Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 102
August 6, 2017
Bitcoin Cash – The All New Crypto Kid In Town
On August 1st, 2017, Bitcoin network hard forked as of block 478559. This was discussed in detail in my previous articles on the make or break bitcoin event and latest developments. As expected the event went out smoothly forking out the parent blockchain into two, bitcoin(BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCC or BTH). Now let us discuss a few interesting points about the new kid in town, the Bitcoin Cash.
Why Bitcoin Cash Is Not Tradable In Some Exchanges Now
The Bitcoin blockchain had forked apart, yet only few exchanges are allowing Bitcoin Cash in a tradable format. If you were holding before August 1st, you are owning Bitcoin Cash as well. But the catch is the tradability depends on the exchange where you trade. For example Bitfinex allows trading but Coinbase or Poloniex are yet to support Bitcoin Cash. So the bottom line is the overall liquidity is really low which makes the new coin heavily volatile. In the last 4 days, we have seen a high of nearly $1000 to a low of $200.
On August 3rd Poloniex came up with the below update
We will be crediting users who had BTC in their account balance at the time of the fork with matching BCH. We expect this to occur on or before 8/14/17. Keep in mind that we have not yet determined if we will be listing BCH as a market on Poloniex nor can we commit to supporting BCH withdrawals right away. The ability to withdraw BCH will depend on network stability which is completely outside of our control.
On August 5th Coinbase has come up with below update:
In the case of bitcoin cash, we made clear to our customers that we did not feel we could safely support it on the day it was launched. For customers who wanted immediate access to their bitcoin cash, we advised them to withdraw their bitcoin from the Coinbase platform. However, there are several points we want to make clear for our customers:
1. Both bitcoin and bitcoin cash remain safely stored on Coinbase.
2. Customers with balances of bitcoin at the time of the fork now have an equal quantity of bitcoin cash stored by Coinbase.
3. We operate by the general principle that our customers should benefit to the greatest extent possible from hard forks or other unexpected events.
Source:
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4095629-bitcoin-cash-new-crypto-kid-town
August 4, 2017
Latest Game of Thrones episode leaks online before TV broadcast
An unreleased episode of Game of Thrones has been published online ahead of its TV debut on Sunday. Episode 4 of season 7 has now leaked online in a low-quality format — thanks to Google Drive postings in a Reddit thread. The Verge can confirm this episode is genuine, and the copy includes a “for internal viewing only” watermark attached.
HBO was subject to a security breach earlier this week, allowing hackers to reportedly obtain 1.5 terabytes of stolen data from the company’s US servers. Sources familiar with HBO’s security leak tell The Verge that this was not related to this episode leak. This latest episode has leaked from a distribution partner and not as a direct result of the recent HBO security breach. Hackers have so far only published published script outlines on the web, rather than full episodes.
HBO has had to battle with Game of Thrones leaks a number of times in the past. The first four episodes of season 5 leaked online, thanks to advance screeners that are sent out to members of the press. A HBO subsidiary also released a season 6 episode a day early. HBO decided to scrap screeners for season 7, but that hasn’t stopped an episode leaking from a distribution partner. The Verge has reached out to HBO for comment, and we’ll update you accordingly.
Source:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/4/16094090/game-of-thrones-season-7-episode-4-leak
‘Aladdin’: Disney Casts Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott
Working the internet like it was something Uncle Walt had sketched out at his trademark drawing table, Disney Studios unveiled its big live-action Aladdin casting announcement at the company’s biennial D23 Expo this weekend.
Canadian actor Mena Massoud, who has a few TV credits, will play the title character, Disney said July 15 in Anaheim, California. As had been rumored, the more widely known English actress Naomi Scott will portray his love Princess Jasmine. It was already pretty much out that American action star Will Smith will be the Genie, a role voiced brilliantly by the late Robin Williams in the 1992 animated blockbuster.
Disney’s #Aladdin remake will star @MenaMassoud and @NaomiScott as Aladdin and Jasmine https://t.co/5EtctYaWP8#D23Expo pic.twitter.com/Xtu55JsN7t
— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) July 15, 2017
Still, nothing is simple when it comes to Aladdin. The casting of Scott especially made some fans upset on the racial and ethnic grounds that have featured within a long-simmering debate. A magic lantern to wish away all the resultant noise might come in handy for the studio—if Disney really minded it at all.
Source:
The big “Aladdin” casting reveal doesn’t get Disney off the hook on race
Disney’s Live-Action ‘Aladdin’ Reboot Casts ‘Mummy’ Actor as Jafar
Marwan Kenzari is in negotiations to play Jafar in Disney’s live-action “Aladdin” reboot from director Guy Ritchie, sources confirmed to Variety.
He joins Naomi Scott, who will play Jasmine, Mena Massoud, who will portray the title character, and Will Smith, who will voice Genie (a role made famous by Robin Williams in the animated classic). Nasim Pedrad has also joined the cast as a handmaid and friend to Jasmine.
John August, whose credits include “Big Fish,” wrote the new “Aladdin” script. Dan Lin, who produced Ritchie’s two “Sherlock Holmes” movies for Warner Bros., is also producing “Aladdin” through his Lin Pictures company. Jonathan Eirich is exec producing.
The original animated movie was a comic take on the Arabic folk tale about a young man granted three wishes by a genie trapped in a lamp.
“Aladdin” was the highest-grossing film of the year in 1992, and won Oscars for best score and best song for “A Whole New World.”
Kenzari can be seen next in Fox’s “Murder on the Orient Express” where he plays the conductor. He also recently appeared in “The Mummy” opposite Tom Cruise, “Ben-Hur,” and “The Promise.”
He is repped by ICM Partners and Janey van Ierland at Nummer19 Films in Holland.
Source:
Disney’s Live-Action ‘Aladdin’ Reboot Casts ‘Mummy’ Actor as Jafar
‘Miami Vice’ Reboot From Vin Diesel in the Works at NBC
NBC is looking to reboot one of its most successful procedurals. The network is teaming with Vin Diesel to develop a Miami Vice revival.
The project, which has been in the works for months, is being driven by Shana Waterman (24: Live Another Day, Wayward Pines), the former Fox Broadcasting executive who now serves as head of television for Diesel’s One Race Television production company. Miami Vice is the first effort to come out of Diesel’s first-look deal with Universal Television. Diesel and Waterman will executive produce alongside Chris Morgan and Ainsley Davies via the former’s overall deal with Universal Television. Peter Macmanus (Spike TV’s The Mist) will pen the script.
The Miami Vice reboot marks a reteaming for Morgan and Diesel, who have worked on all of the Fast and the Furious movies together. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that it was Diesel who came up with the idea to revive Miami Vice and made a personal appeal to NBC Entertainment president Jennifer Salke. The effort marks Diesel’s largest scripted TV project so far.
Miami Vice ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984-1989. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as undercover detectives James “Sonny” Crockett and Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs, respectively, as they took on challenging cases at Miami’s Metro-Date Police Department. The show was created by Anthony Yerkovich and counted Law & Order mastermind Dick Wolf among its executive producers. Saundra Santiago, Michael Talbott, John Diehl, Olivia Brown and Edward James Olmos co-starred on the drama, which was hailed for its use of New Wave music.
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The TV series spawned a 2006 feature film take from Michael Mann that starred Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, which was produced by Universal Pictures.
Miami Vice is the first major TV reboot to be developed for the 2018-19 television season. Revivals continue to be in high demand as broadcast, cable and streaming outlets look for proven IP in an increasingly crowded landscape of more than 450 scripted originals. Up this season are reboots of Dynasty (The CW), Roseanne (ABC), S.W.A.T. (CBS) and Will & Grace (NBC).
Macmanus is repped by UTA. Morgan and Davies are with ICM Partners. Diesel is repped by CAA and Brillstein Entertainment Partners.
Source:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/miami-vice-reboot-vin-diesel-works-at-nbc-1026163
Popularity of audiobooks rising
Audiobooks have increasingly emerged as an entertaining, easily accessible and portable option for all ages to enjoy books. Last year, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) reported more than 67 million Americans listen to audiobooks each year.
“It’s another banner year for audiobooks,” said Anthony Goff, vice president and research committee chair for the APA, and senior vice president, publisher at Hachette Audio. According to Tom Webster, vice president of strategy for Edison Research, “The audiobook market continues to grow, with more people than ever before indicating that they have listened to the medium in the past year. That growth, combined with the growth of the podcast market and the strong relationship between the two, are all part of a renaissance for spoken-word programming.”
Libraries remain major access channels and important drivers of audiobook discovery, with over a quarter of its visitors reporting borrowing from a library/library website was very important for discovering new audiobooks. The Free Library of Philadelphia is one of the most widely used educational and cultural institutions in the region and reports having over 6 million annual visitors. A patron with a valid library card can download audiobooks from OverDrive to their PC, Mac or mobile device in person at a Free Library location and online with a library card. When the audiobook is due, the patron must renew it or find it automatically “returned” in a virtual sense: The file still sits on the patron’s computer, but encryption makes it unplayable beyond the borrowing period. “The patron doesn’t have to do anything after the lending period,” said Steve Potash, chief executive of OverDrive audiobook service. “The file expires. It checks itself back into the collection. There’s no parts to lose. It’s never damaged. It can never be late.”
According to the Free Library, “cardholders can check out and download digital titles at home and on-the-go by visiting the eFreeLibrary page of the Free Library’s website. From there, they can browse and check out the growing collection of bestsellers, new releases and classic titles. Once downloaded, digital titles can be enjoyed on a computer or transported to a supported mobile device. Many audio titles can also be burned to a CD. With digital downloads, customers do not need to worry about overdue materials or late fees — at the end of the lending period, digital titles automatically expire and are returned to the digital collection.”
While the digital age may have changed how people consume books, one bestselling book has stood the test of time. Dale Carnegie’s perennial 1936 classic, “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” retains its perch as one of the most in-demand self-help books as a top-10 audiobook.
Source:
How AI, AR, and VR are making travel more convenient
From 50 ways to leave your lover, as the song goes, to 750 types of shampoos, we live in an endless sea of choices. And although I haven’t been in the market for hair products in a while, I understand the appeal of picking a product that’s just right for you, even if the decision-making is often agonizing. This quandary (the “Goldilocks Syndrome”, of finding the option that is “just right”) has now made its way to the travel industry, as the race is on to deliver highly personalized and contextual offers for your next flight, hotel room or car rental.
Technology, of course, is both a key driver and enabler of this brave new world of merchandising in the travel business. But this is not your garden variety relational-databases-and-object-oriented-systems tech. What is allowing airlines, hotels and other travel companies to behave more like modern-day retailers is the clever use of self-learning systems, heuristics trained by massive data sets and haptic-enabled video hardware. Machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are starting to dramatically shape the way we will seek and select our travel experiences.
Let every recommendation be right
AI is already starting to change how we search for and book travel. Recent innovation and investment has poured into front-end technologies that leverage machine learning to fine tune search results based on your explicit and implicit preferences. These range from algorithms that are constantly refining how options are ranked on your favorite travel website, to apps on your mobile phone that consider past trips, expressed sentiment (think thumbs up, likes/dislikes, reviews) and volunteered information like frequent traveler numbers.
Business travel, as well, is positioned for the application of AI techniques, even if not all advances are visible to the naked eye. You can take photos of a stack of receipts on your smartphone; optical character recognition software codifies expense amounts and currencies, while machine learning algorithms pick out nuances like categories and spending patterns.
AI is also improving efficiencies in many operational systems that form the backbone of travel. Machine learning is already starting to replace a lot of rule-based probabilistic models in airport systems to optimize flight landing paths to meet noise abatement guidelines, or change gate/ramp sequencing patterns to maximize fuel efficiency.
Making decisions based on reality
VR and AR are still changing and evolving rapidly, with many consumer technology giants publicly announcing products this year we can expect to see rapid early adoption and mainstreaming of these technologies. Just as music, photos, videos and messaging became ubiquitous thanks to embedded capabilities in our phones, future AR and VR applications are likely to become commonplace.
VR offers a rich, immersive experience for travel inspiration, and it is easy to imagine destination content being developed for a VR environment. But VR can also be applied to travel search and shopping. My company, Amadeus, recently demonstrated a seamless flight booking experience that includes seat selection and payment. Virtually “walking” onto an airplane and looking a specific seat you are about to purchase makes it easier for consumers to make informed decisions, while allowing airlines to clearly differentiate their premium offerings.
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AR will probably have a more immediate impact than VR, however, in part due to the presence of advanced camera, location and sensor technology already available today on higher-end smartphones. Airports are experimenting with beacon technology where an AR overlay would be able to easily and quickly guide you to your tight connection for an onward flight, or a tailored shopping or dining experience if you have a longer layover.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” goes Arthur C. Clarke’s famously quoted third law. But as we expect more authentic experiences: precise search results, an informed booking or an immersive travel adventure, we can count on increasingly magical technology from systems that learn to deliver us our “perfect bowl of porridge.”
Source:
https://venturebeat.com/2017/08/03/how-tech-is-making-travels-inconveniences-much-more-convenient/
Kylie Jenner to Launch Snapchat Series ‘Ask Kylie’
One of Snapchat’s most prolific users is getting her own show on the app.
Kylie Jenner is prepping the Aug. 12 launch of Ask Kylie on Snapchat Discover. The show, on which she will open up to fans about a variety of topics including her personal and professional life, is meant to serve as a companion series to her upcoming E! program Life of Kylie, which premieres Sunday. New episodes of Ask Kylie will be available every Saturday ahead of new episodes of Life of Kylie.
“We are thrilled to launch E!’s second Snapchat show with one of the biggest stars on the planet,” E! Entertainment president Adam Stotsky said in a statement. “Kylie’s fans are ravenous for more of her stories and it’s an exciting opportunity to engage her fans in a unique way on a platform where we know they live and breathe.”
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Ask Kylie follows on the launch of E!-produced Snapchat show The Rundown, which recently expanded to become a twice-weekly program. The company says that recent episodes have averaged nearly 8 million viewers, approximately 75 percent of which are between the ages of 13-24.
Jenner, 19, is one of the most-followed people on Snapchat, and has a large social presence with more than 175 million followers across Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter. Each episode of Ask Kyliewill show her discussing topics that her fans have previously asked about and will include appearances by sister Khloe Kardashian, friend Jordyn Woods and others.
Ask Kylie debuts Aug. 12 on Snapchat Discover. Life of Kylie premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on E! with back-to-back episodes.
Source:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kylie-jenner-launch-snapchat-series-ask-kylie-1026463
