Facebook and PayPal Thursday announced a tie-up to use PayPal as the way to pay for Facebook’s advertising and developer systems.

Facebook has currently over 400 million users worldwide, including 120 million in the US alone. Owned by eBay, PayPal is the online mode to pay for e-commerce transactions worldwide. It has 81 million accounts in 24 currencies around the world.

Under the tie-up, advertisers around the world will be able to use PayPal to pay for Facebook advertisements, PayPal said in a press release.

For businesses in areas where the payment process can be difficult and expensive, PayPal said its services will make it easier for advertisers to run campaigns on Facebook.

PayPal can also be used for the newly started Facebook Credits which aims to give (Facebook) users a fast and easy way

to buy virtual goods on Facebook, including items from the Facebook Gift Shop, the statement said.

“We want to give the people who use Facebook, as well as advertisers and developers, a fast and trusted way to pay across our service,” the statement quoted Dan Levy, director of payment operations at Facebook.

“As our business has grown, offering local methods of payment has become increasingly important for advertisers who

want to buy Facebook Ads. Teaming with PayPal, a global leader in online payments, makes this possible,” he said.

Osama Bedier, PayPal vice president (emerging technologies), added, “Put simply, PayPal’s business is payments. We make

it easier for customers to send and receive money online in 24 currencies and 190 markets around the world.

Share on Facebook

iPhone users beware – an ongoing phishing campaign impersonating Apple.com, attempts to trick users into submitting sensitive device information, with the scammers in a perfect position to use the data in a countless number of fraudulent variations.

Here are more details on the campaign, and why would phishers want access to such information.

The phishing campaign has been in circulation for over two weeks, and continues using the “FREE 1 Year Warranty Extension Offer” theme in emails coming with subjects such as “IMPORTANT: Your FREE iPhone Warranty Extension for 1 Year!“, leading to domain using fast-flux hosting infrastructure – www.apple.com.PHISHING.com/uk/iphone/warranty.htm.

What’s also worth pointing out is that the phishers require the user to submit their email at the first stage of the process, presumably saving themselves time in validating it, or in an attempt to contact the recipient in the long-term requesting more data.

What are the phishers after? The email of the user, the Serial number, IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity), the type of iPhone (ie. 3G / 3GS) and the capacity of the device (ie. 16GB / 32GB).

Why would a phisher want access to such data? Whereas some would point out that they’re interested in the practice due to the blocked IMEI numbers of stolen devices, which they can now change to ones that are not blacklisted, the long-term possibility of building inventories of such data to be re-sold to criminals looking for ways to bypass prepaid SIM restrictions, is a fully realistic one.

Consider going through related posts: iHacked: jailbroken iPhones compromised, $5 ransom demanded; Source code for ikee iPhone worm in the wild; iPhone’s anti-phishing protection offers inconsistent results; Apple adds malware blocker in Snow Leopard; Apple (Snow Leopard) malware blocker collecting cobwebs
Over the past year, there have been numerous developments internationally aiming to restrict the selling of prepaid SIM cards, which offer a safe heaven for criminals since no personal identification is required/stored when purchasing them.

With safety measures varying from mobile carrier to mobile carrier, with only a few publicly disclosing the protections they’ve built in order to limit the use of cloned devices on their networks, there are still countries where the lack of basic restrictions is naturally resulting in demand for such data, which the cybercrime ecosystem can easily supply through phishing campaigns.

The entire business model can be undermined by the mobile carriers realizing the potential for abuse, and by those actually obliged by law to ensure such activities cannot take place within their networks.

Share on Facebook

Google said Tuesday that Stephanie Tilenius was joining the company as vice president of commerce, a new position.

Google said little about the role of Ms. Tilenius, a veteran eBay executive who announced in late September that she would leave that company. People close to Google said Ms. Tilenius would oversee Google Checkout, the company’s online payments system, and other e-commerce efforts. Her hiring suggests a push by Google into online commerce, though it is not clear exactly what Google’s plans are.

If Google makes inroads into e-commerce, it could cause headaches for a number of online retailers, as many of them get a majority of their traffic from Google, both through Web search and search ads. EBay, for example, relies on Google for much of its traffic and is one of the biggest advertisers on Google. The two companies’ relationship has already had its rocky moments, as Google positioned Checkout as a rival to PayPal, eBay’s online payment service.

Ms. Tilenius held a variety of executive roles at eBay since arriving there in 2001. Most recently, she ran eBay North America and global product management for eBay Marketplaces. Earlier, she headed PayPal’s merchant services business and ran eBay Motors and eBay Asia Pacific and Latin America. She was a co-founder of PlanetRx.com, an early e-commerce company.

EBay announced the departure of Ms. Tilenius as part of a reorganization in September, saying she would leave the company by early this year.

Share on Facebook

A lifelong fascination with science fiction and the ocean has driven “Avatar” director James Cameron’s career, he told the TED2010 conference Saturday.

“The ocean is so rich with amazing life,” he said beginning a session called “Wisdom,” the final one of the conference. “Nature’s imagination is so boundless compared to our own human imagination.”

Cameron said some thought his filming of “Titanic” was about the opportunity to depict “Romeo and Juliet” on the doomed ship. In fact, he said, “Secretly I wanted to dive to the wreck of the Titanic.”

He did wind up exploring the wreck and said he saw amazing forms of underwater life. Cameron was struck by the comparison between deep ocean exploration and space travel; in both cases there’s a search for alien creatures and no hope of rescue if you can’t get back yourself. “I completely closed the loop between being a science fiction fan as a kid and doing this stuff for real.”

TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, is a nonprofit that hosts conferences which attract an influential audience and prominent speakers, including Bill Gates this year and last year. TED makes its talks available for free on the web.

Cameron’s ground-breaking film, Avatar, has received nine Academy Award nominations and is the highest-grossing film ever (without taking inflation into account).

A late addition to the program, he told the audience of 1,500 and hundreds of others watching remotely that he decided in his teens to become a scuba diver but lived in a little village in Canada 600 miles from the ocean. He became certified as a diver in a YMCA pool across the border in Buffalo, N.Y., but didn’t get to start exploring the ocean until he moved to California two years later.

In the past 40 years, Cameron has spent 3,000 hours underwater, with 500 of that in submersibles.

Cameron says he’s learned a lot about science, but even more significantly he has learned lessons about leadership.

He says he asked himself why he tackled exploration. “You’re doing it for the challenge, the thrill of discovery and the strange bond that happens when a small group of people form a team,” Cameron said. “In that bond you realize the most important thing is the respect that you have for them and they have for you.”

In the four years he spent making “Avatar,” he said he tried to apply that same lesson.

“Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own,” he said. “Don’t put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you…failure has to be an option in art and exploration because it’s a leap of faith.

“In whatever you’re doing, failure is an option, but fear is not.”

Share on Facebook

Apple may have the iPhone, but the iPhone doesn’t have the Xbox. On Monday, Microsoft leveraged its most compelling entertainment asset, the Xbox 360, into the Windows Phone 7 Series. But what does this mean, practically speaking?

Here’s the official word from Microsoft on how WP7 will incorporate Xbox Live.

Games–This hub delivers the first and only official Xbox Live experience on a phone, including Xbox Live games, Spotlight feed, and the ability to see a gamer’s avatar, Achievements, and gamer profile. With more than 23 million active members around the world, Xbox Live unlocks a world of friends, games, and entertainment on Xbox 360, and now also on Windows Phone 7 Series.

What we saw in Microsoft’s demo Monday fleshes that concept out a bit. There will be a Spotlight section, with your Xbox Live avatar and notice of friends’ achievements. And of course, there will be games–”premium titles” with achievements and multiplayer connected to other cell phones, PCs, and Xbox 360 consoles.

Don’t let the simple interface fool you. Xbox Live on a phone is more than having your avatar on one more screen because of the three types of games I believe we’ll see on Windows Phone 7.

Three games of Windows 7 Phone
The first type of game will be a lot like an iPhone title. Powerful pocket hardware will push impressive graphics (that make the PSP and DS look sad). That’s a simple idea that I know all of you can wrap your heads around.

Now, some of these games may be released cross-platform, as Microsoft teased Monday. They’ll be what I classify as the second type of gaming on Windows Phone 7–casual, connected titles that allow anyone with a Live account to join in (no matter if they’re on a WP7, 360, or PC). You won’t see the most beautiful XBLA titles on the phone, of course, but something like Worms? Why not? A buy-it-once, play-it-anywhere model would make this type of game incredibly enticing.

The third type of game–the one that will appeal most to the hard-core gamers–is the Xbox 360 expanded title, something unmentioned by Microsoft but that I see coming a mile away. Imagine a mini game accompaniment to Halo that could unlock more content/resources/anything. Now imagine that such a game is driven by some of the most powerful handheld processors in the world. (You should be picturing something that looks a lot like Call of Duty’s Nazi Zombies on the iPhone.) But with the iPhone, Nazi Zombies never leaves your phone–nothing about it will affect your Call of Duty experience on your home console.

This no longer needs to be the case when the game is connected to Live. AAA franchises can make their way to the mobile space with Microsoft in a way that they never could with Apple. Put differently, pocketable games can have console-level repercussions.

Microsoft’s mobile trump card
While the iPhone is a treasure trove of pocketable amusements, they’re pretty much self-contained entities working in a closed box. Sadly, pretty much the same thing can be said about the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. Nintendo and Sony have both experimented with connecting their mobile and home platforms on a title-by-title basis (and no doubt, the PSP’s early promise of Remote Play still sounds like a revolutionary idea today), but neither company has been all that successful in bridging the gap to create a seamless digital experience.

Plus, let’s face it, neither Sony nor Nintendo is relevant in the smartphone business–the present and future of pocket gaming. And while the iPhone is tough competition, it’s one phone. Windows Phone 7 Series is a specification (that includes baseline hardware specs and software specs) for many phones that could potentially be on many carriers.

Imagine if Nintendo let any willing manufacturer integrate Wii/DS services. That’s essentially what Microsoft is doing here.

But when it really comes down to it, is Microsoft selling us the Xbox 360 experience on cell phones, or is it pitching putting cell phone games on the Xbox 360? And will anyone want to create original, non-ported content for the Windows 7 Phone Series when there are 75 million iPhones and iPod Touches out there already?

Time will tell. Despite what promises to be the most full-featured mobile gaming platform of all time, Microsoft must woo developers to create compelling mobile content before any of this matters.

Share on Facebook