A library of snippets
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Block is also shutting down TBD, a Bitcoin-focused arm of the business that previously set out to build a decentralized internet, dubbed “Web5.” These cuts will free up the company to invest in Bitcoin mining and its crypto wallet.
From: Block scales back TIDAL investment and shutters TBD in favor of Bitcoin mining | TechCrunch.
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Researchers gave successive versions of a large language model information produced by previous generations of the AI — and observed rapid collapse.
From: AI models fed AI-generated data quickly spew nonsense.
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Reeves will demand that companies including Meta, TikTok, BT and EE update ministers about progress on fraud prevention before March, with the veiled threat of further action if they fail to act.
From: Reeves seeks reform of UK consumer redress in financial services sector.
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The path to production launches is being cleared both by online demos like those contained in the webinar, and by developer teams participating in events like the California DMV’s use case competition. Both Trinsic and Mitek were among participants. Others included Fime, Ping Identity, Incode and Credence ID.
There are now 780,000 people in California participating in that state’s mDL pilot, and a slate of seven winners has been announced in the hackathon the DMV held for applications of the digital ID.
A way for nonprofits to integrate mDLs to reach and enroll underserved members of the community into social benefits programs by Team Entidad won “Most Compelling and Most Socially Impactful.” A team from Cisco won “Most Promising” for an application of mDLs as a root digital identity for passwordless authentication. Developers from Block won “Best Privacy and Security Design” for an in-person age check application for merchants using Square, and a team from U.S. Bank won “Most Scalable” for an in-person identity verification implementation for bank branches to carry out high-risk transactions.
Team UltraPass won for “Best User Experience” for an mDL combined with encrypted biometrics to streamline account creation, while Mattr, in collaboration with Samsung, Treez and Nuvei, won “Best Presentation” for an application to carry out identity and age verification for cannabis sales and deliveries.From: mDL verification moving from theoretical to practical questions | Biometric Update.
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While everyone’s watching AI, the biggest tech companies are quietly fighting for control of your digital identity… The wallet will become the consumers’ center of gravity
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Louise Hill, co-founder and CEO of GoHenry, reported that their research found 84% of children and teenagers would like to have more financial education in school and that 68% of 18-year-olds are worried about leaving school without any money skills.
From: UK government urged to implement compulsory financial education from primary school.
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The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee has published a new presentation calling for central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to replace stablecoins.
From: Treasury Advisory Committee Calls for CBDCs to Replace Stablecoins | Cato at Liberty Blog.
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The messaging app Snapchat is the most widely-used platform for online grooming, according to police figures supplied to the children’s charity the NSPCC.
From: Snapchat most-used app for online grooming, says NSPCC – BBC News.
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The FBI is warning that hackers are obtaining private user information — including emails and phone numbers — from U.S.-based tech companies by compromising government and police email addresses to submit “emergency” data requests.
The FBI’s public notice filed this week is a rare admission from the federal government about the threat from fraudulent emergency data requests, a legal process designed to help police and federal authorities obtain information from companies to respond to immediate threats affecting someone’s life or property. The abuse of emergency data requests is not new, and has been widely reported in recent years.
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Looking back, while the industry has reduced costs and kept credit quality high, the improvement in returns since 2021 appears to be largely owed to rising interest rates (Exhibit 3). Modeling, while imperfect, suggests that without rate support, industry ROTE in many geographies would have been around 8 percent, or below cost of capital.
From: McKinsey’s Global Banking Annual Review 2024 | McKinsey.
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