Friday, April 29, 2011

iFive: Sony Hackers Have Card Data, PayPal Buys Fig Card, Amazon Ditches S. Carolina, Square Secures Reader, Redbox Games Rental

Twitter trends

This chart, from Trendistic, shows just how wild Twitter is going over the Royal Wedding--and that's just for the word "wedding" -- "Will" and "Kate" are even more dramatic.

1. Hackers involved in the data breach at Sony are surfacing in online forums, and hinting they've acquired up to 2.2 million credit card numbers for Sony PSN users--as well as other personal info. Sony claimed yesterday that the card data was encrypted. This doesn't tally with efforts to sell the credit card list for upwards of $100,000, with possibly even an attempt to sell the data back to Sony, and the hackers may have penetrated further into Sony's database.

2. Concerned at the rise in new-tech mobile payment systems and even the arrival of Facebook on the scene, PayPal has bought a startup called Fig Card--which lets merchants accept payments at the register using a USB device, with consumers running a special app on their phone. The news underscores a promise PayPal made earlier this year that it would trial mobile payments using PayPal data at the cash register.

3. Amazon is taking away the chance of over 1,200 jobs in South Carolina and canceling a million-square-foot distribution center that's already under construction in the state. It's all because Amazon had asked for sales tax collection redemption, but a recent legislative vote rejected its request. This comes just a month after Amazon said it would close its Illinois center over a similar tax issue.

4. Square, possibly the market leader in smartphone mobile payment systems, has revealed it will adopt Visa's mobile application best practices guidelines, as part of the deal that saw Visa investing in the small firm. This will involve a new peripheral device, which encrypts credit card data at the card-reader level before it enters the smartphone--a criticism that had been leveled at the device earlier.

5. Redbox has been trialing daily game rentals from its automated kiosks, but is now taking the service nationwide with a $2 a day rentals scheme at over 21,000 extra locations. Games for Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii will be available starting June 17th. In light of the hack at Sony, the move may be coming at just the right time.

Chat about this news with Kit Eaton on Twitter and Fast Company too.


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