Technology News Era

It’s the year of the Linux desktop. I swear. I promise. Yes, I know you’re probably jaded from hearing that every year since 1998, but this year it’s true. Would I lie to you? But first, a throat-clearing: I’m not talking about desktop dominance. I’m talking about something far more meaningful. For the first time, perhaps ever, Linux is being regarded as a first-class citizen. It’s been a good year. Cross-platform app frameworks like GitHub’s Electron means that Linux users get to use the same applications as their Windows and MacOS counterparts. Meanwhile, in 2018, we’ve seen a flood of… This story continues at The Next Web from The Next Web http://bit.ly/2QRG5Xd

If anyone said that banks and cryptocurrencies are natural enemies and can never work together — Ripple was out there to prove them wrong! Unlike Bitcoin — which is aimed at performing like regular currencies and be used to pay for goods and services  — Ripple is a real-time payment settling and remittance system for banks and other payment networks. The network is supposed to better traditional financial models in place like SWIFT and allow institutions to make near-instant secure international transactions with very little costs. Unlike other blockchain networks which value their own native currency as the asset being transferred, Ripple… This story continues at The Next Web from The Next Web http://bit.ly/2EOAL0D

You’ve heard it a million times before — in the science, technology, engineering, and math industries, women are still grossly underrepresented. Currently, women are only nine percent of IT leaders around the world. The figure has barely changed in the past few years despite one third of organizations claiming to have implemented diversity initiatives. Women make up only 24 percent of computer science jobs — a decline from 37 percent in 1995 — and make up just 11 percent of executive positions in Silicon Valley. While this problem isn’t being fixed fast enough, the following women in STEM are stepping up by tackling the… This story continues at The Next Web from The Next Web http://bit.ly/2Sm6fyj

You probably use computer vision every day and don’t even think about it. Enjoy checking out the latest Snapchat filters? That’s computer vision. Unlock your iPhone with your face? That’s computer vision, too. Use your phone to deposit your latest paycheck and get some cash in your bank account? Well, that’s also computer vision. Computer vision as we know it is at a tipping point. Thanks to industry-wide development efforts and advances in deep learning algorithms and graphics processors, we’re doing things that were unimaginable just a decade ago. Some of the technology has been around for a few years, but a handful… This story continues at The Next Web from The Next Web http://bit.ly/2Q2bst4

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is finding its way into more and more aspects of our daily lives. It powers the smart assistants on our mobile phones and virtual “home assistants.” It’s in the algorithms designed to improve our health diagnostics. And it’s used in the predictive policing tools used by the police to fight crime. Each of these examples throws up potential problems when it comes to the protection of our human rights. Predictive policing, if not correctly designed, can lead to discrimination based on race, gender, or ethnicity. Privacy and data protection rules apply to information related to our health.… This story continues at The Next Web from The Next Web http://bit.ly/2BCGHpd

At a time when cryptocurrency was synonymous with blockchain technology, IOTA proposed a modification. IOTA, as its name would suggest, aspired to be a cryptocurrency for the future of Internet of Things (IoT). But its founders thought that the blockchain had “too sluggish transaction times and skyrocketing fees” to be able to power the world of connected devices. Instead, they introduced a new distributed ledger technology based on Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) — and named it Tangle. As a participant, when you want to make a transaction on Tangle, you need to pick two previous transactions at random, validate them, and then connect… This story continues at The Next Web from The Next Web http://bit.ly/2BE8oxX

This holiday period, Plugged is running a very special advent calendar. Over the course of 12 days, we’ll be sharing a selection of sweet, sweet deals. You can thank us later. We wanted to do something special for our final day of TNW’s advent. It is Christmas after all. So, on this magical day, we’re giving away five one-year licenses to NordVPN! All you have to do is sign-up to our amazing, brilliant, and hilarious newsletter, Big Spam. When you click this link, make sure you select “TNW’s Big Spam – The snarkiest tech news of the day.” But, if you… This story continues at The Next Web from The Next Web http://bit.ly/2Lx7ZSx