Snippings

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A former Post Office investigator “erroneously” submitted a CV including his wife’s educational achievements when applying to become a Post Office investigator in 2008, following a restructuring of the security team.

From: Post Office scandal latest: Investigator falsely used wife’s qualifications to apply for job.

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In the United States, A2A payments have been slow to catch on. One reason is that, in the absence of a regulatory framework, banks have been at a competitive disadvantage in staking out a strong presence in the payments marketplace. Also, Americans love their credit cards and the rewards that come with them, so dislodging the popularity of cards is perhaps the biggest challenge to US adoption of A2A.

Although card companies have a dominant US market position, A2A could offer banks a more competitive and standardized way of making payments while giving consumers and merchants more options. For banks and other institutions, the data provided by open banking could help generate a wide range of financial services, including enhanced insights and analytics. Consumers could benefit from potentially lower costs and improved customer journeys.1 With these benefits in mind, our analysis of payments in North America estimates that A2A could handle about $200 billion in consumer-to-business transactions by 2026 and potentially much more in other types of payments. The impact may be limited for daily transactions with a retailer or service provider but larger for big-ticket and recurring payments such as utility bills, insurance payments, and more.

From: The role of US open banking in catalyzing the adoption of A2A payments | McKinsey.

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In the United States, A2A payments have been slow to catch on. One reason is that, in the absence of a regulatory framework, banks have been at a competitive disadvantage in staking out a strong presence in the payments marketplace. Also, Americans love their credit cards and the rewards that come with them, so dislodging the popularity of cards is perhaps the biggest challenge to US adoption of A2A.

From: The role of US open banking in catalyzing the adoption of A2A payments | McKinsey.

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The MIT Technology Review lists the Apple Vision Pro as one of its “breakthrough technologies” for 2024 because the mixed-reality headset has a display that is radcially better than any that has come before. The Vision Pro’s twin micro-OLED screen provide much higher resolution and sharper contrast than the liquid crystal displays (LCDs) found in most VR headsets which mean the ability to provide an incredible immersive experience. 

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A “shocking” amount of the internet is machine-translated garbage, particularly in languages spoken in Africa and the Global South, a new study has found.

From: A ‘Shocking’ Amount of the Web Is Already AI-Translated Trash, Scientists Determine.

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Apple will start shipping its first mixed-reality headset, the Vision Pro, this year. Its killer feature is the highest-resolution display ever made for such a device. Will there be a killer app? It’s early, but the world’s most valuable company has made a bold bet that the answer is yes.

From: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2024 | MIT Technology Review.

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Harm happens in cyberspace because we have a three decades-long legacy of weak security in our software, hardware and wider digital infrastructure. Famously, the Internet was not built with security in mind – and we’re plagued with poor incentives for providers and users to do anything about it.

From: On the matter of the British Library cyber incident.

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On Dec. 14, 2023, a federal judge in the Eastern District of California granted Dellone permission to serve notice of his lawsuit directly to the suspected hackers’ bitcoin address — using a short message that was attached to roughly $100 worth of bitcoin Mora sent to the address.

Bitcoin transactions are public record, and each transaction can be sent along with an optional short message. The message uses what’s known as an “OP RETURN,” or an instruction of the Bitcoin scripting language that allows users to attach metadata to a transaction — and thus save it on the blockchain.

In the $100 bitcoin transaction Mora sent to the disputed bitcoin address, the OP RETURN message read: “OSERVICE – SUMMONS, COMPLAINT U.S. Dist. E.D. Cal. LINK: t.ly/123cv01408_service,” which is a short link to a copy of the lawsuit hosted on Google Drive.

From: Here’s Some Bitcoin: Oh, and You’ve Been Served! – Krebs on Security.

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When Apple announced it’s Vison Pro headset, may people commented on the the $3,499 launch price (comparing it to the cost of Meta’s Occulus headset) but I felt that is was not really that expensive in historical context and predicted that there would be plenty of people who will buy one to begin experimenting with it. Me, for example.

 

Banks are spending more on IT, but only a small share of the

total spending is on innovation and modernization

A recent BCG report on banks’ declining share of total assets recommends that retail banks should develop their role as a trusted custodian of customers’ financial well-being, the financial health strategy that I have written about many times before.