technology

Chinese Hotel: 6 Days to Build

"Pay attention to how few workers are visible in any stage of production. There is no way that these techniques will not be adopted all over the world. Nobody is going to give China this kind of competitive edge. These techniques are going to be imitated. It means the end of today’s technology. Today’s technology is labor-intensive. This will not be true by 2030. The next step will be the adoption of these techniques for housing developments. The construction industry will work out the bugs in high-level projects. Then these techniques will be adopted by housing developers as the price of the tools continues to drop." Continue reading →

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Hackers steal 2 billion rubles at Russia’s central bank

"The central bank did not say when the heist occurred or how hackers moved the funds. But so far, the attack bears some similarity to a recent string of heists that has targeted the worldwide financial system. In January 2015, hackers got a hold of an Ecuadorian bank's codes for using SWIFT, the worldwide interbank communication network that settles transactions. In October, hackers used the same technique to slip into a bank in the Philippines. Two months later, hackers tried to make fraudulent requests at a commercial bank in Vietnam. They were stopped. This past February, computer hackers stole $101 million from Bangladesh's central bank -- also by gaining access to SWIFT." Continue reading →

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China Launches Frightening ‘Social Credit’ Game; Soon Mandatory

"'Going under the innocuous name of Sesame Credit, China has created a score for how good a citizen you are,' explains Extra Credits’ video about the program. 'The owners of China’s largest social networks have partnered with the government to create something akin to the U.S. credit score — but, instead of measuring how regularly you pay your bills, it measures how obediently you follow the party line.' In the works for years, China’s ‘social credit system’ aims to create a docile, compliant citizenry who are fiscally and morally responsible by employing a game-like format to create self-imposed, group social control. In other words, China gamified peer pressure to control its citizenry." Continue reading →

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State Regulators Force Vermont’s Only Bitcoin ATM Offline

"Vermont's first digital currency ATM has been ordered closed by state regulators who say the company operating the cash machine is violating state law. The move by the Department of Financial Regulation has disappointed the tech enthusiasts who used the new currency service. PYC CEO Emilio Pagan-Yourno admits the company doesn’t have any Vermont-specific licenses. But he says his company is licensed federally through the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The letters from the department warn Blu-Bin and PYC that they may be in violation of the law. But they also seem to show a lack of clarity about what, exactly, the two companies are even doing." Continue reading →

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The Bank Branch: An Endangered Species?

"At Citigroup (C), we just learned that 15% have been eliminated in the past year. That leaves only 779 in North America. At Bank of America (BAC), 234 have gone the way of the dodo in the past several months. At JPMorgan Chase (JPM), 300 are being shuttered as we speak. I’m talking about one of the 21st century’s biggest endangered species: the bank branch. And chances are, you’re helping eliminate them almost every single day. When was the last time you deposited a check with an actual bank teller? Or even at an ATM? I can’t remember personally, and for a very simple reason. I bank with Chase, and the company’s smartphone app lets me do it right from my iPhone 6!" Continue reading →

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Paypal Shuts Down in Greece; Bitcoin Still Operates

"Capital controls imposed by the Greek government mean that Greek citizens can only withdraw 60 euros (effectively 50 euros after ATMs have run out of 20 euro notes) and online payment service, PayPal, has been left crippled, as a result. PayPal relies on the traditional banking sector and credit card industry for all its transactions to flow. Fact is, there is an old-style bank that underpins nearly every finance tech start-up that purports to threaten and disrupt the old guard. Examples are peer-to-peer lending platforms such as Prosper and Lending Club. Neither company holds the loans they award on their own balance sheets, but, instead, acquire the funds from WebBank, Salt Lake City, Utah." Continue reading →

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Visa CEO Charlie Scharf: Moving at the speed of money

"West Coast venture capitalists see Visa as an oligopolistic dinosaur and are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into rivals that use bitcoin. Meanwhile, banks, which collect the bulk of the fees from merchants, are warily eyeing Visa’s efforts to bypass them and forge direct relationships with retailers by offering one-click internet transactions and providing data on consumer behaviour that only Visa possesses. None of which seems to faze Visa’s chief executive, Charlie Scharf. In time, he says, would-be Visa disruptors all discover—just as internet upstarts PayPal, Square and Uber did—that it is simply easier and more economical to work with his leviathan than fight it." Continue reading →

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Bitcoin Payment Service Helps Greek Businesses Avoid Capital Controls

"With the banking system locked down, capital controls prevent Greek citizens from accessing cash and this disrupts the economy. The Irish company Spartan Route has come to the rescue of Greek businesses with an innovative service proposal: They will invoice their Greek clients’ foreign customers in euro, collect the payment, and send bitcoin back to Greece. Their proposal to Greek businesses is simple and crystal clear: 1. Invoice Spartan Route for your exports, 2. Deliver your goods as normal to your customer through your current supply chains; 3. Spartan Route pays you with bitcoin; 4. Spartan Route invoices your customer for euro." Continue reading →

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Gerald Celente on Marijuana Legalization and OccupyPeace

"We're initiating a project called OccupyPeace.us. And it's based on three words: No foreign entanglements. Those are the three words spoken by the Founding Fathers of this country. We want to rebuild America and the way we want to do it is we're working to build an OccupyPeace movement based on no foreign entanglements and we're working to push the United States more in line with a direct democracy like Switzerland. You want to go to war? Let the people vote. You want a defense budget? Let the people vote on it. You want to bail out the banks? Let the people vote. If we can bank online we can vote online. It could be more open than any other system in the world." Continue reading →

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Under the Microscope: The Real Costs of a Dollar

"Once upon a time, most paper currency in the world was backed by gold and directly exchangeable for it. On August 15, 1971, US President Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods System (Ghizoni, 1971), in what is now known as 'The Nixon Shock', allowing all currencies to float freely, with only the backing of the faith and credit of their issuing sovereign state. This type of currency is known as 'fiat currency', i.e., currency that is given value by government decree (Keynes, et al., 1978). This report will not discuss the relative merits and drawbacks of gold-backed currency and fiat-money, only the triple-bottom-line impacts of each." Continue reading →

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