Week 09: February 26, 2018 - March 4, 2018
Apple using Google Cloud
Apple, according to their latest security guide, is using Google Cloud and Amazon S3 for their iCloud services. They used to use Amazon S3 and Microsoft Azure according to an older report. Rivalries between companies are often making users think that there isn't any collaboration between companies but sometimes this is not possible. As an example, Apple also uses Samsung parts for their iPhone and many companies cross-license tech for their devices.
Amazon is buying a door maker company
Amazon is buying the (famous from failing on Shark Tank) doorbell maker company Ring for 1 billion dollars. Ring was lastly valued at 760 million dollars.
In the past, Ring then named Doorbot was offered $700,000 as a loan with 10$ per sale until the debt was paid. He refused that offer from Mr O'Leary. Shark Tank didn't manage to see the opportunity then but people like Richard Branson founder of Virgin Group show the opportunity later on and invested. Only the future will show how more the company can grow with Amazon now under their wing.
Tesla to open Research and Development center in Athens
Greek due to the economic crisis has a big diaspora problem. 3 top engineers working at Tesla are from the Greek University of Athens. The head of the Hellenic Entrepreneurs Association offered his facilities free for 10 years for Elon's company to test their products. It is expected to give jobs to at least 50 engineers which are always good news.
Big Mining Heist
600 computers reported to worth up to 2 million dollars were stolen in Iceland. Iceland is of course very popular for mining due to the cold climate. There were mining thefts in the past too but first time at this scale.
Some Ether contracts vulverable to attacks
After the accidental deletion of 285 million dollars by a GitHub user, a new tool was made available named Maian to scan smart contracts for bugs. After a team scanned almost 1 million ether contracts, they found that 3.5% are affected by serious bugs that may enable malicious users to steal or freeze those. The Maian tool is not released yet in fear that it may be used maliciously to find and attack the vulnerable contracts.
First bank to directly sell cryptocurrencies in Liechtenstein
Bank Frick offered their consumers the ability to directly buy one of those cryptocurrencies:
- Bitcoin
- Bitcoin Cash
- Ethereum
- Ripple
- Litecoin
The bank claims that they store the cryptocurrencies in cold storage wallets making it impossible to get hacked without physical access. The question is, who want for a bank to store their crypto???
That is all for this week's Bits in Technology. Feel free to comment any of the news in the comments. See you all next week.
Have a great week! - Chris Myll
