Essential Guidance

Google wants its coding assistant, Jules, to be far more integrated into developers’ terminals than ever. The company wants to make it a more workflow-native tool, hoping that more people will use it beyond the chat interface. Jules will gain two new features: a Jules API to facilitate integration with IDEs and a Jules Tools CLI, allowing the agent to be opened directly on the command line.   Through Jules CLI and API, Google said enterprises will get “more control and flexibility by where and how you can use Jules.” Developers can install Jules Tools via npm, which will then print a guide on how to use it. While in the CLI, an engineer or coder can use the code Command to prompt Jules to do a task, and the code Flag will customize it. For example, this string, Jules –theme light, will switch to light mode. On the API side, enterprises can connect the Jules API to other platforms they use. They can connect it to Slack, for example, so that some team members can trigger tasks directly from Slack if a bug is reported there, which will then tap their CI/CD pipeline. Google also added other updates to help reduce latency and fix some environment and file system issues. These include: File selector to call out specific files in chat to add context; Memory, which gives Jules the ability to remember preferences going forward; Environment Variables management that gives Jules access to these variables while executing a task.

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noon payments and Visa have partnered to launch Visa Payment Passkey, making noon payments the first globally as a payment service provider (PSP) to offer this innovative solution to its merchants and their customers. This strategic collaboration introduces Fast Identity Online (FIDO)-based authentication for payments, leveraging the biometric capabilities of consumer devices for ecommerce authentication, designed to create a smoother, more secure, and password-free online checkout experience for consumers and merchants in the Middle East. By leveraging Visa Acceptance Platform solutions such as Payer Authentication and Authorization, this initiative further promotes passkey readiness while ensuring a secure and seamless payment experience across the region. This innovative solution provides a next-generation approach to securing online transactions through eliminating the need for consumers to rely on static passwords, or one-time passcodes (OTP) at checkout by leveraging device unlocking methods such as biometrics (e.g. fingerprints, facial scans) or PINs. This not only streamlines the payment journey but also significantly enhances protection against fraud and scams like phishing. Visa Payment Passkey, which is built on open industry standards from the FIDO Alliance ensures sensitive biometric data does not leave the consumer’s device while ensuring a secure, seamless and convenient payment journey across all devices and payment channels.

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Perplexity AI made its artificial intelligence-powered browser, Comet, available generally and at no cost. Comet was launched in a limited release on July 9 and since then has had a waitlist joined by “millions of people,” the company said. The browser includes the Comet Assistant, which can help with research, meetings, code and eCommerce while the user is browsing the internet. Perplexity also announced in its blog post the launch of Background Assistants, which are AI assistants that can work in the browser, the inbox or the background. The company will also make Comet available as a mobile app “soon,” per the post. The browser is currently desktop-only. When introducing Comet in July, Perplexity said that the AI-powered browser “transforms entire browsing sessions into single, seamless interactions, collapsing complex workflows into fluid conversations.” By making Comet available for free, the company will be better able to compete with other AI-powered browsers, such as those available from Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. The first publishers to participate in Comet Plus, its service that gives users and their AI assistants access to participating publishers’ journalism and compensates the publishers for that access.

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Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO) has launched a program allowing tri-merge resellers to calculate and distribute its scores directly to mortgage companies, effectively bypassing the three nationwide credit bureaus: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. The move comes amid intensified competition with VantageScore, owned by the three bureaus, following the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) decision to let Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac  purchase loans underwritten with VantageScore 4.0 as an alternative to the Classic FICO score. “Today marks a turning point in how credit scores are delivered and priced across the mortgage industry,” said Will Lansing, CEO of FICO, in a statement. “This change eliminates unnecessary mark-ups on the FICO Score and puts pricing model choice in the hands of those who use FICO Scores to drive mortgage decisions.” Under the new program, FICO will charge in a performance model a $4.95 royalty fee per score. Additionally, a $33 funded loan fee per borrower per score will apply when the loan closes, replacing previous re-issue charges, as FICO recognizes the value its scores provide to insurers, investors and rating agencies. For lenders sticking with the traditional per score only model, the fee remains $10 per score through tri-merge resellers, consistent with prior pricing. FICO scores will remain available through the three nationwide credit bureaus on the same terms, though the company noted it “does not control any pricing mark-ups the bureaus may impose in their channels.” The company is still working with tri-merge resellers to implement the new direct license program. FICO scores are used by 90% of top U.S. lenders, it claims. FICO said the changes align with “calls from policymakers and industry leaders to modernize credit infrastructure and promote affordability, liquidity and access in the $12 trillion U.S. mortgage industry.” Scott Olson, executive director of Community Home Lenders of America (CHLA) said: “CHLA welcomes steps that like this to create more options for consumers and lenders, so this appears to be a good first step in addressing our longstanding criticisms about FICO’s monopolistic pricing and practices. Only time will tell, but we hope this direct license pricing will result in net savings — passed along to the borrower — and we will be watching and monitoring this as it plays itself out.”

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Samsung is planning to unveil the TriFold at the APEC summit at the end of this month, set to take place in Gyeongju on October 31st and November 1st. It’s unclear if this would be a proper launch from Samsung, or if the device could be unveiled at a separate event before being showed off at APEC. We also still don’t know if Samsung plans to launch its tri-folding device outside of its home region of South Korea and the hotly-contested market of China, where Huawei has already launched two rival tri-fold smartphones. The Galaxy Z Fold SE gives precedent here, having arrived as a more premium iteration on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 this time last year. That device only went up for sale in South Korea and China, though much of its marquee features — its slimmer chassis, larger display, and removed S Pen support — made their way to a global audience on this year’s Galaxy Z Fold 7. Considering how well the Fold 7 is selling in the US, though, it might be worth Samsung giving its TriFold a shot in North America. According to a new report from the company, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is performing beyond expectations following its overhaul in July. Nearly 30% of Fold 7 purchases are coming from Galaxy S Ultra models — perhaps suggesting that the S Pen isn’t nearly as essential a tool as some Samsung fans would have you believe. Samsung’s success didn’t end with its impressive pre-order period, either, as the company reports sales of the Fold 7 continue to exceed that of the Fold 6 by 50%.

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Cybersecurity Awareness Month arrives this week against a sobering backdrop: Consumer losses from fraud have surged to $12.5 billion, a 25% increase in just one year. In response, the financial industry, consumer advocates and the federal government have rolled out a coordinated effort to fight back. Throughout October, organizations from the American Bankers Association to the federal government’s lead cybersecurity agency will be pushing new campaigns and security frameworks aimed at protecting both consumers and the nation’s critical financial infrastructure. Here are the most important developments to watch, from new anti-scam strategies to useful updated resources. The biggest announcement to kick off Cybersecurity Awareness Month on Wednesday came from the Aspen Institute, which released a national strategy on preventing scams developed jointly by multiple banks, payment networks, financial services companies, consumer advocates, government agencies, major retailers and others. Members of the steering committee that developed the report represented JPMorganChase, Zelle, Block, Plaid, Amazon, Target and others. Other members of the task force that developed the report included Bank of America, Citizens, Wells Fargo, Visa, Paypal, Transunion, the American Bankers Association and the Bank Policy Institute. The 70-page strategy document functions as a blueprint for how companies, the U.S. government, and others can combat a problem that the report calls a “global conflict” and “whole-of-society threat to America.” The strategy document emphasizes that artificial intelligence and faster payment options are making scams more destructive and widespread. Financial services — including banking, payments, fintech and crypto — are among the sectors scammers exploit. The report urged government and corporate leaders to modernize legal frameworks and enhance incentives for action. A critical component of the framework organized by the Aspen Institute is addressing the current ambiguity regarding the duty of care to suppress scam activity across sectors. Because the report serves to document the consensus between various consumer advocates, banks and other stakeholders, it does not reach a conclusion on the core, nuanced subject of the duty of care (who should be liable) when a consumer is tricked into authorizing a payment to a fraudster. However, the report does note that there is currently no clear or consistent duty of care to suppress scam activity across sectors targeted by scammers, such as telecommunications, digital platforms and financial services. This ambiguity creates tension, as companies fear undue liability if clear mandates are established. So, the strategy calls for Congress to normalize duties across sectors and enact good Samaritan liability protections for companies that act reasonably and in good faith against scams. These protections would help de-risk corporate participation in scam suppression efforts. The report also cited the Australia Scams Prevention Framework as an international model, noting it provides a safe harbor protecting firms from liability when they take reasonable, proportionate and good-faith action to block suspected scams. The strategy advocates that companies maintain

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Amazon Connect, the cloud-based contact center service from AWS, now supports Get Customer Input and Store Customer Input flow blocks for outbound voice whisper flows. The Get Customer Input flow block allows a prompt to be played to a customer on an outbound call after they answer the call but before they are connected with an agent, and the customer’s response can be collected through either DTMF input or via an Amazon Lex Bot. This capability will allow you to capture interactive and dynamic customer input on outbound calls before these are connected to an agent. For example, you can use the Get Customer Input flow block to obtain customer consent for call recording as part of outbound calls placed by agents, and use it to trigger Amazon Connect Contact Lens recording and analytics.

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IBM and Vanguard researchers demonstrated a quantum-classical workflow for portfolio construction using 109 qubits on IBM’s Heron processors, showing potential advantages for large-scale financial optimization. By combining quantum circuits that explore high-dimensional solution spaces with classical algorithms that refine and validate results, researchers can tackle problems that are too large or too complex for either quantum or classical methods alone. The team applied a Conditional Value at Risk-based Variational Quantum Algorithm (CVaR-VQA), combining quantum sampling and classical optimization to balance asset selection under risk and constraint conditions. According to the study, the team compared a standard TwoLocal circuit with a more advanced design called bias-field counterdiabatic optimization, or BFCD. Early simulations suggested that the harder-to-simulate BFCD circuits produced better convergence. This result hints at a possible sweet spot: quantum circuits that are too complex for efficient classical emulation but still trainable on hardware may deliver the most useful outcomes. The experiments also tested different entanglement structures, including bilinear chains and “colored” maps tailored to IBM’s hexagon-based design, or heavy-hex topology. The study argues that a quantum-classical workflow provides benefits beyond raw accuracy. Because the sampling-based method does not require rewriting the portfolio problem into strict mathematical forms like QUBOs, it preserves more realism in financial modeling. The approach also yields multiple candidate solutions along the way, offering investors richer data for decision-making. At the same time, the hardware results demonstrate that convergence continues even under noise, showing robustness of the method. For finance, the experiments show a path to exploring bond or ETF construction with greater flexibility and possibly faster turnaround in the future. For quantum computing, they provide evidence that harder-to-simulate circuits may be the most promising candidates for practical advantage. The results also suggest new benchmarking possibilities: using realistic financial optimization tasks rather than abstract problems as yardsticks for quantum progress.

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Deutsche Bank has gone live with Swift’s new API-driven Instant Cash Reporting (ICR) tool for accessing real-time account and balance information with a single, standardised connection. As part of Deutsche Bank’s expanding API capabilities, ICR delivers immediate, on-demand financial data access to corporate clients through the Swift infrastructure. Spain-based energy firm Iberdrola is first client to implement ICR in its treasury. Through ICR the bank’s clients can collect real-time account and balance data via a single access point using the ISO 20022 data model and secure JSON format.  Swift acts as the central connector, routing API pull requests from corporates to Deutsche Bank.  eutsche Bank responds with standardised account data in JSON format, tailored to the corporate’s selected accounts or full account set, based on the associated Swift BIC. Johnny Grimes, head, corporate ash product, Deutsche Bank, says: “ICR addresses the key demand of corporates for multi bank solutions and consistent standards in the API space to simplify adoption.” ICR is currently accessible to Swift-connected corporates and financial institutions. Deutsche Bank says it welcomes other banks and corporates joining initiative to support scaling up the usage of multi-bank API solutions.

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Philipp Beer, Marco Squarcina and Martina Lindorfer, researchers from the Security and Privacy Group at TU Wien Informatics in Austria, and Sebastian Roth from the University of Bayreuth in Germany, have revealed with their research into Tapjacking and the TapTrap threat. In developing TapTrap, the researchers have demonstrated how an app without any permissions at all can abuse screen animations to open another screen without the user knowing, turn it invisible, and get them to unknowingly click on a permission prompt. This method of executing a transparent action with an invisible malicious one underneath is new and dangerous. Whereas, ordinarily, when the screen changes in Android, you would expect to see an animation, maybe a sliding or fading effect at one screen changes to another, a TapTrap attack can make the new screen “fully transparent, keeping it hidden from you,” the researcher said. “Any taps you make during this animation go to the hidden screen,” they continued, “not the visible app.”  The app could then get you to tap areas of the screen that “correspond to sensitive actions on the hidden screen,” the researchers explained, “allowing it to perform actions without your knowledge.” Actions like, for example, enabling the device administrator permission, which can let an app remotely wipe your phone.

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