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Money and the power

By Jonathan Mathias 

For a while now ‘Bitcoin’ has been a bit of a darling of the technology pages and it’s not too difficult to see why; in a way it’s creating money out of thin air. 

In case you’re not already familiar with the concept, Bitcoin is an electronic currency that differs from real world cash in that it isn’t backed by anything (like gold) and it’s not controlled by a government.  Anyone can make Bitcoin currency, providing you’ve got the knowledge and the power. 

The currency itself is made via complicated cryptographic computing processes, and the more computing resources you have at your disposal, the more currency you’ll be able to generate.  In theory I could just get a whole bunch of computers set up in my bedroom, set them to work mining Bitcoins, sit back and get rich.  In reality it’s not so easy – one of the most interesting practical considerations of complicated computing systems that Bitcoin does so well at highlighting is energy demand and, most importantly from an economic perspective, cost. 

The CPU in whatever device you have switched on to read this is using electricity to power it, and probably to cool it too.  A Bitcoin mining computer rig might have hundreds or more CPUs, so will use a magnitude more ‘leccy.  There’s an interesting piece on Bloomberg from earlier in the year that talks about a 24 hour period where miners used about $147,000 of electricity to power their mining operations, which generated $681,000 of Bitcoins.  At that time the relative value of Bitcoin against the dollar and the average cost of electricity made Bitcoin mining very profitable indeed, but those variables are far from constant. 

Just this week we’ve had warnings of electricity shortages in the UK, and in a couple of years our electricity will cost twice as much as Germany’s.

Ah well, looks like I won’t be getting rich from any home-cooked plans just yet.  I guess I’ll just console myself with a pint. 

 

(image credit: Gizmodo)

Targeted advertising – but at what price?

By Kasia Murphy

This week, Green Party MP Caroline Lucas appeared in Parliament wearing a bold white t-shirt displaying the slogan "No More Page Three" in large capital lettering ahead of a Commons debate on media sexism. She was quickly told to observe the Commons’ dress code (put her jacket on) and culture minister Ed Vaizey responded by stating that there were no plans to regulate the content of the press, reminding us that “we as a government are committed to maintaining a media that commands respect from the public through high standards..." In a matter of moments the story traversed my Twitter feed.

It’s only a few short weeks since Facebook caved to, eh, social media pressure, when women’s rights campaigners launched an online campaign calling on it to recognise content that trivialises or glorifies violence against girls and women as hate speech. Up until May 29^th, Facebook policy considered messages that broadcasted anti-Semitic, racist or homophobic content as hate speech and removed them from the network, but this didn’t extend to sexist hate speech. In just three days, an online storm of 22,000 tweets and almost 2,000 e-mails was whipped up in support of the campaign. More than 100 advocacy groups joined the protest and demanded Facebook train moderators to remove it.

While the action of this online campaign is a testament to the power of social media to influence, what I find most interesting is that campaigners targeted their efforts by putting sustained pressure on Facebook’s most valuable asset – its advertisers. Campaigners alerted advertisers by posting screengrabs of misogynistic (and often violently graphic) images juxtaposed to their products. Uh-oh. Within days of the campaign beginning, a total of 15 companies moved to protect their brand reputation and withdrew advertising pending resolution of the situation. Brands included Japanese carmaker Nissan, the UK’s largest building society Nationwide and Dove from Unilever. Of course, it’s hard to name one other advertising medium where this sort of positioning would go without reproach.

Targeted advertising is upheld as new frontier of modern day advertising and it’s really of no surprise. It offers advertisers the technological means to gather unprecedented information on potential customers and in turn the means to intelligently place ads for a product that is reflective of that user’s interests. Bingo. It’s worthwhile to note that Facebook recorded a whopping $3.2 billion in advertising revenue in 2011, 85 percent of its total revenue.

While an initial defence of letting the content go uncensored was mounted, branding the campaign an encroachment on freedom of speech, the price was ultimately too high. A mere seven days since the campaign began, the social network admitted its procedures for dealing with such harmful content were inadequate and promised to ‘do better’. 

Apple vs. Samsung: Let battle commence...again

By Gemma White

This week, the BBC reported that ‘Apple has lost a ruling by a US trade panel in a patent dispute with its rival Samsung,’ and yet again we are reminded of the ongoing battle between the two - this time, the clash relates to the use of 3G wireless technology.

It has become the ultimate tech-battle which the world cannot escape, not even the US President, with the FT reporting that Barack Obama himself has been plunged into the dispute, noting that he could use his powers to overturn the ruling.  Which will he favour? 

I’ve also been sucked into the ongoing mobile debate with friends – which is better, iPhone or otherwise?  It’s a debate that sparks up often, and I’m losing count of the amount of people who threaten to give up on their current brand and move to the ‘other side’, but never actually follow through. 

There are horror stories of those who do take the plunge and soon realise they have made a mistake, spending the remaining months of their contracts disappointed until their next upgrade.  We have become a nation that craves the latest technology and, if we are not satisfied, the whole world knows about it.  Is the grass ever greener on the other side?

The Apple iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy S4 are undoubtedly the most successful phones in the world right now.  Mobiles have become a necessity in our everyday lives; enhancing communication and keeping us all connected in ways that we never thought possible.  In my opinion, the latest generation of handsets are all equally impressive and, however much you try to convince someone that the iPhone might be the best (did I say that out loud?), the continuous cycle of upgrades means that the debate is ultimately futile and looks set to continue forever more.

So, whose side of the battle are you on? 

Does it surprise you that we share 500 million photos a day?

By Purdey Miles

A recent report by analyst Mary Meeker has shown that on average more than 500 million photos are shared every single day. With the unprecedented growth of Snapchat, the recent acquisition of Flickr by Yahoo and forever evolving social platforms like LinkedIn adding photo sharing capabilities, are we really that surprised? How often do you find yourself at a social event where there is someone (or many people!!) with the incessant urge to take a photo? Which results in you making the swift and unnatural progression from having fun to awkwardly posing while the smart device struggles to take a photo?  Quite often is likely to be the resounding answer!

The forever increasing choice and abilities of social platforms allow us to feed our obsession with picture sharing. Facebook still accounts for the majority of photos being shared, however, platforms like Instagram and, most recently, Snapchat are following closely behind. We are also increasingly seeing other competitors step up their game in order join the race. Earlier this month, LinkedIn added features that allow users to share photos, presentations and documents through their homepage. As the number of these applications grows so do their complexity, which offers users something more and increases their usage alike.

The significance of these photo sharing platforms is being widely recognised. As their popularity has flourished, so have opportunities for companies to cash in. Earlier this month we saw Yahoo purchase Flickr for an almighty sum, and one of the first things they did was undergo a complete make-over of the site. Not only have they re-vamped the site but they’re also offering complimentary storage space in an attempt to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

But why is there such an obsession for people to digitally document their lives? Does it mean that messages can be spread faster and easier with just a photo? Do we do it because we want to outdo our friends? Or is it purely because of vanity - we like looking at ourselves and why not have a photo to do this that we can forever see and instantly access? Perhaps it’s a combination of all three.  Nonetheless, it would appear that, upon contemplation, it doesn’t come as such a surprise that we are sharing so many pictures when an abundance of photo sharing applications exist.