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20 – Yahoo Finance

Posted on February 10, 2020 by Danzig

Bitcoin rose by 0.73% on Saturday. Following on from a 0.62% gain on Friday, Bitcoin ended the day at $9,877.2.

A bearish start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to an early morning intraday low $9,657.8 before making a move.

Bitcoin fell through the first major support level at $9,706.07 before rallying to a late intraday high $9,920.8.

The rally saw Bitcoin break through the first major resistance level at $9,882.17 to hit $9,900 levels for the 1st time since late October.

Coming within range of the second major resistance level at $9,959.13, Bitcoin eased back to sub-$9,900 late in the day.

The near-term bearish trend, formed at late Junes swing hi $13,764.0, remained firmly intact, however, in spite of the current week gains.

For the bulls, Bitcoin would need to break out from $11,000 levels to form a near-term bullish trend.

Across the rest of the top 10 cryptos, it was a mixed day for the crypto majors.

Bitcoin Cash SV led the way with a 13.43% surge.

EOS (+3.64%), Litecoin (+3.22%), and Tezos (+4.85%) also made solid gains on the day.

Bitcoin Cash ABC (-1.66%), Cardanos ADA (+0.67%), Ethereum (+0.07%), and Moneros XMR (+1.56%) also ended the day in the green.

Binance Coin (-1.00%), Ripples XRP (-0.75%), and Stellars Lumen (-0.94%) end the day in the red, however.

Through the current week, the crypto total market cap rose from a Tuesday low $254.52bn to an early Sunday high $286.16bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $285.90bn.

Having fallen back from 66% levels, Bitcoins dominance slipped further back to sub-64% levels going into Sunday. More marked gains across the broader market pinned Bitcoin back on the day. At the time of writing, Bitcoins dominance stood at 63.8%.

Trading volumes also picked up, rising to $146bn levels on Thursday before easing back. At the time of writing, 24-hr volumes stood at $134.90bn.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin was up by 1.98% to $10,073.0. A particularly bullish start to the day saw Bitcoin rally from an early morning low $9,871.1 to a high $10,109.0.

Steering clear of the major support levels, Bitcoin broke through the first major resistance level at $9,979.4 and second major resistance level at $10,081.6.

Elsewhere, it was a sea of green across the crypto board.

Bitcoin Cash SV and Binance Coin led the way early with gains of 8.30% and 6.56% respectively.

Litecoin and Tezos trailed the pack early, with gains of just 0.73% and 0.37% respectively.

Bitcoin would need to break back through the second major resistance level at $10,081.6 to target $10,500 levels.

Support from the broader market would be needed, however, for Bitcoin to break out from the morning high $10,109.0.

Barring an extended rally through the day, Bitcoin would likely fall short of the third major resistance level at $10,344.60.

In the event of another breakout, resistance at $10,500 would likely limit the upside on the day.

Failure to move back through the second major resistance level could see Bitcoin give up the early gains.

A fall back through the first major resistance level to sub-$9,820 levels would bring the first major support level at $9,716.4 into play.

Barring a crypto sell-off, however, Bitcoin should steer clear of the sub-$9,900 on the day.

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

The Crypto Daily Movers and Shakers 09/02/20 - Yahoo Finance

How Often Are Top Privacy Coins and Mixers Actually Used? – A Look at XMR, DASH, and ZEC – Bitcoin News

Posted on February 10, 2020 by Danzig

As Bitcoin and crypto help everyday individuals to regain control over their money, and make trusting third parties unnecessary, its not surprising that privacy advocates have flocked to the space. While bitcoins ledger is openly viewable, privacy coins and privacy enhancing protocols are popular ways for value holders to ensure their sensitive financial info stays secure. Though a bit of a tricky subject thanks to the nature of privacy itself, this post aims to examine just how popular leading privacy coins such as Monero and Zcash, and obfuscation protocols like coin mixers, really are.

Also Read: How to Use a U2F Key to Secure Your Crypto Accounts

There are a few ways users of crypto can aim for maximum privacy in transactions, and the most popular include cryptos built specifically for privacy, often called privacy coins, and mixing or coinjoin services which obfuscate transaction data, making it difficult for chain analysis to accurately determine the senders and receivers of the crypto. There are also private marketplaces and trading platforms like local.Bitcoin.com that make peer-to-peer transactions possible.

Popular privacy coins often have elements baked right into their codebases that enable obfuscation. Mixing, shuffling, and coin joining services and products like Wasabi Wallet, Samurai Wallet, Cash Shuffle, and the newly developed Cash Fusion help users even of more standard cryptos like BTC and BCH, gain an extra level of security in the form of privacy.

For obvious reasons, garnering stats on these coins and protocols can be tricky, but there are yet metrics that are useful in analyzing just how popular the various coins and services actually are in the market today.

A quick trip to messari.ios database shows stats for one of the most popular privacy coins, monero (XMR), which came about in 2014 as a fork of the bytecoin codebase. Monero is also the leader of the privacy pack by market capitalization, enjoying a near $1.5 billion valuation at press time.

Messaris data shows that in the past 24 hours there have been 6,772 XMR transactions and the real volume for the same time period is $20,856,173.59. What we cant see, however, is the number of active addresses for monero thanks to the obfuscation built into the code. Looking at a non-privacy focused network like BTC for contrast, there are 865,396 active addresses noted, and of course transaction volumes are much higher. Daily transaction volume nonetheless can help to establish the extent to which XMR is being used.

Another coin born in 2014 is DASH, which straddles the fence between being a privacy coin and a mainstream crypto thanks to its Privatesend capability. According to Messari, DASH has seen 21,696 transactions in the same 24 hour period as XMRs 6,772, but of course these are not all private, so the comparison is difficult to make.

Where zcash is concerned, there (ZEC) is an attributed 12,703 active addresses and 3,329 transactions in 24 hours, about half of what Messari lists for XMR. However, ZECs 24 hour transaction volume is notable, with Messari listing the raw volume at $336,337,429.24, and the adjusted volume at $16,980,375.93. Zcash is another privacy coin that boasts a large market cap, weighing in at over $600 million.

Advocates of various privacy coins like monero sometimes make bold claims about widespread usage difficult to verify. Still, even though BTC seems the clear leader in darknet exchange, XMR does remain a staple and exercises notable prevalence compared to other coins. Possibly attesting to this prevalence, are numbers released from last summers hack of DNM marketplace Nightmare, in which the alleged inside job hacker released financial information listing the sites various crypto balances:

Popular privacy-focused Wasabi Wallet bills itself as an open-source, non-custodial, privacy-focused Bitcoin wallet for Desktop, that implements trustless coin shuffling with mathematically provable anonymity Chaumian CoinJoin. The popular wallet has been downloaded over 117,000 times as of December 28, 2019. The Samourai mobile wallet for Android is also popular in hardcore privacy circles, and uses a slightly different coinjoin system called Whirlpool, but has enjoyed a more narrow user base than Wasabi, possibly owing to the fact that it is a mobile app and currently unavailable on iOS.

Cashshuffle is a popular coin mixing protocol for bitcoin cash users, and since March 27, 2019 to present users have shuffled 209,360 BCH (~$92.8 million at current market prices). The same developers have also created a protocol called Cashfusion which seeks to give bitcoin cash transactions levels of privacy approaching those of coins like monero. Wasabi Wallet developer @nopara73 even commented in December on the project saying, Cashfusion gives me goosebumps. It reminds me of the Knapsack paper.

As crypto and bitcoin become more and more mainstream, the roots of privacy dig deeper into the ground in proportion to efforts by regulators and centralized exchanges to KYC the scene into standardized, custodial oblivion. Though data on the subject can be murky and speculation about issues such as user base, market demand, and fluctuating hashrate abounds, crypto users can rest assured that Satoshis vision for a money not relying on third parties and nosy banks or regulators is alive and well, judging by the current climate and active use of privacy-focused options.

What do you think about the use of privacy coins and coin mixers? Are they really as popular as users say they are? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not an offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation, endorsement, or sponsorship of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock, fair use.

Did you know you can buy and sell BCH privately using our noncustodial, peer-to-peer Local Bitcoin Cash trading platform? The local.Bitcoin.com marketplace has thousands of participants from all around the world trading BCH right now. And if you need a bitcoin wallet to securely store your coins, you can download one from us here.

Graham Smith is an American expat living in Japan, and the founder of Voluntary Japanan initiative dedicated to spreading the philosophies of unschooling, individual self-ownership, and economic freedom in the land of the rising sun.

These Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The 10 Most Popular Cryptocurrencies – Programming Insider

Posted on February 10, 2020 by Danzig

Cryptocurrency technology is subject to the use of blockchain. Bitcoin is open-source, because, since you change its open-source and manage to convince several users of its employment, a new virtual currency is born. But do you know what the differences between each of them are? We present today the main advantages and disadvantages of the worlds most popular cryptocurrencies, according to Mike Orcutt of MIT Technology Review.Bitcoin

It can be said that it was the real driver of a technological revolution. It was born as an innovative network of payments and a new type of money in 2009, prophesying the future of blockchain. Bitcoin, at present, gets to a market value of about 133,546 million euros. Its biggest benefit is that it is the original cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is the main and most established blockchain. However, the growing demand for this currency has made its transactions more expensive.

Also, your system can only process about seven transactions per second and consumes large amounts of electricity due to its consensus protocol.

Ripple

It is one of the most utilized cryptocurrencies. He was born three years later and now has a market value of 26,217 million euros. Among its biggest incentives is helping financial institutions to settle cross-border payments more quickly and economically. This allows Software for trading crypto transactions to be carried out in a much more agile way than in Bitcoin and Ethereum.

On the contrary, it is often criticized that it is not decentralized enough at the time of operation.

Bitcoin cash

It appeared last year following a fork of Bitcoin and is already valued at approximately 15,566 million euros. With it, the Bitcoin software was accustomed to knob larger business volumes. But, like Ripple, this currency is too centralized.

Litecoin

This cryptocurrency of 2011 has a value of 8,193 million euros. It is a Bitcoin duplicate but develops transactions four times faster. Of course, for this, Litecoin needs a lot of energy, preventing it from becoming the ideal means of payment.

Cardano

It is by now appreciated at 4,833 million euros, produced in 2017. This cryptocurrency only serves as a payment and transfer platform, so it stands out for its privacy and regulatory compliance. It is quite similar to Ethereum, but with the difference that it uses a consensus protocol of participation test and consumes less energy. However, the biggest disadvantage likely is that there is still not much information about this new currency.

Eos

Eos also appeared last year and already accounts for some 3,523 million euros in market value. Like Cardano, it will use a proof of participation protocol instead of the proof of employment. And this, in theory, will make transactions faster and more efficient.

Although it is near to raising further 819 million euros within an ICO, the task cannot be evaluated until the system has been launched.

Neo

Neo was created in 2014, currently esteemed at 4,751 million euros. It can boast of being the largest cryptocurrency in China and accepts smart contracts with goals similar to those of Ethereum. Its creators say it allows up to 1 0.000 transactions per second, a number much larger than the 15 transactions of Ethereum. Like other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin Cash or Ripple, it is too centralized.

Stellar Lumens

With a market value of 4,588 million euros and born in the same year, it is known for being a fork of Ripple. The difference is that a non-profit organization manages it. The biggest disadvantage? Stellar faces great competition and must compete with the dominant platform of the traditional banking system, SWIFT.

Coin purse

In turn, in 2014 appears Monedero, valued at approximately 3,523 million euros. This currency uses a type of digital signature that allows any member of a blockchain chain to make a transaction without revealing their information. It is a way to allow users to make transactions privately and more equal. Probably the biggest problem is that, due to its characteristics, it is usually linked to Monedero with cybercrime.

Iota

Valued at about 3.150 million euros, it does not use a blockchain but a shared accounting book based on a mathematical structure called a directed acyclic graph. Its objective is that the currency is used by Internet devices of things to buy, sell, and market data. Against it, it should be noted that numerous crypto experts have questioned the general security of this system.

Conclusion: Currently, there are approximately 600 cryptocurrencies with different blockchain mechanisms for each. Cryptocurrency can have benefits, but there are some limitations also.

These Are The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The 10 Most Popular Cryptocurrencies - Programming Insider

Bitcoin hits $10,000 for first time since September – International Investment

Posted on February 10, 2020 by Danzig

The price of bitcoin surpassed $10,000 for the first time since September, as the leading cryptocurrency continues its rally in 2020.

It rose as much as 2.6% to $10,179 last Sunday, capping a gain of about 40% so far this year, according to Bitstamp pricing. With the surge above $10,000, the cryptocurrency's market capitalization has jumped to $183bn. The cryptocurrency is now up more than $3,500 from the low of $6,425 registered in mid-December.

"This breakout is the real deal. Fundamental investment activity is backing this $10k breakout," Willy Woo, partner at Adaptive Capital,tweetedearly Sunday.

Cryptocurrencies have been on an upward trend all year, with some analysts and digital-asset enthusiasts suggesting they've benefited as safe-haven plays amid ongoing geopolitical concerns around the globe.

Ethereum is up 20% over the past five days and nearly 78% higher year to date. So far in 2020, Ripple is up 49%, bitcoin cash is 121% higher and Litecoin is up 88%.

Some Bitcoin enthusiasts are predicting further gains. Fundstrat Global Advisors' Rob Sluymer, for one, sees it rising through the second quarter this year to trade in a range of $10,000 to $11,000.

Bitcoin peaked at almost $20,000 in December 2017 and finished that year up about 1,400% as the cryptocurrency burst into the mainstream. It plunged 74% the next year, before rebounding almost 100% in 2019.

The crypto rally coincides with new record highs on Wall Street; while all three benchmark indexes the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite they closed Thursday at new highs before retreating on Friday.

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Bitcoin SV [BSV] Shoots By 15%; Are Craig Wrights Whales At It Again? – Coingape

Posted on February 10, 2020 by Danzig

Bitcoin SV is pumping again. This has been an all too common narrative in 2020. BSV is now looking to top its 2020 year high its all-time high. This time, there is nothing backing the pump. Back in January, when BSV was pumping, Craig Wright stated that he knew the people behind the pumps. Could the recent pump be their hand at work? And whats their end game?

In mid-Jan, Bitcoin SV shot by more than 100%. This saw the digital asset climb from around $200 at the turn of the year to an all-time high of $360. Much of these gains came between the 12th and 14th. This was a sign that the coin was being pumped, and pumped hard.

This was confirmed by the man behind the coin, Craig Wright. In an Interview with BlockTV, Wright stated he knew who was behind the 100% pump. He, however, denied to state who this was. His admission was a concerning one as it was clear that BSV could clearly be pumped. And in theory, at least, dumped!

I know whats behind it, and who, and whatever else. None of thats public information so Im not going to share it.

Despite being revealed, the whales seem to be still pulling strings. At the time of press, BSV has pumped 15% and going strong. This has taken prices to just over $340.

The primary target now seems to be reaching and surpassing its ATH of $360. The whales end game remains unclear. But it is likely they want to create hype and soon as retail investors are buying, dump at ATH.

Bitcoin SV could further look to surpass Bitcoin Cash in market cap ranking. This happened in Jan but was quickly reversed when Bitcoin Cash rallied. Current data shows that there is almost $4 billion between the two digital assets. While this is a lot to cover in a single rally, lets not forget that this is BSV, the coin that rallied by 100% in a single day.

A majority of other coins, including Bitcoin Cash, are posting moderate gains. This ranges from 1% to 5%. The top coin, Bitcoin, is trading sideways but just above $9,800 keeping the $10K insight.

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Bitcoin SV [BSV] Shoots By 15%; Are Craig Wright's Whales At It Again?

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Bitcoin SV is pumping again. This has been an all too common narrative in 2020. BSV is now looking to top it's 2020 year high its all-time high. This time, there is nothing backing the pump. Back in January, when BSV was pumping, Craig Wright stated that he knew the people behind the pumps. Could the recent pump be their hand at work? And what's their end game?

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This Awesome Jacket Uses an LED Array to Display Huge Emoji

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

Ford has created a jacket for bicyclists that allows them to communicate with drivers using emoji displayed in LEDs on the rider's back.

Biker Jacket

Multinational automaker Ford has devised a clever way to decrease the chances of accidents between cyclists and drivers: a jacket that displays emoji in LEDs on its back.

The Emoji Jacket prototype, which Ford unveiled Thursday as part of its ongoing “Share The Road” campaign, has a large LED array on the back that can display one of six emoji at a time:

A cyclist uses a wireless remote attached to the handlebars of their bike to choose the emoji they want to display, the idea being that they would no longer need to remove their hands from the bike to communicate with others on the road.

Good Talk

So far, Ford has only created one of the jackets, and there’s nothing to indicate that the company plans to begin mass-producing them.

However, the prototype does demonstrate how a deceptively simple idea could actually save lives.

“[A]ll too often between drivers and cyclists, [communication] just comes down to the beeping of a horn or a rude gesture,” Emmanuel Lubrani, Ford of Europe’s senior manager, brand communications and content development, said in a blog post. “The Emoji Jacket uses a universally understood means of communication to show one way in which tensions could be eased — and we all learn to ‘Share The Road.'”

READ MORE: Ford’s biking jacket shows emoji to everyone behind you [Engadget]

More on bicycles: Lyft Suspends SF E-Bikes Because They’re Bursting Into Flames

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This Awesome Jacket Uses an LED Array to Display Huge Emoji

China to Round up Infected in “Mass Quarantine Camps”

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

The government of China has ordered officials in Wuhan to round up and quarantine any sick residents in makeshift shelter camps.

A senior official in the Chinese government has instructed authorities in Wuhan, the city where the ongoing coronavirus outbreak originated, to round up the sick and quarantine them in isolated hospitals and shelters.

The vice premier leading the government’s response to the 2019-nCoV epidemic, Sun Chunlan, has instructed Wuhan officials to go door to door, according to The New York Times. She told them to check residents’ temperatures and investigate anyone who came in contact with known patients.

“Set up a 24-hour duty system,” Sun said, according to the NYT. “During these wartime conditions, there must be no deserters, or they will be nailed to the pillar of historical shame forever.”

It’s an extreme, authoritarian move: rounding up and isolating thousands of residents in makeshift shelters that are being hastily assembled per the government’s order.

Some of the shelters, which are being assembled in sports arenas and other large facilities, opened up on Thursday.

Social media posts are already showing grim, cramped situations, the NYT reports. Doctors and medical supplies are reportedly in short supply.

It’s difficult to be optimistic that this roundup will improve conditions within the city, which has been under lockdown for weeks.

The post China to Round up Infected in “Mass Quarantine Camps” appeared first on Futurism.

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Watch a Cybertruck Replace the DeLorean in “Back to the Future”

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

YouTuber Elon McFly has uploaded a perfect rendition of what would happen if the iconic DeLorean in

LOL GAS

“When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious shit.”

A YouTuber who calls themselves Elon McFly has uploaded a pixel-perfect vision of what would it would look like if the iconic DeLorean in the 1985 blockbuster “Back to the Future” was replaced by a Tesla Cybertruck.

In the clip, the Cybertruck can be seen accelerating to 88mph before traveling through time — leaving behind only two burning tire tracks and a bent license plate that reads “LOL GAS.”

Elon McFly

It’s a surprisingly competent fan remake that manages to fool the eye with impressive lighting and rendering. The truck is also exactly what you’d expect a converted time machine Cybertruck to look like, from the haphazard wiring on the exterior to the light-up buttons on the inside.

It’s not the Cybertruck’s first appearance in popular culture. Rapper Travis Scott heavily featured the pickup truck and its electric ATV companion in his December music video for the song “Gang Gang.”

More on the truck: Elon Musk Admits He Worried “Nobody Would Buy” Tesla’s Cybertruck

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Human Trial Suggests CRISPR Could Be a Viable Cancer Treatment

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

Scientists just published the results of the United States first trial of CRISPR-edited cells in cancer patients — and they're very encouraging.

Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania just published the results of the first U.S. trial of CRISPR-edited cells in cancer patients — and they’re very encouraging.

In April 2019, UPenn confirmed that a team of its researchers had officially begun testing CRISPR-edited cells in humans.

For that trial, the scientists had removed immune cells from three patients with advanced, treatment-resistant cancers. They then used CRISPR-Cas9 to edit the cells in order to improve their ability to fight tumors before returning them to the patients’ bodies.

In November, the team shared the promising results of their CRISPR trial online, noting that the edited cells were still detectable in the patients’ bodies and hadn’t produced any negative side effects.

However, the study had yet to undergo the peer-review process at that point. That meant the results were still only tentative prior to the study’s publication in the journal Science on Thursday.

Because this was only a Phase 1 trial, the researchers’ focus was on the safety of the treatment — not on its efficacy.

But as CRISPR inventor Jennifer Doudna pointed out in a Perspectives essay published alongside the study, knowing that CRISPR-edited cells won’t harm cancer patients is the first step to using those cells to treat the disease.

“Until now, it has been unknown whether CRISPR-Cas9-edited T cells would be tolerated and thrive once reinfused into a human,” Doudna wrote, later adding that the UPenn team’s findings “represent an important advance in the therapeutic application of gene editing and highlight the potential to accelerate development of cell-based therapies.”

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University Chancellor Predicts “Higher Forms of Life” on Europa

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

Monica Grady, a professor at Liverpool Hope University, claims that there is

Doctor Octopus

Monica Grady, the chancellor at Liverpool Hope University in the UK, says it’s likely there’s advanced alien life on Jupiter’s moon Europa, according to a recent statement.

“If there is something on Mars, it’s likely to be very small — bacteria,” she said. “But I think we’ve got a better chance of having slightly higher forms of life on Europa, perhaps similar to the intelligence of an octopus.”

Big Tentacle

Grady believes creatures could be living in glacial oceans underneath a hard shell of ice that’s up to 15 miles thick on Jupiter’s frigid moon.

Scientists have long suspected the existence of these deep subsurface oceans on Europa — and maybe even life. In fact, NASA announced in August that it’s completing the final designs for a Europa-bound spacecraft called Europa Clipper, which will look for signs of life.

Under the Sea

As far as the existence of other human-like aliens in our own solar system, Grady is not optimistic.

“I’m fairly certain we’re all there is at our level of intelligence in this planetary system,” she said. “And even if there are octopuses on Europa, that doesn’t give us a reason to destroy our planet.”

READ MORE: ‘Racing certainty’ there’s life on Europa and Mars, says leading UK space scientist [Liverpool Hope University]

More on Europa: Scientists Confirm Water Vapor Above the Surface of Europa

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Whistleblower Doctor Who Warned of Viral Outbreak Dies From It

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

After a mix of conflicitng reports, Li Wenliang, the Wuhan doctor who warned about the coronavirus outbreak in its earliest days, died early Friday morning.

Li Wenliang, the doctor from Wuhan, China who was one of the first to warn others about what was then an emerging coronavirus outbreak, died of the virus early on Friday morning.

Li was hospitalized in January with a bad case of 2019-nCoV. This week, reports emerged that he had died — an announcement that was immediately contested by conflicting reports from Chinese officials and Wuhan Central Hospital, which released a bizarre statement saying that doctors were still trying to resuscitate Li, who it claimed was not dead but actually in critical condition.

Now, the hospital has finally confirmed that he is in fact deceased.

“Our hospital’s ophthalmologist Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected with coronavirus during his work in the fight against the coronavirus epidemic,” reads a statement from Wuhan Central Hospital. “He died at 2:58 AM on Feb. 7 after attempts to resuscitate were unsuccessful.”

Li’s reputation as a whistleblower comes from warnings he shared about the disease that then spread on social media.

He was working in Wuhan when he warned his medical school alumni network about a potential outbreak. Li initially thought the coronavirus may have been SARS, an error that got him in trouble with the Chinese government.

The post Whistleblower Doctor Who Warned of Viral Outbreak Dies From It appeared first on Futurism.

India’s Devious New Traffic Lights Stay Red When Drivers Honk

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

To stop a constant barrage of car honking noise, the Mumbai police installed horn noise detectors at traffic lights. The more noise, the longer the red.

The Punishing Signal

To stop a constant barrage of car honking, the Mumbai police in India have installed noise detectors at traffic lights, The New York Times reports. The more honking, the longer the light stays red.

Their evocative name for the system: “The Punishing Signal.”

Horn not okay, please!
Find out how the @MumbaiPolice hit the mute button on #Mumbai’s reckless honkers. #HonkResponsibly pic.twitter.com/BAGL4iXiPH
— Mumbai Police (@MumbaiPolice) January 31, 2020

Mute Button

The cops also installed cryptic signs on intersections with the new system that read “Honk More, Wait More.”

A tongue-in-cheek video uploaded by Mumbai police last week has gone viral with several million views.

“Maybe they think that by honking, they can make the signal turn green faster?” the narrator of the video says.

Traffic Attack

The devious devices work by measuring the decibels at a given intersection. As soon as it detects that cars are honking at 85 decibels or higher — about the equivalent of a freight train passing from 15 feet — the red light stays on longer.

“This is what we wanted to tell them: Honking or making noise doesn’t move the traffic,” Mumbai police spokesman Pranaya Ashok told the Times. “The traffic takes its own time to move, O.K.?”

READ MORE: Mumbai Police Play a Trick on Honking Drivers [The New York Times]

More on India: India Wants to Send This Legless Humanoid Robot Into Space

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New Research: Cancer Symptoms Can Appear Years Before Diagnosis

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

New research reveals that cancer-linked mutations can occur years before any symptoms appear, potentially giving doctors a new tool to diagnose it early.

Thanks to a massive genetic study, doctors may soon be able to diagnose some types of cancer sooner than ever.

New research revealed that subtle signs of cancer can emerge years before a patient is diagnosed, according to The Guardian. While it’s too soon to deploy the findings in a clinical setting, they could eventually provide doctors with new tools for catching cancer in its earliest stages — when it’s most readily treatable.

Scientists at the Francis Crick Institute performed a genetic analysis of samples from over 2,500 tumors corresponding with 38 types of cancer, according to The Guardian. Their work, published Thursday in the journal Nature, identified common mutations linked to cancer.

They found that the mutations generally occur within the same nine genes — and can show up years before other discernable signs of cancer do.

“Unlocking these patterns means it should now be possible to develop new diagnostic tests that pick up signs of cancer much earlier,” Peter Van Loo, one of the lead authors of the study, told The Guardian.

The team told The Guardian that if their work is incorporated into clinical tests, doctors may be able to spot cancer sooner in as many as one-third of all patients.

“One could try and identify these [early mutations] and do some kind of very sensitive imaging on patients that were positive,” Van Loo told The Guardian. “Or even further into the future, one could conceive of methods that really targeted these cells and made them light up in an imaging approach or just kill them in one go. That’s a bit science fiction at the moment.”

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Watch a Mother Reunite With Her Deceased Child in VR

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

A video of a mother having a reunion with her deceased daughter in VR raises all sorts of questions about the future of grieving and mortality.

In 2016, Jang Ji-sung’s seven-year-old daughter Nayeon died of an incurable disease. Three years later, the South Korean mother was reunited with Nayeon — sort of — in a virtual world created for a televised documentary.

On Thursday, the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation shared a clip from the special documentary, titled “I Met You,” on its YouTube page, with the footage cutting between the “real world” and the virtual one.

In the former setting, Jang stands in front of a massive green screen while wearing both a VR headset and what appear to be some sort of haptic gloves. In the latter, she and her daughter talk, hold hands, and even have a birthday party complete with a lit cake.

The VR reunion is, as you might expect, extremely emotional. Jang appears to begin crying the moment she sees the virtual Nayeon, while the rest of the family — Nayeon’s father, brother, and sister — watch the reunion unfold with somber expressions and the occasional tear.

“Maybe it’s a real paradise,” Jang said of the reunion in VR, according to Aju Business Daily. “I met Nayeon, who called me with a smile, for a very short time, but it’s a very happy time. I think I’ve had the dream I’ve always wanted.”

According to Aju Business Daily, the production team spent eight months on the project. They designed the virtual park after one the mother and daughter had visited in the real world, and used motion capture technology to record the movements of a child actor that they could later use as a model for their virtual Nayeon.

All that to say: the process might not be simple and the final product might not be perfect, but we now have the technology to recreate the dead in VR — convincingly enough to move their loved ones to tears.

And the implications of that are impossible to predict.

It may have taken an entire team of experts to produce “I Met You,” but how far can we be from a platform that lets anyone upload footage of a deceased love one and then interact with a virtual version of that person? Years? Months?

And what sort of impact will that have on the grieving process? Will seeing a loved one in VR help people find closure and move on following a death? Will some people become addicted to this virtual world, spending more and more time in it and less and less in the real one?

And will it stop with VR? Or is this just the first step to androids designed to mimic our dead loved ones in both appearance and personality, like in the “Black Mirror” episode Be Right Back?

Several startups are setting the groundwork for that future, compiling data about people both living and dead so they can create “digital avatars” of those people. Other companies are already building robot clones of real people.

The key to a VR reunion being a positive thing — that is, more like a twenty-first century take on flipping through a photo album and less like that “Black Mirror” episode — appears to be in the living person fully accepting their loved one’s death.

“Since you know the person is gone, you accept the virtual equivalent for what it is — a comforting vestige,” Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano told Dell Technologies in December. “There is nothing wrong or unethical about it.”

Perhaps regulation is necessary. Rather than letting startups offer the public the chance to interact with virtual versions of their dead loved ones — undoubtedly at a cost — maybe we can make the technology available only to people who’ve submitted to a screening with a psychologist.

It’s hard to say what might work as the opportunity to interact with convincing versions of the deceased in VR is decidedly uncharted territory — but now that we’ve officially entered that arena, we have a lot of questions we need to answer as soon as possible.

Editor’s Note, 2/07/20: This article was updated to correct the name of the broadcaster that aired the documentary.

READ MORE: Sorrow-stricken mother reunites with deceased daughter in virtual world [Aju Business Daily]

More on clones: A Russian Startup Is Selling Robot Clones of Real People

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Watch a Mother Reunite With Her Deceased Child in VR

TikTok Waited Three Hours to Tell Cops About Livestreamed Suicide

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

After a man livestreamed his suicide on TikTok, the company spent three hours crafting its PR response before contacting the police.

Wrong Priorities

In February 2019, a 19-year-old Brazilian man livestreamed his suicide on the popular video-sharing app TikTok. An hour and a half later, TikTok noticed and removed the video.

Three hours after that, TikTok finally contacted the police, a former employee of the Brazilian offices of TikTok parent company ByteDance has told The Intercept Brazil — and it spent those hours putting together a public relations strategy.

Clock’s Ticking

The employee, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, provided the Intercept with an image of an internal document detailing TikTok’s minute-by-minute response to the livestreamed suicide.

It suggests that TikTok found out about the stream via messages from influencers on WhatsApp — and not from the team in China tasked with monitoring content.

“The main issue was just how unprepared the Chinese team was for a situation like this,” the source told the Intercept, “where the app’s algorithm didn’t catch that it was a suicide, let alone bring down the livestream, even after so many complaints.”

Standard Statement

The Intercept wrote that TikTok didn’t answer any of its specific questions about the incident, but did provide a statement.

“We remain deeply saddened by this tragic incident and sympathize with the family,” the statement said. “We encourage anyone who needs support or is concerned about a friend or family member to contact a suicide hotline.”

More on TikTok: Researchers Find Major Security Flaws in Popular App TikTok

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NASA: Boeing Starliner Test Nearly Ended in “Catastrophic Failure”

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

According to a NASA safety review panel, Boeing's first uncrewed flight test of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft almost ended in a

Catastrophic Failure

According to a NASA safety review panel, Boeing’s first uncrewed flight test of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft in December nearly ended in a “catastrophic failure” — another blow that could delay its plan to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station from American soil.

“The panel has a larger concern with the rigor of Boeing’s verification processes,” said Paul Hill, a former NASA flight director who serves on the safety review panel that found the new problems, according to Reuters.

Glitch Plural

The Starliner had already ended in the wrong orbit during its December maiden voyage, failing to reach the ISS as a result of an unrelated software glitch.

This second glitch, referred to as “a valve mapping software issue” in a Boeing statement, could have led to the wrong thrusters firing upon re-entry, which “could have led to risk of spacecraft loss” according to NASA.

Moving Forward

NASA has yet to decide if it wants to demand Boeing repeat an uncrewed test flight to the ISS, according to Reuters, or go ahead with its first crewed test flight with astronauts Nicole Mann, Chris Ferguson, and Mike Fincke on board.

According to NASA’s statement, investigators are still figuring out why the glitch occurred, but have “made excellent progress for this stage of the investigation.”

More on Starliner: Astronauts “Can’t Wait” to Try out Starliner Despite ISS Failure

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Scientists Plugged a Bionic Eye Directly Into This Woman’s Brain

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

Using a bionic eye developed by Spanish neuroengineer Eduardo Fernandez, a blind woman was able to see for the first time in 16 years.

Bernardeta Gómez has been blind for 16 years. But using a bionic eye developed by Spanish neuroengineer Eduardo Fernandez, she was able to see again — without using her biological eyes at all.

The system, which Fernandez is honing at his University of Miguel Hernandez lab, comprises a few different parts, as detailed in a newly-published story in MIT Technology Review.

First, there’s a pair of glasses fitted with a camera that connects to a computer. The computer translates the camera’s live video feed into electronic signals. Those signals are then sent via a cable to a port that Fernandez surgically embedded in the back of Gómez’s skull. That port connects to an implant in the visual cortex of Gómez’s brain.

Or it did for six months, anyway — that’s all the time Fernandez was approved to test the bionic eye with Gómez before he had to remove the 100-electrode implant.

For those six months, though, Gómez visited the lab four times per week, using the system to see a low-res version of the world around her. Though what she “saw” in her mind was little more than glowing dots, it was still enough to allow her to identify letters, lights, and people.

“She even played a simple Pac-Man-like computer game piped directly into her brain,” MIT Tech wrote.

Now that Fernandez knows his bionic eye works, he’s looking ahead to the next steps. Those will include testing ways to prevent the implant from degrading while in the body — and testing the entire system on more people.

“Berna was our first patient, but over the next couple of years we will install implants in five more blind people,” he told MIT Tech. “We had done similar experiments in animals, but a cat or a monkey can’t explain what it’s seeing.”

Fernandez isn’t the only researcher developing a bionic eye that restores vision while bypassing the biological eyes altogether — and the new approach could have a far greater impact on the blind community.

“Previously all attempts to create a ‘bionic eye’ focused on implanting into the eye itself,” Alex Shortt, a surgeon at Optegra Eye Hospital, told The Daily Mail in a July 2019 story focused on a system that works similarly to Fernandez’s. “It required you to have a working eye, a working optic nerve. By bypassing the eye completely, you open the potential up to many, many more people.”

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Powerful Radio Signal From Distant Galaxy Seems to Have a Pattern

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

A team of Cornell University researchers have spotted a fast radio signal source that pulses on an astonishingly regular 16-day cycle.

Way Way Out

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) have fascinated astronomers ever since they were first observed in 2007.

We’ve only started to understand these powerful signals and have yet to figure out their cause. Some have even speculated they could be signs of extraterrestrial life.

Now, Vice reports, a new study by Cornell University researchers has identified an FRB source about half a billion light years from Earth that pulses, ominously, on a regular 16-day cycle.

Pattern Recognition

That makes it the first discovered FRB to be on a repeating schedule, according to the paper.

The team analyzed 28 bursts between September 2018 and October 2019 recorded by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment Fast Radio Burst Project (CHIME/FRB), a radio telescope in British Columbia, Canada.

The Mystery Remains

Scientists have a number of ideas as to what may be causing the regular cycle. The signal could be coming from an orbiting object, for instance, that only sends signals at a certain point in its orbit.

It could also be coming from a binary star system made up of a massive star and a highly magnetized star, as outlined in a different study published on arXiv.

More on fast radio bursts: Astronomers Detect Eight New Potential Alien Signals

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Powerful Radio Signal From Distant Galaxy Seems to Have a Pattern

Congress Proposes Nationwide Network of Electric Car Chargers

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

A new bill in the House of Representatives would lay the groundwork for a national grid of electric vehicle charging stations.

Facilitating Change

Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Andy Levin have introduced a new bill that would build a national infrastructure for electric vehicles.

The EV Freedom Act would allocate the resources for the U.S. to build a nationwide network of electric vehicle chargers within five years, Reuters reports. That would alleviate a major hurdle to widespread electric car adoption, making it far easier for the population to transition away from gas power.

Five-Year Plan

Without a national infrastructure, electric vehicle owners largely depend on each automaker’s decision to build charging stations, which aren’t always compatible with one another. While Tesla has installed plenty, other automakers’ customers often need to travel farther just to find power.

“There is just no way that we will get to broad scale adoption of electric vehicles until we crush range anxiety and then it will happen precipitously,” Levin told Reuters.

Step One

Democratic lawmakers have called for a national transition to electric vehicles by 2030 or 2035 at the latest, Reuters reports. Getting charging stations in place by 2025 would be an important step toward that goal.

“This is the infrastructure bill that we need to be rallying around.” Ocasio-Cortez told Reuters. “A lot of naysayers will say, ‘They are trying to get rid of cars.’ Well, we’re not trying to get rid of cars. We’re trying to actually advance and improve our fleets… We have to go electric.”

READ MORE: U.S. House Democrats propose electric vehicle charging network [Reuters]

More on electric vehicles: Electric Vehicles Are the Future, but Their Batteries Are Stuck in the Past

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DARPA Is Using Gamers’ Brain Waves to Train Robot Swarms

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Danzig

Artificial intelligence researchers are studying the brain waves and eye movements of gamers to train an AI that can control fleets of military robots.

High Stakes

A team of artificial intelligence researchers at the University at Buffalo plans to study the brain waves and eye movements of around 25 people, Digital Trends reports, while they play a video game.

They’ll then use the information they glean from the gamers to build an advanced AI — so that it can then coordinate the actions of entire fleets of autonomous military robots.

Play On

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — better known as DARPA — has awarded the UB team a $316,000 grant for the study, which researcher Souma Chowdhury told Digital Trends is moving at “a pretty aggressive pace.”

The team still needs to gather the gamer data, but that shouldn’t take too long. The researchers have already built a real-time strategy game for the study, with a round of the game taking about five to 10 minutes to complete. If each of the gamers plays six or seven games, Chowdhury expects the team will have enough data to train its AI.

Intelligent Swarm

Ultimately, the researchers hope to end up with an AI that can guide the actions of groups of 250 robots on the ground and in the air, giving the fleet the ability to autonomously navigate unpredictable environments.

“Humans can come up with very unique strategies that an AI might not ever learn,” Chowdhury told Digital Trends. “A lot of the hype we see in AI are in applications that are relatively deterministic environments. But in terms of contextual reasoning in a real environment to get stuff done? That’s still at a nascent stage.”

READ MORE: Good at StarCraft? DARPA wants to train military robots with your brain waves [Digital Trends]

More on training AI: A Finnish Startup Is Using Prison Labor to Train AI

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DARPA Is Using Gamers’ Brain Waves to Train Robot Swarms