An Anonymous Coward writes:It might come as no surprise that, much like recent stories about backdoors into encryption systems and poorly implemented DIY security, electronic locks have similar problems (originally seen on Bruce Schneier's Blog).
canopic jug writes:Former programmer, Jamie Zawinski, also a founder of Netscape and Mozilla, has observed that Netscape Navigator 2.0 was released 30 years ago. Netscape's full feature set existed identically on Macintosh, Windows, and nine flavors of Unix, something which was basically unheard of at the time.Netscape was finished off by a double hit. First, Microsoft illegally abused its desktop monopoly to enter and crush the browser market. Second, and probably even more detrimental, they got taken over from the inside through what should have been an acquisition of another, smaller company.The remnants are known as Mozilla. That is a separate story.Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
Tokolosh writes:Pix is a free instant payment system that the Brazilian Central Bank launched in 2020. It has obliterated expensive electronic funds transfers (EFTs) in Brazil, and is well on its way to replace payments that were traditionally made with credit cards issued by companies such as Visa, Mastercard and Amex.Everyone seems to rave about it, except Trump (and possibly his vocal Brazilian supporters, who bizarrely applaud Trump's sanctions and tariffs imposed on their own country). When on July 15 he announced his investigation of Brazil's "unfair trading practices" (which ultimately resulted in the 50% import duties on Brazilian exports to the US), one of the justifications for the investigation was stated as follows: "The investigation will seek to determine whether acts, policies and practices of the government of Brazil related to digital trade and electronic payment services ... are unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict US commerce."Yet Brazil has not prohibited anyone from using American-branded credit cards. There are still some dinosaur businesses in Brazil that only accept credit cards, and all businesses that accept Pix payments still accept credit card payments.But credit card payments in Brazil are undoubtedly dwindling, as the convenience of Pix rapidly overtakes credit cards. That is not a policy aimed specifically at US credit card companies, but rather a reflection that outdated credit card payment systems have not kept up with the latest disruptive technology.For that America should rather ask why its own innovation has lagged behind that of countries such as Brazil that it traditionally regards as its backyard. Maybe it has something to do with the sizeable portion of the American population that believes humans and dinosaurs cohabited planet earth in the last 6,000 years.Read more at https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2025-09-19-emile-myburgh-brazils-payment-system-puts-credit-card-firms-to-the-test/Original SubmissionRead more of this story at SoylentNews.
canopic jug writes:Famed developer Poul-Henning Kamp (phk) has posted an update on the status and future of the project currently known as Varnish Cache. And, after 20 years of being a go-to component in WWW infrastructure, it will change its name to The Vinyl Cache Project with version 8.0.0 being the last under the old name. The software project will be sheperded under the new name by a Danish association formed for that specific purpose.