New documents released by fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden have revealed how the NSA and U.K. security agency GCHQ hacked into the computers of SIM card manufacturer Gemalto, acquiring encryption keys that would allow them to intercept communications from users around the world. Gamalto is the world’s largest manufacturer of SIM cards and is used by all ...

Swiss social sharing site Boldomatic has closed a $700,000 seed round from a number of European angels and investors. The company, which pitches itself as a “content-creation platform and community… determined to conquer the world of words in social media” offers, as their own words may hint at, a social network that consists entirely of text ...

Reddit Inc. is giving back to the community after it pledged Wednesday to donate 10 percent of its ad earnings from 2014 to charity. Reddit reported advertising revenue of $8,276,594.93 for the year ending December 31st, meaning it will donate $827,659.49 to ten charities. The charities to benefit from Reddit’s altruism? Reddit being Reddit, naturally the community ...

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has acquired mobile wallet solutions provider LoopPay Inc. for an undisclosed price. Founded in 2013, LoopPay offers a mobile payments solution that turns existing magnetic stripe readers into secure, contactless receivers, and works with approximately 90 percent of existing point-of-sale (POS) terminals in the United States. The tech works by way of ...

It may be the end of an era for Japanese electronics firm Sony Corp. with the company saying it would spin off its loss making video and audio units. The news came Wednesday from Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai, who said the company would no longer pursue sales growth in divisions where it has suffered heavy competition, such ...

Canadian Bitcoin exchange CAVIRTEX (161243 Alberta Inc.) has announced it is shutting down after being hacked. The company didn’t come out and admit to being hacked however, but instead said in a statement on its site that “on February 15, 2015 we found reason to believe that an older version of our database, including 2FA ...

Blog aggregator Notey has raised a $1.6 million seed round from individual investors Steve Kirsch (Founder of Infoseek, OneID and CoinTrust), Hugo Barra (VP International, Xiaomi) and Ryan Holmes (CEO and Founder of Hootsuite). Based in Hong Kong, Notey aims to deliver “a window to the blogosphere” and offers something that’s roughly a cross between Feedly ...

Samsung Co. Ltd.’s latest flagship model the Galaxy S6 may come with wireless charging when it’s launched next month at the Mobile World Congress (MWC.) Samsung engineer Seho Park took to Samsung’s Official Global Blog to talk wireless charging, complete with the history of the technology behind wireless charging, and naturally Samsung’s involvement its development. The post ...

Snapchat Inc. is reported to be seeking a new round (Series E) on a $16-$19 billion valuation as another report claims it may be interested in acquiring Taylor Swift’s record company. Bloomberg claims that the popular self-destructing photo sharing app maker is seeking $500 million from the round. Snapchat’s last round of $485.6 million was ...

A new report from security software provider Kaspersky Lab has found that a group they’ve dubbed “Equation Group” has been hiding spying software deep within hard drives made by leading manufacturers including Seagate and Western Digital, in an attempt to eavesdrop on the majority of computers worldwide. Kaspersky said it found the spyware in computers across 30 ...