Lifeboat Foundation

A security company wants to modernize the “backward-looking” and “inherently inefficient” video surveillance industry by offering a blockchain-based system which allows users to react to threats in real time.

Faceter’s decentralized surveillance technology – which it claims is a world first for consumers – “gives brains to cameras” by enabling them to instantly detect faces, objects and analyze video feeds. Although some B2B providers do offer similar features, the company claims they are currently too expensive for smaller firms and the public at large because of the “substantial computing resources” such technology needs.

According to Faceter’s white paper, Blockchain has the potential to make this solution affordable for everyone – as computing power for recognition calculations would be generated by a network of miners.

Continue reading “This blockchain-based surveillance startup detects crime in real-time” »

Getting your head around cryptocurrencies was hard enough before governments got involved. But now that policy makers around the world are drawing up fresh regulations on everything from exchanges to initial coin offerings, keeping track of what’s legal has become just as daunting as figuring out which newfangled token might turn into the next Bitcoin.

The rules can vary wildly by country, given a lack of global coordination among authorities. And while that may change after finance chiefs discuss digital assets at the Group of 20 meeting in Buenos Aires this week, for the time being there’s a wide range of opinions on how best to regulate the space. Below is a rundown of what major countries are doing now.

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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Continue reading “Blockchain System Aims to Identify Health Problems Using AI” »

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.

Continue reading “Artist Hides Secret Code to $10,000 Worth of Cryptocurrencies in Lego Artworks” »

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.

Continue reading “IBM Bets Company On Exponential Innovation In AI, Blockchain, And Quantum Computing” »

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.

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.

Continue reading “Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says Bitcoin will be world’s ‘single currency’” »

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.

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.