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Crypto News

Bitcoin (BTC) Payments Reached 4,000 Merchants Via CoinGate and Lightning Network

The payment gateway CoinGate announced the launch of a platform that will allow transactions through Lightning Network (LN), facilitating Bitcoin (BTC) payments to about 4,000 merchants. The information was released on September 5th on the CoinGate blog and explains that Bitcoin (BTC) payments on the Lightning Network debuted in San Francisco, United States, during the TechCrunch Disrupt 2018 event.

The purpose is to allow payment with minuscule fees and obtain instant confirmations, according to the company statement, adding that it sought to reduce technical barriers for merchants while allowing users to enable or disable Lightning Network with the push of a button.

“Since LN (Lightning Network) has yet to undergo a full live usage test, CoinGate had to ensure that transactions were secure and, if an error occurred, the company was ready to cover its customers’ losses. However, during the 8-week trial, the system did not experience any significant errors and was ready to maintain high volumes,” stated CoinGate.

CoinGate launched the first Bitcoin (BTC) payments processing platform to adopt Lightning Network

CoinGate had shown a broad interest in collaborating with the development of Lightning Network since May 2018 when it had already enabled a tool for its users to test the network. Since then, the possibility of launching the system has been evaluated, and now it becomes one of the first Bitcoin (BTC) payments processing platforms to adopt this technology and manage one of the more than 2,000 LN nodes.

With this initiative, the Lithuanian-based company, CoinGate, claimed to be looking for innovative ways to solve Bitcoin (BTC) scalability problem, to which Lightning Network has been seen as a good option.

Despite a Diar study, published last June, that argued that Lightning Network is not as effective at routing payments as it is believed, other companies follow the same line of action as CoinGate. One of them, the BTCPay application, is enabling the possibility of running a Lightning Network node and perform transactions with Bitcoin (BTC) and Litecoin (LTC).

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News Tech

Facebook And Twitter Debated The False Accounts and Fake News Topics Before the US Senate

The role of social networks in US elections continues to be scrutinized by the US Senate. After Mark Zuckerberg, now Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and Sheryl Sandberg, number two at Facebook, were heard on September 5th regarding the foreign interference on these social networks in the perspective of the US elections.

“We are not proud,” said Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO. “We were not prepared and equipped for the immensity of the problems we discovered,” he added.

“We hope you can help us better understand how Twitter decides when to suspend or ban a user from the service, and what you do to ensure that such decisions are made without undue bias,” said Greg Walden, the President of the Commission, at the opening ceremony.

According to Jack Dorsey, Twitter failed to fight “abuse, harassment, troll armies, and bots propaganda.”

“We have been too slow to act,” also said Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook.

Facebook and Twitter reassured the US Senate that the measures against fake news and false accounts are still in place

In short, thousands of fake accounts leading hostile campaigns against Hillary Clinton had suddenly been shut down on Twitter and Facebook. That raised questions about Russia’s role in this matter, while, on the other side, Russia categorically denies this accusation.

Additionally, the US President Donald Trump blames Twitter and Facebook for ejecting conservative media from the social network, media that would be favorable to him.

“We do not take into account political views or party affiliation in the application of our policies and procedures,” said Jack Dorsey. “Impartiality is our guiding principle,” he added.

The renowned conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was recently banned on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, came before the US Senate to express his dissatisfaction on this matter.

This hearing comes in the view of the mid-term elections scheduled for next November, while Facebook and Twitter wanted to reassure us that thousands of foreign accounts broadcasting fake news were reportedly deleted from these platforms.

Categories
Games News

Pokemon GO Makes $2.5 Million A Day for Niantic

If anyone still thinks that the Pokemon GO fever is over, it’s because he/she hasn’t been affected by the “Pokemon GO outbreak” yet. And now, after just over two years since its launch, this Niantic mobile game seems to continue rising not only in its players database but also in revenue, having been reported a rise of 39% over the last month alone. Now, Pokemon GO makes $2.5 million a day.

The latest Pokemon GO updates skyrocketed the Niantic’s revenues

That is demonstrated by the most recent study published by SensorTower, a tracking platform for mobile applications, which estimates that Pokemon GO would have achieved revenues of $29 million on Android devices and another $22 million on iOS, in August alone.

This latest figure appears to have come after the game’s last update, which was included last June, and which implemented for the first time the possibility for players to exchange Pokemon characters. That came in addition to the recent announcements of Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee and Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu, and the compatibility available to both games.

Pokemon GO makes $2.5 million a day, according to a SensorTower study

Explicitly, the last records reported by SensorTower indicate that during the 60 days before the update, corresponding to April and March, Pokemon GO maintained a daily worldwide revenue of around $1.8 million, on the average between Android and iOS applications. However, after this update, Pokemon GO makes about $2.5 million a day.

Finally, Niantic previously promised to add a new game mode for battles between coaches in Pokemon GO, which, although delayed on previous occasions, is expected to arrive definitively sometime before the end of this year. That is undoubtedly the most sought-after mode by players, so it will be interesting to see the impact that the new feature will have on the income of the Pokemon GO.

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Crypto News

The Best ICOs to Keep an Eye on in 2018

So far, 2018 has been a tough year for cryptocurrencies – let’s not even mention ICO investing. It’s a difficult situation to watch, since the Global Market Capitalisation has decreased a lot and the BTC power has increased by about 53%. When it comes to ICOs, the changes showed that investors are willing to take a less risk, things that led to small investments in the ICO market. So this meant longer sales and smaller returns at the exchange.

We’ve written this article to give you the best ICO’s to pay attention to in 2018.

Skynet

People know Skynet as being the AI blockchain chip for the Internet of Things – it allows connectivity between billions of gadget which are optimized with the help of a blockchain network.

When it comes to the IoT, gadgets should interact with each other in a secure and fast way, without the human help. The aim is for the gadgets to connect freely to reduce our everyday efforts. With the IoT, there’s trust between the gadgets, and the costs are reduced, since they eliminate the mediator and the data gets exchanged immediately.

Skynet seeks into replacing the IoT gadgets with a blockchain enabled chip that they can call their own, which is called Skynet Core. The aim is to connect millions of gadgets with the help of a blockchain network that can handle millions of interactions.

Blockcloud

This one is also seeking IoT. The aim is to become a solution when it comes to developing the IoT industry, by introducing a system that can reward users, miners and service providers.

Blockcloud will make the most out of SCN (or Service-Centric Networking), which is a web 3.0 idea that wants to use service names, and not addresses. Lots of gadgets won’t have the connectivity problem anymore, and they could interact without any kind of slowdown.

Uranus

This one has the aim to use a blockchain network in order to connect the shared processing power of the idle calculating gadgets. With the help of mobile phones, PC and laptops and through a dispersed blockchain network, they want to give shared computing power that can represent the rival of Microsoft, Amazon or Alibaba.

It’s true, their vision is not original, but it’s amazing how they can establish models. They give an alternative to some existing centralized cloud calculated service providers, so Uranus becomes an economic, decentralized substitute. They are expected to have an efficient program for a low cost – lower than the traditional methods.

ChromaWay

This one has worked at their own private blockchain from 2014. Along the way, they released SofiWay, which is a platform that leads the way of the early development of E-Krona, which is known as a digital currency.

We should also mention PostChain, which is ‘The First Consortium Database’ that collaborated with the National Bank of Sweden to make ‘The University Identity Hub’. You should keep in mind that they did all of this without the help of ICO.

Metabase

Metabase is a 3rd generation blockchain that talks about the problems that exist in the present chains and works on improving the technical and design limitation that come with the first generation protocols (like Ethereum and Bitcoin).

Their aim is to challenge the existing blockchain platforms, which introduce the new split chain concept. They split the blockchain structures into multiple chains that are formed. Then they split into two equal halves and then they again split – it really depends on the demand and the mining capabilities. This will go into a binary tree. As a result, the transaction times will scale effectively, because of the fact that the mining force will be split into multiple blocks.

Categories
News Tech

Top Free Tools That You Can Use For Data Visualization

Data visualization is essential for all big companies. It helps businesses improve their strategies by discovering patterns. All the collected data is converted into a visual story. It isn’t that difficult to do that if you have all the right tools, and we are here to share with you some of the best ones. They are open source and they are available for free, which can be a huge advantage for all users.

Charted

This tool can be used to create bar charts and line graphs, using your Google spreadsheets and CSV files. If you use Charted you will also be able to benefit from its components, such as the UpSet component, the OnSet component and the LineUp component. Additionally, there are GeoJS geospatial visualizations and Vega visualizations.

Google Data Studio

Google comes with one of the best tools for data visualization, especially if you are a beginner. This tool is simple enough so that anyone can use it. You can use your Gmail account to set up the tool. It is also possible to connect it with other products like Google Analytics, YouTube Analytics, Google Sheets and Google AdWords.

Leaflet

Leaflet can be used to create your own interactive maps that work on mobile devices. You can also get the maps to work perfectly on other platforms, including desktop ones.

Google Charts

This is another tool created by Google, and it is just as simple to use it for data visualization. This tool comes with plenty of features and there are many charts that you can use.

MyHeatMap

This tool comes with a free version as well. You can use it to view geographic data and MyHeatMap allows you to add 20 data points for public maps. You can have different data sets for the same map and it is possible to switch between them.

Timeline

Just as the name suggests, this tool can be used for timelines. This can come in handy when you are working on your reports. Additionally, it is possible to connect Timeline with a Google Drive Account. This tool comes with its own templates that can be used for your spreadsheets.

ColorBrewer

If you care a lot about the visuals, you might enjoy the feature offered by ColorBrewer. This tool allows you to use different color schemes for your maps, which makes it easier to make the difference between colors when you have a large map.

Datawrapper

If you are looking for a tool that is mobile friendly, you might want to give this one a try. It comes with a free version that allows up to 10,000 chart views per month. Datawrapper can be used to create split charts, dot plots, arrow plots, scatter plots, choropleth maps bar charts, stacked charts and symbol maps. This tool is perfect for beginners because it does not require any knowledge about coding.

Palladio

This tool can be used for more complex data, especially when it comes to historical information. Palladio has plenty of features, including gallery view, map view, list view and graph view. You will see nodes connected by lines when your data is displayed. It is possible for you to customize your own lists and you can use the gallery view in order to see your data displayed within a grid.

Plotly

This open source tool had numerous functions. Your data visualizations can be edited and shared with the help of Plotly, and you can upload CSV files in order to create your own D3.js maps and charts. It is also possible to use Python or R to create charts.

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