Kyt Dotson
Latest from Kyt Dotson
Nest’s new API puts smart devices and developers under one roof
Yesterday, Nest announced the Nest Developer Program that will offer an application development interface, or API, so that third-party apps can hook up with Nest products. The new API is designed to open up Nest’s platform and allow it to talk to a myriad of other connected devices from smart watches to smart thermostats. Nest ...
Cisco open-sources experimental small message encryption for cloud, IoT
Networking giant Cisco is open-sourcing an experimental cipher that could help preserve privacy in the cloud and the Internet of Things. Cisco software engineer Sashank Dara describes the cipher as “FNR” (Flexible Naor and Reingold) and says that it’s a variant on the work of Naor and Reingold from a paper published in the Journal ...
City of Paradigm: Crowdfunding delivers community as well as funds
Below is an excerpt from Kyt Dotson’s novel City of Paradigm, a science fiction tale about a fictional 21st century city situated somewhere in California. Each City of Paradigm column is two parts: an excerpt from the novel and an editorial describing the real-world context of the technologies described in the story. Readers may find ...
The U.S. Post Office looks to the Internet of Things for solutions
The recent woes of the United States Postal Service (USPS) are well known, but that doesn’t mean the service can’t find a friend in digital messaging. The USPS’s Office of Inspector General is offering up to $100,000 to any supplier that can help it realize the potential of low-cost sensors and wireless technologies. In a ...
Bitcoin Weekly 2014 June 18th: BitPay announces the Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl, Expedia to take BTC for hotels, GHash.IO sneaks up on 51% again
This week has seen a lot of interesting news and some drama from the world of Bitcoin. BitPay has made news by announcing the world’s first upcoming “Bitcoin Bowl” and also brought news of TigerDirect expanding bitcoin payments onto their Canadian website. Coinbase made big news last week with a partnership with Expedia, offering bitcoin ...
Machine Learning for the cloud on its way to Microsoft Azure
In July, Microsoft plans to unveil a preview of its Machine-Learning-as-a-Service platform, hosted on Windows Azure. The platform is expected to leverage Microsoft’s powerful Azure cloud platform to provide powerful predictive analytics services and off premises data crunching. Microsoft calls this new platform Microsoft Azure Machine Learning. Interested developers and businesses can sign up at ...
US government prepares to auction $17 million worth of Silk Road bitcoins
The US Marshals are preparing to auction off the bitcoins seized from the raid of anonymous, black market site Silk Road. According to the asset forfeiture auction document, the auction will take place on June 27th and winners will be notified on June 30th. The coins on auction are those seized from the Silk Road ...
Facebook open-sources Haxl: Big Data Haskell library
Yesterday, Facebook announced the open-sourcing of Haxl, a Haskell library used to greatly simplify access to remote data, such as databases and API web-based services. This release continues a trend of Facebook’s strong bent towards data science and the processing of complex datasets, and at the same time sustains a commitment to the open source ...
Bitcoin Weekly 2014 June 11: Yahoo! Finance adds BTC ticker, REEDS Jewelers partners Coinbase, Dark Wallet alpha promises anonymity
In the news today, Yahoo! Finance follows Bloomberg in adding a Bitcoin market price ticker. REEDS Jewelers is the newest retail chain to partner with Coinbase for bitcoin payments. Finally, Dark Wallet has been in the news since April, but how does it work and what does increased anonymity mean for regulators? The market also ...
AI milestone: Computer passes Turing test by posing as a 13-year-old boy
A computer program at the University of Reading in the U.K. has achieved an artificial intelligence milestone by passing the venerated Turning Test. The software, called Eugene Goostman, attempts to simulate a 13-year-old Ukranian boy. The Turing test, named after Alan Turing who introduced the idea, is used to determine if a machine exhibits intelligent ...