Facebook announces its cryptocurrency set to launch in 2020; Google Calendar crashed for 3 hours on Tuesday; WikiLeaks releases report about CIA spying through smart TVs
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The biggest news of the day finds its way to us from Google Trends as Facebook announced its intentions to launch its own cryptocurrency in 2020. Dubbed Libra, Facebook hopes the cyptocurrency will replace PayPal as they say it will involve much less transaction fees and should appeal to those without direct ties to banks. The currency can be stored in Facebook’s new virtual wallet, Calibra, which can be accessed directly from within Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and of course the Facebook App.
For those of us who rely on Google Calendar to keep us organized, yesterday brought quite a scare as Google Calendar crashed globally for about 3 hours. Although, reportedly it was still available from within the Google Calendar app, just not on web browsers. While the service has since been restored, it is intriguing that this crash directly followed a report from Wired that explained how some have been manipulating Google Calendar invites to coax people into giving away personal information.
Last but not least, we have a story from Reddit that may chill some to the bone. According to documents published by WikiLeaks, the CIA had found a way to spy on people through their smart TV’s. In conjunction with MI5, hackers at the CIA were able to even spy on people who had turned their smart TVs off by having them enter a fake off mode. Even going so far as suppressing the LED indicators on the TV to mimic it being off. The operation was reportedly dubbed “Weeping Angel”; possibly a reference to an evil life form in the TV show Doctor Who. Samsung responded to the report stating that they were taking their customers privacy very seriously and that they were looking into it.
