technology

Donald Trump gets into crowdfunding

"Donald Trump is putting his stamp of approval, but not his name, on a new crowdfunding platform that is scheduled to launch tomorrow. He's also an investor in the site, and each week will personally contribute to one or more projects that strike his fancy. FundAnything projects could include tech inventions, new uniforms for a school sports team, helping out someone with a medical emergency, etc. Not only will Trump personally back new projects each week -- tomorrow he'll unveil the recipients of his first personal investments -- but he'll also promote those choices via his Twitter feed (which currently has 2.2 million followers)." Continue reading →

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Does Innovation Require the Patent Office?

"Most patent holders cling to them as a source of life and defend them against all encroachment. Some businesses build up their war chests with patents as purely defensive measures. The more you own, the more you can intimidate your competitors to stay out of your territory. So how important are patents in generating innovation? The answer is not much, according to four economists from the Technical University of Lisbon. Their findings are remarkable: Nine in 10 of the innovations were never patented. They were just created and marketed, and changed the world." Continue reading →

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Reuters: U.S. cyberwar strategy stokes fear of blowback

"Even as the U.S. government confronts rival powers over widespread Internet espionage, it has become the biggest buyer in a burgeoning gray market where hackers and security firms sell tools for breaking into computers. The strategy is spurring concern in the technology industry and intelligence community that Washington is in effect encouraging hacking and failing to disclose to software companies and customers the vulnerabilities exploited by the purchased hacks. That's because U.S. intelligence and military agencies are using the tools to infiltrate computer networks overseas, leaving behind spy programs and cyber-weapons." Continue reading →

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Open a Business in Chile in One Day, Over the Internet, for Free

"Can you really form a business in Chile in just one day, over the internet, and for free? About three months ago, Chile’s pro-business government decided that they just weren’t doing enough for local and foreign entrepreneurs (the Chilean government already has several grants and programs available for new businesses) so they got together and voted to change the way the incorporation process works in the country, making it much, much easier to start a business in Chile than in just about any other country in the world. See more details here. Remember what happened to Hong Kong and Singapore when they made similar changes to their governments?" Continue reading →

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Mars One has 78,000 applicants so far—sort of

"Mars One, the private venture with the audacious goal of sending humans to Mars—permanently—as early as 2023 made a splash earlier this week when it announced that more than 78,000 people had applied for its 'astronaut selection program' just two weeks after starting to accept applications. Lansdorp is very pleased with the public response to the campagn, the first step in a long process to select the first four-person crew that Mars One plans to launch in 2022." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMars One has 78,000 applicants so far—sort of

Making Sense of Bitcoin

"Despite the various opinions on Bitcoin, there is no question as to its ultimate value: the ability to bypass government restrictions, including economic embargoes and capital controls, to transmit money quasi-anonymously to anyone anywhere virtually instantaneously irrespective of geopolitical restrictions. While virtually all digital currencies can more or less do the same, no other currency offers an equal combination of peer-to-peer transactions, strong encryption, anonymity, and liquidity that Bitcoin has possessed up to this point." Continue reading →

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State Department Demands Takedown Of 3D-Printable Gun Files For Export Control Violations

"On Thursday, Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson received a letter from the State Department Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance demanding that he take down the online blueprints for the 3D-printable 'Liberator' handgun that his group released Monday, along with nine other 3D-printable firearms components hosted on the group’s website Defcad.org. Wilson compares his new legal troubles to the widely-followed case in the mid-1990s of Philip Zimmermann, the inventor of the cryptography software PGP who was threatened with indictment under ITAR for putting his military-grade encryption software online." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingState Department Demands Takedown Of 3D-Printable Gun Files For Export Control Violations

3D-Printed Gun’s Blueprints Downloaded 100,000 Times In Two Days (With Some Help From Kim Dotcom)

"That’s the number of downloads of the 3D-printable file for the so-called 'Liberator' gun that the high-tech gunsmithing group Defense Distributed has seen in just the last two days, a member of the group tells me. The gun’s CAD files have been ten times more popular than any component the group has previously made available, parts that have included the body of an AR-15 and the magazine for an AK-47. 'This has definitely been our most well-received download,' says Haroon Khalid, a developer working with Defense Distributed. 'I don’t think any of us predicted it would be this much.'" Continue reading →

Continue Reading3D-Printed Gun’s Blueprints Downloaded 100,000 Times In Two Days (With Some Help From Kim Dotcom)

3D printing: the new, bottom-up industrial revolution

"The new technology will be the first real challenge to the traditional top-down economics of mass production for manufactured goods. This has already happened in the services sector and the digital world, with the rise of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and the ability for self-publishing authors and music artists to sell directly to the public; now this decentralisation of power will also happen in manufacturing. Big will no longer necessarily be beautiful when it comes to making things, undoing centuries of lessons learnt from the Industrial Revolution and the rise of Taylorist production processes." Continue reading →

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Nazi hunters call on Twitter to crack down on terrorists

"A Nazi-hunting group has urged Twitter and other social media to step up efforts to remove online 'hate speech,' citing a surge in incitement to attacks like the recent Boston bombings. The Simon Wiesenthal Center said Twitter has spawned nearly 20,000 hashtags and handles this year that are linked to terrorism and extremism, up 30 percent in the past year. A Twitter spokesman said in a statement sent to AFP that the company does not 'mediate content or intervene in disputes between users.' Twitter's TOS state that it is not responsible for content posted, but that users 'may not publish or post direct, specific threats of violence against others.'" Continue reading →

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