Bank robbers heist $41 million
The Japanese cryptocurrency exchange company, Binance, reported on Tuesday that it was robbed of $41 million worth of crypto. The company said no individual depositers would be harmed as the losses would be covered by the exchange’s Secure Asset Fund for Users. ZDNet
dis-rup-shun: When was the last time a bank lost $41 million in a heist? When it was a crypto currencty exchange and some really smart hackers used a multitude of methods and a great deal of patience to blitz the exchange with a barrage of transactions. You have to be pretty smart to understand crypto, and really smart to figure out how to rob an exchange for $41 million. Even smarter were the operators of the exchange who had emulated the FDIC by creating SAFU, or Secure Asset Fund for Users. If the SAFU can cover $41 million in losses, there must be some impressive profits in the crypto exchange business.
Google Home Hub is now Nest Home
Google announced that its Google Home products will be rebranded Nest Hub. Along with the name change comes a price reduction bringing its cost to $129. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: A name change. Let’s think about why and what this means. Nest is a very strong brand among smart home enthusiasts, and Amazon Alexa is arguably more adept at home automation, so does this change make Google more respected for home automation applications? The techies that make up the home automation crowd likely favor Alexa. Is the Nest brand better known among the mass market than Google? Surely not. So what is accomplished? Perhaps an attempt to breathe new life into a brand for which Google grossly overpaid ($3.2 billion) and has yet to have a significant win since its first thermostat.
Other news from Google’s I/O conference
Pixel 3A and 3A Max phones offer feature rich smartphones for $399 and $479, making new smartphones available at half of current market price. Augmented reality is added to search, providing 3D images during searches. A host of enhancements to mobile features include highlighting favorite menu items when an Android phone is pointing to a menu, switching into a minimalist display while driving, and auto filling order forms when ordering products or making travel reservations. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: Google is providing great functionality and some great smartphones for half the cost of Apple and Samsung. By inreasing features and lowering prices, Google will quickly commoditize the smartphone business that Apple has so successfully continued to keep at a premium. iPhone will continue to lose market share as its big differences will increasingly become cache and brand loyalty, not features.
Medical device security becomes a priority
Although the federally mandated medical data privacy standard, HIPAA, has been in place since 1996, securing networked medical devices has only been required since 2017. MedCrypt, a company enabling better device security for networked medical devices, has raised $5.3 million in venture investment. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: The medical industries have always been technology laggards, the reason being important federal regulations managed by the FDA that are difficult to pass. While these approvals have been important to consumer protection from fraudsters such as Theranos, the ability to quickly evaluate and certify new connected products is critical to acceleration of effective connected health products and more affordable treatments. MedCrypt is a step in the right direction to assure more products are safe, secure, and readily available.