We took to the floor of the Digital Summer event in London, UK. Companies such as Parallels, Phillips and Hauppauge come to show their latest wares to the tech press.

Our friends at Parallels have also given us a copy of Parallels Desktop 8 to give away to one of you. You can find more information at our Parallels Desktop 8 giveaway

Up first, we talked to Parallels. The main talking points of the interview were:

• Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac(£64.99)
• How Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac can make it easy to switch to mac from a PC
• Parallels Management Suite

The second of our interviews was with Klipsch. The main talking points from the interview Include:

• Klipsch Image S3M
• Klipsch Image ONE MkII bluetooth headphones
• Klipsch KMC 3 wireless music system

The third of our interviews was with the Carl Zeiss Group.  We talked to them about the Zeiss Multimedia Video Glasses.

Up next we talked with Hauppauge about their HDPVR 2 Gaming Edition Plus capture device. A box which also allows you to stream your gameplay to Ustream or Twitch. Amazon has this box for £140.

The fifth of the Interviews was with G Technology. They talked to us about their newest offering which was the G-Dock EV with thunderbolt.

We also talked with Mophie about the product lines which they were showcasing at Digital Summer 2013.  A company which specialises in making external batteries for smartphones and tablets. They talked to us about their JuicePack products including the recently launched JuicePack Plus for iPhone 5 .

Last but not least, we talked with Bugscore, a website which crowdsources scores for things such as hotels, phones, movies, places and cameras to name but a few things it can score.

Adi’s Picks of the show:

Parallels Desktop 8 and the Zeiss Multimedia Video Glasses

Chris’ Picks of the show:

Hauppauge HD PVR 2 Gaming Edition Plus and the Mophie Juice Pack Air(for iPhone 4 and iPhone 5)

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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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If your shopping on Amazon, then please remember to go to MHFTech.net/amazon if you’re in the UK or MHFTech.net/amazonusa if you’re in the USA. A small percentage of your purchase will go towards helping us out.