but could shape up to be a fun look at the sometimes grim realities of industrial-scale Bitcoin mining, especially at its early peak back in 2014. Bitcoin Tycoon is currently in Early Access and it looks like you will be able to get your hands on it in May. Whether or not it will actually teach you enough about crypto mining to give it a go yourself remains to be seen. From what we can tell, it might serve as something of a cautionary tale.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.