Quick Bytes – Feb 2nd: eBay Will Stop Using Paypal By 2020
A look at the most interesting startup and business-related news stories of the week.
eBay will stop using Paypal by 2020
Quick Byte
eBay plans to drop Paypal as its payment processing service and its payment option button will also not be as prominently featured. Card processing will be taken over by Adyen, also used by Uber, Netflix and Spotify. It’s likely that eBay felt the need to update its payment options to keep up with global competitors. Adyen excels in that field and eBay has stated that it should reduce costs for consumers.
The Full Story
One of the tech industry’s most storied partnerships is coming to an end. EBay announced today that it will stop working with PayPal as its back-end payments service in 2020 and will start to move a small percentage of its payments volume to a new partner later this year.
In PayPal’s place, eBay has signed a long-term deal with Adyen, an Amsterdam-based payments company that was founded in 2006 and has counted global companies like Uber, Netflix and Spotify among its customer base. Read the Full Article Here
Google fights search misinformation
Quick Byte
Google’s featured snippets, the descriptive info boxes, are getting a splash of diversity added to them. Like other tech companies, they’ve been pulled up on their distribution of misinformation through their algorithms. It’s good news for sites offering valuable knowledge and it’ll be interesting to see whether their solution of offering a more diverse range of snippets will make serious headway into delivering quality search results across the board.
The Full Story
Like its rival Facebook, Google is making moves to fight the misinformation it helps spread. Some Google searches yield more than clickable links — they result in snippets that the laziest of searchers can take away and claim as truth in the age of instant gratification and smart speakers that read search results out loud.
The problem is some of those snippets, surfaced by algorithms, have been controversial or just flat out wrong — sometimes fake news. Read the Full Article Here
Quantum computing to create social change
Quick Byte
Social impact is predicted to be a key benefit to the logistical and optimization improvements that come with quantum computing. Why? “These are often the root causes of many social challenges…as a digital technology, they will be increasingly accessible and affordable to social innovators and nonprofits…and because quantum computing will be so powerful, those who embrace it first have a historic opportunity to bring their values and ethics into the world at scale.” Definitely worth a read.
The Full Story
While most people think quantum computing is still a few years off, your next taxi ride in Bangkok may be attached to a quantum computer. Toyota Tsusho and Denso recently announced plans to use a cloud-based D-Wave quantum computer to optimize live traffic data from 130,000 trucks and taxis in Bangkok.
While the quantum computer will not yet direct the vehicles in real time—which could be a logical next step via an app telling drivers where to go or instructions sent to autonomous car networks—it is an interesting project because it demonstrates how quantum computers could soon be entering our daily lives. Further, it’s a key demo of what machines like those made by D-Wave—which rely on quantum annealing—are good at: optimization and logistics. Read the Full Article Here
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