thousands – Tech Today w/ Ken May

This morning, bitcoin split into two currencies — the original and Bitcoin Cash. The hard forking, as it’s known, resulted from heated debate over the cryptocurrency’s future, since the aging tech behind blockchain has prevented easy scaling. While a new code upgrade called SegWit2x was introduced last week as a compromise, dissenters still decided to start backing Bitcoin Cash and fork off in their own direction. The community anxiously waited for financial fallout after the schism, but aside from a temporary 7 percent drop in bitcoin value this morning, the split seems to have avoided disaster. Whether Bitcoin Cash sticks around is another question. The spat is rooted in bitcoin’s success: A year ago, bitcoin’s value hovered around $500 and slowly climbed through the new year, but started shooting up in April to top out at $3, 000 in June. That led to a higher volume of transactions, which the blockchain technology — the cryptocurrency’s ledger that verifies and tracks transactions, recording the latest in unchangeable “blocks” — was struggling to keep up with. The bitcoin network can only support 1MB per minute or seven transactions per second, according to The Telegraph , which is paltry compared to the thousands per second run through financial webs supporting credit cards, for example. To keep bitcoin growing, this number would have to go up. But the cryptocurrency community was split on how to do it. Two competing strategies arose: Increase each block’s code limit, which would store more data per block but increase server loads processing transactions, or shift smaller transactions outside the blockchain. The SegWit2x tech includes a bit of both, pushing some data outside the main network and promising to double the block size to 2MB by November. It was enough of a compromise to avert a serious and widespread cleft in the community. That wasn’t enough for some, who started backing Bitcoin Cash, which chose the former route and increased its blocks to 8MB. Today’s hard fork, which essentially launched the cryptocurrency into being, boosted its value from $200 to $370. Some bitcoin exchanges, where users make transactions and store their coins, will recognize Bitcoin Cash, including Kraken and ViaBTC — but others like Coinbase and Poloniex said they wouldn’t as they’re uncertain it’ll stick around. If you’re still not sure what this means for your supply of cryptocurrency, there are plenty of resources online to help, including Coindesk’s guide for the transition. The future of the brand-new cryptocurrency depends on more users and investors supporting it, and it’s not clear whether it will survive into the future. For now, split from bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash must jockey with the other alternatives to the leading cryptocurrency like Ethereum and Litecoin. Source: The Telegraph

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Bitcoin feud splits the currency in two

Aspiring 4K filmmakers who want the best quality can buy pro-level RAW video cameras on the cheap, or use a DSLR with an external 4K recorder like the Atomos Ninja 2 . However, the SSDs on such devices often record and dump out high bit-rate 4K video multiple times a week, so they need to be much faster and more durable than the one on your laptop. That’s where Sony comes in with its latest G Series Professional SSDs, which can write up to 2, 400 terabytes without failing and use tech that prevents disastrous frame dropping. Sony says the SV-GS96 960GB model’s 2, 400 terabyte rating will let you fully write the drive five days a week for ten years without failing, while the 480GB model (SV-GS48) gives you about half that durability. Both drives can read at up to 550 MB/s and write at 500 MB/s, but Sony adds that the drives “feature built-in technology preventing sudden speed decreases, while ensuring stable recording of high bit-rate 4K video without frame dropping.” The drives also have built-in data protection tech that protects them from power failures and connectors that can handle 3, 000 removal and insertions, “six times more tolerance than standard SATA connectors, ” it says. Performance and ruggedness comes at a price. The 960GB unit costs $539, compared to around $350 for a Kingston HyperX Savage 960GB drive, a model that’s rated to capture 4K RAW video with Blackmagic’s BMCC camera . The 480GB SSD is a bit more reasonable at $287 compared to around $190 for the equivalent Kingston model. Considering the thousands that an SSD failure could cost , filmmaker will likely see the difference as chump change. Sony says they’ll arrive in May 2017. Source: Sony

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Sony’s SSDs can withstand the torture of capturing 4K