Category Archives: Uncategorized

snippet In 2015, the call-blocking app YouMail estimated that close to a billion robo-calls were being placed every month. Two years later, that number has leapt to 2.5 billion. At best, these calls annoy. At worst, they defraud. By far, they constitute the top consumer complaint received by the FTC. [From How robo-call moguls outwittedContinue reading “How robo-call moguls outwitted the government and completely wrecked the Do Not Call list”

snippet In the past, it has taken generations for humans to develop political, cultural, and institutional antibodies to the novelty and upheaval of previous information revolutions. [From It’s the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech | WIRED ] snippet

As the UK enters the new era of Open Banking, we are all familiar with the opportunities for new financial services providers to use the new infrastructure to provide new products and services. As Ken Wattana pointed out, open banking depends on having identity services as part of that infrastructure. Third parties using the bankContinue reading “Retail Opportunities”

xxx A Starbucks shop in Seattle, Washington has gone completely cashless in its transactions as part of the global coffee chain’s test to scrap bills and coins in the long run. From Starbucks store goes completely cashless: Will more branches follow suit? xxx xxx A newly-opened café in Singapore has been the centre of attentionContinue reading “POST I wish all Starbucks would like this”

I once went out to lunch with an old schoolfriend of mine (we went to University together as well) who ended up in a very senior position in finance in a telecommunications company. Toward the end of a pleasant meal, some sort of alarm went off on his phone. He glanced at the device andContinue reading “POST Mobile money, mobile security”

xxx “the ban does not include fees that are not linked to the payment method” From “Ban on shops charging to use cards is now in force – this is what it means – Plymouth Herald”. xxx

xxx Born in Canada in 1911, McLuhan studied at the University of Manitoba and University of Cambridge before becoming a lecturer at the University of Toronto. He rose to prominence in the 1960s for his work as a media theorist and for coining the term “global village”, which was a prescient vision of the internetContinue reading “POST McLuhan was right about identity as well”

xxx “MALONE: What Levin is saying is that bitcoin private keys are designed to be un-guessable even by the most powerful computers we have right now. But if Turner happened to write down part of this key at some point, there are companies that will use that information to help him break into his account…Continue reading “Finding Your Lost Bitcoins : NPR”

    Latin lesson at Winchester College.

An Accenture report on the topic from 2017 notes (accurately, in my opinion) that “trusted social media companies (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and tech companies (Google, Apple) will capture a significant slice of the [AISP/PISP] market”.