Time on wire

German airline ‘Hahn Air’ on Monday declared it had issued the first airline tickets empowered by blockchain technology, in collaboration with ‘Winding Tree,’ an open-source travel distribution platform. Hahn Air provides scheduled and charter flights in Europe. The first blockchain passengers included ‘Maksim Izmaylov,’ Founder of Winding Tree, ‘Dave Montali’, CIO of Winding Tree, & ‘Frederick Nowotny,’ Head of Sales Engineering of Hahn Air. Apart from being an airline, Hahn Air is also a distribution solution for travel agents. Employing the Winding Tree platform, Hahn Air can manage the reservation requests, list inventory, manage the reservation requests, and accept payments once the booking process is succeeded. The airline accepts cash, credit card, cryptocurrency, (either the lif token or ether) as a mode of payment. Pedro Anderson’, Winding Tree’s Chief Operating Officer, and co-founder added  “One of the aspects that we are emphasizing on our side is the diffi

Avast, the cybersecurity company with over 400 million users, today admitted its internal systems had been breached by a hacker who used an employee’s compromised VPN profile to obtain domain admin privileges. Now security firm ramps up security for its product build and release environments.                                              The attack, first flagged in May 2019, was made via a staff member’s temporary VPN profile that had erroneously been kept enabled and which did not require 2FA, Baloo said. She cited likely credential theft, noting “the temporary profile had been used by multiple sets of user credentials.” The company believes the attack targeted its CCleaner product, which was also compromised in 2017 in an attack first identified by Cisco Talos. In that incident, hackers used their access to push malware through the tool, but then also used compromise to specifically target at least 20 key companies, including Cisco itself, through the delivery of a second-

IBM today announced that it will soon make a 53-qubit quantum computer available to clients of its IBM Q Network. The new system, which is scheduled to go online in the middle of next month, will be the largest universal quantum computer available for external use yet. The new center, which is essentially a data center for IBM’s quantum machines, will also feature five 20-qubit machines, but that number will grow to 14 within the next month. IBM promises a 95% service availability for its quantum machines. The New 53-qubit system introduces a number of new techniques that enable the company to launch larger, more reliable systems for cloud deployments. It features more compact custom electronics for improving scaling and lower error rates, as well as a new processor design. The fact that IBM is now opening this Quantum Computation itself, of course, is a pretty good indication about how serious the company is about its quantum efforts. The company’s quantum program also

Right now  Computer systems don’t understand time, space and causality. it hasn’t yet earned our confidence, Artificial intelligence has a trust problem. But we are relying on A.I. more and more. Tesla cars driving in Autopilot mode, for example, have a troubling history of crashing into stopped vehicles. Amazon’s facial recognition system works great much of the time, but when asked to compare the faces of all 535 members of Congress with 25,000 public arrest photos, it found 28 matches, when in reality there were none. A computer program designed to vet job applicants for Amazon was discovered to systematically discriminate against women. Every month new weaknesses in A.I. are uncovered. The problem is that today’s A.I. needs to try to do something completely different, Not that today’s A.I. needs to get better at what it does. In particular, we need to stop building computer systems that merely get better and better at detecting statistical patterns in data sets — often usi

Cisco announced early this week that it has teamed up with Google to provide free, high-speed Wi-Fi to 200 locations across India in the next two months. The planned locations are all in Bengaluru, the capital of India’s southern Karnataka state, and the region considered to be the center of India’s high-tech industry. Cisco said the public Wi-Fi zones, powered by Google Station (gStation), will be in high-traffic areas, like bus stations, government buildings, and hospitals. Those densely-populated and highly-trafficked locations struggle to provide quality connectivity to hundreds, often thousands, of devices simultaneously.  Currently, 25 zones have been implemented, and Google and Cisco’s final aim is to provide 500 zones in Bengaluru alone, before eventually expanding into other regions across India.  The public Wi-Fi plan in India is part of the global alliance the two companies announced last February, which aims to provide communities with limited connectivity around the

Tesla announced pricing for its photovoltaic tiles, and they come in at just $21.85 per square foot. It's Solar Roof tiles are made of glass layered over a photovoltaic substrate, and they serve as a replacement for traditional roofing materials. This ensures they look like the “real thing” from the ground – even though they accomplish much more than a standard roof. The fact that the Solar Roof tiles are so economical is applaudable, considering that Consumer Reports predicted back in November that the tiles would need to cost under $24.50 per square foot to compete with traditional roofing materials. Tesla accomplished this — and went one step further. Now, the company is offering an infinite warranty for the tiles. “We offer the best warranty in the industry—the lifetime of your house, or infinity, whichever comes first,” a Tesla representative told Inverse. Consumer Reports based their cost numbers assuming 30 years worth of electricity savings. They didn’t factor in local

There are two types of phone interviews -- scheduled and unscheduled. Often the first contact for a scheduled one comes by email or via LinkedIn, but theoretically, your phone could ring at any time. So make sure you answer it yourself (keep it out of reach of your two-year-old) and have a professional voicemail message. Unscheduled calls never work in your favor. If you're caught by surprise, schedule another time to talk. Nobody will blame you for saying something to the effect of, "Great to hear from you. I am not at my desk and won't be able to give this call the attention it deserves. When can I call you back?" How to ace PHONE interviews: 1. Get dressed, sit on a proper chair, at a table. Why? It creates a good attitude. 2. Secure the area from people and pet distractions. 3. Copy of CV/Resume, notes, questions you want to ask, notepad, pen/laptop. 4. Headphones to eliminate background noise. 5. Phone fully charged; all notifications turned o

Google agreed to pay $40 million for the smartwatch technology of the fashion and accessory group Fossil, the companies said Thursday, enabling the California tech giant to expand in the growing wearable tech market. As part of the deal, Texas-based Fossil Group's research and development team working on the smartwatch will join Google, which will acquire the intellectual property for Fossil smartwatches, the firms said. The move would give Google the potential to create its own branded smartwatches to compete against Apple, Fitbit, and others in the wearable tech space. "Wearables, built for wellness, simplicity, personalization, and helpfulness, have the opportunity to improve lives by bringing users the information and insights they need quickly, at a glance," said Stacey Burr, a vice president at Google Wear OS division. "The addition of Fossil Group's technology and team to Google demonstrates our commitment to the wearables industry by enabling a d

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has added Netflix as a new member of the global trade association that advocates on behalf of the film and television industry. “On behalf of the MPAA and its member companies, I am delighted to welcome Netflix as a partner,” said MPAA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin. “All of our members are committed to pushing the film and television industry forward, in both how we tell stories and how we reach audiences. Adding Netflix will allow us to even more effectively advocate for the global community of creative storytellers, and I look forward to seeing what we can all achieve together.” Netflix joins other leading producers of film and television content that make up the MPAA, including Disney, Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. The MPAA advances the business and art of storytelling, protects our members’ content across all screens, defends the creative and artistic freedoms of storytellers, and supports innovative d