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First American discloses a 'cybersecurity incident,' a few years after its major leak
First American, a real estate and mortgage financial firm, experienced a "cybersecurity incident" impacting operations, the company posted on its website on Thursday.
Zoom is buying a cloud call center company for $14.7 billion
Zoom has made its first major acquisition by purchasing cloud contact center company Five9 for $14.7 billion.
Facebook forms financial group to focus on payments
Facebook has decided to delve deeper into commerce with the creation of a new group focused on payments.
Ukraine catches hacker who tried to sell 773 million stolen email addresses
Ukrainian officials detained the hacker, known as Sanix, who tried to sell a database with 773 million email addresses and 21 million unique passwords.
PlayStation 4 sales pass 110 million
Sales and revenue for the fourth quarter slipped to 1.7 billion yen (roughly $16.3 billion), down billion yen (roughly $3.6 billion) year-over-year.
Sony's PlayStation business is slowing faster than expected
Back in 2018 Sony made it clear that its games department would be slowing down as it prepared for the next generation PlayStation. Now it's released its quarterly results which go beyond a "slowing down" to illustrate a much more significant drop in revenue for the business.
Huawei reports increased sales despite US sanctions
Huawei's latest quarterly results show that the Chinese company is doing just fine, despite ongoing trade issues with America. Third-quarter revenue is up 24.4 percent on the same period last year, while the company says it has shipped more than 185 million smartphones in the first three quarters of 2019, up 26 percent year-on-year.
Twitter is cracking down on financial scams
Twitter has updated its policy on financial scams. As of today, users are not permitted to deceive others into sending money or personal financial information. If you're thinking, it's about time, you're not alone. Previously, Twitter handled cases of fraud via its spam reporting tool. But today's changes detail exactly what is prohibited and should make it easier for users to report fraud.
Huawei phone sales increased by over 20 percent despite sanctions
Huawei has seen its business hold steady through the first half of 2019 despite the international issues that surround it. The company has been accused of being too close to China's leadership, producing insecure products that could be used for surveillance.
Fidelity’s new firm will manage crypto trading for investors
Financial services firm Fidelity is making a move towards cryptocurrency, announcing a new company that will handle crypto investments for large-scale clients. The new company, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, will manage both trade execution and cryptocurrency custody for its investors, which, for now, will include hedge funds, endowments and family offices. "Our goal is to make digitally-native assets, such as bitcoin, more accessible to investors," Fidelity Investments CEO Abigail Johnson said in a statement. "We expect to continue investing and experimenting, over the long-term, with ways to make this emerging asset class easier for our clients to understand and use."
New York sues US treasury for allowing fintechs to become banks
New York is suing the US over a decision to permit US financial technology firms to apply for national bank charters, blasting it as "lawless" and "ill-conceived". Maria Vullo, superintendent of New York's Department of Financial Services, filed the suit against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in a Manhattan federal court.
Facebook might let you chat with your bank over Messenger
Facebook wants to incorporate your banking info into Messenger and has approached companies like JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and US Bancorp over the past year, the Wall Street Journal reports. People familiar with the discussions told the publication that Facebook has sought data on card transactions and checking account balances and has proposed giving its users access to banking information such as account balances and fraud alerts through Messenger. The move comes as Facebook tries to boost engagement and banks grapple with how to reach more customers digitally. Since the original WSJ report, Facebook has clarified that while it may partner with banks so financial institutions can use Messenger for customer support, it doesn't have any interest in going beyond that.
NYPD says 'Skim Reaper' device could curb ATM fraud
Skimming costs US consumers more than a billion dollars a year. The practice, which sees devices illegally installed on ATMs and gas station pumps to "skim" credit card information from unsuspecting users, can affect everyone. Even cybersecurity expert Patrick Traynor, who's now come up with a solution that could end the nefarious crime for good.
PayPal settles with FTC over Venmo disclosure and transfer policies
The FTC filed a complaint against PayPal over its Venmo peer-to-peer payment service back in 2016. The trade commission alleged that Venmo did not adequately disclose that customer transfers to external bank accounts were subject to review and could be frozen or removed. The FTC's filing also said that Venmo misled consumers around privacy as well as how protected their accounts were and violated the Privacy and Safeguard Rules of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. PayPal has just settled with the FTC around these allegations. No monetary penalties have been levied for the infractions.
Nasdaq plans to offer bitcoin futures in early 2018
Bitcoin continues to grow, hitting a $11,000 price per coin valuation less than a day after it topped $10,000. The cryptocurrency has been normalizing with investors, getting its own federally-regulated exchange this past July. Now, Nasdaq is planning to launch contracts for bitcoin futures in the first half of 2018, according to The Wall Street Journal, which will enable investors to predict and put money on the future price of the currency.
Uber's financials improve, but it really needs a new CFO
Uber has revealed that its losses for the first quarter of 2017 amounted to $708 million. Huge, but still smaller than the $991 million it lost in the last quarter of 2016. While the fact that it didn't bleed as much money as it did last year could be considered a small victory, the company is now much too busy to celebrate: it has to find a replacement for Gautam Gupta, the head of finance who's leaving the ride-hailing service for another startup. Uber is reportedly looking for someone with public-company experience, since it's planning to launch an IPO as soon as next year.
HTC sales fell off a cliff over the past year
All is not well at HTC. It today posted another difficult earnings report detailing its fourth consecutive quarter of losses. The Taiwanese manufacturer, which has just released its latest flagship smartphone, the HTC 10, lost roughly $148 million between January 1st and March 31st. More worrying still is the drop in revenues when compared to 2015: HTC brought in 41.5 billion Taiwanese dollars this time last year (and broke even), versus 14.8 billion this year. That's a 64-percent drop in revenues.
Google is deprecating the Wallet card at the end of April
Google announced on Thursday that it will no longer support the physical debit cards tied to users' Wallet accounts beginning July 1. Instead, Google plans to press forward with development on its mobile app.
Sony buys Toshiba out of the sensor business for $155 million
Sony has purchased Toshiba's image sensor business for 19 billion yen, or around $155 million, confirming rumors from October. It recently re-organized its sensor division into a wholly-owned subsidiary called the Sony Semiconductor Corporation. The move will bolster the new company and remove Toshiba as a primary competitor in the smartphone and camera image sensor business. Sony manufacturers such chips for its own smartphones along with models by the likes of Apple and Xiaomi. Its chips are also used in DSLRs made by Nikon and its own Alpha models.
iPhones and China fuel Apple's growth, not the Watch
It's that time again — Apple just dropped its Q3 2015 earnings and despite missing Wall Street's always-lofty expectations, it's been a solid three months of growth thanks to the two usual suspects. Say it with us now, folks: It's all thanks to the iPhone and China. (If you're the sort who cares, Apple just missed most Wall Street estimates by posting earnings of $1.85 per share.)
