The Blockchain is Coming

Satoshi Nakamoto published the original paper on Bitcoin in 2008 and released the first software implementation in 2009. By 2011 the Bitcoin Core was being run by a group of developers who had worked with him. His current known holdings of Bitcoin are valued at over 500 million USD. At this stage the actual identity of Satoshi is perhaps the biggest mysteries in technology.

Despite this mystery, Blockchain, the technology underlying Bitcoin has been universally accepted as truly transformational. In the absence of any centralised leadership structures, Bitcoin itself has come up against the problems of scaling and speed and there are no immediate signs of resolution. On the other hand, every institution with a technology vision is now involved in examining options for its use.

For sure, the concept of a Distributed Ledger to record transactions with almost no chance of corruption or repudiation is totally at variance to any structures of Trust that the world currently knows. Therefore, while the use cases are obvious and many, it will be some time before existing organisations and systems adapt. The infographic from PwC is quite helpful in understanding the business architecture for a Blockchain application.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin is spreading but the main usage seems to be for payments where the buyer and seller want to hide their identities. It would appear that crime drives technology much more than more virtuous causes.

Data Driven Nirvana?

In the crazy excitement of Silicon Valley about a Data Driven Society, it is easy to be carried away and forget about the real world around us, one in which humans rapaciously continue destroying the Commons - be it air, rivers, oceans, land, forests or wildlife. What is the difference between Elon Musk's idea of another world beyond the Earth, where everything will be right, to the one promised by the the Baba around the corner?

"The trigger for all this cognitive decimation included Musk’s meditations on Mars (it should be run as a “direct democracy”), neural lace (the next phase of artificial intelligence: a layer inserted in the jugular), and whether our reality is really just a video game simulation (no doubt). “The odds that we’re in base reality is one in billions. Tell me what’s wrong with that argument?” said Musk." Ground Control To Silicon Valley

The Fourth Industrial Revolution 

The Internet of Things is the joining of the physical world to the cyber domain using the Internet. This is quite distinct from the traditional use of the Internet to pass information for human consumption. The Internet of Things promises to be much larger in scale than the simple Internet of yore. The connection of the Things to a pervasive network permits the application of Big Data, Cloud, and Analytics. The vision of such an Internet of Things applied to the industrial sector has created the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Watch this video from Siemens to get an overview of the concept.

"The vision of tomorrow's manufacturing: In intelligent factories, machines, raw materials, and products communicate within an "Internet of things" and cooperatively drive production. Products find their way independently through the production process. The objective: highly flexible, individualized and resource-friendly mass production. That is the vision for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Siemens is playing a major role in shaping the future of industry."

Microsoft Windows zero-day exploit hits the market with $90,000 price tag