Ananya Bhattacharya | The Verge

UK drivers may be able to store their driving license in Apple’s Wallet

2016-05-13T15:33:28-04:00

The UK’s equivalent of the DMV is considering making digital driving licenses that could be stored in the Apple Wallet, Slashgear reports. Today, Oliver Morley, the CEO of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), tweeted an image showing what the digital driver’s licenses could look like, along with the caption, “So here’s a little prototype of something we’re working on #drivinglicense.”

An add-on to the physical license

Typically, the iPhone’s virtual wallet is associated with Apple Pay, but it can also store multiple credit cards, memberships cards, and tickets. In this case, the Apple Wallet would store the driving license information on a person’s phone. There is no timeline for when the digital license will go live in the UK. In another tweet, Morley clarified that the DVLA is not doing away with the old, credit card-sized licenses. The digitalized version is simply “an add-on.” No word on whether US drivers will have the option of a digital license too.

Personal data of China’s elite, including Alibaba founder, leaked on Twitter

2016-05-13T14:47:02-04:00

On Thursday, a Twitter account publicly released the personal information of China’s rich and powerful, Tech In Asia reported. Photos and screenshots posted by the account @shenfenzheng — which means “personal identification” in Chinese — revealed sensitive data like national identification numbers, birth dates, addresses, educational attainment and marital status.

Leaked data included national identification numbers, birth dates, and addresses.

Among the victims are two of China’s richest businessmen, Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma, and Wang Jianlin, chairman of real estate company Dalian Wan Group, according to The New York Times. Jianlin’s wife and son’s identification numbers were also exposed. Ironically, Fang Binxing, the architect of the country’s “Great Firewall,” which blocks Twitter in mainland China, was also not immune from the attack.

Even though the account was suspended within hours, a cached version of the webpage continues to exist, according to Tech In Asia. People may have also taken screenshots of the information prior to it being taken down. The identity of the person who created the account remains unknown for now, but the motive was to get people thinking about how easily personal data can be stolen. “Surprised by these tidbits of informations? I hope this can get fellow countrymen thinking. Personal privacy is worth nothing in China,” @shenfenzheng posted prior to being suspended, according to The New York Times.

Accessing anyone’s private data is “like buying cabbage” @shenfenzheng said

In another tweet, @shenfenzheng said that accessing anyone’s private data is “like buying cabbage,” according to Bloomberg. The leak is against Twitter’s rules and is punishable by up to three years in prison as well as fines under Chinese law.

Walmart is testing a two-day shipping subscription service

2016-05-12T12:38:07-04:00

Going head-to-head with Amazon Prime, Walmart is exploring a two-day shipping subscription service, The Wall Street Journal reports. Starting Thursday, its ShippingPass customers will be eligible for two-day shipping for $49 a year.

Cheaper than Amazon

ShippingPass launched last year with three-day shipping, but the upgrade makes it much more competitive with Amazon’s $99 Prime subscription. ShippingPass is not yet available widely; Walmart only offers it in certain areas, and it requires people to sign up for a waitlist to gain access.

Walmart intends to spend $2 billion on e-commerce by the end of next year and wants to develop its online grocery business, Retail Dive reported. To support its digital push, WSJ reports that Walmart has created a network of eight huge e-commerce warehouses around the country, the last of which will be built by the end of 2016. At the start, Walmart will likely dish out more dollars per package than seasoned e-commerce giant Amazon, but over time, it can become increasingly competitive and sustain steady package streams to cut its costs, WSJ reports.

E-commerce push

The two household brands won’t only be competing for customers, but also for shipping companies. In order to fulfill orders within the shorter delivery window, WSJ reports that the retail giant will also rely more heavily on cost-efficient regional delivery services instead of national carriers like FedEx and United Parcel Service shipping — something Amazon already does.

Update May 12th, 4:10PM ET: This story has been updated to clarify how Walmart grants access to ShippingPass. It was previously described as requiring an invitation; customers do have to wait for access, but Walmart says that anyone can sign up.

Two of Canada’s largest banks now support Apple Pay

2016-05-10T13:25:19-04:00

Starting Tuesday, the Royal Bank of Canada and the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, two of Canada’s biggest banks, will allow their customers to use Cupertino’s mobile payments app, reports the Financial Post. The remaining trio that completes Canada’s Big Five — TD, Bank of Montreal, and Scotiabank — are expected to sign on in the coming months.

Although the payments app launched in the US in October 2014, the service was introduced across the border 13 months later, in November. Moreover, only directly issued American Express cards were supported, while the other banks were reluctant to strike a deal with Apple. Many of the key players in Canada’s banking sphere were trying to develop their own mobile payments app. However, after much deliberation about preserving client security and client relationships (as well as how “interchange” fees for each transaction will be shared), the banks ditched their personal efforts and have finally reached an agreement with the Silicon Valley behemoth.

For now, other banks like Alberta-based ATB Financial and Canadian Tire Financial Services are also jumping on the Apple Pay bandwagon. Not only can MasterCard and Visa be used, but Tuesday’s announcement will also make Canada’s major domestic debit card network, Interac, available on Apple Pay, thereby expanding its consumer base.

The payments app is currently available for iPhone 6 and the subsequent generations, as well as the Apple Watch.

Tech industry urges next president to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership

2016-05-05T15:51:54-04:00

On Wednesday, 13 trade groups from Silicon Valley issued an open letter, urging the next US president to show support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Reuters reports. The groups represent key industry leaders like Apple, Google, Facebook, Uber, and Amazon, as well as other lesser-known tech players, who hope the trade agreement will lower barriers to hiring high-tech workers from abroad.

The TPP reduces barriers to trade

In the letter, the groups encourage the presidential candidates to advance “ambitious initiatives to reduce barriers to trade in digital and other goods and services, including obtaining authorization of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement.” The TPP agreement, which was signed in February but still has to get congressional approval, aims to reduce trade barriers between 12 countries, including Canada, Japan, Singapore, the US, and Vietnam. Not only do the world’s first and third largest economies — US and Japan — feature in the list, but together, the 12 nations account for 40 percent of the world’s economy.

“An attack on America’s business,” says Donald Trump

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have openly criticized the trade deal. Trump has called the TPP “an attack on America’s business.” Clinton expressed distress about the TPP shipping US workers’ jobs overseas. And Sanders has explicitly tagged it as a “disastrous trade agreement designed to protect the interests of the largest multi-national corporations at the expense of workers, consumers, the environment, and the foundations of American democracy.”

The Silicon Valley heavyweights state that the trade deal could lead to job creation, innovation, and growth for the US. They are also calling for enhanced intellectual property protection, support for the sharing economy, simplified tax code, tighter cybersecurity, data privacy, and more.

Chinese search engine Baidu under investigation for ad placements after student’s death

2016-05-05T13:32:54-04:00

Last month, a 21-year-old college student in China died after trying an experimental cancer therapy from an ad that showed up on China’s flagship search engine, Baidu. The company was criticized for unethical search ranking and ad placements. On Monday, following the public outcry, the Chinese government launched an investigation into Baidu’s health care ad practices, Quartz reported.

The student in question, Wei Zexi, was a computer science major at Xidian University in northwest China’s Shaanxi province. He was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called synovial sarcoma. After failing to receive successful treatment elsewhere, he turned to Baidu. Through the search engine, Zexi found The Second Hospital of Beijing Armed Police Corps, which claimed to have developed a highly effective experimental treatment in collaboration with Stanford medical school — the claim turned out to be false.

Profit over public interest

The search result for The Second Hospital of Beijing Armed Police Corps was actually an ad, and had been paid for and labeled as such — though it’s unclear if Wei understood that. After the treatment failed, Wei faulted Baidu and took to Chinese Q&A site Zhihu to tout the search giant as “evil.” On April 12th, Wei succumbed to his disease and died.

This incident sparked an uproar amongst the country’s online population, who threatened to boycott all of Baidu’s services — search engines, music streaming, maps, and more. People wanted Baidu to take responsibility for promoting hospitals and treatments that have not been properly vetted. This isn’t the first time the domestic search engine has received backlash from the public for hosting false medical information. In January, Baidu faced scrutiny for allowing an unlicensed private hospital to host an online forum on hemophilia. The hospital used the platform to publicize its services and delete comments that challenged its credibility.

Repeated mistakes

A Baidu spokeswoman said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal that its made an effort to remedy these problems. According to the spokeswoman, in the past two years the company had rejected 500 million promotional messages it deemed unfit. In the past year and a half, she said, Baidu paid roughly 50 million yuan ($7.6 million) in compensation in response to 2,477 complaints involving people who said they had been defrauded or had their consumer rights violated.

The recent investigation announcement spooked investors, causing the Nasdaq-listed shares to plunge nearly 10 percent. But is that really a cause of concern for the company? If past events are proof, falling shares aren’t enough to cause Baidu’s downfall. In 2008, a TV show exposé about Baidu’s paid listings including unlicensed pharmaceutical companies caused the company’s shares to plummet 25 percent in a single day. Yet, Baidu remains the dominant source of information for over 700 million “intranet” users in the country and it controls over 80 percent of China’s online space today.

No other options

Following a censorship conflict with Beijing, Google bowed out of the Chinese market in 2001. Due to the strict censorship in the country, Chinese users are cut off from international web sources and they have few domestic alternatives. Local search engines, Qihoo and Sougou, are still too small to compete with Baidu. In the rest of the world, multiple sources can be used to cross-reference search results but in China, the public remains fully reliant on Baidu’s results. This makes Baidu more than China’s Google — it makes it China’s only Google. If that’s not reason enough to put public interest above profits, what is?

Facebook rewarded a 10-year-old with $10,000 for finding Instagram security flaw

2016-05-03T15:04:33-04:00

Earlier this year, a 10-year-old — who is not even old enough to sign up on Facebook — impressed Mark Zuckerberg by hacking Instagram, the photo-sharing application owned by Facebook. The Helsinki-based boy genius, called Jani, received $10,000 from Facebook for identifying a security bug, Forbes reported.

Jani uncovered a flaw that allowed him to delete any written content on the social media platform by altering the code. “I would have been able to eliminate anyone, even Justin Bieber,” the wunderkind told Finnish publication Iltalehti.

An aspiring security expert, Jani sent his discovery to Facebook via email. He verified his report by deleting a comment the company posted on a test account, a spokesperson told Forbes. The bug was resolved at the end of February. In March, the tech giant informed Jani of the fix and gave him his monetary reward.

Facebook’s youngest white hat hacker

Jani plans to use the reward to buy a new bike, football gear, and new computers for his brothers, he said in the interview with Iltalehti. He ousted a 13-year-old to become the youngest ever recipient of Facebook’s bug bounty program, which offers rewards to people who identify and report legitimate security risks.

Since it launched in 2011, Facebook’s bug bounty has awarded over $4.3 million to more than 800 researchers. The program determines the payout based on a bug’s risk, rather than how complex it may be. In 2015 alone, 210 researchers received $936,000 with an average payout of $1,780.

Facebook is building a new way to connect to the internet

A Chinese company can use the name ‘iPhone’ for non-Apple products, court rules

2016-05-03T13:13:26-04:00

A long-drawn-out battle has been ensuing between tech giant Apple and a Chinese company you probably haven’t heard of — and it’s not looking good for Silicon Valley’s star child. Apple recently lost a trademark suit against Beijing’s Xintong Tiandi Technology, which has been selling leather goods like handbags, cell phone cases, and more with the brand name “IPHONE,” Quartz reported.

The trademark dispute between Apple and the local Chinese company began in 2012 as Apple fought to gain exclusive rights over the iPhone brand. The trademark authority in China as well as a lower Beijing court dismissed Apple’s claims. Apple appealed but on March 31st, The Beijing Municipal High People’s Court rejected the appeal, allowing Xintong Tiandi to keep selling its IPHONE products, local media Legal Daily reported.

One name, two trademarks

Apple applied to trademark “IPHONE” in 2002, but the trademark wasn’t approved until 2013 under Class 9: Electrical and Scientific Apparatus. Five years after Apple’s application, in 2007 — around the time Apple was launching its first iPhone in the US — Xintong Tiandi applied for the same trademark. In 2010, their trademark was approved under Class 18: Leather goods.

Chinese authorities refused to revoke Xintong Tiandi’s trademark and argued that Apple’s iPhone was not prominent in the region when Xintong Tiandi submitted its application. Apple’s iPhone only arrived in the Chinese mainland market in 2009, so the Silicon Valley company could not prove that the “IPHONE” brand had high visibility before Xintong Tiandi entered the market space.

On its website, Xintong Tiandi seemed pleased with the decision and expressed a desire to work with Apple to further the iPhone brand. “We will also make full achievement of the ‘iphone’ trademark, and work together [with Apple] to benefit more iphone consumers,” Quartz translated from the Chinese website. Apple did not comment.

International brands struggle to avoid plagiarism in China

This isn’t the first time US brands have struggled for their rights in China and faced resistance. In 2015, Michael Jordan lost the fight against an alleged trademark violation by a company that used the Chinese translation of his last name, his jersey number, as well as Nike Air’s iconic “jumpman” logo on its products. More recently, Under Armour has threatened to sue Uncle Martian, a new Chinese sports company that plagiarized its logo.

Last year, Chinese Segway copycat company Ninebot actually ended up buying Segway and being sponsored by Xiaomi. However, sneaking their way into partnering for official Apple merchandise may not be a foolproof plan for Xintong Tiandi, considering Apple only works with a select few genuine partners.

Tim Cook remains optimistic about China

Over the years, China has proven to be a rough sea for the tech giant. Back in 2012, Apple had to pay a Shenzhen tech company $60 million over the iPad name. Last year, it went as far as blocking its news app in the country to avoid displeasing the Chinese authorities.

China, however, remains a valuable market for Apple. Even though sales in mainland China fell 11 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, Tim Cook is optimistic. In the last fiscal year, Apple earned $58 billion from China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan — more than all other foreign companies.

Lawsuit blames Snapchat’s speed filter for Georgia car crash

2016-04-28T13:10:33-04:00

A young girl trying to capture the perfect Snapchat is nothing out of the ordinary — but a speeding selfie comes with its costs. A new lawsuit alleges that Snapchat’s speed filter, which lets users display the speed at which they’re moving while taking a photo, encourages reckless driving and can cause automobile crashes.

Distracted driving

On September 10th, 2015, 18-year-old Christal McGee was caught up with trying to get over 100 mph on Snapchat’s speed filter and failed to notice Wentworth Maynard’s car pull onto the Georgia highway she was speeding on. At around 11:15PM, McGee struck Maynard’s Mitsubishi Outlander at 107 mph on a road where the speed limit was 55 mph.

“Snapchat’s speed filter facilitated McGee’s excessive speeding. McGee was motivated to drive at an excessive speed in order to obtain recognition through Snapchat by the means of a Snapchat ‘trophy,'” the complaint states. In fact, even after the accident, McGee took to the social media platform to post another bloody-faced selfie with the caption “Lucky to be alive.”

Maynard, an Uber driver, did not resume his shift that night— instead, he began a five-week stay at a hospital and now suffers from permanent brain damage. His lawyers claim that he lost 50 pounds, requires a walker or wheelchair to get around, and cannot work or support himself. They are now are suing McGee and Snapchat. Maynard and his wife — who was also in the car at the time of the accident — are seeking damages to cover his medical bills.

Snapchat: ignorant or innocent?

Prior to this incident, petitions on change.org have called on Snapchat to remove the speed filter but to no avail. The lawsuit goes on to suggest that despite knowledge of the dangers of the filter, Snapchat refuses to change or remove it. It cites a particular case from July 2015 where a woman in Brazil suffered from severe injuries after a car wreck caused by driving at 110 mph. A study by AT&T showed that “nearly 4-in-10 social media users tap into social media while driving.”

Snapchat has an in-app warning which deters users from using the filter while driving. Their terms of service say, “Do not use our Services in a way that could distract you from obeying traffic or safety laws. And never put yourself or others in harm’s way just to capture a Snap.” Despite this, the the lawsuit says that Snapchat’s negligence is concurrent with McGee’s. The lawyers note that Snapchat has a “responsibility to act reasonably to take steps to eliminate risks associated with their products,” which it failed to do because it has not removed or restricted the speed filter yet.

Snapchat is fighting to legalize ballot selfies

2016-04-26T14:58:14-04:00

This election season, flaunting your civic responsibility by wearing badges and “I Voted” stickers won’t quite cut it. With social media platforms absorbed into our culture, the voting booth selfie will be more popular than ever — even though, in some states, it’s technically banned. According to The New York Times, Snapchat, a favorite among younger voters, is fighting for their right to take photos in voting booths.

The social media giant filed an amicus brief against a ban on ballot selfies in New Hampshire on Friday. The complaint comes at the heels of an August 2015 ruling by a federal judge in New Hampshire that struck down a bill banning photos and videos in voting booths. The decision is still being appealed.

Get young people to vote

Laws banning photography in polling places are put in place to avoid voting fraud such as vote selling or coercion. However, Snapchat argues that there is no real proof of such a violation. Instead, it says ballot selfies and other digital-media friendly gestures of political engagement are no different than voter pins and badges, which encourage people to vote. To prove this point, Snapchat cited a study in the brief, showing that “online networks’ ‘I Voted’ buttons drove an additional 340,000 voters to the polls in the 2010 congressional elections.”

However, lawmakers across the country are not on the same page. In some states, the ban is more of a policy or recommendation; in others, taking photos can result in severe legal repercussions. For instance, on Snapchat’s home turf of California, cameras are banned in the booth. In Pennsylvania, taking a photo could get you a $1,000 fine or a year’s worth of jail time. Taking photos in voting booths and polling places is completely legal in New York, but it is recommended that people do so before filling out their ballot.

All in the name of news

Snapchatting during voting generates a lot of traffic and user content for the social networking app. During this year’s US presidential primaries, many people submitted to Live Stories — a series of raw videos and pictures of an event or occasion submitted by Snapchat users and correspondents, strung together under one Story by Snapchat editors for everyone to see. Snapchat’s news team has “published some of these Snaps as relevant and important parts of the organization’s political news coverage,” the Venice-based company said in its 26-page brief. It went on to suggest that a ban was unconstitutional and violated the First Amendment, especially since reporters were allowed to take photos in polling places but other citizens weren’t.

The social media platform suggests that laws be put in place to protect individuals who wish to keep ballots private from overbearing reporters. However, the company is against the state imposing “an absolute ban that prevents even voters who want to share their ballot selfies with digital media news gatherers from doing so.”