Y’all, it’s that last Thursday before school starts which means the Mapp household is about to ride the crazy train again. Here’s another week of tech talk with Mark Starling and the First News 570 crew. Apple becomes the most valuable company in the world, IE prepares for retirement, and Siri could let you know if you’re incapable of driving. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern.
DOTA 2 THE INTERNATIONAL 10 BECOMES MOST LUCRATIVE ESPORTS PRIZE
Valve’s Battle Royale shoot ’em up, Dota 2’s worldwide competition, International 10 has garnered the distinction of being the world’s most valuable esports competition. The International receives interests from all around the world, and it’s purse has now grown to $34,396,000. Valve has delayed the competition since last April and it may not commit to hosting the event for 2020. The prize pool is funded by taking 25% of the purchase price of Dota 2 battle passes. Valve has announced that Battle Passes will be available until September 19th giving gamers plenty of time to sweeten the pot.
CHINESE MADE PHONES SHIPPED WITH MALWARE IN AFRICA
Anti-fraud firm Upstream found malicious code installed on over 50 thousand Android phones sold in Africa. The devices are the Techno model of low cost handsets made by Transsion. Transsion claims the malware was installed in the supply chain without its knowledge. The malware installs a malicious program called xHelper that fraudulently signs up consumers to subscription services. Upstream learned that the malware has been installed on more than 200 thousand Techno handsets, so be careful out there.
FEDS NAB RUSSIAN TRYING TO HACK NEVADA COMPANY
Last weekend, Federal prosecutors arrested Russian national, Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov, met with an employee of an unnamed employee at a Nevada company. Egor met with the employee on a number of occasions offering to pay the employee $1 million to install malware on the company’s computers to force the company to pay a $4 million ransom. Egor and his conspirators wanted the employee to install the malware via a USB flash drive or sending an email with the malware attached.