Winners of PayPal BattleHack in Toronto announced

Team Members: (from left) Ernst Riemer, Maya Kenedy, Jonathan LeBlanc, head of developer advocacy at PayPal and Braintree, Alex Christodoulou, and Christopher Larsen

The recently concluded PayPal BattleHack in Toronto saw a defending champion team take the reign again with their new mobile app. Team Not Me, who won under the team name Angry Kittens last year for Security Blanket app, won for the mobile app Not Me. This year’s winning app is designed to recognize if someone tries to access your personal information with your permission. It’ll notify you if there is suspicious activity via email or text message. The app integrates Braintree’s SDK and lets users pay for the protection service via PayPal or credit card. The winning team will be headed to the PayPal Battle Hack World Finals in San Jose California in November to compete for the US$100,000 grand prize.

Second place went to the While I Brush smart toothbrush holder. It comes with a built-in display that shows a video while you brush your teeth. It’s mean to improve oral health and teach people how to brush more effectively for the recommended amount of time. Meanwhile, third place goes to OpenMD. It helps doctors easily collaborate on patient cases while getting vitals and other medical feedback while the patient is at home. It can also be used to work with different wearable devices.

Google to shut down Plus Photos on August 1st

It was bound to happen. With the debut of Google Photos, we’ve expected Google to shutter Google Plus Photos. Now, the announcement has been made and the service will be shut down by August 1^st. The shutdown will hit Android first with iOS and the Web following “soon thereafter.” Google’s encouraging the remaining users of Google Plus Photos to download the Google Photos app so they can continue having “uninterrupted access” to their photos, videos, and albums. Those who don’t want to switch or failed to do so by August 1^st, you can access it at the photos portal and export them using Google Takeout.

Source: Google | Via: The Next Web

Ashley Madison breach raises another red flag on online security

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

Ashley Madison's entire business plan is hinged on their ability to securely store customer's information including intimate photographs, personal profiles and chats. The website was recently hacked and 37 million customer's accounts were reportedly taken and hackers are threatening to leak all this information online unless the site is completely shut down.

Ashley Madison is a website and online community that unabashedly encourages people to have extramarital affairs. It is a dating site designed around making it easy to find various attached partners for casual encounters and no-strings attached sex.

Ashley Madison's entire business plan is hinged on their ability to securely store customer's information including intimate photographs,  personal profiles, sexual fantasies and intimate chats. Their homepage boasts a 'Trusted Security Award,' it promises a '100 % Discreet Service,' and is an 'SSL Secured Site.'

Despite this, Ashley Madison was recently hacked and 37 million customer's accounts, mostly from the US and Canada, were reportedly taken and hackers are threatening to leak all this information online unless the website property is closed down. 

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Spotify outs user-specific ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist

Spotify’s new feature is bringing you a more personalized playlist. The automatically generated and aptly named Discover Weekly playlist gives you an instant playlist based on the music you’ve been listening to. It also takes into account the taste of the people who listen to music similar to you. If you like a particular song, make sure to save it because the playlist updates every Monday. Spotify plans to bring this new feature to all its users in the coming weeks. For now, you’ll have to look for new stuff to listen to the “old-fashioned way” on Spotify and tap on that Discover tab or stalk your friends and see what they’re listening to.

Source: Gizmodo