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The new rules won’t be a free-for-all, as starting Thursday, merchants must give card providers 30 days’ notice of their intent to start charging a fee. They must also make it clear to customers at the time of payment that there’s a surcharge, and it can’t be more than they pay themselves. Finally, the surcharge will be capped at 2.4 per cent. But the rules won’t be in force in Quebec, because that type of fee is forbidden under the province’s Consumer Protection Act.

Telecom provider Telus has already warned its customers that they’ll have to pay a surcharge of about $2 per customer on average starting this month, if they pay their bill with a credit card. And more and more businesses are likely to do the same soon.

From Paying with a credit card? Expect to see a fee when you shop under new rules that start now:

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The UK will scrap the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the European Union’s data privacy regime, and replace it with an alternative system in the UK, the digital and culture secretary Michelle Donelan has told the Conservative Party conference.

Donelan said the proposed new system, details of which have not yet been revealed, will be simpler and clearer for businesses to navigate.

From GDPR to be scrapped in favour of UK data privacy regime:

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ABN Amro is bundling digital ID with payment functionality to speed up the onboarding process for consumer-to-business transactions

From ABN Amro introduces e-ID with payment functionality.

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This bill would authorize a county recorder to, upon request, issue a certified copy of a birth, death, or marriage record issued pursuant to those provisions, in addition to the required method described above, by means of verifiable credential, as defined, using blockchain technology, defined as a decentralized data system, in which the data stored is mathematically verifiable, that uses distributed ledgers or databases to store specialized data in the permanent order of transactions recorded. The bill would require the county recorder to ensure that the release of those copies is subject to technical safeguards sufficient to prevent fraud and unauthorized or illegal access, destruction, use, modification, and disclosure.

From Bill Text – SB-786 County birth, death, and marriage records: blockchain..

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That’s where a little-noticed but long-running push to develop offline digital payment systems comes in. Some of this work goes back 30 years, to a time long before smartphones. In fact, the future of offline central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) may lie in the technological past.

From Taking Digital Currencies Offline:

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Dogs can smell cancer, Parkinson’s, malaria, and other conditions that cause changes in human body odor. There’s even published research on dogs’ ability to smell Covid-19.

Scientists could train more and more dogs to aid in disease detection, and deploy them around the world. But this kind of training is expensive, difficult, and time-consuming. Plus, not everyone likes dogs, and not everyone would appreciate being sniffed by a dog before a basketball game or during a doctor’s appointment.

Essentially, the hope is for scientists to engineer a robot nose to detect diseases the way a dog’s nose can.

From The sense of smell is still a mystery. But that’s not stopping research on robot noses. – Vox:

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Platforms could employ KYC directly, requiring ID for every new signup, and limiting the number of accounts each person can control. But not everyone wants to have to trust Meta with their personal information, because the company’s data security team is about as reliable as Man U’s back four. (Sorry, had to.) Social media’s untrustworthiness is a business opportunity, however. The solution to confirming online identity is a profitable layer/middleman in waiting.

From ID | No Mercy / No Malice:

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“A digital euro would provide a level of privacy equal to that of current private sector digital solutions.“

From Three big CBDC stories: Digital euro delivers on privacy , Hong Kong goes full speed ahead with e-HKD, and Australia’s new pilot reaches out to innovators:

This seems like a very low bar to me. Surely we should be far more ambitious in our demands on next-generation digital currency.

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According to new data from Juniper Research, global spending on digital identity verification checks will rise from US$11.6 billion in 2022 to US$20.8 billion in 2027, and is expected to reach US$40 billion.

From Digital identity verification to top $40 billion in 2032 – What is new? – Security Boulevard:

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The Tesla Bot had the ability to walk around untethered, wave to the audience, and even did a little, somewhat conservative dance. In a video, Tesla showed that the Tesla Bot can already pick up a box and deliver it to a desk where people are seated. It can identify and pick up other objects including a metal bar and a watering can that’s used for plants.

From Tesla just shocked everyone with its Optimus robot prototype | Digital Trends:

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