Tax haven Jersey now wants to become ‘Bitcoin Island’

There are advantages to being a tiny, self-governing speck in the English Channel, and the ability to create a “welcoming” financial habitat is certainly one of them. But Jersey has ambitions beyond just being a haven for regular cash. Its Treasury Minister, Senator Philip Ozouf, says he wants the island become a pioneer in the use of crypto-currencies too, and he’s backed up by a campaign group that’s dedicated to creating the world’s first “Bitcoin Isle.” The initial goal would be to use Bitcoin as local cash substitute, to pay for things like bus tickets and newspapers. But it’s clear that Ozouf has his eyes set on a bigger prize: a Bitcoin banking sector that could make use of Jersey’s “infrastructure of world-class financial services” and that would eventually become “central to Jersey’s future prosperity.” (Read: “STASH YER BITCOINS HERE, LADS!”)

Filed under: Misc, Internet

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Source: BBC News, Bit.coin.je

Backscatter X-ray gun will help police hunt contraband

Though “strip-search” backscatter X-ray machines were pulled from US airports for privacy reasons, the tech has found a new home in the MINI Z portable scanner. Made by American Science and Engineering (AS&E), it displays see-through images on a Windows tablet PC from low-intensity backscatter X-rays that don’t penetrate deeply into organic tissue. The company said it took seven years of research to shrink the X-ray tubes enough to create a handheld device that uses only 10 watts of power (see a simulation here or the video below). Scanning an object several times will even increase the detail. Backscatter X-rays don’t penetrate deep into organic tissue, so the MINI Z is (theoretically) safe for operators and bystanders — but it’s not designed to scan humans anyway. Instead, the US military plans to put it to use searching for guns, explosives, drugs and organic materials. Its portable nature also makes it ideal for scanning vehicles, drug labs and hand baggage, to name a few scenarios — so don’t be surprised to see it at a customs checkpoint or concert near you.

[Image credit: AS&E]

Filed under: Cameras, Misc, Handhelds

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Via: Defense One

Source: AS&E

UK government wants to end mobile deadspots with ‘national roaming’

Mobile operators might be doing more to put an end to signal blackspots in rural areas, but large parts of Britain’s countryside remain underserved. BBC News reports that in a bid to change this, the government is thinking about forcing carriers to share their networks in these areas as part of a new “national roaming” initiative. As you may expect, networks are against the idea, arguing that it would offer less incentive to build more mobile towers and could result in extra costs being pushed to customers. Nevertheless, Culture Secretary Sajid Javid wants to implement a system where you’d switch to an alternative network if your carrier’s is not available, just like when you travel abroad. Worryingly for providers, the government could pressure them into sharing their networks using existing legislation, meaning they might not have a say in it anyway.

[Image credit: rawmusic, Flickr]

Filed under: Wireless, Mobile

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Source: BBC News

Smart London buses get real-time map and empty seat displays

Struggling to the top deck of a moving bus only to find it full can be a bit embarrassing, but Transport for London is considering new technology to help spare your blushes. As seen by London blogger Ian Mansfield, TfL are trialling screens that display seat availability on the upper deck, as well as ones that show the current position of the bus while displaying the names, locations and expected arrival times of future stops on a real-time map. The seat map apparently doesn’t use sensors installed in the chairs, but the existing CCTV cameras to work out capacity. Such features will obviously favour tourists trying to make their way around London, but also those who don’t want to be glued to their phone for travel updates. To assist commuters, TfL also ties in travel alerts into its map guide, letting you know if a nearby Tube stop has any issues before you jump off the bus.

Filed under: Transportation

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Via: TechDigest

Source: Ian Visits

A New York museum’s interactive exhibit lets you redesign art pieces

Yes, the British Museum’s interactive mummies exhibit sounds intriguing, but what if preserved corpses aren’t your thing? If you’re in New York, you can instead visit the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, which is slated to tie up an interactive system with their collection when it reopens in December. According to Wired, you’ll be loaned an electronic pen when you visit, which you can then touch to the text plates next to the art pieces to “remember” them. Then, you can load all the objects you’ve saved onto one of the 15 interactive screens, not only to look at, but to draw over and digitally modify.

Alternatively, you can just draw a general shape on the screen (say, a vase or a teacup) to bring up corresponding images from the Smithsonian museum’s archive if you didn’t get to scan as many displays as you’d like. The best part, though, is that there’s now a space called the Immersion Room, where you can project your masterpieces and feel like some big shot artist. Obviously, you won’t be able to draw a handlebar moustache on the Mona Lisa for laughs. But this sounds worth checking out if you’re into redesigning pottery, costumes, wood and metal work, architecture and sculptures, among others.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: Wired, The New York Times

UK’s official music chart to include streaming from July

If you’ve ditched your physical music collection for a catalog of 20 million plus streaming tracks, your playback habits will soon count in the official music charts. We knew that the Official Charts Company was planning to include music streams in its Top 40, but now we have a firm date: July 6th. Spotify, Deezer, Napster, O2 Tracks, Xbox Music, Sony’s Music Unlimited and rara will be asked to supply their streaming data, with 100 streams counting as the equivalent of one download or physical single purchase (if they’re played for more than 30 seconds). Radio 1 will be the first to feature your 100th playback of Blurred Lines on that date. UK music fans are embracing streaming music at a rapid pace: weekly streams rose from 100 million a week in January 2013 to 200 million in January 2014. We’re now up to 260 million, and already nine tracks have enjoyed more than one million streams in a week this year alone.

Filed under: Internet

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Via: BBC News

Source: Official Charts Company

France wants more say over internet rules to protect its wine sales

It’s no secret that many countries want greater control over the internet than they have under the current, US-centric model. However, France is demanding more influence for a very specific (if not entirely unexpected) reason: wine. The country isn’t happy that the overseer for internet addresses, ICANN, is launching .vin and .wine top-level domains without letting other countries ask for usage restrictions. Government ministers are worried that this lets site owners violate international food naming agreements with impunity — an American company might use champagne.wine to sell sparkling drinks that don’t come from French soil, potentially hurting sales of the real deal.

So what’s the solution, then? For France, the internet should be controlled by an assembly where each country gets a vote. It may be some time (if ever) before that happens given that the debate over internet control is still young. Les français at least have support for restrictions on wine sites, though. Spain, the UK and the European Commission have all asked ICANN to freeze proceedings until it can promise that people won’t run roughshod over centuries of culinary tradition. Whether or not there’s any policy reform, the call for change is a reminder that widening the domain name vocabulary also opens the door to a whole host of disputes.

[Image credit: Let Ideas Compete, Flickr]

Filed under: Internet

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Source: Financial Times

Chicago is getting lamp posts that count people and track pollution

Apparently, Chicago is becoming even more like its Watch Dogs doppelganger than we first thought. Researchers are deploying networked, sensor-equipped lamp posts from this July onward to learn how they could help urban planning and safety. They’ll collect environmental data like air quality, noise levels and wind, and they’ll also measure foot traffic by counting the number of passing cellphones. If the project takes off, Chicago officials could easily tell if air pollution is on the rise, or if a narrow sidewalk is creating a choke point.

That may seem a bit Orwellian at first glance, and there is a concern that the pedestrian info could be used in tandem with other monitoring techniques to get a better idea of someone’s daily activity. However, team scientist Charlie Catlett tells the Chicago Tribune that all the data collection is anonymous — the smart lights won’t be identifying people, recording sounds or taking pictures. That’s not going to completely assuage privacy advocates worried about a surveillance-happy government, but the initiative may pay off if it makes urban life a little more bearable.

[Image credit: Iceninejon, Flickr]

Filed under: Misc, Internet

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Source: Chicago Tribune