Technology

A Way to Think About Digital Currency Replacing Cash

- Adam Clare

Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and other digital currencies are shaking up how the internet thinks about money. In turn, this has forced countries and large institutions to rethink how money works and who claims to have control over it. Perhaps it’s time for the decentralized blockchain-systems to replaced by a robot-controlled centrally-backed system. Or, at the very least, let’s think about it.

Currently, coins and paper notes are the only state-issued money available for use by you and me; the vast bulk of what we normally call “money” is a deposit with a bank. Up to a limit (currently €100,000 in Europe), this is state-backed in the sense that the government guarantees that it will be available for spending no matter what happens with the bank. Even this is surprisingly recent. On the eve of the financial crisis, the pan-European limit was much lower and EU law explicitly prohibited deposit insurance schemes from being backed by the state (they had to be industry-funded schemes).

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The Web Makes You Humble, Not Stupid

- Adam Clare

In the early years of the internet people worried that it would make people stupid and people would sit around not contributing to society. It turns out that the internet is not as bad as TV. Indeed, the web may make us more humble and help us realize our own ignorance.

One possibility is that the internet actually makes us more humble. “We suggested that people might be engaging in a sort of social comparison between themselves and the internet,” Amanda Ferguson, one of the study’s authors, writes me in an email. “This would reduce their ‘feeling-of-knowing’ the answer (since they’re comparing themselves to the all-knowing internet), and ultimately lead them to answer fewer questions.”

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The Importance of Infrastructure Changes for a Sustainable World

- Adam Clare

With COP21 happening this week in Paris there are many approaches to fighting climate change being discussed. No matter what approach is used there will have to be structural changes in how energy is delivered and how goods are transported. Over at Gizmodo they took a look at how quickly we can transition to a low-carbon energy system and it turns out we can do it rather quickly. Infrastructure takes time to rebuild and adopt to new technologies and the sooner we start the better.

Many different policy approaches could help, both to reduce consumption and to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix.

Building codes could be gradually adjusted to require that every rooftop generate energy, and/or ratcheted up to LEED “green building” standards. A gradually increasing carbon tax or cap-and-trade system (already in place in some nations) would spur innovation while reducing fossil fuel consumption and promoting the use of renewables.

In the United States, at least, eliminating the many subsidies that currently flow to fossil fuels may prove politically easier than taxing carbon, yet send a similar price signal.

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Vote on Canada’s Digital Future

- Adam Clare

Conservatives suck

On Monday the 19th Canadians will cast their ballots for who they think should run the nation. Open Media has released a report card on where the political parties stand on digital issues impacting Canadians. It’s with no surprise that the conservatives get a failing grade. The good news is that every other party support online freedoms.

Don’t want the Canadian government reading your email and watching what you do online? Vote them out this election.

We have assessed the main parties on the digital policy issues Canadians told us matter most. The grades below are a crowdsourced assessment by your OpenMedia team based on these criteria.

Although we don’t endorse any party, we work on these issues every day and want to make sure you can cast an informed vote based on what matters to you.

See the report card.

A Virtual Companion for a Safe Walk Home

- Adam Clare

At the schools I teach at they each have a volunteer run service to help people walk home who are worried for their safety. When one graduates from these schools they are on their own. Seeing that this how walk-safe programs work a bunch of students have created an app to help people feel safe on their walks.

The students’ Companion app, which recently came out in a new version, is simple to use. You type in the address you’re headed to, pull down a map, and then pick a friend or two from your list of contacts. They don’t have to have the app to help; a text message with a link to a map will pop up on their phone.

“If the user goes off route, or doesn’t make it to the destination on time, or if they fall, or are pushed, or are running, or even if their headphones are pulled out of their phone, all of their emergency contacts are notified,” says Ernst. “It’s a good way to keep in touch with the people around you and stay safe. And give you peace of mind.”

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