PayPal launches small-business loan program

PayPal is getting into the increasingly crowded small-business loan market. The eBay-owned online and mobile payment service this week announced PayPal Working Capital, a loan program that will initially serve qualified existing PayPal merchant customers.

PayPal won’t actually lend the money—its initial banking partner is WebBank. But borrowers aren’t saddled with fixed monthly payments or late fees: Rather, they repay the loan and a pre-set loan fee out of sales revenues processed by PayPal.

The cost of the loan depends on the amount borrowed (generally, up to 8 percent of total annual sales processed by PayPal in the last year), the percentage of sales receipts dedicated to paying the loan (between 10 percent and 30 percent), and the merchant’s PayPal track record.

The higher the percentage of sales the merchant is willing to allocate to paying back the loan, the lower the overall fee. In PayPal’s published example, for a business with $100,000 in annual sales that borrows the maximum, $8,000, the loan fee varies from $947 if the business opts to dedicate 10 percent of sales receipts to paying down the loan, to $281 for a business that dedicates 30 percent of its sales receipts to paying back the loan.

No credit check is involved, so the merchant’s credit rating isn’t adversely affected by the loan. PayPal says loan application approval can take as little as five minutes. PayPal wouldn’t say how many merchants are actually eligible for the initial program, which runs through the end of the year.

PayPal will continue to collect its usual transaction fees from participating merchants, who must continue to use the service to process payments until the loan is paid off. PayPal will calculate the loan payment at the end of each business day, and withdraw the funds the following day.

There is some fine print. Merchants cannot activate PayPal’s Autosweep feature (which transfers receipts electronically to a bank account every day) while they are paying back a loan. While they can still manually transfer funds, if the account balance falls below the amount a merchant has committed to repay the loan, PayPal will simply withdraw any new receipts as so-called catch-up payments.

For more information, visit the PayPal Working Capital website.

Contributing Editor Yardena (Denny) Arar is a San Francisco-based freelance writer, avid online shopper, media junkie, consummate foodie, and proud possessor of a private pilot's license.
More by Yardena Arar

View the original article here

Massive Delta IV rocket launches spy satellite

IDG News Service - A powerful Delta IV Heavy rocket launched a classified reconnaissance satellite into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Wednesday.

The launch took place under clear skies at 11:03 a.m. Pacific Time (18:03 GMT) and everything appeared to be going to plan up to the point at which the second stage of the rocket ignited six minutes into the flight. At that point TV coverage was ended at the request of the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), which will operate the satellite.

No details on the satellite have been released except that it will be operated by the NRO. The office is charged with providing "innovative overhead intelligence systems for national security," in other words: spy satellites.

That's one of the clues to the satellite likely being the newest member of the NRO's Keyhole spy satellite network.

Other clues lie in the warnings sent out to mariners that detail three areas of the Pacific Ocean into which the spent rocket stages will fall back to Earth.

The drop zones provide an indication of the rocket's launch trajectory and that, combined with the launch time, can be used to establish the likely orbit. It's one that closely aligns with the four Keyhole KH11 satellites currently in space, according to Robert Christy, writing on his respected Zarya blog.

The satellite will apparently be launched into a sun-synchronous orbit -- one that's favored for intelligence gathering because it brings the satellite over any point on Earth at the same time each day. That makes it easier to compare images from one day to the next.

Once launched, it will be up to amateur satellite analysts like Christy to confirm its orbit. U.S. Space Command does not include domestic spy satellites on its Space Track service that catalogs satellites and other man-made objects in orbit.

The first KH11 satellite was launched in 1976 and was America's first spy satellite to use digital imaging. Previous generations of satellites had used rolls of film that were dropped back to Earth on parachutes and snagged by planes as they plummeted down.

Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is martyn_williams@idg.com

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2012 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

Massive Delta IV rocket launches classified satellite

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

AdBlock launches crowdfunding campaign to create ads about blocking ads

Prepare to have your mind blown: This weekend, the creator of the popular AdBlock software—which kills the ads you'd normally see while trawling the Web—launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay for ads encouraging people to use AdBlock and block Internet ads.

Whoa.

As brain-bending as the concept sounds, AdBlock isn't dreaming small. The $25,000 minimum fundraising goal will oh-so-ironically go towards the creation of banner ads to spam the AdBlock ethos, and AdBlock founder Michael Gundlach promises to spread the word via a Times Square billboard if the donations hit $50,000, or a full-page ad in the New York Times if the campaign raises $150,000.

AdBlockAdBlock's contribution rewards. (Click to enlarge.)

If the crowdfunding really takes off, AdBlock has the white whale of advertising in its sights: At $4.2 million in donations (ha!), Gundlach says he'll buy an AdBlock TV commercial during the 2014 Super Bowl.

AdBlock recently started bugging users of its extension with ads about its campaign to create ads about blocking ads, in yet another bout of delicious hyprocrisy that you can see in the screenshot to the right. Here's what the campaign page says about fighting fire with fire:

We're going to use ads to get rid of ads. We will use the money raised to make AdBlock banner ads and video commercials, and we will show these across the internet to people who don't have AdBlock. If we raise enough, we will implement our craziest advertising ideas and capture the whole world's imagination.

With ads about blocking ads. Welcome to the Matrix!

While ad-blocking technology is indeed highly handy-dandy and borders on necessity on some of the most annoying pages on the Web, it's not without its share of critics. A large swathe of the Web—PCWorld.com and TechHive.com included—relies on advertising to monetize content provided free of charge to readers, and ad-killing software such as AdBlock deprive websites of that revenue. Penny Arcade's Ben Kuchera recently wrote a superb article detailing just how harmful ad-blocking software is to websites.

Simply put, without ads, many Websites couldn't exist. Creating quality content costs money, and a truly ad-free web would be a mostly empty web.

Is there a middle ground? AdBlock rival AdBlock Plus whitelists ads that don't scream at you or autoplay or steal your browser's focus, which seems like a reasonable compromise. Some people manually whitelist the majority of the Web, blocking only sites that betray their trust with obnoxious selling attempts.

Attempts to offer ad-free content behind a paywall, meanwhile, have seen hit-and-miss success. While Netizens hate ads, few seem willing to pay to remove them.

But in a bout of irony so hard that it hurts, people are tripping over themselves to fund ads about blocking ads. AdBlock has managed to raise more than $22,000 of its $25,000 minimum goal in just a couple of days, with 28 days of fundraising left. One thing's for certain: It's going to be interesting to see where AdBlock's ad campaign goes, and what—if anything—it accomplishes.

Brad Chacos spends the days jamming to Spotify, digging through desktop PCs and covering everything from BYOD tablets to DIY tesla coils.
More by Brad Chacos

View the original article here

Microsoft launches ad-free Bing search for schools

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Qualys launches tool simplifying protection for Web applications

Practical IT insight from Tony Bradley

You may not always be able to tell while you’re surfing it, but the Web is under almost constant siege. Companies have to find effective ways to secure and protect websites and Web-based applications. At the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas Wednesday, Qualys announced a new tool to make it easier for small and medium businesses to manage Web security.

Qualys’ Web Application Firewall (WAF) is delivered as a component of the QualysGuard Cloud Platform, which provides a simple, centrally-managed tool for administering security for both on-premise and cloud-based servers. The WAF beta is available as an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) to be used with Amazon EC2 cloud services, and as a VMWare virtual image for use with on-premise virtual servers.

Qualys WAF gives SMBs a simple, affordable tool for protecting websites.

As information is passed from a PC to the Web server and back, there is ample opportunity for an attacker to inject him or herself into the equation and intercept the traffic or possibly compromise the server. A Web application firewall applies rules to the HTTP traffic to prevent attacks, but it can be costly and complex to configure and administer a Web application firewall. The rules applied have to be frequently updated to reflect changes in the applications and to guard against new threats. Small and medium businesses, in particular, seldom have the expertise or budget necessary to properly manage a Web application firewall.

The Qualys WAF service addresses those concerns by providing businesses with a simple, affordable, automated tool to protect websites from attack. Qualys WAF promises real-time protection—blocking Web attacks as they happen—as well as application hardening to minimize the potential exposure to attack.

WAF is maintained and updated by Qualys security experts to identify and implement new defense techniques and features transparently without impacting the website. Qualys is has a broader “10,000 foot view” of new threats on the Web, and it can use security events from all WAF customers to help identify threats and develop an appropriate defense.

WAF gives customers the protection they need for their websites, in a simple, automated, cost-effective tool. Amazon Web Services customers can start using the WAF AMI beginning Aug. 1. The VMWare virtual image for on-premise virtual servers will be available for download Sept. 1.

Tony is principal analyst with the Bradley Strategy Group, providing analysis and insight on tech trends. He is a prolific writer on a range of technology topics, has authored a number of books, and is a frequent speaker at industry events.
More by Tony Bradley

View the original article here