Stripe makes its bitcoin pilot available to all US users, and more for Friday, February 20, 2015

Stripe makes its bitcoin pilot available to all US users Kevin Fitchard Feb 20 2015, 6:32am PDT After nearly a year of testing bitcoin payments with select customers, Stripe is making the cryptocurrency an option for all of its customers – of at least those with a U.S. bank account. Stripe provides the payment processing for sharing economy apps, online retailers and mobile […] Read More » Will Samsung’s mobile wallet plans work? We’ll know in 7 months Kevin Fitchard Feb 20 2015, 6:00am PDT Samsung has entered the mobile payments fray with its acquisition of LoopPay, giving it the technology to turn its smartphones into wireless credit cards that can purchase goods and service with a wave of the wrist. LoopPay is clearly Samsung’s answer to Apple Pay, but there’s still […] Read More » Gigaom Research webinar: Embedded BI: Delivering frictionless data analytics Gigaom Feb 20 2015, 5:55am PDT Data analysts have plenty of tools for business intelligence, data discovery and visualization.  Self-service is almost a given, and cloud options abound.  So how can BI get to the next stage, where it’s deployed far more widely within organizations, and people use it as readily as […] Read More » Smart devices can make the insurance biz proactive, not reactive Stacey Higginbotham Feb 20 2015, 5:00am PDT Insurance companies are looking for ways to reduce the amount of money they have to pay out on claims, and one promising way to reduce that risk is through connected security and home automation devices. In this week’s podcast I spoke with Dan Reed, managing director […] Read More » Konekt gets $1.3M to create a Twilio for cellular connectivity Stacey Higginbotham Feb 19 2015, 3:51pm PDT The cellular industry has been plugging the internet of things for years under the “machine to machine” moniker, but it never caught on until smartphones, ubiquitous Wi-Fi, and cheaper sensors finally made the technology more accessible for makers and mainstream consumers. Yes, you can find M2M […] Read More » A massive database now translates news in 65 languages in real time Derrick Harris Feb 19 2015, 2:40pm PDT I have written quite a bit about GDELT (the Global Database of Events, Languages and Tone) over the past year, because I think it’s a great example of the type of ambitious project only made possible by the advent of cloud computing and big data systems. In a […] Read More » The internet of things goes extraterrestrial Kevin Fitchard Feb 19 2015, 12:22pm PDT As the internet of things grows to encompass many more “things,” so are the number of wireless ways to connect them. Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Z-Wave, Bluetooth Low Energy and cellular are being embedded in every manner of gadget from thermostats to cars, but industrial IOT specialist Sigfox […] Read More » Don’t let AT&T mislead you about its $29 “privacy fee” Stacey Higginbotham Feb 19 2015, 11:26am PDT This week AT&T got a lot of media attention for its expansion of its GigaPower service to Kansas City announced on Monday. The news wasn’t so much about the expansion, but about the ISP’s plans to to offer a $29 per month discount for customers who […] Read More » Entrepreneurs embrace net neutrality plan (except Mark Cuban) Jeff John Roberts Feb 19 2015, 10:00am PDT Propaganda machines are running full-blast ahead of next week’s landmark vote on net neutrality, so readers should take most “news” about the FCC with a grain of salt. That said, it’s worth noting a new letter in the debate over whether net neutrality will protect entrepreneurs (as supporters claim) or if it will […] Read More » Lenovo in hot water over Superfish adware, but dismisses security worries (updated) Kif Leswing Feb 19 2015, 9:42am PDT Reports from security consultants, media, and Lenovo users indicate that there’s bloatware pre-installed on recent Lenovo Windows PCs that’s a bit more sinister than a set of superfluous ThinkPad tools. It appears that adware called Superfish had been running on consumer laptops sold by Lenovo between September 2014 and this […] Read More » The 4 things (at least) you’ll learn about at Structure Data Derrick Harris Feb 19 2015, 9:34am PDT Gigaom’s Structure Data conference is less than a month away, kicking off March 18 in New York. There are a lot of reasons to attend — great location, great networking, free drinks — but, of course, the biggest reason is great content. With that in mind, here are […] Read More » What user-created content for virtual reality will look like Signe Brewster Feb 19 2015, 6:30am PDT Facebook is working on apps for virtual reality, chief product officer Chris Cox said at the Code/Media conference Tuesday. And Facebook is confident users will eventually get busy creating their own content. “You’ll do it, Beyoncé will do it,” Cox said during the event. It’s likely […] Read More » Katy Perry lawyers try again, file trademark claim for Left Shark Jeff John Roberts Feb 19 2015, 4:20am PDT What happens when the unstoppable force of an internet meme meets the immovable object of a celebrity’s lawyers? We could find out as Katy Perry lawyers try anew to claim the flash-in-the-pan phenomenon known as Left Shark. In the latest turn of fate for Left Shark, […] Read More » DJ Patil joins White House as Chief Data Scientist to work on precision medicine Stacey Higginbotham Feb 18 2015, 2:48pm PDT As we reported two weeks ago, after White House staff leaked the news on a conference call, DJ Patil, the former Chief Data scientist at LinkedIn and most recently a VP of Product at RelateIQ, is now the Chief Data Scientist at the White House. In […] Read More » The platform-publisher race is heating up and LinkedIn is gaining Mathew Ingram Feb 18 2015, 2:15pm PDT Social platforms like Facebook and Snapchat are trying hard to become publishers or to host content from media companies, but one of the platforms that has been quietly doing this for years now -- and continues to grow that side of its business -- is LinkedIn Read More » Astropad turns your iPad into a graphics tablet for your Mac Kevin C. Tofel Feb 18 2015, 10:49am PDT For years there have been options to add a drawing pad and stylus to a computer, a way for graphic artists to create digital media and drawings. Turns out if you have an iPad, you have another option. Astropad is an app that lets you draw […] Read More » US to auction 50,000 more bitcoins from Dread Pirate Roberts Jeff John Roberts Feb 18 2015, 9:29am PDT Want to be the next Dread Pirate Roberts? You can get started by buying 50,000 bitcoins once owned by Ross Ulbricht (aka the Dread Pirate), who is awaiting sentencing on a litany of charges related to his operation of the Silk Road, a defunct drug marketplace. […] Read More » Microsoft embraces Python, Linux in new big data tools Barb Darrow Feb 18 2015, 8:00am PDT Continuing its quest to make Microsoft Azure comfy for the non-Windows world, Microsoft just launched a preview of its Hadoop-based cloud tool (HDInsight) that runs on Linux. It’s also making its Azure ML machine learning service widely available now with new support for Python as well as the already-planned support for […] Read More » It’s arrived: The evolution of clean power & data centers Katie Fehrenbacher Feb 18 2015, 5:00am PDT The world’s largest internet companies are turning to clean power to run their data centers like never before. This month we saw huge clean power deals from Apple, including big solar projects planned in California and Arizona, and a big wind buy from Google to provide local power […] Read More » Private cloud? Public cloud? Rackspace erases the difference Barb Darrow Feb 17 2015, 5:50pm PDT Rackspace is going to stop distinguishing between the money it makes from public cloud and what it derives from “dedicated” cloud, a category that encompasses a bunch of options. Well that’s one way to sidestep the whole “is private cloud dead?” debate. The move may show a fanatical obsession on managed cloud […] Read More »