A new wave of cyber attacks targets the Middle East’s banks

Hot on the heels of the Qatar National Bank breach comes a campaign employing advanced social engineering techniques – Source

A new wave of cyber attacks targets the Middle East’s banks

ShoCard and SITA want to store your ID details on the blockchain to authenticate travelers

ShoCard and SITA, the IT company for the air transport industry, have been working together on an interesting project. They’ve been looking at ways to store your ID details on the blockchain to manage traveler identification. More generally, ShoCard has been working on a seamless service that lets you store your identity onto the bitcoin blockchain. This way, anyone can retrieve and… Read More

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ShoCard and SITA want to store your ID details on the blockchain to authenticate travelers

Nextbit Robin now available in India

After a few delays, it seems Nextbit finally came through and made good on its promise to release the Robin smartphone in India. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the cloud-focused device is now out for the general public – sales are expected to kick off exclusively on Flipkart on May 30 for INR 19,999 or about $297. This includes both the Mint and Grey color options. It is worth noting that the handset has already been available on Amazon for a few weeks with international shipping, so you can check that out if you live outside India.

If you are not in the know about the…

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Nextbit Robin now available in India

Google Maps to get promoted pins for local businesses

Advertising has always been a big deal, but with respect to Google, it’s literally a majority of income. According to Investopedia’s Eric Rosenburg, “The bulk of Google’s $66 billion revenue in 2014 came from its proprietary advertising service, Google AdWords. Of that revenue, 68 percent – or just over $45 billion – came from Google’s own websites.” Forbes, too, has pointed out how positively profitable advertising is to Mountain View. To this end, it should not be surprising that earlier today, Android’s maker published a post about some new changes being made to help the AdWords business model.

Of particular relevance to end-users however, is one of the changes that will appear in Google Maps. Starting now, some local businesses will have their own pins – complete with the company’s logo – that allow for easy and immediate visibility while looking for locations. Here is an example, for Walgreens:

As explained by Google:

We’re also investing in more branded, customized experiences for businesses on Google Maps — geared towards helping you increase store visits. First, we’re experimenting with a variety of ad formats on Maps that make it easier for users to find businesses as they navigate the world around them. For example, Maps users may start to see promoted pins for nearby coffee shops, gas stations or lunch spots along their driving route. Local business pages are also getting a brand new look — to encourage consumers to explore your store before they even arrive, we’re adding new features like special offers and the ability to browse product inventory.

The idea of on-going promotions offered by the retailer, as well as the ability to search and view the very items it’s selling are seemingly a great way for both the business itself to make things more visible, as well as for potential customers to save time – and potentially money – in the process. Here’s an example, for the aforementioned Walgreens location:

What do you think? Is this a major improvement to the Google Maps framework, or does the prospect of seeing more corporate advertising on your phone irritate you? Leave a comment down below and share your thoughts!

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Google Maps to get promoted pins for local businesses

Ride in minutes, or now hours with Lyft’s new scheduled pickup

Today via their blog, Lyft announced its plans to add scheduled rides as a new option to its service. This gives Lyft a solid advantage over their main competition, Uber, which does not yet allow users to schedule rides in advance.

While on-demand rides are still the primary function of Lyft, they noted that this new development is in response to user feedback, and it is always nice to see a company taking such feedback seriously. In addition to giving users peace of mind that they will have a ride whenever they need it, this new feature also gives Lyft’s drivers a bit more of a steady, pre-scheduled way to make a little extra money.

The way it works is quite simple: when scheduling a ride, just tap the clock icon next to your pickup location and that will allow you to schedule a ride up to 24 hours in advance. This restriction is to prevent all the rides from being taken weeks in advance, which would defeat the purpose and spirit of Lyft. And you need not worry about missing your ride, because Lyft will send you a notification when your ride is en route.

Lyft’s scheduled rides will begin testing in San Francisco, and will roll out to other locations later in the summer. To Lyft users out there, is this something you are excited for? And to other on-demand ride users, is this enough to make you want to use Lyft or a competitor like Uber? Let us know in the comments.

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Ride in minutes, or now hours with Lyft’s new scheduled pickup

The Library Studio Workspace

We love minimal workspaces, but there’s something about these home office setups that look and feel more like a study than anything else that’s also really attractive. Redditor …

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The Library Studio Workspace

Running Through Walls: Dynamic Signal’s Russ Fradin on how good businesses constantly pivot

On Dynamic Signal’s early pivot and lessons learned from 25 rounds of venture funding. Read More

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Running Through Walls: Dynamic Signal’s Russ Fradin on how good businesses constantly pivot

Charter won’t compete against cable firms because it might buy them later

(credit: Cole Marshall)

When Charter purchased Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, federal regulators forced the company to agree to some conditions designed to boost competition in the Internet service market. Charter, now the nation’s second largest cable company behind Comcast because of the merger, is required to bring broadband of at least 60Mbps to at least 1 million homes and businesses where there’s already a provider offering at least 25Mbps.

This is known as “overbuilding,” something that happens infrequently enough that many Americans have only one choice for high-speed Internet. But when Charter fulfills the overbuilding requirement imposed by the Federal Communications Commission, it’ll apparently do so without actually competing against other cable companies. Instead, Charter will enter the territory of phone companies like AT&T or Frontier, Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said.

Why is that? Because Charter might want to buy more cable companies later. And the FCC is less likely to approve a merger between two companies competing against each other.

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Charter won’t compete against cable firms because it might buy them later

Project Ara will be controlled by Google and could extend beyond phones

Project Ara finally looks like it will be released to the public, but the modular phone from Google is not quite the same as what we originally thought. The most hardcore users may be disappointed by that, but Google is detailing the project to clarify what to expect and what not to expect from the first generation of modular phones.
Google answered questions from The Verge and some of the info was a bit disappointing, like the fact that not everything would be modular on an Ara device. Google confirmed that the display, processor and RAM would not be swappable, which puts … – Source

Project Ara will be controlled by Google and could extend beyond phones