Bebe Stores: The Latest Credit Card Breach Victim

According to Brian Krebs, a renowned security investigator, Bebe Stores Inc. is the latest victim of a credit/debit card breach.

Presently, there is no official statement by Bebe Stores Inc. concerning how many cards have been stolen, but data from banks nationwide suggest that the cards had all been physically swiped at Bebe stores in the United States between November 18th and November 28th.

There has been no indication of whether the malware still exists to steal card data from the Bebe network, but the safe bet is to avoid making purchases from Bebe until confirmation of its removal has been announced.

SP+ Parking Garage Operator Credit Card Breach

At this point in the year after so many data breaches on credit card numbers, I shouldn't have to tell you to keep your eye on your financial account statements, but if you've been paying for parking garages lately, don't stop anytime soon.

SP+, previously known as Standard Parking Corporation, is a leading national provider of parking management services. Based out of Chicago, Illinois, they company manages approximately 4,200 parking facility locations along with parking and shuttle bus operations for 75 airports. They are also the next victim of a Point-of-Sale data breach, joining into the ranks of Target, Home Depot, and P.F. Chang's.

Apple Geniuses Patent Bendable Phone Features After #Bendgate

Maybe the #Bendgate will result in some nifty new "features" from Apple.

The negative publicity that resulted from YouTuber, Lewis Hilsenteger, from the channel "Unbox Therapy" (huge fan by the way, Lou) has resulted in an onslaught of questions concerning the build quality of the new iPhone 6 Plus. This has even resulted in a company selling pre-bent iPhone 6 cases to compliment your new bent phone. However, this scandal obviously gave somebody at Apple an idea to make a bendable phone into a "feature" rather than a flaw. Jokes aside, this patent was actually filed before the revelation of weak iPhone structures, but was just awarded on October 7th, 2014. 

The patent, #8,855,727, covers a feature to use a bending screen as an input method to trigger user commands. Examples of this could be bending the top right corner of your phone to call your mom,while bending your phone down the middle might launch your favorite game to play. Maybe there will be a certain combination of ways to bend your phone in order to unlock it. Flexbile displays are not an unheard of concept, but having functionality result from bending the screen in a specific way is.

Personally, this seems like a dead-end for any future smart phones, but Apple has surprised me in the past. I'm holding off on the iPhone 6 in-part due to the questionable build quality, but maybe a bendable phone will be a luxury in the future rather than an issue.