Apple’s payment-enable smartwatch may still be months off, but PayPal is hoping to beat the Cupertino-based tech giant to the punch with watch-based payments at physical retailers. The payment company today debuted its application for the Pebble smartwatch, which allows users to make purchases at supported locations.
Unlike the Apple Watch and its associated payment system, PayPal’s app doesn’t require a connected smartphone to use. It also doesn’t support NFC-based transactions. Instead, it generates a payment code that can be used to check out and charge an order to a user’s account. In some stores users will also be able to check out simply by checking into the store through the app.
Another difference between the two payment systems is the fact that the PayPal app can only charge your account on that service, while Apple Pay works with most credit and debit cards, giving users greater control over where the charges will show up.
Apple released the software development kit for the Apple Watch earlier today, and promised that a future version of the software would allow for apps that can run natively on the watch without the need for a connected iPhone. Theoretically PayPal could release an app for that platform as well, though it doesn’t seem Apple is allowing developers to access the NFC chip except is special circumstances.
LiveVibe TV season opener to provide inside look at video games University of Florida The fourth season of LiveVibe TV premieres 7:30 p.m. Nov. 20 with an episode titled “Opening Minds: People Who Make Video Games” at the University of Florida Digital Worlds Institute's REVE (Research, Education and Visualization Environment) in ... |
PayPal’s mobile payments app is now available for the Pebble smartwatch, the company announced in a blog post today.
Pebble users can now check in to stores via the PayPal app and pay with an auto-generated payment code wherever PayPal is already accepted — no phone necessary. Users can pay one of two ways, either via the payment code mentioned above or, for certain retailers, by checking into a store on the PayPal app. Once checked in, PayPal’s app will automatically communicate with a merchant’s point of sale. In addition to making payments, Pebble users will also be able to receive notifications from the app.
PayPal’s integration with Pebble is clearly an opportunity for the payments company to rival Apple’s own Apple Pay service.
PayPal is increasingly pushing its platform to get access to the burgeoning mobile payments market. In addition to Pebble, the PayPal app is also available for the latest Android Wear devices as well as Samsung’s Gear 2, Gear S, and Gear Fit.
Today’s announcement comes just a week after PayPal parent company eBay revealed that its new smart dressing room for Rebecca Minkoff will exclusively offer PayPal as its form of mobile payment.
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WHAS 11.com (subscription) | Indiana donation program gathers 1200 cellphones WHAS 11.com (subscription) A phone drive that Pence sponsored during October collected no-longer-used cellphones and accessories to be given to victims of domestic violence. Many of the cellphones were donated in drop boxes on the state government campus in downtown ... and more » |
Apps & Updates
As promised in September, Google has launched the 64-bit of the Chrome browser for Mac to the public after a few months in beta. According to Google’s original announcement, the update drops support for 32-bit extensions, requiring all developers to update with 64-bit support.
The update also fixes over 40 security flaws and adds many new APIs for extension developers. Chrome uses a silent update mechanism that will automatically download and install the latest update, but if you find that you’re still on version 38 in the “About Chrome” window, you can manually download and install the update from Google.
Yik Yak may not be a household name like Snapchat, but it's almost as popular. The anonymous college bulletin board app was founded by three frat brothers at Furman University last fall and has already pulled in around $85 million in venture capital. Like other apps born out of frats, two of the founders allegedly screwed the third out of the company—only this time it was under parental supervision.
"This is a case of betrayal by greedy co-founders of a tech start-up," begins a lawsuit filed by Douglas Warstler. The suit says Yik Yak was originally developed under a business called "Locus Engineering." Ownership was the divided equally among Warstler, his fraternity "big brother" Brooks Buffington, and fellow Kappa Alpha member Tyler Droll. Warstler described Buffington as "one of his best friends."
But according to the complaint, when Yik Yak began going viral, Buffington and Droll cut Warstler out of the action:
Plaintiff, Buffington, and Droll partnered up to work and pool money together to develop and market various mobile applications including Yik Yak, a social media mobile application that allows people to post anonymously to other users within a 1.5 mile radius. The three of them agreed, in writing and orally, to split ownership of the Yik Yak partnership into 1/3 each. After acknowledging in writing Plaintiff's ownership interest in the Yik Yak partnership and unsuccessfully attempting to buy Plaintiff out, Buffington and Droll did the unthinkable: they brazenly kicked Plaintiff out of the partnership and claimed that Plaintiff owned nothing in Yik Yak. To cover things up and erase any evidence of Plaintiff's ownership, Buffington and Droll dissolved the company under which they and Plaintiff co-developed and co-owned Yik Yak, and transferred the company's only asset—the Yik Yak application—into a newly-created company.
Warstler provides ample evidence that Yik Yak was created by Locus Engineering—and that he was a partner in the business. Early app store records show Yik Yak as being owned by Locus, business records filed in the state of Georgia list Warstler as a partner, and Warstler is listed on Locus's bank statements. The suit also includes several emails and text messages between the former partners.
The trio released Yik Yak to the public in November 2013. It quickly gained traction around Furman University. The next month, on December 21st, Buffington sent Warstler a series of texts offering to buy him out of the company:
Hey so Tyler [Droll] and I have been thinking about yik yak and we want to know if you'd be open to being bought out? [...]
Tyler and I would like to at least have yik yak for ourselves to go with. For sure, we'll buy you out completely of if you don't want to do that then we'll buy most of your percentage out for a lesser amount
Warstler refused. Droll later delivered the bad news that his parents forced him to dump Warstler out of the company:
Dougie,
This isn't ideal but it is what needs to happen. We need to start fresh with your name off of this [Yik Yak]. I know we spoke about this before Christmas, but I spoke with my parents over the holidays. They are making me get this settled before continuing to fund it. My parents know how much Brooks and I have riding on making this succeed, so they want everyone to be fully committed. We are also going to have a lot of expenses going forward. We don't want to be coming to you for money and signatures when we are trying to get stuff done [...]
The lawsuit alleges that Yik Yak then "hired lawyers to engage in corporate machinations to basically erase Locus Engineering from the map."
Since pushing Warstler out of the company, Yik Yak has raised $11.5 million from investors and is closing in on "roughly $75 million" more. The frat-born startup is growing so fast that one Facebook executive recently tweeted (then deleted) that he feels "The real tech story is that Yik Yak is blowing up, not Secret or Ello, specifically at college campuses."
To contact the author of this post, please email kevin@valleywag.com.
Photos: Yik Yak, Lawsuit
From 9to5Toys.com:
Home automation possibilities are endless and what our homes will be like in the coming 5, 10 or 15 years is truly unknown. It is a constantly evolving sector of the technology scene that continues to grow each day with every new product announcement. From WeMo to SmartThings, Z-Wave to ZigBee, someone somewhere has something that will satisfy your home automation needs.
The reality is that we are in a time of great change, with internet-connected offerings in nearly every product category, even coffee makers. It’s an industrial revolution happening in your home and with that comes a lot of trial and naturally, error. So how does one choose?
There seems to be two options, one for the basic consumer, which includes your WeMo outlets, Philips Hue, etc. On the flip side you’ve got the open source crowd that wants to tinker and tweak and create their own system, and this is where littleBits comes in. While most of the aforementioned products have structured ecosystems and physical designs, with the ability to communicate via If This Then That (IFTTT) or the like, littleBits has gone to the complete opposite end of the spectrum.
We’ve covered littleBits in the past, with its WiFi-enabled cloudBit that “snaps the internet to anything”, allowing for custom Sonos-esque or Nest-like creations. At first glance its whole line of products feels overwhelming, and would appear to scare off anyone that was not familiar with the goals of littleBits. Today, they’ve expanded that line of Bits with the hopes of fully empowering consumers to create any home automation system that they’d like.
With the $249 Smart Home Kit from littleBits, consumers can get their hands on a 14 module set filled with sensors, LEDs, transmitters and sound triggers. At first glance, it is admittedly a little overwhelming. But once you take the time to dig into the possibilities that littleBits affords users, it is easy to see why its route to home automation can give consumers a massive amount of freedom. Instead of being locked in to an ecosystem, trying to trigger your WeMo when the Nest thermostat says you are home, littleBits is attempting to put all that power in your own hands. With that, comes the need for setup and the required desire to build your own system.
If you don’t know or are not willing to learn how to, then some of those other offerings from WeMo or SmartThings may be better suited for you. If you are into the this level of customization, you’ll want to check out littleBits’ offerings.
The basic setup allows users to specifically configure their system to their own specifications by piecing together individual modules that help trigger different actions. For example, utilizing the USB power module, MP3 player, a speaker and a ‘servo’ you can create a blind-opening-music-playing wakeup system. A number+, USB power, temperature sensor, cloudBit combo will allow you to control your window air conditioner. You get the idea, the possibilities are endless.
littleBits offers the $249 Smart Home Kit for pre-order starting today, with an estimated ship date of early December. Amazon has the entire line of littleBits products, available as full kits or individual pieces.
A good comparison for the littleBits line of products is the recently released Belkin WeMo Maker, which applies many of the same DIY principles to home automation. Although it does not offer some of the customization features, such as an MP3 player or speakers, it does have a more advanced level of hackability within the confines of the WeMo ecosystem.
Ultimately, we end this article where we started it, with consumer choice. Creating a home automation system is both exciting and daunting, and consumers have to make the choice for what is best for them. One positive of the current smart home landscape is the massive amount of choice afforded to consumers. The good news is that this encourages competition, which is good news for anyone considering going this route.
It’s hard to tell when the home automation market will become more focused and universal. Perhaps Apple’s HomeKit will play a role in that development once it is released. But in a world where Google and Samsung are buying interests in this area, a segregated marketplace is likely for the foreseeable future.
Full PR from littleBits:
littleBits LAUNCHES Smart Home Kit
The DIY solution to your own smart home
NEW YORK, New York, November 18, 2014 – littleBits Electronics, the company aiming to democratize hardware, today announced the launch of the littleBits Smart Home Kit, the ultimate kit of parts to turn any home into a smart home. With this unveil, littleBits is extending the power of the recently launched cloudBitTM, which lets you “snap the internet to anything”, making it possible for anyone to DIY their own smart devices.
“Our mission is to put the power of electronics in the hands of everyone, and to break down complex technologies so that anyone can build, prototype, and invent. Democratizing the smart home industry is one more step in delivering on that promise,” said Ayah Bdeir, founder and CEO of littleBits. “The Smart Home Kit is bring their home to the 21st century, on their own terms recreate a popular smart device, retrofit an old appliance, or invent something entirely new that may be the next big thing.”
In 2013, there were a mere 5.5 million connected homes in the United States. In the next two years, that number will increase to more than 31 million with the market poised to become a $71 billion industry by 2018. Today, companies are telling you to throw out all of your “dumb” home appliances and buy their new “smart” versions: from coffee machines and lights to speakers and refrigerators. This approach is expensive, unrealistic, and unnecessary. With the launch of the littleBits Smart Home Kit, an industry that has been the domain of expert installers and required steep financial investments, is now accessible to everyone.
The littleBits Smart Home Kit has already been used to create some popular applications such as smart refrigerators, internet connected speakers and smart lighting system. But more importantly, the Smart Home Kit allows people to build solutions that are completely new and unique such as retrofitted curtains to open at sunrise, remote feeders that respond to quirky pets, and a toilet paper roll that keeps you stocked. The possibilities are infinite.
The Smart Home Kit comes with 14 Bits, including the instrumental cloudBit, and five brand new Bits: MP3 player, Threshold, Number, Temperature Sensor, and IR transmitter. Also included is an infographic poster with 14 projects ideas and 11 accessories – including the brand new AC switch, which connects the littleBits 5V system to AC power (110V). It’s available online starting today for $249 at littleBits.cc/kits/smart-home-kit .
Additionally, this month littleBits rolled out its products to RadioShack stores across the U.S. The retail partnership was first announced in June among select stores and as of now is extended to include 2,000 stores nationwide. Beginning in December, the Smart Home Kit will be available in select RadioShack locations.
Apple has just released a flood of information about how apps on Apple Watch work, through the WatchKit framework. There are three types of integrations currently possible: WatchKit apps, Glances and actionable notifications. Although they sound similar, the development process for WatchKit apps are actually very different to that of normal iOS apps for iPhone and iPad, as much of the computation is done on the connected iPhone rather than rendered by the watch’s hardware itself.
The interface elements and interaction patterns for WatchKit apps revolve around a core set of user interface components and layouts. Arbitrary views are not supported, which is a big departure from how iOS apps are constructed.
The constraints are in place because although the Watch renders the UI, any other coding logic is actually managed by the connected iPhone through a WatchKit extension, that silently runs on the iPhone. For instance, animations are pre rendered as an image sequence on the phone GPU before being sent OTA to the watch for display. Apple has announced that fully-native Watch apps will debut later in 2015, which will likely loosen these restrictions somewhat.
For Glances, these are template-based notifications that persist on the watch. For instance, apps can show the current Weather information in a Glance. Glances are limited by the available templates, as described by Apple, as to how they can appear. Glances do not accept user interaction themselves, but they can act as a gateway to their respective parent apps. The Handoff API is used to ‘deep-link’ users to the relevant areas of the host app.
Actionable notifications are even less customizable. This is basically a different way of viewing the notifications that already present themselves on iOS today, although developers can provide some custom images to personalize the notifications. Notifications are presented as a modal view when they come in (with the icon centred) which transitions to a strict style of form, with any associated button actions shown below. As they are so limited, developers need to almost nothing to support this type of Apple Watch integration.
Developers can start creating WatchKit apps and Glances, by downloading the Xcode 6.2 and iOS 8.2 betas.
Following its detailed reports on displays used in the new iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, today DisplayMate published a scientific analysis of color accuracy for the six best mobile displays it’s tested this year. Despite ranking high in some categories in the test, Apple’s new entries, the iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Air 2, end up at the bottom of the list overall.
The comparison included the iPad Air 2, iPhone 6 Plus, Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3, and the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Tab 2 from Samsung.
The test ranked the devices in four categories— Entire Color Gamut, Facial Skin Tone Colors, Organic Colors, and Blue Region from Cyan to Magenta Colors— in order to determine an overall color accuracy score. While Apple’s devices performed well for Skin Tone and Organic Color Accuracy categories and ranked second place (behind the Note 4), iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Air 2 come in last behind Samsung and Microsoft devices for best overall color accuracy.
Its seems likely that Apple has concentrated on the important Red to Green part of the Color Space, which includes both the Skin Tone and Organic Colors. On the other hand, both the iPhone 6 Plus and iPad Air 2 are in last place for the Full Gamut Color Accuracy. This is partly the result of an over saturated Blue primary that distorts almost the entire Blue Region, which accounts for about half of the half of the entire Color Space and increases the Average Color Error, and also partly due to the less accurate bluish White Point.
As for the winners, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 took the top spot in all categories, while the Galaxy Tab 10.5 and Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tied for second overall:
1. The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is the winner in Absolute Color Accuracy, coming in first place in all categories for its Basic Screen Mode setting.
2. The Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 are tied closely for overall second place.
DisplayMate also notes that the iPhone 6 includes color accuracy performance “very similar” to iPhone 6 Plus, so it isn’t included. The Samsung devices, which offer several screen modes, were set to their basic default mode for the test.
You can view the full report and analysis from DisplayMate on its website here.
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Last week at Apple’s yearly briefing for accessory makers in its Made-for-iPhone/iPad (MFi) licensing program, the company unveiled new Lightning connectors and specs for Lightning receptacles that will soon be available for implementation in MFi accessories. The new Lightning receptacle, scheduled to start shipping next year, will allow accessory makers to build new types of accessories that include a port for Apple’s proprietary Lightning connector previously reserved for its own iOS devices (pictured above).
The announcement was made during Apple’s MFi Summit in China that took place last week over the course of three days in Shenzhen, China. We previously reported that Apple planned to brief accessory manufacturers on HomeKit hardware, iBeacon, Apple’s new Lightning headphones spec, game controllers, and more.
Allowing accessory makers to build-in a Lightning port provides a number of benefits, according to manufacturers briefed during Apple’s MFi Summit. One of the biggest benefits is to reduce costs for manufacturers and simplify the product experience for users by using Lightning to provide power to both an accessory and the iOS device. Dock or battery case manufacturers, for example, would previously have to provide a separate USB cable and power supply to charge an accessory. Mophie’s battery pack iPhone case with integrated Lightning connector, for instance, currently comes with a micro USB cable for charging. With a built-in Lightning port, users could use an existing Lightning cable (the one that came with their iOS device) to charge the accessory.
Another area the Lightning port could come in handy is for Apple’s new Lightning headphone specs. We previously detailed the MFi specs that will allow accessory makers to build headphones using a Lightning connector opposed to the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack. In theory, a Lightning receptacle could allow for pass through device for charging and listening with Lightning headphones simultaneously entirely over Lightning. It would also make for easy charging and cut down on costs for Bluetooth headphones rather than requiring USB and separate power supply.
The Lightning receptacle will arrive alongside a new Lightning connector (C68) that accessory makers say is a slimmed down, low profile version of previous implementations that can be used in a wide range of accessories from docks to form fitting cases. Apple has several variations of its Lightning connectors for use in accessories. The only one consumers ever see is the C48 connector (pictured right), which is only available for use in cables. For other accessories, however, Apple previously required a much bulkier solution than the C48 that paired with other components to provide more than just power to an accessory (C48 only supports data transfer and power). The new connector will provide features other than just power in a much tighter package (around the same size as C48) than previous solutions. The result will be an easier implementation of Lightning connectors into accessories with a slimmer overall design, but no change for consumers in terms of compatibility since it’s just the housing and not the actual tip of the connector that is changing.
Apple plans to begin shipping the new Lightning connector and receptacle to accessory makers in early 2015.
Back in September we reported that several accessory manufactures were meeting delays in the production of Lightning accessories due to a shortage of Lightning components coinciding with the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launch.
Other news out of Apple’s MFi Summit last week in China: The company has now started accepting product plans for HomeKit, the new Siri-controlled home automation platform
Yesterday’s dot-release of OS X 10.10.1 has seemingly failed to address the WiFi problems some users have been experiencing since upgrading to Yosemite, according to continuing posts on the Apple Support Communities.
Despite the first bullet-point in the release notes for 10.10.1 reading ‘Improves WiFi reliability,’ many of those who had reported connection failures, dropped connections and slow speeds said that nothing had changed since upgrading to 10.10.1 …
ComputerWorld quoted a number of illustrative complaints from a support thread containing more than 1,100 posts.
10.10.1 didn’t fix my Wi-Fi issues, still randomly dropping every few minutes or so [...]
We’ve got business-grade routers and [access points] at my school, and we’ve got numerous people unable to connect for longer than a minute before and after [updating] to 10.10.1 [...]
10.10.01 does NOT fix the Wi-Fi issues. I had to go thru the same extreme routines I have had to go thru the past 2 months to be able to connect to the Internet.
Apple has made no official statement on the problem, though several forum members report that Apple Care has advised going into System Preferences > Network > Advanced and removing old entries from the preferred network list, as well as performing an SMC reset.
Anecdotally, at least one of us here who upgraded our Retina MacBook Pros to 10.10.1 didn’t see any improvement in Wifi issues that have been an ongoing problem.
Early stats from Chitika suggested that Yosemite adoption speeds have been slightly faster than those for Mavericks.
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Apple executive Eddy Cue, in charge of the team that developed Apple Pay, recently participated in some holiday shopping with local news station KTLA to demonstrate how the new mobile payments platform works. Cue, alongside tech reporter Rich DeMuro, visited a number of stores in Santa Monica, California, including Panera Bread, Bloomingdale’s and the Disney Store.
The video reiterates how seamless it is to make contactless payments with Apple Pay by simply tapping an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus on an NFC-equipped payment terminal. While some retailers still require a signature depending on the purchase amount, Apple hopes to remove that hurdle and make Apple Pay an even more convenient experience at the over 220,000 stores where it is accepted.
Cue also stressed that Apple Pay is a secure payments platform because of how each transaction has a unique number attached to it, unlike the same credit card number that you carry around in your wallet. The executive walked through how Apple Pay can also be used on the latest iPad Air and iPad mini models for making secure in-app purchases with ease.
The full-length video is embedded below:
Apple Pay launched in the United States last month and, despite some big players like Walmart, CVS and Rite Aid opting to use their own CurrentC payments platform, the service has largely been a hit among consumers. Apple CEO Tim Cook recently claimed that Apple Pay received over 1 million activations just three days after launching, and early usage numbers at McDonald’s and Whole Foods show vast potential for retailers.
Apple Pay will also be compatible with the iPhone 5, iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s when paired with an Apple Watch.
Earlier this month, a new type of Mac- and iOS-based malware called “WireLurker” appeared online. Apple responded by blocking affected apps from launching on OS X, but another development was made in the case today.
According to ZDNet, Chinese authorities have arrested three suspects in connection with the malware and taken down the website that was found to be distributing it. The suspects are believed to be the creators of the software.
WireLurker was originally discovered by Palo Alto Networks just under two weeks ago. The software was distributed through infected third-party apps downloaded from unofficial sources, and would wait until an iOS device was plugged in, then infect that device.
Once the iOS device was infected, the software was capable of uploading details like contact information and text message contents to a remote server. It could also be remotely updated with new capabilities. Apple blocked infected Mac apps from running on OS X two days after it was discovered.
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Emil Michael, senior vice president of business for Uber, in July. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
A senior executive at Uber suggested that the company should consider hiring a team of opposition researchers to dig up dirt on its critics in the media — and specifically to spread details of the personal life of a female journalist who has criticized the company.
The executive, Emil Michael, made the comments in a conversation he later said he believed was off the record. In a statement through Uber Monday evening, he said he regretted them and that they didn’t reflect his or the company’s views.
His remarks came as Uber seeks to improve its relationship with the media and the image of its management team, who have been cast as insensitive and hyper-aggressive even as the company’s business and cultural reach have boomed.
Michael, who has been at Uber for more than a year as its senior vice president of business, floated the idea at a dinner at Manhattan’s Waverly Inn attended by an influential New York crowd including actor Ed Norton and publisher Arianna Huffington. The dinner was hosted by Ian Osborne, a former adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron and consultant to the company.
At the dinner, Uber CEO and founder Travis Kalanick, boyish with tousled graying hair and a sweater, made the case that he has been miscast as an ideologue and as insensitive to driver and rider complaints, while in fact he has largely had his head down building a transformative company that has beat his own and others’ wildest expectations.
A BuzzFeed editor was invited to the dinner by the journalist Michael Wolff, who later said that he had failed to communicate that the gathering would be off the record; neither Kalanick, his communications director, nor any other Uber official suggested to BuzzFeed News that the event was off the record.
Michael, who Kalanick described as “one of the top deal guys in the Valley” when he joined the company, is a charismatic and well-regarded figure who came to Uber from Klout. He also sits on a board that advises the Department of Defense.
Over dinner, he outlined the notion of spending “a million dollars” to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists. That team could, he said, help Uber fight back against the press — they’d look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine.
Michael was particularly focused on one journalist, Sarah Lacy, the editor of the Silicon Valley website PandoDaily, a sometimes combative voice inside the industry. Lacy recently accused Uber of “sexism and misogyny.” She wrote that she was deleting her Uber app after BuzzFeed News reported that Uber appeared to be working with a French escort service. “I don’t know how many more signals we need that the company simply doesn’t respect us or prioritize our safety,” she wrote.
At the dinner, Michael expressed outrage at Lacy’s column and said that women are far more likely to get assaulted by taxi drivers than Uber drivers. He said that he thought Lacy should be held “personally responsible” for any woman who followed her lead in deleting Uber and was then sexually assaulted.
Then he returned to the opposition research plan. Uber’s dirt-diggers, Michael said, could expose Lacy. They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life.
Michael at no point suggested that Uber has actually hired opposition researchers, or that it plans to. He cast it as something that would make sense, that the company would be justified in doing.
In a statement through an Uber spokeswoman, Michael said: “The remarks attributed to me at a private dinner — borne out of frustration during an informal debate over what I feel is sensationalistic media coverage of the company I am proud to work for — do not reflect my actual views and have no relation to the company’s views or approach. They were wrong no matter the circumstance and I regret them.”
The spokeswoman, Nairi Hourdajian, said the company does not do “oppo research” of any sort on journalists, and has never considered doing it. She also said Uber does not consider Lacy’s personal life fair game, or believe that she is responsible for women being sexually assaulted.
Hourdajian also said that Uber has clear policies against executives looking at journalists’ travel logs, a rich source of personal information in Uber’s posession.
“Any such activity would be clear violations of our privacy and data access policies,” Hourdajian said in an email. “Access to and use of data is permitted only for legitimate business purposes. These policies apply to all employees. We regularly monitor and audit that access.”
In fact, the general manager of Uber NYC accessed the profile of a BuzzFeed News reporter, Johana Bhuiyan, to make points in the course of a discussion of Uber policies. At no point in the email exchanges did she give him permission to do so.
At the Waverly Inn dinner, it was suggested that a plan like the one Michael floated could become a problem for Uber.
Michael responded: “Nobody would know it was us.”
Although Apple continues to offer the Nest Learning Thermostat and Nest Protect despite Google’s acquisition of the smart device company, the iPhone maker has added a competing Wi-Fi-connected smart thermostat to the lineup. Apple has recently added the Ecobee3 smart Wi-Fi thermostat to the Connected Home section of its online store. The smart thermostat, which can be controlled with an iPhone or iPad, is available for $249.95.
The addition of the Ecobee3 smart thermostat to the Apple online store is notable, given that the iPhone maker also sells the Google-owned Nest thermostat through its online storefront. Considering that the Fitbit fitness tracker was recently dropped from the Apple Store, it is plausible to think that the Nest could be on its way out as well in the foreseeable future.
The Ecobee3 smart thermostat helps to eliminate uneven temperatures in households based on remote sensors that intuitively keep a room at the right temperature when it is occupied. Meanwhile, when rooms are empty, the Ecobee3 helps you save money and energy while you are away. The thermostat supports up to 32 remote sensors over Wi-Fi.
A free Ecobee3 companion app for the smart thermostat is available on the App Store for iPhone and iPad, enabling users to efficiently manage their home heating and cooling system from anywhere. Ecobee3 finds that the average user saves up to 23% on their heating and cooling bills per year by using the smart Wi-Fi thermostat in their home.
Product Highlights:
The Ecobee3 Smart Wi-Fi Thermostat also retails for $249 on Amazon with free shipping.
Deutsche Bank AG is working on setting up joint innovation laboratories with technology firms IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp. and India’s HCL Technologies Ltd to improve its digital banking operations and fight-off new market entrants, people familiar with the matter said.
Germany’s largest lender and its partners plan to set up their labs in Berlin, London and Palo Alto, Ca., and cooperate with Internet start-up firms, the people familiar with the matter said. The goal is to send bankers from across all business units to these labs to gain insight in how to enhance clients’ experience or internal processes.
While many other large banks have announced initiatives to address digitalization, little is known about Deutsche Bank’s efforts. The bank said in May that it wants to invest €200 million ($250.5 million) in the digitalization of its client related operations.
The move underscores the massive changes lenders face in the wake of mobile banking applications and the rise of independent platforms that threaten to grab market share from traditional financial institutions.
Senior Deutsche Bank officials have said privately that the lender is aware of the challenges posed by alternative payment systems such as Paypal or Apple Pay. These firms threaten to curb profit at banks’ transaction banking operations. Banks on average earn 0.3% or 0.4% on transactions made with credit or debit cards.
To be sure, the fees from these operations have a relatively small share of banks’ overall income. But the plethora of internet business models might undermine the revenue base of the traditional industry, analysts say. “Digital attackers continue to gain market share … because they better meet … [some] clients’ demands,” Bain & Company said in a recent report, adding that Paypal for example has a 30% market share for e-commerce transactions in Germany.
It’s taking banks some time to launch their own system. “The first bank-backed mobile payment system [in Germany] will be launched late next year,” Gregor Roth, head of operations and services at Germany’s co-mutual lender DZ Bank, said.
Alternative lending platforms such as Rocket Internet 's Lendico bring together private lenders and savers, posing another threat to the deposit and lending business of the traditional banking industry. “P2P lending platforms are trying to eclipse banks entirely,” Bain & Company said.
To avoid being left behind, banks have been launching a wide range of initiatives to engage with startups. Some have earmarked funds to invest in start-up companies or/and set up strategic investment arms, like Citigroup Inc, Spain’s Banco Santander SA and BBVA SA, Germany’s Commerzbank AG and the UK’s HSBC PLC.
Others have launched accelerator programs that funds and works with start-ups in the financial services industry. Barclays PLC for example initiated an accelerator program in collaboration with venture capital firm Techstars, other banks like Lloyds PLC, Rabobank, Intesa San Paolo SpA are some of the sponsors of Startupbootcamp FinTech.
Banks traditionally opted to build the bulk of their technology in-house—even things that weren’t giving them any real competitive advantage. Following the crisis they’ve had to cut down costs and deal with the slew of regulations, so they’ve started to become more collaborative. The financial crisis and the series of benchmark rigging scandals that followed have tarnished the banking industry’s reputation, giving traction to new entrants among consumers.
Chase Gummer and Isabel Gomez contributed to this article.
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Sony announced a new imaging sensor today that the company says will improve smartphones cameras. The Exmor RS IMX230 is a stacked CMOS sensor that packs 21-megapixels into a small 1/2.4-inch design. One of the key talking points of Sony’s new chip is its 192 point phase detection autofocus, which makes it easier to shoot photos or video of a fast moving subject with your smartphone.
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Apple has released iOS 8.1.1, a minor update to last month’s iOS 8.1 release for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The public release for iOS 8.1.1 follows a beta release to members of Apple’s developer program. Last month Apple released iOS 8.1 which introduced Apple Pay support for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users as well as the iCloud Photo Library public beta.
According to Apple, iOS 8.1.1 will improve performance for older, A5-powered devices running iOS 8, namely the iPad 2 and iPhone 4s; Apple’s current selling iPod touch first released in 2012 is also powered by Apple’s A5 chip.
The update is available over-the-air through the Settings app under General and Software Update. As always, you will need to be on WiFi with 50% or more battery or be connected a power supply to download and install the update.
Billionaire entrepreneurs who helped lead LinkedIn Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc., Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are among a group of investors who’ve contributed $21 million to an unorthodox bitcoin project that has no clear plan for turning a profit. Their bet: that the project’s A-list of cryptography experts and bitcoin coders will unleash a new wave of Internet disruption that decentralizes the entire economy.
The company, known as Blockstream, aims to enhance bitcoin’s “blockchain” — the distributed, public ledger that is the defining technological feature — and turn it into a universal platform for multiple new applications that go far beyond the digital-currency payments for which bitcoin is best known. The co-founders hope to turbo-charge the development of so-called Bitcoin 2.0 applications, which will allow people to engage in “trustless” transactions without having to pay fees to middlemen such as trustees, registrars and escrow managers.
The decentralized blockchain is “extremely difficult to corrupt” and so has the potential to be “an efficient platform for trading pretty much anything of value,” said Reid Hoffman, a co-founder of LinkedIn who was one of three lead investors in the funding round. Blockstream, he said, is “developing the bitcoin ecosystem” to facilitate these prospects.
The other two leads were Sun Microsystems founder Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures and Canadian firm Real Ventures. Other contributors among the list of nearly 40 in total included Google Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors and Yahoo founder Jerry Yang’s AME Ventures.
Blockstream has no clear roadmap on how it will turn an open-source software engineering project into a corporate money-maker. Instead, investors took a leap of faith, mostly based on the reputations of the company’s co-founders, who Tally Capital partner and co-contributor Matthew Roszak described as the “highest caliber of human capital in the blockchain planet.”
[Click here to read a Q&A with the cryptography brains behind Blockstream and its signature project, Sidechains.]
Blockstream came from the initiative of Adam Back, a Malta-based British cryptographer whose “hashcash” and “proof of work” inventions were critical to the currency mining and transaction confirmation system developed by the mysterious inventor of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. “Adam is second only to Satoshi in bitcoin,” said Mr. Hoffman.
Late last year, Mr. Back flew to Montreal to recruit Austin Hill, a 1990s pioneer of encryption-based privacy-enhancing services, to his cause. The pair had first met as members of the early-Internet Cypherpunk movement, a loose-knit community of cryptography enthusiasts and pro-privacy activists that included Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
Messrs. Hill and Back then appealed to Belgian Pieter Wuille and American Gregory Maxwell, two members of the five-person team of software developers assigned to maintain and update bitcoin’s core software code, as well as to Matt Corallo, one of the biggest contributors to core bitcoin development projects, and others.
The money will go toward implementing these developers’ primary project: Sidechains, which aim to bypass bitcoin’s rigid organizational structure by creating parallel blockchains in which innovators can safely develop new Bitcoin 2.0 applications without jeopardizing bitcoin’s core computer code and putting billions of dollars’ worth of digital currency at risk.
Bitcoin 2.0 ideas include: “smart contracts” whose obligations aren’t managed by lawyers but are executed by a software program; stock trading that requires no brokers; and decentralized registries for transferring homes, cars and other assets without agents, notaries or registrars. But there are many other possibilities, developers say. “We are just millimeters into a marathon in terms of developing the software that can use the blockchain,” Mr. Hill said.
For Mr. Khosla, smartphone apps offer the best analogy for the open-source blockchain platform’s unimaginable prospects. “When Apple first announced the iPhone, nobody imagined there’d be a million apps and that the slogan would be ‘there’s an app for that,’” he said. The payoff for his investment in Blockstream will come later when it allows him to conduct privileged due diligence on many of these future money-earning applications, he said.
Still, the indeterminate nature of Blockstream’s business model made it a complicated investment for many venture capitalists, who typically must justify returns to their investors. The manager of one fund said he turned down the pitch because he couldn’t invest in such a vague plan. Mr. Hoffman said he invested via his personal not-for-profit foundation, not his Greylock Partners firm, because he felt strongly that Blockstream’s first funding round “had to be invested in the development of the bitcoin ecosystem and not have, as its primary focus, economic returns.”
While leading commentators from the bitcoin community have mostly praised Blockstream, some commentators have worried that a private company with such intellectual clout could have undue influence in a bitcoin network that’s supposed to be community-owned and decentralized.
Mr. Hill said that’s why it was paramount that Blockstream was set up in a transparent way, as “a public utility, and not a way to hijack bitcoin.”
UPDATE: The post was changed to correctly identify Mr. Yang’s AME Ventures.
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