Blockchain new paperless currency

These are my thoughts & data collected from various news like BBC, TOI & Wikipedia plus a few other websites. This is for learning purpose only still a nascent stage of the Blockchain technology so could not promise a confirm architecture yet, I will say evolving than a concrete shape acquired platform for paperless currency.  

Wikipedia states "Blockchain is a distributed database that maintains a continuously-growing list of data records secured from tampering and revision. It consists of blocks, holding batches of individual transactions.[6] Each block contains a timestamp and a link to a previous block."

Blockchain is a method of recording data - a digital ledger of transactions, agreements, contracts - anything that needs to be independently recorded and verified as having happened.  The big difference is that this ledger isn't stored in one place, it's distributed across several, hundreds or even thousands of computers around the world. This is next step from bitcoin.

And everyone in the network can have access to an up-to-date version of the ledger, so it's very transparent. Digital records are lumped together into "blocks" then bound together cryptographically and chronologically into a "chain" using complex mathematical algorithms. 

This encryption process, known as "hashing" is carried out by lots of different computers. If they all agree on the answer, each block receives a unique digital signature.

Banks think it could be the future of financial transactions, while diamond miners hope it will help end the trade in conflict diamonds. And this week the UK's chief scientific adviser encouraged the British government to adopt the technology.

The blockchain is the main technical innovation of bitcoin, where it serves as the public ledger for bitcoin transactions. Every user is allowed to connect to the network, send new transactions to it, verify transactions, and create new blocks, making it permission less. The bitcoin/blockchain design has been the inspiration for other applications. 

In the bitcoin context, a blockchain is a digital ledger that records every bitcoin transaction that has ever occurred. It is protected by cryptography so powerful that breaking it is typically dismissed as "impossible". More importantly, the blockchain resides across a network of computers. Whenever new transactions occur, the blockchain is authenticated across this distributed network, before the transaction can be included as the next block on the chain.

"You don't store details of the transaction, just the fact that it happened and the hash of the transaction," explains Adrian Nish, head of threat intelligence at BAE Systems.

Once updated, the ledger cannot be altered or tampered with, only added to, and it is updated for everyone in the network at the same time. Well, the distributed nature of a blockchain database means that it's harder for hackers to attack it - they would have to get access to every copy of the database simultaneously to be successful.

It also keeps data secure and private because the hash cannot be converted back into the original data - it's a one-way process. So if the original document or transaction were subsequently altered, it would produce a different digital signature, alerting the network to the mismatch.

In theory then, the blockchain method makes fraud and error less likely and easier to spot. The idea has been around for a couple of decades, but came to prominence in 2008 with the invention of Bitcoin, the digital currency.  Bitcoins are created by computers solving complex mathematical puzzles and this requires lots of computing power and electricity. Blockchain is the technology underpinning it.

Current Players 

Big player already started building the platform all by their thought process so this is shaping up. There isn't just one program - lots of companies, from Ethereum to Microsoft, are developing their own blockchain services. Some are open to all ("unpermissioned", in the jargon), others restrict access to a select group ("permissioned").

"Banks do very similar things to each other, even though they compete," says Simon Taylor, vice-president of blockchain research and development at Barclays.

"They basically keep our money safe and a big computer keeps track of who has what. But getting these computers to talk to each other is remarkably complex and expensive - the tech is getting a little old," he says. If banks started sharing data using a tailor-made version of blockchain it could remove the need for middlemen, a lot of manual processing, and speed up transactions, says Mr Taylor, thereby reducing costs.

 

Having access to an open, transparent ledger of bank transactions would also be useful for regulators, he adds. And it could help governments tackle tax fraud.

Tech company R3 CEV has persuaded more than 40 banks around the world, including Barclays, UBS and Wells Fargo, to join a consortium exploring distributed ledger technology.

Just this week, R3 announced that 11 global financial institutions had taken part in an experiment involving the exchange of tokens across a global private network without the need for a central third party verifying the transactions.

If banks and other financial institutions are able to speed up transactions and take costs out of the system, it should mean cheaper, more efficient services for us. For example, sending money abroad could become almost instantaneous.

Last year, investment bank Goldman Sachs and Chinese investment firm IDG Capital Partners invested $50m (£35m) in Circle Internet Financial, a start-up aiming to exploit blockchain technology to improve consumer money transfers.

Circle, co-founded by entrepreneur Jeremy Allaire, has created a digital wallet for bitcoins, but users can decide whether they send or receive money in dollars as well. The idea is to make cross-border payments as easy as sending a text or email.

It's not all about banking. Tech company Everledger is using blockchain to develop a system of warranties that enable mining companies to verify that their rough-cut diamonds are not being used by militias to fund conflicts, and that they comply with the Kimberley Process - a government and community-backed certification scheme for diamonds.

The ownership history and value of each diamond is available to anyone who wants it, and you can be confident that the information has not been tampered with or corrupted.

Current shape of technology

A blockchain implementation consists of two kinds of records: transactions and blocks. Transactions are the content to be stored in the blockchain. Transactions are created by users who wish to record information in the blockchain. In the case of cryptocurrencies, a transaction is created any time a cryptocurrency owner sends cryptocurrency to another user.

Transactions are passed from node to node on a best-effort basis. The system implementing the blockchain defines a valid transaction. In cryptocurrency applications, a valid transaction must be digitally signed, spend one or more unspent outputs of previous transactions, and ensure that the sum of transaction outputs not exceed the sum of inputs.

Blocks record one or more transactions. A transaction's presence in a block confirms when and in what sequence it occurred. Blocks are created by users known as "miners" who use specialized software or equipment designed specifically to create blocks. Miners compete with each other to see who can first complete the next block and therefore earn the reward(s) for doing so.

In a cryptocurrency system, miners collect two types of rewards: a pre-defined per-block award, and fees offered within the transactions themselves, payable to any miner who confirms the transaction.

Every node in a decentralized system has a copy of the blockchain. No centralized "official" copy exists and no user is "trusted" more than any other.Transactions are broadcast to the network using software applications. Mining nodes validate transactions, add them to the block they're creating and then broadcast the completed block to other nodes. Blockchains use various timestamping schemes, such as proof-of-work to serialize changes. 

Blockchain technology may be permissionless—"open for anyone to use"—or private: "closed off and accessible only to chosen parties". Blockchains are a technology that may be integrated into multiple areas. Examples include a payments system and store of value, facilitating crowdsales, or implementing prediction markets and generic governance tools.

The advantages

•   The ability for independent nodes to converge on a consensus of the latest version of a large data set such as a ledger, even when the nodes are run anonymously, have poor interconnectivity and have operators who are dishonest or malicious (see Sybil attack).
•  The ability for any well-connected node to determine, with reasonable certainty, whether a transaction does or does not exist in the data set (see consistency).
• The ability for any node that creates a transaction to, after a confirmation period, determine with a reasonable level of certainty whether the transaction is valid, able to take place and become final (i.e., that no conflicting transactions were confirmed into the blockchain elsewhere that would invalidate the transaction, such as the same currency units "double-spent" somewhere else).
• A prohibitively high cost to attempt to rewrite or alter transaction history.
• Automated conflict resolution that ensures that conflicting transactions (such as two or more attempts to spend the same balance in different places) never become part of the confirmed data set.

Evolution or Teething troubles

Wait everything is not green with blockchain, An ongoing debate disputes whether a private system with verifiers tasked and authorized (permissioned) by a central authority, should still be considered a blockchain.

Proponents of permissioned or private chains argue that the term "blockchain" may be applied to any data structure which batches data into blocks which are timestamped and that these blockchains serve as a distributed version of multiversion concurrency control (MVCC) in databases. Just as MVCC prevents two transactions from concurrently modifying a single object in a database, blockchains prevent two transactions from spending the same single output in a block chain.

The opponents say that the permissioned systems look like traditional corporate databases, not supporting decentralized verification of the data, and that such systems are not hardened against tampering and revision by their operators. The Harvard Business Review defines blockchain as a distributed ledger or database open to anyone.

In the era of big data and the internet of things, being able to assign a digital signature to each bit of data is also useful. So building the traciability with a text based DB crunching helping to track every transaction & with time stamp plus IP trace so this concludes who, what & when part.

And verifying and recording each stage in the development of a software program or product will help improve quality and reliability, he maintains.

Feel free to contact me at ravindrapande@gmail.com. I would like to research for India retail markets going on Blockchain. As the market is huge , data and analytic started gathering the pace and technology platform still maturing along.

Machine Learning & IoT

The idea of an intelligent, independently learning machine has fascinated humans for decades. I remember how the concept became reality for me after I purchased my first computer.

When I demonstrated the computer for my grandfather, he began by saying, "Could you ask that machine ... ?"

He was clearly ahead of his time. Not to downplay the capability of the Assembled PC 8080, with B&W TV as monitor but at the time, it would have been premature to discuss, for example, neurorobotics as a part of everyday life in Nagpur India, where I grew up.

Businesses expect employees not only to be smart and capable, but flexible and adaptable. This expectation is no different in the way we use technology. Our devices—and our data—are becoming more flexible in their potential uses and how they’re relevant to our everyday lives.

Machine learning has experienced a boost in popularity among industrial companies thanks to the hype surrounding the Internet of Things (IoT). Many companies are already designating IoT as a strategically significant area, while others have kicked off pilot projects to map the potential of IoT in business operations. As a result, nearly every IT vendor is suddenly announcing IoT platforms and consulting services.

If you’re a business owner or enterprise beginning to leverage the Internet of Things (IoT), chances are you’ve started connecting your operational technologies – including machinery, building HVAC, and other assets – to your current software systems. As a result, you’re likely collecting a ton of new data and think see the potential transformational value in there…somewhere. One of the most difficult questions to answer when starting out with IoT is how to take vast amounts of raw information and create real business intelligence from it.

The combination of IoT and data and analytics may seem like a “chicken vs. egg” dilemma, but it doesn’t have to be. Companies who have adopted IoT with the ultimate goal of optimizing physical processes or providing predictive analytics solutions still have an opportunity to use data and analytics to advance their business, even if an implementation has stalled after the technology is in place. It’s a more common issue than you might think, as businesses new to IoT often lack the necessary expertise to move to the final step of figuring out how to work with the data they’re collecting from their Internet of Things (IoT) initiatives.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has received massive coverage and widespread adoption. What few people have stopped to consider thus far is where these connections will take us. As chatbots become more popular, we’re bearing witness to a move toward further machine learning. As the natural progression from smart objects to learning objects occurs, this new wave will encompass the globe.

Witness The IoT Ripple Effect :At the heart of IoT is a desire to connect items we already own into one cohesive network. These objects are useful for an increasing number of purposes. The variety and value of the data these devices collect is constantly growing. Though this is a solid first step, it certainly isn’t the last down this pathway. While IoT adds value to the products we already own and the services we already use, the data extracted from IoT is meant to tell marketers what we’ll want to own and what services we’ll use in the future.

Data analysis is the second phase. Analytic systems collect, analyze, organize, and feed data to the most relevant users. Though this is useful, it presents several issues. The first is the sheer amount of data collected. Processing this vast amount of data effectively to produce accurate, overarching reports is difficult. This causes a further push toward automation and cloud computing. The second issue is that IoT can’t learn from the information it generates.

Businesses expect employees not only to be smart and capable, but flexible and adaptable. This expectation is no different in the way we use technology. Our devices—and our data—are becoming more flexible in their potential uses and how they’re relevant to our everyday lives.

Watch The Rise Of The Chatbot Tide : Chatbots have received some attention recently, as several large companies have announced progress in their development. The ultimate goal is for these to replace all other platforms across devices—covering laptops, tablets, smartphones, and everything else in IoT. Rather than opening a browser, searching for “Italian food” by area, and then clicking through websites, one would simply verbally request the nearest location with the highest ratings. The chatbot would do all of the work and produce an answer. This kind of interaction and immediate response places much more power in the hands of the consumer than ever before.

Though some may read this and assume Siri has it covered, she’s a long way from the true potential of this arena. An individual’s work, personal projects, social contacts, and family calendars could all be connected and accessible through a chatbot. This could revolutionize the way people function in relation to their devices.

In my opinion, these systems will pave the way for true learning platforms. IoT will become the internet of learning objects. With this in mind, many design initiatives are transitioning from functionality to adaptability.

Anticipate The AI Wave : The billions of data points IoT produces must be organized. By paring them down to what’s important and analyzing this data, the public and private sectors benefit. This addresses everything from running a business, to military logistics, to ordering groceries. Patterns, problems, and correlations will be easier to address. Intelligent automation will make huge strides—leading to a revolution in predictive analytics—and proactive intervention will be truly possible. Enter Artificial Intelligence, or AI.

Machine learning may start with chatbots, but AI is the true potential of IoT. The processing of this data (and likely the interpretation and learning of it) will happen in the edge-computing realm. This will be fast and uninhibited. I firmly believe more companies will allocate money to AI development in the coming months and years. Once relegated to the realm of Asimov and science fiction, these innovations will be borne of IoT and cover the globe.