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The news

We will be carrying a live video stream for the opening keynote of Google IO 2013.  For more information, click(or tap) here

30 per cent of airline passengers don’t switch off their devices during takeoff or landing.  67 per cent say that they do.

Cylance compromises Google’s Warf 7 building in Australia

Spotify fixes free song download hole

Feature

In this week’s feature, we talked about Bitcoin, a peer-to-peer digital currency which is decentralised.  It was originally coined back in 2009.  Bitcoin can be traded for goods and services just like other currencies and is not regulated by governing bodies.

A brief timeline of bitcoin 2008–2009

·         In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto posted a paper describing the Bitcoin protocol on the internet.

·         In 2009, the Bitcoin network came into existence with the release of the first open source Bitcoin client and the issuance of the first bitcoins.

2010

·         The initial prices for bitcoins were set by individuals on the bitcointalk forums. One notable transaction involved a 10,000 BTC pizza.

·         On 6 August, a major vulnerability in the Bitcoin protocol was found. Transactions weren’t properly verified before they were included in the transaction log or “block chain” which allowed for users to bypass Bitcoin’s economic restrictions and create an indefinite number of bitcoins.

·         On 15 August, the major vulnerability was exploited. Over 184 billion bitcoins were generated in a transaction, and sent to two addresses on the network. Within hours, the transaction was spotted and erased from the transaction log after the bug was fixed and the network forked to an updated version of the Bitcoin protocol. This was the only major security flaw found and exploited in Bitcoin’s history.

2011–2012

·         In June 2011, Wikileaks and other organizations began to accept Bitcoin for donations. The Electronic Frontier Foundation suspended Bitcoin acceptance, citing concerns about a lack of legal precedent about new currency systems, and that they “generally don’t endorse any type of product or service.

·         In late-2011, the Bitcoin exchange rate crashed from over $30 in June to below $2 in October.

·         In October 2012, BitPay reported having over 1000 merchants accepting Bitcoin under its payment processing service.

2013

February

·         The Bitcoin-based payment processor Coinbase reported selling $1 million in bitcoins in a single month at over $22 per bitcoin.

·         The Internet Archive announced that it is ready to accept donations as bitcoins and that it intends to give employees the option to receive portions of their salaries in Bitcoin currency.

March

·         The Bitcoin transaction log or “block chain” temporarily forked into two independent logs with differing rules on how transactions could be accepted. The Mt.Gox exchange briefly halted Bitcoin deposits and the exchange rate briefly dipped by 23% to $37 as the event occurredbefore recovering to previous level of approximately $48 in the following hours.

·         In the US, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) established regulatory guidelines for “decentralized virtual currencies” such as Bitcoin, classifying American “Bitcoin miners” who sell their generated bitcoins as Money Service Businesses (or MSBs), that may be subject to registration and other legal obligations.

April

·         Payment processor BitInstant and Mt.Gox experienced processing delays due to insufficient capacity

·         On the 10th, the Bitcoin exchange rate dropped from $266 to $76 before returning to $160 within six hours.

You can indeed do what’s called mining bitcoins.  However, you need to have a high-performance machine to get the best results.  Some people that we have talked to have mined 2 bitcoins and one lucky person managed to mine 50 bitcoins, but he wiped his hard drive so he lost them.

Pros:

• It’s free to create your bitcoin wallet
• you can mine bitcoins with any PC, Mac or Linux box.
• it’s free to create a bitcoin wallet
• bitcoins are divisible to 8 decimal places, meaning there is plenty of bitcoin to go around

Cons:

• You need a powerful machine to effectively mine bitcoins
• There is no reputable way to convert bitcoins into real money
• bitcoin is not backed by anything 

Whilst it might not be worth the effort to mine bitcoins, we’re going to give it a go for ourselves and let you know whether it’s worth mining bitcoins.

Picks of the week

Adi’s Pick: iRig Pre XLR Interface for iOS and Android devices

Chris’ Pick: Daily Linux Commands (DLC) for Android

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