Techno Gadgetz World

How Nest Is Already Using All That Data From Its Army Of Smoke Alarms

10:08

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The big news from Nest today is that Protect is back on the shelves<inset id="1591672701"></inset>. But lost in the shuffle is a more interesting tidbit from the company: Its first report on data culled from the alarms of hundreds of thousands of users. It's a glimpse at how Nest (and Google) can use their army of home-based smart hardware for the better-and at just how much they could know about you some day.</div>
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The report is all about carbon monoxide, a seemingly rare killer that's actually the lead cause of poisoning deaths in America. Until now, it's been hard for the government and safety experts to estimate how often CO leaks happen, because these events are self-reported by homeowners (who usually don't report them). But using data culled from its army of Protects-anonymized, of course, to protect user privacy-Nest has revealed something surprising: CO events aren't all that rare. In fact, .65 percent of users experienced a carbon monoxide event during the five months that Nest analyzed.</div>
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Now, that doesn't seem like very much; it's less than one percent. But overall, Nest estimates that about .9 percent of households are exposed to high CO, which translates into 1.4 million households in the U.S., Canada, and the UK. That's roughly the population of Philadelphia. "Nest Protect's built-in sensors provide the ability to detect additional pieces of environmental data, run algorithms to determine the level of danger, and report that data in real time to further enhance our understanding of these events," explains the company.</div>
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At the very least the results of the mini-study should compel anyone who doesn't have a CO alarm to get one, Nest or otherwise. But it's even more interesting to ponder what else Nest can glean from its already-installed network of hundreds of thousands of devices.</div>
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The Smart Home's Trojan Horse</h3>
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Consider that each Protect is packed full of sensors, some of which are capable of much more than they're doing right now: From heat and light sensors to motion sensors and ultrasonic wave sensors.</div>
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<small style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><small style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></em></small><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Protect's sensor array. Image via <a href="https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nest+Protect+Teardown/20057" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">iFixit</a></em></small><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.</em></div>
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This simple little device could scrape an incredible amount of data about your life if Nest asked it t From when you get home, to when you go to bed, to your daily routine, to when you cook dinner.</div>
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Now imagine how a device like that would interlock with another that you keep on your wrist, like the forthcoming Android Wear<inset id="1546476502"></inset>. Together, they would create a seamless mesh of connectivity where every detail of what you do and where you go is recorded into a living, breathing algorithm based on your life.</div>
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Now, keep in mind: Nest CEO Tony Fadell has said that the company's privacy policy won't be affected by its acquisition by Google, at least for the time being. But it's hard not to get excited (or horrified) by the idea that Google's Trojan horse for the connected home has <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">already been bought and installed</em> in more than 400,000 users in three countries.</div>
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A Not So Far-Off Future</h3>
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Neither Nest nor Google has stated any intention to turn Nest's hardware into more than it is right now. Protect is an alarm, the Thermostat is a thermostat.</div>
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But as Google ramps up its vision to connect every aspect of our world, from Android Wear to its acquisition of a company that specializes in high-res, near-instantaneous satellite imagery of Earth<inset id="1588777966"></inset>, it's easier than ever to see why it would cough up billions for a company that has installed hundreds of thousands of Wi-Fi connected devices in the homes of Google users.</div>
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We're a long way off from a future where Google can access any of that data-and in fact, it may never. So fret not, if you're concerned about privacy. Both companies would have to make major changes to their privacy policies before anything even remotely like this will come to pass. But Nest is already using it to make your life safer, and the leap from making your life<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">safer </em>to making it faster, smarter, or more organized isn't all that far.</div>
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It's worth pointing out that Nest and Google haven't just built a duo of products that make your <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">home</em> smarter. They've built a nationwide network of sleeping sensors that will make <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">them</em> smarter about you.</div>
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How Nest Is Already Using All That Data From Its Army Of Smoke Alarms

The big news from Nest today is that Protect is back on the shelves . But lost in the shuffle is a more interesting tidbit from the co...

Human Genome Tinkering Could Be Our Best Bet To Beat HIV

10:03

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The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a crafty little bastard<inset id="510672032"></inset>, constantly mutating to mask itself from our bodies' defenses but always entering cells through the same molecular door. The design of that cellular door is governed by our DNA, so why not change the lock by modding our genetic code?</div>
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In 2006, a minor medical miracle occurred. HIV-positive leukemia patient Timothy Ray Brown-the second <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Berlin_Patient" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Berlin Patient</a>-received a bone marrow transplant that saved his life in more ways than one. The marrow that he received was from a donor with a unique double mutation to a gene on the 3rd chromosome known as CCR5. This gene codes for the surface protein that the HIV virus uses to gain entry into our white blood cells (specifically, CD4+ T-cells); however the double mutation shuts down these sites and provides a natural immunity to HIV. This mutation is exceptionally rare, only occurring in about one percent of caucasians and nowhere else. It's been hypothesized that it's this same natural immunity that allowed a small portion of Europeans to make it through the Black Plague unscathed.</div>
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While that was fantastic news for Brown, who nearly a decade later remains off of his retroviral drug regimen and maintains an undetectable level of the virus in his system, it's not of much use to the rest of us. With both the mutation's prevalence and bone marrow compatibility matches in general being so rare, there was no effective means of using transplants as delivery vectors for this beneficial genetic condition. And it's worth noting that the very process of becoming HIV-free nearly killed Brown<inset id="5713498"></inset>. But that's where Professor Yuet Kan's team at UCSF comes in.</div>
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Kan figured that if integrating this double mutation wouldn't work on the macro level-that is, replacing a patient's bone marrow with that of a naturally HIV-immune person's-maybe it would at the molecular level, thereby allowing researchers to confer the benefits while cutting out the marrow donation. To that end, he and a team of researchers from the University of San Francisco are employing cutting-edge genetic editing techniques to snip out the beneficial length of DNA coding and integrate it with a patient's own genomes.</div>
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The technique they're using is known as CRISPR (Cas9) genome-editing. CRISPRs, (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) are DNA delivery vectors that replace the existing base codes at a specific part of a specific chromosome with new base pair sets. Cas9, on the other hand are the "molecular scissors" that Kan's team employs to first cut out the offending DNA. It sounds easy, sure-just find the string of DNA you want to replace, then snip it out with Cas9 DNA scissors, and install some new DNA using a CRISPR-however the nuts and bolts of the process are far more technically challenging.</div>
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The patient's own blood cells would be employed as a precursor. Researchers would then have to convert those cells into induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells by modulating a number of genetic switches, thereby instigating their regression to more basic stem cells. After that, the offending CCR5 gene would need to be knocked out and replaced with the better, double-mutated version before the now fortified blood cells were transfused back into the patient. Not only is there no chance of the body rejecting the new cells (they are the patient's own after all), the technique also neatly sidesteps the whole embryonic stem cell issue.</div>
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While the technique is still in its early stages of development and no human trial dates have yet been set, it holds huge promise. Not just for the 35 million people annually infected by HIV, but also sufferers of sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis-two deadly diseases caused by a single protein deformation-could benefit from similar techniques. By figuring out which genes do what on our iPS cells, we could even theoretically grant everyone on Earth immediate immunity to any number of diseases.</div>
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Of course, being able to update and augment our genetic code opens up a whole slew of potential concerns, objections, and abuses. Just look at the ire raised over the use of embryonic stem cells in the early 2000s. People were lost their minds because they thought scientific progress was being built on the backs of fetuses. Researchers had to go and invent an entirely new way of making stem cells (the iPS lines) just to get around that one moralized sticking point, so you can bet there will be plenty of chimera, master race, and<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Island of Dr. Moreau</em> references bandied about should we ever begin seriously discussing the prospect of upgrading our genes. And could certainly slow progress in this specific research.</div>
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That's not to say that the hysteria that accompanies seemingly every news cycle these days is completely off base. Like cars, styrofoam, pressure cookers, and thermonuclear bombs, this technology can be used for evil just as easily as it can be for good. And while we're not nearly as genetically complex as, say, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/6606362/Corn-contains-more-genes-than-humans.html" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">an ear of corn</a>, wrangling the myriad of interactions between our various genes is still an incredibly complex task and one with severe consequences should something go awry-even if we can avoid creating unwanted mutations through stringent testing and development methodology as we do with today's pharmaceutical development. So why not turn ourselves into the ultimate GMOs? It certainly beats everyone becoming cyborgs. [<a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/11/gene-editing-could-erase-hiv.html" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Daily Beast</a> - <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2655102/Could-editing-genes-key-curing-HIV-Giving-patients-altered-blood-cells-make-resistant-virus.html" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Daily Mail</a> - Wiki <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">1</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome_editing" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">2</a>]</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Image: </em><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-630403p1.html" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">RAJ CREATIONZS</a></em></div>
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Human Genome Tinkering Could Be Our Best Bet To Beat HIV

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a crafty little bastard , constantly mutating to mask itself from our bodies' defenses b...

A Look Inside The Amazon Lab Behind Tomorrow's 3D Smartphone

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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25px;">Amazon unveils its entry into the smartphone arena</span><inset id="1586225798" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25px;"></inset><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25px;">, a long-rumored device that supposedly uses eye-tracking tech to create the first 3D smartphone display</span><inset id="1586175703" style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25px;"></inset><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25px;">. </span><em style="border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BloombergBusinessweek</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25px;"> spoke to some of Amazon's mad scientists for </span><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-17/inside-the-secretive-r-and-d-lab-behind-the-amazon-phone#p2" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">the inside story on Lab126</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25px;">, the skunkworks tasked with making the 3D phone a reality.</span><br />
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As Brad Stone (author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Everything-Store-Bezos-Amazon/dp/0316219266" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Everything Store</em></a>, a warts-and-all biography of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos) writes, Lab126 isn't just responsible for getting Amazon into the smartphone world. <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-17/inside-the-secretive-r-and-d-lab-behind-the-amazon-phone#p1" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">It's a workshop for hardware imagineers</a>, blue-sky tinkerers chasing ideas for their own sake.</div>
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Many Amazon watchers struggle to explain just <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">why</em> the online retailer and cloud services provider is in the risky business of making hardware in the first place. That's the wrong question to ask. Lab126 is in the business of asking: W<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">hy the heck not</em>? Fueled by his pride in Amazon's inventiveness and his stubborn refusal to cede even an inch of the tech landscape to other companies, Bezos provides much of the motivation at Lab126, pushing it to develop mainstream hardware devices, as well as a variety of so-called "science projects," many of which have yet to see the light of day.</div>
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One group at Lab126, for example, is working on a device that projects a computer image onto any surface. A second is developing a wireless speaker that responds to voice commands. Apparently there are many more. Lab 126 insiders whisper about a credit-card reading device similar to Square, which could help propel Amazon's fledgling payments business, plus a remarkably thin upcoming version of the Kindle Paperwhite, code-named Ice Wine.</div>
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The strategy seems to be working: recent Lab126 debuts include Fire TV<inset id="1557714336"></inset> and Amazon Dash<inset id="1558691755"></inset>, devices that may not seem like core Amazon offerings, but which ensure that users will stay loyal to The Everything Store in the same way as Kindle e-reader users and Prime buyers.</div>
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And now , Amazon will add its project phone, codenamed Duke, to that list. Previous reports<inset id="1586225798"></inset> indicate it'll bear some version of the Kindle name (Kindle Phone?), with a 4.7-inch, 720p display and the aforementioned infrared head-tracking cameras powering the 3D display.</div>
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You've probably been hearing rumors about this phone for a long, long time-Lab126 has been working on it since as far back as 2009, and along the way the project has blown past several rumored release dates. <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-17/inside-the-secretive-r-and-d-lab-behind-the-amazon-phone#p1" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Stone theorizes</a> that at least part of the delay in the Amazon phone's rollout was to ensure that the Amazon Appstore has enough offerings to entice smartphone buyers into the Amazon ecosystem.</div>
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It's a trick Bezos has used before-he delayed the rollout of the original Kindle e-reader to make sure there were enough e-books available for buyers to download. We'll find out tomorrow just how much the Amazon phone adds to the Everything Store. [<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BloombergBusinessweek</em>]</div>
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A Look Inside The Amazon Lab Behind Tomorrow's 3D Smartphone

Amazon unveils its entry into the smartphone arena , a long-rumored device that supposedly uses eye-tracking tech to create the first 3D...

IOS 8 Will Make Drawing On Your Devices Way More Intuitive

09:54

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Perfecting your artistic technique using a stylus is about to get a whole lot more refined. With the introduction of iOS 8<inset id="1584820649"></inset>, your screen will be sensitive to the relative width of whatever's running across its surface. That's great news for folks who preferPaper<inset id="5897413"></inset> and other drawing apps to, well, paper.</div>
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Over on <a href="http://www.fastcodesign.com/3032009/why-drawing-on-the-ipad-just-got-way-better#1" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Co.Design</a>, Mark Wilson notes how <a href="http://www.fiftythree.com/pencil" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Pencil</a>-the wooden stylus used for making creative magic on Paper<inset id="5897413"></inset>'s digital sketchbook-will soon respond to the width of your stroke, allowing for a more realistic user experience.</div>
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A new feature called <a href="https://vimeo.com/98146708" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Surface Pressure</a> mimics the way you would wield a traditional drawing tool, allowing for subtlety and shading to spreading thick swathes of "ink." It looks really, really fun to use:</div>
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This update is all thanks to a new feature in iOS 8<inset id="1584820649"></inset> that slipped under the radar: Screens will now recognize exactly how big the object touching them really is. It's an intuitive step forward for the software, and it gives existing hardware a brand new life. It could also have big implications for other apps aiming to utilize a wide range of reactive gestures, from bold lines to endless shades of grey. [<a href="http://www.fastcodesign.com/3032009/why-drawing-on-the-ipad-just-got-way-better#1" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Co.Design</a>]</div>
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IOS 8 Will Make Drawing On Your Devices Way More Intuitive

Perfecting your artistic technique using a stylus is about to get a whole lot more refined. With the introduction of iOS 8 , your scree...

NASA Uses A Shadow Network That's 1000x Faster Than Your Internet

09:50

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When it comes to truly humongous amounts of data, it can be faster to just drop a hard drive in the mail-unless you have access to the Energy Sciences Network, a blazing shadow network that is 100 times faster than even the much-ballyhooed Google Fiber.</div>
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Of course, you need to be doing something more important than downloading all four seasons of <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Game of Thrones </i>on this fast set of fiber optic cables. The <a href="http://www.es.net/overview-of-the-network/" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Energy Sciences Network</a>, or ESnet, is supervised by the Department of Energy for research use. Scientists handling huge datasets from, say, the Large Hadron Collider or the Human Genome Project, may have access to the network. In addition, writes Klint Finley in <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wired</i>, "ESnet is a test bed where scientists can explore new ideas before setting them loose on the commercial internet."</div>
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In November, <a href="http://esnetupdates.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/nasa-hecn-team-achieves-record-disk-to-disk-91-gbps-via-esnet/" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">ESnet achieved</a> the fastest ever end-to-end data transfer of data at the time in real world conditions. NASA sent 91 gigabits of data per second from Denver to the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.</div>
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ESnet is also looking for ways of advancing network architecture. As Flint writes, "Researchers have used it to explore virtual network circuits called '<a href="http://www.sdncentral.com/education/esnet-sdn-software-defined-networking-interview/2013/11/" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Oscars</a>,' which can be used to create complex networks without complex hardware changes. And they're working on what are known as network '<a href="http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/06/science-dmz/" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">DMZs</a>,' which can achieve unusually fast speeds by handling security without traditional network firewalls."</div>
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ESnet's director says the eventual goal is a terabyte-per-second network connection, which is another 1000 times faster. Meanwhile, our home connections creak along<inset id="5983300"></inset>. [<a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/06/esnet/" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Wired</a>]</div>
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<i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><small style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Top image: <a href="http://www.es.net/overview-of-the-network/" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Overview of ESnet</a></small></i></div>
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NASA Uses A Shadow Network That's 1000x Faster Than Your Internet

When it comes to truly humongous amounts of data, it can be faster to just drop a hard drive in the mail-unless you have access to t...

Google's About To Ruin YouTube By Forcing Indie Labels To Play Ball

09:28

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It's official: Google is about to ruin YouTube. A company exec <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ea6728e2-f568-11e3-afd3-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz34uPom2s3" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">told</a> the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Financial Times </em>it will start blocking videos from record labels that refuse to sign licensing deals for its forthcoming premium service, YouTube Music Pass. This is the dumbest thing Google could do, and it threatens the very heart of what has always made YouTube so special.</div>
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It's been nearly a decade since YouTube first flickered on in February 2005, and in the years since, the free video service has changed the internet forever by becoming the central destination for everything from funny cats, to protest footage, to movie trailers, and of course, music videos. YouTube is amazing precisely because it has been an easy way for content makers to share their latest creations. This is especially true for music.</div>
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YouTube is almost ideally suited for sharing music videos that are basically the ideal short video packages that thrive on the service. Indeed, for the younger subset of listeners, YouTube is becoming the <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">de facto</em> way of listening to music<inset id="5934783"></inset>.</div>
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More than just a way for artists to easily promote their latest singles, YouTube has become a legitimate source of income. Pre-roll advertising and services like Vevo help artists make money off the millions upon millions of plays on their songs. And YouTube's <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2797370?hl=en" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Content ID</a> even helps artists make money off uploads that aren't their own, by placing buy links on videos submitted by users.</div>
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Though Google has pretty much always been a good shepherd of the original YouTube vision, it's been clear for a few years that the company planned to offer premium services in an effort to squeeze more revenue out of its market dominance. Why shouldn't it? It's a great service and if it can offer even more to people for a fee, that's totally fine.</div>
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Unfortunately, in an effort to build out the long-rumored YouTube Music Pass, Google's resorting to strong arm tactics that threaten to ruin YouTube. <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Financial Times</em> <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ea6728e2-f568-11e3-afd3-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz34uPom2s3" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">reports</a> that Google has inked deals with the three major record label conglomerates (Sony, Warner, Universal), as will as a number of indies, accounting for 90 percent of the music industry.</div>
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The problem is Google's plans for the other 10 percent. The company's head of content Robert Kyncl <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ea6728e2-f568-11e3-afd3-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz34uPom2s3" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">told the FT</a> that it plans to start blocking videos from indie labels that haven't signed licensing deals "in a matter of days." The FT <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ea6728e2-f568-11e3-afd3-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz34uPom2s3" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">says</a> that these labels include XL Recordings and Domino records, whose rosters include Adele, Animal Collective, Arctic Monkeys, and loads of other popular artists. (We reached out to Google this morning for additional comments, but we haven't heard back yet.)</div>
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Some labels are refusing to sign up because they <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c7b69d06-ebc1-11e3-ab1b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz34uPom2s3" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">say they're getting a raw deal from Google</a>. They say that while the major labels have negotiated lucrative contracts, Google is offering indies comparatively bad terms. It's their right to say they don't want to sign up if they don't like the deal Google is offering them. In response, Google is drawing a line in the sand: If your label won't sign on to Google's crappy licensing deal for a new streaming service, you can't host videos on YouTube <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">at all</em>.</div>
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Google's bully business tactic here is bad for everyone. Users won't be able to hear some music they want, artists in the 10 percent blocked won't be able to reach their fans.</div>
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But perhaps the worst consequence is that YouTube will cease to be home for the 10 percent. What's always been amazing about YouTube is that it's the place where stars like Psy and Justin Bieber-whether you appreciate their music or not-found massive audiences, and how hundreds of other stars maintain their profile and cultivate their fan base in the post-MTV age.</div>
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It's not clear how exactly Google plans to deal with the unsigned upstart who uploads a video an blows up, but the implication that underlies Google's threat is that doesn't want YouTube to be the place where artists blow up anymore at all. YouTube's power has always been its extraordinary openness; once Google starts to wall off the service to the creators, the YouTube we all fell in love with will be dead.</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Top art by Michael Hession</em></div>
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Google's About To Ruin YouTube By Forcing Indie Labels To Play Ball

It's official: Google is about to ruin YouTube. A company exec told the Financial Times it will start blocking videos from reco...

China's New Tallest Building Adds A Floor Every 96 Hours

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At 2,165 feet, Shenzhen's Ping An Finance Center is about to become the tallest building in China and the second-tallest in the world. And it's getting there very quickly: According to a new report from <a href="http://www.designboom.com/architecture/chinas-tallest-skyscraper-shenzhen-kohn-pedersen-fox-kpf-06-17-2014/" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">DesignBoom</a>, workers are finishing a new floor of the 115-story building every <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">four days</em>.</div>
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That's a remarkable pace for a supertall building. For comparison's sake, both <a href="http://www.burjkhalifa.ae/en/NewsMedia/News.aspx?compID=tcm:62-12844" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Burj Khalifa</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/31/one-world-trade-center-will-cost-38-billion-dollars-expensive-building-in-the-world_n_1243917.html" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">One World Trade</a> progressed at a rate of one new floor roughly every seven days (<a href="http://www.citylab.com/design/2012/06/building-supertall-superfast/2308/" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here's a great comparison</a> of tall building construction rates around the world).</div>
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We can look to how Ping An was designed to find out more.<a href="http://www.kpf.com/project.asp?ID=163" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> Kohn Pedersen Fox</a>, the architects behind the project, designed every aspect of the building to reduce its <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">embodied energy</em> and <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">embodied carbon. </em>These two terms are used to describe all the energy that goes into manufacturing, transporting, hoisting, and actually constructing a building, as well as its energy consumption after the fact. Here's a video that explains the concept:</div>
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It can apply to everything from aerodynamics-a building with too much drag will need more structure to keep it upright-to construction, which is a notorious energy hog. At Ping An, the entire building was designed for efficiency, including the structure, which was modularized so that the structure of each floor identical to the one beneath it. That makes it far easier to build, hence this new report about the incredible speeds workers are maintaining.</div>
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After all, they have reason to hurry: There's another supertall, the entirely prefabricated Sky City<inset id="510487766"></inset>, hot on its heels to nab the title of China's Tallest. [<a href="http://www.designboom.com/architecture/chinas-tallest-skyscraper-shenzhen-kohn-pedersen-fox-kpf-06-17-2014/" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">DesignBoom</a>]</div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Image: </em><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images.</em></div>
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China's New Tallest Building Adds A Floor Every 96 Hours

At 2,165 feet, Shenzhen's Ping An Finance Center is about to become the tallest building in China and the second-tallest in the wor...

Garmin's New Upgradeable Navigation App Starts At Just $2

09:15

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In order to compete with the navigation apps that both Apple and Google give away for free, Garmin is introducing <a href="http://sites.garmin.com/viago" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">a new Android and iOS nav app called Víago</a> that sells for just $2 (on sale for $1 until July 13th), with advanced functionality available as in-app purchases. It's still not free, but compared to <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/garmin-u.s.a./id435490305?mt=8" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Garmin's previous app</a> which sold for $50, it might just be worth upgrading your smartphone's default maps app.</div>
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It's not easy to lure consumers away from free apps that are already 'good enough', but the base version of Garmin's Viago sounds like it's loaded with enough features for it to be worth the upgrade.</div>
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For starters, it's got Garmin's name attached to it, a company that's been creating navigation devices since they were first available to consumers. Which also means the base version of the app includes features like turn-by-turn directions with proper lane recommendations, your speed and the current speed limit, three-day weather forecasts, traffic, and photo-realistic junction views so you can be certain of where you are.</div>
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The in-app purchases range in price from $5 to $20, and add additional functionality like offline maps so you don't need a constan data connection, Garmin's Real Directions which provides turn-by-turn cues using visible landmarks and signage instead of street names, and a panoramic view that incorporates NASA's 3D height and terrain data to provide a more accurate map of where you're actually driving.</div>
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Is that enough to make it worth the upgrade? Neither Apple's nor Google's mapping apps are superstars when it comes to turn-by-turn directions. But they're slowly and steadily getting better and better. But until they're perfect, it certainly wouldn't hurt to have Garmin's new Víago as a backup for your next road trip. [<a href="http://sites.garmin.com/viago" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Garmin</a>]</div>
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Garmin's New Upgradeable Navigation App Starts At Just $2

In order to compete with the navigation apps that both Apple and Google give away for free, Garmin is introducing a new Android ...

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Digital Drills: The Monster Machines That Mine Bitcoin

09:08

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Digital Drills: The Monster Machines That Mine Bitcoin</h1>
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Bitcoin!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>It's everywhere right now. Its value is<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>dropping, spiking, dropping again. More and more new converts are hopping in, buying a few coins and trying their hands at the market, looking to make a quick buck with a profitable exchange. But all the while, there's an ever-dwindling army of specialists working in the shadows, painstakingly extracting more and more digital doubloons from the cryptographic static.</div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 25px;">What started as a pastime any computer could dabble in has spurred the evolution of truly ridiculous powerhouse Bitcoin mining rigs. Meet the monster machines more powerful than everything you've ever owned, combined. By a factor of thousands.</span><br />
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The Hacked-Together Past</h3>
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It all started so simply. Just after Bitcoin's birth in 2009, and before its current surge of popularity, mining could be done by a run-of-the-mill CPU in just about any old computer. Back then&mdash;and still today&mdash;Bitcoins are mined by using computing power to solve a complex cryptographic equation. If your computer is lucky enough (or really, powerful enough) to get a right answer, you'll create coins. So given enough time, a CPU can actually get some mining done. And back in the early days, if you could get free power to run it from your dorm room, library, or office, and the exchange rate was high enough (a buck or two), you could stand to make some spare pocket change.</div>
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So how did we get from there to giant rigs that consume<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>$150,000 of electricity daily? It was inevitable, really. Especially after Bitcoins actually became worth something.</div>
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The all-out race for power isn't just some sort of freak side-effect of Bitcoin's surging popularity, though. It's actually built right into how Bitcoins come into existence. The cryptographic hashes miners need to solve to mine Bitcoins weren't easy to begin with, and they only get harder as miners throw more and more collective computing power at them. Bitcoin self-regulates its difficulty so that there's always just a trickle, one block of coins mined every ten minutes. No matter what. So it's not about the quantity of power you've got, but rather your proportion of the whole. You've got to keep up with the Joneses.</div>
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An average CPU can run four instructions per clock cycle, and offer a few thousand to a few million hashes per second. This was never exactly<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">great</i>, but a few years ago it was enough for a low-rent mining operation. But then miners discovered that they could use their GPU instead, which can<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">3,200</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>instructions per cycle. The<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Why_a_GPU_mines_faster_than_a_CPU#A_CPU_is_an_executive" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">indispensable Bitcoin Wiki</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>describes the shift like this:</div>
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One way to visualize it is a CPU works like a small group of very smart people who can quickly do any task given to them. A GPU is a large group of relatively dumb people who aren't individually very fast or smart, but who can be trained to do repetitive tasks, and collectively can be more productive just due to the sheer number of people.</div>
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And because mining is a repetitive task better suited to muscle than smarts, miners suddenly found themselves with an<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">800-fold</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>increase in hashing power on their hands. Before long, the number of GPU mining rigs&mdash;combined with Bitcoin's regulatory difficulties&mdash;made massive amounts of power not just an advantage, but table stakes.</div>
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So where do you turn when everyone's competing with the same horsepower? Volume.</div>
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<img alt="Digital Drills: The Monster Machines that Mine Bitcoin" class="image_1 wide v10_wide" src="http://www.gizmodo.in/photo/19862029.cms" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" title="Digital Drills: The Monster Machines that Mine Bitcoin" /></div>
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<small style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This is a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=51350.0" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">multi-GPU mining rig</a>, living in rented warehouse space with three tons of AC for cooling. It was in its prime in late 2011.</i></small></div>
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Two GPUs are better than one, and two dozen are better than two. But when miners started building up to such a macro scale, other concerns started to creep in. Finding space. Keeping systems cool. But the thing that really stood to cut into Bitcoin profits was&mdash;and still is&mdash;the cost of electricity. And this concern turned miners' affections to yet another, different tool of the trade called FPGAs.</div>
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While CPUs and GPUs had been co-opted and tweaked for mining, Field-Programmable Gate Arrays were the first devices with Bitcoin in mind down to the circuitry. FPGAs are chips have the ability to be re-designed on the spot, down to their very connections, so they can be good at just about anything with the proper guidance. This isn't consumer tech. Instead, it's generally used in supercomputers, data centers, MRI machines, PET scanners, and the like. But the sort of flexible savant-level specialization is also great for mining Bitcoins, once you can teach the chip how to do it.</div>
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<a href="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18kpt0aireu9gjpg/original.jpg" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Digital Drills: The Monster Machines that Mine Bitcoin" class="image_2 wide v10_wide" src="http://www.gizmodo.in/photo/19862030.cms" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" title="Digital Drills: The Monster Machines that Mine Bitcoin" width="640" /></a></div>
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<small style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">An 8-core, pre-configured FPGA rig. It cost $2,000 at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=135292.0" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">its introduction in January 2013</a>. By then it was already very late to the game, offering 1/60th of the power of the Avalon ASIC which was released the following month for<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">less</i>.</i></small></div>
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The jump from GPU rigs to FPGAs didn't bring on a power-increase of multiple orders of magnitude, in the way the jump from CPU to GPU had. It did, however, provide a modest power bump, and actually<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">reduced</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the amount of electricity necessary to get competitive hash-rates. But perhaps most importantly, FPGAs servered as a final vaulting point into the next&mdash;and final&mdash;massive revolution in Bitcoin machinery: truly specialized hardware.</div>
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The Made-To-Order Future</h3>
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The first Application-Specific Integrated circuit Bitcoin miners burst onto the scene in February 2012, bringing a new paradigm of power along with them. Unlike FPGA systems, ASICs are<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">not</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>malleable; they are set in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><strike>stone</strike><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>silicon. And for that rigidity, they offer 100 times the hashing power of a FPGA setup and actually use<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">less</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>power. No conceivable system could ever have Bitcoin buried any deeper in its technological soul. ASIC systems have turned the Bitcoin mining rig from something necessarily hacked-together and jerry-rigged to something necessarily made-to-order; no miner can fab his own chips in the garage.</div>
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Ultimately, ASIC devices are the last great innovation in Bitcoin mining; once you've specialized down to the chipset, there's nowhere left to turn for a 100-fold computing power increase. And in that way, we're seeing the beginning of the end of the gold rush, just as Bitcoin fever reaches a fever-pitch. As ASIC units continue to penetrate the mining market, competitive advantage is going to come primarily from more power efficiency; not by mining more Bitcoins, but by spending less electricity to mine the ones you can. The land-grab is almost over. Now it's how efficiently you work it.</div>
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The Ferocious Flagship</h3>
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<a href="http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18kcfvfsh1h7bjpg/original.jpg" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Digital Drills: The Monster Machines that Mine Bitcoin" class="image_3 wide v10_wide" src="http://www.gizmodo.in/photo/19862031.cms" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" title="Digital Drills: The Monster Machines that Mine Bitcoin" width="640" /></a></div>
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Meet the Avalon ASIC. Money cannot buy a better Bitcoin mining machine. It was designed and built front to back with Bitcoin mining and Bitcoin mining alone in mind. It cannot do anything else, but it cannot be beat at what it does. Inside its unassuming grey case is an army of specialty chips that promise 65 gigahashes per second. This is $6,800/฿72.36 equipment (at the time of this writing) that, properly utilized, stands to be worth much more. It's the beginning of the end of revolutions in Bitcoin mining. It is the endgame of an arms race.</div>
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As of now, Avalon ASICs have been the only systems to actually ship, though they're exceedingly rare, numbering only in the hundreds. Still, this handful of machines now accounts for such a large share of the collective mining community's power that they've all but completely destroyed the viability of anything that came before them.</div>
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And while Avalon started the revolution, others are not far behind. Companies like ASICMiner, Butterfly Labs, and bASIC all offer similar systems&mdash;some that boast even more power&mdash;but none of those have managed to ship. By the time they do,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">if</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>they do (many are accused of being cash-grab scams), it may already be too late to justify their multi-thousand dollar costs. Granted, many of these theoretical machines offer a little more power than the current, existent Avalon machines, but you'd rather a real machine with less power right now than a concept with more later.</div>
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<img alt="Digital Drills: The Monster Machines that Mine Bitcoin" class="image_4 wide v10_wide" src="http://www.gizmodo.in/photo/19862032.cms" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: bottom;" title="Digital Drills: The Monster Machines that Mine Bitcoin" /></div>
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<small style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://products.butterflylabs.com/homepage/1500gh-bitcoin-miner.html" style="color: #4296b5; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;">Butterfly Labs BitForce Mini Rig SC</a>, a 1,500 GHz/s machine. It's about 30 times more powerful than then current Avalon ASICs, or would be if it ever exists; its shipdate continues to be delayed. With every passing month, that higher hashrate becomes less and less of an advantage, especially considering the machine's unlisted but doubtless<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">obscene</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>pricetag.</i></small></div>
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Bitcoin has always favored early adopters, bold ones especially. Because mining difficulty increases to compensate for increased power, all advantages are temporary. But it doesn't increase dynamically. Instead it hops up once every 14 days, so advantages can be leveraged. The first Avalon ASIC to be put to use paid for itself in a mere nine days, but every additional unit follows will have more and more ground to make up.</div>
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In the meantime, the price of Bitcoin continues to bounce around wildly, and whether or not it's up at any given time is going to dictate whether running these behemoths makes money or costs it. So long as it's a safe bet that Bitcoin isn't losing its value forever though, these suckers will keep chugging along.</div>
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It's not impossible that some unlikely future event&mdash;widespread lack of interest, or the destruction of a huge share of existing mining rigs&mdash;could shake up the Bitcoin mining scene someday, giving older methods a chance at renewed relevance. But for now the future of Bitcoin mining is locked up in expensive, specialized, multi-thousand dollar boxes that sit in the corner and hum. And whether that's "stable" or "boring" all depends on if you've got one.</div>
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Digital Drills: The Monster Machines That Mine Bitcoin

Digital Drills: The Monster Machines That Mine Bitcoin Bitcoin! It's everywhere right now. Its value is dropping, spiking,...