7 Apr
0
Red Hat to help blockchain related startups
Yesterday Red Hat announced its idea to start its OpenShift blockchain that aims at helping financial companies with their initiatives related to the disruptive distributed ledger.
Thanks to OpenShift, Red Hat users can create blockchain applications using tools provided by indipendent sellers and with the support of Red Hat’s Openshift Dedicated program.
How Openshift works
OpenShift Dedicated wants to help the startups related to blockchaintech, fintech ISVs, and traditional financial companies to begin their blockchain-based projects.
“A lot of folks in the market are looking to deploy on the big cloud providers, Amazon, Google, Microsoft. There are many companies offering cloud support”, Tapia commented.
Tapia clarified that OpenShift Dedicated is available on Amazon and will soon be available on Google and Microsoft Azure as well.
During a recent interview, director of OpenShift, Julio Tapia, explained that the company wants to use its own experience in the open source sector related to blockchain technology.
These were his words:
“We want to position ourselves with not only customers and partners, but leverage solutions developed in the entire ecosystem, taking all the innovation going on in the industry, maturing it for an enterprise market and making sure all the solutions can be launched and supported.”
Red Hat with Hyperledger
Previously, in February, Red Hat announced its partnership with the Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project, “an open source platform to advance the blockchain digital technology for recording and verifying transactions”, according to the press release.
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6 Apr
0
Artificial intelligence connected to the blockchain thanks to IBM
IBM is working on an artificial intelligence that will use the blockchain.Thanks to the possibilities offered by the blockchain in terms of value exchange, the IBM artificial intelligence will be able to analyze tons of data in a small portion of time.
During the past months, IBM studied how to introduce the blockchain technology to its artificial computer called Watson.
And thanks to Tim Hahn this will happen for real. He explained to CoinDesk:
“What we’re doing with blockchain and devices is enabling the information those devices supply to effect the blockchain…You begin to approach the kind of things we see in movies.”
The blockchain applications will include the possibility to allow devices to perform tasks at a certain set time.
Also, the devices wil be registered on the blockchain and – thanks to smart contracts – different types of access will be created, allowing lots of functionalities and customization.
For example, thanks to the blockchain, Watson software could be updated remotely.
“You better be ready to actively update your devices throughout the lifecycle of your devices. Vulnerabilities will be discovered long after the device is released”, commented Hahn.
Unfortunately Watson is still in a development phase and we don’t have more details about this disruptive invention.
“Its early days and we’re just playing around with prototypes now”, explained Hahn.
IBM invests in the Internet of Things
It was March when IBM announced its decision to invest $3bn to build an entire office that would be dedicated to the Internet of Things (IoT), or the smart connection between devices and Internet.
In a press release IBM explained that the company predicted to earn $235bn by the end of 2016 and an increase of 22% from 2014.
The statement also predicted 6.4 billion devices that will be used worldwide within the end of 2016, an amount that will reach 20.8 billion in 2020.
Previous statement
IBM, in fact, is also working on the Hyperledger Project, an open-source blockchain led by The Linux Foundation. Presented in December, this project stars thirty companies including ABN Amro, CME Group, Red Hat and several blockchain startups.
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5 Apr
0
BNP Paribas to develop a blockchain project
Today BNP Paribas Group has announced a new partnership that aims at allowing private companies to issue securities through the blockchain ledger.
The partnership is between BNP Paribas Securities Services and SmartAngels, a crowdfunding platform that will help BNP Paribas in a pilot project to be launched within the end of 2016.
According to a press release, BNP Paribas will develope and manage a ledger for shares in companies through the blockchain.
The main goal is to allow non-listed companies crowdfunded on SmartAngels to issue their shares on the primary market, and allow investors an access to the secondary market based on blockchain technology.
The BNP press release explained:
“Investor payments will be processed immediately and e-certificates will be issued to them straight away. Financial transactions made via the platform will therefore be performed simply, quickly, securely and for a lower cost.”
BNP Paribas believes in the Blockchain
BNP Paribas is not new in the blockchain sector.
A few months ago, in fact, BNP confirmed its belief in distributed ledger technology for financial purposes and announced that they were working on blockchain technology.
Also, BNP Paribas previously created their blockchain Bizhackathon, with the objectives of finding use cases for distributed ledger technology in the banking system.
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4 Apr
0
How to study with Bitcoin payments
Bitcoin at University
From now on students from all around the world can pay with bitcoin for their university – if they decide to move in Prague.
In fact, the CEVRO Institute University in Prague has announced that it will accept bitcoin among their allowed methods of payment.
Recently the Greek University of Nicosia, Draper University of California, the University of Cumbria and King’s College in the UK started to accept the cryptocurrency.
Why in Prague
The University rector Josef Šíma explained to Cointelegraph:
“As a first school in the Czech Republic we have opened unique Oxford style PPE (Philosophy, Politics, Economics) taught by a team of Czech and foreign professors in English and accepted many foreign students from US and Canada to India and China. One of them asked about the possibility to pay his tuition in bitcoin. And because we have hosted in past several lectures and conferences about this exciting new phenomenon and as a part of the PPE, and we will have courses dealing with alternative monetary schemes, free banking and cryptocurrencies, it was a really easy decision.”
The Prague University, in fact, was the first university to create the PPE class to allow its students to study the connections between Bitcoin and politics, philosophy and economy.
Fees in bitcoin will be calculated based on the current bitcoin price.
Bitcoin worldwide recognition
The acceptance of bitcoin by public institutions could be an important step for the recognition and the increase in popularity of Bitcoin.
“We do not want merely to teach about the beauty of markets, modern technologies and innovation, we want to be innovators ourselves! We want to actively use most modern technologies and offer our students new opportunities which technologies made available” Šíma explained.
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1 Apr
0
Excel will support Bitcoin Format
The Bitcoin popularity is increasing every day and recently Microsoft Company announced that the company is accepting this cryptocurrency on its online store.
And now it’s the time of Excel, one of the most popular and used spreedsheets, that will support the Bitcoin format.
The Microsoft Office suite, in fact, will include the support for the currency format of Bitcoin within Excel.
This statement was revealed in the Office 365 roadmap that includes all the updates that Microsoft is considering for the Office 365 suite, as well as the new features that will be in the 2016 version of the Office package.
Actually the project is still in a development phase, as you can read below.
Bitcoin Currency Format Support
So, soon you will be able to use Excel to track, calculate and analyze Bitcoin data using native options. This feature will be probably added to Excel 2016, Excel Online, Excel Mobile for Windows and Android.
Also, it may be possible that the feature will include a native recognition of bitcoin with BTC, introduce the eighth decimal and maybe the Bitcoin logo that will be part of the Unicode Standard, as Unicode Consortium accepted the Bitcoin symbol in November 2015.
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1 Apr
0
HolyTransaction Bitcoin Roundup March 2016
Welcome to HolyTransaction’s third monthly recap for the new year of 2016. This past month of March has been marked by continued interest in blockchain from everywhere; during that time, the bitcoin price rose from a high of $435.23 on March 1st to a low of $414.66 on March 31st, according to Bitcoin exchange Bitstamp.
It’s time to Blockchain-ize things like sneakers with Chronicled
A new blockchain startup, Chronicled, is planning to blockchain-ize the growing multi billion dollar industry that is sneakers. The company has raised $3.4 million on Crunchbase for its mission. The phenomenon of thousand dollar shoes for the male market has somewhat been predicted by similar economic pressures in shoes for females. Chronicled will use the blockchain to bring accountability and cleaner profits to this and other similarly affected industries.
Even Disney wants a piece of the blockchain action
The most recent surprise blockchain job opening is from Disney. While the corporate giant has many diversified products, this is a prime example of blockchain technology’s ability to help any company save in the middle and back office. Disney also probably has an interest in forever securing their rights via multiple blockchains.
VISA is planning its own blockchain for internal use. They are hiring an engineer/developer to help them and are also working with Chain.com. VISA believes that this area will have a critical impact on the future of the industry and wants to get ahead of the curve. Other companies from around the world that are creating blockchain labs and teams include Hitachi, Phillips, and even Walt Disney.
Ethereum’s newest version, Homestead, has officially launched. The price of ether was very volatile around the release of this software as new users rushed in. Homestead replaces Frontier, and allows users to begin using the smart contract technology. Already, companies are being built around the Ethereum blockchain.
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31 Mar
0
Disney wants to the develop its private Blockchain
The Walt Disney Company has announced its decision to develop a private blockchain.
Some days ago, in fact, the company published a job post for a “Disney Private Blockchain Intern” in Seattle, Washington within the Disney Technology Solutions and Services Business office.
But the job post has now disappeared, so probably this means that the position has already been occupied.
The job proposal
These are the words of the original job post.
“The Disney Private Blockchain team assists business segment users and developers research and develop software mechanisms to protect privacy in distributed ledger participation. DTSS Engineering Services (Keystone and DPBC) applications and services. We provide the support, consulting, and solutions to meet the tactical needs of our customer’s business”.
The main goal is security
So, the Disney Private Blockchain team will research and develop a software that aims at protecting privacy, but unfortunately Disney didn’t reveal more details about the blockchain network.
We only know that the project is about designing and implementing an access control using blockchain technologies for Disney Corporate, ABC, ESPN, Disney Interactive and Walt Disney Productions.
More companies studying the blockchain
Recently we read about lots of important and worldwide companies who decided to invest in the blockchain and/or in bitcoins.
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30 Mar
0
Dutch Central Bank to develop its DNBCoin Blockchain
According to a recent press release, the Dutch Central Bank planned to develop a new blockchain called “DNBCoin”.
On March 16th, De Nederlandsche Bank published the 2015 annual report where they explained this blockchain project.
For DNB the blockchain technology will be able to improve its business, but the report doesn’t give details on the project, not even a release date or the goals, yet.
DNB only describes the projects as a “prototype coin based on blockchain technology” that “aims for 2016”.
On the report the blockchain is described as a possible cost-saver in the financial industry, even if the DNB commented that it’s early to say what possible applications it could have in the future.
The report explains:
“Blockchain technologies can affect the revenue models of banking systems, they can also benefit with new ways to generate revenue and reduce costs.”
Payments and banking consultant Simon Lelieveldt commented:
“So when we now see central banks moving forward in the electronic cash domain (now conveniently labelled: blockchain/FinTech) it might be to no longer spin it off to the market, but to create a permanent digital replacement of cash. Therefore, this time it might be different.”
Banks and blockchain: love or hate?
Recently lots of central banks from all around the world are suggesting that the blockchain can be useful to release more centralized digital currencies, even if central banks declared that it is impossible to predict the development of cryptocurrencies without a proper legalization and regulation.
You can read more about central banks and blockchain by clicking on the titles below.
Also, here you can read the ISITC Survey Results about the the financial services progress which gives also a specific forecast on how the industry will be during the current year.
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29 Mar
0
HolyTransaction add-on for cryptocurrencies exchange rates
Recently we at HolyTransaction created a new add-on for the Firefox browser only to see the exchange rates for cryptocurrency pairs.
This add-on allows you to see the exchange rates between the most popular currencies using only a couple of clicks.
Exchange rates are available between dollar, euro, bitcoin, litecoin, peercoin, dogecoin, dash, blackcoin and gridcoin.
The add-on’s simplicity provides you an easy way to have all the information you need before selling or buying your favorite cryptocurrencies.
The price is shown on your browser, according to your specific preferences. You can change the displayed number of decimal places in the user settings.
How to dowload the add-on
To download this HolyTransaction add-on, you just have to follow this step-by step guide:
- Click on the Firefox Menu at the top right of the toolbar;
- Click on “Add-on”;
- Write “HolyTransaction” in the search at the top right of the page;
- Click on “Add-on” on the left menu;
- Click the “Download” button next to the HolyTransaction add-on.
- You will find the exchage rates window at the top right of your toolbar.
You just need to click on the HT logo of HolyTransaction.
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25 Mar
0
How the blockchain could help email security
BitMessage
Every day we send thousands of emails and such communication has become a daily routine and a MUST for any person and company.
But options to secure communications are not so common and strong. Also, the existing services are too difficult for people to use and they should use a trusted channel.
This is the reason why it has been opened the open source project called BitMessage, a service who helps to decentralize and encrypt messages and solves the problem of trusting a third party security authority.
But BitMessage doesn’t use the bitcoin blockchain, but a distributed ledger created by the BitMessage Community itself.
How it works
Thanks to BitMessage and its wallet, you will be able to create a private key and your contacts will receive a string that look like a bitcoin address.
This way you will have a long alphanumeric string among your contact lists instead of email addresses, and you need a proof-of-work to send your message, even offline.
In fact, BitMessage proposes a system where customer uses a hash of a public key that it is the same as the user’s address. “If the public key can be obtained by the underlying protocol, then it can easily be hashed to verify that it belongs to the intended recipient. The data exchanged by the user can also include a version number for forwards capability, a stream number and a checksum”, explained the whitepaper.
Here you can read the full whitepaper, in which BitMessage is described as a “peer-to-peer message authentication and delivery system” platform.
The invention
BitMessage was opened in November 2012 by Jonhatan Warren, who also created PyBitmessage, or the official instant messaging client for BitMessage.
Technical details
Its source code use Python as a language and the Qt cross-platform application framework; OpenSSL allows its cryptographic functions. BitMessage is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux.
Unfortunately, it is not available for mobile devices.
Download the latest version here !
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