ELOSTAN

The limit per transaction for the so-called tap and pay cards, which do not require a PIN or a signature to authorise payment, was previously £20.
The move follows a huge rise in the number of people using contactless cards in the UK.
Transactions for the first half of this year totalled £2.5bn, already higher than the £2.32bn spent in 2014.
The UK Cards Association, the trade body for the card payments industry, said the increase meant that the average supermarket spend of £25 would now be covered.
"The growth in contactless payments shows people want to use contactless cards, and increasing the limit gives customers even more opportunities to pay in this way," said chief executive Graham
'The new normal' In July, consumer group Which? warned that data from contactless cards could be easily stolen by determined fraudsters.
But the trade body said fraud via the cards was "extremely low", at less than one penny for every £100 spent.
The increase also comes after technology giant Apple allowed users of its latest devices to make contactless payments.
Kevin Jenkins, managing director UK and Ireland at Visa Europe, said contactless payments were becoming the "new normal".
"We've seen unprecedented growth in this area, with the number of Visa contactless transactions more than trebling in the past year in the UK," he added.
The increase was first announced in February.

Investment firm Pleasant Lake Partners LLC offered to buy analog chipmaker MagnaChip Semiconductor Corp in a deal valuing the South Korea-based company at about $346 million.

MagnaChip's shares were up 5 percent at $8.12 in mid-morning trade.
The $10-per-share offer of Pleasant Lake, which owns 9.9 percent of MagnaChip, is at a premium of 29 percent to MagnaChip's Friday closing price.
MagnaChip's chips are used in smartphones, tablets and television. The company also makes chip-making equipment for analog chipmakers.
New York-based Pleasant Lake said in a letter to MagnaChip on Monday it had requested MagnaChip that it be included in any upcoming auction process, but had not received a response.

MagnaChip established a strategic review committee in June to look for a sale of all or a substantial portion of the company.
The company engaged Barclays as its financial adviser for the process.
MagnaChip's total revenue fell 5.8 percent to $162 million in the second quarter ended June 30, from a year earlier

Until today, smartwatches running Google’s Android Wear software only worked in conjunction with Android-powered smartphones. As a result, companies building Android Wear watches — including Motorola, Samsung, and LG — couldn’t get their watches onto the wrists of iPhone users


According to a blog post by Google, Android Wear for iOS will let you check notifications from your favorite iPhone apps on your watch, track your daily fitness goals, and get things like traffic and weather updates.
Similarly, Google made no mention of whether older Android Wear watches will work with the iPhone. Instead, the company said that Android Wear for iOS will work with LG’s Urbane smartwatch, which was released in May, as well as all future Android Wear watches

Hundreds of thousands of people signed up for infidelity website Ashley Madison in the last week, parent company Avid Life Media said on Monday, even after hackers leaked data about millions of its clients.
The company also struck back at reports that the site had few genuine female users, saying internal data released by hackers had been incorrectly analyzed.
"Recent media reports predicting the imminent demise of Ashley Madison are greatly exaggerated," the company said in a statement. "Despite having our business and customers attacked, we are growing."
On Aug. 18, hackers who claimed to be unhappy with Avid Life's business practices released Ashley Madison customer data. A second data dump contained thousands of emails and other company documents. Reuters has not independently verified the authenticity of the data, emails or documents.
Last week, tech blog Gizmodo published a widely cited analysis of the customer data. It said thousands of users had listed email addresses that ended with ashleymadison.com and that very few, about 1,500, female members had ever checked the site for messages.
Avid Life said on Monday that an unnamed reporter had wrongly concluded that the number of active female members on Ashley Madison could be calculated based on assumptions about the meaning of fields contained in the leaked data.
"Last week alone, women sent more than 2.8 million messages within our platform," Avid Life said, adding that 87,596 women had also signed up for Ashley Madison last week.
On Friday, Avid Life said Chief Executive Officer Noel Biderman had left the company by mutual agreement.

For at least three years before the publication of details about its members, Avid Life had been struggling to sell itself or raise funds, according to internal documents and emails that hackers also released.

Hedge fund Pleasant Lake Partners said it offered to buy analog chipmaker MagnaChip Semiconductor Corp in a deal valuing the South Korea-based company at $345.7 million.

Pleasant Lake's offer of $10 per share is at premium of 29.2 percent to MagnaChip's Friday closing price.
Pleasant Lake already owns 9.9 percent of MagnaChip

A statement released by the firm said his departure was "in the best interest of the company".
The senior management team will take over leadership until a new chief executive is appointed, it added.
Details of more than 33m accounts were stolen from the website, which offers people the chance to have an affair.
Avid Life Media, which owns the site, has offered a reward of C$500,000 (£240,000) for details about the Ashley Madison hackers.
Mr Biderman, a former sports lawyer, launched the website in 2001. He said at the time that he wanted to offer the same opportunities for both women and men seeking extra-marital encounters. The site's name was made up of the two most popular names for baby girls in the US at the time - Ashley and Madison. Parent company Avid Life Media also owns other match-making websites including Cougar Life, Established Men, and The Big and the Beautiful. "We are actively adjusting to the attack on our business and members' privacy by criminals. We will continue to provide access to our unique platforms for our worldwide members," the firm said. "We are actively co-operating with international law enforcement in an effort to bring those responsible for the theft of proprietary member and business information to justice,

Ashley Madison is offering a $500,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of individuals responsible for hacking its network, amid reports of two suicides related to the data breach

The police revealed the news at a press conference in Toronto but gave no further information about the deaths.
Ashley Madison's Canadian parent company Avid Life Media is offering a C$500,000 (£240,000) reward for information about the hackers, they added.
Over 33m account details were stolen.
Ashley Madison is a dating website which offers users the opportunity to have an affair.
Addressing the hackers, known as The Impact Team, acting staff superintendent Bryce Evans of the Toronto police said: "I want to make it very clear to you your actions are illegal and we will not be tolerating them. This is your wake-up call."
Police are seeking information from members of the wider hacker community that might aid their investigation.
The breach was "very sophisticated", said Detective Menard from the technological crime unit of Toronto Police.

Cash reward

"Today I can confirm that Avid Life Media is offering a $500,000 (£240,000) reward to anyone providing information that leads to the identification, arrest and prosecution of the person or persons responsible for the leak of the Ashley Madison database," he added.
Mr Evans confirmed that credit card data was included in the original data dump released by the The Impact Team.
He said that investigators believed this was limited to the last four digits of the main card number.
Consequently, police are advising victims of the hack to review their accounts.
He also explained that the hack had already led to a series of "spin-offs of crimes and further victimisation".
"Criminals have already engaged in online scams by claiming to provide access to the leaked websites," he said.
"The public needs to be aware that by clicking on these links you are exposing your computers to malware, spyware, adware and viruses."

'Thunderstruck'

The unfolding of the hack was also detailed at the conference - from the moment on 12 July when several Avid Life Media employees logged in to their computers and were confronted by a message from the hackers.
This message was accompanied by music - AC/DC's "Thunderstruck", said Mr Evans.
"This hack is one of the largest data breaches in the world and is very unique on its own in that it exposed tens of millions of people's personal information," he added

Larry Flynt, a defender of free speech and sexual freedom if there ever was one, has this advice for anyone worried by the hack of infidelity site Ashley Madison: Muzzle yourself.
"Don't do or say anything you wouldn't want to read about on the front page of the New York Times," said the founder of Hustler magazine and owner of businesses that sell sexually explicit videos online.

It might be too late for many people who, lured by a supposed cloak of digital anonymity, have shared their innermost wishes, fetishes and fantasies on hook-up and porn sites. And those companies know that their digital troves of secrets are exactly what make them a target for emboldened hackers.
In exposing the Ashley Madison accounts of as many as 37 million users, hackers released a cache of potentially embarrassing and damaging data. The dump contained email addresses for U.S. government officials, UK civil servants, and workers at European and North American corporations, taking already deep-seated fears about Internet security and data protection to a new level.
"This represents a scary precedent" because of the scope and depth of intrusion into people's private lives, said Ajay Sood, Canada general manager at cyber security company FireEye/Mandiant. "Ashley Madison wasn't the first, but it's the one."
The data dump made good on the hackers' threat last month to leak customers' nude photos, sexual fantasies, names and credit card information from the Canadian website with the slogan, "Life is short. Have an affair."

The hackers, who have not been identified, appear to bear a grudge against the company and want to undermine it by exposing users to public scrutiny.
The prospect of attacks by non-financially driven hackers pursuing publicity, blackmail or moral judgments sends shivers through the online dating and sex industry.
Reports that blackmailers armed with the data dump are contacting Ashley Madison members for extortion will reinforce concerns. For the online adult entertainment segment, which accounts for more than 10 percent of Internet traffic, the trend is particularly worrisome.
"I don't know anyone that's prepared for something like this," said Joanna Angel, a famous punk porn entrepreneur who owns and sells adult films on the website Burning Angel.
'TRADE IN SECRETS'

The online sex industry has long been aware it is more vulnerable to a cyber attack than most companies because some people find it offensive. It also thrives on ensuring privacy.
As a result, it has toughened up its defenses over the years, as global retailers and health insurers have fallen victims to hackers. The problem is, security experts say, there is very little else they can do to keep hackers out.
"There are always extra layers of security," said Diane Duke, chief executive officer of the Free Speech Coalition, the trade association for the adult entertainment industry. "However, you build a widget; someone breaks it."
Angel, 34, who has starred in and directed hundreds of films, believes she has robust security on her website, but worries it may not be enough to ward off ever-more sophisticated hackers.
She hired outside experts to run her online security after hackers shut her site down for five days, costing her money and, temporarily, customers.
Angel said the Ashley Madison affair and release of people's names might curb customers' willingness to disclose personal information, although she had not seen any evidence of this.
"It could end up affecting a company like mine," she said. "It will make people more paranoid."
The Ashley Madison hack is the second high-profile attack on a no-strings attached solicitation site this year. In March, Adult FriendFinder was the victim of a massive data breach, with hackers publishing details of 4 million subscribers on the Web.
Adult sites, among the first Internet companies to accept credit card payment, tend to have robust security to combat fraud. But their systems for securing non-financial client data are not as strong, cyber experts said.
One large cyber security provider has seen an uptick in business from companies that "trade in the secrets" of clients, an executive said.
"It's hard for these types of companies to see what's going on and not want to take a closer look at their security," said the executive, who was not authorized to publicly discuss client enquiries.
Many have already hired top-class security talent to keep tabs on their websites, said Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at Finland-based cyber security company F-Secure.
And users are probably getting wiser about using work email addresses, posting risqué photos or divulging potentially embarrassing information on dating sites, he added.
Flynt, who fought in the courts for freedom of speech, said anyone surprised at the invasion of people's privacy is naive.
"Privacy no longer exists," he said, "and it hasn't for some time."

We’ve rounded up some of our favorite apps that work with the S Pen, including a few for artists, note-takers, and doodlers.

ArtFlow

Drawing with the S Pen is fun, and ArtFlow is one of the best apps for artists. The settings are varied and offer lots of choice in terms of brushes, color palettes, pencils, and more. The app supports layers, so you can add or delete layers as you go. It’s easy to hide the menus when you want a blank canvas to draw on, but a tap in the corner on the little circle brings them back up quickly. ArtFlow is perfect for Note 5 users who want to sketch on the go or even create small masterpieces.

 Autodesk Sketchbook

Another excellent choice for artists is Autodesk’s Sketchbook app. The interface is simple, there are layers, and you have lots of control over the tools you use to create your masterpieces. The free version offers enough drawing and painting tools to keep most people happy, but if you want more features and brushes, it’ll cost you $4.35. You can also sgn up for a membership to Autodesk for $25 a year, if you want to design your own.


READ MORE.

Google X, the research lab for projects such as self-driving cars and airborne wind turbines, will also become a separate subsidiary within Alphabet.(Google) Google's smart contract lens

Samsung’s new Ultimate Test Drive program does just what its name implies: iPhone owners can try out Samsung’s Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy S6 Edge+, or Galaxy Note5 for 30 days; the $1 fee covers the cost of shipping. Along with the handset, Samsung will throw in a free data plan from the carrier of your choice

The VHS Camcorder app lets you relive the '80's by making all of the videos you shoot with your iPhone look like they were made using an old-school camcorder. The app lets you shoot in different resolutions and frame rates, to make the video look clear or pixilated. You can also degrade the image quality by swiping across the screen
 

Giphy — the Internet’s premier repository for animated images — released a new mobile (iOS) app that allows you to record GIFs with your smartphone’s camera, which you can then stylize with filters and share via Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram, email, and iMessage

This week, the hacker group Impact Team made good on the threats it made last month by dumping the data from some 37 million Ashley Madison subscribers on the Web. Here are seven essential facts you should know about the hack.

For details click here

 

At crowded venues such as Times Square or the Super Bowl, police want to be able to take control of a drone, steer it safely away from the public and guide it back to the operators, who can then be identified,


As concerns rise about a security menace posed by rogue drone flights, U.S. government agencies are working with state and local police forces to develop high-tech systems to protect vulnerable sites, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Federal authorities say they are also prepared to bring federal criminal charges against rogue drone operators who violate FAA restrictions