MIT researchers can predict the price of Bitcoin

bitcoin

Do you want to know when to sell Bitcoin?

A researcher at MIT has come up with a way to use machine learning to predict the price of the Bitcoin virtual currency. With his system, you could figure out when to sell the remaining Bitcoins you have in order to minimize your loss or maximize your gain. Or you could find out the right time to buy.

 

 

Continue reading… “MIT researchers can predict the price of Bitcoin”

Dubai Making Plans to Sell the Queen Elizabeth 2

qe2 542

The Queen Elizabeth 2 was supposed to become a floating hotel in Dubai.

Dubai is reportedly preparing to sell a host of assets, including one of the world’s best known cruise ships, as the emirate’s investment arm looks to restructure a mountain of debt.
The Queen Elizabeth II, or QE2, is rumored to be one of the assets that Dubai’s state-run private equity firm, Istithmar World, is planning to sell. An Istithmar spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
However, a company spokesman told Arabian Business that “there are a number of options being considered for QE2. IW is considering which option will best maximise value of the vessel.”
Istithmar bought the QE2, once the largest passenger ship in existence, in 2007 for an estimated $100 million. The firm had planned to turn the ship into a floating hotel attached to a man-made, palm-shaped island in the Persian Gulf.
Also in the firm’s portfolio is a 20% stake in Canadian circus group Cirque du Soleil. But a Cirque du Soleil spokeswoman said the group has had no indication from Istithmar that a sale is pending.
Any proceeds from the asset sales would probably be used to pay down the $22 billion in debts that Dubai World, the parent company of Istithmar, took on during a multiyear, global property binge.
Dubai was one of the first sovereign nations to run into serious debt problems as a result of the global economic downturn. The fallout has now spread to Europe, where Greece and other countries are struggling to slash budget deficits and repay mountains of debt.
Dubai World, the investment arm of Dubai, rattled financial markets late last year when it signaled that it couldn’t make payments on its debts. The company received a $10 billion bailout in November from fellow emirate Abu Dhabi and is working with creditors to restructure its debt load.
As a result, Istithmar has already been forced to sell some assets at a loss. In December, the firm sold the W Hotel in New York for only $2 million in a foreclosure auction. It reportedly paid more than $200 million for the boutique hotel in 2006.
Last week, Istithmar sold its stake in Indian budget airline SpiceJet for $37 million. It also recently announced plans to sell port and shipping agent Inchcape Shipping Services for $700 million.
Despite the recent asset sales, Istithmar still has a large portfolio of investments and properties, including a large stake in book publishing giants Houghton Mifflin and Harcourt Education. It also has interests in U.K.-based Pension Insurance Corporation Holdings and Perella Weinberg Partners, a New York-based investment firm.

Dubai is reportedly preparing to sell a host of assets, including one of the world’s best known cruise ships, as the emirate’s investment arm looks to restructure a mountain of debt.

The Queen Elizabeth II, or QE2, is rumored to be one of the assets that Dubai’s state-run private equity firm, Istithmar World, is planning to sell. An Istithmar spokesman did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

Continue reading… “Dubai Making Plans to Sell the Queen Elizabeth 2”

Fotomoto Lets Photographers Sell Photos On-Site Without The Hassle

genericfotomoto.gif

A whole new way to deal with your photos

A couple lines of code. That’s all it takes for photographers and publishers with large inventories of images to start selling their work on their own websites, thanks to an ambitious fledgling company. You’d think that something so simple could be pulled off by many a startup, but in reality I’m having trouble finding other companies that do it the way the recently launched Fotomoto does it (i.e. the right way). Sure, there are multiple ways for photographers to sell photos on other websites, but that usually requires both them and buyers to have a separate account with the provider of the marketplace service.

Fotomoto does things differently: photographers only need to insert a few lines of codes in their website, after which the images on his or her website will automatically be indexed and automatically provided with a ‘purchase photo’ link. Sellers can tweak the settings so the ‘buy’ links appear completely integrated and branded to match their sites’ look and feel, and the back-end of the tool enables them to set the availability next to the sizes and pricing of the photos. When visitors click the link to buy photos, a Fotomoto widget pops up and enables them to instantly purchase images through PayPal (with the ability to pay by credit card coming later this month). There’s also a sharing link, which lets people send the picture to others as an e-card, with the ability to push to social networking and bookmarking services coming in a couple of weeks.

Continue reading… “Fotomoto Lets Photographers Sell Photos On-Site Without The Hassle”