Chip implanted everywhere + more

Marc Andreessen: ‘In 20 years, every physical item will have a chip implanted in it’ – Telegraph – but is it needed? I could see this idea of a chip implanted as being touted as a sign of biblical end times. Also how cheap can chips go and solutions like QRcodes and barcodes work fine to do the same job in many applications already. The gains of a chip implanted are often marginal at best

Browsers Are Starting to Block Ads by Default | Motherboard – interesting move, especially when one thinks about the trend of manufacturers like Sony (and others) to load their machines with crapware for money. Privacy is increasingly looking like a luxury good, which should be of concern to everybody.

Three Chinese state-owned banks using lie detectors and customers don’t know it | SCMP – to improve marketing, efficiency and security. I had heard of this also being experimented with in western financial institutions. As if banking interactions weren’t stressful enough as it is, now there is this? I find the marketing aspects of this darker and even more scary (paywall)

WhatsApp Video Calling Coming In Update, Leak Reveals | BGR – Skype compete. Given Skype seems to be lost in the wilderness as a product and WhatsApp has focus this could get interesting. For me only Skype’s low international calling rates for when I have to dial into conference calls or phone relatives keep it on my device

Aethra Botnet Attacks WordPress Sites – Wordfence – back doors don’t work

Samsung launches 6-inch, all-metal, super-thin Galaxy A9, in China | VentureBeat | Mobile | by Evan Blass – this is from the usual Samsung playbook of having large amount of variants to go after all aspects of a given market. In this case the Galaxy A9 seems to be going after the Huawei P-series devices. More about Samsung here.