Apple Will Reportedly Launch a Credit Card With Goldman Sachs

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Apple is preparing to release a credit card in partnership with investment bank Goldman Sachs, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. The new credit card — which marks the end of Apple’s credit card partnership with Barclays — would use the Apple Pay branding, and it’s expected to be released early next year. Goldman Sachs will also offer in-store loans to Apple customers, according to the report.

Apple Will Reportedly Launch a Credit Card With Goldman Sachs
The move comes just months after Goldman Sachs acquired the team behind Final, a credit card startup, a signal that it was ready to become a serious player in the credit card industry. Goldman Sachs has had a partnership with American Express and its Platinum card for years, offering a variation of the premium credit card to its account holders, but this will be its first foray into consumer credit cards that will expand beyond its own customer base.

As for Apple, the move seems to be a move to increase user adoption of Apple Pay, but it’s unclear how the card will work relative to how the service currently operates or what kind of benefits the company will offer to entice users to sign up for it.

Source: theverge

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Apple has envisioned its smartwatches as health devices since the product's conception in 2012, according to a new interview with Apple's top designer in Hodinkee Magazine.

Jony Ive told Hodinkee, which covers the luxury watch industry, that health was "absolutely" an "early and significant focus" of the watch. The goal, he said, was "developing both the hardware and software to form the foundation for all of the health-based capabilities."

That may come as a surprise to some. After the first Apple Watch received a mixed reception, reviewers of the second series praised a heavier focus on fitness.

"Let's call it what it is: a fitness tracker," The Verge wrote in 2016. "It's what Apple had resisted calling its wearable for the past year and a half, even declining to categorize it as such when citing industry rankings, opting for the 'smartwatch' category instead. It is, definitely, still a smartwatch. But the Watch now has focus, and that's a good thing."

Ive told Hodinkee that while health was a primary focus, "there is nothing as motivating or encouraging as hearing directly from our customers." The changes seem to have paid off.

The Apple Watch hasn't reached the volume of the iPhone, but it is the top-selling watch globally and top-selling wearable worldwide.

Apple has since tested whether the Apple Watch can detect cardiac abnormalities, and is using the devices in a heart study. Health insurance companies have also looked into using discounted Apple Watches to facilitate wellness programs.

While Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was a health enthusiast, especially fond of fruits and vegetables and meditation, Ive said the Watch was conceived after Jobs' death, as the company was "pausing to think about where we wanted to go, what trajectory we were on as a company, and what motivated us."

Ive also said the company has learned from some of the Watch's forays into new materials like gold and ceramic, offering a rare hint into Apple's thinking for future product designs.

"[W]orking in gold and ceramic was purposeful – not only to expand who Apple is, but also from a materials science perspective," Ive said. "Our material sciences team now understands these fun*****tal attributes and properties in a way they didn't before. This will help shape future products and our understanding of what forms make sense."

Source: cnbc

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Security is not an easy thing at all, and while we may have thought that two-factor authentication was a protection against having our accounts hacked, a new exploit now allows hackers to spoof those authentication requests by sending users to fake login pages and subsequently stealing their username, password, and session cookie.

The exploit was shown by KNowBe4 Chief Hacking Officer Kevin Mitnick in a video that was made public today.

Someone Has Figured Out How to Bypass Two-Factor Authentication

The hack requires a user to visit a fake web site where their login, password, and authentication code could be stolen. At this point, the hacker can pass the correct credentials to a legitimate website before capturing the session cookie. This would allow a successful login, partly because the hack uses the same one-time two-factor authentication code as a way to spoof an authenticated login.

“A white hat hacker friend of Kevin’s developed a tool to bypass two-factor authentication using social engineering tactics – and it can be weaponized for any site,” said Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of KnowBe4 said. “Two-factor authentication is intended to be an extra layer of security, but in this instance, we clearly see that you can’t rely on it alone to protect your organization.”

That system was created by hacker Kuba Gretzky, who subsequently named it evilginx. Gretzky also detailed the whole thing in a post on his website, which makes for quite the read.

The only protection that would work against this method of attack would be to decrease the risk of phishing attacks on users, possibly via education. Technologically savvy users are unlikely to fall foul of such a hack, but with those who do not know better also being more likely to be fooled into visiting fake websites that look like the target site, the problem is most definitely a case of education.

“This highlights the need for new-school security awareness training and simulated phishing because people are truly your last line of defense,” according to Sjouwerman. We couldn’t agree more.

Source: redmond pie

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We’ve received some interesting photos from iPhone case maker Olixar of what they believe the iPhone SE 2 to look like. They are already advertising screen protectors for sale and shared schematics from ‘Chinese factory sources’ with us. They believe the new iPhone SE will resemble an iPhone X with slim bezels and a notch cutout.

This is a hard claim to take seriously, given the SE’s traditional lower price point, but Olixar definitely seem convinced. This is also not the first report that the SE will have a notch screen design. More photos and schematics info after the jump …
Case Maker Believes iPhone SE 2 Will Feature iPhone X With a Notch
It’s worth noting that a different source, Tiger Mobiles, reported that they had seen CAD drawings a few weeks ago, that also depicted a ~5-inch device with a notch, again believed to be the new iPhone SE 2. These seemed like wild claims at the time, but it’s worth sharing now we have other sources of information saying the same thing.

We’d still treat this firmly as a rumor rather than confirmation at this stage. A much more likely expectation for the iPhone SE 2 is a minor spec up over the previous model with only minor hardware chassis changes.

Nevertheless, this is what Olixar is saying. Their sources claim the SE 2 will look like a smaller iPhone X from the front, but the sides of the device retain the straight aluminium edges of the current SE design, harkening back to the iPhone 5 era.

Olixar shared wireframe schematics of the supposed new chassis, including supposed dimensions for the device. The phone will be about 12.1cm long by 5.5cm wide, almost identical to the current SE’s dimensions. Most interestingly, the schematics measure the notch region as being only 1.87cm wide.

2.5D Clear die-cut -- iphone SE2018 iPhone SE 2018 SP Schematics
This is significantly smaller than the notch on the iPhone X, about half as wide. We would speculate that the Face ID components are not part of this region, with the notch housing the front camera and earpiece, which explains the size difference. However, then you run into another question which is how does a user unlock this hypothetical device, if both Face ID and a Home button are not present?

Here’s a comparison of the screen protector with a current iPhone SE, for a visual of the dimensions:

We are definitely treating these specifications with a healthy of dose skepticism. The notch cutout is particularly suspicious. The iPhone X uses a smooth, sweeping curve to distinguish the sensor housing from the bezel and screen. Contrast that to this leak: most of the SE 2’s notches are drawn as basic angular triangles, not in line with Apple’s attention to detail. This could just be an artifact of a low-quality rendering however.

Source: 9to5mac

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Fashion brand ***** ****** has announced that it plans to make Apple’s retail head Angela Ahrendts a non-executive director at its annual general meeting in August. She will be joined by Michael George, CEO of QVC parent company Qurate Retail …

-The Board intends to nominate Ms. Ahrendts for election at the Annual Meeting of Stockholders, expected in August 2018.

-“I am delighted to welcome Angela and Mike to the Board of Directors,” said Mr. ***** ******, Executive Chairman and Chief Creative Officer. “Angela is an industry leader and innovator with deep expertise in luxury retail and an outstanding track record of growing global brands.”

-Patrice Louvet, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, “Angela and Mike are among the most respected leaders in the business. They each have driven strong growth and created superior value at some of the best-known brands in retail, and I know we will benefit greatly from their experience and fresh perspective as we continue to elevate our brand; evolve our product, marketing and shopping experience; expand our digital and international presence; and increase productivity.”

Both will retain their existing roles, their involvement in ***** ****** likely to be limited to participating in a small number of board meetings and offering ad-hoc advice. It’s not unusual for senior execs in large companies to hold a small number of non-exec board positions in others.

Source: the verge