News junkie's open-source project links Bitcoin with publishers

Ankur Nandwani is a news junkie who keeps hitting pay walls. He would pay for content, but not for a subscription.

Nandwani, 27, merged his interest in news with Bitcoin, a virtual currency that many people think will change the future of payments. With co-founders Bo Li and Valerie Chao, he developed Bitmonet, an open-source tool that lets publishers accept micropayments in Bitcoin for news stories.

Bitmonet is just a side project for Nandwani, who has a day job as a senior software engineer in San Francisco. He started analyzing Bitcoin about six months ago and wanted to grow interest in the virtual currency.

"It's all about encouraging bitcoin adoption," Nandwani said. "I think in the early stages of the bitcoin ecosystem.....it's better to increase bitcoin adoption. We can think of making money later."

News publishers have struggled to strike the right balance between generating online revenue and not alienating readers -- already bouncing from one free online news outlet to another -- with pay walls. Many tease users with free stories and gently nudge them to paid subscriptions when they hit a limit.

But charging one-off fees for news stories is a hassle: users don't want to create an account and enter their credit card details for a single news story. It's easier just to move on.

Bitmonet leverages Bitcoin's strength as a digital substitute for cash. In a demonstration on Bitmonet's website, clicking on a story brings up a pop-up window offering a news story for US$0.10, a one-hour pass for $0.15 or a day-long pass for $0.20.

The one-hour pass costs 0.0012 of a Bitcoin. Clicking the "Pay with Bitcoin" button launches Bitcoin wallet software on a person's computer. Web-based wallet software can be used by copying the payment address, Nandwani said.

The transaction is painless: users don't have to enter their financial details or create an account with the publisher.

Bitcoin's peer-to-peer network uses a system of computers called miners to cryptographically verify that a transaction is legitimate. Usually, a transaction needs to garner six "confirmations" before it is considered complete, which at times can take up to three hours.

But Nandwani said merchants can accept as low as one confirmation to let people read the story as soon as possible.

If users choose to buy time-based access to a site, they will have to remember to keep their cookies, which are information files retained by a web browser that are used by websites to remember certain user information.

It's a small sacrifice, but one to keep in mind since many people configure their browsers to delete their cookies for privacy reasons. Nandwani said "we are trying to maintain a balance between creating an account and keeping it frictionless."

Bitmonet is configured now to use BitPay as a payment processor, but it can use different ones. BitPay, based in Atlanta, specializes in processing transactions for merchants. BitPay converts Bitcoin revenue to cash and wires it daily to a merchant's bank account.

Nandwani said Bitmonet plans to add a WordPress plugin in the coming weeks for micropayments on that publishing platform. Other development plans include creating SDKs (software development kits) for Android and iOS that would allow Bitmonet to be used for other things, such as virtual goods, he said.

DCMS reveals locations for mobile signal project

The rural areas of the UK set to get mobile signal from a government-funded scheme were today revealed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).

The mobile infrastructure project – or MIP – is seeing central government invest £150m into bringing mobile connectivity to the areas of the country currently without signal.

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The scheme was announced in February 2013 but today is the first time a map detailing which areas were set to benefit has been released. These include some of the most rural spots in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.

“This project will see mobile phone coverage extended to many of the people who currently live and work in areas where there is none,” said communications minister Ed Vaizey. “The project will provide a significant boost to local economies across the UK and will be instrumental in helping Britain win the global race.”

The government funding will be given to Arqiva to build mobile sites in the rural locations and be responsible for gaining planning permission from local authorities. However, the responsibility for operating the sites will then pass to the UK’s four major mobile networks – Vodafone, O2, EE and 3 – which will pay for any costs over the next 20 years.

MIP rollout

John Cresswell, CEO of Arqiva, said: “We are delighted to be working with the government and mobile network operators to improve mobile phone coverage in the areas announced today. Investing in mobile infrastructure will support the economy, reduce the technological divide and benefit the social fabric of our regions and villages.

“We are proud to be part of this initiative and committed to its success.”

Although the overall goal is to have all the sites equipped and live by the end of 2015, DCMS has promised some areas will get signal by the end of this year.

However, the department did warn this project would not bring signal to every area of the UK currently lacking it, and would focus on the number of premises it could benefit to decide on which areas would be prioritised.

Dell's thumb-size PC, Project Ophelia, ships to testers

Dell has started shipping its thumb-size PC called Project Ophelia to beta testers and is preparing to ship the final product in the coming months.

Ophelia looks much like a USB stick and it can turn any screen or display with an HDMI port into a PC, gaming machine or streaming media player. The thumb PC runs on the Android OS and once it is plugged into an HDMI port, users can run applications, play games, watch streaming movies or access files stored in the cloud.

The final product will ship during the next fiscal quarter, which runs from August through October, a Dell spokesman said in an e-mail. The device has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity options.

Priced at about US$100, Dell hopes Ophelia will be an inexpensive alternative to PCs, whose shipments are falling with the growing adoption of tablets and smartphones. With more data now being stored in the cloud, Dell hopes the idea of a keychain PC will catch on, especially for those who do most of their computing on the Web.

The device will also compete with Google's recently announced Chromecast media streaming device, which is priced at $35 and also the size of a thumb drive. With Ophelia, users will be able to run Android games or stream movies from Hulu or Netflix, and even download apps, movies and TV shows from the Google Play store.

One of the value propositions of Ophelia is that it is a lightweight PC alternative, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

"Being able to carry their desktop in their pocket rather than having to lug it around would perhaps make a great deal of sense," King said.

Ophelia won't offer high-end performance, but it has Android and can take advantage of an applications stack already installed on many smartphones and tablets, King said, adding that for some, that is more than enough.

Ophelia could also be attractive to companies looking to cut costs or trying to escape PC upgrades to Windows 8, King said.

"A lot of businesses are faced with whether or not they want to move on to Windows 8 and buy the necessary equipment," King said.

Ophelia takes that upgrade cycle in a "radical direction" by replacing PCs with a pocket-size thin client, and Windows with the Android OS, King said.

Dell has demonstrated Ophelia running on 19-inch and 55-inch screens. The company said it will offer hands-on demonstrations at future trade shows in which the company participates.

Dell also hopes to build in some enterprise features to differentiate Ophelia from other consumer-focused thumb PCs, many of which are based on Android.

For example, IT administrators will have the ability to manage and secure the device. Much like a smartphone, if the thumb PC is lost or stolen, IT administrators will be able to remotely shut down the device and wipe it clean. Dell is also building features so IT can track the activities on the device.

Ophelia will also come with Wyse's PocketCloud, which allows users to access files stored on PCs, servers or mobile devices.

The device could be attractive to sales staff, field personnel, and maintenance crews, King said.

Dell has said it will sell Ophelia through its website and also through wireless carriers and cable companies. Dell originally announced Project Ophelia at the International CES in January.

Facebook Open Compute project has "weaknesses," Cisco CEO says

Facebook's Open Compute project, which is working on open source servers and switches, will be limited by "weaknesses" in scope that Cisco can exploit, CEO John Chambers said this week.

In an exclusive interview with Network World where he also touched on the consumer market and EMC alliance, Chambers said efforts like Facebook's to commoditise and wring cost out of hardware purchases will open up opportunities for Cisco to provide solutions that are better tailored to specific customer needs.
"I think this will just be one more series of good challenges that Cisco will say 'what's the business objective on,'" Chambers said of Open Compute. "There are a lot of weaknesses to the area -- we're going to go back and solve customer problems. If you're standalone anything, this is going to be a hard market to play in. Anything white label, where the decision is cost or opex, you're going to lose."
[WHAT CHAMBERS SAID:Cisco building an Internet of Everything router]

What Cisco will not do is sit around and let Open Compute proponents and supporters guide the discussion on commodity switches and servers. Cisco's messaging will be proactive instead of reactive this time.
"What we will not do is leave that concept alone like we did SDN, and allow other people to gain the high ground and then play defense," Chambers said. "This one you will see us out ahead of the game on."
Chambers also addressed Cisco's exit from the consumer market after failures with the Flip videocam and umi TelePresence system, and the recent divestiture of Linksys. Cisco was late addressing opportunities in that market and they ultimately passed the company by.

"Consumer-to-consumer, we're out," Chambers said.  "We missed our window on areas such as Flip and even Linksys. And we made the mistake of getting too fascinated with the device. I love my Flip camera, but it was about FlipShare (video software) in the cloud to any smartphone that would have outmaneuvered Apple. And my team just missed it. Shame on me for not catching it."

Chambers said Cisco is still in the business-to-consumer market through various channels. He said Cisco will not enter markets where it can't gain "sustainable differentiation," 40% share and alignment with its core networking business.

Alignment is also key to the VCE data center coalition Cisco owns with EMC. EMC and its VMware business have been increasingly competitive with Cisco outside of VCE, yet Chambers insists the joint venture is "going to have a good life cycle."

"EMC is a very important strategic partner with us," Chambers said. "VMware is a partner at times, competitor at times."

VMware's entry into networking via the Nicira acquisition strained relations between EMC and Cisco, but turned out to be "the best thing to happen" to the company, Chambers said.
"Even though I wish VMware did not get into networking it was the best thing to happen to us because once they did, then we went back to what we do best:  open architecture, support four hypervisors, not tied to any vendor for strategic long term direction," Chambers said.

Nude Project Runway Billboard Banned in L.A., Deemed "Obscene"

Heidi Klum is caught in the crosshairs of a nude photo fracas -- but the German supermodel, 40, actually keeps her clothes on in a newly banned ad for Project Runway. To promote the twelfth season of the fashion reality competition, Klum and fellow star Tim Gunn appear in 18th century noble garb (think Marie Antoinette and a gentleman pal) as a bevy of naked models appear to bow down before them.

Perhaps one of the most provocative ads yet for the Lifetime series, the jarring image has been banned by the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety, the network confirmed to Variety late Tuesday, July 9; signs with "obscene matters" are subject to prohibition, the site notes.

"@ProjectRunway Designers! We need clothing for these people!" Klum joked, sharing the image on Twitter. "Fast! Season 12 starts July 18th on @lifetimetv!"

Klum, of course, has certainly doffed her own duds before -- showing off her enviable bod in numerous Project Runway ads, dozens of fashion magazine spreads and other projects . . . including her own Twitter feed. Just this past weekend, in fact, the divorced of four shared a painful sunburn to her 1.6 million twitter followers and revealing her bare backside in the process.

Big data project aims to improve Dutch flood control, save the government millions

A big data project called Digital Delta aims to investigate how to transform flood control and the management of the entire Dutch water system and save up to 15 percent of the annual Dutch water management budget.

 

IBM will collaborate with Rijkswaterstaat, the part of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment that is responsible for the design, construction, management and maintenance of the waterways and water systems in the Netherlands. The project also involves the University of Delft, local water authority Delfland and the Deltares Science Institute, the organizations said in a joint news release Tuesday.

 

They will investigate whether data gathered by more than 100 different projects in the Netherlands that deal with water management can be combined and be made accessible to accelerate water management innovation, said Djeevan Schiferli, an IBM Business Development Executive who is involved in the project.

 

If the research is successful, the system can be applied to other areas in the world, Schiferli said. The principle has already been discussed with governments in the U.S. in New York and New Orleans, as well as in Japan, South Korea and Australia, he said.

 

In the next 12 months, the Digital Delta group will investigate how to integrate and analyze water data from a wide range of existing sources, including precipitation measurements, water level and water quality monitors, levee sensors, radar data, model predictions, and current and historic maintenance data from sluices, pumping stations, and locks and dams, the group said.

 

Because 55 percent of the Dutch population lives in a location prone to flooding, every water-related event is critical and can impact businesses, agriculture and citizens’ daily lives, they said.

 

Due to this, the Dutch water management budget adds up to €7 billion (US$9.2 billion) each year, and costs are expected to increase €1 billion to €2 billion by 2020, unless something is done, according to the release. By combining data, Digital Delta thinks it can save up to 15 percent, Schiferli said.

 

Digital Delta wants to reduce costs by dealing with IT and the available data in a better way, he said. At the moment, parties use a third to half of their budgets to collect and disseminate the data, according to Schiferli. “And that is even before the data can be interpreted,” he added.

 

The initiative aims to provide water experts with a real-time intelligent dashboard to harness information so data can be shared immediately across organizations and agencies, according to the release. Involved organizations can use the dashboard to help prepare for imminent difficulties as well as enabling authorities to coordinate and manage response efforts. Over the longer term, the project aims to enhance the ongoing efficiency of overall water management, it added.

 

Digital Delta’s goal is to improve the management of the Dutch water system in many different ways. For instance, by modeling weather events, the Netherlands should be able to determine the best course of action including storing water, diverting it from low-lying areas, and avoiding saltwater intrusion into drinking water, sewage overflows and water contamination, they said.

 

One satellite company can, for instance, spot a 100 meter stretch of dike that is sagging, Schiferli said. If those responsible for tending to the dike know this, they can put sensors in just that stretch instead of in the whole dike that is, say, 10 kilometers long, he said. Monitoring a stretch of 100 meters is much cheaper than fitting the whole dike with sensors, he said.

 

While all of the relevant data to determine where to put sensors may now be available, it is not combined so not everyone has access to it and this leads to unnecessary expenditures, he said.

 

Another project in the initiative aims to link a sensor to a well in a traffic tunnel, Schiferli said. If the data of that sensor is linked with the maintenance system and weather data, an estimation can be made of how likely it is the well will overflow or clog when heavy rain is expected, he said. The system could then send a warning to relevant authorities to check the well, which may prevent a traffic jam in the tunnel, he said.

 

IBM’s Intelligent Water Software can be used for this. Rijkswaterstaat and local water authorities will manage water balance data and share the information centrally through the Digital Delta platform, the organizations said. This should make it possible for the Dutch water system to optimize the discharge of water and improve the containment of water during dry periods, and prevent damage to agriculture, the group said.

 

Also, a scalable early flood warning method will be developed by combining weather data and, water system simulation models and real-time measurement data from the water system, they said.

 

The Digital Delta project is aimed at water management. Similar systems could be developed to deal with droughts or for use in ship traffic, said Schiferli.

 

“The Australians, for instance, said they know a lot about forest fires—that knowledge could be useful to the Dutch when they have to deal with a fire in the dunes,” Schiferli said, adding that international cooperation is also a possibility.

 

The current research project costs €5.5 million and will go on for 12 months after which the governments decide if they want to go through with it, he said.

 

 

China canal project in Nicaragua has investors

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Wang Jing of HKND Group.

Telecom executive Wang Jing told reporters in Beijing that work should start on the canal by the end of 2014 and finish within six years.

Lawmakers in Nicaragua granted a 50-year concession earlier this month to Wang's privately held HKND Group to build the canal, which will stretch three times the distance of its Panamanian counterpart.

The proposed passage through Nicaragua would be wider that the Panama Canal, and could leave the country well placed to capitalize on a predicted rise in global shipping over the next 20 to 30 years.

Even with its current expansion, the Panama Canal will still be too small to accommodate the world's largest container ships.

In addition to the canal, HKND has won rights to build a railroad, two ports, an international airport and an oil pipeline.

It is not clear how the group intends to finance the canal's construction, which carries a reported price tag of $40 billion.

Wang said Tuesday that fundraising is "going very well so far." But he declined to name any investors, saying instead that more information will be provided "when the project reaches different phases."

Nicaragua has long attracted ambitious businessmen, politicians and governments hoping to build a canal. So far, all efforts have fallen victim to a lack of funding or the country's complicated politics.

Related story: China and Europe risk trade war

Many observers are deeply skeptical of the project's viability. Wang has no apparent experience with large infrastructure projects, and little is know about HKND's governance structure.

Wang denied any ties to the Chinese government or military on Tuesday, saying the project is entirely independent. Pressed about his background, Wang said that he studied Chinese medicine before pursuing a career in business.

"I am an average Chinese citizen," the CEO said.



T.L. Yip, an assistant professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, said that the project is technically viable and not unrealistic.

Beijing is eager, Yip said, to secure energy supplies, and a canal in Nicaragua would provide an additional avenue for trade between China and key trading partners like South Africa.

"From China's point of view, they would like to see an alternative to the Panama Canal," Yip said. "This could be very important for Beijing."

President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista government have portrayed the project as an economic boon for Nicaragua, which is the poorest country in Central America and second poorest in the Western Hemisphere. The country is highly indebted and unemployment is rampant.

Ortega faces domestic opposition over the project. The Movement for Nicaragua, a coalition of community groups, has already objected to the proposed construction.

"Nicaragua isn't for sale. Nicaragua belongs to all Nicaraguans and isn't the private property of Ortega and his family," the group said in a statement.

 

Kickstarter Was Wrong, But Not Just Because It Tolerated a Sexist Project

 

The Kickstarter pitch for Ken Hoinsky’s book Above the Game sounded relatively innocuous: He wanted to share his method for “meeting new people” — or specifically, for men meeting women. At least until comic Casey Malone found (and reposted) reddit comments from Hoinsky that actually discussed this philosophy for succeeding with women, which advocated everything from creepy behavior (“Don’t ask for permission. Be dominant. Force her to rebuff your advances”) to outright sexual assault: “Don’t ask for permission, GRAB HER HAND, and put it right on your dick.” The Kickstarter description for Above the Game stated that as much as 50 percent of the content in the book could be pulled directly from Hoinsky’s forum diatribes.

 

Today, after the online furor prompted by Malone’s post, Kickstarter removed the project page and posted an explanation on their blog titled “We Were Wrong.” But it wasn’t just permitting Hoinsky’s project in the first place that made Kickstarter wrong: It was also their hypocritical about-face and the lack of clear guidelines that allowed the project to happen in the first place.

 

The company first responded in a private email to Malone that was subsequently posted on his Tumblr, and called Hoinsky’s reddit comments “abhorrent,” while still allowing the project’s funding to continue. Today, the company statement said Kickstarter’s team had only two hours to decide whether to pull the project after it came to their attention and before the project ended. So Kickstarter had enough time to review the campaign and call it “abhorrent” in the email to Malone, but apparently not enough time to decide whether that mattered.

 

Admitting that an author’s comments on reddit—a site that has taken a strong stance on free speech to controversial lengths—are “abhorrent” while continuing to take 5% is ridiculous and contradictory, but the more important point is that Kickstarter hasn’t publicly clarified what is and isn’t acceptable on the platform, and where they stand on various types of controversial content.

 

If Kickstarter wants to acts as a defender of pure free speech, then it should stick by projects they approve, even if they are “abhorrent.” If it wants to define what it will and won’t allow, that’s the company’s prerogative as well. But the guidelines that prohibit “hate speech” and “offensive material” remain vague both in their definition and enforcement, and as it stands attention and outrage sometimes seem to determine whether a Kickstarter is deemed unacceptable (see also: Tentacle Bento) rather than the nature of the content itself when the project is submitted.

 

Crowdsourcing companies of all kinds are going to have to take a hard stance on these topics, one way or another. IndieGoGo has some clear restrictions on some topics (no porn, weapons, etc.), but there are going to be other issues as new crowdsourced platforms emerge and existing ones grow. What happens when someone wants to organize an anti-gay rights rally? Or anti-abortion? What about nationalist events? Separatist ones? Radical groups? Religious organizations? Is erotic prose okay, but not adult graphic novels?

 

Kickstarter isn’t the only game in town, and more platforms are sure to become specialized as others decide to incorporate crowdfunding into their services. Each online community will have to set their own standards. If a group of dudes want to create their own crowdsourced platform to develop sexist products, then such is their right. Hell, there’s already an adults-only crowdsourced site. It’s called Offbeatr [NSFW], and currently features a pornographic text-based adventure game, cat-girl videos, an open-source database for dildos, and a porn parody of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Cries of censorship are irrelevant; consistency is paramount.

 

It’s encouraging to see that Kickstarter is donating more to RAINN than Above the Game raised, but if the company really wants to absolve itself of this incident, it needs to address the core issue of what is and isn’t allowed on the service or else it will simply be waiting for the next controversy to prompt them again. And as the builder of their own platform, Kickstarter can determine their own guidelines, and even adapt them as community standards change — as long as they make those guidelines clear and apply them consistently. As long as we all know the rules, we can decide which games we want to play.

 

 

'Project Runway' Unveils Season 12 Cast, Reveals Changes

Lifetime has announced the cast and details for the 12th cycle of Project Runway.

Sixteen new fashion designers will compete for the grand prize, including a past competitor whom Lifetime is calling a "Runway Redemption Contestant." The past designer will be chosen by fans on the Lifetime website and will be unveiled as part of the new season. The Hollywood Reporter broke the news in May.

Heidi Klum returns as host and judge, alongside Nina Garcia and Zac Posen, with Tim Gunn mentoring. Gunn will also watch the runway show with the judges, a change from previous installments, and will be given the power to rescue a designer during the season who he feels deserves a second chance.

Additionally, seven fans will be featured in an upcoming episode this season for a makeover. In a Project Runway first, viewers will also be able to interact with others through the PlayRunway interactive on-screen feature, allowing them to voice their opinions for the episodes, challenges and eliminations.

Guest judges this season include Michael Kors, Kate Bosworth, Kelly Osbourne, Allison Williams, Sigourney Weaver, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Kaley Cuoco and Stacy Keibler.

The designers competing this season are:

·        Alexander Pope, 38 - Hometown: Los Angeles, CA; Resides in New York, NY

·        Alexandria von Bromssen, 38 - Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden; Resides in San Mateo, CA

·        Angela Bacskocky, 33 - Hometown: Richmond, VA; Resides in Richmond, VA

·        Bradon McDonald, 38 - Hometown: Lowville, NY; Resides in Los Angeles, CA

·        Dom Streater, 24 - Hometown: Philadelphia, PA; Resides in Philadelphia, PA

·        Helen Castillo, 25 - Hometown: Weehawken, NJ; Resides in Union City, NJ

·        Jeremy Brandrick, 41 - Hometown: Birmingham, England; Resides in New York, NY

·        Justin LeBlanc, 27 - Hometown: Tampa, FL; Resides in Raleigh, NC

·        Kahindo Mateene, 34 - Hometown: Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo; Resides in Chicago, IL

·        Karen Batts, 29 - Hometown: Boca Raton, FL; Resides in Queens, NY

·        Ken Laurence, 24 - Hometown: Birmingham, AL; Resides in Birmingham, AL

·        Miranda Kay Levy, 29 - Hometown: Wilton, WI; Resides in Milwaukee, WI

·        Sandro Masmanidi, 28 - Hometown: Krasnodar, Russia; Resides in New York, NY

·        Sue Waller, 45 - Hometown: Boston, MA; Resides in Brooklyn, NY

·        Timothy Westbrook, 24- Hometown: Wanakena, NY; Resides in Milwaukee, WI

·        Runway Redemption Contestant

Project Runway returns 9 p.m. July 18 on Lifetime.