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How Google’s Chromebooks conquered American schools: Cheap price, easy cloud storage – The Herald-News

February 11, 2017 | Author: admin

NEW YORK The Google Chromebook, a type of stripped-down laptop, isn't a practical mobile device for many people mostly because it basically turns into an expensive paperweight whenever it can't find a Wi-Fi connection.

Yet Chromebooks have defied expectations and made major inroads in an unexpected environment U.S. schools.

In retrospect, that shouldn't be too surprising. Chromebooks are cheap and easy to manage, making them popular with budget-constrained schools with limited tech-support staff. And Wi-Fi is now common enough in U.S. schools and homes to make an internet-dependent device practical for students.

Google doesn't want to stop there. It's releasing new models in partnership with Samsung that are designed to appeal to a broader range of consumers. They have several tablet-like features, including a stylus, touch controls and a 360-degree hinge that allows you to turn the screen faceup. One starts selling Sunday for $449; a more powerful version comes out in April for $100 more.

Google and its manufacturing partners are trying to shed the Chromebook's perception as underperforming budget devices. But even with premium models, expanding beyond U.S. schools won't be easy.

CHROMEBOOKS GET SCHOOLED

For personal computers and tablets, Chromebook's share of the U.S. education market was 49 percent last year, up from 40 percent in 2015 and 9 percent in 2013, according to IDC figures released this week.

But education accounts for just 14 percent of the 110 million devices shipped in the U.S. last year and Chromebooks make up just 9 percent of that broader total. Their numbers are also low abroad, even in schools.

The Chromebook's popularity in U.S. education is also largely limited to grades K-12, analysts say. Macs and Windows laptops are still dominant on college campuses.

ROUGH START

Chromebooks use a lightweight operating system designed to get people online faster, without having to wait around for the computer to start up. Much of the heavy lifting on Chromebooks gets done on Google's remote servers, so Chromebooks themselves don't need fast chips or lots of storage.

Early on, though, that made Chromebooks seem cheap and underpowered, which "soured consumer expectations right off the bat," IDC analyst Linn Huang said.

Online storage for photos and documents online was much less common in 2011 when Chromebooks launched, so their limited local storage was initially unappealing. And the few apps available for Chromebooks didn't work offline, at least at the time.

DIFFERING NEEDS

But what constrains consumers can actually be liberating in education. Most kids don't need laptops on the bus or other locations where they can't connect to Wi-Fi. And they don't miss business software like Microsoft Office; Google's online apps for documents and spreadsheets do just fine for homework.

"What surprised us was how quickly it took off in education," said Kan Liu, who oversees Chromebooks at Google.

Apple's iPad was hot at the time, but Google sold the Chromebook on convenience. They're easier for classrooms to share; just sign in with a Google account, and a student's apps and documents instantly appear. Teachers also have online tools to lock down what apps and sites students can use.

And with models available for less than $200, schools can get a few Chromebooks for the price of an iPad or a rival laptop.

"It allows us to put more devices in students' hands," said Aaron Slutsky, chief technology officer for McDowell County Schools in North Carolina.

FAR FROM UNIVERSAL

But Chromebook's success story in schools is largely an American one, and it's likely to stay that way. Gartner analyst Mikako Kitagawa notes that Chromebooks are useless in China because the device depends on Google services that aren't available there. And in emerging countries, where a budget laptop would be ideal, she said internet access isn't reliable enough.

Even in the U.S., the iPad is better for many creative tasks such as recording and editing movies. Students studying engineering, robotics and graphics won't be able to use Chromebooks to run the kind of specialized software that's available for Macs and Windows laptops.

"But that's not needed for 98 percent of our students," said Tracy Dabbs, coordinator of technology and innovation at the Burlington-Edison School District near Seattle.

Many school districts limit Apple and Windows computers for the students who specifically need them, then provide Chromebooks for the rest. McDowell County, for instance, has 5,500 Chromebooks, 1,200 iPads and only 100 Macs and 200 Windows PCs.

RIVALS STAGE A COMEBACK

Last year, Apple gave iPads in schools some Chromebook-like features unavailable to the general public. That includes ways to let multiple people use a single tablet and management tools for tech-support staff. A new Classroom app lets teachers control what apps students run and track their progress.

Apple also provides classroom tools for teachers and students. Free e-books offer teachers step-by-step guides on using iPad apps and curriculum suggestions for everyday subjects. A separate app lets kids learn programming using the same language developers use to build iPad apps.

Meanwhile, Microsoft announced last month new online apps and management tools for schools, along with Windows PCs priced similarly to Chromebooks.

BEYOND SCHOOLS

Huang said some businesses are giving Chromebooks a second look, especially in retail, banking and other settings where people share computers.

But in many offices, the lack of business software such as Office is a major hurdle. Google's alternative lacks many advanced capabilities found in Office, and habits are hard to change.

Google is trying to make Chromebooks more palatable by letting them run Android apps designed for phones and tablets. It's testing this capability on a handful of Chromebook models, including the new ones from Samsung. That makes it possible to install Office, Adobe Photoshop and many apps on a Chromebook, though these tablet versions have limited features compared with versions for Macs or Windows laptops.

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SAP President Steve Singh says cloud computing is yesterday’s news ‘microservices’ are the future – GeekWire

February 11, 2017 | Author: admin

Concur co-founder Steve Singh. (GeekWire Photo)

Cloud computing is so 2016.

Sure, migration from client servers to the cloud is an ongoing megatrend, but tech moves fast and SAP President Steve Singh is already looking to the future. He believes microservices apps developed in small, separate pieces, rather than as one complete program are the next big trend.

Singh shared his forecast on an episode of CNBCs Mad Money this morning.

Theres another shift coming, and thats from cloud computing to microservices. Now I realize that microservice is a bit geeky so maybe I can give you a simple example. When Kate, your producer, sent me an email saying, hey would you like to come on the show obviously, I always love seeing you so I said, Ill be there Thursday. And just in that email thread, it automatically decided that I should book travel for Steve out to New York so I can join you on the show. All of that happened from the email. So whats happening is the email is saying, look I need to book travel. Ill just call Concur and have Concur do it for me. So as a user, I dont go into Concur. I just go about my normal daily routine and the applications start to take actions for me all seamlessly.

Concur is the travel expense software startup that Singh led through its saleto SAP for $8.3 billion in 2014. The acquisition turned SAP into one of the largest cloud companies in the world. As part of the deal, Singh joined as an executive board member and president of business networks and applications.

Im having a lot fun, having a lot of fun growing my portion of the business and really seeing the whole company thrive, Singh said Friday.

Watch the full interview on Mad Money below.

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Microsoft To Defend Cloud-Computing Customers from Patent Trolls – NewsFactor Network

February 11, 2017 | Author: admin

Businesses often set up virtual private networks, or VPNs, to protect against IT threats that can be introduced via remote workers using cloud services to access corporate data. Because employees don't always use those VPNs, though, Cisco has launched a new layer of protection: a secure Internet gateway (SIG) dubbed Umbrella.

Calling it "the industry's first secure Internet gateway in the cloud," Cisco said yesterday that Umbrella is designed to provide enterprise users with a safe way to access cloud services from anywhere via any device. And because Umbrella is a cloud-based service, it's fast and easy for customers to deploy without the need for new hardware or software, according to Cisco.

Built on the OpenDNS platform, Umbrella incorporates other Cisco technologies such as Cloud Web Security and Advanced Malware Protection. Those integrations enable the gateway service to inspect files before they're downloaded from potentially risky domains, and also adds new predictive intelligence capabilities to avoid other potential threats.

'Secure Onramp to the Internet'

"Before you connect to any destination, a SIG acts as your secure onramp to the Internet and provides the first line of defense and inspection," Kevin Rollinson, product marketing manager for Cisco OpenDNS, wrote yesterday in a blog post. "Regardless of where users are located or what they're trying to connect to, traffic goes through the SIG first. Once the traffic gets to the SIG cloud platform, there are different types of inspection and policy enforcement that can happen."

As a secure Internet gateway, Umbrella offers advantages over other protection strategies such as secure Web gateways, or SWGs, added Brian Roddy, who heads cloud security for Cisco. SWGs can be hard to deploy and "constantly create problems around latency and capacity," he said. By contrast, Umbrella was developed to reimagine how security is delivered, he added.

"For us, it wasn't about taking the old technology and just sticking it into the cloud," Roddy said. "We wanted to create a new layer of defense -- protecting users whether they're on and off the corporate network. We want it to be easy to deploy, be highly effective, minimize latency, support world-wide installations and support the open architectures that have made SaaS so effective."

Umbrella 'Detects Anomalies' To Predict Threats

While software-as-a-service tools such as Salesforce, Box, Google's G Suite, Office 365, WebEx, Trello and others, are widely used today, professionals who access those services from remote locations or mobile devices don't always use them via secure connections such as VPNs. In a survey conducted on behalf of Cisco last year, IDG Research Services found that 82 percent of the corporate laptop users it questioned admitted to sometimes bypassing their organizations' VPNs.

"Much of this off-network usage was for personal activities, but nearly 30 percent of the end users said they sometimes access company data without logging into their VPNs," according to IDG.

Unlike a VPN, Umbrella uses a customer's existing Cisco hardware, such as AnyConnect clients, routers or wireless LAN controllers, to "easily point Internet traffic to Umbrella whether on or off the corporate network," the company said. Umbrella "resolves over 100 billion Internet requests every day and correlates this live data with over 11 billion historical events," according to Cisco. "This is analyzed to identify patterns, detect anomalies, and create models to automatically uncover attacker infrastructure being staged for the next threat."

Cisco did not provide pricing for Umbrella, but the company is offering a free 14-day trial to each customer who signs up for the service.

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Privacy Advocates Celebrate as Judge Rules Microsoft Can Sue the DOJ – The VAR Guy

February 11, 2017 | Author: admin

That so-called judge is at it again. U.S. District Judge James Robart, whom President Trump lambasted recently for issuing the court order that halted his temporary travel ban, has ruled that the federal government cant get out of being sued over its surveillance operations.

Last April, Microsoft sued the Department of Justice over the FBIs use of sneak-and-peak email searches and its refusal to allow the company to notify its customers that their data was under surveillance. The suit alleges that the FBI violated users Fourth Amendment right against unlawful search and seizure, as well as Microsofts First Amendment right to free speech. Robart rejected the Fourth Amendment complaint on the grounds that Microsoft couldnt sue on behalf of its customers, but said the company had made a solid enough argument on the free speech issue to send it through to trial.

"The public debate has intensified as people increasingly store their information in the cloud and on devices with significant storage capacity, Robart said in Thursdays ruling. Government surveillance aided by service providers creates unique considerations because of the vast amount of data service providers have about their customers."

In its initial suit, Microsoft said the secrecy orders often prohibit the company from ever telling customers when the FBI presents a warrant for surveillance, even if the investigation is no longer active. Of the 2,600 orders Microsoft had received, it said more than two-thirds had no fixed end date.

Microsoft has drawn wide support from the tech industry. Apple, Google and Amazon all publicly came out against the federal law that allows sneak-and-peek searches. The case highlights the growing legal complexity associated with cloud computing, big data and privacy rights. On one side, the government argues they need the searches to aid in investigations and protect citizens. On the other, privacy advocates say that the government is too liberal with its use of gag orders that prevent companies from notifying their users of the searches.

Putting an end to service providers obligatory and sometimes indefinite silence would be a significant first step toward effecting real and meaningful change in privacy laws, says Ladar Levison, founder and CEO of email service provider Lavabit. Levison has achieved hero status among privacy advocates for his refusal to help the FBI gain access to Edward Snowdens email account in 2013. When they demanded Lavabits SSL encryption key in order to get Snowdens password, Levison shut down the company rather than comply. If people only knew how extensive the governments reach was, he says, there would be a much bigger groundswell of demand for a right to privacy.

Its my belief that if the millions of people who have been placed under surveillance found out that they had been placed under surveillance, and the dubious set of circumstances that led to their lives being inspected by government agents, that this issue of privacy and surveillance would carry a lot more weight with a lot more individuals.

One of the trickiest parts of the legal process surrounding a push for privacy legislative reform is exactly what Microsoft ran into in Robarts courtroom: you cant sue on behalf of someone elses violated Fourth Amendment rights. But Levison says that even if Microsoft cant sue to keep customers data private, eliminating the gag order will be a big step.

From my perspective as a service provider, the only time were put in this position of having to defend our clients in court is when they cant defend themselves. Microsoft has to defend their customers when their customers cant defend themselves, but if Microsoft can tell them theres been this accusation made against them in regards to criminal activity, and thus is being asked to turn over their propertynotice I refer to their information as propertyit allows that individual to make a Fourth Amendment claim.

Its a busy time for privacy advocates. The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed the Email Privacy Act this month, reforming the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and requiring law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant to access emails 180 days or more older. Also this month, a U.S. judge ordered Google to comply with search warrants seeking customer emails stored on servers outside of the United States, departing from the precedent set by a federal appeals court seven months ago in a similar case involving Microsoft. And we wont soon forget the furor surrounding the FBIs attempt to compel Apple to create a backdoor into the iPhone belonging to the terrorist responsible for the San Bernadino shooting last year.

These issues are on the cusp of being settled, and unfortunately theyll be settled for all time. How often do we debate states rights or the ability of the federal government to levy an income tax? Were on the verge of hashing out what is going to be the constitutionality and law surrounding these types of service provider requests, said Levison. These issues are deeper and more complex than most people realize.

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Intel’s Growth Strategy Is Decent, But Could Create Openings for AMD and Qualcomm – TheStreet.com

February 11, 2017 | Author: admin

Much like Cisco Systems (CSCO) , Intel (INTC) has few illusions about the long-term pressures facing some of its largest and most profitable businesses, and is using a mixture of M&A, re-structurings and internal investments to position itself better in the years to come. Also like Cisco, Intel's transformation efforts have a financial price attached to them, and involve making trade-offs that can create openings for rivals.

During Thursday's Investor Day, Intel spelled out its ambitious plans to offset the long-term declines expected in the PC and enterprise server CPU markets by targeting opportunities in cloud servers, non-CPU data center products, solid-state drives (SSDs), and IoT and autonomous driving platforms. It also provided a set of short-term and long-term targets for its main reporting segments.

In line with the outlook shared during its fourth-quarter earnings call two weeks ago, Intel predicted its Client Computing Group (CCG), which supplies PC CPUs and mobile chips, will see revenue decline at a mid-single digit clip in 2017 due to PC weakness. It also forecast CCG will decline at a low-single digit annual rate over the next three years, while adding that its margins will be boosted by spending cuts.

Relative to 2015 levels, PC CPU R&D spend is expected to be down about 5% in 2017, and mobile R&D spend (had previously contributed to giant mobile division losses) about 55%. Some of these spending cuts have already been made, courtesy of Intel's 2016 job cuts. CCG was responsible for 54% of Intel's 2016 sales.

Intel's Data Center Group (DCG), which towers over the server CPU market, is still expected to grow at a high-single digit clip this year. But Intel still expects low-double digit growth in subsequent years, as enterprise server weakness is offset by strong orders from cloud giants and carriers, as well as by the growth of non-CPU products such as Ethernet chips, the Omni-Path interconnect fabric, deep learning ASICs and silicon photonics transceivers.

But this growth is going to come at a price. DCG's R&D spending is expected to grow by 25% from 2015 to 2017. That, along with manufacturing process investments, will result in a 2017 margin hit. And thanks to both its investments and the fact that some non-CPU parts carry lower margins, Intel is now aiming for a long-term DCG margin in the low-40% range from a prior target range of 45% to 50%.

That's a big deal, given DCG and CCG currently produce nearly all of Intel's profits between them. The former had a $7.5 billion operating profit last year on revenue of $17.2 billion; the latter had a $10.6 billion operating profit on revenue of $32.9 billion.

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Oracle Settlement Puts Focus on Cloud Revenue Claims – Talkin’ Cloud

February 11, 2017 | Author: admin

Brought to you by MSPmentor

After making the initial decision to introduce cloud-related service offerings, the very next question an MSP often has to answer is which vendor to partner with.

To make that decision, an MSP might reasonably compare the respective products, consider relationships with current partners and review the cloud providers financial health to ensure theyre not mastering technologies of a vendor that might not be around for the long haul.

But the settlement today of a closely watched court case is renewing old questions about the veracity of revenue claims made by major vendors, and whether they actively gin up results amid pressure to show momentum in cloud computing divisions.

Assessing vendor cloud revenue claims has become more challenging, with many vendors' IT-related businesses being complicated and nuanced, analysts David Mitchell Smith and Ed Anderson wrote in Gartners December 2015 report Vendor Cloud Revenue Claims Should Enterprises Care.

The report found that cloud vendors overstate revenues from the emerging technology, making it difficult to assess financial health or make comparisons between vendors.

Lawsuit Sheds No Light

Many cloud vendors have for years aggregated or disaggregated cloud business lines with other technologies, fueling assertions of deliberate efforts to make such accounting opaque.

But a federal lawsuit filed last year by a senior finance manager at Oracles cloud division threatened to lay bare one tech giants alleged blatant misrepresentation of cloud services results.

Staff accountant Svetlana Blackburn said she was fired after repeatedly refusing orders to add millions of dollars in accruals to financial reports, with no concrete or foreseeable billing to support the numbers, according to a report on the filing by Computerworld.com.

Blackburn was fired in October of 2015, two months after receiving a positive performance review.

In the meantime, she alleged, her bosses at Oracle proceeded to add the accruals on their own, ignoring her objections

Oracle attorneys argued that Blackburns termination stemmed from forecasting errors for the quarter ended Aug. 31, 2015.

She refused to accept responsibility for them, Computerworld reported of Oracles filings. The companys managers lost confidence in her ability to effectively perform her job as a manager and generate accurate forecasts."

Blackburn claimed whistleblower protections under the Dodd-Frank and Consumer Protection acts.

During a regularly scheduled hearing today, attorneys for both sides informed the judge they had reached a settlement and asked for a 30-day continuance to hammer out details, and request a dismissal.

Terms were not disclosed.

Opaque Cloud Accounting

The challenges of evaluating revenues from emerging technologies is an old problem that is even more difficult in the cloud age, senior editor Brandon Butler wrote in an article for Network World.

A common trick involves using non-cloud technology to beef up cloud earnings.

Some vendors include sales of cloud-enabling technologies, like servers, virtualization software or management tools. Others lump in hosted or managed hosting revenues.

In some cases, consulting and professional services revenues are included to increase the figure.

Technology transformations like the emergence of cloud computing can be tumultuous times for vendors who have made a living selling hardware, software and services to large businesses, Butler wrote. Legacy IT vendors want to show Wall Street investors that theyre rapidly making the shift to sell new cloud technologies while hoping it does not cannibalize their existing revenue streams.

While anyone would be hard-pressed to argue that large cloud vendors are not raking in huge sums of money, Gartners Smith and Anderson suggest looking beyond the financials when making important decisions.

We recommend CIOs direct their organizations to never take vendor cloud revenue at face value, and evaluate vendors on their strategy and service mix, the report states.

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Hybrid cloud: What it is, what it does and hybrid cloud use cases – TechTarget

February 11, 2017 | Author: admin

Hybrid cloud has been on the tip of nearly every IT professional's tongue since the concept first hit the scene...

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in the early 2000s. In essence, the term hybrid cloud refers to any environment that mixes private and public cloud services, though it can also refer to the ability to connect colocation to dedicated services with cloud resources. The hybrid cloud model owes its popularity to its ability to provide greater flexibility, its resource automation, the way it maximizes containers, its relatively low cost and its testing and development benefits.

Want to learn more about what a hybrid cloud is, hybrid cloud use cases and benefits? Start by reading these five quick tips.

Cloud computing has become an immediately recognizable term in modern IT that refers to a broad range of technologies that deliver hosted services over the internet. Included in this broad range are three classes of cloud computing: public, private and hybrid. The first class, public cloud, is made up of publicly-available IT resources and provides greater levels of automation and orchestration than traditional hosting. The second class, private cloud, is similar in nature to the public cloud, with the exception that it's dedicated to a single organization; private cloud is also highly resilient. The third and final class, hybrid cloud, allows workloads to coexist on either a vendor-run public cloud or a customer-run private cloud. The hybrid part of hybrid cloud comes from its networking; software-defined networking and hybrid WAN technologies are just two of the technologies that help ensure networking connectivity in a hybrid cloud.

Just as there is no absolute definition for cloud computing, the concept of the hybrid cloud is equally broad and subject to interpretation, depending on whom you ask. To some, it's an offering that uses automation and orchestration to take your on-premises cloud and infrastructure and extend it to the public cloud. To others, hybrid cloud refers to any IT services hosted in both public and private locations. Some even say that the hybrid cloud is an extension of private cloud services, and that the definition of a hybrid cloud depends on how you use in-house and off-site cloud. Although there isn't a definitive answer to what a true hybrid cloud is, the general consensus is that it's more complicated than just running workloads on and off premises, and that hybrid cloud will remain a buzzword for some time to come.

Just as there is no absolute definition for cloud computing, the concept of the hybrid cloud is equally broad and subject to interpretation, depending on whom you ask.

A hybrid cloud platform is appealing to businesses because it can provide greater workflow agility, departmental autonomy and better security, but, as with all major purchasing decisions, buyers must first gauge whether the value of hybrid cloud merits the cost. The best way to do this is to figure out which hybrid cloud deployment and management tools your business needs; this depends on what you intend to use a hybrid cloud platform for. Some popular hybrid use cases include cloud bursting, security and compliance requirements, cost control, testing and development and storage capacity. Keep in mind that each of these hybrid cloud use cases comes with its own unique challenges.

For an example of how businesses are implementing hybrid cloud, look no further than VMware. With a recent dip in revenue for its flagship vSphere product, the virtualization company has pinned its hopes on the latest version of NSX. This version of the networking and security product will allegedly allow customers to apply NSX security to Amazon Web Services (AWS) workloads. Hybrid cloud networking plays an important role in the future of NSX because it bridges the gap between private and public clouds, creating an overlay between in-house servers and AWS and allowing users to manage different end points homogenously.

As the hybrid cloud model continues to gain momentum in enterprise IT, hybrid cloud management tools have become a priority. Projections from the market research firm MarketsandMarkets indicate that global spending on multicloud management will increase exponentially by 2021, and for good reason -- hybrid cloud management platforms make it easier to consistently apply policy changes and automate operations in multicloud environments. As the line between private and public cloud continues to blur and the hybrid cloud model undergoes rapid changes and advancements, hybrid cloud management platforms are expected to keep pace. As a result, experts predict that 2017 will be a huge year for hybrid cloud, with more hybrid cloud use cases emerging and more management platform products hitting the market.

Hybrid cloud computing best practices and uses

Tips for optimizing hybrid cloud performance

Evaluate hybrid cloud management tool

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PBOC Actions Affected More Than Just Bitcoin Price – The Merkle

February 9, 2017 | Author: admin

After a recent closed-door PBOC meeting relating to AML regulationin Cryptourrency trading, and thesuspension of withdrawals from two Chinas biggest Bitcoin exchanges the BTC market crashed over 10% in response. However, the recent actions didnt only affect Bitcoins price. In fact, over 90% of cryptocurrencies experienced some sort of price drop.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, take a look at this chart from coinmarketrcap:

As you can see every single one of the top 12 coins has seen a significant drop in value. Traders attributed this scenario to the fact that most altcoins trade on a Bitcoin pair. As a result, since coinmarketcap shows the value of altcoins based on fiat, it is bound to experience some form of loss. Once again, Bitcoin proves itself as themarket leader in cryptocurrencies.

The next question that comes to mind is how will the PBOC regulation affect the Altcoin markets. According to this altcoin exchange comparison chart, the biggest altcoin exchages are located in the US. Since PBOC only affects Chinese exchanges it is unlikely that we will see any changes in US based exchanges.

It is surprising to see the other cryptocurrencies react in such sync with Bitcoins price drop, but that is only to be expected if the main trading pair is in BTC. It may be a good idea for altcoins to try and switch to a fiat based trading pair in order to avoid scenarios like this in the future.

Furthermore, the chart tells the same story as those coins with a heavy presence of fiat based trading pairs such as Litecoin and Ethereum, didnt experience as significant of a price drop as those that mostly rely on the coins value in Bitcoin.

If you liked this article, follow us on Twitter @themerklenews and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and technology news.

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University of Luxembourg: Researchers develop Zcash … – Science Business

February 9, 2017 | Author: admin

Scientists at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT) of the University of Luxembourg have developed an important mathematical algorithm called Equihash. Equihash is a core component for the new cryptocurrency Zcash, which offers more privacy and equality than the famous Bitcoin. Zcash came into operation as an experimental technology for a community-driven digital currency in late 2016. Competing cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin is by far the most recognised and widely used digital currency. It was introduced in January 2009 and has garnered much attention since then. But it is not the only one of its kind. Wikipedia lists nearly one hundred cryptocurrencies boasting more than 1 million US dollar market capitalisation.

One of the newest cryptocurrencies is Zcash, which can be seen as an update to the Bitcoin protocols. In Bitcoin, the transfer of coins is recorded in a global ledger, the so-called blockchain. The validity of the latest transfers in the blockchain is verified about every ten minutes. Verifying the transfers and creating new blocks for the blockchain (the so-called mining) requires a lot of computing power, which is provided by distributed computers worldwide. The miners who allocate the processing power are rewarded with new coins.

Zcash is trying to resolve two main shortcomings of Bitcoin: its lack of privacy for transactions and the centralisation of transaction verification into the hands of a mere dozen miners who have invested in large amounts of specialised mining hardware: Bitcoin is prone to such centralisation because the computational load of the bitcoin mining algorithm can be split into many different small tasks, which can be conducted in parallel. The algorithm is easy to implement in dedicated, energy-efficient and cheap microchips, but not suited to standard hardware. Bitcoin mining today is therefore done on special-purpose supercomputers which are located in places with cheap electricity and/or cheap cooling. Such supercomputers are expensive, costing millions of euros, but provide much more mining power than if one were to use standard PC hardware of the same price.

New algorithm for cryptocurrency

Prof. Alex Biryukov, head of the research group Cryptolux and Dr. Dmitry Khovratovich at SnT have developed the algorithm Equihash which can resolve this problem. Equihash is a so called memory-hard problem, which can not be split up into smaller working packages. It can be more efficiently calculated on desktop-class computers with their multiple processing cores and gigabytes of memory than on special hardware chips. If 10.000 miners with a single PC were active, in Zcash the investment to compete with them would be 10.000 times the price of a PC, while with bitcoin, the investment would be significantly smaller, says Khovratovich. This creates a more democratic digital currency by allowing more users to contribute to the mining process. Khovratovich adds: The strength of a cryptocurrency comes from the fact that the ledger is globally distributed. Our Equihash algorithm reverses the situation back to this more ideal world.

Equihash was first presented at the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium last year one of the top-5 IT security events. Prof. Biryukov comments: Since Equihash is based on a fundamental computer science problem, advances in Equihash mining algorithms will benefit computer science in general. Equihash is so far unique among all the mining algorithms: it is memory-hard on the one hand and very easy to verify on the other. In other words, while mining new coins with Zcash/Equihash is comparatively expensive, hence posing a smaller risk of monopolisation because it requires large amounts of computer memory and hard computational work, checking that the new coins are genuine is memoryless, fast and cheap.

Understanding these advantages, the creators of Zcash chose Equihash as the algorithm for mining coins and verifying transfers. Equihash itself is not limited to use in Zcash and can be used in any cryptocurrency, including Bitcoin.

With our contribution to Zcash, the Cryptography and Security lab (CryptoLux) has shown its strength in innovative research that has immediate applications in the financial technology industry, says SnTs director, Prof. Bjrn Ottersten. We invite students to follow us in this promising field, adds Professor Biryukov: There are still lots of challenging research problems to solve.

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Bitcoin Drops as Chinese Exchanges Stop Cryptocurrency Withdrawals – Finance Magnates

February 9, 2017 | Author: admin

From as high as $1070 recently, the price of Bitcoin fell to as low as $910 today before settling around $985 as of now. This comes afterat least two of the leading Chinese exchanges, OKCoin and Huobi, notified clients of an immediate ban on Bitcoin and Litecoin withdrawals, with RMB withdrawals unaffected, while theyupgrade their AML systems according to the law which is estimated to take a month.

Want to learn more? Bobby Lee, the CEO of BTCC, will be giving the keynote speech about Bitcoin and China atthe iFX EXPO in Hong Kong, register now.

Earlier today,the Chinese central bank officially called on nine of the smaller cryptocurrency trading venues in the country to followKYC/AML rulesbut that failed to make a serious impact to the BTC/USD exchange rate.

Charles Hayter, the CEO of CryptoCompare.com, explained: When China sneezes Bitcoin catches a cold. The PBoC moves to regulate Bitcoin more stringently will bring short term woes but will ultimately strengthen the ecosystem.Volumes can be expected to again slow in China as more friction is incorporated in the form of KYC and AML policies. For the duration of this transition the CNY-BTC pairs can be expected to trade at a discount to other fiat-BTC pairs.

Hayter added: The Chinese authorities momentum has been considered and communicative but past scandals have seen governments make examples although the Chinese Bitcoin exchanges cant be said to be anything other than cowering at present. At the moment bitcoin is in limbo caught between Chinese regulatory moves on the one hand and scaling, the potential for ETF approval with the resultant flow of institutional money on the other. Then there is global uncertainty with bitcoin acting as a form of digital gold.

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Bitcoin Drops as Chinese Exchanges Stop Cryptocurrency Withdrawals - Finance Magnates

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