Weekly News 22



How the Winklevoss twins became the worlds first bitcoin billionaires

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/shortcuts/2017/dec/04/winklevoss-twins-bitcoin-billionaires-mark-zuckerberg

Image result for bitcoins

Key Data/ Statistical Info

  • Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss- venture capitalists and entrepreneurs
  •  Bitcoin- an electronic token, which can be owned and traded. Like normal money, it has value because other people consider it valuable. The number of bitcoins in circulation is strictly controlled by a clever bit of software that nobody can hack, called the blockchain.
  • In March 2013, they bought about 100,000 of them, when each coin was worth roughly $120. After a strong year, and a wild couple of weeks, each bitcoin is now worth … let’s see … $11,826.
  • Not counting the value of their other investments, the Winklevoss twins have just become the world’s first bitcoin billionaires. Apart from Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s mysterious inventor, of course.
Developments to new and digital media, has allowed bitcoins to become a mainstream currency. However some of the disadvantages are that users are more exposed to scams and fraud as it is the most popular cryptocurrency. To further complicate the issue, those who are affected by transaction fraud, cant request a refund. Also Bitcoins "decentralized structure" makes it impossible for anyone to settle disputes between users. As development continues, it is ebcoming even ahrder to track money flows and identify users of new cryptocurrencies. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NDM News: The future of journalism: John Oliver and Clay Shirky

1) Go to the  Nieman Lab webpage (part of Harvard university) and watch the video of Clay Shirky presenting to Harvard students . ' 2) Play the clip AND read along with the transcript below to ensure you are following the argument. You need to watch from the beginning to 29.35 (the end of Shirky's presentation). 3) Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this? Shirky quotes "Losing the News" and says that accountability journalism " the  iron core  of journalism and in particular the investigative journalism category, where three reporters are dispatched for a long period on a story that may or may not pan out." 4) What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)? Advertisers were forced to overpay for the services they receiv
Read more

NDM News: Citizen journalism and hyper-reality

Citizen journalism and UGC (user-generated content) 1) Read the article from Media Magazine:  The Rise and Rise of UGC  (Dec 2009). Use our  Media Magazine archive , click on MM30 and go to page 55. 2)  Create a blogpost  where you make notes from the article under the following headings:  Examples 1991- An African American man named Rodney King was tasered and beaten by four LA police officers, after a high speed chase. The event was filmed by someone in the nearby apartments and soon made it to prime-time news where it became an "international media sensation". Dec 26th 2004- Asian Tsunami- people witnessed the natural disaster as it unfolded. 5th July 2005- London bombings  January 15th 2009- Hudson River plane crash photo posted on Twitpic.  Theory (audience reception etc.)  Audience reception theory (Dominant or preferred reading) - Videos from citizen journalists can be interpreted in many ways, depending on the audience's view. Most audience members wo
Read more

Weekly News 5

Image
Social media companies must respond to the sinister reality behind fake news  https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/sep/30/social-media-companies-fake-news-us-election Key Data/ Statistical Info Social media  companies such as Facebook and Twitter have begun to share evidence of how their platforms are used and abused during elections. Computational propaganda flourished during the 2016 US presidential election.  US voters shared large volumes of polarising political news and information in the form of links to content from Russian, WikiLeaks and junk news sources.  First, we found that nationally,  Twitter  users got more misinformation, polarising and conspiratorial content than professionally produced news. The article talks about the way in which some users shared political news and information in the form of ''junk news sources'', most of which contained extremist/ sensationalist ideologies.  The article also mentins that due to this &
Read more