Upgrade to the Alienware 18 Area-51 gaming laptop with RTX 5070 Ti — $500 off!
Why you should buy the Alienware 18 Area-51 gaming laptop
The resurrection of Alienware's Area-51 brand brings the Alienware 18 Area-51 gaming laptop, which is all about performance. In addition to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics card, it's equipped with the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX processor and 32GB of RAM, which our guide on how much RAM do you need says is the sweet spot for high-end gamers. With these specifications, the Alienware 18 Area-51 challenges the best gaming laptops with the ability to run the best PC games at their most demanding settings without missing a beat.
All of that power under the hood of the Alienware 18 Area-51 will be given justice by its 18-inch screen with WQXGA resolution and a 300Hz refresh rate. It's pretty heavy at about 10 pounds, and with that relatively large display, it's not as portable as its sleeker counterparts, but the gaming laptop makes up for that by allowing you to install multiple AAA titles at a time on its 2TB SSD with Windows 11 Home out of the box.
Dell's Black Friday in July sale is an excellent opportunity to take advantage of gaming laptop deals, like this one for the Alienware 18 Area-51 with the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti graphics card. From its original price of $3,300, it's on sale for $2,800 following a $500 discount. It's still a significant investment, but the savings will go a long way towards building your gaming library and your arsenal of video game accessories. You have to proceed with the purchase right now though, as there's no telling how much time is remaining before stocks of the Alienware 18 Area-51 gaming laptop sell out.
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TechCrunch
35 minutes ago
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Stripe's first employee, the founder of fintech Increase, sort of bought a bank
It's an open secret in the fintech world that the founder and CEO of startup Increase, Darragh Buckley, has been trying for years to 'buy a bank,' as one person familiar with the landscape told TechCrunch. A couple of weeks ago, he basically succeeded. He bought a big enough stake in Twin City Bank to trigger a public disclosure of the transaction by the Federal Research Board. Such share purchases are then subject to FDIC approval. Twin City is a small community bank in Longview, Washington, about an hour north of Portland, Oregon. The stake had to be in excess of 10% to trigger the disclosure. Buckley confirmed the deal to TechCrunch but declined to say how big of a stake he purchased. Whether he owns 11% or, say, 51%, we understand he is not the sole owner. Still, anything upwards of 10% makes him a major shareholder. (For comparison, public companies have to disclose all ownership stakes of 5% or more.) The assumption in the industry was that Buckley wanted a bank to further the ambitions of Increase, his banking-as-a-service (BaaS) startup, multiple sources told TechCrunch. What's particularly wild is that a mysterious entity — most likely one of Buckley's competitors — was so opposed to this deal that it hired an agency to pitch the press on writing negative stories about it and him. But, Buckley told TechCrunch, this was actually his third investment in a Washington community bank and his interests are not what his competitors think. Techcrunch event Save $450 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $450 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW This is not an effort for Increase to own the bank, he said. 'Twin City Bank is, and will remain, a community-focused bank,' he said. Silicon Valley finds a banking shortcut Increase offers an API platform that allows financial services to be programmatically served. It performs tasks like automated clearing house transactions, wires, real-time payments, etc. Increase's customers are largely other fintechs like Ramp, Check, and Pipe. As Stripe's first employee, Buckley has 'a great reputation as an engineer among his peers,' one person in the fintech industry told TechCrunch. Even some BaaS competitors refer business to Increase when they can't handle it themselves. Like most fintechs, Increase partners with (and shares revenue with) FDIC-insured banks to offer such regulated services. Obtaining banking licenses themselves is difficult and expensive. Even Chime, which offers checking and savings accounts and recently had an IPO, is not an FDIC-insured bank but has banking partners. In Increase's case, it works with Grasshopper Bank and First Internet Bank of Indiana. (Buckley said he has no personal investment in either one.) However, BaaS is a crowded, competitive market. That's led a small number of them to find a workaround to stand out: buying small community banks directly and doing away with banking partners. The biggest example of this is William Hockey, co-founder of Plaid, whose current fintech, Column, bought Northern California National Bank for $50 million in 2021. Another example is a Kansas City bank called Lead, bought and led by former Block executives Jackie Reses, Lead's CEO, and Ronak Vyas, CTO. The dangers of fintech partnerships Buckley insists he has no plans to turn Twin City into his company's personal partner bank or to swell its revenues with lots of fintech partners like Increase's customers. The latter, he knows, can be dangerous. For example, Evolve Bank, a partner to many fintechs from Affirm to Stripe, was the target of a large ransomware attack in 2024. This was shortly after the Federal Reserve System issued a cease-and-desist consent order to Evolve over problems it found with the bank's risk management systems. Evolve was ordered to implement pages of compliance fixes. (The bank was also associated with the meltdown of BaaS startup Synapse.) 'Twin City Bank shouldn't support sponsor banking,' Buckley explained, referring to banking partnerships with fintechs. 'Sponsor banking requires very specific capability and capacity to supervise partners safely and soundly. Only specialized banks should do it.' 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37 minutes ago
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I've Cycled for 20 Years and Own 4 Electric Bikes—This Lightweight One Is Perfect for Travel
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Do keep in mind that the e-bike arrives as a class 2 (max speed of 20 mph) and the settings must be updated to increase to class 3 (max speed of 28 mph), but check local speed laws for e-bikes before doing so. Credit: Travel + Leisure Credit: Travel + Leisure Credit: Travel + Leisure Credit: Travel + Leisure Level 1 or 2 pedal assistance has proven to be a sufficient boost for riding on more gentle terrain. Shifting to a higher gear helps pick up the pace on this mid-weight bike without too much additional pedaling effort. When approaching inclines, I can typically shift between the five gears without needing to dial up the pedal assistance beyond level 3. Priority also added a throttle—positioned on the left handlebar—to rapidly gain speed or cruise along without any pedaling power. The throttle is very responsive, making it great to use in short spurts to get going from a hard stop or to maneuver around other cyclists and traffic as needed. 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Bloomberg
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