Page 4,278«..1020..4,2774,2784,2794,280..4,2904,300..»

Ripple Cryptocurrency Aims to Make Global Assets Liquid – Investopedia

One one level, Ripple is another cryptocurrency in an ever-growing list of fledgling products, hoping to earn a place in the wider world of business and finance. While the value of Ripple's currency, XRP, is well below $1 per unit, making it a mere fraction of the value of Ethereum or Bitcoin, Ripple nonetheless sports the third-largest portion of market capitalization as compared with the rest of the cryptocurrency industry. But aside from its growing position as a currency, Ripple is drawing more and more attention from banks and financial institutions around the world for another crucial reason, too: the blockchain technology behind the currency itself.

A recent profile on Ripple by American Banker reveals that the San Francisco-based startup has its sights set on creating an "internet of value," a worldwide network system for financial transactions. Ripple's goal is nothing less than the ultimate freeing of monetary value, allowing assets to flow instantly and seamlessly between mobile systems, public blockchains, and bank ledgers. The goal is a massive one, and yet Stefan Thomas, Ripple's chief technology officer, stands behind his company's ability to enhance banking around the world. "We're not the disruptors, we're not the guys who come in and tear everything down," he stresses.

For the time being, though, Ripple seems to occupy at least two different spaces. First comes the cryptocurrency side, and success in that area has not come as quickly as some would have liked. John Light, a consultant working with multiple startups that have integrated Ripple's technology into their systems, indicated that Ripple has "had something of an identity crisis about who their customer is, and what problem they are trying to solve."

First, the company aimed to build a new currency that would improve upon Bitcoin. This was a key component of the instantaneous transactions goal, as Bitcoin has been racked with problems relating to the system's processing capacity which has left some users waiting for days for their transactions to clear. Beyond that, though, Ripple differed from Bitcoin and other digital currencies further, even at its earliest stages. Ripple's leaders disagreed with other cryptocurrency enthusiasts who suggested that the new currencies could replace banks or even government currencies. Rather, Ripple aimed from the beginning to work with banks to make global assets even more liquid.

With roughly 60 financial institutions around the world sporting Ripple technology, the company is seeing its vision begin to take shape. However, the fact that the currency itself has not gone away makes the list of offerings that Ripple presents somewhat confusing. If banks and investors around the world are to continue to gain interest in Ripple, it seems that the company will be best served by streamlining its offerings further into the future.

See the rest here:
Ripple Cryptocurrency Aims to Make Global Assets Liquid - Investopedia

Read More..

Bitcoin hits a bump – VICE News

More cryptomoney, more problems.

Technical glitches, competition, and Wall Street skepticism have walloped the value of bitcoins lately, a rare setback in the digital currencys otherwise steady rise.

The question now is whether the selloff will ultimately prove to be a temporary bout of growing pains or a more significant turning point in bitcoins evolution.

Bitcoin prices have approximately tripled this year, touching a monthly closing high above $3,000 on June 11. But theyve since fallen near $2,600, down more than 13 percent from the high, according to the cryptocurrency site CoinDesk.

Bitcoins woes started last week with a massive headache for traders as the popular bitcoin exchange Coinbase experienced an outage due to heavy volume. The incident highlighted how popular cryptocurrencies have become, with the global market now topping $100 billion. But it also renewed concerns about whether the ecosystem around bitcoin and its peers is mature and stable enough to truly challenge more traditional means of exchange issued by governments.

Coincidentally, the grandaddy of government-issued fiat currencies, the U.S. dollar, got a shot in the arm Wednesday when the Federal Reserves policy committee raised its key interest-rate target by a quarter percentage-point, to a range of 1 percent to 1.25 percent.

The Feds move was aimed at fighting inflation, but it will also effectively limit the supply of dollars moving through the global economy in the months ahead. That tends to support the greenbacks value against rivals, including digital upstarts like bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency market is also seeing an influx of new competitors, notably the Ethereum platform. Its currency, the ether, is already the second-most-popular cryptocurrency after bitcoin and is generally regarded as more flexible as a tool for building applications.

The ether also has taken a hit lately, off about 12 percent after hitting a monthly high over $400 last Monday. But that pullback has been slightly less than bitcoins, and the ethers rally for the year has been much steeper, up more than 40 times its 2016 year-end value.

In a note to clients last Monday, Goldman Sachs head of technical strategy Sheba Jafari warned that a number of signals in the bitcoin market are looking broadly heavy.

A few days later, Morgan Stanley analysts floated an idea thats perhaps even more unthinkable in the freewheeling cryptocurrency market that more regulation might be needed to help bitcoin and its peers realize their potential as actual transaction tools to conduct commerce.

For now, they still function more as playthings for speculative investors. And theyhave been selling.

Read the original here:
Bitcoin hits a bump - VICE News

Read More..

Project TITANIUM: The EU’s Plan to Decloak Cryptocurrency – Bitcoin Magazine

Project TITANIUM: The EUs Plan to Decloak Cryptocurrency

Monitor blockchains, deanonymize wallet addresses, surveil dark net markets, and stop terrorists and money launderers: thats the main thrust of the European Unions Project TITANIUM.

TITANIUM, which stands for Tools for the Investigation of Transactions in Underground Markets, is a three-year, 5 billion ($5.5 billion) project that will unite universities, private research firms and law enforcement agencies from the U.K., Germany, Spain, Austria, the Netherlands and Finland.

Project TITANIUM will develop tools and best practices for criminal investigations involving cryptocurrency in Europe, which, up to now, most law enforcement agencies have pursued on an ad-hoc basis.

The project plans to create forensic tools to spot clusters of addresses controlled by the same entity; identify mixers or tumbler addresses used for money laundering; crawl the webs, both clear and dark; and automate information gathering about illegal activities.

The projects coordinator, Dr. Ross King of the Austrian Institute of Technology, said that criminal and terrorist uses of cryptocurrencies and dark net markets evolve quickly. King also insisted that Project TITANIUM would respect citizen privacy.

Project TITANIUMs announcement comes just a few weeks after the ransomware worm WannaCry disabled hundreds of thousands of computers in more than 150 countries. As of June 15, 2017, the hardcoded wallet addresses used by the attackers have collected about 50 BTC in ransom payments.

The projects scope covers terrorism, as well as crime, and back-to-back attacks in Manchester and London have ignited calls for more sweeping government action to combat extremism.

On June 4, 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May called for international agreements to regulate cyberspace and to deny violent extremists safe spaces online. With terrorism in the background, cooperation on internal security matters like Project TITANIUM is likely to continue even after the U.K. formally exits the EU.

The call for more surveillance comes despite the fact that the United Kingdom already has one of the most wide-ranging surveillance laws, the Investigatory Powers Act, which went into force December 30, 2016.

Nicknamed the Snoopers Charter, the act requires ISPs keep record of all websites users visit for one year and allows police and other public agencies to check anyones history without a warrant.

Meanwhile, the EU is mulling a more direct approach to the problem of cryptocurrency. According to a proposed directive released on March 9, 2017, the EU could require exchanges and wallet providers to submit account owners identities to a central database.

The directive goes on that virtual currencies should not be anonymous, and that the anonymity or pseudo-anonymity of cryptocurrencies is more a hindrance than an asset for legitimate users.

The rules would not just apply to bitcoin, but all virtual currencies, and would effectively ban anonymous cryptocurrency, at least in the EU. The proposed directive is intended to combat money laundering and terrorism, despite scant evidence that cryptocurrencies play a prominent role in either.

Nevertheless, with or without evidence that they are empowering terrorists, the anonymous or pseudo-anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies is threatening to European lawmakers, and whether through legislation or projects like TITANIUM, they intend to decloak cryptocurrency.

See the article here:
Project TITANIUM: The EU's Plan to Decloak Cryptocurrency - Bitcoin Magazine

Read More..

Getting comfortable with cloud storage – ModernMedicine

Consider how you stored data with technology back in 2005.

Back then almost all computers had Wi-Fi capability to access a network and the Internet to send emails and surf the Web, but most programs, applications, and data resided on computer hard drives.

When it was time to update an application or buy a new one, you might have downloaded the application from the Internet to the computer and installed it. The program was then on your computer and would save your data to its hard drive.

The same process was true for music and video.

You might buy music via iTunes or another source for digital music, but you stored the actual music files on your computer and copied them to your iPod or other MP3 player. Video was just starting to be available for downloadthis changed significantly as Internet speeds greatly improved.

Related:Will optometry's fear of disruptive technology backfire?

Moving with the times

Jump to 2010 with smartphones and faster Internet speeds at home and in the office more commonwe started to see more streaming of audio and video. The founders of YouTube realized that people wanted to upload and view home videos they had created.

People started turning to the Internet for more data and were even storing data on the Internet to retrieve and use on different computers. Online storage services, such as Dropbox, changed the way that we stored and accessed data.

Fast-forward to today, and almost everyone over the age of 13 has a smartphone that can capture quality audio, still images, and video that can be uploaded either via Wi-Fi or cellular network. And yes, were running programs/applications on the Internet and displaying the results of the application on our computer, tablets, and smartphones. QuickBooks Online is a great example of this.

Related:Top 5 innovations in eye care

Furthermore, you no longer need much storage on your computer, tablet, or smartphone. You can allow your data and applications to reside on someone elses computerthe cloudand have access to it from as many different devices as you want or need.

Cloud computing in the practice

So, what does this mean to an eyecare provider?

It means that were able to reduce the amount of technological infrastructure that we need in our offices and homes and still have access to data and functions from just about anywhere on the planetfrom the office software that is likely running in the cloud to accounting software such as QuickBooks Online to image and data storage.

See the original post here:
Getting comfortable with cloud storage - ModernMedicine

Read More..

Microsoft Could Surpass Amazon in Cloud Computing This Year (AMZN, MSFT) – Investopedia

Amazon (AMZN) may have long been the leader in cloud computing with its Amazon Web Services, but that may change later this year as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is finally able to surpass it.

Thats according to Pacific Crest Securities which late Friday said Azure, the cloud computing unit of Microsoft, could have more revenue that its main rival for the first time in 2017. In a research note covered by The Street, analyst Brent Bracelin predicted the rise of Microsoft for the first time in 10 years would transition the company from a cloud laggard to a cloud leader. Bracelin said he came to this conclusion after conducting an analysis of the 60 biggest cloud computing companies. It was revealed that the market is poised for primetime and has lots of growth opportunities. The analyst is predicting spending on cloud initiatives could explode to $239 billion in the span of five years, with the Redmond, Washington software giant benefiting the most from the growth. Bracelin pointed to what he called unmatched product depth and breadth" in software as a service, platform as a service and infrastructure as a service as the main reasons. (See also: Microsoft's Azure Cloud Revenue Estimated at $3B.)

While Microsoft still makes the lions share of its money through software sales, its cloud computing business continues to grow. For the three months ending in March, it said revenue in its Intelligent Cloud business came in at $6.8 billion, up 11% compared to the year ago and up 12% on a constant currency basis. During the third quarter, the company said server products and cloud services revenue increased 15%, driven by Azure cloud revenue growth of 93%. Our results this quarter reflect the trust customers are placing in the Microsoft Cloud, said Satya Nadella, chief executive officer at Microsoft said at the time. From large multi-nationals to small and medium businesses to non-profits all over the world, organizations are using Microsofts cloud platforms to power their digital transformation. (See also: Credit Suisse Bullish on Microsoft Cloud Business)

Pacific Crest isnt writing off Amazon completely in the cloud market, despite predicting the rise of its main rival and even though it has seen revenue growth at AWS decline for seven quarters in a row. Bracelin said that business appears to be increasing during the second quarter, with revenue growth of 9% sequentially forecasted. "We remain bullish on the five year prospects for AWS and are encouraged by 2Q cloud activity picking up," Bracelin wrote. "However, investor optimism is partially reflected in the valuation."

Continued here:
Microsoft Could Surpass Amazon in Cloud Computing This Year (AMZN, MSFT) - Investopedia

Read More..

Chinese tech giant Alibaba joins key open-source cloud computing foundation – GeekWire

GeekWire File Photo.

Kicking off a week in which it plans to encourage American businesses to invest in China, Alibaba Group announced plans to give something back to the cloud computing community: Alibaba Cloud is now a member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.

The Chinese internet giant plans to join the CNCF as a Gold member, putting it on the same level as rival Tencent. The CNCF, which is working to improve adoption of modern cloud-native software development technologies without setting standards, said in a statement that it was looking forward to more open-source contributions from the international cloud community.

Alibaba may not be a household name in the U.S., unless your household sells servers or enterprise computing technology. Nearly half a billion people mostly in China use one of Alibabas many services, from ecommerce to streaming video, and Intel has dubbed the company one of its super seven data center customers. The company is holding an event in Detroit this week with founder and executive chairman Jack Ma to pitch China as a source of new revenue for American businesses.

Alibaba Cloud is the leading cloud computing service in China, although it does face competition from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft there. On a global basis, it trails AWS, Microsoft, and Google by some margin, but Gartners latest Magic Quadrant report ranked it above more established U.S. cloud services like IBM and Oracle based on its belief in Alibabas ability to execute its cloud strategy.

Its definitely a significant addition for the CNCF, which now has a second source of cloud computing expertise in China through which to promote its member projects, most notably the Kubernetes container-orchestration project.

See the rest here:
Chinese tech giant Alibaba joins key open-source cloud computing foundation - GeekWire

Read More..

Rackspace confirms close of TriCore Solutions acquisition – Cloud Tech

Rackspace has confirmed it has completed the acquisition of TriCore Solutions, a managed application and infrastructure provider.

The move was first announced in May, at a similar time to the San Antonio-based managed cloud provider announcing Joe Eazor, formerly of EarthLink, as the companys new CEO. Mark Clayman, CEO of TriCore, will head up the newly created enterprise applications division at Rackspace, reporting directly to president Jeff Cotten.

We acquired TriCore in response to customer demand, said Matt Bradley, Rackspace vice president of strategy and corporate development. Customers want a managed application expert to deliver a high quality service experience at a lower total cost for these complex applications and TriCore has been doing this for nearly two decades theyve done an incredible job and now our customers will be able to benefit from their experiences.

Rackspace was recently named as a niche player in the most recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for cloud infrastructure as a service, alongside companies including Virtustream, CenturyLink, and Fujitsu. Yet as David Linthicum pointed out in an InfoWorld article, Rackspaces position as a managed services enabler, for clouds such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, and Google, sets them apart from the competition in that particular square, which he describes as niche IaaS providers to enterprises.

In its analysis, Gartner praised Rackspaces evolution from OpenStack-based public cloud IaaS to its roots in managed services, making it well-positioned to deliver hybrid and multi-cloud solutions, but noting public cloud IaaS customers may expect more of its offerings.

The completed acquisition of TriCore, alongside the continued recognition from Gartner, will augur well as Eazor settles down in the CEO role. Let me emphasise how excited I am by the huge market opportunity that Rackspace has in front of it, as companies move out of their corporate data centres and into multiple clouds, he wrote in an introductory blog last month. Rackspace is uniquely well positioned to take advantage of this trend, as the only provider who can deliver expertise and exceptional customer service for all of the leading public and private clouds, along with managed hosting.

Eazor officially started work at Rackspace on June 12. But whither previous CEO Taylor Rhodes? Rhodes did not have a long period away from the hot seat he has since become chief executive of SMS Assist, a multisite property management provider.

Picture credit:Rackspace Afterparty TechStars Boulder 2011, byAndrew Hyde, used underCC BY/ Modified from original

See more here:
Rackspace confirms close of TriCore Solutions acquisition - Cloud Tech

Read More..

Cloud first – Philippine Star

Last January, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) issued a circularaddressed to both the national and local government prescribing the Philippine governments Cloud First Policy.

The policy is aimed at reducing the cost of government information and communications technology (ICT), increasing employee productivity, and developing better citizen online services through the use of cloud computing technology.

Various governments such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom have done similar Cloud First Policies.

So what is cloud computing?

The DICT defines cloud computing as a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

Its characteristics include on-demand self service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity and measured service, the department explained.

Business ( Article MRec ), pagematch: 1, sectionmatch: 1

What are the benefits that can be derived from using cloud computing technology? DICT says these are inter-agency collaboration, operational continuity and business recovery, faster deployment of services, greater budget control and decreased spending on legacy infrastructure.

The initial DICT GovCloud infrastructure was set up in 2013 by DOST-ICT Office as part of the Integrated Government Philippines (iGovPhil) Project which aims to provide cloud infrastructure access to government agencies.

And then, to pursue its cloud-first policy, government relaunched the Government Cloud or GovCloud initiative last March.

The DICT awarded the P373-million build, operate and transfer a complete cloud solution project to the Vibal Group, a cloud and education technology company which used to be known as a book publisher.

Vibal said GovCloud would use a hybrid cloud strategy that would use both private and public cloud, adding that creation of private in-country data center would ensure data security, while the off-premise public cloud would make online information and services readily available to government agencies.

The company then partnered with a number of technology firms, including Microsoft for the cloud undertaking. Vibal and Microsoft have been official partners since 2012, when Vibal made available its interactive e-books compatible to Windows OS.

Microsoft managing director Karrie Ilagan said their strength and commitment to security, privacy and transparency would empower the government to achieve the best for its citizens.

While cloud computing produces efficiency, productivity and would provide better citizen services, security is paramount to efficiency, especially with the advent of state-sponsored cyberattacks and cyber-espionage.

DICT launched the National CyberSecurity Plan of 2022 just last month in a bid to protect every single user of the internet in the country. This, of course, is timely especially since the Philippines is among the top 10 countries with malware threats.

With the increasing incidence of cyber espionage and cyberattacks initiated by nation-states, there is now a call for a Digital Geneva Convention, whereby governments should commit to avoiding attacking citizens, critical infrastructure and the private sector; reporting vulnerabilities rather than stockpiling, selling or exploiting them; pledging to aid in the containment and recovery from cyberattacks; and creating a trusted national and global IT infrastructure.

Microsoft offers what it calls a secure, trusted cloud which it emphasized is the most important value that it provides compared to other vendors.

Describing its trusted cloud, Microsoft assured that it helps protect data and has the most comprehensive compliance cover all over the world, including solutions for compliance with the Data Privacy Act of the Philippines, protects major IT systems reliably with Microsoft Disaster Recovery, and offers the most IT flexibility with a truly consistent hybrid cloud.

To show its commitment to a secure, trusted cloud, Microsoft has signed the ICT for Shared Prosperity Technology Manifesto with the DICT. It identifies national challenges and issues that need to be addressed, and key technology pillars that can help in championing and driving economic progress in the country.

Microsoft earlier announced that it would continue to invest $1 billion yearly on cybersecurity research and development in the coming years. The amount excludes acquisitions which the company may make in the sector.

The cloud has allowed companies like Microsoft to create much more sophisticated tools to guard against increasingly cunning attackers. Instead of having to manage their own security, companies also now tap cloud service providers like Microsoft to keep their data secure.

Microsoft has what it calls the Enterprise Mobility + Security that allows its clients to get identity-driven protection against todays attacks.

Its product named Azure is said to have the most comprehensive compliance coverage. It is the most trusted cloud for US government institutions.

With the Data Privacy Act of 2012, Microsoft says it has already designed Azure with industry-leading security measures and privacy policies to safeguard data in the cloud, including categories of personal data identified by the Data Privacy Act.

There is also Microsoft Dynamics 365 which are intelligent cloud applications that connect data across sources.

Microsoft explains that its cloud product combines the companys current customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning cloud services into a single service, and includes new, purpose-built applications to help manage specific business functions.

At the end of the day, it is the citizenry who will decide whether or not governments new policies and programs on ICT have improved the delivery of public services.

For comments, e-mail at philstarhiddenagenda@yahoo.com

See the article here:
Cloud first - Philippine Star

Read More..

GDS Holdings Limited (GDS) Announces Strategic Partnership with Tencent Cloud – StreetInsider.com

Get the Pulse of the Market with StreetInsider.com's Pulse Picks. Get your Free Trial here.

GDS Holdings Limited (NASDAQ: GDS) today announced that it has signed a strategic partnership agreement (the Agreement) with Tencent Cloud Computing (Beijing) LLC (Tencent Cloud), under which GDS Holdings, recognized as preferred carrier-neutral data center provider, will provide secured and continuous data center resources to Tencent Cloud to support its ever-growing demand. The two parties will also work closely on cloud computing and related professional solution services to provide users with the best public cloud experiences.

Pertaining to the Strategic Partnership Agreement, GDS, as preferred carrier-neutral data center provider, will provide Tencent Cloud with secured and continuous data center resources to facilitate any incremental demand from Tencent Cloud. In addition, GDS will leverage its advantages in data center resources to facilitate Tencent Cloud in hybrid IT cooperation and jointly provide clients with hybrid IT total solutions that enable public cloud expansion and implementation, thus creating the most favorable platforms for Tencent Clouds deployment. The two parties will cooperate in data center design and high-quality operating standards while working closely in technology development, customer expansion and joint marketing activities, so as to drive and promote cloud-computing services in China.

It is a great pleasure to have GDS as our strategic partner in terms of carrier-neutral data center solutions and we welcome them as part of our cloud family, stated Mr. Yuepeng Qiu, Vice President of Tencent and President of Tencent Cloud. Our cloud business is undergoing rapid growth. GDSs extensive footprint in all key markets in China as well as its long track record of serving the most demanding customers, including ourselves, is exactly what we are looking for. We believe GDS can provide us with secured and continuous data center resources with high-quality operation standards as we accelerate our cloud deployment across China. The strategic partnership is beneficial to both parties. We look forward to providing more secured cloud solutions and services to our clients and helping to drive cloud adoption in China to a new level together with GDS.

We are delighted to be a strategic partner of Tencent Cloud, stated Mr. William Huang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GDS Holdings. Our recognition as preferred vendor by Tencent Cloud shows the extensive mutual trust and respect we have established with the Tencent organization. Cloud adoption is taking off in China and Tencent Cloud is a driving force. Our state-of-the-art data centers support this growth by functioning as hubs for cloud and enterprise customers, bringing both together with synergies that fuel growth and opportunities. We are proud to be working alongside Tencent Cloud, and together with our customers, look forward to paving the path for future cloud development in China.

Visit link:
GDS Holdings Limited (GDS) Announces Strategic Partnership with Tencent Cloud - StreetInsider.com

Read More..

IBM appears to have excess cloud servers to shift at low, low, prices – The Register

Cloud computing prices come down regularly, but IBM's just offered a price cut of a sort The Register hasn't seen before a temporary discount on bare metal servers running just one CPU family.

That CPU family is the Xeon E5-26XX v3 range, which Intel introduced from Q3 2014 through to mid-2015. In other words, old-ish, slow-ish stuff, certainly compared to the Xeon Scalable Family arriving any week now.

And perhaps rather unloved, too, as IBM's Bluemix cloud says you can have them at an unspecified discount, for a limited time only and only while current inventories are available.

Which rather suggests that IBM has quite a few unused servers that it needs to find workloads for, stat.

Why might that be? Perhaps a substantial client has upgraded to new servers or quit Bluemix altogether. Perhaps IBM's cloud is just not attracting customers. Or maybe IBM just got its forecasting wrong and bought too many servers.

Whatever the reason, it's a curious offer and one that highlights Bluemix's lack of a spot price server market like those offered by Azure and AWS.

Analyst firm Gartner's IaaS magic quadrant last week opined that IBM's cloud has not improved significantly since the IBM acquisition in mid-2013 [and is] missing many cloud IaaS capabilities required by midmarket and enterprise customers.

It appears it may also be missing customers willing to pay full-freight for Xeon E5-26XX v3 servers.

Visit link:
IBM appears to have excess cloud servers to shift at low, low, prices - The Register

Read More..