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Chat app Line’s mobile payment service is getting its own Visa card

30 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Jon Russell

Brown, Cony and the gang are coming to a credit card near you in Japan. Line, the messaging app company behind the cute sticker characters, announced today that it is bringing its payment service to plastic through a tie-in with Visa.

Line is Japan’s largest chat app with an estimated 50 million registered users. The cards will be released later this year and they’ll allow Line Pay, the company’s digital wallet service, to stretch beyond its existing merchant base to allow users to pay at any retailer accepting Visa . In addition, the first year of use will see customers get 3 percent of their spending back in Line’s ‘Points’ virtual currency, which is used to buy stickers and other content.

The partnership is a step up from Line’s own payment cards, which were introduced in 2016 and supported by JCB.

It’s an interesting deal because mobile is generally seen as being the future form factor for payments. In China, for example, using cash or card to pay is considered antiquated — you’ll get glares from other patrons forced to wait while you complete your transaction — but digital payments face a struggle in most other …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Apple disables group calling in FaceTime in response to eavesdropping bug

29 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Jon Russell

Apple has disabled the group calling feature within its FaceTime calling service while it works on a patch to fix a nasty bug that allows eavesdropping.

Apple’s status page shows that group calling via FaceTime is “temporarily unavailable” — that’s a stop-gap move while the company to deliver a more permanent fix to the problem this week. We were unable to set up a group call when we tried, having earlier been able to do and replicate the issue.

All being well, this fix means that users don’t need to completely disable FaceTime due to the bug, but it is understandable if some people are hesitant to switch it on again.

The vulnerability was unearthed on Monday and it is activated when a user initiates a group call but adds themselves as a participant, as we explained in our earlier post:

The bug relies on what appears to be a nasty logic screwup in FaceTime’s group call system. While we’re opting to not outline the steps here, the bug seems to trick the recipient’s phone into thinking a group call is already ongoing. A few quick taps, and FaceTime immediately trips over itself and inexplicably fires …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Google and IAB ad category lists show “massive leakage of highly intimate data”, GDPR complaint claims

28 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Natasha Lomas

Male impotence, substance abuse, right-wing politics, left-wing politics, sexually transmitted diseases, cancer, mental health.

Those are just a few of the advertising labels that Google’s adtech infrastructure routinely sticks to Internet users as it watches and tracks what they do online in order to target them with behavioral ads.

Intimate and highly sensitive inferences such as these are then systematically broadcast and shared with what can be thousands of third party companies, via the real-time ad auction broadcast process which powers the modern programmatic online advertising system. So essentially you’re looking at the rear-end reality of how creepy ads work.

This practice is already the target of a legal complaint in Europe, filed under the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The real-time bidding (RTB) complaint, which was lodged last fall by Dr Johnny Ryan of private browser Brave; Jim Killock, previously director of the Open Rights Group; and Michael Veale, a data and policy researcher at University College London, alleges “wide-scale and systemic breaches of the data protection regime by Google and others” in the behavioral advertising industry.

It argues the personalized ad industry has “spawned a mass data broadcast …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Without proof, is Huawei still a national security threat?

26 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Zack Whittaker

It’s Huawei vs. the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Europe and Japan.

It’s almost as if the world’s biggest surveillance superpowers don’t want Huawei cell tower and networking router equipment inside critical networks in their countries, amid concerns of the company’s links to the Chinese military.

Huawei, they say, could be spying for the Chinese — and that presents a national security risk.

But there’s a problem. Years of congressional hearings and “inconclusive” hardware inspections have presented a mixed picture on the threat that Huawei may, or may not pose. Despite the fact that the company’s founder and president is a former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army and the company remains heavily funded by the Chinese government, there’s also no public, direct evidence that Huawei is using its equipment to spy on network traffic inside the U.S. or any other country. In any case, Huawei can’t prove a negative, so all it can do is allow governments to assess its devices — which has so far found some issues but nothing conclusive to tie it to Chinese espionage actors.

That’s the crux of the argument: nobody thinks …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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The Predictive Index brings in $50M to help businesses create winning teams

25 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Kate Clark

Funding will get you a long way, but people, at the end of the day, are the key to a successful business.

The Predictive Index, which develops behavioral and cognitive employee assessments, has raised a $50 million round of growth-stage capital from venture capital firm General Catalyst to help companies choose the right talent.

Kirk Arnold, an executive-in-residence at General Catalyst and new Predictive Index board member, led the deal for the VC firm, which says the round is the largest first check they’ve ever written a company. Predictive Index declined to disclose the valuation.

The workplace analytics service was founded in 1955, making it just a bit older than your typical growth-stage business. Current chief executive officer Mike Zani (pictured, right) acquired the company in 2014 with Predictive Index president and chairman Daniel Muzquiz (pictured, left). Prior to the acquisition, the pair were clients of the business.

With the infusion of VC funding, Zani said he’ll double employee headcount, create a playbook on how to “successfully design, hire and inspire winning teams” and create a talent optimization industry conference, amongst other big plans.

“Most companies are losing the talent war, and not because of the lack of fight, …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Theranos documentary review: The Inventor’s horrifying optimism

25 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Josh Constine

A blood-splattered Theranos machine nearly pricks an employee struggling to fix it. This gruesome graphical rendering is what you’ll walk away from HBO’s “The Inventor” with. It finally gives a visual to the startup’s laboratory fraud detailed in words by John Carreyrou’s book “Bad Blood”.

The documentary that premiered tonight at Sundance Film Festival explores how the move fast and break things ethos of Silicon Valley is “really dangerous when people’s lives are in the balance” as former employee and whistleblower Tyler Shultz says in the film. Theranos promised a medical testing device that made a single drop of blood from your finger more precise than a painful old-school syringe in your vein. What patients ended up using was so inaccurate it put their health in jeopardy.

But perhaps even more frightening is the willingness of Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes to delude herself and everyone around her in service of a seemingly benevolent mission. The documentary captures how good ideas can make people do bad things.

“The Inventor: Out For Blood In Silicon Valley” juxtaposes truthful interviews with the employees who eventually rebelled against Holmes with footage and media appearances of her blatantly lying to the world. It manages to stick to …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Singapore’s Credit Culture raises $29.5M for its soon-to-launch digital loan business

24 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Jon Russell

Singapore’s digital fintech companies are attracting investor attention and dollars in 2019. Fresh from Singapore Life — a digital-only insurer — raising $33 million across two recently closed rounds, so Credit Culture, a digital loan specialist — has banked SG$40 million ($29.5 million) ahead of its imminent launch.

Credit Culture has raised its capital from Malaysia’s RCE Capital Berhad in a deal that allows the investor to potentially take a stake of up 30 percent in the startup. Its investment is via five-year bonds that are secured with the loan receivables from Credit Culture and include granted call options for taking that stake — in other words: this isn’t your regular startup deal.

RCE Capital Berhad said in a filing that Credit Culture has already raised SG$4 million ($2.9 million) via a seed investment, and it appears that it is financially set ahead of its launch.

“We are currently well-positioned with the recent injection of funds. That being said, we are always open to exploring various options to grow especially for regional expansion,” Credit Culture a representative told TechCrunch in an emailed response.

Founded by former bankers, Credit Culture is set to become one of Singapore’s first digital financial service startups after …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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VCs give us their predictions for startups and tech in Southeast Asia in 2019

23 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Jon Russell

The new year is well underway and, before January is out, we polled VCs in Southeast Asia to get their thoughts on what to expect in 2019.

The number of VCs in the region has increased massively in recent years, in no small part due to forecasts of growth in the tech space as internet access continues to shoot up among Southeast Asia’s cumulative population of more than 600 million consumers.

There are other factors, including economic growth and emerging middle classes, but with more than 3.8 million people becoming first-time internet users each month — thanks to smartphones — Southeast Asia’s ‘digital economy’ is tipped to more than triple to reach $240 billion by 2025. That leaves plenty of opportunity for tech and online businesses and, by extension, venture capitalists.

With a VC corpus that now numbers dozens of investment firms, TechCrunch asked the people who write the checks what is on the horizon for 2019.

The only rule was no more than three predictions — below, in no particular order, is what they told us.

Albert Shyy, Burda

Funds will continue to invest aggressively in Southeast Asia in the first half of this year but capital will tighten up by Q4 as …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Digital Garage teams up with Blockstream to develop blockchain financial services in Japan

22 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Jon Russell

The global crypto market may have tanked last year, but notable names have joined forces to develop Bitcoin and blockchain financial services in Japan, which has emerged as one of the world’s most crypto-friendly markets.

Blockstream, a blockchain startup founded by Bitcoin contributors, announced this week that it has launched a joint venture in Japan alongside Digital Garage, an early-stage investor/incubator that’s backed local launches from Twitter, Square and others, and financial services firm Tokyo Tanshi.

Crypto Garage — as the new venture is called — is “is dedicated to building Bitcoin and blockchain solutions for the Japanese institutional market.” The venture was first unveiled last year, and it looks like Blockstream recently came onboard through an undisclosed investment. The startup said it is providing “technical expertise” for the effort.

That’s about all the color on the venture for now, although it has released its first product, “SETTLENET.” That is described as a platform that uses Liquid Network, Blockstream’s blockchain that is designed for exchanges and brokers with a focus on speed and security.

Settlenet — because nobody likes all-caps product names — is said to have already gotten …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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Canada’s Telus says partner Huawei is ‘reliable’: reports

21 Jan 2019/0 Comments/in /by

By Rita Liao

The US-China tension over Huawei is leaving telecommunications companies around the world at a crossroad, but one spoke out last week. Telus, one of Canada’s largest phone companies showed support for its Chinese partner despite a global backlash against Huawei over cybersecurity threats.

“Clearly, Huawei remains a viable and reliable participant in the Canadian telecommunications space, bolstered by globally leading innovation, comprehensive security measures, and new software upgrades,” said an internal memo signed by a Telus executive that The Globe and Mail obtained.

The Vancouver-based firm is among a handful of Canadian companies that could potentially leverage the Shenzhen-based company to build out 5G systems, the technology that speeds up not just mobile connection but more crucially powers emerging fields like low-latency autonomous driving and 8K video streaming. TechCrunch has contacted Telus for comments and will update the article when more information becomes available.

The United States has long worried that China’s telecom equipment makers could be beholden to Beijing and thus pose espionage risks. As fears heighten, President Donald Trump is reportedly mulling a boycott of Huawei and ZTE this year, according to Reuters. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that US federal prosecutors may bring …read more

Source: Tech Crunch

    

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