tech

Nintendo reveals 160,000 accounts were breached

New York (CNN Business)Nintendo revealed on Friday that 160,000 accounts were breached since the beginning of April, by hackers using others’ Nintendo Network IDs without permission. The company announced users will no longer need to use these IDs to log into their accounts, and that passwords on accounts that may have been breached will be reset.

In addition to logging in to potentially play other users’ games, the hackers were also able to see individuals’ date of birth, country or region and email addresses. They could also access payment services linked to these accounts, including PayPal accounts or credit cards to buy items on Nintendo’s platform.

“We sincerely apologize to our customers and related parties for any inconvenience and concern. In the future, we will make further efforts to strengthen security and ensure safety so that similar events do not occur,” said Nintendo in an announcement originally written in Japanese.

A Nintendo Network ID is a unique username and password used mainly for older Nintendo 3DS and Wii U consoles. On the newer Nintendo Switch, users don’t have to register a Nintendo Network ID and can simply create an account using an email address, although it was possible to link the two.

Nintendo encouraged customers to check their purchase history for any unauthorized transactions and then request a refund. Credit card information wasn’t exposed, however, according to Nintendo.

The company is emailing affected users, urging them to change their passwords. Anyone who used to use a Nintendo Network ID to login should now use their Nintendo account email address instead. For an extra layer of security, the company is also asking people to set up two-factor authentication, adding a second method of verification such as linking to another app that will generate a code for each login.

03.31.20 telecommunications

Desk dining and mandatory health checks: How Huawei is returning to work

Hong Kong (CNN Business)At Huawei’s first ever virtual press conference on Tuesday, CEO Eric Xu waited patiently as dozens of reporters attempted to get the moderator’s attention on video conferencing platform Zoom.

As for many companies in China, Huawei is having to find new ways to work under strict conditions aimed at preventing another upsurge in coronavirus cases.

The world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker and China’s leading smartphone brand re-opened its Shenzhen headquarters and anotherofficenearby in early February, after a government-ordered lockdown ended.

While the severe restrictions on travel and work have been lifted, daily office life has changed substantially.

Over at Huawei headquarters, wining and dining clients is now impossible. The sales and marketing team, for example, can’t invite executives from carrier companies to Shenzhen and usher them into a brand new exhibition hall showing off Huawei’s 5G network equipment. The team now hosts virtual tours instead.

Health app

Employees are having to form new habits. They have to complete a “daily health check-in” using a mobile app, before they’re allowed to enter Huawei offices. CNN Business was sent images of the app by a Huawei spokesperson. Staff must confirm that they don’t have a fever or any other coronavirus symptoms and that they are not in quarantine. If they forget to fill in the questionnaire, their employee ID card stops working until a manager gives the all clear.

The impact is visible too,the spokesperson said. There are fewer buses shuttling people around Huawei’s sprawling campus, and the ones in service have blocked off every other row to ensure people stay a safe distance apart. That means more employees are driving their own cars, and competing for spots in Huawei’s staff parking lots.

Al desko dining

Staff cafeterias are closed. Lunch boxes are delivered to a central point before being distributed around the building. Everyone has been asked to eat at their desks.

Huawei’s new routine illustrates how even as China is trying to restart its economy as the outbreak there subsides, life is anything but normal.

If there’s one positive lesson the company has learned from the pandemic so far, it’s that “you don’t have to sit face-to-face to have a good meeting, and you don’t really have to all sit in one room to have a good press conference,” Xu said on Tuesday.

While the immediate crisis may have passed, Huawei is now operating in a vastly different business environment.

The pandemic has brought about “new, unexpected challenges, like economic decline, financial turmoil and also shrinking market demand,” Xu said. Smartphone sales in China collapsed this quarter, as the country practically ground to a halt to contain the outbreak.

Huawei has been working with clients around the world to ensure the internet can handle the surge in online activities, like virtual meetings and school classes, and streaming TV shows.

Last year, the company reported annual revenue of 858.8 billion yuan ($121 billion), up 19% compared to a year earlier, with net profit of 62.7 billion yuan ($8.8 billion).

Profit growth slowed significantly compared to 2018, and Xu blamed the US blacklist barring Huawei from buying key American tech for the slump.

Looking ahead, Xu said 2020 will be a “crucial year” for Huawei, because it is still on that blacklist, which means the company’s latest smartphones remain cut off from Google’s (GOOGL) mobile services and popular apps like Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps.

Meanwhile, with the coronavirus pandemic still fast developing “we don’t have the time yet to either forecast or evaluate how our annual numbers will look like,” Xu said.

“For 2020, we’ll try everything we can to continue to survive,” he added.

09.03.19 telecommunications

Huawei is launching a new smartphone without Google services

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Huawei‘s new phone is about to go on sale, but it won’t come with YouTube, Gmail or Google Maps.

The world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker and No. 2 smartphone brand has been pressured by a US-led campaign against its business.

In May, Washington placed Huawei on a list banning US companies from selling it tech and software. That meant Huawei couldn’t do business with key suppliers like Intel (INTC), Micron (MICR) or Qualcomm (QCOM) or software partners like Google and Facebook (FB).

Huawei anticipated that crackdown and stockpiled supplies, but it couldn’t hoard software. The company had secured Google licenses for several smartphones before it was placed on the US blacklist. But the Mate 30 series wasn’t one of them.

The Mate 30 launchwas first reported by Reuters.

Google declined to comment.

Huawei said Google’s ecosystem — including the Android operating system that powers most of the world’s smartphones — remains its “first choice.”

But the company has developed its own ecosystem and operating system called Harmony, which it unveiled last month.

The Mate 30 could still launch with Android, which is open source. It just won’t have access to popular apps like YouTube, Google Maps and Gmail, or to the Google Play Store where Android users can buy new apps. Without those services, Huawei devices become a lot less attractive to smartphone users in markets outside China, where Google apps are already mostly blocked.

“It will be a major challenge for Huawei to market the Mate 30 family to consumers in Europe,” said Ben Stanton, a London-based senior analyst at research firm Canalys. “The omission of Google services from a major flagship smartphone is unprecedented.”

The question, he said, is whether Huawei’s hardware will be good enough to justify the loss of Google’s apps on the phone.

“I suspect that many who might have chosen Huawei before will find this a compromise too far,” Stanton added.

Earlier this year, Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei said global smartphone sales fell by 40% in the month after the US ban went into effect.

07.30.19 telecommunications

Huawei sales soar 23% despite US restrictions on its business

Shenzhen (CNN Business)Huawei is still growing despite a continued US campaign aimed at crimping its global reach.

The Shenzhen-based company said that revenue for the first half of 2019 soared by about 23% compared to the same period last year.

Huawei sells more telecommunications equipment than any other company in the world, and is a leading smartphone brand that competes with the likes of Samsung (SSNLF) and Apple (AAPL).

The company’s latest earnings report comes more than two months after the US imposed new restrictions on the Chinese firm. Washington placed Huawei on a trade blacklist in May, barring American companies from selling it software and components without a license.

Despite the US restrictions, Huawei chairman Liang Hua said Tuesday that operations are smooth.

“Our core products have not been significantly affected,” Liang told reporters in Shenzhen on Tuesday. The trade blacklist “has had some impact on our development, but the scope and extent of the impact is controllable,” he added.

The embattled Chinese tech firm has become a flashpoint in the US-China trade war. Even before the trade blacklist, the United States had been leading an effort to curb Huawei’s ambitions to become the global leader of next generation wireless technology, or 5G.

Washington has been urging allies to restrict or ban the use of Huawei equipment in their 5G networks, alleging Beijing could use the company’s products to spy on other nations. Huawei denies that any of its products pose a national security risk.

This is a developing story.

07.07.19 telecommunications

US government asks judge to dismiss Huawei lawsuit

Hong Kong (CNN Business)The United States hit back against Huawei on Wednesday, asking a federal court in Texas to dismiss the Chinese firm’s lawsuit against a US government ban on its products.

Lawyers for the US Department of Justice challenged that claim in a filing on Wednesday,saying the law wasn’t unconstitutional punishment, but rather the “logical next step” to protect the country and ensure China isn’t given “a strategic foothold” in USnetworks.

The lawyers said American lawmakers and officials had been warning against Huawei’s potential use for Chinese “cyber-activity” for over a decade, adding that the company was using outdated arguments from the Civil War and Cold War eras.

The portion of the law in question “does not sentence Huawei to death, imprison it, or confiscate its property,” they argued, moreover it “plainly does not preclude Huawei from engaging in its chosen profession.”

Huawei is the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker and a leading smartphone brand. It has been under pressure from a US-led campaign against the company urging allies to ban or restrict Huawei products from their 5G networks, citing national security concerns.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but has repeatedly denied that any of its products pose a national security risk. The lawsuit is separate from the US Commerce Department’s recent blacklisting of Huawei,whichrestrictsAmerican companies from doing business with the Chinese firm.

Analysts have said the lawsuit is more of a symbolic gesture, given that Huawei has been barred from core US telecommunications networks for years.

The bigger concern for Huawei right now is being on the US trade blacklist. The US Commerce Department added Huawei to a list in May banning US firms from selling tech and components to it without first obtaining a license to do so. Huawei warned last month that the US ban could cost it $30 billion in lost sales over the next two years.

On Saturday, US President Donald Trump changed course and said “US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei,” as long as the transactions won’t present a “great, national emergency problem.”

It was welcome news for the Chinese tech giant and itssuppliers, but the administration has since offered few public details about what will happen next, and it remains unclear which products US companies will be able to sell to Huawei.

06.27.19 telecommunications

Nokia executive: Huawei’s problems are ‘net positive’ for us

London (CNN Business)The US campaign against China’s Huawei has been “net positive” for rival telecommunications equipment maker Nokia.

Uitto told CNN Business in an interview Thursday that the political situation has opened the door for Nokia to grab market share. Nokia has signed 43 commercial 5G deals around the world, while Huawei has notched 50.

“There are some countries that have banned Chinese competitors, and of course that creates an opportunity for us,” Uitto said.

Analysts say Nokia had signed about 30 contracts at the end of March, indicating that recently it’s been winning more new 5G customers than Huawei, which had announced 40 at that point.

Uitto pointed to Japan, where SoftBank (SFBTF) picked Nokia (NOK) and Ericsson (ERIC) as suppliers for its 5G networks last month. Huawei, a vendor for SoftBank’s 4G networks, was snubbed.

Nokia has also been able to expand its business in Australia, New Zealand and the United States, where Huawei’s involvement in building 5G networks is restricted, Uitto said.

The company is in talks to replace equipment from Chinese suppliers in small rural networks in America, he added. It’s also been approached by carriers that want to be ready in case more governments limit the use of Huawei products.

“Operators want to anticipate and make sure they are prepared for what may come,” Uitto said.

Huawei is the world’s largest telecom equipment maker. But its leading role in the rollout of next-generation wireless networks has been complicated by a US pressure campaign against its business.

The United States has pushed allies to ban or restrict Huawei equipment from their 5G networks, citing national security concerns. The Chinese company has repeatedly denied that its products pose a risk.

There are downsides

The Trump administration also issued an export ban targeting Huawei last month. This could cut off Huawei’s access to crucial components from American suppliers.

Uitto cautioned that the political situation surrounding Chinese suppliers has had some drawbacks.

“Uncertainty in general is not good for business,” he said. “Some of our customers may be delaying their decisions. If you have an operator who has Nokia and a Chinese supplier, then this current situation may delay their own decision-making.”

He also said that Huawei could become even more assertive in certain regions.

“It is possible … that our Chinese competitors become even more aggressive in markets and in countries where they can compete,” Uitto said. “They may feel the pressure to backfill the lost business volume in the rest of the world.”

05.29.19 telecommunications

Huawei CEO says China shouldn’t punish Apple

Hong Kong (CNN Business)Ren Zhengfei, the CEO and founder of embattled Chinese tech company Huawei, is defending US rival Apple.

“That will not happen first of all, and second of all if that happens, I’ll be the first to protest,” Ren told Bloomberg.

“Apple is the world’s leading company. If there was no Apple, there would be no mobile internet,” Ren said. “Apple is my teacher, it’s advancing in front of us, as a student why should I oppose my teacher?” he added.

The comments come as Ren’s company is in crisis mode.

The US Department of Commerce placed Huawei on a trade blacklist earlier this month, effectively barring it from conducting business with American companies.

The ban forced suppliers like Google (GOOGL) and ARM Holdings to cut off ties with the Chinese company. Top carriers in the UK and Japan are also delaying the launch of Huawei smartphones.

The US restrictions threaten Huawei’s position as the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker and No. 2 smartphone brand.

Washington’s ban on the Chinese company “could stir up the smartphone industry by pausing Huawei’s positive momentum,” analysts at Fitch Ratings wrote in a note on Sunday. The ban could also benefit industry leader Samsung as consumers around the world look for alternatives to Huawei smartphones, they added.

Huawei and Apple have had vastly different fortunes in Huawei’s home market of China.

Huawei shipped nearly 30 million phones in China in the quarter ended March, up 41% compared to the same period last year, according to research firm Canalys.

Meanwhile, Apple saw its iPhone sales in China drop 30% in the same period. The country remains a key market for Apple. Greater China, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong, accounted for nearly 18% of net sales in the quarter ended March.

During an earnings call last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said iPhone sales in China should be boosted by “improved trade dialogue” between Beijing and Washington and “very positive customer response to the pricing actions we’ve taken in that market.”

But since then, trade talks between Washington and Beijing broke down, and both sides ratcheted up tensions by slapping more penalties on billions of dollars worth of American and Chinese products.

The renewed trade dispute could hurtApple, according to Fitch Ratings analysts.

“Apple could be another victim of the US-China trade war and its market-share loss may accelerate in the Chinese market,” they said.

US President Donald Trump last week called Huawei “very dangerous,” but then said he could see the company being included in a broader trade deal with China.

Ren told Bloomberg that using his company as a bargaining chip is “a big joke.”‘

“How are we related to China-US trade?” he said.

05.29.19 Credit Cards

The NYC subway is finally getting mobile payments. Here’s what it means for the US

New York (CNN Business)Tapping your phone to make a payment is slowly gaining popularity in the United States and now some public transportation systems are trying out the technology to make it quicker for customers to purchase fares.

The new feature only works at select stops on the 4, 5, and 6 subway lines between Manhattan and Brooklyn, as well as on any Staten Island bus. The gradual rollout will be completed by late 2020, according to the MTA and Apple.

Apple Pay came to public transit in Portland, Oregon on May 21. Apple announced plans to bring the technology to Chicago’s transit system as well, but hasn’t provided an update since March.

The United States lags behind other countries when it comes to adopting contactless payments. It’s faced slow adoption from retailers that still prefer good old cash or credit cards and balk at the high cost of switching to a contactless pay terminal.

A significant amount of US retailers still don’t accept Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Chase Pay, Amazon Pay and other mobile payments. It’s not just on phones — credit cards are also adding their own contactless payment technology. However, only five percent of cards issued in the US are contactless, according to a 2018 study from consultancy AT Kearney.

“Public transit rollouts like we’re seeing in New York, Chicago, and Portland will help boost awareness,” said Ted Rossman, industry analyst at CreditCard.com, “Apple, Google, and Samsung are popular brands that impact most Americans’ lives every single day, and their participation will provide an added boost.”

Poland is on track to becoming the first country with 100 percent of its checkout terminals at places like grocery stores, restaurants, and pharmacies supporting contactless payments, according to Visa data from last December. Parts of Canada, Europe, Africa, and Asia have seen greater adoption than the United States.

Customers also aren’t using Apple Pay as much in the United States. VC firm Loup Ventures estimates that 24 percent of US iPhone users have used Apple Pay compared to 47 percent of international users.

Still, Apple Pay has been picking up momentum in the United States after resisting retailers gave in. Target, Taco Bell and Speedway all announced they would start supporting Apple Pay this year. CVS and 7-Eleven joined the party last year.

Some experts are confident that the latest rollout to major public transit systems could finally win over Americans to contactless payments.

“When you take something like a transit card and you enable it with mobile, it makes it so much easier. We will stop the fumbling with Metrocards that we see every day,” said Rivka Gerwitz Little, research director of global payment strategies at the International Data Corporation, “I expect to see a massive uptake in usage.”

Horace Dediu, an analyst at Asymco, a consulting firm, said there was slow adoption of some other technologies Apple introduced at first, too, like Apple Music, 3D Touch, the Apple Watch, or software-based SIM cards. “(Retailers) resist because they feel a loss of control, even a loss of margin. However, in the longterm, the customer always wins … Efforts to resist ultimately fail because there’s so much value offered by the new technology.”

05.26.19 telecommunications

Trump suggests using Huawei as a bargaining chip in US-China trade deal

Hong Kong (CNN Business)US President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of easing restrictions on Huawei as part of a broader trade deal with Beijing, despite labeling the Chinese telecommunications giant “very dangerous.”

“Huawei is something that’s very dangerous” from a security standpoint, Trump told reporters Thursday.

But then he floated the idea of using the Chinese tech firm as leverage in the ongoing trade negotiations with China.

“It’s possible that Huawei even would be included in some kind of trade deal,” Trump said. “If we made a deal, I can imagine Huawei being included in some form of, some part of a trade deal.”

The United States has long branded Huawei — the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker and the No. 2 smartphone brand — as a security risk.

The Trump administrationhas been pressuring allies to restrict Huawei equipment in the build out of their 5G networks, citing nationalsecurity concerns. Washington fears that Beijing could use Huawei equipment to spy on other countries, but has not provided any evidence that such acts have occurred.

Huawei has repeatedly denied that any of its products pose a security risk, noting that Beijing has never requested access to its equipment and if it did, the company would refuse to comply. The Chinese government denies stealing intellectual property and committing unfair trade practices.

Washington has been unmoved by those reassurances.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said the dispute over Huawei could deepen, reiterating the security risk posed by Huawei’s technology and saying he expects other international companies to elect not to use their products.

“If you put your information in the hands of the Chinese communist party, it’s de facto a real risk to you. They may not use it today, they may not use it tomorrow,” Pompeo said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday. “To say they don’t work with the Chinese government is a false statement.”

Last week, the Commerce Department barred US companies from selling key parts and components to Huawei, deeming the company a threat to the United States’ national security and foreign policy interest.

And in January, the US Justice Department filed criminal charges against Huawei, accusing the company of violating US sanctions on Iran, and stealing intellectual property.

Trump’s suggestion Thursday that he is using Huawei as an enormous bargaining chip in the ongoing trade talks reinforces Beijing’s position on the situation.

“Recently the United States is frequently using ‘long-arm jurisdiction’ to suppress Chinese enterprises,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Gao Feng said Thursday. “China urges the US to stop the wrongdoings to avoid further impact on the China-US trade relations.”

“If the US would like to continue to talk, it should show its sincerity and correct its wrong actions,” Gao added.

This is not the first time Trump has suggested easing up on Huawei as part of ongoing trade talks.

In December, Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada at the request of US authorities. She is currently awaiting a hearing on possible extradition to the United States, where she faces federal charges in New York for her role in an alleged scheme by Huawei to circumvent US sanctions on Iran. Meng and Huawei deny the charges.

Shortly after her arrest, Trump told Reuters that his administration was open to using Meng’s detainment as leverage in the ongoing trade negotiations with China.

Meng is seeking a stay of extradition proceedings in part based on Trump’s comments, which her lawyers argue disqualifies the United States from pursuing the case in Canada.

05.24.19 Credit Cards

Growth consumed Silicon Valley. Now it’s searching for its moral compass

Toronto (CNN Business)For years, tech companies pitched their products as tools for making the world a better place. Now, a growing number of tech veterans who were instrumental in building companies ranging from Google to Facebook and Twitter have admitted they didn’t give enough thought into how their products could be used to do the opposite.

“I remember building PayPal, we were filled with libertarian ideals. We thought that it would be great to give the world a new currency,” he said during an interview with CNN Business at the Collision tech conference in Toronto this week. “We were not really asking the question, ‘Is it good for humanity?'”

Most tech entrepreneurs idealistically focused on scaling their products at all costs, and the hype around their services centered on the promises of doing something good. Facebook and Twitter, for example, harped on the intention to connect the world and allow for freedom of expression, respectively. But these very services have been used to corrode democracies, spread misinformation, and to abuse and harass individuals, for example. Google, which had a “don’t be evil” clause listed on its code of conduct for 18 years, has found itself in the spotlight over various ethical concerns including its canceled “Project Maven” collaboration with the Pentagon.

Some Silicon Valley names joined together last year to launch the nonprofit Center for Humane Technology, including Roger McNamee. The tech investor and former adviser to Mark Zuckerberg has been a vocal critic for the past couple years, taking issue with the business models of Facebook and other tech giants and their prioritization of ad dollars. Other former Facebook executives have also publicly questioned the company’s ethics.

There are also growing concerns about the emergence of new technologies like Amazon’s facial recognition software, Rekognition, which critics worry could have potential civil and human rights repercussions.

Ev Williams, the former CEO and cofounder of Twitter, said Twitter should have invested more heavily in abuse earlier, and that he “personally underestimated the looming problem during my brief tenure as CEO.”

Entrepreneurs today should be prepared to have nuanced answers to questions about morality, says Levchin, who is currently CEO of financial services startup Affirm, which he co-founded, as well as chairman and cofounder of period-tracking app Glow. He said entrepreneurs need to have the tough conversations early on, and be prepared to throw their weight behind their moral stances.

“You have to stand for something and deliver on that stance. … Any Silicon Valley company that wants to scale itself to real meaningful size has to take an extremely moral view and speak to and be able to defend its actions and occasionally contend with very challenging, moral questions. The only way that Silicon Valley establishes that trust is by actively talking about those questions and answering with actions.”

He says that when founding Affirm in 2013, morality was a central question. The company wants to offer a credit card alternative by providing loans for purchases, specifically for people who may not normally be approved by traditional banks. The loans come with a simple interest rate and no late fees. It says it does not sell or share user data with third parties.

Levchin moved to Chicago from the Soviet Union in 1991 when he was just 16 and his family had “just a few hundred dollars to our name.” He said he was “declined for more credit cards than I can recall” because he didn’t have a credit history in college. He says he was fiscally responsible but no banks would take a chance on him.

“We can choose to decline an application for a loan if it is for an item that we don’t support,” Levchin said, adding that debt is “a very weighty, morality-centric issue.” He asks: “Is it good to borrow money? I think it is, if you are investing it in a better version of your future self.”

As questions about the ethics and morals of tech platforms continue to be raised by critics, entrepreneurs may have to be more realistic about the benevolence and malevolence of their services. Meanwhile, some are growing tired of the frequently cited notion that technology is amoral, and that people make it bad or good.

“If we continue to say … ‘we are building devices, they get used for good and they get used for bad. That’s not really our concern.’ I think that’s exactly what brought us to this point,” Levchin added.

tech

Nintendo reveals 160,000 accounts were breached