Bank of Ireland Working to Implement Apple Pay

The Bank of Ireland, the last major bank in the country that does not offer support for Apple Pay, is working on implementing Apple Pay for its customers, according to information shared with Irish news site Independent.ie. “We expect to integrate phone payments in the future,” said a spokesperson. “However we are not in a position to confirm timings.” When asked by Independent.ie to clarify what

In Switzerland, Scientists Suggested a Way to Diagnose Early Signs of Dangerous Diseases

Interpol operation rescues hundreds of human trafficking victims | News

Hundreds of suspected victims of human trafficking have been rescued by police in 13 countries throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. The international police organisation Interpol said on Monday nearly 350 victims – who may have been subjected to sexual exploitation and forced labour – had been saved as part of a project to combat human trafficking in the region. Police arrested 22

Chinese government admits collection of deleted WeChat messages – TechCrunch

Chinese authorities revealed over the weekend that they have the capability of retrieving deleted messages from the almost universally used WeChat app. The admission doesn’t come as a surprise to many, but it’s rare for this type of questionable data collection tactic to be acknowledged publicly. As noted by the South China Morning Post, an anti-corruption commission in Hefei province posted

Apple Maps Vehicles Have Now Collected Street View Data in Over 40 States and 10 Countries

Apple Maps vehicles equipped with LiDAR equipment have now surveyed at least 41 states in the United States, with recent areas including Maine and Iowa, as the fleet of vans continue to collect mapping data across the country. The vehicles first took to the streets in major American cities like New York in 2015, and they have since traveled to Croatia, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia,

20 People Who Cheered Everyone Up on the Subway

Faulty Patch for Oracle WebLogic Flaw Opens Updated Servers to Hackers Again

Earlier this month, Oracle patched a highly critical Java deserialization remote code execution vulnerability in its WebLogic Server component of Fusion Middleware that could allow attackers to easily gain complete control of a vulnerable server. However, a security researcher, who operates through the Twitter handle @pyn3rd and claims to be part of the Alibaba security team, has now found a

28 Misleading Photos We Ought to Look at More Than Once

Ming-Chi Kuo May Lessen Focus on Apple Following Reported Departure From KGI Securities

Ming-Chi Kuo, widely considered to be one of the best analysts covering Apple, may no longer focus his research on the iPhone maker. Kuo speaking on behalf of DigiTimes China Times reports that Kuo resigned from Taiwanese research firm KGI Securities on Friday and, while his next move is uncertain, the publication suggests he will focus less on Apple and more on other emerging industries. Kuo

A Scandinavian Diet That Is Considered to Be One of the Simplest Diets in the World

New Twitter Timeline Feature Groups Together News Links

Twitter has updated the way its main timeline treats trending news stories, so that tweets from users linking the same story get grouped together (via BuzzFeed). The change means users will now see a banner at the top of their feed that lists links to a particular story from people they follow, and should prevent users from seeing multiple shared links to the same story in their timeline. The

Twin ISIL suicide blasts kill 25 in Afghanistan’s Kabul | News

At least 25 people, including nine journalists, have been killed and dozens wounded after two explosions hit Kabul, according to Afghan health officials. The blasts went off during rush hour on Monday morning in the Shash Darak area of the Afghan capital. Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul, said the armed group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS)

10 Myths About the Americans That Were Busted After Living in the US for 4 years

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Armenia’s ruling party won’t stop ‘people’s candidate’ | News

Armenia’s ruling party said it would not stop protest leader Nikol Pashinyan becoming interim prime minister if all opposition factions in parliament support his candidacy. More than two weeks of anti-government protests forced the resignation of Republican Party veteran Serzh Sarksyan as prime minister, and the party said it will not put forward one of its own members to replace him – in a bid

7 Killer Ways to Lose Inches of Flab From All Over Your Body

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T-Mobile and Sprint have finally announced a merger agreement – TechCrunch

Sprint and T-Mobile, after years of going back and forth as to whether they are going to tie up two of the largest telecom providers in the U.S., have announced that the two companies have entered a merger agreement this morning. The merger will be an all-stock transaction, and will now be subject to regulatory approval. That latter part is going to be its biggest challenge, because it will not

Rwanda’s Paul Kagame accuses ICC of bias against Africa | News

Kigali, Rwanda – Rwandan President Paul Kagame has repeated his harsh criticism of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for what he calls open bias against Africa, saying it has failed to mete out justice in any other part of the world. “The ICC was supposed to address the whole world, but it ended up covering only Africa,” Kagame said on Saturday at a meeting with British-Sudanese telecoms

Investing in frontier technology is (and isn’t) cleantech all over again – TechCrunch

Shahin Farshchi Contributor More posts by this contributor The dos and don’ts of crafting frontier-tech companies Five billion-dollar businesses for the driverless future I entered the world of venture investing a dozen years ago.  Little did I know that I was embarking on a journey to master the art of balancing contradictions: building up experience and pattern recognition to identify

Sergey Lavrov: The US is trying to divide Syria | Russia News

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, has accused the US of trying to divide Syria while ignoring international law by launching missiles into the country. Lavrov made the accusations on Saturday while meeting his Turkish and Iranian counterparts in Moscow following their talks on the seven-year Syrian war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people. The meeting was meant to prepare

North Korea hails ‘new milestone’ in ties with South Korea | North Korea News

North Korean state media has hailed as a “new milestone” the historic meeting between its leader and South Korea’s president, and their joint declaration to formally end the Korean War, and make the peninsula nuclear-free. North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Saturday that both Pyongyang and Seoul “affirm the common goal of realising a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula through

Five Useful Mac Apps Worth Checking Out – April 2018

Apps designed for the Mac don’t typically receive as much attention as apps for iOS devices, so we’ve launched a monthly series that highlights useful, interesting Mac apps that are worth checking out. This month’s app selection, outlined in the video and the post below, includes apps for managing and organizing your files, getting info about your Mac, accessing your favorite content quickly, and

Essential’s first handset is coming to more markets – TechCrunch

It’s hard launching a phone company — something Essential was pretty candid about from the start. Andy Rubin’s latest endeavor got off to something of a slow start, according to outside accounts, but today the well-funded hardware startup is getting ready to add a whole bunch of new markets to its online store. On Twitter today, the company announced a handful of key additions to its coverage

Reflections on Tana Forum 2018 and Ethiopia’s new PM Abiy Ahmed | Politics

“This new guy – he’s a good guy. Very good brain. Now everything in Ethiopia is going to be OK”. My taxi driver Daniel offers up this unprompted insight as we zip through the streets of Addis Ababa, letting me in on the sentiment around the unprecedented year Ethiopia had.  The “new guy” is Dr Abiy Ahmed, the recently selected chair of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPDRF

Apple Working on AR/VR Headset With 8K Displays and No Smartphone or Computer Tether

Apple is working on a powerful headset that will support both augmented reality and virtual reality applications, according to an inside source that spoke to CNET. The headset, which is codenamed T288, features an 8K display for each eye that would be untethered from either a computer or a smartphone. Instead, it would connect to a “dedicated box” using a high-speed short-range wireless

MIST paints your walls so you don’t have to – TechCrunch

If you’ve ever painted a room you know that getting every nook and cranny is pretty difficult and Tim Allen help you if you have hardwood or carpet. The tarp alone costs more than the paint. Now, thanks to MIST, your robot can manage the entire job, slapping paint up like a robotic Jackson Pollock. The robot uses mapping technology and a sort of elevator-like neck to spray up and down walls.

Apple Music Continues to Offer Free Extra Month to Previous Trial Customers Who Never Subscribed

Apple is encouraging customers who have previously trialed Apple Music, but were not convinced to pay for the service, to try it again. For several months, some users who have already taken advantage of Apple Music’s initial free three-month trial period, but do not currently have a subscription, have been offered an additional month of complimentary access. Apple has been alerting users to the

Nintendo is releasing a mobile RPG this summer – TechCrunch

The maker of Shadowverse and Granblue Fantasy is teaming up with Nintendo for a new mobile RPG. Called Dragalia Lost, the Japanese-style action RPG will be a free-to-play game though likely loaded with Loot Box-style mechanics that will result in a financial windfall for Nintendo and developer Cygames. The trailer doesn’t reveal many details about the game’s story. I assume from the title

Koreas summit: All the latest updates | South Korea News

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made history on Friday as he crossed into South Korea to hold talks with President Moon Jae-in.  It is the first time a North Korean leader has set foot in its southern neighbour since the end of the Korean War.  The two are holding talks in the demilitarised zone as part of the first inter-Korea summit in more than a decade. The meeting is expected to centre on

Sprint and T-Mobile Aiming to Reach Merger Deal Next Week

Earlier this month, reports suggested Sprint and T-Mobile had once again resumed merger talks, and now it appears the two U.S. carriers may be close to inking a deal. According to Reuters, Sprint and T-Mobile have “made progress” negotiating merger terms and are aiming to complete deal talks as soon as next week. T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom and Sprint parent company SoftBank are said

Teradyne snatches up robot maker MiR in $272M deal – TechCrunch

Teradyne, a prosaic-sounding but flush company that provides automated testing equipment for industrial applications, has acquired the Danish robotics company MiR for an eye-popping $148 million, with $124 million on the table after meeting performance goals. MiR, which despite the lowercase “i” stands for Mobile Industrial Robots, does what you might guess. Founded in 2013, the company has

Amazon Alexa Has Got Some Serious Skills—Spying On Users!

“Alexa, are you spying on me?” — aaaa…..mmmm…..hmmm…..maybe!!! Security researchers have developed a new malicious ‘skill’ for Amazon’s popular voice assistant Alexa that can turn your Amazon Echo into a full-fledged spying device. Amazon Echo is an always-listening voice-activated smart home speaker that allows you to get things done by using your voice, like playing music, setting alarms, and

New ‘battle plan’ to improve life at France’s deprived suburbs | Macron

When Emmanuel Macron announced his bid for the French presidency in November 2016 from Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest suburb in France, the message was clear: improving the social situation in the French banlieues, or suburbs, was one of his priorities. Seine-Saint-Denis, located just northeast of Paris, had long been synonymous with the conditions that blight France’s banlieues – about 10

Google endorses Clean Power Plan ahead of expected repeal – TechCrunch

Google has joined Apple in a growing chorus of tech giants coming out in support of the Clean Power Plan. The company filed a statement with the Environmental Protection Agency, which it has since shared with TechCrunch, supporting the Obama-era legislation. The legislation, which sought curb power plant emissions by more than 30-percent by 2030, is expected to be repealed by the Trump

Sketchy Video Shows Possible iPhone SE 2 With Glass Back and Headphone Jack

A video shared on Chinese social media website Sina Weibo this week has possibly revealed a second-generation iPhone SE, but the device could easily be a knockoff, so treat this rumor with a healthy dose of skepticism. The short clip, which we’ve reuploaded to YouTube, shows what appears to be an unreleased iPhone SE with a glass back, a design change that would enable support for wireless

Award-Winning Cablewings Add Power Cord Storage Back to Your Mac’s Charger

German company brezzl today announced it is now accepting pre-orders for its Cablewings cable management solution for Apple power adapters. Cablewings Cablewings are small plastic pieces that attach to an Apple power adapter and have small spikes that can hold a wrapped up power cord. They are compatible with Apple’s USB-C power adapters for all 2015 and later MacBook and 2016 and later MacBook

Samsung tempers record earnings with pessimistic smartphone outlook – TechCrunch

Samsung’s latest earnings report is a succinct lesson in hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. The actual news here is pretty positive, as the company reports a record operating profit, courtesy of high demand for its components and flagship handsets. But a statement tied to the news mentions “slow demand” no fewer than seven times, as the company looks to temper investor

Release of PoC Exploit for New Drupal Flaw Once Again Puts Sites Under Attack

Only a few hours after the Drupal team releases latest updates to fix a new remote code execution flaw in its content management system software, hackers have already started exploiting the vulnerability in the wild. Announced yesterday, the newly discovered vulnerability (CVE-2018-7602) affects Drupal 7 and 8 core and allows remote attackers to achieve exactly same what previously discovered

The ONE Smart Keyboard Pro lets you tickle the ivories with ease – TechCrunch

While the ONE Smart Keyboard Pro doesn’t have a sweet demo tune nor can it play barking dog Jingle Bells without some help, it can teach you or your kids how to play piano. The elegant keyboard has 88 weighted keys that simulate a true mechanical piano and connects to your phone so you can learn to play at your own pace. The Keyboard Pro costs $799 and is essentially a compact teaching

Leaked iPhone pics show glass back and headphone jack – TechCrunch

The headphone jack could still have a future in an iPhone. These leaked pics show an iPhone SE 2 with a glass back and headphone jack. Like the current iPhone SE, the design seems to be a take on the classic iPhone 5. I dig it. The leak also states the upcoming device sports wireless charging, which puts it in line with the iPhone 8 and iPhone X. Rumors have long stated that Apple was working

Snapchat launches Spectacles V2, camera glasses you’ll actually wear – TechCrunch

Photos, not just video. No yellow ring alerting people to the camera. Underwater-capable. Classier colors with lighter lenses. Prescription options. Faster syncing. And a much slimmer frame and charging case. Snapchat fixed the biggest pain points of its Spectacles camera sunglasses with V2, which launch today for $150. The company only sold 220,000 pairs of V1, with their limited functionality,

How to Look Up a Word Definition in iOS 11

iOS 11 includes a neat built-in dictionary feature that lets you quickly look up the definition of words on your iPhone or iPad, even if an internet connection is unavailable. It’s a handy recourse if someone breaks out a “big word” during a conversation, or you come across an expression in a book or on the web that you don’t quite understand. There are a couple of ways to access the dictionary

Chinese smartphone shipments drop 21% to reach lowest level since 2013 – TechCrunch

Analysts have long-warned of a growth crunch in China’s smartphone space, and it’s looking like that’s very much the case right now. China’s smartphone growth has been the feel-good story for domestic OEMs who have clocked impressive figures as the billion-plus population has rushed online via mobile devices. However, the market reached saturation point in 2017 — when sales stopped growing

Hackers build a ‘Master Key’ that unlocks millions of Hotel rooms

If you often leave your valuable and expensive stuff like laptop and passports in the hotel rooms, then beware. Your room can be unlocked by not only a malicious staff having access to the master key, but also by an outsider. A critical design vulnerability in a popular and widely used electronic lock system can be exploited to unlock every locked room in a facility, leaving millions of hotel

Number of active Facebook users increased despite scandals | USA News

Facebook says its user base and and revenue increased significantly in the first three months of 2018, despite the setback caused by the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal. The California-based social-media company released its quarterly results on Wednesday evening. The company saw the number of monthly active users increase to 2.2bn, 13 percent higher than in the first three months of

Alexa integration comes to Meural Canvas, letting you use your voice to navigate the art world – TechCrunch

Alexa can do just about everything if you ask it the right question in the right way. Today, it’s gaining a new skill, letting you move through artwork on the Meural Canvas digital artwork frame. The company’s $595 device lets you browse artwork from new and emerging artists as well as publicly available classics. One of the cool elements of the product has been the device’s gesture controls,