Week 15: April 9, 2018 - April 15, 2018
Facebook is tracking non only its users
Many Facebook news are revealed in the question from the US representatives to the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerborg 🤖. Facebook via the share button in most news pages on the internet is tracking non only its users but non-users as well. Mark said that this is done for "security reasons". Facebook has said that their products comply with the applicable law and the General Data Protection Regulations. Many senators are pushing for a stricter privacy policies and laws to be introduced.
Many tech figures in the industry like Steve Wozniak and others dropping from Facebook make the news.
Warranty Void If Removed
The famous stickers in many electronic devices, consoles etc aren't applicable, FTC warns. There are federal laws that allow you to repair your own devices. FTC warns the companies that they can't force you to use their own repair services.
The FTC send a warning letter to six companies to tell them that the stickers violate this federal law.
Sony and Microsoft have those stickers in their consoles. Apple doesn't have any stickers but it is said that is there are visible signs of the devices have been opened they will decline warranty.
The companies have to update their websites and comply within 30 days.
Gmail redesign is coming
Among the new redesign that will bring the web version of Gmail to the material era is some new features as well. Screenshots show an expiring email feature, that is allowing emails to not be able to be printed, forwards and copy-pasted. The sender sets an expiration date and he has the ability to require the recipient to confirm their identity with a passcode via a text message. No encryption is mentioned and it isn't know if it will be compatible with other email clients.
European Commission to invest to blockchain ecosystem
In another turn of events, the European Commission announce in a press release that it is going to invest $370 million in blockchain related projects and ecosystems. The investments started at February and some projects have already been supported. This doesn't actually help or support any cryptocurrency but it endorse the technology behind it overall.
More high predictions
New round of predictions for the price of Bitcoin in the future. Pandera Capital which is an investment firm predicts that $6,500 is probably the new low and that price will be upwards after that. It also predicts that the price will end up and exceed the $20,000 of the previous year.
Another Wall Street analyst, Tom Lee predicts about the same for this year end at about $25,000.
Tim Draper, an angel investor and a very successful early investor in companies like SpaceX predicts that the price of Bitcoin will be at the scale of $250,000 by late 2022.
And of course, McAfee still doesn't back out from his prediction of 1 million dollars by the end of 2020 which isn't only based on the price of Bitcoin, but on the that the fact that he believes that the FIAT money will devalue with the rise of cryptocurrencies.
Mastercard is hiring!
And among the hires there is jobs for "blockchain specialists". If you can't fight them join them as they say. This doesn't mean that the company is pro Bitcoin. The CEO has made disparaging comments in the past about Bitcoin, but the technology of blockchain behind it is interesting for them.
In November Mastercard filed a patent that intents to create a system with instantaneous payments from and to merchants with the use of blockchain technology instead of waiting for credit cards transactions to be verified.
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 weik.
Have a great week! - Chris Myll
