Etherium and blockchain - the future?

 https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/18/ethereum-will-replace-visa-in-a-couple-of-years-says-founder/

Vitalik Buterin - the dude who created Etherium 3 years ago at the age of 19, talks with Naval Ravikant -  Founder and CEO of Angellist..... 

The bottom line - Blockchain will be creating a disruption in the financial industries - and I can see why banks are nervous . 

Naval likens crypto currencies to a brain virus - once you know how they work that's all you think about! 

Buterin segments the world into those that who’s already heard of bitcoin and those who haven't 

So - What is a Crypto currency?

 "A peer to peer digital currency - a Platform for distributed applications in a trusted decentralised way . "

"It's a system to record how much money has been spent and by whom ...How much money a person has the right to spend at any given time "

"A central database to store how much money everyone in the blockchain has" - but the genius is how to create this in a decentralised way - where there is no "central server" 

"A decentralised system that contains some type of shared memory"

Etherium is a bunch of decentralised applications that can be created to account for transactions

Vitalik likened the base of a crypto to a vending machine - A vending machine encoded a set of rules -you  put $2 in machine - water comes out - you don't and water comes out - that's Bad - you do and water comes out - that's good . 

Can replace money Wall Street , protocols , visa - within 5-10 years 

Etherium is about Blockchain that understands a general purpose programming language - Buterin likens it to a platform - similar to an IOS or Android - where applications can be created on the platform 

Blockchain currently processes 3 transactions per second - will max out at 4

Etherium processes 5 will max out at 6

Current transactions - visa , IOT - is 100 of thousands per second - long way for crypto to replace - but it will!

Electric bikes/scooters changing how we live and work

From David Nordfors i4j

When I was in Israel a few weeks ago for DLD I saw how Tel Aviv has been taken over by electric bicycles. They are everywhere. 

The typical e-bike is a minibike that can be propelled either with pedal assist or driven like a scooter. The latter seems to be the more common riding style. 

At this time it’s a head ache, because people ride them like ordinary bicycles, both on streets and pavements - the casualties are mounting. But I am now confident that this is a new global trend - these bikes are too cheap and convenient to not spread everywhere. 

It will change the patterns of communication and organization. We will invent cheaper, more convenient ways of organizing common efforts. 

For example, super markets might get smaller and more evenly distributed, we have already today ebikes for $1600 that can take at least four large shopping bags. With all the bother we have with cars - congested traffic, finding parking, high purchase costs, service costs, complicated and invasive city planning - there must be a lot of opportunities to organize our interactions in better ways with lighter, cheaper, more adaptable and individualized “mini-communication” solutions. 

The innovation ecosystem might be building up for it - from Crunchbase news today:

Gogoro raises $300M for scooters Scooter startup Gogoro announced that it has raised $300 million in a Series C funding round backed by Singapore’s Temasek, Generation Investment Management, and other new and existing investors. Gogoro, which develops both electric scooters and battery swapping infrastructure, says it has sold over 34,000 of its “smartscooters” to date.

Helping the homeless in Detroit

The Bob Pritchard Column 

Tiny homes, from 250 to 400 square feet, are being built around the United States for a variety of reasons. Some are designed for affordability, others to be constructed quickly, and some for people who choose to live a minimalist lifestyle.

 

 

In Detroit, an entire neighborhood of tiny houses is under construction, with one primary goal: giving homeless and low-income people the opportunity to own a house.  The first  homes were completed in late 2016.

 

Half of the houses will be occupied by formerly homeless people, with seniors and college students making up the rest of the population. The concept of providing tiny houses for low-income people isn’t new — San Jose, California Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon have created villages of tiny homes for the homeless.  Research shows the most efficient way to combat homelessness is to provide those living on the streets with homes. 

 

But the Detroit model is different for an important reason: It's the only tiny house community in the country where residents rent to own.  This is not only about about ending homelessness, but ending poverty for these families.

 

When they move in, residents sign a one-year lease with a rent that amounts to no more than one third of their monthly income. They sign new annual leases for their first three years in the home while they comply with the terms.  After three years, they are invited to sign a contract that amounts to the total rent for four subsequent years. After paying that off (seven years after moving in), the resident will legally become the owner of the land and home. Their rent will have bought them the house. 

 

The houses are available for individuals or couples, and are being built by a combination of professional construction workers and volunteers.

 

The neighborhood is also exceptional for another reason: Each tiny home will look unique with 25 individual sets of architectural plans, ranging from Cape Cod to Victorian to Modern styles.  Everything is very different so people have a pride in their home.  Each home requires five weeks of construction and costs an estimated $40,000.

 

The development is completely funded by private money, and grants from organizations like the Ford Motor Company  and the RNR Foundation.

 

The tenants are now part of a homeowners association, which will be involved in the process of choosing future residents. They'll also take part in mandatory monthly classes about financial literacy and home ownership.

 

Unlike many similar residential projects, this Tiny Homes community won't feature communal space for cooking or doing laundry, since that could make it more complicated for residents to sell their homes later. 

 

Locating the homes in a central area of Detroit also sets it apart. They become part of the life of the city, tucked into an existing neighborhood.

 

A brilliant idea to be applauded

2050 - less jobs or more jobs ??

How many and what kind of jobs will be replaced by automation is one of the big debates of our time. Some projections seem dire: About 7.1 million jobs, with two-thirds of them in office and administration, will be lost because of labor market changes in coming years, according to the World Economic Forum. 

Yet some economists suggest that automation can actually increase employment in the industries it transforms.

Less jobs or more jobs - one can be certain - they will be different jobs ..... and with the rate of new knowledge - the key is to be able to learn how to learn - and accept change.

What do you think? 

Have Hackers have won the Cyberwar? Does privacy exist?

The chances are is that your details are sitting on a list that you don't know about . 

You may not know that person...... but they know you !!!!

• At Equifax names and personal details  (including credit cards , emails etc ) of up to 143 million people in the United States (half the USA population) U.K. and Canada have been hacked ,
• One of Britain's largest retail franchises, CEX, disclosed it has been hit by a data breach that could have compromised the information of as many as 2 million customers – including personal details like names and addresses.
• Online spam bot - A security researcher in Paris has unearthed an open web server hosted in the Netherlands that contains as many as 711 million usernames and passwords
• London healthcare group - Bupa has suffered a data breach (13 July 2017) affecting 500,000 customers on its international health insurance plan.
• Zomato, which provides users with an online guide to restaurants, cafes and clubs, reported that data from 17 million users had been stolen, including email addresses and hashed passwords.
• Security researchers at the Kromtech Security Research Center discovered a massive database of 560 million login credentials which is believed to come from up to 10 popular online services such as LinkedIn and Dropbox, obtained during previous data breaches
• Payday loan company Wonga has fallen victim to a large data breach that could have hit as many as 245,000 of its customers including bank account numbers and sort codes
• A major breach of Three network customer upgrade database revealed last November is worse than the network operator initially thought, when their network was accessed using an employee login. They said 200,000 of their 9 million  was compromised.
• Sportswear retailer Sports Direct failed to tell its entire workforce that they might have had their personal credentials stolen in an internal security breach
• Tesco Bank, the consumer finance wing of the British supermarket giant, froze its online operations – after as many as 20,000 customers had money stolen from their accounts.(up to 40'000 accounts compromised 
• Accounting software provider , Sage could turn out to be one of the most important in UK data breach history if its scale is confirmed. According to the firm, the employee data of up to 280 UK customers representing a large number of individual users could be at risk - this could represent the entire UK population! 
• Kiddicare's customers were getting spammy Sms's - and they realised their data was compromised - they   played down the fact it had let names, addresses and contact details of up to 800,000 people
• CEO of TalkTalk initially struggled to confirm how many of its four million customers were affected after hackers exploited a reported weakness in the firm's website - the ceo said it was only a mere 157,000 (was one of them you?)
• A serious attack in which a hacker was able to get his or her hands on 1,163,996 credit and debit card records from online holiday firm Think W3
• two breaches at Yahoo -- the bigger one involved 1 billion accounts, the lesser impacted 500 million 
• a hack at Myspace that involved 360 million accounts

And the list goes on!!!!

In my view, knowledge is no longer a valuable commodity. It's out there in abundance. It's how you use it that's valuable.

What do you think? 

12 key takeouts of why Steve Jobs was successful

Why Steve Jobs  was successful:- 

  

1. Focus
2. Simplify - Make it simple - UX is key
3. Create an ecosystem - end to end
4. When behind, leapfrog - No CDS - straight to iTunes 
5. Put products before profit - r and d and innovation is key
6. Don't be a slave to focus groups - trust your intuition 
7. Bend reality - make the impossible possible - find a way
8. Push for perfection
9. Have the brightest and the best - and work as a team 
10. Engage face to face - collaboration is key - shit happens when you connect and KLT
11. Know the big picture and the tiniest details 
12. Be human and humourous - liberal arts:science and technology - the crazy ones that can think they can change the world are the ones that they invariably do 

Productivity and technology