Google has introduced Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) technology to its Google Wallet service, allowing users to verify their age without sharing personal information. This cryptographic technology is a significant turning point for online privacy protection, as it eliminates the risk of privacy violations and identity theft. The system uses blockchain technology to process the condition (age) in encrypted form, generating a proof that can be verified by an external service through public keys. Unlike traditional methods, the ZKP system maintains total control over users’ information. Bumble, a popular dating app, will use digital IDs issued through Google Wallet to verify their age, while the confirmation will be managed through the ZKP system. This will improve the user experience and increase trust in the platform. The adoption of ZKP technology by Google could mark a decisive turning point, attracting attention from developers, companies, and investors in the decentralized privacy sector. The future of age verification and digital identity could be marked by a greater balance between security and privacy. If successful, the adoption of systems based on ZKP could lead to a safer and more respectful internet for individuals.
Akamai creates firewall purpose built for unique AI threats unauthorized queries, adversarial inputs, and large-scale data-scraping attempts
Akamai Technologies announced Firewall for AI, a new solution that provides multilayered protection for AI applications against unauthorized queries, adversarial inputs, and large-scale data-scraping attempts. Combined with other new enhancements such as API LLM Discovery, Akamai Firewall for AI provides customers with a holistic set of AI-driven capabilities. AI models contain valuable proprietary knowledge and sensitive datasets, making them prime targets for attackers. Akamai Firewall for AI addresses this as a purpose-built security solution designed to protect AI-powered applications, LLMs, and AI-driven APIs from emerging cyberthreats. By securing inbound AI queries and outbound AI responses, the firewall closes security gaps that generative AI technologies introduce. Key features of Firewall for AI include: Multilayered protection: Blocks adversarial inputs, unauthorized queries, and large-scale data scraping to prevent model manipulation and data exfiltration. Real-time AI threat detection: Uses adaptive security rules to dynamically respond to evolving AI-based attacks, including prompt injection and model exploitation. Compliance and data protection: Helps ensure AI-generated outputs remain safe and align with regulatory and industry standards. Flexible deployment options: Deploys via Akamai edge, REST API, or reverse proxy, enabling seamless integration into existing security frameworks. Proactive risk mitigation: Filters AI outputs to prevent toxic content, hallucinations, and unauthorized data leaks.
NetApp adds quantum-safe encryption and AI ransomware detection to ONTAP data management software – ransomware-specific role-based access controls, which empower security teams with granular permissions tailored to combat ransomware threats
To help customers enhance their cyber resiliency at the storage layer, NetApp is releasing new data security capabilities including: Post-Quantum Cryptography: NetApp has embedded post-quantum cryptography into its storage portfolio for file and block workloads. NetApp’s secure-by-design storage keeps its customers’ data protected against quantum threats, fostering confidence among customers, partners, and regulators. By leveraging encryption algorithms standardized by NIST—a globally recognized standards body and authority—businesses can rely on a defense that is thoroughly tested and capable of carrying them into the future with quantum-ready storage. NetApp BlueXP Ransomware Protection Update: Updates to BlueXP ransomware protection strengthen the service’s ability to provide a comprehensive, orchestrated ransomware defense for NetApp ONTAP workloads. The new features include ransomware-specific role-based access controls, which empower security teams with granular permissions tailored to combat ransomware threats effectively, and support for ransomware protection for native cloud workloads. These advancements provide enterprises with enhanced control and protection against ransomware, safeguarding critical data and maintaining operational resilience in an increasingly complex threat landscape. NetApp BlueXP Backup and Recovery Workload Support: NetApp BlueXP backup and recovery provides a simple, secure, and cost-effective integrated data protection service for ONTAP data. With these new updates, customers will benefit from a redesigned user interface that makes it easier to integrate and define a 3-2-1 data protection strategy for their workloads, including Microsoft SQL Server, VMware, and Kubernetes applications. NetApp Security Professional Services: NetApp is offering expanded professional security assessment and security hardening services to help customers evaluate and further tighten their security posture by enabling the built-in security capabilities in NetApp that help keep their data secure.
PhotoShelter enables complex organizations to partition their digital asset libraries across different departments or teams, while maintaining a unified platform and contract
PhotoShelter, the digital asset management (DAM) platform, launched a new feature that enables complex organizations to partition their digital asset libraries across different departments or teams, while maintaining a unified platform and contract. Within large organizations, asset access must be tightly managed so that teams can focus on what is relevant to them, without the risk of accidental changes or exposure of sensitive content. This feature enables organizations to segment their library, allowing each team to have a secure workspace and maintain control over its assets and workflows. This not only reduces confusion and clutter but also minimizes the risk of exposing sensitive content or having it unintentionally altered by others. And because all of this happens within a single platform and contract, organizations avoid the inefficiencies and costs associated with using multiple DAM vendors or separate accounts. Key benefits: Prevents unauthorized access or inadvertent changes to sensitive departmental assets; Eliminates inefficiencies from managing multiple DAM vendors or separate accounts; Consolidates billing, support contacts, and sharing processes; Reduces costs while improving organizational asset security. Use cases: 1) Higher education: Dozens of university departments can now manage their content with a single PhotoShelter account, maintaining independent control of assets and access, while benefiting from campus-wide integration and a single contract. 2) Corporate environments: Enterprises can allow separate departments to manage assets in a single library while maintaining each group’s control over its specific assets. 3) Healthcare systems: Providers can maintain stronger HIPAA compliance by allowing separate teams to manage content, ensuring patient data is visible only to those who need access.
Bottomline Paymode is a new in-app self-enrollment service for supplier payments providing enhanced remittance data and helping automate more reconciliation tasks for suppliers, earning rebates on payments they already make
Bottomline, a global leader in business payments, has introduced Paymode for Digital Banking, a new in-app self-enrollment service for supplier payments. This feature is embedded into Bottomline’s commercial Digital Banking solution, allowing bank clients to offer Paymode to their business customers in a single platform. The solution aims to digitize more payments for corporates and generate more sustainable non-interest income for banks. The Digital Banking solution, used by over 440,000 businesses, and Paymode and its network of over 550,000 vendors, provide the scale to transform how businesses pay and get paid. The solution simplifies business payments, automates reconciliation tasks, and enables payers to earn rebates on payments they already make.
Amazon’s Alexa+ voice assistant draws 100,000 users; but targets universe of half a billion Amazon devices in people’s homes, offices and cars; wake word needs to be said only once for an entire conversation
Amazon has rolled out Alexa+, the new version of its voice assistant, to more than 100,000 users so far, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said. Alexa+ will be made available to more users in the coming months, Jassy said. It is now starting to roll out in the U.S. and will be expanded to other countries later this year. The new version of the voice assistant is being made available on an Early Access basis, beginning with customers who sign up to be notified and own an Echo Show 8, 10, 15 or 21 and then expanding to more Echo customers over time. The new voice assistant is free to Prime members and available for $19.99 per month to non-members, Jassy said. He added that Amazon has more than half a billion devices in people’s homes, offices and cars to which Alexa+ will be able to be delivered. Jassy said that the new version is “meaningfully smarter and more capable than its prior self, can both answer virtually any questions and take actions.” He added that users no longer have to say “Alexa” before requesting every action; instead, they only have to say it once and can then have an ongoing conversation with the voice assistant.
Banks-Fintech-PSP consortium to promote use cases for Commercial Variable Recurring Payments (VRPs) in UK
A group of 31 fintechs, high street banks, challenger banks and payment providers have agreed to put up initial funding for a new entity that will be wholly owned and run by industry. Barclays, GoCardless, Mastercard, Monzo, Plaid, Revolut and Wise are among the backers. The proposed initial uses cases for cVRPs will focus on selected regulated industries such as payments to utility and rail companies, regulated financial firms, e-money institutions, government bodies, and charities. Offering cVRPs in these areas would give Brits better control over regular payments, as well as a frictionless experience when buying goods or services from websites. Henk Van Hulle, CEO, Open Banking Limited, says: “This is a significant moment for the industry, and I sincerely thank the organisations that have committed to fund efforts to create a company that will carry forward the important work on cVRPs. It is testament to the collaborative nature of our ecosystem that it can be industry-led.”
TreviPay has added automated buyer onboarding to its order-to-cash (O2C) offering, allowing business buyers to apply for trade credit through a dynamic self-serve application
TreviPay has added automated buyer onboarding to its order-to-cash (O2C) offering, allowing business buyers to apply for trade credit through a dynamic self-serve application. The company’s automation technology reduces manual reviews, speeds up credit decisioning to near real time, reduces online cart abandonment, and helps buyers with time-sensitive orders. The application is localized for key geographies, including the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, to address country-specific business terminology, language, and regulatory requirements. The automated onboarding also delivers a form version tailored to enterprises or small- to medium-sized businesses based on company revenue figures input by the buyer. This is the latest of several additions to TreviPay’s offerings, including enhancements for dealer management systems, a new self-financing option, and enhanced payment application features. The company’s flexible net terms programs allow clients to leverage its technology and automated decisioning engine for managing accounts receivable while configuring a funding option that works for them.
Vanguard unveils generative AI client summaries for financial advisors
Vanguard launched its first client-facing GenAI capability that equips financial advisors with efficient and personalized content for client communications. Vanguard’s Client-Ready Article Summaries produce customizable synopses of its top-read market perspectives tailored by financial acumen, investing life stage, and tone. It also generates the necessary disclosures to accompany the article summaries, creating an efficient and seamless information sharing experience for advisors. Sid Ratna, Head of Digital and Analytics for Vanguard Financial Advisor Services said “The best advisors can get even better with AI in their client toolkit, and Vanguard’s Client-Ready Article Summaries help advisors drive personalized and actionable conversations that enhance client relationships over the long-term.” Vanguard Financial Advisor Services provides investment services, portfolio analytics and consulting, and research to over 50,000 advisory firms comprising 150,000 advisors.1 Supporting advisors so they can best service their clients is integral to Vanguard’s mission of giving investors the best chance for investment success. In addition to rolling out the Client-Ready Article Summaries, Vanguard continues to experiment with advanced technologies, including spatial and quantum computing and blockchain, to improve investment outcomes, expand investor access, and deliver personalized experiences.
Standards for bank tokens proposed by Kinexys by JP Morgan, MIT – Ledger Insights – blockchain for enterprise
Kinexys by JP Morgan, the bank’s blockchain arm, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Digital Currency Initiative (MIT DCI) have collaborated on a paper to explore standards for bank tokens on open blockchains. The authors suggest primarily relying on existing Ethereum standards, but propose two new ones they believe are needed for interbank payments. They also suggest areas where regulations might be relaxed for blockchain-based bank payments. By open blockchains they mean permissionless blockchains and also open permissioned blockchains such as Unified Ledgers and Singapore’s Global Layer One. In the latter case, a key differentiating feature is the blockchain node operators are regulated. Part of the paper explores potential standards for bank tokens to enable interoperability for payments between banks. It maps various bank token functions against existing Ethereum token standards. However, this mapping process unveiled a couple of large gaps, particularly around payment orchestration. One example is AML and fraud analysis, which is based on large datasets, so would be processed off chain, and currently would be executed before the payment is initiated. The ERC-20 payment standard has three – payment and recipient wallet addresses and the amount. Banks need more variables. So, when a user wants to make a payment, the wallet would request the format of the payment information needed by the bank (or other entity with authority), and present the appropriate screen to the user for input. Once the user has entered the data, the bank responds to the wallet with the authorization, which is included in the on-chain transfer request. The transfer and authorization would be validated on -chain, for example, to ensure that the payment amount does not exceed the amount authorized. Stepping back, JP Morgan is keen for these standards to be “designed to be narrow in scope and componentized in a way that allows them to be easily composed with other standards,” the authors wrote.