technology

Why bitcoin has a firm foothold in the online gambling world

"What’s interesting in bitcoin-based gambling sites is how many of them are possibly more transparent than traditional casinos or other online sites. That’s because with the block chain being a public ledger, all that an inquisitive gambler would need to do is follow the transactions from a site’s bitcoin address. It’s no wonder, then, that sites like SatoshiDice show the latest plays being transacted on the site and claim to be 'provably trustworthy'. In addition, some sites even publish how they implement their random number generator. BitSaloon, for example, defines itself as a 'provably fair casino' meaning that the site operators cannot modify the outcome of any particular game." Continue reading →

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Julian Assange on Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the ‘sh*t-bag’ now?

"Google started out as part of Californian graduate student culture around San Francisco’s Bay Area. But as Google grew it encountered the big bad world. It encountered barriers to its expansion in the form of complex political networks and foreign regulations, it started leaning heavily on the State Department for support, and by doing so it entered into the Washington DC system. A recently released statistic shows that Google now spends even more money than Lockheed Martin on paid lobbyists in Washington. That Google was taking NSA money in exchange for handing over people’s data comes as no surprise. When Google encountered the big bad world, Google itself got big and bad." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingJulian Assange on Google and the NSA: Who’s holding the ‘sh*t-bag’ now?

Researcher: Facebook spammers make $200 million just posting links

"Spammers posting links on Facebook fan pages to send people to third-party scam sites are earning $200m every year, according to calculations by a team of Italian security researchers who have investigated hundreds of thousands of posts on the social network. Trying to catch and get rid of the spammers is a growing problem for Facebook. The revenue that the spammers do not form part of Facebook’s revenue, but instead piggyback on the success of the social network, which now has more than a billion users worldwide. In April, the Italian team uncovered the multimillion-pound business of selling fake Twitter followers, estimating then that as many as 20m were created by spammers." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingResearcher: Facebook spammers make $200 million just posting links

Skype confirms it is developing 3D video calls

"Skype has confirmed it is developing 3D video calls – but said it could be many years before we can use the technology. The Microsoft-owned internet telephony firm revealed it is experimenting with 3D video calls on its 10th anniversary. In an interview with the BBC, Mircrosoft’s corporate vice-president for Skype, Mark Gillett, said: 'We’ve done work in the labs looking at the capability of 3D-screens and 3D-capture. We’ve seen a lot of progress in screens and a lot of people now buy TVs and computer monitors that are capable of delivering a 3D image. But the capture devices are not yet there.'" Continue reading →

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Activision R&D Real-time 3D Character Demo

"This animated character is being rendered in real-time on current video card hardware, using standard bone animation. The rendering techniques, as well as the animation pipeline are being presented at GDC 2013, 'Next Generation Character Rendering' on March 27. The original high resolution data was acquired from Light Stage Facial Scanning and Performance Capture by USC Institute for Creative Technologies, then converted to a 70 bones rig, while preserving the high frequency detail in diffuse, normal and displacement composite maps. It is being rendered in a DirectX11 environment, using advanced techniques to faithfully represent the character's skin and eyes." Continue reading →

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Radio wave-treated water could change agriculture as we know it

"A groundbreaking new Irish technology which could be the greatest breakthrough in agriculture since the plough is set to change the face of modern farming forever. The technology – radio wave energised water – massively increases the output of vegetables and fruits by up to 30 per cent. Not only are the plants much bigger but they are largely disease-resistant, meaning huge savings in expensive fertilisers and harmful pesticides. Extensively tested in Ireland and several other countries, the inexpensive water treatment technology is now being rolled out across the world. The technology makes GM obsolete and converts excess CO2 into edible plant mass." Continue reading →

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Ambient Backscatter Energy Harvester

"Ambient Backscatter transforms existing wireless signals into both a source of power and a communication medium. It enables two battery-free devices to communicate by backscattering existing wireless signals. Backscatter communication is orders of magnitude more power-efficient than traditional radio communication. Further, since it leverages the ambient RF signals that are already around us, it does not require a dedicated power infrastructure as in RFID." Continue reading →

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Energy harvester that creates power from ambient vibrations comes to market

"MicroGen’s energy harvester, dubbed Bolt, provides power like a battery — but uses a very different means to get there. Housing a piezoelectric microelectromechanical system (MEMS) inside the casing pictured above, the unit creates energy from vibrations in the surrounding environment. Ambient vibrations cause a flap on the device (pictured below) to move back and forth, which in turn creates a current that dumps energy in to either a capacitor or a thin rechargeable battery next to the flap. The Bolt requires a source vibrating at around 120Hz in order to charge, and an LED on the outer casing will blink to let you know it’s full." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingEnergy harvester that creates power from ambient vibrations comes to market

Smart dust: A complete computer that’s smaller than a grain of sand

"Nobody’s ever written a Star Trek episode about the world’s smallest microchip, only about the world’s smallest computer. Now, a team from the University of Michigan has built not just a very small microchip, but a whole functioning computer, and it’s less than a cubic millimeter in size. Called the Michigan Micro Mote, or M3, this tiny computer features processing, data storage, and wireless communication. Researcher Pabral Dutta thinks it will be the 'next revolution in computing.' The technology works with a very low-powered and low-range wireless standard to broadcast its latest state every few minutes. To power the M3, researchers fitted it with a tiny solar cell." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingSmart dust: A complete computer that’s smaller than a grain of sand