FINALLY! In a recent townhall Q&A hosted by Mark Zuckerberg in Delhi, India at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), the Zuckster vowed to kill Facebook game invites. Whether we will see requests culled before the end of 2015 remains to be seen. But it is nice to know that Mark and presumably others at Facebook are aware how annoying they are. I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg ever gets game requests for Candy Crush as well?
You have probably heard that Apple is planning to launch Apple Pay via a partnership with American Express in various countries outside of the US, including Australia in 2016. I know you are probably thinking, why American Express, don’t like 10 people in Australia own an Amex card? Yes, you are correct. The reason Apple went with Amex is because no other provider or bank outside of the US wanted to give up their card fees.
With a surprisingly vote of most votees in favour, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) has controversially passed in the United States senate. The final senate vote on Tuesday afternoon was 74 to 21, passing with ease and clearing the path for the bill to become law. The whole purpose of CISA is supposed to be to prevent the rising trend of corporate data breaches, by allowing companies to share data with the Department of Homeland Security who would then in turn most likely share it with other agencies like the NSA or FBI to help defend the company and others under attack.
I have been loving Medium lately. Since its new version launched, I have been more engaged in its content and reading some great articles. This morning I came across an article title Please, don’t commit commented out code – based on the title, I am sure you can work out what the article is about. I think many of us have been guilty of committing commented out code into the main source repository. It happens, sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally.
There is no disputing the fact Steve Jobs was a highly accomplished man. While he did not do it alone, he was instrumental in turning Apple around and making it the most valuable company in the world. He saw what nobody else could see at Apple and he knew what kind of people he needed to make it happen. Even years after his death, Apple shows no signs of slowing down and continues to hold more money than most first-world government treasuries.
When it comes to raising money, there are not many apps that can attract as much capital and interest as Uber can. A Techcrunch story suggests Uber are looking to raise another $1 billion funding round (yes, that is one billion dollars). A mere 3 months ago, Uber raised a $1b round and they’re set to do it again. This would place their valuation between $60 billion and $70 billion respectively.
I love freshly baked sliced bread. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t love sliced bread, except maybe people who can’t have gluten or anything else found in bread. Which reminds me, how overrated is Jarryd Hayne? Don’t answer that. It’s a rhetorical question. Because he is a former NRL (National Rugby League) star here in Australia, the media clings on and hypes him up like he is a member of the Kardashian family.
I know you’re probably stunned right now, perhaps even in a little state of shock hearing that. But it is true: I don’t really like Star Wars all that much. There are only a handful of movie franchises that can pull a dedicated following like Star Wars has. In-fact, I can’t think of another movie series that even comes close to rivalling it. There are conventions, tonnes of merchandise, games and basically anything that can have branding on it probably comes in a Star Wars variant.
Youtube has announced a new subscription program called Youtube Red. This subscription will cost $10 per month and allow you to use Youtube without seeing any ads. Firstly, why would anyone with even just the tiniest shred of intelligence pay for something like this? Are there really people out there who can’t be bothered sitting through a 10 second ad, are you watching Youtube that much? Ebb and Flow is a great Internet marketing company and they say the second part is a doozy. Youtube supposedly made its top video creators (Youtube partners) an offer they couldn’t refuse, or their content would disappear. Apparently Youtube is being run by a 1930s mobster with a tommy gun and pinstripe suit.
It is time to uninstall Flash. The notoriously insecure multimedia plugin is causing more issues than it is worth. Of late there have been numerous major security issues posted online, in yet more ways attackers can come in and touch your junk. Some of my SEO friends especially one that lives near Honolulu, Hawaii is done with Adobe Flash and all it’s problems. Not long after releasing a plethora of bandaid patches for Adobe software products (including Flash), Adobe have confirmed another major security vulnerability and it is a doozie: it affects all versions of Flash; Windows, Mac and Linux.