The Business And Technology Network

On today’s podcast, Colin and I discuss last Friday’s decision by U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett, ruling in favor of Fubo by issuing a preliminary injunction preventing the launch of Venu Sports. Venu is a joint venture of Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery that includes 14 of the companies’ linear TV sports networks, plus on-demand content, for $43 per month. The companies filed an appeal on Monday.

As is evident from the ruling (thanks to the LightShed team for posting), Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have created a “gilded cage” for themselves by – up until Venu – only including their sports networks in pay-TV’s multichannel bundle. Disaggregating these networks exclusively for Venu would create a torrent of cord-cutting, as live sports have become a mainstay for those still committed to pay-TV subscriptions. Judge Garnett agreed Venu would cause an immediate negative impact on Fubo (it would for other pay-TV operators too).

It’s not clear to either of us how specifically the JV partners will address the detailed points Judge Garnett articulated in her ruling, nor how persuasive they’ll be in lifting the injunction, especially given that the criteria for a judge to issue an injunction like this is in the first place is the presumption that an eventual trial would arrive at the same conclusion. All of this leaves Venu’s future highly uncertain.

Listen to the podcast to learn more (31 minutes, 33 seconds)

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Oh boy. We’re just over a week away from Black Friday and the OLED monitor deals are starting to pop out of the ground. We’ve seen multiple stores offering 27-inch gaming OLEDs for as little as $500, but if you want something bigger, Best Buy has this 45-inch LG ultrawide OLED monitor for $1,000. That’s an amazing $700 off its original price.

The LG UltraGear 45GS96QB is a unique design. Other ultrawide monitors in this size range tend to go with doubled-up resolutions, but this one has the semi-standard 3440×1440, so it’s basically stretching a 34-inch display to a 45-inch frame. Depending on how you prefer to play, that’s either very weird or very smart — you get a physically larger picture without the big frame rate hit you’d see from, say, a 5120×1440 option.

And you’ll want those frames. With its 240Hz refresh rate and 0.03ms response time, plus compatibility with both AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync, this thing is made for gamers. It doesn’t skimp on connections either, with DisplayPort, double HDMI, and USB-C video with 65 watts of power output to charge a laptop. It can even function as a decent console display with an included remote control.

I’ve seen this monitor at Best Buy retail stores, so there seem to be lots of units on hand. It’s available to pick up today at my nearby store… and you might want to try to do the same since it’s showing a massive $200 delivery charge. (To be fair, it is an enormous monitor.) If I had to guess, I’d say this price is likely to remain good through Black Friday, but stock at nearby stores might sell out fast.

Take $700 off this 45-inch LG OLED gaming monitorBuy now at Best Buy

Looking for other Black Friday monitor deals? Be sure to check out our roundup of early Black Friday deals on monitors.

Complexity is frequently the default setting for business-to-business (B2B) payments, particularly cross-border ones.

But the industry is moving toward greater simplicity and automation with the help of innovations such as embedded finance, API-driven seamless integrations, and artificial intelligence (AI) powered workflows that collectively promise to remove friction and align systems.

And with the news Thursday (Nov. 21) that Mastercard’s Multi-Token Network (MTN) has connected to J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys Digital Payments to streamline cross-border B2B transactions, leveraging blockchain for better payments is top of mind for B2B firms operating internationally.

The partnership allows for the real-time transfer of value, reducing time zone friction and settlement delays — a critical development for industries operating 24/7 supply chains.

Kinexys is a blockchain-based payment platform that uses commercial bank money for real-time value transfers, while MTN is a collection of blockchain-based tools and standards designed to facilitate innovative business models. The integration of these two platforms allows mutual clients to settle transactions more quickly and efficiently through a single API, reducing the complexities and time constraints often associated with cross-border payments.

“For years, both Mastercard and Kinexys by J.P. Morgan have been committed to innovating for the future of digital asset and commercial infrastructure. By bringing together the power and connectivity of Mastercard’s MTN with Kinexys Digital Payments, we are unlocking greater speed and settlement capabilities for the entire value chain,” Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president, Blockchain and Digital Assets at Mastercard, said in press release.

Read also: Can Stablecoins Spark Crypto Adoption Across Retail and B2B Markets?

Enhancing Efficiency in Cross-Border Payments

The integration of the J.P. Morgan blockchain with Mastercard’s capabilities addresses longstanding challenges in B2B payments, including time zone friction, settlement delays and limited transparency. By enabling mutual customers to settle transactions through a single API, the partnership reduces operational complexities and accelerates payment processing across borders.

This move aligns with broader industry trends emphasizing the importance of speed and efficiency in global commerce, while also reflecting the growing importance of interoperability in the payments ecosystem.

“Blockchain technology, and public blockchains in particular, are opening up a number of new use cases, one of which is to transfer value … from one country to another,” Dhamodharan told PYMNTS in an earlier interview.

And as PYMNTS has covered, consensus is slowly but steadily building among industry experts that blockchain technology and new infrastructures could transform the future of cross-border payments.

“Blockchain solutions and stablecoins, I don’t like to use the term crypto because this is more about FinTech, they’ve found product-market-fit in cross-border payments,” Sheraz Shere, GM payments and commerce at Solana Foundation, told PYMNTS. “You get the disintermediation, you get the speed, you get the transparency, you get extremely low cost.”

For example, PayPal will begin letting its disbursement partners use PayPal USD to settle cross-border money transfers. The new service will be offered through PayPal’s Xoom cross-border payments business, according to a Tuesday (Nov. 19) press release. Philippines-based financial services firm Cebuana Lhuillier and Africa’s Yellow Card are the first users.

Read more: How AI and Blockchain Innovations Are Reshaping Cross-Border Commerce

Unlocking New Use Cases in B2B Payments

Blockchain technology, once synonymous with cryptocurrencies and speculative trading, is finding a more grounded — and potentially transformative — application in the world of B2B payments.

The global B2B payments market is vast, expected to surpass $120 trillion annually by 2030, according to industry analysts. Yet despite its size, the sector remains bogged down by friction. Payment processing times can stretch into days, driven by disparate banking systems, time zone differences, and manual reconciliation. Fees for intermediary services often cut into margins, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). For companies reliant on predictable cash flow, such delays are more than an inconvenience — they’re a financial risk.

As digital assets and blockchain technology gain traction in the B2B sector, partnerships like the one between Mastercard and J.P. Morgan underscore the potential for collaboration between legacy financial institutions and blockchain innovators.

Tony McLaughlin, emerging payments at Citi Services, told PYMNTS he envisions a future where blockchain plays a complementary role to existing financial messaging systems, offering a new level of coordination and efficiency. Using an analogy, he compared today’s financial transactions to organizing a dinner party via email, where multiple threads of communication make coordination difficult. By contrast, blockchain could act like a messaging app, where all parties have a shared understanding of the transaction’s status — a “common state” that allows for better orchestration of balance sheet updates.

The post Mastercard and J.P. Morgan Are Building an Interoperable B2B Blockchain Together appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Illustration: The Verge

A federal lawsuit over Minnesota’s “Use of Deep Fake Technology to Influence An Election” law is now directly dealing with the influence of AI. In a recent filing, attorneys challenging the law say an affidavit submitted to support it shows signs of containing AI-generated text. The Minnesota Reformer reports Attorney General Keith Ellison asked Stanford Social Media Lab founding director Jeff Hancock to make the submission, but the document filed includes non-existent sources that seem to have been hallucinated by ChatGPT or another large language model (LLM).

Hancock’s affidavit cites a 2023 study published in the Journal of Information Technology & Politics titled “The Influence of Deepfake Videos on Political Attitudes and Behavior.”…

Continue reading…

A group of cybercriminals called Scattered Spider have been charged with orchestrating an $11 million phishing operation that breached corporations and sacked millions in cryptocurrency.

US authorities revealed charges against five individuals accused of masterminding the scheme. The scheme targeted employees of companies across the country, exploiting their credentials to gain access to sensitive data and personal crypto wallets.

Crypto Cartel Uses Smishing to Extort $11 Million

The operation relied on an attack vector as simple as it was insidious: SMS phishing, or “smishing.” Between September 2021 and April 2023, employees received text messages that appeared to come from their employers or affiliated IT vendors.

The messages warned of impending account deactivations and directed recipients to bogus websites disguised as legitimate company portals. Here, employees unwittingly handed over their login credentials, giving the hackers the keys to unlock both corporate networks and, eventually, crypto wallets.

Court documents paint a detailed picture of the group’s precision. First, they duped employees into sharing their information, and then they bypassed two-factor authentication, tricking victims into approving login attempts. This allowed the hackers to infiltrate corporate systems, steal intellectual property, and gather troves of personal data. But the heist didn’t end there.

The stolen information became the foundation for a secondary assault — this time on individual cryptocurrency accounts. The group allegedly used their stolen data to drain $11 million in digital assets from unsuspecting crypto holders.

“Here’s how threat actors, such as SCATTERED SPIDER, conduct vishing (phone call phishing) attacks to trick victims into sharing sensitive information, such as login credentials, financial details, or security codes. These attackers often pose as trusted entities, like IT support, creating a sense of urgency to manipulate their targets into compliance,” an X crypto influencer said.

The accused are young, tech-savvy individuals with diverse online identities. One of them is 23-year-old Ahmed Hossam Eldin Elbadawy, known as ‘AD. Another is 20-year-old Noah Michael Urban, who used aliases like “Sosa” and “Elijah.”

Also involved are 20-year-old Evans Onyeaka Osiebo and 25-year-old Joel Martin Evans, called “joeleoli,” both based in the US. Lastly, 22-year-old Tyler Robert Buchanan resides in the UK. Authorities in the United States have already made arrests, including a defendant, Urban, who is also facing separate fraud charges in Florida.

The legal repercussions are significant. If convicted, the defendants could face up to 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, additional sentences for related charges, and mandatory prison time for identity theft. For Tyler Buchanan, wire fraud charges alone could add decades to his potential sentence.

As decentralized assets grow in popularity, so too does the ingenuity of those seeking to exploit them. This case warns corporations and crypto users to stay alert against phishing and strengthen security measures. In a digital world where trust holds value, complacency comes at a high and sometimes devastating cost.

The post US Authorities Charge Five Criminals in $11 Million Crypto Phishing Scheme appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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I’ve picked out nine solid deals that combine North Face’s quality with genuine savings — from lightweight layers to winter-ready coats.

In a landmark antitrust case, the government asked a judge to force the company to sell its popular Chrome browser.