Amazon Unveiling New Hardware at Surprise Event Today

Amazon is hosting a surprise media event 1 PM eastern time on Thursday to announce new hardware products. The company isn’t saying what it’ll introduce, but it’s a safe bet the Echo is involved. Along with new smart speakers and a rumored Echo subwoofer, we may see some other gear outside the smart speaker space. The Verge says,

Amazon could be shifting focus toward Alexa in general, with plans to unveil up to eight smart home devices this year. Rumored products range from a voice-controlled in-car accessory to a smart microwave oven. The latter is particularly interesting given Amazon recently began offering Blue Apron-style meal kits, both online and at its Amazon Go cashier-less outposts. The smart oven, if confirmed, could potentially be tied to Whole Foods as well.

So maybe you’ll be talking to your microwave oven soon, or at least sharing more of your cooking habits with Amazon.

Astronomers Discover a Star Trek Vulcan-like Planet

“The Dharma Planet Survey, in a new study led by University of Florida (UF) astronomer Jian Ge and team including Tennessee State University (TSU) astronomers Matthew Muterspaugh and Gregory Henry, has shown that science fiction may be a little less so; the Dharma project has discovered what may be Star Trek’s famed planet Vulcan.” Or something close to it. Concept image via UF.

Newegg Breach Resulted in loss of Credit Card Data

A recent Newegg breach lasted a whole month, and hackers stole customer credit card information.

Hackers injected 15 lines of card skimming code on the online retailer’s payments page which remained for more than a month between August 14 and September 18, Yonathan Klijnsma, a threat researcher at RiskIQ, told TechCrunch. The code siphoned off credit card data from unsuspecting customers to a server controlled by the hackers with a similar domain name — likely to avoid detection. The server even used an HTTPS certificate to blend in.

For the past couple of years I’ve used a service called Privacy.com. It connects to my bank account and I can create near-unlimited virtual cards to use with various places. And no this isn’t an ad, I just think it’s a great service. It’s basically a password manager for your money.