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Happy 2020

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u/maxxflyer

15 hours ago

.t3_eibp5k ._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { –postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; –postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; }

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Mozad1

5 points · 13 hours ago

Happy 2020

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Y57sh2isN7R3TTqgrJ7

-3 points · 15 hours ago

Ok boomer

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Final Fantasy VII Remake Demo Game Play Footage Leaked

What appears to be genuine walk through footage of a Final Fantasy VII Remake demo surfaces on YouTube to usher in the New Year. | Credit: LM V2/YouTube

Final Fantasy VII demo footage was uploaded to YouTube.

Corroborates rumors of a demo from late last month.

Videos feature gameplay including a boss fight.

While most were busy celebrating our planet’s latest revolution around the sun with merriment and mirth, an unknown leaker was busy uploading footage of the rumored Final Fantasy VII Remake demo to YouTube.

Final Fantasy VII Remake Demo Footage

Late last month, PlayStation Network data miner site Gamstat picked up on what appeared to be files linked to a PlayStation Store listing for a Final Fantasy VII demo. With art assets and a download file size, this looked like the real deal.

We awake this morning to find that the demo is nothing short of a certainty, barring some extremely unlikely and elaborate ploy courtesy of enterprising trolls.

Source: YouTube

YouTube channel LM V2 uploaded two videos on New Year’s Eve, one dubbed ‘Part 1’ and the other ‘Part 3’, which suggest a further video may pop up before long.

From the footage, it seems the YouTube channel or an unknown third party was able to hack their way into the unpublished PlayStation Store listing and appropriate the game files. The videos appear to show a walk through of the demo, or at least part of it.

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The Real Deal

Interestingly, the footage appears to pick up from a video leaked earlier yesterday, showcasing the Final Fantasy VII Remake demo’s title screen and menus alongside the introductory cinematic, which suggests we are dealing with the genuine article.

We see Cloud strutting his stuff and slicing his way through in security officers and guard dogs alongside appearances from Barret, Jessie, Wedge, and Biggs.

The second video shows a boss fight against a Scorpion Sentinel before Cloud and Barret continue on their merry way. We also catch a segment where the player takes control of Barret.

Now comes the waiting game. With the Final Fantasy VII demo on the PlayStation Store servers and in a playable state, it’s only a matter of time before Square Enix announces the demo publicly.

As for when that might be; Final Fantasy VII Remake releases on March 3, 2020, giving us just north of three months for the demo to officially drop.

This article was edited by Gerelyn Terzo.

Last modified: January 1, 2020 14:47 UTC

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Bitcoin: 4 Big Competitive Advantages Over Altcoins in 2020

Bitcoin (BTC) easily succeeds over other cryptocurrencies in multiple key areas, which all but guarantee its future as the standard, noted academic Konrad S. Graf has concluded.

In the second installment of a two-part interview with Eurasia Review published Jan. 1, Graf highlighted a plethora of “competitive advantages” inherent to Bitcoin. 

Graf has sought to gain exposure for Bitcoin through academic essays, which expand beyond its mechanism of action to situate it within the broader economic system.

Scarcity 

Bitcoin wins out over other forms of money — including other cryptocurrencies — largely due to its fixed supply. 

“Bitcoin’s top competitive advantage… is its ability (to) restrict new issuance, the relative reliability of its methods for controlling unit production,” Graf summarizes.

Specifically, Bitcoin’s supply cannot be manipulated, nor can its maximum issuance — 21 million units — ever change to dilute it. 

No entity, no matter how powerful in terms of computing power active on the network, can diminish the value of the existing BTC held by savers by increasing the supply. This is in direct contrast to cryptocurrencies with a mutable supply, such as Ethereum (ETH) and XRP, as well as all fiat currencies.

Apolitical value transfer

The above characteristic thus makes Bitcoin particularly useful for settlements from anyone to anyone, as a financial protocol immune to the trappings of fiat.

Here, Graf touches on Saifedean Ammous’ popular book, “The Bitcoin Standard,” which extensively examines Bitcoin’s advantages over fiat. Ammous likewise devotes space to how Bitcoin could function as a settlement currency without the need for middlemen.

“Ammous argues that it is in the — for most people quite arcane — field of settlements that Bitcoin could find some of its most competitive applications. It could become not only an in-common non-political money unit, but also a direct competitor to the SWIFT system and any other existing or emerging rivals to it,” Graf explains.

He continues: 

“In a world where conventional systems are also politicized, Bitcoin has an advantage of being “neutral” in the sense that it is controlled by none of the competing power blocks, which means that any and all could potentially participate.”

Technical prowess

Against major altcoins, Bitcoin’s technical prowess means its position as a market leader has been obvious for years, says Graf.

As Cointelegraph has also frequently reported, hash rate alone has achieved an order of magnitude better progress than Ethereum or similar market incumbents.

“BTC currently has 97 exahashes protecting its network to BCH’s 2.5 exahashes, giving BTC a hash rate 39 times higher than that of even its next closest digital-cash competitor,” he continues.

Bitcoin network hash rate vs. Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV. Source: Coin.dance

That attribute also differentiates Bitcoin from imitators with very similar characteristics — the principle may be the same, but hash rate distribution, or centralization, and activity on those other networks pale by comparison. 

It’s not an entity

On the topic of centralization, a final advantage Bitcoin has over “corporate” blockchains is its lack of weak points political actors can target. 

That benefit has become all the more apparent in 2019, the year in which Facebook unveiled and subsequently faced a global backlash over its digital currency protocol, Libra. 

CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before U.S. lawmakers alone several times, amid criticisms Facebook was attempting to remove government monopolies over the proposed stablecoin currency.

“There is no CEO to summon to Washington for interrogation,” Graf concludes about Bitcoin.

[cryptofeedzposts]

Antonio Brown Burns Another NFL Bridge With A Wild Accusation

Antonio Brown has been a free agent since getting released by the New England Patriots following week Two.

Last week, he got his first workout since then, and with a Super Bowl contender, the New Orleans Saints.

While the investigation and threat of the commissioner’s exempt list were likely enough to discourage the Saints, Brown’s recent accusation against the Saints likely sealed his fate.

Fans of Antonio Brown and the New Orleans Saints had an excellent reason to get excited last week when Brown visited the team for a workout. The thought of Brown lining up with Michael Thomas just made fans giddy. Oh, the damage Drew Brees could do to defenses with Michael Thomas, Alvin Kamara, and Antonio Brown to work with!

But it doesn’t look like it is going to happen – and not necessarily because of the investigation into the sexual assault allegations against Brown.

A Publicity Stunt

Brown was one of six receivers the Saints brought in for a workout last week, a workout they categorized as doing their ‘due diligence.’ As it turns out, the Saints decided to go with former Baltimore Raven wide receiver Tim White instead (and signed him to the practice squad this week).

So, what does Brown do? He posts a video on social media thanking the Saints but then accusing them of using him as a publicity stunt:

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The Saints are a team that went 13-3 during the regular season. They have a guy at quarterback that just broke the all-time career passing yards record in Drew Brees. He’s throwing the ball to arguably the best wide receiver in the league (Michael Thomas) and hands it off to one of the most electric running backs in the league.

As they are, the Saints are one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl. So, it’s safe to say publicity is not an issue for them. They are getting plenty of it – and for all the right reasons.

They don’t need help in that area, certainly not from a wild card like Brown.

Another Bridge Burned

Antonio Brown must think the NFL still thinks talent can trump trouble if you have enough of it. Go back just five years, and that would likely be the case. Sometimes it still is (i.e., the never-ending parade of chances Josh Gordon has had).

But in recent years, teams have started to become concerned with optics. They don’t like guys on social media that curse people out and call them racists. Violence against women? It always should have been but is finally a big no-no.

Being a constant, never-ending source of distractions and disruptions? No one wants that. Bringing your entourage and a camera crew to a workout after being told not to? Bad idea. Accusing a team of using you for publicity? Not smart.

Yeah, those are great ways to burn bridges and become persona-non-gratis real fast.

This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.

Last modified: January 1, 2020 07:33 UTC

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Parity to Geth migration

So I have been running a Parity full node (Still syncing) and I would like to switch to geth because of the recent issues with Parity.

I do not want to redownload the blockchain from scratch but to resume syncing with geth where Parity is currently at.

I am on Ubuntu and running the following command to run the node.

./parity –no-warp –min-peers=50 -d /media/toshiba/eth

Is the migration doable ? I can’t find any documentation online.

[cryptofeedzposts]

Steam Ends Year With Lots of Stats & Awards Results

Steam has jumped onto the year-in-review bandwagon and produced some interesting stats alongside the Steam Awards results. | Credit: Casimiro PT/Shutterstock.com

Steam releases end of year stats for 2019.

12 games recorded over 100,000 simultaneous players.

Sekiro: Shadow Die Twice wins the Steam Awards game of the year.

Steam has jumped onto the year in review bandwagon and produced some interesting stats about the most popular games on the Valve-owned digital storefront.

As a gauge of what is popular among gamers, Steam is uniquely positioned to offer a well-rounded take on the state of PC gaming. As such, we can extrapolate that these titles were among the most popular in 2019.

Over 100,000 Simultaneous Players

Steam uses 100,000 simultaneous players as a benchmark for entry to the highest tier, and for that reason, only 12 titles have made the cut.

These are Warframe, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Grand Theft Auto V, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds, Dota 2, Path of Exile, Dota Underlords, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Destiny 2, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Total War Three Kingdoms, and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege.

Source: Steam

We jump down a tier to 50,000 simultaneous players tier with 19 titles, including Red Dead Redemption 2, No Man’s Sky, Rust, Devil May Cry 5, Resident Evil 2 Remake, and Monster Hunter World. From there, we move down to 25,000, and 15,000 simultaneous players and the list grows exponentially longer.

The 2019 top-selling games on Steam understandably match those of the 100,000 players tier but with a few additional titles like Civilization VI and Monster Hunter World joining in. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt saw a surge of interest attributed to the excellent Netflix adaptation. CD Projekt Red’s epic open-world adventure is among the 25 best selling games of 2019.

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Steam Awards Results

Today, Steam finally published the results of its more or less month-long Steam Awards poll. The results are based on player choice and are pretty democratic as far as year end awards go.

Source: Steam

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice takes home the game of the year award, much as it did at The Game Awards. Beat Saber is the VR game of the year. Grand Theft Auto V lands the labor of love award, which rewards on-going games.

DayZ picks up the ‘better with friends’ award. Most innovative game play goes to balletic shoot ’em up My Friend Pedro. A Plague Tale: Innocence wins a well deserved outstanding story-rich game award.

Mortal Kombat is the best game you suck at as voted by Steam’s gamers. Finally, gorgeous platformer Gris duly picks up the outstanding visual style nod.

This article was edited by Gerelyn Terzo.

[cryptofeedzposts]

Bitcoin Must Gain 13,800% in 2020 to Stop John McAfee Eating His Words

Bitcoin (BTC) traded broadly sideways on the first day of the 2020s as consensus swirled ever stronger around a Q1 breakout. 

Cryptocurrency market daily overview. Source: Coin360

BTC in line for uninspiring January

Data from Coin360 and Cointelegraph Markets showed Bitcoin making a decisively calm start to its third decade, with volatility staying away from markets into Wednesday.

At press time, BTC/USD traded at just under $7,200, cementing a week in a narrow corridor between $7,090 and $7,495.

Bitcoin 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360

The slow yet choppy conditions follow a sudden breakdown in the third week of December, which saw the pair dip to its lowest levels in over seven months — around $6,460. 

Since then, Bitcoin has broadly coalesced around the $7,200 mark, with brief trips higher quickly reversing.

The status quo is likely to continue, analysts say, with the short-term prognosis for BTC/USD showing little signs of starting a new trend.

For regular Cointelegraph contributor Michaël van de Poppe, a turning point could come in February or slightly later.

“Still stuck within this range and I think we’ll stay here for the next month as well,” he summarized in his last Twitter update for 2019.

Van de Poppe continued: 

“Probably see a scenario something like this in which we first make a fake-out to either way to trap the market, before the decisive move occurs.”

For fellow contributor filbfilb, however, Bitcoin’s failure to crack resistance at $7,600 suggests a dip back into the $6,000 range. That event, he added in analysis for Cointelegraph on Dec. 30, should nonetheless not involve a lower bottom than that seen in December.

A more uplifting statistic meanwhile focuses on Bitcoin’s previous gains. In the ten years from 2010 to 2020, the largest cryptocurrency delivered 9,000,000% returns to investors. 

The impressive statistic came to light during an ongoing Twitter debate among commentators as to whether entrepreneur John McAfee will have to honor his pledge to consume his own penis if BTC/USD fails to reach $1 million by 2021. 

For reference, the gap between the current price and the seven-digit target is a comparatively doable 13,800%. 

A dedicated countdown tool, candidly titled “Dickening,” is keeping track of the odds.

Altcoins follow static sentiment

In line with Bitcoin, altcoins saw little change as the new year began, moving up or down by a maximum of around 2%.

Ether (ETH), the largest altcoin by market cap, traded down 1.5% to circle $130. 

Ethereum Classic 7-day price chart. Source: Coin360

Others made modest gains — XRP appreciated 1.1% and Bitcoin SV (BSV) 2.5%.

The overall cryptocurrency market cap was $191.2 billion at press time, with Bitcoin’s share at 68.2%.

Keep track of top crypto markets in real time here

[cryptofeedzposts]

The 10 Best UFC Moments of the Last Decade

The 2010s were a remarkable decade for the UFC. Here’s a look at the top ten moments. | Image: AP Photo/John Locher, File

MMA is the sport that has grown the most over the last ten years.

There are a lot of moments that have contributed to the meteoric rise in popularity.

Here are the top ten.

The last decade in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has been an explosive one. With the meteoric rise of some amazing fighters, we have also seen UFC rise up as the biggest franchise on the planet. The last ten years have given us some stunning moments, and here are the top ten moments of the decade.

10. Stipe Miocic Counters Daniel Cormier’s Eye Poking with Liver Poking

Back in August, Stipe Miocic took on Daniel ‘DC’ Cormier at UFC 241 for the heavyweight championship in a fight that was shrouded in controversy. When the two fighters had clashed in their first fight before this event, some fans pointed out that there were clear eye pokes from DC which was the main reason Stipe lost the fight.

At UFC 241 however, Stipe was able to counter DC’s cheating with some brutal blows to the liver and reclaimed the belt, making him arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time.

9. Jon Jones Becomes the Youngest UFC Champion

In the main event of UFC 128, a 23-year old Jon Jones demolished Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua and claimed the light heavyweight belt. The beating was so intense that Shogun was seen tapping to Jones’ body shots just before the referee stopped the fight. Jones became the youngest champion in the UFC history in the process.

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8. Anderson Silva’s Front Kick to Vitor’s Face

Back in 2011, Anderson Silva did something that had never been seen before. In a fiery build-up to the fight with Vitor Belfort, both fighters made it pretty clear they hated each other’s guts. After a soft first round with exchanges far and few in between, Anderson Silva unleashed a vicious front kick to Belfort’s face and proceeded to finish him off with two more punches.

7. Rhonda Rousey’s fall from Grace

Before her fight against Holly Holm, Rhonda Rousey was flying with a 12-0 record. She seemed invincible. Holm, the underdog, was touted to lose the fight. After a few initial exchanges, it seemed that Rhonda was getting desperate to reach out. In the process, she received a vicious left hand from Holm, followed by a thunderous kick that knocked her out cold.

6. Jon Jones Defeats Daniel Cormier

It all began when a young Jon Jones told Daniel Cormier, an Olympic wrestler, that he would be able to take him down. This sparked off one of the greatest rivalries in MMA history. Jones eventually came out on top as he defeated DC by unanimous decision at UFC 182.

5. Conor McGregor ends Jose Aldo’s 10-year Streak in 13 Seconds

This fight drew a lot of new fans to the UFC thanks to Conor’s masterful trash talking leading up to the event. After staying invincible for ten years, Jose Aldo was scheduled to fight Conor at UFC 194. The fight was over in just 13 seconds, with McGregor knocking out Aldo with a sweet left hook.

4. Rory MacDonald vs. Robbie Lawler – UFC Fight of the Decade

Two relentless welterweights faced off against each other at UFC 189 in what became the fight of the decade. Rory McDonald and Robbie Lawler weren’t ready to give each other even a second to rest in a fight that featured visceral violence.

3. Conor McGregor Becomes the First Double Champion in UFC History

After ‘The Notorious’ Conor McGregor flawlessly defeated Eddie Alvarez for the UFC Lightweight Championship at UFC 205, he became the first fighter to hold titles in two different weight divisions simultaneously.

2. Anderson Silva’s Showboating Backfires

The moment of reckoning finally came for Anderson Silva as his cockiness finally caught up with him during his fight with Chris Weidman at UFC 162.  Known for dancing and ducking when fighters came at him, Silva had never lost a fight in his first seven years. Everything changed when he was knocked out by Weidman in the middle of showboating. Silva was never the same after the fight.

1. Khabib Nurmagomedov Dominates Conor McGregor

Conor’s rise to fame brought a lot of new fans to the UFC. His fall from grace was even more popular. McGregor usually gets inside his opponents’ head with his ingenious trash-talking and has a psychological advantage before stepping foot in the octagon. against Khabib, the trash-talking seemed to have an inverse impact. In typical Khabib fashion, the Dagestani wrestler dominated Conor and made him tap in the fourth round.

This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.

Last modified: December 31, 2019 17:08 UTC

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Bitcoin Closed Q4 in Losses; Two Major Catalysts For a Rally in Q1/2020

Bitcoin closed 2019’s final fiscal quarter in losses.The benchmark cryptocurrency is down by circa 21.5 percent on a quarter-to-date basis. The move downhill has extended its half-yearly losses to 33.35 percent.Bitcoin in a deep downtrend since July 2019 | Source: TradingView.comNevertheless, exponential gains during the first two quarters have kept bitcoin inside positive territory. From January 1 until the time of this writing, the cryptocurrency has gone up by more than 95 percent. The long-term performance is keeping the market’s interest in the asset alive.Part of the reason is bitcoin’s ability to hold on to certain technical support levels during December 2019. In more than two instances, the $6,400-6,500 range has rejected bears’ strong downside attempts. Each time bitcoin tested the range, it got pulled back to the north by bulls.$BTC – I’ve talked about this “golden Zone” support several times as it continues to hold, the more meaningful level to get back above is the 55% level $8K area to regain that Fib support. Closing below this zone and 78.6 next meaningfull area of price and Fib support…#bitcoin pic.twitter.com/TZvSgNdtrh— Big Chonis Trading

(@BigChonis) December 29, 2019That has strengthened bitcoin’s likelihood to stay above the $6,400-6,500 during the first quarter of 2020.#1 Upside factor: macroeconomical eventsAway from the technical barriers, the Q1/2020 is also important in terms of various macroeconomical events. For instance, US President Donald Trump announced today that he is going to sign the “phase one deal” with China on January 15.I will be signing our very large and comprehensive Phase One Trade Deal with China on January 15. The ceremony will take place at the White House. High level representatives of China will be present. At a later date I will be going to Beijing where talks will begin on Phase Two!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 31, 2019Historically, a positive step to end the US-China trade war has prompted investors to park their capital in stock markets. Such a migration minimizes investors’ appetite for hedging assets. Bitcoin, which served as a safe-haven instrument during the heights of the trade war in May, is likely to fall towards $6,000-6,500 area following/around the mini-deal agreement.Social media argues that a drop towards $6,000 would make bitcoin attractive for reaccumulation. With top market analysts treating the phase one deal as uninfluential, its likely investors would move some of their capital back in hedging markets.“A comprehensive China/U.S. deal is a long way off, as far off as last year’s bitcoin lows,” wrote Clem Chambers, CEO of private investors website ADVFN.com. “So there is still no guessing exactly what will happen next in the trade conflict and hence the short term price of bitcoin.”#2: HalvingThe upside sentiment in bitcoin markets is likely to go up at the end of Q1/2020. The so-called accumulation phase could boost price towards $8,000 owing to speculation towards May 2020 halving.In the said month, the supply rate of bitcoin would reduce from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC. Analysts believe it would make the cryptocurrency scarcer. With a 99.6 percent success rate of an upside price rally after halving, bitcoin has a better probability of registering new highs by the end of 2020.The event is receiving adequate media attention from mainstream outlets like Bloomberg, WSJ, and Financial Times. While every report doubt that an average Wall Street investors would speculate on bitcoin’s halving, they don’t deny that the cryptocurrency has become more mainstream following its exponential price rally in 2019.“If you think about the wealth of this country, it’s in the hands of 50- to 80-year-olds, not 20- to 30-year-olds,” said Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital Holdings, to WSJ. “We haven’t had this group participate in a big way yet.”

[cryptofeedzposts]

Do you use a mobile device to connect to a browser-based dApp?

Do you use a mobile device to connect to a browser-based dApp?

What mobile device do you use?

Do you use MetaMask, or some other interface?

Does anyone use an iPhone to connect to a browser-based dApp? If so, how do you get MetaMask to work on iOS, or do you use some other method to connect to Ethereum?

If you use an Android device, do you use MetaMask with Firefox, or do you use some other method to connect to MetaMask?

[cryptofeedzposts]

How to stop AI from perpetuating harmful biases

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already re-configuring the world in conspicuous ways. Data drives our global digital ecosystem, and AI technologies reveal patterns in data. Smartphones, smart homes, and smart cities influence how we live and interact, and AI systems are increasingly involved in recruitment decisions, medical diagnoses, and judicial verdicts. Whether this scenario is utopian or dystopian depends on your perspective.

The potential risks of AI are enumerated repeatedly. Killer robots and mass unemployment are common concerns, while some people even fear human extinction. More optimistic predictions claim that AI will add US$15 trillion to the world economy by 2030, and eventually lead us to some kind of social nirvana.

We certainly need to consider the impact that such technologies are having on our societies. One important concern is that AI systems reinforce existing social biases – to damaging effect. Several notorious examples of this phenomenon have received widespread attention: state-of-the-art automated machine translation systems which produce sexist outputs, and image recognition systems which classify black people as gorillas.

These problems arise because such systems use mathematical models (such as neural networks) to identify patterns in large sets of training data. If that data is badly skewed in various ways, then its inherent biases will inevitably be learnt and reproduced by the trained systems. Biased autonomous technologies are problematic since they can potentially marginalize groups such as women, ethnic minorities, or the elderly, thereby compounding existing social imbalances.

If AI systems are trained on police arrests data, for example, then any conscious or unconscious biases manifest in the existing patterns of arrests would be replicated by a “predictive policing” AI system trained on that data. Recognizing the serious implications of this, various authoritative organizations have recently advised that all AI systems should be trained on unbiased data. Ethical guidelines published earlier in 2019 by the European Commission offered the following recommendation:

When data is gathered, it may contain socially constructed biases, inaccuracies, errors and mistakes. This needs to be addressed prior to training with any given data set.

Dealing with biased data

This all sounds sensible enough. But unfortunately, it is sometimes simply impossible to ensure that certain data sets are unbiased prior to training. A concrete example should clarify this.

All state-of-the-art machine translation systems (such as Google Translate) are trained on sentence pairs. An English-French system uses data that associates English sentences (“she is tall”) with equivalent French sentences (“elle est grande”). There may be 500m such pairings in a given set of training data, and therefore one billion separate sentences in total. All gender-related biases would need to be removed from a data set of this kind if we wanted to prevent the resulting system from producing sexist outputs such as the following:

Input: The women started the meeting. They worked efficiently.

Output: Les femmes ont commencé la réunion. Ils ont travaillé efficacement.

The French translation was generated using Google Translate on October 11 2019, and it is incorrect: “Ils” is the masculine plural subject pronoun in French, and it appears here despite the context indicating clearly that women are being referred to. This is a classic example of the masculine default being preferred by the automated system due to biases in the training data.

In general, 70 percent of the gendered pronouns in translation data sets are masculine, while 30% are feminine. This is because the texts used for such purposes tend to refer to men more than women. To prevent translation systems replicating these existing biases, specific sentence pairs would have to be removed from the data, so that the masculine and feminine pronouns occurred 50 percent/50 percent on both the English and French sides. This would prevent the system assigning higher probabilities to masculine pronouns.

Nouns and adjectives would need to be balanced 50 percent /50 percent too, of course, since these can indicate gender in both languages (“actor,” “actress;” “neuf,” “neuve”) – and so on. But this drastic down-sampling would necessarily reduce the available training data considerably, thereby decreasing the quality of the translations produced.

And even if the resulting data subset were entirely gender balanced, it would still be skewed in all sorts of other ways (such as ethnicity or age). In truth, it would be difficult to remove all these biases completely. If one person devoted just five seconds to reading each of the one billion sentences in the training data, it would take 159 years to check them all – and that’s assuming a willingness to work all day and night, without lunch breaks.

An alternative?

So it’s unrealistic to require all training data sets to be unbiased before AI systems are built. Such high-level requirements usually assume that “AI” denotes a homogeneous cluster of mathematical models and algorithmic approaches.

In reality, different AI tasks require very different types of systems. And downplaying the full extent of this diversity disguises the real problems posed by (say) profoundly skewed training data. This is regrettable, since it means that other solutions to the data bias problem are neglected.

For instance, the biases in a trained machine translation system can be substantially reduced if the system is adapted after it has been trained on the larger, inevitably biased, data set. This can be done using a vastly smaller, less skewed, data set. The majority of the data might be strongly biased, therefore, but the system trained on it need not be. Unfortunately, these techniques are rarely discussed by those tasked with developing guidelines and legislative frameworks for AI research.

If AI systems simply reinforce existing social imbalances, then they obstruct rather than facilitate positive social change. If the AI technologies we use increasingly on a daily basis were far less biased than we are, then they could help us recognize and confront our own lurking prejudices.

Surely this is what we should be working towards. And so AI developers need to think far more carefully about the social consequences of the systems they build, while those who write about AI need to understand in more detail how AI systems are actually designed and built. Because if we are indeed approaching either a technological idyll or apocalypse, the former would be preferable.

This article is republished from The Conversation by Marcus Tomalin, Senior Research Associate in the Machine Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge and Stefanie Ullmann, Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Cambridge under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Daily Ripple/XRP Discussion Thread 01/01/20 [Join Our Discord] invite link: discord.gg/7Bv2rYf

3 ·

Daily Ripple/XRP Discussion Thread 01/01/20 [Join Our Discord] invite link: discord.gg/7Bv2rYf

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What happened to the Philippines corridors? No ODL payments anymore

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Top Ripple Insights Posts of 2019

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Daily Ripple/XRP Discussion Thread 12/31/19 [Join Our Discord] invite link: discord.gg/7Bv2rYf

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Ripple plans to expand partnerships with Brazilian banks in 2020

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XRP Disinformation in the News

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Daily Ripple/XRP Discussion Thread 12/30/19 [Join Our Discord] invite link: discord.gg/7Bv2rYf

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Ripple CEO Opines That 99% of the Cryptos Will Disappear

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Decade in Review: Internet of Value

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Is Ripple Getting Adopted by Banks in Japan? The CEO of CypherTrace Says Yes

[cryptofeedzposts]

DGD Holders, Action Needed to Vote, Lock your DGD NOW if You Want to Get Your ETH Back

Only a few more days to lock for the Dissolution Vote. The vote for dissolution is coming up and everyone needs to vote and it still may not happen. Now is the lockup period for this quarter so to be able to vote you need to lock up your DGD right now or if you are already locked you need to choose “Continue participation” as seen in the Tweet thread.

This is really important and really important for you to make anyone you know who holds DGD aware of this. Due to the way the quorum rules are structured and that the team has decided to lock their DGD but NOT vote, the quorum is so high that unless more people than have voted in the past lock up and vote yes, than this is unlikely to pass and no one will get their ETH back.

And Digix will be way worse for it because the vote will likely be clearly YES DISSOLVE but with inadequate quorum. This will make Digix and its teams and its budget even more of an ineffectual lame duck than it has been to date.

EVERY VOTE COUNTS AND IS NEEDED.

[cryptofeedzposts]

Ethereum (ETH) Price Downside Thrust Possible Before 2020 Reversal

Ethereum is slowly moving lower towards the $125 support area against the US Dollar.The price is likely to extend losses as long as it is below the $132 resistance.There is a key declining channel forming with resistance near $131 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD (data feed via Kraken).ETH could decline in the near term before it starts a strong rally towards $150 and $175.Ethereum price is correcting lower versus the US Dollar, while bitcoin is consolidating. ETH price must stay above $120 this week to start a fresh increase.Ethereum Price AnalysisAfter forming a top near the $138 level, Ethereum price started a downside correction against the US Dollar. ETH price broke the $135 and $132 support levels to enter a short term bearish zone.Moreover, there was a close below $132 and the 100 hourly simple moving average. Recently, there was a break below the $130 support and the price traded close to the $128 support.A low is formed near $128 and the price is currently recovering. It is trading near the $130 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average. Besides, it is testing the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the $138 high to $128 low.On the upside, there are two key hurdles forming near $131 and $132. Additionally, there is a key declining channel forming with resistance near $131 on the hourly chart of ETH/USD.The main hurdle for a trend change is near the $132 resistance. It is close to the 50% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the $138 high to $128 low.Therefore, clear break above the $132 resistance might start a decent upward move towards the $135 and $138 levels. If the bulls gain momentum, Ethereum might rise steady towards the $150 resistance area.On the other hand, there are chances of more downsides below the $128 support area. The next major support is near the $125 level, below which there is a risk of a sharp decline towards $120 or $115.Ethereum PriceLooking at the chart, Ethereum price is slowly moving lower towards the $125 support area. The main support is near the $120 level, below which the price is likely to remain in a sustained downtrend in the coming days. Conversely, a clear break above $132 and $135 could start a strong rally.ETH Technical IndicatorsHourly MACD – The MACD for ETH/USD is slowly moving into the bullish zone.Hourly RSI – The RSI for ETH/USD is currently just below the 50 level.Major Support Level – $125Major Resistance Level – $132

[cryptofeedzposts]

Bitcoin Starts 2020 With Bearish Bias But Downsides Remain Limited

Bitcoin price is slowly declining and recently tested $7,100 against the US Dollar.The price is currently recovering, but likely to face hurdles near $7,280 and $7,320.There was a break above a major bearish trend line with resistance near $7,185 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair (data feed from Kraken).The pair might slide further towards $7,000 unless there is a break above the $7,320 resistance.Bitcoin price is struggling to hold key supports against the US Dollar. BTC remains at a risk of more downsides towards $7,000 and $6,880 before a decent upward move.Bitcoin Price AnalysisIn the past few sessions, there was a steady decline in bitcoin price below the $7,320 support against the US Dollar. Moreover, BTC settled below $7,320 and the 100 hourly simple moving average.The recent decline was such that the price even traded below the $7,200 and $7,150 support levels. A new weekly low is formed near $7,109 and the price is currently correcting higher above $7,150.Besides, there was a break above a major bearish trend line with resistance near $7,185 on the hourly chart of the BTC/USD pair. Bitcoin price is now trading near the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the $7,531 high to $7,109 low.It seems like there is a short term ascending channel forming with resistance near $7,250. The first key resistance is near the $7,275 level and the 100 hourly simple moving average.The next major resistance is near the $7,320 level. Additionally, the 50% Fib retracement level of the downward move from the $7,531 high to $7,109 low is near the $7,320 resistance area.A successful close above the $7,320 resistance might set the pace for a strong upward move. In the mentioned case, the price might continue to rise towards the $7,400 and $7,500 resistance levels.On the other hand, the price might fail to continue higher above $7,275 and $7,320. In this bearish case, the price might extend its decline below $7,150. An immediate support is near the $7,100 area, below which there is a risk of a breakdown below $7,000.Bitcoin PriceLooking at the chart, bitcoin price is showing bearish signs below the $7,320 level and the 100 hourly SMA. Therefore, there are chances of more losses this week unless the bulls push the price above $7,320.Technical indicators:Hourly MACD – The MACD is currently moving in the bullish zone.Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) – The RSI for BTC/USD is now just below the 50 level.Major Support Levels – $7,100 followed by $7,000.Major Resistance Levels – $7,275, $7,320 and $7,500.

[cryptofeedzposts]

Top Ripple Insights Posts of 2019

The last time the world was on the cusp of a new decade, the Bitcoin Whitepaper was only a few years old, Ripple was yet to be founded and slow cross-border payments were widely accepted as the status quo. As we stand on the doorstep of a new year and a new decade, we reflect on the steps along our company’s journey enabling payments for everyone, everywhere.

Below we list the five most popular Ripple Insights posts of the past year. This analysis tells quite the story of our strongest year of growth to date—and we have a feeling that 2020 will be even better. 

5. Ripple Caps Record Year with $200M Series C Funding The blockchain and digital asset industry continues to mature, shedding businesses that lack product-market fit and rewarding those with real traction. We’re thrilled to cap off our strongest year of growth with this validation from investors in our business and its mission.

The $200 million Series C was led by Tetragon with participation from SBI Holdings and Route 66 Ventures. These notable investors not only underscore our long-term potential, but as partners, they offer invaluable industry insight and expertise to help our business continue to grow on a global scale. 

4. RippleNet Growth: Announcing More Than 300 Customers At our third annual customer conference, Swell, CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced that we surpassed 300 customers. Seeing our customer connections come to life through hundreds of meetings was a clear embodiment of our growing network.

We have also seen 10x year-over-year growth in transactions on RippleNet—our global network of banks, financial institutions and payment providers that enables these companies to send money globally, instantly and reliably for fractions of a penny.  

3. Our Open Letter to Congress   2019 saw a year of growth for the industry at large. Projects like the Libra Whitepaper and JPM Coin brought blockchain and crypto to the forefront of policy makers’ and regulators’ minds. 

In an open letter to Congress our CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman and Co-founder Chris Larsen urged legislators to support fintech policy that fosters responsible innovation and classifies digital assets in a way that recognizes their fundamental differences—not painting them with a broad brush.

2. Announcing the Next Chapter of Xpring, Ripple’s Developer Platform In 2018, we established Xpring—the initiative to help scale innovative blockchain projects through partnership and investment. This year, we announced the next evolution of Xpring—now the open developer platform for money. 

This new platform offers a set of tools, services and programs that makes it easy for developers to send and receive payments in any currency, across any network using the XRP Ledger and Interledger Protocol. In short, Xpring removes the pain and friction from integrating money into apps.

1. Ripple Announces Strategic Partnership With Money Transfer Giant, MoneyGram Our most popular Insights blog to date was the announcement of our strategic partnership with MoneyGram (NASDAQ: MGI). Through this partnership, Ripple became MoneyGram’s key partner for cross-border payment and foreign exchange settlement leveraging the digital asset XRP through ODL.

Less than six months later, MoneyGram Chairman and CEO Alex Holmes announced on stage at Swell 2019 that the company currently moves 10% of its transaction volume between the United States and Mexican borders with ODL.

“One of the core strengths of MoneyGram is our global liquidity and settlement engine that enables our customers to send money in over 200 countries and territories. Our partnership with Ripple has helped us to improve this strength and we’ve already started seeing the product’s potential to streamline our back-end capabilities. For the first time ever, we’re settling currencies in seconds,” said Alex Holmes, MoneyGram’s CEO. 

[cryptofeedzposts]

Parity Users Should Update Nodes Due To Unexpected Attack

According to a recent warning by the quickest Ethereum client, it looks like the Parity users need to implement new updates because of the possibility that its nodes could be under attack as we reported earlier in the ETH news.

As the last day of this year is passing by a new announcement was announced on the website of Ethereum client, Parity. The announcement says that the firm, Parity Technologies, got and investigated reports from some Parity Ethereum nodes that were not properly synchronizing.

Parity’s team made the conclusion that there could be an attack underway, which is the answer on why they so quickly published two new updates called v2.6.8-beta and v2.5.13-stable. The updates should implement certain changes that can protect the nodes from the aforementioned attack, if the potential of one is fulfilling now or in the future, and Parity advises users to implement the new updates as quickly as the can. Additionally, the team advises the Parity users to implement these patches, even if they did not have any issues. The two new releases can be found on Github.

As many could already know, Parity is a client of Ethereum that allows for fast synchronization to the Ethereum’s blockchain and network. Additionally, Parity maximizes uptime for the ones who use the network, which includes various service providers, crypto miners, and even cryptocurrency exchanges. This means that Parity provides a basic infrastructure that is vital for dependable quick services.

According to the present knowledge about 20 hours ago one Ethereum user called Peter Pratscher, and reported certain issues while he used Parity client v2.5.12. The Parity team investigated the report and noted certain problems on block $11355. The team recognized that their client had halted synchronizing and that it displayed errors which is something that shouldn’t happen with the system.

As much in the cryptocurrency sector are now aware, Ethereum was supposed to receive a major update through Ice Age by now. But regrettably, the update suffered some unexpected complications which posed a threat to the speed of the entire network, which is the reason why a hard fork known as Muir Glacier was suggested. Allegedly, the hard fork will solve the Ice Age challenges and the network would continue its operations as it supposed to. But the hard fork will not take place before block 9,200,000 which is anticipated to come on January 2nd, 2020.

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