Last week in tech: Cyber Monday deals, Facebook server troubles, and a bad week for Bitcoin

If you’re spending time on the internet today, there’s a good chance you’re looking for Cyber Monday deals. Sure, you made it through Black Friday and Shop Small Saturday, but this entire week is just jammed full of internet bargains that our deal-driven brains can’t resist. But, even though the past few days have been all about acquiring as many shiny new toys as we can pack into our increasingly smart homes, there were some other tech stories that you may have missed. Here’s the lowdown on the latest.

Bitcoin went on sale (or lost 40 percent of its value, depending on how you look at it)

Earlier this year, Bitcoin—the cryptocurrency even your tech-averse relatives have heard of—hit a high of more than $19,000 per coin. The currency then cooled off and settled around $6,000 for a few months, before taking a serious beating last week—dipping below $4,000. According to various Bitcoin Reddit forums, this is both the best thing and the worst thing to ever happen to cryptocurrency and it will either bounce up to a million dollars per coin or completely go away. Fun!

Researchers built a plane that flies with no moving parts

If you flew this weekend, you got to enjoy the mind-numbing drone of the plane’s jet engines, or maybe even a propeller. MIT, however, built a new kind of aircraft that flies using electroaerodynamic propulsion. It’s a cool technology that could one day make its way into commercial aircrafts, even if it doesn’t totally replace our current methods of blasting across the open sky. Read about how it works here.

Are you using “dark mode” on your gadgets yet?

2018 isn’t over just yet, but one clear trend in the tech world this year was the proliferation of darker user interfaces meant to save eyeballs and battery life. I’m using it in MacOS and I think it’s great. Plus, Android says it can offer significant advantages when it comes to keeping your phone charged.

This design concept could turn Apple Watches into iPod Nanos

iPods were awesome. They carried around tons of music and a few basic games without the trappings of modern smartphones. While the iPod is functionally dead, a Korean designer recently published a concept design that takes an Apple Watch face and turns it into a screen for what’s essentially an iPod Nano. It’s not a real product, but if it makes you hungry for an iPod, you can get an old actual iPod Nano on eBay right now for roughly $70, which sounds like a way better purchase than that cart full of weird vitamins and a third Instant Pot that’s currently in your cart for Cyber Monday.

Facebook and some of its services went down briefly before Thanksgiving

If you had trouble logging onto Facebook or one of its other services like Instagram last Tuesday, it wasn’t just you. The company had some server issues that caused outages for some users. It was a glorious time as people of the world put down the phones and really connected with each other while free from the digital shackles of social media. Nah, just kidding. Everyone just complained about it on Twitter.

Now, get back to shopping. Check out our running tab of deals here for all your holiday splurging needs.