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A Credit Card Terminal That Takes Apps

A Credit Card Terminal That Takes Apps

Last year, Osama Bedier—then the head of Google Wallet—decided he was on the wrong side of the payments business. Bedier’s new company, Poynt, has a new kind of credit-card terminal. The sleek-looking, $299 touch-screen gadget accepts cards with embedded chips—which will soon be widespread—as well as digital payments, and can run apps for things like customer loyalty programs and sales analytics. Poynt unveiled the device on Wednesday and plans to ship it to merchants in early 2015.

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Apple Pay rival CurrentC just got hacked

Apple Pay rival CurrentC just got hacked

CurrentC partners CVS (CVS) and Rite Aid (RAD) made news earlier in the week for boycotting tap-to-pay technologies like Apple Pay and Google Wallet in favor of their own flavor of mobile payments. On Wednesday, those taking part in the CurrentC pilot program received a warning from the consortium of anti-credit-card retailers called MCX, or Merchant Consumer Exchange: The program was hacked in the last 36 hours, and criminals managed to grab the email addresses of anyone who signed up for the program.

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Auxy review – the latest app aiming for a hit from iPad music-making

Auxy review – the latest app aiming for a hit from iPad music-making

Right now, my workroom sounds like Kraftwerk falling down a flight of stairs, albeit only after their roadies had de-tuned a couple of their keyboards first. And it’s all the fault of a new tablet app called Auxy. Released for iPad today, it’s the work of a Swedish startup of the same name, which is aiming to give “spreadsheet music making” the boot. By which it means over-complex music creation tools that are about as fun to work with as an Excel doc.

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The first Core M laptop paints a depressing, mediocre picture for Intel’s Broadwell

The first Core M laptop paints a depressing, mediocre picture for Intel’s Broadwell

The delays have raised investor questions about Intel’s ability to maintain or leverage a technological advantage over its rivals, and while Intel’s own demos have looked amazing, these always take place on very friendly turf under controlled conditions. There’s no substitute for shipping hardware, and that’s why a great many eyes have turned to Lenovo’s Yoga 3 Pro — the first shipping device with Broadwell inside. Somewhat unfortunately, this critical first system doesn’t seem to live up to Intel’s hype.

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Government accuses AT&T of misleading 'unlimited data' customers

Government accuses AT&T of misleading 'unlimited data' customers

The FTC said AT&T "failed to adequately disclose" the fact that when unlimited customers reached a certain data limit in a billing cycle, it reduced their connection speeds by as much as 90%. As a result, the complaint alleged, many common smartphone applications -- like web browsing, GPS navigation and streaming video -- became "difficult or nearly impossible to use."

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