Saturday, June 06, 2015

bitSIM, BitPesa, Africa

PIKETTY AND THE SITTING TRILLLIONS

The M-Pesa Concept Applied To Voting
Africa Deserves To Manufacture
Africa Can Save The World



MOVE OVER M-PESA, BITCOIN’S ZSIM IS THE NEW KID ON THE BLOCK
Globally, close to 2.5 billion adults remain unbanked. The vast majority of them live in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. However, the bitSIM would enable this huge market to be brought into the formal financial sector literally overnight ..... The emerging global financial stage will see increasing competition between telcos and banks for control of the market share. bitSIM being able to compete against one of them promises to become a third force that will eventually muscle out the first two. bitSIM might even go further. Since the technology is built on the block chain, it effectively eliminates the middleman that exists both in banking and in the telcos and potentially promises much, much lower fees for transactions. ..... For many developing countries, bitSIM could enable many other industries to really take off including mCommerce and mRemittance, or even mRebittance. Remittance has become one of the main sources of income in many developing countries ....... bitSIM would enable the reforms undertaken in Nigerian agriculture to be spread overnight to other countries around the world. ...... a dedicated agro-blockchain could be created that could be used to manage all aspects of the value chain including smart contracts, and even the development of a viable continental commodity trading for African regions or even the continent itself. Trade on this agro-blockchain would be enabled across borders via the bitSIM without the usual bottlenecks that are inherent in traditional banking. ....... Many of the applications that could be powered on top of the bitSIM may be unimaginable as at now. For example, what role would bitSIM have in powering an internet of blockchains or even an internet of things?


Kenya’s million dollar bitcoin startup BitPesa expands to Tanzania
“We’re the first company on the planet to link mobile money with bitcoin,” company CEO Elizabeth Rossiello boasted. “About 97% of the people in Kenya use mobile money. In Tanzania it’s even better.” ..... We call it mobile money 2.0, where they have three key operators using it instead of one company. ..... “Instead of sending bitcoin to another bank account or bitcoin wallet, you can actually send bitcoin to someone’s mobile wallet using their contact number in real-time” ....... “Banking infrastructure has fallen behind and money transfer services like Western Union have filled the void,” Rossiello said. “The bitcoin technology is in the cloud, which means that everyone has access to world-class infrastructures. For us it’s a very convenient, cheap, scalable, robust piece of software.” ...BitPesa’s CEO added that other countries like Ghana, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Romania, and Turkey all have very advanced mobile money systems and are potential markets for the company’s remittance services.


Reimagining Africa as innovator
He travels to Kenya this July for a “summit” on entrepreneurship and hopes to show what the United States can do for the continent...... When he gets there, however, Mr. Obama may be surprised to discover what Africa is already doing for itself. In recent years, its young inventors and entrepreneurs – two-thirds of Africans are under age 35 – have begun to reverse the narrative that the continent is mainly a recipient of foreign technology and a backwater for ideas. ...... Kenya, for example, which is the birthplace of Obama’s father, has become a world leader in mobile money systems – far ahead of Apple Pay. Across Africa, software such as M-PESA is revolutionizing daily financial life for people with little access to banks or credit. About 1 in 7 Africans now uses a phone for banking, a ratio higher than anywhere in the world. Kenya is also home to an IBM research lab and has plans to become a “Silicon Savanna.” ....... Africa has more mobile-phone users than the US or Europe. This pool of 635 million devices provides a giant digital platform for innovation that fits Africa’s culture and its unique needs. Technology is lightly regulated, which gives innovators more freedom to try new products. ..... The continent’s big tech hubs – Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, and Senegal – are starting to draw global attention as potential exporters of new technology. One Ghanaian start-up, for example, has done well in California with an online tool, Dropifi, that helps businesses manage customer feedback. ...... Last year, the African Union drew up a 10-year strategy to drive technological innovation as a way for the continent to move beyond exports of raw materials. ..... An innovation expert in South Africa, Mammo Muchie of the Tshwane University of Technology, says Africans must destroy the “false narrative” that other races are better at innovation. Africa can build on its special strengths – its large population of young people, its ancient cultural traditions, and its large market for inexpensive solutions to poverty. Innovation, after all, first requires imagination. Reimagining Africa seems to have already begun.
Barack Obama Africa Foundation
Barack Obama And Africa


Monday, June 01, 2015

Only 9,000 Cabs?

New York City taxi cabs
New York City taxi cabs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
That is an amazing number. I just read it on the Gary's Guide newsletter.
"9000 self-driving cars could replace every taxi cab in NYC (avg wait only 36 secs & cost only $0.5/mile). Ancillary industries such as auto insurance ($198B), auto finance ($98B), parking ($100B) & auto aftermarket ($300B) will collapse as demand evaporates. The Transportation Cloud is coming."
Autonomous cars will destroy millions of jobs and reshape the US economy by 2025
Autonomous cars will be commonplace by 2025 and have a near monopoly by 2030, and the sweeping change they bring will eclipse every other innovation our society has experienced. They will cause unprecedented job loss and a fundamental restructuring of our economy, solve large portions of our environmental problems, prevent tens of thousands of deaths per year, save millions of hours with increased productivity, and create entire new industries that we cannot even imagine from our current vantage point....... Morgan Stanley’s research shows that cars are driven just 4% of the year, which is an astonishing waste considering that the average cost of car ownership is nearly $9,000 per year. Next to a house, an automobile is the second-most expensive asset that most people will ever buy ...... Driverless cars do not need to park—vehicles cruising the street looking for parking spots account for an astounding 30% of city traffic, not to mention that eliminating curbside parking adds two extra lanes of capacity to many city streets. Traffic will become nonexistent, saving each US commuter 38 hours every year—nearly a full work week. As parking lots and garages, car dealerships, and bus stations become obsolete, tens of millions of square feet of available prime real estate will spur explosive metropolitan development. ...... As most autonomous cars are likely to be electric, we would eliminate most of the 134 billion gallons of gasoline used each year in the US alone. And while recycling 242 million vehicles will certainly require substantial resources, the surplus of raw materials will decrease the need for mining.
Taxi Cabs Factbook

Friday, May 29, 2015

Google Photos

English: Google+ wordmark
English: Google+ wordmark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Google Plus has been my favorite photo sharing app. I have liked the instant upload, the auto upload thing, I have liked the lots of space thing. I have liked the easy share thing. And now, instead of giving me nightmares by sunsetting Google Plus, as was the rumor, Google gives me Google Photos. I am thrilled. I want storage to be free. Unlimited.

But free is just the starting point. Google Photos takes photo storage and sharing to a whole new level. A Gmail for photos is a good description.

CNN: Google's amazing new app is like Gmail for your Photos
Time: Google Plus’ Best Feature Is Coming Back From the Dead
Despite Google Photos’ arrival, Google+ still lives