credit card

Questions answered on today's episode of The 404 Show:

- What's the point of having an LCD screen and buttons on my credit card?

- What comes in the Nintendo Wii U box, why do people love unboxing videos so much, and why does my brain feel like it's being massaged? Side note: ASMR Subreddit

- What's the history of Goatse.cx and how can I use it to ruin everyone's day?

- How can I sucker someone into giving me free money for the holidays?… Read more

With the holiday season bearing down on the calendar, Jake Vance needs to know how many cupcakes he should make every day. Make too many, and the rats that frequent his dumpsters are happy. Don't make enough, and customers walk away without getting to enjoy their favorite treat.

Vance runs Sweet Avenue, a small bakery in Rutherford, N.J. So small, in fact, that it doesn't make sense to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on point-of-sale software or professional cash registers that are routinely used by larger businesses to generate smart data on sales patterns.

Until even … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Another reason not to buy books: Hackers installed credit card readers at 63 stores across the country, New York City included.

- Attention New Yorkers: It's officially time to freak out about Hurricane Sandy.

- SDSU study confirms that five-second rule is pretty much bull.

- A license plate frame that defeats red light camera flashes.… Read more

Hackers broke into keypads at more than 60 Barnes & Noble bookstores and made off with the credit card information for customers who shopped at the stores as recently as last month.

The company discovered the breach on September 14 but kept it quiet while the FBI attempted to track the hackers. Hackers broke into the point-of-sale terminals at 63 stores across the country, including locations in New York City, San Diego, Miami, and Chicago.

Since discovering the breach, the company has uninstalled all 7,000 point-of-sale terminals from its hundreds of stores for examination. Although only one terminal in … Read more

Merchants or community managers that sell goods or accept donations through larger platforms like Shopify, Reddit, or Skillshare can now quickly start taking credit cards, thanks to a new system from the online payments company Stripe.

Called Stripe Connect, the new system is designed to make it easy for any online shop or group to process credit-card payments from donors or customers.

At the same time, Stripe Connect is also giving Stripe partners a way take advantage of analytics software, CRM systems, and other financial packages in order to see real-time account data. Indeed, the company is hoping that developers … Read more

Square launched a flat-rate monthly fee today for small-business owners, turning the credit card industry on its head again.

Merchants who process up to $250,000 in customer payments per year using the card reader can pay a monthly rate of $275, instead of 2.75 percent per swipe, according to a press release from Square. The monthly fee includes the usual Square perks -- no additional fees and no contract.

Square -- known for its small, square card reader that can be plugged into mobile devices to create an instant credit card machine -- said it is "leveling … Read more

As Google announced its major upgrade for Google Wallet yesterday -- in which shoppers could use any type of major credit card to load up their smartphone -- American Express confirmed today that it didn't agree to such a deal.

"We want to make sure Google's mobile wallet product meets the standards we set for our card members in terms of the transparency and clarity about transaction detail," American Express' VP of social media communications Brad Minor told CNET in an e-mail. "And right now, American Express does not have an agreement with Google for … Read more

Kickstarter, the crowd-funding portal, has a lot of interesting "projects" that are seeking backing, but it isn't always easy to tell how unique or exceptional they truly are.

Take the just-launched ChargeCard. It's a USB-charging cable for iOS devices that's in the shape of a business card. The ChargeCard looks cool but I seem to remember seeing other devices kind of like it. So I dashed off an e-mail to Noah Dentzel, one of the two guys behind the project (Adam Miller is the other), asking him how it was different -- or better -- than I product I'd found on eBay . The product I'd dug up had a built-in rechargeable battery while the ChargeCard was just a cable. … Read more

A hacker claiming to have broken into networks of dozens of banks and stolen customer data, has released as proof a file that contains names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers in plain text, but no credit card numbers.

"I penetrated over 79 large banks, I've been targetting these banks since 3 months," read a tweet from the Twitter account of Reckz0r. "Actually, I didn't hacked VISA & Mastercard, I hacked the banks, #Chase..etc."

A Pastebin post from today has a link to a downloadable file on the AnonFiles.com site that appears … Read more