In a blog post yesterday, Samsung announced plans to launch a Samsung Pay debit card this summer. The Verge reports: Samsung will launch the card, which will be backed by a cash management account, in partnership with personal finance company SoFi, Ahn said. Samsung is also developing a "mobile-first money management platform," according to Ahn. His blog doesn't detail what features that money management platform or the upcoming debit card may have, but he does say that Samsung will share more details "in the coming weeks." Samsung joins Apple in offering a branded payment card. Google is reportedly working on its own branded payment card as well, though Google's will apparently be a debit card, like Samsung's. Google will also supposedly offer spending-tracking tools for the card.

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Google's move to put Javier Soltero, VP and GM of G Suite, in charge of Messages, Duo, and the phone app on Android, puts all of Google's major communication products under one umbrella: Soltero's team. Dieter Bohn reports via The Verge: Soltero tells me that there are no immediate plans to change or integrate any of Google's apps, so don't get your hopes up for that (yet). "We believe people make choices around the products that they use for specific purposes," Soltero says. Still, Google's communications apps are in dire need of a more coherent and opinionated production development, and Soltero could very well be the right person to provide that direction. Prior to joining Google, he had a long career that included creating the much-loved Acompli email app, which Microsoft acquired and essentially turned into the main Outlook app less than two months after signing the deal. Soltero has also moved rapidly (at least by the standards of Google's communication apps) to clean up the Hangouts branding mess, converting Hangouts Video to Google Meet and Hangouts Chat to Google Chat -- at least on the enterprise side. Google Meet also became free for everybody far ahead of the original schedule because of the pandemic. Cleaning up the consumer side of all that is more complicated, but Soltero says, "The plan continues to be to modernize [Hangouts] towards Google Meet and Google Chat." "Soltero will remain on the cloud team but will join Hiroshi Lockheimer's leadership team," Dieter adds. While Lockheimer believes there are opportunities to better integrate Google's apps into its platforms, he says it doesn't make sense to force integration or interoperability too quickly. "It's not necessarily a bad thing that there are multiple communications applications if they're for a different purpose," Lockheimer says. "Part of what might be confusing, what we've done to confuse everyone, is our history around some of our communications products that have gone from one place or another place. But we're looking forward now, in a way that has a much more coherent vision."

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An anonymous reader quotes CNN: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday issued an emergency use authorization for the first at-home Covid-19 test that uses saliva samples, the agency said in a news release. Rutgers University's RUCDR Infinite Biologics lab received an amended emergency authorization late Thursday. With the test, people can collect their own saliva at home and send their saliva samples to a lab for results... "Authorizing additional diagnostic tests with the option of at-home sample collection will continue to increase patient access to testing for COVID-19. This provides an additional option for the easy, safe and convenient collection of samples required for testing without traveling to a doctor's office, hospital or testing site," FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn said in the FDA's press release on Friday... The test remains prescription only.

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Annual Las Vegas hacker gathering DEF CON has officially called off its physical conference for this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Register reports: In what was pretty much a foregone conclusion, the organizing team today said the in-person event would not be held in 2020. It had been slated to take place in August. This comes after the more formal Black Hat USA event, usually scheduled to run the same week as DEF CON in Sin City, was shelved as an in-person shindig, due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic forcing everyone to stay home where possible. Both shows will tentatively take place as web streaming affairs this summer. For DEF CON 28, this means a 'Safe Mode' online gathering, with video streams and a Discord server, between August 6 and 9. "Even if a vaccine were to be discovered tomorrow it would not be soon enough to test, manufacture, distribute and administer in time for people to safely to travel by August," explained Jeff "The Dark Tangent" Moss. "Too many states have stayed open or are reopening, people partied for far too long, and the lack of federal coordination gives me no hope that things will get back to normal this year. I also worry that the conferences that postponed to later this year will be caught up in the 'second wave' after restrictions start to ease and they will end up having to cancel. Because of this, postponing for DEF CON was not an option."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Crawling along the world's river bottoms, the larvae of the caddis fly suffer a perpetual housing crisis. To protect themselves from predators, they gather up sand grains and other sediment and paste them all together with silk, forming a cone that holds their worm-like bodies. As they mature and elongate, they have to continuously add material to the case -- think of it like adding rooms to your home for the rest of your life, or at least until you turn into an adult insect. If the caddis fly larva somehow loses its case, it's got to start from scratch, and that's quite the precarious situation for a defenseless tube of flesh. And now, the microplastic menace is piling onto the caddis fly's list of tribulations. Microplastic particles -- pieces of plastic under 5 millimeters long -- have already corrupted many of Earth's environments, including the formerly pristine Arctic and deep-sea sediments. In a study published last year, researchers in Germany reported finding microplastic particles in the cases of caddis flies in the wild. Then, last month, they published the troubling results of lab experiments that found the more microplastic particles a caddis fly larva incorporates into its case, the weaker that structure becomes. That could open up caddis flies to greater predation, sending ripple effects through river ecosystems. In the lab, the researchers found that the larvae chose to use two kinds of microplastics to build their cases, likely because the plastic is lighter than the sand, so it's not as hard to lift. The problem is that the cases with more plastic and less sand collapse more easily, weakening the larvae's protection from predatory fish, among other things. A more long-term concern is bioaccumulation. "A small fish eats a larva, a bigger fish eats the smaller fish, all the way on up, and the concentrations of microplastic and associated toxins accumulate over time," the report says. "The bigger predators that people eat, like tuna, may be absorbing those microplastics and the chemicals they leach." The study has been published in the journal Environmental Science and Pollution Research.

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Here's what the Big Ten, NCAA and NBA are doing for fans who bought tickets to upcoming games they now cannot attend.

An insurance payment due to Victor Oladipo's injury gives Pacers lowest payroll in NBA

Mike Conley is Tamika Catchings' first-round opponent in the NBA's HORSE event on ESPN; competitors will remain separated

Myles Turner of the Indiana Pacers discusses coronavirus and how his performance changed after the All-Star break

Source: The Pacers will listen to the government and follow its lead before bringing players back

Indiana Pacers TV announcers Chris Denari and Quinn Buckner are among those up for honors

Italian beef and Chicago-style hot dogs are now being sold near Ronald Reagan Parkway and U.S. 36.

The Vasquez family makes tamales to sell at the Carmel Farmer's Market

Tucked into his porch, musician Tim Brickley sang classics for a tiny group of neighbors and passersby as relief from home isolation.

After ending print publication in 2019 and moving to online nonprofit model, Nuvo will cease operations.

IndyFringe, the popular Mass Ave. theater festival, has been canceled. Social distancing requirements will not allow the artists to prepare.

Symphony on the Prairie has been canceled, along with other popular concerts this summer. Here's when the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra will be back

Half-price tickets let you eat, drink wine and see Food Network's Scott Conant at the IndyStar Wine & Food Experience.

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Joan Jett will make a special appearance at the Indiana stop of the Vans Warped Tour.

The Boilermakers received a commitment from Caleb Furst, a 2021 prospect from Fort Wayne Blackhawk Christian

George Faerber still holds 17 records from his high school career, including a game with 52 points and 32 rebounds.

Purdue coach Matt Painter met with the media Tuesday to discuss a wide range of subjects

Former Center Grove High School kicker gets a big-screen announcement from the former Colts punter.

The Greyhounds were run off the field by Louisville Trinity in a 41-14 opening week loss. Since then, Carmel is 2-0 and outscored opponents 57-14.

McCorkle leads the Class A second-ranked Cougars in scoring (13.7 ppg), rebounding (6.9) and assists (4.2) through 11 games this season.

Four-time regional champion Brayden Lowery on his love of wrestling, favorite memories, college plans and more

Mike and Carol Dale purchased the dilapidated home at 551 W. Madison St. in Franklin in 2019 and soon discovered it was an 1830s log cabin.

Sue Tameling was in her role as Greenwood Christian AD for less than two years, but she left an impression as a mentor, teacher and a friend.

St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Moon Taxi will headline Holler on the Hill, a new two-day Indianapolis music festival.

Elvis Presley fans gather inside new luxury apartment tower 360 Market Square to rededicate 16-year-old plaque previously displaced by construction.

Woody Guthrie Center will honor John Mellencamp's career of spotlighting "the everyday man and woman, the less fortunate and the forgotten."

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Joan Jett will make a special appearance at the Indiana stop of the Vans Warped Tour.

Some people like to read something more unusual than magazines or books. Take Away English reports.

What type of films do you like? Read about the 62nd Cannes Film Festival in this week's Take Away English.

Source: The Pacers will listen to the government and follow its lead before bringing players back

Indiana Pacers TV announcers Chris Denari and Quinn Buckner are among those up for honors

It's taken over forty years to produce but now the world's first historical thesaurus is ready to be published.

Better internet access in eastern and southern Africa should mean good news for businesses in the region.

Wandering around the internet, I was searching for 2 different things at the same time: a hotel for a romantic weekend getaway (with our lovely dog!) and a new apartment to rent. I suddenly asked myself: “Why not renting a vacation home instead of booking the usual same type of hotels (those few hotels that [...]

LaVall Jordan on transfers: 'We'd rather have nobody than the wrong guy.'

Butler basketball's 2010 run to the final four was magical

Butler Bulldogs is a finalist for some prominent college basketball transfers after missing out on a guard.