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Facebook has secured the backing of over a dozen companies for its upcoming Libra cryptocurrency set to be announced next week, The Wall Street Journal reports. These companies include major financial organizations like Visa and Mastercard, and internet darlings like PayPal, Uber, Stripe, and Booking.com. Each will invest around $10 million to fund development of the currency, and will become part of the Libra Association, an independent consortium that will…

To help families celebrate Dad and save a little money, several restaurants are offering free treats and discounts. And this Father’s Day is expected to be record-breaking. According to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey, Americans are expected to spend an estimated $16 billion on gifts for dad this year, more than ever before and up from last year’s $15.3 billion. Gifts that dads can enjoy with families, like outings…

Standing in a long line at the airport is no way to start a vacation. And it is certainly no way for frequent business travelers to fly. You’ve likely heard of various programs that promise to get you through airport security faster, and you’ve probably endeavored to look into them when you found yourself making painfully slow progress through a TSA checkpoint. Perhaps you’re reading these words while standing in…

Monzo, a widely popular mobile banking service in the United Kingdom, is launching a “light version” of its original app in the United States this year. But while it garnered rave reviews in the U.K., Monzo’s popularity may not reach the same heights in the U.S. because the app will be launched this summer with a few limitations: such as a “light version” of the app with fewer features and…

Phone apps are funny things. You install ‘em with a couple of quick clicks from the Play Store, but you never actually see the associated files or have direct access to what’s downloaded. In the name of simplicity, our modern mobile operating systems have covered up the ugly inner workings of app installation and taken file handling out of our hands. By and large, that’s a positive. Most phone owners…

When it comes to health, prevention is the best cure. Now it’s becoming apparent it is time to extend this philosohphy to medical data as well. While personally identifiable information — full names, social security numbers, home addresses, dates of birth, credit card numbers — can be exploited by criminals to commit identity fraud, the theft of medical information can have equally serious impact on victims. Thanks to a new…

If you’ve ever forgotten the password to your Mac, you know the panic that begins to take over with each failed attempt to log in. Instead of freaking out, take a deep breath, and find comfort in the fact that you’re only a few minutes away from getting back into your Mac. Thankfully, MacOS includes built-in tools to reset your account password in situations just like this. Which tool you…

Visa seems to do everything on a massive scale. Last year, it moved $11.2 trillion over its payment rails across more than 200 countries for purchases ranging from cups of coffee to cars. Now it’s eyeing an even bigger market: cross-border, business-to-business (B2B) transactions, where banks transfer money on behalf of corporate customers. Visa says it’s entering a $125 trillion market and using distributed ledger technology—software where transactions must be…

Checking your credit card statements regularly can help you weed out recurring charges that are costing you money. Recurring charges to your credit card can add up quickly, even if they’re small amounts. These recurring credit charges, sometimes known as gray charges, show up on your statement monthly, biannually or annually, often as a result of automatic billing. Knowing how to spot these charges – and eliminate them – can…

With the arrival of tax bills and refunds in the late spring and early summer, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is warning taxpayers against various tax scams that have begun to crop up. Two specific scams that the IRS highlighted last week are variations of long-running tax scams, including one where taxpayers are threatened with a tax bill from a non-existent government agency. The other scam, which the IRS has…

No one of us likes to think about the worst happening to our life. That’s why it’s extremely important to have life insurance policy. An excellent policy will not only help us cover mortgage and childcare expenses but it will also help us secure a good education for our children and protect our loved ones from inheriting our debts. Sadly, a surprising number of Americans do not have life insurance….

Microsoft’s security researchers have issued a warning on Friday afternoon about an ongoing spam wave that is spreading emails carrying malicious RTF documents that infect users with malware without user interaction, once users open the RTF documents. Microsoft said the spam wave appears to target European users, as the emails are sent in various European languages. “In the new campaign, the RTF file downloads and runs multiple scripts of different…