According to the company, their diagnostics system has recently been tested and seemed to prove more accurate than real life doctors at spotting conditions in patients.
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Category: bitcoin – Page 54
Artist Hides Secret Code to $10,000 Worth of Cryptocurrencies in Lego Artworks
It has no inherent value and causes observers to rotate between feelings of fascination and anger. We’re talking about cryptocurrency, but also art. In a new series, artist Andy Bauch is bringing the two subjects together with works that use abstract patterns constructed in Lego bricks. Each piece visually represents the private key to a crypto-wallet, and anyone can steal that digital cash—if you can decode them.
Bauch first started playing around with cryptocurrencies in 2013 and told us in an interview that he considers himself an enthusiast but not a “rabid promoter” of the technology. “I wasn’t smart enough to buy enough to have fuck-you money,” he said. In 2016, he started to integrate his Bitcoin interest with his art practice.
His latest series of work, New Money, opens at LA’s Castelli Art Space on Friday. Bauch says that each piece in the series “is a secret key to various types of cryptocurrency.” He bought various amounts of Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other alt-coins in 2016 and put them in different digital wallets. Each wallet is encrypted with a private key that consists of a string of letters and numbers. That key was initially fed into an algorithm to generate a pattern. Then Bauch tweaked the algorithm here and there to get it to spit out an image that appealed to him. After finalizing the works, he’s rigorously tested them in reverse to ensure that they do, indeed, give you the right private key when processed through his formula.
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IBM Bets Company On Exponential Innovation In AI, Blockchain, And Quantum Computing
On the Right Track
In the final analysis, while IBM clearly has more work to do, it’s on the right track. Its investments in cloud and AI are already paying off, while blockchain and quantum computing bets are looking promising.
Furthermore, while IBM’s progress overall is clearly a massive team effort, Big Blue’s execution is due in large part to Rometty’s six years of leadership.
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Nebula Genomics
Pharma and biotech companies spend billions of dollars each year to acquire genomic data. Scientists need large genomic datasets to identify causes of disease and develop cures. However, growth of the genomic data market is hindered by small data quantities, data fragmentation, lack of data standardization and slow data acquisition.
Nebula Genomics will leverage blockchain technology to eliminate the middleman and empower people to own their personal genomic data. This will effectively lower sequencing costs and enhance data privacy, resulting in growth of genomic data. Our open protocol will leverage the genomic data growth by enabling data buyers to efficiently aggregate standardized data from many individuals and genomic databanks.
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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says Bitcoin will be world’s ‘single currency’
Speaking at London’s British Library, Dorsey said; ‘The world ultimately will have a single currency, the internet will have a single currency.
‘And I believe that it will be bBtcoin’, he said.
The Twitter founder’s talk was centred around Dorsey’s new payments firm, Square, which allows merchants to take payments via smartphones and tablets.
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Meet the First American to Sell Her Home Using Blockchain
Through a pilot program between the city of South Burlington and Propy, a blockchain platform designed to facilitate real estate transactions, a Vermont woman became the first person in the U.S. to sell a home using blockchain.
On February 20, Vermonter Katherine Purcell did something extraordinary: She sold her home. And yes, people sell their homes every year—scores of them. But Purcell’s sale was fundamentally different: There’s a record of it on a blockchain.
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The world’s first blockchain-powered elections just happened in Sierra Leone
On Mar. 7, elections in Sierra Leone marked a global landmark: the world’s first ever blockchain-powered presidential elections.
As president Ernest Bai Koroma leaves office after serving two five-year terms, the maximum allowed constitutionally, Sierra Leoneans have had to pick from a pool of 16 candidates including the ruling party’s Samura Kamara, the erstwhile foreign minister, and Julius Maada Bio, former military head of state and candidate of the main opposition party.
Results released by Sierra Leone’s election commission (NEC) suggest a run-off between Bio and Kamara is likely with neither candidate securing the required 55% of votes so far. Sierra Leone’s new president will be tasked with a continued rebuilding given the country’s recent major disasters. In 2014, an Ebola outbreak led to nearly 4,000 deaths and GDP losses estimated at $1.4 billion—a major loss for one of the world’s poorest countries. Last year Sierra Leone’s capital also suffered devastating flooding and mudslides believed to have claimed more than 1,000 lives.
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John Oliver explains Bitcoin, Blockchain & Crypto (with precision & clarity)!
John Oliver is a crossover who bridges the art of a comedian with the reporting and perspective of a liberal political pundit. Even detractors acknowledge that Oliver addresses serious issues with unusual wit and humor.
I never thought Oliver could (or would) tackle the topic of cryptocurrency—at least not with value to the viewer. It is too geeky, and too esoteric. (It also cuts into my mission of evangelism and education). smile
He did, and he sparkles! Feel free to jump past the fluff. The Bitcoin tutorial starts at 3:40. Of course, my friend, Shechter, in Long Island New York will bust a gut over what Oliver says at 9:40. It is not only clear and concise, it is accurate and terribly funny!
Whether you are a Bitcoin newbie or a seasoned blockchain coder, this is the video you have been looking for. This one is durable.
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What sets cryptocurrencies apart from each other?
Today, I was asked to answer this question at Quora:
“What sets each cryptocurrency apart from the others?”
“Cryptocurrency” is a broad term. It refers to payment coins, of course—such as Bitcoin and Litecoin. But, because most tradeable tokens attain an asset value, the word is often used to refer to smart contract devices, such as Ethereum, a host of other blockchain based tokens, functional Internet-of-Things tokens, and even ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings). Since people treat ICOs and IOT tokens as investment instruments even if they are useless as a payment mechanism, they all fall within the realm of a cryptocurrency.
So, before addressing the question, let’s distinguish between Altcoins and ICOs. I assume the question refers to Altcoins, and not ICOs…
ICOs are almost all scams. A very few of these are designed to function in a well-defined IOT role (Internet-of-Things). But, any ICO that you are likely to hear about share one or more traits described here.
But Altcoins are different. These are typically forked from Bitcoin or another established blockchain-backed coin. They are created because developers feel that they have solved one or more of the problems that limit the growth or appeal of Bitcoin. For example, Bitcoin has (or recently had) all these problems or perceived limitations:
- Transaction Malleability (Recently solved with activation of SegWit)
- Speed of transaction (Now being addressed by Lightning Network)
- Cost of transaction (Also addressed by Lightning Network early 2018)
- Very high electrical demand by miners (Still a major problem)
- Fairness of and speed of distributed governance process (a big problem)
- Finding a validation incentive after mining runs out (a long term issue)
- Deep privacy features. These are inherent to Monero and Zcash. (Bitcoin will soon support onion routing transactions to enhance privacy)
- Disparate goals of miners, developers, vendors and users (still a problem)
- Limited Smart Contract mechanism (Ethereum is the current king in this realm, with slick methods of administering and executing contracts. Bitcoin will eventually acquire these features & benefits.
- Like ICOs (these are almost all scams), some Altcoins (not scams) address specific IOT applications. This is a legitimate and non-payment use of blockchain technology. It represents a promising evolution. It is not yet clear if Bitcoin can eventually adopt these features and function in a non-payment, IOT capacity. The intrinsic, stored value aspect of Bitcoin would make it difficult to use in such applications.
One big problem facing Bitcoin is that the distributed consensus mechanism that makes it a trusted, peer-to-peer mechanism is based on Proof-of-Work (POW). Coupled with a mining incentive that increases dramatically with exchange rate, Bitcoin is—quite simply—untenable. With consumption topping 33 terawatt hours in December 2017, it already consumes more power than some countries. If even 2% of the world’s payment transactions were settled in Bitcoin, the mining would consume more power than is generated throughout the world. This just cannot continue!
Fortunately, developers and armchair inventors have proposed or demonstrated clever POW alternatives to achieve a fair distributed consensus. Some of these use a Proof-of-Stake mechanism, while others add a limited central-authority nexus to facilitate governance and scaling. Some are built on a modified blockchain that weaken several pillars of a true decentralized, p2p network. Of course, researchers are concerned that these systems deteriorate the decentralized nature of Satoshi’s original blockchain.
But, other systems may allow for a fully distributed and democratic trust platform, such as BFT Replication (IBM) or Distributed Objective Consensus, which was proposed by an amateur mathematician.
In reply to the title question, Altcoins are set apart by their claim to address the above problems & limitations, or to add features.
Will an Altcoin Triumph over Bitcoin?
Perhaps, a few altcoins will thrive, due to specific niche advantages; features that Bitcoin chooses not to address, such as deep anonymity or with a novel utilitarian feature that facilitates a specific Internet-of-Things process.
Unfortunately for altcoins, all coins require public trust and transparency. For this reason, they are open source, permissionless, without licensing, without patent protection and with a fully disclosed pre-mining history. And for that reason, Bitcoin is free to steal any clever advantage that works. It’s all up for grabs and no one can be sued.
In effect, each altcoin as a beta test platform for Bitcoin. Now that Bitcoin is finally addressing the problems of scalability and fair/speedy governance, there is little doubt that it will continue to dwarf other coins.
Philip Raymond sits on Lifeboat’s New Money Systems board. He co-chairs CRYPSA, hosts the New York Bitcoin Event and is keynote speaker at Cryptocurrency Conferences around the world. Book a presentation or consulting engagement.
Building a Bitcoin ATM is easy, but…
A new section about Bitcoin ATM business models
has been added. Jump to “UPDATE – July 2019”
The good news is that building a Bitcoin ATM is easy and less expensive than you might expect. But, offering or operating them engulfs the assembler in a regulatory minefield! It might just be worth sticking to selling bitcoin on PayPal (visit this website for more information on that). You might also wish to rethink your business model—especially user-demand scenarios. See our 2019 update at the bottom of this article.
A photo of various Bitcoin ATMs appears at the bottom of this article. My employer, Cryptocurrency Standards Association, shared start-up space at a New York incubator with the maker of a small, wall mounted ATM, like the models shown at top left.
What is Inside a Cryptocurrency ATM?
You could cobble together a Bitcoin ATM with just a cheap Android tablet, a camera, an internet connection, and [optional]: a secure cash drawer with a mechanism to count and dispense currency).* A receipt printer that can also generate a QR code is a nice touch, but you don’t really need one. You can use your screen for the coin transfer and email for a receipt.
Of course your programming and user interface makes all the difference in the world. And your ATM must interface with an exchange—yours or a 3rd party exchange.
If your plan is to sell Bitcoin and not exchange it for cash, then you don’t need a currency dispensing component at all. You only need a credit card swipe-reader and an RFI tap reader. Some models are smaller than a cookie and sell for under $30. They can be attractively embedded into your machine. In fact, some bank card processors offer them without cost.
I Have Built a Prototype. Now What?
Desktop ATM. No cash dispensed