The Thursday Tech Round-Up!!

From plastic to your phone, Google's new mobile payment system, social networking for gamers, Ashton Kutcher's internet start-up Midas-touch, Apple shows how to defend against Mac Defender Malware and much more!

1. Google plans to completely revolutionize payments for its new Android phones! A new mobile payment system if you will. The Internet juggarnot (we're not even sure that's a large enough word to describe them anymore) announced the news at today's Google Wallet Event. They began field-testing today bright & early and plan to launch this summer. The Google Offers app (luckily?) will be available for download on even non-NFC phones. But how will the banks respond to this new system? MasterCard has pledged its allegiance to the new mobile service, seeing it as part of a larger vision for the company as a whole. [Mashable]

2. Raptr launches the 1st ever personalized news feed for gamers. The gaming social network is known for its above the curve approach to gaming. Its site enables users to keep tabs on what their friends are doing throughout the gaming world, offers recommendations for games to play, accomplishment updates and plenty more. The already robust array of features now include the ability to submit and share a mix of content including news, videos, screenshots, status updates, and reviews, users can chat with friends in-game across platforms. [TechCrunch]

3. Ashton Kutcher may know more about tech than he appears. He's been known to get an early start at investing in some of the internet's biggest start-ups. Aside from Foursquare, he's also invested in the photo-sharing app Path, news-reading iPad app Flipboard. He just attended the TechCrunch Disrupt conference this Tuesday. He's obviously making the right moves in the tech world though. Being part of the investment group that bought into Skype in 2009, he must have obtained a hefty bundle when Microsoft announced plans to buy the internet-calling service for 3x its original amount. Almost helps you forget that he used to host Punk'd. [NYTimes]

4. Beware of Mac Defender Malware! Acknowledging the phishing scam, Apple promised an upcoming Mac OS X update. The scam works by tricking users into feeding it credit card information and could have affected 60,000-125,000 users. According to Apple's press release:

"A recent phishing scam has targeted Mac users by redirecting them from legitimate websites to fake websites which tell them that their computer is infected with a virus. The user is then offered Mac Defender "anti-virus" software to solve the issue. This "anti-virus" software is malware (i.e. malicious software). Its ultimate goal is to get the user's credit card information which may be used for fraudulent purposes." [HuffPost]

5. 3-D video may become more popular on Youtube very soon. Firefox, Youtube & Nvidia have teamed up to create HTML5-based stereoscopic 3D video. But thats only if you already own Nvidia's 3D vision-enabled hardware. [Mashable]

6. Behold the iDapt. Universal charging made simpler; one charger with swappable plugs. [Gizmodo]

7. It seems people have been confusing Opera for Oprah for years. To celebrate the final episode of Oprah's show, the internet browsing company has released a misplaced Oprah fan letter to the internet. [Mashable]

8. Amazon reveal's its list of the Most Well-Read Cities in the U.S. And New York is no where to be found. Bummer. Amazon tallied all book, magazine and newspaper sales in print & digital format since January 1st of this year on a per capita basis in cities with 100K or more residents. [Mashable]