Photo by Abbie Bernet on Unsplash
One holiday down, one more to go.
Security was a big theme this week. Philadelphia-favorite Wawa discovered a security breach in their payment systems going back to last March. The breach was plugged on December 12th (better check your credit card statements).
Meanwhile Facebook has agreed (under duress) to stop using the phone number you give for Two Factor Authentication to mine for data and suggest friends.
And finally… Foxconn continues to be a disaster in Wisconsin. They still haven’t committed to what type of factory they are building and Wisconsin (rightfully) is starting to push back on their tax rebate commitments. Why has it taken this long?
Acquisitions/Investments
- Google buys game developer Typhoon Studios
Google has been pretty vocal about its internal development efforts, including Stadia Studios led by former EA exec Jade Raymond. In an interview with Gamesindustry.biz, the exec detailed that Google was hoping to build out multiple first-party studios to release content on the platform.
“We have a plan that includes building out a few different first-party studios, and also building up the publishing org to ship exclusive content created by indie devs and other external partners,” Raymond told the publication.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/19/google-buys-game-developer-typhoon-studios/
Artificial Intelligence
- Finland is making its online AI crash course free to the world
There are already quite a few sites for people looking to learn the basics of AI, but Finland’s offering seems worth your time if you’re interested in such a thing. It’s nicely designed, offers short tests at the end of each section, and covers a range of topics from the philosophical implications of AI to technical subjects like Bayesian probability. It’s supposed to take about six weeks to finish, with each section taking between five and 10 hours.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/18/21027840/online-course-basics-of-ai-finland-free-elements
Link to the course:
https://www.elementsofai.com/
Security/Privacy
- Wawa hit with massive data breach, potentially affecting more than 850 locations, CEO says
In a letter to customers Friday, chief executive Chris Gheysens said the company discovered malware capable of exposing card numbers, expiration dates and cardholder names at “potentially all Wawa in-store payment terminals and fuel dispensers” since March 4. Debit card PINs, credit card security codes and driver’s license information for verifying age-restricted purchases were not affected, he said.
Gheysens said the convenience store chain is unaware of any unauthorized card use as a result of the breach, which was contained Dec. 12, two days after it was discovered. Wawa declined to tell The Washington Post how many customers or transactions were affected.
“I want to reassure anyone impacted they will not be responsible for fraudulent charges related to this incident,” Gheysens said in a news release. “To all our friends and neighbors, I apologize deeply for this incident.”
- Facebook will stop using 2FA tool to harvest phone numbers for friend suggestions
Facebook says it will soon stop its practice of using phone numbers provided to the company as part of its two-factor authentication (2FA) security tool to power a friend suggestion feature, Reuters reported on Thursday. According to the report, Facebook was using phone numbers users gave it specifically to protect their accounts from unauthorized access to try and encourage them to add members of their address book to their friends list.
The company says the change is part of its broader privacy overhaul in response to a $5 billion Federal Trade Commission settlement reached in July over Facebook’s privacy practices. As part of that settlement, Facebook was barred from using phone numbers gathered from 2FA requests for advertising. Today’s change is an extension of that. Although not explicitly demanded by the FTC, Facebook’s use of phone numbers has come under scrutiny by the company’s internal privacy review team, led by chief privacy officer Michel Protti.
- U.S. Navy bans TikTok from government-issued mobile devices
A bulletin issued by the Navy on Tuesday showed up on a Facebook page serving military members, saying users of government issued mobile devices who had TikTok and did not remove the app would be blocked from the Navy Marine Corps Intranet.
The Navy would not describe in detail what dangers the app presents, but Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Uriah Orland said in a statement the order was part of an effort to “address existing and emerging threats”.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tiktok-navy-idUSKBN1YO2HU
Software/SaaS
- Facebook is building an operating system so it can ditch Android
Facebook doesn’t want its hardware like Oculus or its augmented reality glasses to be at the mercy of Google because they rely on its Android operating system. That’s why Facebook has tasked Mark Lucovsky, a co-author of Microsoft’s Windows NT, with building the social network an operating system from scratch, according to The Information’s Alex Heath. To be clear, Facebook’s smartphone apps will remain available on Android.
“We really want to make sure the next generation has space for us,” says Facebook’s VP of Hardware, Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth. “We don’t think we can trust the marketplace or competitors to ensure that’s the case. And so we’re gonna do it ourselves.”
https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/19/facebook-operating-system/
Infrastructure/Hardware
- IBM aims to replace lithium batteries with batteries made from seawater
Traditional lithium-ion batteries need heavy metals such as cobalt, manganese, and nickel to be produced. These materials pose a sizeable risk to the environment as they need to be mined. Not only is the sourcing of these materials a danger to the environment, but they also pose risk to the workers mining them. Heavy metals such as these are also limited and with the rise of battery-powered devices, it may be soon that these materials eventually run out.
It was due to all of these circumstances that IBM Research scientists looked for other alternatives to Lithium-ion batteries. They were soon able to create a battery that runs on three new completely different materials that can be extracted from seawater. As such, sourcing of these materials are less invasive and pose a much smaller risk to the destruction of the environment.
This new battery uses a “cobalt and nickel-free cathode material, as well as a safe liquid electrolyte with a high flash point”. The combination of these two materials was found to reduce the battery’s flammability which is a present issue for lithium-ion batteries. It was also found to charge much faster than regular lithium-ion batteries with the ability to charge up to 80% in a mere 5 minutes. These two new benefits from IBM’s batteries could prove to be very significant in the creation of low cost, fast-charging, less flammable batteries for electric vehicles.
https://geekspin.co/ibm-aims-to-replace-lithium-batteries-with-batteries-made-from-seawater/
Other
- The Bezos ‘relentless’ strategy at Amazon has been on full display this week
Amazon has been steadily building out its own delivery network as it seeks to wean itself off of third parties like FedEx, UPS or the U.S. Postal Service. Bloomberg reported Tuesday that Dave Clark, the Amazon executive in charge of logistics, decided to cut out FedEx Ground because it wasn’t performing up to Amazon’s standards. And even though the block on FedEx Ground is temporary during the holiday rush, the decision was made at the height of the shopping season.
And it doesn’t hurt that Amazon was able to stick it to its future shipping and logistics competitor, showing FedEx it can swing the stock whenever it wants.
You see? Relentless.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/17/jeff-bezos-relentless-strategy-at-amazon-on-full-display.html
- Foxconn Plays Tax-Credit Poker With Wisconsin in Troubled Deal
It doesn’t matter why Foxconn changed its mind. Neither does the disagreement over whether 10.5G is a requirement for the tax credits that helped lure the company to the state. The point is that Wisconsin officials clearly believed a 10.5G plant was coming, and Foxconn did nothing to set them straight.
What’s important now is both sides’ willingness to patch things up. The documents reproduced by The Verge show that Wisconsin is trying as hard as possible to make it work by offering to let the Taiwanese company rewrite the contract. Foxconn has steadfastly refused, arguing that its new plans hew to the original deal. Some marriage counselling is sorely needed.