Internet search giant Google has added ethereum to its big data analytics platform BigQuery.
Making the announcement in a blog post on Saturday, the company said that, while an API exists for commonly used functions such as checking transaction status or wallet balances, it’s not so easy to access all of the data stored on the ethereum blockchain.
The post continues to say that “perhaps more importantly,” the API doesn’t allow for viewing blockchain data “in aggregate.”
The Chinese government has announced that it plans to start using blockchain technology for collecting taxes and issuing electronic invoices. It’s currently unclear exactly how that will work, but it could dovetail nicely with other digitization plans in the country. We’ve previously reported that China’s central bank is testing its own digital currency, and while that won’t necessarily be based on blockchain, it could still be neatly combined with a new approach for issuing invoices and collecting payments.
A vexing problem facing health care systems throughout the world is how to share more medical data with more stakeholders for more purposes, all while ensuring data integrity and protecting patient privacy.
Renewable energy and blockchain are two technologies that are worth betting on. The former is considered to be the most effective way to combat the world’s climate problem. The latter is a promising new technology whose potential for disruption of current financial and societal structures is yet to be fully realized. Here’s a thought: why not put the two together? That’s what Brooklyn-based startup LO3 Energy had in mind when it started a project that does just that, creating an innovative retail model for electricity.
Blockchain, or distributed ledger technology, could soon give rise to a new internet era even more disruptive and transformative than the current one, according to a white paper, Realizing the Potential of Blockchain, published by the World Economic Forum today.
We can get rid of bad bosses once and for all. At least that’s the promise of a radically new type of organization based on blockchain technology.
It’s called a Decentralized Autonomous Organization and it has no CEO, CFO, or VPs.
In fact, there’s no hierarchy at all. Of course, any time you bring people together in a group, there are bound to be politics, but it won’t be the “command and control” structure that most of us are used to.
“Code is law,” as described in Lawrence Lessig’s book ‘Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace’, refers to the idea that computer code has progressively established itself as a predominant way to regulate behavior to the same degree as legal code.
With the advent of blockchain technology, code is assuming an even stronger role in regulating people’s interactions.
However, while computer code can enforce rules more efficiently than legal code, it also comes with a series of limitations.
Even years into the deployment of the internet, many believed that it was still a fad. Of course, the internet has since become a major influence on our lives, from how we buy goods and services, to the ways we socialize with friends, to the Arab Spring, to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Yet, in the 1990s, the mainstream press scoffed when Nicholas Negroponte predicted that most of us would soon be reading our news online rather than from a newspaper.
Fast forward two decades: Will we soon be seeing a similar impact from cryptocurrencies and blockchains? There are certainly many parallels. Like the internet, cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin are driven by advances in core technologies along with a new, open architecture — the Bitcoin blockchain. Like the internet, this technology is designed to be decentralized, with “layers,” where each layer is defined by an interoperable open protocol on top of which companies, as well as individuals, can build products and services. Like the internet, in the early stages of development there are many competing technologies, so it’s important to specify which blockchain you’re talking about. And, like the internet, blockchain technology is strongest when everyone is using the same network, so in the future we might all be talking about “the” blockchain.
The alleged lack of available talent for blockchain industry jobs was high on the agenda at the DTCC’s Fintech Symposium, held at the Grand Hyatt in New York City yesterday.
There, executives from a wide range of companies took turns addressing an audience of several hundred financial industry executives to express their concern about what they believe is a problem preventing wider growth and use of the technology.
Many companies are starting to integrate blockchain technology into ledgers, using it to track diamonds and ensure fair land distribution. The projects are first steps toward making governments and industries more transparent and eliminating fraud and corruption.
There has been a lot of enthusiasm in recent years for how cryptocurrencies will create new platforms, markets, and economies. But what will the future of commerce and the world look like? A vital question, and one that really hasn’t been answered.
Something unprecedented happened following the Enron Scandal in October of 2001. Although for a short period, for the first time in its modern history the global audit industry lost its most precious asset: public trust. Continue reading… “Blockchain tech could change auditing for good”
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