After the popularity of bitcoin wore off, China's bitcoin exchange, BTC China, announced it will suspend its local trading service at the end of this month. Last 18 September, two other major exchanges - Huobi and OKCoin - followed suit to say they will cease at the end of October.

The writing was on the wall when The Wall Street Journal reported that the Chinese government intended to shut down bitcoin exchanges after banning ICOs the previous week.

Government officials then began meeting with exchanges to bring about the trading suspensions, a source with knowledge of discussions told TechCrunch.

While the exchanges will no longer be allowed to facilitate the buying of crypto coins using Chinese Yuan and the trading of coins, they will continue to operate international-facing exchanges and other associated services. Smaller exchanges, however, will be closing for good. Those include Yunbi, which announced in Chinese it will shut up shop on 20 September 2017.

The impact of the crackdown sent bitcoin prices falling - with the crypto currency dropping below US$ 3,000 on some exchanges for the first time in a month - but it quickly rebounded and, at the time of writing, it had nearly made up the losses.

As with all things bitcoin, it is difficult to be sure exactly why, but there are plenty of reasons.

Most importantly, China is no longer the dominant in bitcoin trader it once was. A series of government bans - most recently a four-month trading freeze due to security concerns - have seen its share of global trading drop from more than 90 percent in previous years to just over 10 percent recently.

Markets like Japan, Korea and the U.S. have emerged to account for the lion's share of global trading volumes, so the impact of this China ban is not as severe as it initially may seem.

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Apple has long been trying to improve its negative environmental impact and the latest result of their effort is in its top-of-the-line iPhone X.

Among the 10th anniversary iPhone's long list of features, the iPhone X also includes a new line that says "low carbon process," said Lisa Jackson, Apple's vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco last 19 September. The iPhone X uses low-carbon aluminum that helps reduce Apple's carbon footprint generated by the new phone.

"If we care about something, it does show up in our products," said Jackson, who served as the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Barack Obama administration prior to joining Apple.

Apple mines for heavy metals like aluminum, tin and tungsten that are then used to supply almost all iPhone models. But recently, the company has pledged to use recycled materials, like metals, including those from old iPhones, to build new devices. Ultimately, this would allow Apple to abandon mining altogether in favor of a "closed loop supply chain."

Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated those efforts in an interview with Fortune earlier this month, adding that the company aims to have a no-carbon footprint and run entirely on renewable energy.

"There's 100-plus elements in an iPhone and we're figuring out how to move those back through the supply chain," Jackson said. "...So the business opportunity is to come to Apple with 'I have a process for getting cobalt out of batteries, or I have a process for getting tungsten.'"

"We're working right now so that the solder that we use in the iPhone 6 is now all recycled tin," Jackson added.

The discussion then moved to how Apple repairs and replaces its iPhones. Jackson noted how one iPhone may have several different owners, which is all a part of its life cycle. Apple has been criticized for how old, unused iPhones contribute to environmental pollution in the past, but one way it can increase an iPhone's livelihood through durability, she said.

"I don't think you can say repairability equals longevity...You have look at the whole life cycle," Jackson explained. "Apple has designed for some time around durability. Around the idea that though we can release the latest and greatest product, your old product still has value -- you can sell it, you can pass it down."

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Apple has already released the final version of iOS 11. This update is packed with new features for the iPad and new core frameworks for their products. The update is currently rolling out and is available both over-the-air in the Settings app, and by plugging your device into iTunes for a wired update.

Many people try to download these major updates at the same time. Apple usually implements a queue system to ensure speedy downloads once users are at the front of the queue.

The new version of iOS is compatible with the iPhone 5s and later, the iPad mini 2 and later, the iPad Air and later as well as the most recent iPod touch.

The only advised given is that users should backup their devices first. Also, to make sure that the iCloud backup is up to date by opening the Settings app on the iPhone or iPad and tapping on the account information at the top and then on the device name. Additionally, users can also plug your iOS device to their computer to do a manual backup in iTunes (or do both, really).

Users should not forget to encrypt their backup in iTunes. It is much safer if somebody hacks the computer. And encrypted backups include saved passwords and health data. This way, they don’t have to reconnect to all their online accounts.

Once this is done, users should go to the Settings app as soon as possible to get in the queue. Navigate to 'Settings,' then 'General' and then 'Software Update.' Then they should see 'Update Requested ...' It will then automatically start downloading once the download is available.

iOS 11 is the coming of age of the iPad. It turns the iPad into a more capable computing device with a brand new user interface. While the home screen hasn't changed, there's now a system-wide dock with all their favorite apps. Users can drag their finger from the bottom edge of the screen to bring it up at any time.

If the user keep dragging, they get an Exposé-like bird’s-eye view of their recent apps and workspaces — a workspace can be multiple apps running in split screen. If you they to open two apps side-by-side, they can now just drag and drop an app icon from the dock to the main screen. It's a lot smoother than the previous Split View interface.

Apple also implemented a new spring-loaded, drag-and-drop gesture. Now, users can drag documents, photos, audio files, links and more across multiple apps. It will feel like a desktop computer. They can also manage their files in the new Files app, which supports cloud file services, such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and OneDrive.

On the iPhone, most of the changes are under the hood. Many developers have been playing around with ARKit, Apple's new augmented reality framework. It is now much easier to create AR-enabled apps, with iOS doing the heavy lifting. Users can expect a lot of augmented reality apps and features in the App Store.

The most visible change is the new Control Center with customizable shortcuts (at least some of them). Users can add an Apple TV remote shortcut or a battery-saving mode shortcut for instance. The App Store has been completely redesigned as well. And, of course, by keeping the iPhone up-to-date, users get the latest security updates and performance improvements. New emojis are also coming soon.

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When 2017 started, Nike began experimenting with AR to sell limited-edition shoes through its SNKRS app for iOS.

The implementation was fairly simple: To unlock the sneakers, buyers just had to go to the product page in the application, tap on a 3D model of them and then point their camera at a menu of David Chang's Fuku restaurant in New York City. (The sneaker being sold was a collaboration with the renowned chef, dubbed the Nike SB Dunk High Pro "Momofuku.")

If buyers didn't have access to a physical menu, they also had the option to point their device at a web version of it or special SNKRS posters located across NYC.

When Nike launched the feature, it didn't advertise it as a tool to combat bots. But, whether it was intentional or not, AR seems to have helped the cause.

According to Heidi O'Neill, president of Nike's direct to consumer business, who spoke at Recode's Code Commerce event last 14 September, the use of the tech in the SNKRS app "has come very close to eliminating bots, and taking the sneaker hunt [to] as close to a fair game that I think it is anywhere in the industry."

Although she didn't specify how exactly AR is able to do that, or share any statistics to back up her claims, it's not hard to decipher the potential of the technology. Especially because in most scenarios it would require some sort of physical interaction, like buyers having to head to a specific location to gain access to a release.

"We don't want to disappoint," she added. "While it's a game, we don't want our members and people who love the brand and love sneakers to feel like they've lost."

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As he promised, visionary Elon Musk released another photo of the SpaceX spacesuit his company has created for future space travel. He posted the first photo of the suit to Instagram back in August and gave a second look at it in the last few days, this time with it pictured near the Dragon Crew spacecraft.

The suit isn't just a "mockup" Musk said in a previous caption. It's the real deal and has been tested in a vacuum for space-like conditions. Musk also said that it was difficult to balance the esthetics and the functionality of the suit when creating it.

The suit does look pretty cool. Many of the comments on the photo had to do with how it looked, some compared it to the suits in the show "Star Trek," another commenter said it looked like it was from a computer game or resembled the outfits worn by Daft Punk.

The suit will likely be worn by the private citizens that SpaceX has been hired to send to space in 2018. SpaceX announced in February that two private citizens approached the company about doing a private mission to space and around the moon. When this mission was announced, the company also said SpaceX would launch the Crew Dragon craft to the International Space Station this year.

The plan was to send up one Dragon Crew craft with no humans on board in automatic flight mode before flying a manned mission in the second quarter of 2018. After several successful Crew Dragon missions occur then the company will send up the private citizens, said a release from the company.

The Falcon Heavy rocket that will be used to send up the Dragon is in the testing stages, the last of which occurred earlier this month. A test launch is expected in November, although Musk noted in August that a lot could go wrong during the November test launch and landing of the first stage of the rocket.

Although Musk refers to the suit as a space suit in both captions of the photos, it’s most likely more of a flight suit to be worn while in the Dragon Crew craft. A space suit designed for outer space conditions would likely be much larger, more like the kind you picture when you think of an astronaut on a spacewalk outside of the ISS.

However, very few details about the suit and its expected uses and design have been released. SpaceX has a contract with NASA to conduct resupply missions to the ISS as well as eventual crew missions as part of the Commercial Crew Program. The company currently launches supplies and satellites for NASA, the United States Government and private companies.

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Even if Apple has expanded its iPhone lineup last 12 September, it has slimmed down the software update delivered for iTunes on Windows and Mac PCs.

Once users install version 12.7 they will no longer have access to the App Store from the desktop. As described on Apple's support page, a focus toward "music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and audiobooks" means that users will usually need to use their iOS devices to manage the apps installed on them. What it adds in this update is the ability to sync with devices running iOS 11 and social music sharing for Apple Music subscribers.

Other changes include a previously announced move for iTunes U content, which is now in the Podcast section. Redownloading ringtones can be handled on-device (with iOS 11), while Internet Radio stations have moved to the music library.

Some users may have been used to managing apps and ringtones from the app, but pulling that section out could be part of a long-anticipated quest to solve the bloated, sprawling mess that Apple's desktop music app has become.

Of course, if there is an urgent need to restore a ringtone or app that's no longer available, Apple says that will still be possible if the users plug the device into their PC with a USB cable.

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