Select Page ::

Jitsi for Mac : Free Download : MacUpdate

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

Jitsi (previously SIP Communicator) is an audio/video and chat communicator that supports protocols such as SIP, XMPP/Jabber, AIM/ICQ, Windows Live, Yahoo!, Bonjour, and many other useful features. Jitsi supports the ZRTP protocol stack by Phil Zimmerman for encrypted private communications.

Jitsi is Open Source / Free Software, and is available under the terms of the LGPL and performs secure video calls, conferencing, chat, desktop sharing, file transfer, support for your favorite OS, and IM network. All this, and more, in Jitsi - the most complete and advanced Open Source communicator.

No similar apps have been recommended yet. You can add your suggestions to the right.

Jitsi for Mac : Free Download : MacUpdate

There Is Basically No Dark Web. It’s Only A Few Webpages TOR Co-founder – Fossbytes

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

Short Bytes: Talking at the DEF CON convention in Las Vegas, the Tor Project co-founder Roger Dingledine said that the dark web doesnt exist and its just a few web pages. He added that media has wrongly labeled it as a heaven for illegal activities. Also, only 3% of Tor users connect to a hidden .onion website.

At the DEF CON convention in Las Vegas, on Friday, Roger Dingledine, one of the three Tor Project founders, said that there are tons of misconceptions about the same. According to The Register,Dingledine bashed the journalists for giving a bad name to the Tor network by calling it a heaven for pedophiles and terrorists.

There is basically no dark web. It doesnt exist. Its only a very few webpages, he told.

If youre interested in numbers, only 3% of Tor users connect to a hidden .onion website, said Dingledine. This means that majority of users are using it for simply analyzing their activities on the indexed web. They are, most probably, using it for stopping the website owners from tracking them.

According to his data, surprisingly, Facebook is the most popular website visited by Tor users. Today, more than a million people visit Facebook using Tor browser, thanks to the networks hidden service launched in 2014.

Dingledine also made attempts to calm down those who feared that different intelligence agencies have already cracked Tor and compromised the integrity. Intelligence agencies didnt need to set up their own stepping-stone nodes he said, since they could if they wanted to just monitor those who did run them, as reported by The Register.

Did you find this story interesting? Dont forget to share your suggestions, views, and tips!

See original here:

There Is Basically No Dark Web. It's Only A Few Webpages TOR Co-founder - Fossbytes

investFeed switch to cryptocurrency token sale brings mainstream demographics on board – Crypto Insider (press release) (blog)

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

This is a sponsored piece.We encourage thorough due diligencefrom our readers before acting on any given information.

investFeed is a New York based community powered social trading network making the switch from US equities to cryptocurrency. Marketing itself as the worlds first social investment network for the cryptocurrency community, investFeed aims to develop cryptocurrency infrastructure for the industry. This is establishing a much-needed framework ready for the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrency.

Their pivot to digital currencies is described as a key move to cater to an exponentially growing industry, Weve been a social investment platform since 2014 and over the last few months weve had a huge demand from our user-base to integrate cryptocurrencies onto our platform We really see that [cryptocurrencies] are the future going forward, said Ron Chernesky, investFeed CEO on the live Post-Cable Network, Cheddar. Keeping the momentum and buzz around the token sale up, last week the investFeed team announced that they brought on ex-NFL football player, Jovan Haye, as an investor as well as emerging technologies and blockchain-focused VC entrepreneur, Steven Neryaoff, as an advisor.

On the point of corporate interest, one of Crypto Insiders recent pieces noted that there was huge increase in cryptocurrency attention from the Big Four accounting firms. Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC reps all stated that both existing and prospective clients are beginning to ask questions about initial coin offerings (ICOs), the process by which public blockchain technologies can be leveraged to create custom cryptocurrencies that are subsequently sold to fund projects. With investFeeds platform supporting cryptocurrency trading infrastructure, it has the potential to appeal to big enterprise looking to jump into the market.

CTO Drew Freeman was quoted on Finextra to have said, The switch from equities to cryptocurrencies will also target a millennial user base that has shown disinterest in traditional investments. So while the big movers of the corporate world are turning their focus to the crypto market and enterprise-facing players, investFeed has the potential to also capture the attention of the sizable youth demographic, empowering them through the decentralization featured in blockchain technology capitalizing on the best of both worlds in the process.

Having been involved in US equities trading since 2008, one thing that can be said for investFeed is that their team has a track record of operating as a cohesive unit which is in sharp contrast to the majority of token sale groups capitalizing on the ICO bandwagon. The platform will introduce old-school and traditional stock traders to the fast-paced world of cryptocurrency market investment in a familiar way through the investFeed skin and tools. Despite the ICO craze slowing down, investFeed has a high possibility of reaching its target they have a solid track record, a detailed whitepaper and a reasonable hard cap at 28,000 ETH. At the time of publishing, investfeed has raised 35% of its limit, and has until August 7th, 2017 when the sale closes out.

Featured image sourced from Wikimedia commons

Read this article:

investFeed switch to cryptocurrency token sale brings mainstream demographics on board - Crypto Insider (press release) (blog)

Wall Street stunned over AMD’s blowout results due to cryptocurrency mining demand – CNBC

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

Investors are mesmerized with AMD's impressive second quarter as cryptocurrency mining demand drove the company's financial results above Wall Street's expectations.

The chipmaker reported better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and guidance Tuesday. Its shares surged more than 10 percent in after-hours trading following the report and were up more than 9 percent in early regular trading Wednesday.

"AMD turned in a solid beat to our and consensus estimates as the company's new Ryzen desktop CPU ramped into production and GPU demand outstripped supply," Stifel analyst Kevin Cassidy wrote in a note to clients Wednesday. "While management wasn't specific on how much, the GPU revenue upside was driven by cryptocurrency applications."

AMD shares have rallied 102 percent through Tuesday in the previous 12 months compared with the S&P 500's 14 percent return. That performance ranks No. 4 in the entire S&P 500, according to FactSet.

Cryptocurrency miners use graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia to "mine" new coins, which can then be sold or held for future appreciation. AMD traditionally has a better reputation for mining cryptocurrencies.

The ethereum cryptocurrency is up more than 2,400 percent year to date through Wednesday, while bitcoin is up about 160 percent this year, according to data from industry website CoinDesk.

In June, AMD shares jumped after the company told CNBC that the dramatic rise in digital currency prices has driven demand for its graphics cards. At the time, major computer hardware retailers had sold out of AMD's recently launched RX 570 and RX 580 models.

Digital currency mining was the key topic during AMD's earnings conference call with Wall Street on Tuesday evening. Analysts asked company management three times for clarification on the magnitude and sustainability of cryptocurrency mining demand.

One analyst noted the company is working to mitigate future downside risk and is not incorporating continued digital currency mining outperformance in its guidance.

"Crypto mining helped stimulate demand for AMD GPUs in Q2, which we think could translate to a risk should cryptocurrency values decline, AMD is working to manage the crypto risk by targeting supply to the core GPU gaming market, and working with some of its AIB [add in board] partners to offer specific feature sets to segment the market between gaming & mining," Jefferies analyst Mark Lipacis wrote Wednesday. "AMD is not including upside from mining in its outlook."

Lipacis reiterated his buy rating on the company and raised his price target to $19 from $16, representing 35 percent upside from Tuesday's close.

To be sure, some analysts are still skeptical about AMD after its big run.

"We were surprised at the aftermarket reaction for the stock," Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore wrote Wednesday. "We continue to be somewhat cynical on the long-term intrinsic value of the stock, despite being excited about Zen and maintaining numbers that are above the Street. As street numbers start to catch up, absolute valuation levels are going to matter more."

Moore reiterated his equal weight rating and $11 price target for AMD shares.

CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this story.

Read the original post:

Wall Street stunned over AMD's blowout results due to cryptocurrency mining demand - CNBC

Bitcoin technology faces split, may create clone virtual currency – Reuters

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin's underlying software code could be split on Tuesday to create a clone called "Bitcoin Cash," potentially providing a windfall for holders of the digital currency.

The initiative is being led by a small group of mostly China-based bitcoin miners - who get paid in the currency for contributing computing power to the bitcoin network - who are not happy with proposed improvements to the currency's technology.

They have initiated what is known as a "fork" - where blockchain, a public ledger of all bitcoin transactions, splits into two potential paths - that is set to be activated on Aug. 1.

A fork, if it goes ahead, would be significant as it could create a new competitor for bitcoin, which remains the oldest and most valuable digital currency. It is not clear if the fork will happen and how much the new coin would be worth.

If the fork goes ahead on Tuesday, anyone owning bitcoins before the split will have access to an equal amount of Bitcoin Cash for free, which they will then be able to trade for fiat currencies - legal tender backed by an issuing government - or other digital currencies.

"This is somewhat like a stock split," said Jeff Garzik, chief executive and co-founder of Bloq, a blockchain company. "You go to sleep with 100 bitcoins and wake up in the morning with 100 bitcoins plus 100 'Bitcoin Cash', a new token."

Bitcoin averted a split two weeks ago, when its software developers and miners agreed to implement a software upgrade called the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 91.

BIP 91 was the first step toward a larger effort to upgrade bitcoin through software called SegWit2x, which would make the network faster at processing transactions, such as payments using the virtual currency.

The miners, a powerful segment of the bitcoin community, represent a network of computer operators who validate information on the blockchain. Since bitcoin is powered by open-source code, any group of coders can use it to create clone coins.

Futures of Bitcoin Cash are already trading on certain exchanges at around $282.40. Bitcoin traded at $2,806.27, according to coinmarketcap.com.

If the fork goes ahead, users will only be able to receive and sell the new token on certain digital currency exchanges and digital wallet providers, as several have decided not to support it, including Coinbase, BitMEX, and Bitstamp.

"We do not want to support any behavior whereby anyone can potentially split the bitcoin blockchain and effectively create free money out of nothing," said Greg Dwyer, head of business development at BitMEX.

Two other large exchanges, Kraken and Bitfinex, said they will allow users to trade Bitcoin Cash and will credit them with the same amount of the new token after the fork, if it goes ahead.

Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss and Anna Irrera; Editing by Bill Rigby

Read the original:

Bitcoin technology faces split, may create clone virtual currency - Reuters

Bitcoin to surge nearly 80% to $5000, ethereum to double, Standpoint’s Moas predicts – CNBC

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

After testing out digital currencies earlier this month, independent stock research analyst Ronnie Moas on Sunday published the first two parts of his 122-page report on bitcoin and other digital currencies.

"In my view, the genie is out of the bottle, and cryptocurrencies will continue to rise and take market share away from stocks, other precious metals, bonds and currencies," Moas, founder of Standpoint Research, said in the report.

"I think investors should take a shot on this and hold for a few years. If you lose a few bucks, at least you took a shot," he said. "In life, you miss every shot that you do not take. It will probably be more upsetting to watch it (from the sidelines) go up another 1,000%."

Moas gave bitcoin a $5,000 price target for 2018, reflecting nearly 80 percent upside from Monday's price of about $2,800. He also expects rival digital currency ethereum to more than double in value from just under $200 to reach $400 in the next year, and another digital currency, litecoin, to double from about $40 to $80.

In the next week or two, Moas said he plans to issue the third part of the 122-page report about how a fourth and much smaller digital currency could rise a few hundred percent in the near future.

The stock analyst said he's bought 10 of the top 20 digital currencies by market capitalization in order to be diversified, marking the first time in 20 years he's put money into his own recommendations.

"In my view, 10-15 years from now, the charts on a few of the top 20 names will look like the Amazon, Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Netflix and Google charts look today," Moas said in the report.

Top 20 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization

Source: Standpoint Research

Moas' report comes just before a possible split in bitcoin Tuesday, if some developers go ahead with a scheduled upgrade known as Bitcoin Cash. Direct owners of bitcoin will then hold two versions of the digital currency.

"The market is telling you right now that we will get through this event tomorrow," Moas told CNBC in a phone interview Monday, noting bitcoin traded close to its all-time high.

The digital currency hit a record $3,025 in mid-June, fell to $1,837 in mid-July, before recovering about $1,000 to trade near $2,800 on Monday, according to CoinDesk.

Bitcoin (2010 -2017)

Source: CoinDesk

Back on July 5, Moas told CNBC he bought some bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin and expects bitcoin could reach $5,000 "in a few months." He subsequently published an article on Reddit outlining his views on digital currencies.

Since then, institutional attention on bitcoin has only increased.

Fundstrat co-founder Tom Lee became the first major Wall Street strategist to publish a report about bitcoin on July 7. Less than a week later, Switzerland's financial market regulator authorized the first Swiss bank to manage bitcoinfor clients, while the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission last Monday approved the first bitcoin options platform.

Last Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission also issued a report and investors bulletin on initial coin offerings, or sales of new digital coins.

"I have little doubt that 1% of the money in cash, bonds, stocks and gold will end up in cryptocurrencies," Moas wrote in his report.

Since the $80 billion cryptocurrency market right now is a 25th of 1 percent of the $200 trillion in gold, cash, stocks and bonds, Moas pointed out digital currencies will need to increase by 25 times in order to reach 1 percent of the overall capital market.

If cryptocurrencies become part of asset allocation models and take 2 to 4 percent of capital markets, then the digital currencies will likely increase 100 times in value, Moas said

To be sure, Moas also laid out a host of risks for investing in digital currencies, including inherent high volatility, large-scale hacks on cryptocurrency firms and potential regulation, especially in China, that could cause prices to "collapse."

In addition, Moas pointed out the lack of customer support for online digital currency products.

"There is no telephone support," he said in the report. "You must go to the FAQs section and spend a long time looking for the answer to whatever question you may have and then you may not be happy with the answer. Your only other option is to send an email to customer support which could take anywhere from one-to-seven days to get a reply."

Coinbase, a popular website for buying and selling digital currencies in the U.S., has repeatedly reported website loading delays or outages in the last few months due to high customer traffic.

All that said, the stock analyst said he believes the time to buy digital currencies is now. He described in his report how investors can buy bitcoin, and why financial institutions are interested in the blockchain technology behind bitcoin and other digital currencies.

"I watched from the sidelines for a few years and it felt recently as if the train is leaving the station," Moas said. "I think we are still in the first quarter of a four quarter game and that even though I missed out on significant gains (2014 - 2016), it is not too late to get in."

Originally posted here:

Bitcoin to surge nearly 80% to $5000, ethereum to double, Standpoint's Moas predicts - CNBC

AP Explains: Threat of a bitcoin split avoided, for now – The Seattle Times

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

On the eve of a major change in bitcoin, a threat of a split in the digital currency has been avoided for now.

A move by users to force a change in the computer code by Monday has worked. A majority of miners the core bitcoin users who verify bitcoin transactions around the world has signaled support. Though the change is designed to improve capacity on the increasingly clogged network, some miners had objected because it could reduce transaction fees they collect.

The show of support has helped reverse a slide in the value of bitcoin from around $1,900 two weeks ago to roughly $2,800 on Monday.

However, some uncertainty still remains. A May agreement between large bitcoin companies effectively pushes the threat of a split off until November. And one proposal to launch an alternative currency, Bitcoin Cash, is sowing confusion and fears of scam trades.

Heres a look at the current dispute.

___

WHAT IS BITCOIN, AGAIN?

Bitcoin is a digital currency thats not tied to any bank or government . Like cash, it lets users spend or receive money anonymously, or mostly so; like other online payment services, it also lets them do so over the internet.

The coins are created by miners, who operate computer farms that verify other users transactions by solving complex mathematical puzzles. These miners receive bitcoin in exchange. Its also possible to exchange bitcoin for U.S. dollars and other currencies.

Bitcoin has been touted as a currency of the future, but so far it hasnt proven very popular as a way to pay for goods or services.

___

WHATS BEHIND THE FUSS?

In a word, speed.

The bitcoin network is limited in how quickly it can shuffle around digital money. As bitcoin has grown, payment delays have become more common and worrisome.

Some software developers came up with a way to speed things up by reengineering bitcoins universal ledger, a file called the blockchain. Supporters of the new method include Microsoft, the bitcoin exchange Coinbase and a variety of other bitcoin proponents who would like to see the currency used more widely in commerce.

Reformers had threatened to stop recognizing transactions confirmed by miners who hadnt adopted the upgrade.

___

WHAT WOULD A SPLIT MEAN?

Generally speaking, chaos though mostly limited to those who use or squirrel away bitcoin. People who use bitcoin couldnt be sure which version they held, or what might happen if they spent it or accepted bitcoin as payment.

Taking bitcoin, for instance, could leave you with currency you couldnt spend freely and that might disappear entirely if it ended up being the wrong kind.

Thats one reason the community-supported website Bitcoin.org had warned users not to accept any bitcoin up to two days prior to Mondays deadline and to wait for confirmation the situation had been resolved before trading again.

But the change now has the support needed to proceed, so a disruption isnt likely this week.

___

WHAT ARE THE REMAINING ISSUES?

A separate group of developers sought to solve the speed issue by proposing a new currency called Bitcoin Cash. It effectively rewards every owner of bitcoin with an equal amount of the new currency using a system that can handle much higher volumes of trades.

But some digital currency exchange operators including Coinbase and Bitstamp have said they wont support Bitcoin Cash. And Cornell computer science professor Emin Gun Sirer says savvy traders can game the system to create free money for themselves.

Bitcoin Cash was slated to launch Tuesday. As of Monday the price of Bitcoin Cash futures was about one-tenth of bitcoin itself.

Tone Vays, a bitcoin analyst and consultant, says he thinks Bitcoin Cash is destined to become one of many alternative digital currencies known as alt-coins. He says the concept is similar to Clams , digital coins that were also awarded to bitcoin holders in 2014 but now trade at about one-thousandth of bitcoins price.

Once Bitcoin Cash goes live Tuesday, people will immediately sell it for bitcoin, he said Monday.

Meanwhile, major companies that came together on the May agreement committed to a second change by November that could still result in a split of bitcoin into two incompatible currencies if a significant number of miners dont agree.

The big drama has thus been postponed, Sirer said in an email Monday.

___

Follow AP Technology Writer Ryan Nakashima at https://twitter.com/rnakashi

See the original post:

AP Explains: Threat of a bitcoin split avoided, for now - The Seattle Times

Civil war threatens future of bitcoin as business waits for technology to mature – ABC Online

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

Updated August 01, 2017 19:41:32

Fewer people have been paying for their coffee using bitcoin in recent years.

Three years ago, Scott Riggs noticed that about 12 customers per week bought food and drink from his St Kilda cafe using the digital currency.

This has since dropped sharply to one or two customers per month.

When asked why, Mr Riggs said, "I think people are holding onto their bitcoin because it's worth so much now."

One bitcoin is worth $US2,816 (or $3,517 Australian dollars) at 6:08pm AEST.

This is an extraordinary surge when one considers each bitcoin was worth as little as $US310 ($386) back in 2014.

However, recent developments have called into question the future of bitcoin for its investors and the wider business community.

A civil war has been raging within the bitcoin community about the direction which the controversial digital currency should take.

This conflict could end in a bitter split and the creation of a rival cryptocurrency called bitcoin cash which is expected to launch at 10.20pm (AEST), Tuesday evening.

In the past three months, bitcoin's value has been very volatile to say the least swinging wildly between $US3,000 ($3,760) and $US1,300 ($1,630).

But what is behind this internal conflict and price volatility?

In one word speed. As the popularity of bitcoin has increased in the last few years, so has the time and delay in processing its digital transactions.

Some bitcoin users have reported that it can even take days for their payments to clear.

Currently, bitcoin's capacity allows it to handle a few transactions per second (about seven), whereas conventional payment methods like Visa can process thousands per second.

Bitcoin cash is expected to be able to process eight times more transactions than its predecessor.

But it is uncertain which digital currency exchange operators will support the spin-off currency and how well it will perform in the marketplace.

For the original bitcoin to be more widely accepted as a currency, its speed would certainly need to improve.

On the other hand, there are those who buy bitcoin and hold onto them (instead of spending them like a normal currency). They are speculating on its future value skyrocketing and hoping "get rich quickly".

"At the moment, it's purely speculation that's leading the price," according to technology author Steve Sammartino.

For example, US billionaire fund manager Bill Miller invested 1 per cent of his wealth into bitcoin back in 2014. It is estimated his bitcoin wealth has risen tenfold since then.

It is difficult to have it both ways for an asset to function as both a store of value and a tradeable currency.

In the end, bitcoin's existential conflict is between those who are betting it will become a mainstream currency of the future, and others who see it as a (speculative) repository of wealth like gold.

"The fact that bitcoin is de-centralised is what gives it trust," Mr Sammartino said.

"No one owns it [and] no one controls it.

"It can't be used as a form of quantitative easing. And the fact that it has that element is really what enables it to get trust in the long run."

However, members of the business community like AMP chief economist Dr Shane Oliver are sceptical of bitcoin's potential as a future currency.

Dr Oliver posed the question: "If bitcoin is a store of value, why has its value gone up and down so dramatically over the last few years?

"It's almost like you're investing in spec-y stocks on the share market. It's been on a bit of a roller coaster ride.

"Unless we have some sort of major crisis and go into some sort of global apocalypse where mainstream governments in the US, Australia and others disappear and collapse, and their currencies become worthless then I can't see people switching across to alternatives like bitcoin."

Mr Sammartino is optimistic about the future of bitcoin but said "there's a chance that the currency could fail, and we've seen currencies come and go over time".

Regardless of bitcoin's future, or whether it splits, there are more than 1,000 other alternative cryptocurrencies in a market worth US$93 billion ($116 billion).

The second largest digital currency ethereum has attracted a lot of attention from the business world.

More than 100 international companies including BP, Deloitte, JPMorgan and Microsoft are members of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.

These companies are experimenting with blockchain, the technology which powers bitcoin and ethereum.

Essentially, it can be used for more than just making digital payments. The business world hopes blockchain will be a disruptive technology that cuts down the time and cost of doing business in the future.

A recent example of this technology simplifying business is a recent collaboration between IBM, Westpac, ANZ and Scentre Group (the owner of the Westfield shopping centres).

In early-July, those companies announced that they participated in a successful trial to digitise "the bank guarantee process" for commercial property leasing.

It is currently standard practice (and has been for a long time) that commercial landlords require their retail tenants to first obtain bank guarantees before the lease is finalised.

A Westpac spokesperson explained that the guarantee is issued on paper which can easily be lost, and that there are "tens of millions of bank guarantees out there".

According to IBM's blockchain expert Michael Aaron, this process was "old-fashioned".

He said the technology behind cryptocurrencies can "reduce the time for businesses to work together, increase trust, eliminate the need for paper, and potentially prevent fraud in the future".

"Documents written on paper are more susceptible to fraud," Mr Aaron said.

Until the technology behind cryptocurrencies is mature and more widely used by businesses, the controversy over bitcoin still rages.

"I think bitcoin is probably going to stay on the sidelines," Dr Oliver said.

"It's going to remain of interest to tech heads and people who are worrying about paper currencies collapsing in value.

"But I'd be very surprised if in the next few decades it becomes mainstream."

In the meantime, for bitcoin's users and investors, it remains a case of "buyer beware".

This story will be on The Business tonight at 8:30pm (AEST) on the ABC News channel and ABC iview.

Topics: business-economics-and-finance, computers-and-technology, consumer-finance, money-and-monetary-policy, australia

First posted August 01, 2017 19:33:30

Read the original here:

Civil war threatens future of bitcoin as business waits for technology to mature - ABC Online

Ignition Creative Teams With Jack Abramoff For Bitcoin Reality … – Deadline

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

Heres a candidate for the days weirdest programming announcement: Content company Ignition Creativesays its producing a reality docuseries about bitcoin regulation, of all subjects.

And it will feature Jack Abramoff the once-powerful lobbyist who was imprisoned for four years after pleading guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials.

The series, to be called Capitol Makeover: Bitcoin Brigade, will show Abramoff giving lobbying lessons to AML Bitcoin creator Marcus Andrade and his colleagueswho want to prevent Congress from unintentionally destroying the digital currency industry, the release says.

Lawmakers are considering legislation designed to curb the use of digital currencies to engage in money laundering, tax evasion, and to support terrorist groups. Opponents fear that the government will restrict peoples freedom to trade with alternative currencies.

When Marcus approached me, I didnt know a bitcoin from a sirloin, Abramoff says. But, after learning about this vital new technology, I quickly realized that his mission was essential if our nation is to continue to lead the world in innovation and finance and so I pledged to do whatever I could to help short of lobbying Congress myself.

Ignition Creative CEO Martin Kistler says hes fascinated by the story of crypto currency and how it could change the consumer world as we know it.

Ignition is teaming with a new company calledBlockchain Entertainment that todays release says is dedicated to entertainment projects about digital currency and blockchain technology.

Blockchain President Andrew Williamson whos also head of Production and Development for Kylin Pictures says that the digital currency world itself is in a panic over recent and likely future moves by the United States Congress to halt the exponential growth of bitcoin.

Engaging with Abramoff, he adds, was the perfect entry into this turbulent world.

See the article here:

Ignition Creative Teams With Jack Abramoff For Bitcoin Reality ... - Deadline

Supernova hunters discover comet – – The Space Reporter – The Space Reporter

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

An international group of scientists conducting a survey to search for supernovae, the remnants of massive stars that exploded as they died, was surprised when they unexpectedly discovered a comet instead.

The All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN), based at Ohio State University, uses a group of eight 14-centimeter telescopes placed around the world to search the visible sky for supernovae every two to three nights.

When scanning images obtained on July 19, Jose Prieto of Universidad Diego Portales in Chile immediately noticed a bright object moving in relation to background stars.

He checked a catalog of moving objects for any known asteroids or comets in that position but did not find any.

While I was scanning the images obtained the night of July 19, I noticed this light source was different from the typical transient sources we discoverslightly extended with respect to normal stars and moving between consecutive images that were obtained within minutes of each other.

With help from amateur astronomer Joseph Brimacombe, an Australian team member who took his own images of the object from that country, ASAS-SN scientists quickly realized they had discovered something new.

They then turned their worldwide network of telescopes on the object and followed it for three days, during which time it grew significantly brighter.

But when they continued the observations for a second three-day period, the objects brightness faded.

This sudden increase in brightness, called an outburst, is a characteristic of comets. It occurs when ejected dust and gas cause the material surrounding the comets nucleus to temporarily expand.

Comets move so fast that even being able to see it in Chile and Argentina on the same night was a real challenge, said team member Benjamin Shappee of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California.

Without Josephs observation, the next night would have been much more difficult, since we would only have had a rough idea of where to look.

Designated ASASSN1, the comet, which is approaching the Sun, should be visible for several months.

Laurel Kornfeld is a freelance writer and amateur astronomer from Highland Park, NJ, who enjoys writing about astronomy and planetary science. She studied journalism at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned a Graduate Certificate of Science in astronomy from Swinburne Universitys Astronomy Online program.

View post:

Supernova hunters discover comet - - The Space Reporter - The Space Reporter

Matt Williamson over the moon as he helps Workington Comets to victory after his battle to be fit – News & Star

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

The Workington No.4 was wiped out by Jonas B Andersen in the penultimate race at Redcar on Thursday and still felt secondhand for Saturdays crunch clash against the Tigers.

But six points from Williamson against some of the toughest riders in the division proved vital as Comets came from behind to stun their rivals.

Williamson said: It was a really tough meeting for me, still feeling the effects from the crash at Redcar. Id still not fully recovered from a big spill I had at Edinburgh and then had that to deal with.

I was happy that I managed to soldier through and get six points against one of the top teams in the league. For us to come back like we did was fantastic for the team.

It looked like it was all over and, for once, the tactical ride went in our favour, then me and Ty got a good 5-1 after it and all of a sudden we were right back in it.

We got an away point at Redcar then got a win on Saturday, so thats four points from two meetings which is putting us back up there.

Despite the weekend, Williamson admitted it is still difficult to gauge how well they are doing with up to 11 meetings in hand on their rivals.

Williamson has stepped up into the main body of the team this season without the luxury of regular meetings as rain-offs have plagued Workington, but he feels he is getting there after a run of strong displays.

I knew it was going to be tough and not having the meetings hasnt helped, but Ive been consistently doing what Id say is the job expected of a No.4, he said.

Im scoring four points or more and most people in the main body of the team have been riding for years and thats the scores they are getting.

Meanwhile, Craig Cook, Ty Proctor, Thomas Jorgensen and Mason Campton will represent Comets in the SGB Championship Fours at Peterborough on Sunday, with Williamson named as the reserve.

Workington have been drawn in group A with the hosts and Edinburgh, Sheffield and Scunthorpe.

Continue reading here:

Matt Williamson over the moon as he helps Workington Comets to victory after his battle to be fit - News & Star

How to Deal With Psoriasis – Beliefnet

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

Shutterstock.com

Psoriasis is an immune-mediated disease that causes raised, red scaly patches to appear on the skin. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, an estimated, 7.5 million people in the United States have psoriasis. "Psoriasis occurs in all age groups but is primarily seen in adults. Up to 40 percent of people with psoriasis experience joint inflammation that produces symptoms of arthritis." Psoriasis affects the elbows, knees or scalp, though it can appear in any location and it can burn and sting. Scientists do not know what causes psoriasis. But it's believed that that the immune system and perhaps genetics play a role in triggering the condition. The skin cells in people with psoriasis grow at an abnormally fast rate and this can cause lesions. AAD also shared that men and women develop psoriasis at equal rates. "Psoriasis also occurs in all racial groups, but at varying rates. About 1.9 percent of African-Americans have psoriasis, compared to 3.6 percent of Caucasians." Psoriasis may be associated heart disease and depression. Here are 6 ways to deal with psoriasis.

Psoriasis is a battle for many people, but it can be managed with natural remedies and medications where you can feel more comfortable and more confident in your own skin.

Read this article:

How to Deal With Psoriasis - Beliefnet

Your child has psoriasis, now how do you treat it? – Miami Herald

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

Your child has psoriasis, now how do you treat it?
Miami Herald
If you've answered yes, your child might have psoriasis. Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that affects less than 1 percent of children. The risk is higher in individuals with a family history of psoriasis. Psoriasis lesions are well ...

More Jacksonville Businesses Might Have To Hang Human … – WJCT NEWS

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

The Jacksonville City Council is advancing a bill that would add hotels to the list of businesses required to post human-trafficking awareness signs. The councils Neighborhoods Community Service, Public Health and Safety committee approved it Monday morning.

State law requires the signs, which include the phone number for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline, (888) 373-7888, be posted in strip clubs and massage parlors. Under a city ordinance, those businesses can be fined $500 if they dont post the signs.

Human trafficking prosecuting attorney Erin Wolfson said during Mondays meeting, hotels are an important addition.

Right now that is where we get most of our cases from are from hotels, whether theyre along the (Interstate) 95 corridor or out by the airport or at the end of JTB and Baymeadows area, Wolfson said.

Lt. Richard Buoye with Jacksonville Sheriffs Offices Integrity Unit said hotels would have to post the signs in back room areas for their employees to see.

One thing Ive found out is our best cases always come from someone who either lives or works in that area and they know that area and something just isnt right, he said.

City Councilman Tommy Hazouri is sponsoring the bill. Hed planned to also add food service establishments to the list but said it included too many types of businesses like food trucks, and enforcement would be difficult. He said he may seek to add the requirement back for certain restaurants with future legislation.

We might narrow (restaurants) down based on capacity, Hazouri said.

He said hed eventually like to get awareness out to people involved in domestic work like housekeeping and lawn care.

Those are areas where labor trafficking does occur, said Northeast Florida attorney Crystal Freed. Freed, who almost exclusively represents victims of trafficking, said community education is important to address that problem.

Hazouris bill will go before the Rules Committee this week before the full Council has the opportunity to vote on it.

Lindsey Kilbride can be reached at lkilbride@wjct.org, 904-358-6359 or on Twitter at @lindskilbride.

More Jacksonville Businesses Might Have To Hang Human ... - WJCT NEWS

Switzerland Just Opened the World’s Longest Pedestrian Suspension Bridge – Smithsonian

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

(Courtesy of Zermatt Tourism)

smithsonian.com July 31, 2017 3:24PM

Switzerland opened what local authorities say is the world's longest suspension bridge on Sunday after only 10 weeks of construction.

The super-narrow bridge over the Grabengufer ravine, near Zermatt, measures 1,620 feet long (or about a third of a mile), and hangs 278 feet in the air.

If youre planning on walking arm-in-arm with a partner, think again: The bridge only measures 25.6 inches wide just enough for one person, single file.

Guinness has not yet recognized the bridge as the longest: The currentrecognized record holder is the Kokonoe Yume Bridge, in Japan, which measures 1,279 feet across.

According to theBBC, the new bridge in Zermatt has been built to replace an older one that was damaged by rock falls.

The bridge is constructed with steel, connecting Zermatt with nearby Grchen, which is also a popular two-day hike in Switzerland.USA Todayreported that the local tourist authority warns that the high bridge is for hikers with no fear of heights.

Hikerswill definitely want to visit the bridge, as it also completes part of the Europaweg trail, a route that takes travelers through some of the best and highest peaks in Switzerland including the Matterhorn.

Not to mention, the bridge can give you a spectacular view. We challenge you not to yodel.

AI and Transhumanism: Could Quest for Super-intelligence and Eternal Life Lead to a Dystopian Nightmare? – Newsweek

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The rapid development of so-called NBIC technologiesnanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive scienceare giving rise to possibilities that have long been the domain of science fiction. Disease, aging and even death are all human realities that these technologies seek to end.

They may enable us to enjoy greater morphological freedomwe could take on new forms through prosthetics or genetic engineering. Or advance our cognitive capacities. We could use brain-computer interfaces to link us to advanced artificial intelligence (AI).

Daily Emails and Alerts - Get the best of Newsweek delivered to your inbox

Nanobots could roam our bloodstream to monitor our health and enhance our emotional propensities for joy, love or other emotions. Advances in one area often raise new possibilities in others, and this convergence may bring about radical changes to our world in the near-future.

Transhumanism is the idea that humans should transcend their current natural state and limitations through the use of technologythat we should embrace self-directed human evolution. If the history of technological progress can be seen as humankinds attempt to tame nature to better serve its needs, transhumanism is the logical continuation: the revision of humankinds nature to better serve its fantasies.

As David Pearce, a leading proponent of transhumanism and co-founder of Humanity+, says:

If we want to live in paradise, we will have to engineer it ourselves. If we want eternal life, then well need to rewrite our bug-ridden genetic code and become god-like only hi-tech solutions can ever eradicate suffering from the world. Compassion alone is not enough.

But there is a darker side to the naive faith that Pearce and other proponents have in transhumanismone that is decidedly dystopian.

There is unlikely to be a clear moment when we emerge as transhuman. Rather technologies will become more intrusive and integrate seamlessly with the human body. Technology has long been thought of as an extension of the self. Many aspects of our social world, not least our financial systems, are already largely machine-based. There is much to learn from these evolving human/machine hybrid systems.

Artificial intelligence GLAS-8/Flickr

Yet the often Utopian language and expectations that surround and shape our understanding of these developments have been under-interrogated. The profound changes that lie ahead are often talked about in abstract ways, because evolutionary advancements are deemed so radical that they ignore the reality of current social conditions.

In this way, transhumanism becomes a kind of techno-anthropocentrism,in which transhumanists often underestimate the complexity of our relationship with technology. They see it as a controllable, malleable tool that, with the correct logic and scientific rigour, can be turned to any end. In fact, just as technological developments are dependent on and reflective of the environment in which they arise, they in turn feed back into the culture and create new dynamicsoften imperceptibly.

Situating transhumanism, then, within the broader social, cultural, political, and economic contexts within which it emerges is vital to understanding how ethical it is.

A customs officer in Bulgaria displays Captagon pills in Sofia, 12, 2007. Pills could give advantages to peoplebut only those who can afford them. Reuters/Nikolay Doychinov

Max More and Natasha Vita-More, in their edited volume The Transhumanist Reader, claim the need in transhumanism for inclusivity, plurality and continuous questioning of our knowledge."

Yet these three principles are incompatible with developing transformative technologies within the prevailing system from which they are currently emerging: advanced capitalism.

One problem is that a highly competitive social environment doesnt lend itself to diverse ways of being. Instead it demands increasingly efficient behaviour. Take students, for example. If some have access to pills that allow them to achieve better results, can other students afford not to follow? This is already a quandary. Increasing numbers of students reportedly pop performance-enhancing pills. And if pills become more powerful, or if the enhancements involve genetic engineering or intrusive nanotechnology that offer even stronger competitive advantages, what then? Rejecting an advanced technological orthodoxy could potentially render someone socially and economically moribund (perhaps evolutionarily so), while everyone with access is effectively forced to participate to keep up.

Going beyond everyday limits is suggestive of some kind of liberation. However, here it is an imprisoning compulsion to act a certain way. We literally have to transcend in order to conform (and survive). The more extreme the transcendence, the more profound the decision to conform and the imperative to do so.

The systemic forces cajoling the individual into being upgraded to remain competitive also play out on a geo-political level. One area where technology R&D has the greatest transhumanist potential is defence. DARPA (the US defense department responsible for developing military technologies), which is attempting to create metabolically dominant soldiers," is a clear example of how vested interests of a particular social system could determine the development of radically powerful transformative technologies that have destructive rather than Utopian applications.

U.S. army soldiers in a joint military drill together with Serbian and Bulgarian soldiers, at Koren military training ground, Bulgaria, July 15, 2017. DAPRA is currently working to create metabolically dominant soldiers. Stoyan Nenov/Reuters

The rush to develop super-intelligent AI by globally competitive and mutually distrustful nation states could also become an arms race. In Radical Evolution, novelist Verner Vinge describes a scenario in which superhuman intelligence is the ultimate weapon." Ideally, mankind would proceed with the utmost care in developing such a powerful and transformative innovation.

There is quite rightly a huge amount of trepidation around the creation of super-intelligence and the emergence of the singularitythe idea that once AI reaches a certain level it will rapidly redesign itself, leading to an explosion of intelligence that will quickly surpass that of humans (something that will happen by 2029 according to futurist Ray Kurzweil). If the world takes the shape of whatever the most powerful AI is programed (or reprograms itself) to desire, it even opens the possibility of evolution taking a turn for the entirely banalcould an AI destroy humankind from a desire to produce the most paperclips for example?

Its also difficult to conceive of any aspect of humanity that could not be improved by being made more efficient at satisfying the demands of a competitive system. It is the system, then, that determines humanitys evolutionwithout taking any view on what humans are or what they should be. One of the ways in which advanced capitalism proves extremely dynamic is in its ideology of moral and metaphysical neutrality. As philosopher Michael Sandel says: markets dont wag fingers. In advanced capitalism, maximizing ones spending power maximizes ones ability to flourishhence shopping could be said to be a primary moral imperative of the individual.

Philosopher Bob Doede rightly suggests it is this banal logic of the market that will dominate:

If biotech has rendered human nature entirely revisable, then it has no grain to direct or constrain our designs on it. And so whose designs will our successor post-human artefacts likely bear? I have little doubt that in our vastly consumerist, media-saturated capitalist economy, market forces will have their way. So the commercial imperative would be the true architect of the future human.

Whether the evolutionary process is determined by a super-intelligent AI or advanced capitalism, we may be compelled to conform to a perpetual transcendence that only makes us more efficient at activities demanded by the most powerful system. The end point is predictably an entirely nonhumanthough very efficienttechnological entity derived from humanity that doesnt necessarily serve a purpose that a modern-day human would value in any way. The ability to serve the system effectively will be the driving force. This is also true of natural evolutiontechnology is not a simple tool that allows us to engineer ourselves out of this conundrum. But transhumanism could amplify the speed and least desirable aspects of the process.

For bioethicist Julian Savulescu, the main reason humans must be enhanced is for our species to survive. He says we face a Bermuda Triangle of extinction: radical technological power, liberal democracy and our moral nature. As a transhumanist, Savulescu extols technological progress, also deeming it inevitable and unstoppable. It is liberal democracyand particularly our moral naturethat should alter.

The failings of humankind to deal with global problems are increasingly obvious. But Savulescu neglects to situate our moral failings within their wider cultural, political and economic context, instead believing that solutions lie within our biological make up.

Yet how would Savulescus morality-enhancing technologies be disseminated, prescribed and potentially enforced to address the moral failings they seek to cure? This would likely reside in the power structures that may well bear much of the responsibility for these failings in the first place. Hes also quickly drawn into revealing how relative and contestable the concept of morality is:

We will need to relax our commitment to maximum protection of privacy. Were seeing an increase in the surveillance of individuals and that will be necessary if we are to avert the threats that those with antisocial personality disorder, fanaticism, represent through their access to radically enhanced technology.

Such surveillance allows corporations and governments to access and make use of extremely valuable information. In Who Owns the Future, internet pioneer Jaron Lanier explains:

Troves of dossiers on the private lives and inner beings of ordinary people, collected over digital networks, are packaged into a new private form of elite money It is a new kind of security the rich trade in, and the value is naturally driven up. It becomes a giant-scale levee inaccessible to ordinary people.

Crucially, this levee is also invisible to most people. Its impacts extend beyond skewing the economic system towards elites to significantly altering the very conception of liberty, because the authority of power is both radically more effective and dispersed.

Foucaults notion that we live in a panoptic societyone in which the sense of being perpetually watched instills disciplineis now stretched to the point where todays incessant machinery has been called a superpanopticon." The knowledge and information that transhumanist technologies will tend to create could strengthen existing power structures that cement the inherent logic of the system in which the knowledge arises.

This is in part evident in the tendency of algorithms toward race and gender bias, which reflects our already existing social failings. Information technology tends to interpret the world in defined ways: it privileges information that is easily measurable, such as GDP, at the expense of unquantifiable information such as human happiness or well-being. As invasive technologies provide ever more granular data about us, this data may in a very real sense come to define the world and intangible information may not maintain its rightful place in human affairs.

Existing inequities will surely be magnified with the introduction of highly effective psycho-pharmaceuticals, genetic modification, super intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, nanotechnology, robotic prosthetics, and the possible development of life expansion. They are all fundamentally inegalitarian, based on a notion of limitlessness rather than a standard level of physical and mental well-being weve come to assume in healthcare. Its not easy to conceive of a way in which these potentialities can be enjoyed by all.

A man moves his finger toward a robotic hand at the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots in Madrid on November 19, 2014. AFP

Sociologist Saskia Sassen talks of the new logics of expulsion," that capture the pathologies of todays global capitalism."The expelled include the more than 60,000 migrants who have lost their lives on fatal journeys in the past 20 years, and the victims of the racially skewed profile of the increasing prison population.

In Britain, they include the 30,000 people whose deaths in 2015 were linked to health and social care cuts and the many who perished in the Grenfell Tower fire. Their deaths can be said to have resulted from systematic marginalization.

Unprecedented acute concentration of wealth happens alongside these expulsions. Advanced economic and technical achievements enable this wealth and the expulsion of surplus groups. At the same time, Sassen writes, they create a kind of nebulous centerlessness as the locus of power:

The oppressed have often risen against their masters. But today the oppressed have mostly been expelled and survive a great distance from their oppressors The oppressor is increasingly a complex system that combines persons, networks, and machines with no obvious centre.

Surplus populations removed from the productive aspects of the social world may rapidly increase in the near future as improvements in AI and robotics potentially result in significant automation unemployment. Large swaths of society may become productively and economically redundant. For historian Yuval Noah Harari the most important question in 21st-century economics may well be: what should we do with all the superfluous people?

We would be left with the scenario of a small elite that has an almost total concentration of wealth with access to the most powerfully transformative technologies in world history and a redundant mass of people, no longer suited to the evolutionary environment in which they find themselves and entirely dependent on the benevolence of that elite. The dehumanizing treatment of todays expelled groups shows that prevailing liberal values in developed countries dont always extend to those who dont share the same privilege, race, culture or religion.

In an era of radical technological power, the masses may even represent a significant security threat to the elite, which could be used to justify aggressive and authoritarian actions (perhaps enabled further by a culture of surveillance.)

In their transhumanist tract, The Proactionary Imperative, Steve Fuller and Veronika Lipinska argue that we are obliged to pursue techno-scientific progress relentlessly, until we achieve our god-like destiny or infinite powereffectively to serve God by becoming God. They unabashedly reveal the incipient violence and destruction such Promethean aims would require: replacing the natural with the artificial is so key to proactionary strategy at least as a serious possibility if not a likelihood [it will lead to] the long-term environmental degradation of the Earth.

The extent of suffering they would be willing to gamble in their cosmic casino is only fully evident when analysing what their project would mean for individual human beings:

A proactionary world would not merely tolerate risk-taking but outright encourage it, as people are provided with legal incentives to speculate with their bio-economic assets. Living riskily would amount to an entrepreneurship of the self [proactionaries] seek large long-term benefits for survivors of a revolutionary regime that would permit many harms along the way.

Progress on overdrive will require sacrifices.

The economic fragility that humans may soon be faced with as a result of automation unemployment would likely prove extremely useful to proactionary goals. In a society where vast swaths of people are reliant on handouts for survival, market forces would determine that less social security means people will risk more for a lower reward, so proactionaries would reinvent the welfare state as a vehicle for fostering securitised risk taking while the proactionary state would operate like a venture capitalist writ large.

At the heart of this is the removal of basic rights for Humanity 1.0," Fullers term for modern, non-augmented human beings, replaced with duties towards the future augmented Humanity 2.0. Hence the very code of our being can and perhaps must be monetised: personal autonomy should be seen as a politically licensed franchise whereby individuals understand their bodies as akin to plots of land in what might be called the genetic commons.'"

The neoliberal preoccupation with privatization would extend to human beings. Indeed, the lifetime of debt that is the reality for most citizens in developed advanced capitalist nations, takes a further step when you are born into debtsimply by being alive you are invested with capital on which a return is expected."

Socially moribund masses may thus be forced to serve the technoscientific super-project of Humanity 2.0, which uses the ideology of market fundamentalism in its quest for perpetual progress and maximum productivity. The only significant difference is that the stated aim of godlike capabilities in Humanity 2.0 is overt, as opposed to the undefined end determined by the infinite progress of an ever more efficient market logic that we have now.

Some transhumanists are beginning to understand that the most serious limitations to what humans can achieve are social and culturalnot technical. However, all too often their reframing of politics falls into the same trap as their techno-centric worldview. They commonly argue the new political poles are not left-right but techno-conservative or techno-progressive (and even techno-libertarian and techno-sceptic). Meanwhile Fuller and Lipinska argue that the new political poles will be up and down instead of left and right: those who want to dominate the skies and became all powerful, and those who want to preserve the Earth and its species-rich diversity. It is a false dichotomy. Preservation of the latter is likely to be necessary for any hope of achieving the former.

Transhumanism and advanced capitalism are two processes which value progress and efficiency above everything else. The former as a means to power and the latter as a means to profit. Humans become vessels to serve these values. Transhuman possibilities urgently call for a politics with more clearly delineated and explicit humane values to provide a safer environment in which to foster these profound changes. Where we stand on questions of social justice and environmental sustainability has never been more important. Technology doesnt allow us to escape these questionsit doesnt permit political neutrality. The contrary is true. It determines that our politics have never been important. Savulescu is right when he says radical technologies are coming. He is wrong in thinking they will fix our morality. They will reflect it.

Alexander Thomasis aPhD Candidate at theUniversity of East London.

TACC debuts $30 million supercomputer | The Daily Texan – UT The Daily Texan

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

UTs Texas Advanced Computing Center debuted its new $30 million supercomputer Friday, called Stampede2.

Stampede2 will help researchers manage and analyze large amounts of data with high-performing computing capabilities, according to a UT press release.

Stampede2 will be the most powerful computer in the country at an academic institution and will be twice as fast as the previous supercomputer, as well as be more energy efficient, said Aaron Dubrow, TACCs strategic communications specialist.

It will allow tens of thousands of researchers to do their work, Dubrow said. Among those tens of thousand are hundreds that study cancer.

The computer, awarded by the National Science Foundation, will also be among the rst systems to employ cutting-edge computer processor, memory, networking and storage technology, according to a TACC press release.

Karen Vasquez is one of the many researchers at UT who work with the supercomputers. Vasquez and her team use them to study structures that form at hotspots for mutations in cancer.

The computers manage large amounts of data in one week that would otherwise take years, Vasquez said.

We had to search 12 different structures, algorithms, on 40,000 cancer genomes many, many times, Vasquez said. We couldnt have done it (without Stampede2)."

The supercomputers are remotely logged into by users for them to do the same managing and analyzation of data as if the user was at the center, said TACC research associate William Joe Allen.

We maintain the computers and sort of help the users if they need some software installed or if they have questions about how to run certain things or they want to do things more efficiently, Allen said. Thats our area of expertise.

TACC, one of the largest and well-equipped supercomputing systems in the country, works with medical researchers, like Vasquez, from all over.

We provide the resources for anyone in UT system and actually all across the country, Allen said. We have users coming in from all 50 states and many different countries and basically every major research institution in Texas.

China’s Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer created the biggest … – Wired.co.uk

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

Sunway TaihuLight, the world's fastest computer

JACK DONGARRA, SUNWAY TAIHULIGHT SYSTEM REPORT

China is already building a supercomputer that's capable of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 calculations per second and hopes a prototype will be completed this year. Despite this computing prowess, the nation is trying to do more.

The country has already stated its ambitions to ensure it is a leader in artificial intelligence by 2030. It's now created the largest digitally generated version of the Universe, a report claims.

According to the South China Morning Post, China has used the Sunway TaihuLight, the world's most powerful supercomputer, to simulate "the birth and early expansion of the Universe" using 10 trillion digital particles.

The work has reportedly been completed by the National Supercomputer Centre in Wuxi, and involved computer scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. The supercomputer used 10 million CPU cores to create the universe known as N-body simulation and involved breaking the universe's mass down into particles.

"This is just a warm-up exercise," Gao Liang, chair scientist of the computational cosmology group at the National Astronomical Observatories said. "We just got to the point of tens of millions of years after the Big Bang. It was still a very young stage for the universe. Most galaxies were not even born".

Subscribe to WIRED

Liang says the universe that was created is five times larger than the previous simulated attempts. However, China's simulation was only sustained for an hour, whereas a European recreation of the universe, which was the previous biggest attempt, existed for 80 hours.

In June, academics from the University of Zurich recreated a catalogue of 25 billion virtual galaxies, which were generated from two trillion digital particles. "The challenge of this simulation was to model galaxies as small as one tenth of the Milky Way, in a volume as large as our entire observable Universe," academics from the University said.

It's hoped China will be able to expand its simulation of the universe with the development of its next supercomputer.

China is currently leading the world in supercomputers. The Sunway TaihuLight has a processing speed of 93 petaflops. At its peak, the computer can perform 93,000 trillion calculations per second. In total, 167 of the most powerful 500 computers in the world reside in China.

The US is developing a number of supercomputers that would be capable of beating the Sunway TaihuLight a 200 petaflop machine called Summit is being developed at the Oak Ridge National Lab and is due to arrive in 2018. Japan is also heavily investing in supercomputing technology and has said it will spend 19.5 billion yen (139 million) on a 130 petaflop computer. However, China's Zhang Ting supercomputer is planned to be an exascale computer, which is capable of at least 1 quintillion (a billion billion) calculations per second.

Read the original:

China's Sunway TaihuLight supercomputer created the biggest ... - Wired.co.uk

Supercomputer Simulation of HIV Virus may Provide New Treatment Options – TrendinTech

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

After two years of work on the Department of Energys Titan supercomputer, researchers successfully simulated 1.2 microseconds of an HIV capsid navigating through a human cell. The findings, which are published in Nature Communications, gives new details about how the virus infects its host.

Juan R. Perilla, the studys leader and a research scientist from the University of Illinois, is optimistic that these insights will help scientists looking for HIV treatments. He said, We are learning the details of the HIV capsid system, not just the structure but also how it changes its environment and responds to its environment.

After the simulation of the 64 million atoms involved was performed on Titan, another supercomputer, this time Blue Waters at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, was used to analyze the data produced. Physics professor Klaus Schulten, who co-led the study, was the pioneer of the molecular dynamics simulation used to examine the biological system, a method he called computational microscopy.

The simulation study revealed the HIV capsid structure to be a protein cage composed of hexagon and pentagon shaped structures in a complex network. Each capsid has a small pore in the center and contains the RNA of the HIV virus protected inside, safe from the human bodys defenses.

Never before have scientists seen the full scope of what the HIV shuttle can do. Now they know of its ability to transmit information through oscillating frequencies and its delicate ion charge, which has presented a puzzle as to how to defeat the infection cycle of HIV. However, as the simulation has also shown areas of stress on the capsid that can be exploited, researchers can use the vulnerabilities to create new treatments against HIV.

Stem Cell Therapy can provide a surgery-free solution to knee and shoulder issues – Colorado Springs Gazette

Posted on August 1, 2017 by Danzig

Springs Integrated Health offers leading-edge, all-natural medical care. The center provides services intended to get to the root of patient issues and deliver real, lasting results in the simplest, most effective way. Instead of covering up symptoms with medications, the clinic breaks down health into obtainable goals that can optimize the wellness of each and every patient. Services include chiropractic, hormone lab testing, physical rehabilitation, Supartz therapy, trigger point therapy, FAR infrared sauna, stem cell therapy and more.

There was a time when stem cell therapy was out of reach for most people, but it has become increasingly accessible in recent years; and a go-to solution for a range of physiological complications. Stem cells are blank cells in the body that can become any tissue, whether that be knee tissue, bone tissue, cartilage, organ tissue stem cells can become whatever they are closest and nearest to, said Tiffany Graham, DC of Springs Integrated Health. So when you inject them into a joint thats damaged the body is always healing itself anyway it can create new tissue where there has been damage.

Stem cell therapy has been used for decades in Europe, and in the United States has been used by Peyton Manning, Tiger Woods, and many NFL players and other professional athletes. Although stem cells were initially reserved for the ultra wealthy, they have since become both affordable and accessible; and many patients are opting for them over lengthy and expensive knee and shoulder surgeries. One in 400 total knee replacements result in fatal infection, and those that do not end up in infection still prove to have an extensive recovery time. Stem cell therapy is safe and quick, and people can feel results in as little as one week. Further, the company Springs Integrated Health utilizes for stem cells has given more than 50,000 injections with zero side effects and zero adverse reactions.

There are two different types of stem cells. The first is adult stem cells, where patients take their own bone marrow, fat or blood; spin it down; and re-inject into the joints. Thats not what is used at Springs Integrated Health, because its a long procedure that can be very painful and expensive. The second is amniotic stem cells, which are from donated placental tissue. This tissue comes from mothers who have planned c-sections, and who have elected to donate their placenta to science. The stem cells have been thoroughly tested and are clear of all antigens, so there is no risk for rejection or infection. The stem cells used at Springs Integrated Health are 100 percent ethically-sourced, and are not embryonic stem cells, which come from aborted fetal tissue, said Graham.

Rick Paine is a beaming example of the efficacy of stem cell therapy. He is an avid runner and hiker, and coached swimming at the University of Nebraska for 17 years. He was also an Olympic Head Coach in Australia in 2000. Eight years ago, he wore his left knee out and had to get a knee replacement, and it took two to three years to recover. About two years ago, his right knee was becoming worn out, and he did not want to go through the another knee surgery, because it was a very unpleasant experience for him. He was seeing an active release therapist who was helping, but he still had trouble with downhill on hikes, walking on the golf course and doing the everyday activities that make him happy.

Paine had been seeing Dr. Graham for about a year and a half before deciding to commence with stem cell therapy for his torn medial meniscus on the right knee in November 2016. At first I was skeptical, but I thought, lets give it a shot, Paine said. The procedure was quick and pretty painless, and it only took about a month after the injection for my knee to feel really good. He cautions that although the knee may feel great in a month or less, its essential to still take it easy, and give the tissue time to grow before becoming physically active.

Before I got stem cells, I couldnt squat to pick up a ball on the golf course but since getting the stem cells I can definitely do that. Im 65 years old, and a surgery would have taken me out of hiking for two to three years, but with this, it was only three months until I was hiking again, said Paine. We took X-rays a few months ago, and there has been significant improvement in my knee. I didnt expect to see that, I thought it was too good to be true, but Im living proof that stem cell therapy works.

Paine shared that now, eight months after his procedure, his knee still feels perfect. He admits that its not like having a brand new knee, but he has no issues whatsoever with downhill, uphill or bending down. I knew I wanted to do at least one more 14er, and didnt think it would be possible, but stem cells have definitely allowed me to do that. Paine is now gearing up for a 12 mile hike from Crested Butte to Aspen, a hike he couldnt have even considered before stem cells. I wish we had stem cells way back when, because it would have saved a lot of athletes careers.

To receive a complimentary consultation, or to attend an upcoming, free informational seminar at Springs Integrated Health, call 719-301-6649 or visit SpringsIntegratedHealth.com.

Springs Integrated Health is located at 1712 W. Uintah St., Colorado Springs. Hours are Monday, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 3 to 6 p.m.; Tuesday, 3 to 6 p.m.; Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 3 to 6 p.m.; Thursday, 3 to 6 p.m.; and Friday 8 to 10 a.m.

Here is the original post:

Stem Cell Therapy can provide a surgery-free solution to knee and shoulder issues - Colorado Springs Gazette

Select Page ::