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Tag: Blockchain

  • How do we Bring APIs Into Decentralized Web3?

    How do we Bring APIs Into Decentralized Web3?

    Blockchain-based applications are growing in popularity and underscore the decentralized Web3 movement. Simultaneously, web APIs are helping port data and reusable functionality across application types and are driving microservices development practices. So, how do we bring these two paradigms together?

    There are many cases where a blockchain-based smart contract may require data updates that only a web API request can fulfill. For example, perhaps the smart contract needs to access the latest price of a given stock ticker. Or, perhaps on-chain activities are contingent on the weather at a particular time. The ubiquity of APIs means there are thousands of helpful features available for the task at hand. Yet, integrating them into Web3 applications is tricky.

    Interestingly, the API3 Alliance is making strides to introduce an industry-standard solution to bring APIs to Web3 applications. API3 provides a vendor-neutral standard gateway to apply on top of existing APIs that helps them appeal to decentralized apps. The vendor-neutral API Alliance already consists of many APIs across various verticals and appears to be gaining more traction.

    I recently met with API3’s co-founder, Heikki Vänttinen, to learn more about the challenges of introducing traditional web APIs into blockchain development. According to Vänttinen, whereas previous solutions relied on a third-party middleware or ‘oracle,’ the best way to incorporate an API request and response system into smart contracts is through a node operated by the API provider themselves. Such a system could help blockchain-based applications leverage myriad software-as-a-service solutions, essentially uniting the two worlds.

    The State of APIs in Web3

    The number of APIs is growing exponentially. As companies reinvent themselves with digital transformation, APIs have become the glue for interconnecting the applications we use on a daily basis. When it comes to APIs, there are a growing number of potential use cases for blockchain—the technology is not just relegated to cryptocurrency; rather, it can power a number of scenarios that require smart ledgers.

    Since APIs drive much of the functionality in modern software development, it makes sense that they may be useful in decentralized app development. For example, a blockchain-based decentralized finance (DeFi) app that handles lending and borrowing may want to call an API to collect raw data for a liquidation price, says Vänttinen. Or, a smart contract may wish to acquire the cost of an asset as a conditionality for making a purchase. Hooking into public APIs to check local weather or flight arrival information could affect how smart contracts respond.

    There are many use cases for incorporating APIs into a distributed ledger system. However, “blockchain applications are not able to call APIs natively,” Vänttinen explained. The incompatibility is due to the nature of blockchain technology, said Vänttinen, as it requires consensus from multiple parties to maintain the smart contracts. For this reason, blockchain applications require a middleware piece to connect a blockchain node to an API, relaying data responses from outside of the chain.

    Incorporating APIs Into Blockchain

    As Vänttinen described, previous attempts to connect APIs to Web3 architectures have revolved around a third-party middleware node. Yet, externalizing integration responsibility in this way creates a centralized point of failure, which defeats the purpose of a decentralized environment altogether.

    Instead of relying on such a dependency, Vänttinen advocates for a “first-party oracle approach,” in which API providers operate a layer in front of their APIs. This enables a request-response mechanism for smart contracts, allowing blockchain applications to initiate API requests from on-chain and incorporate the responses into the contracts. This method retains immutability and trustlessness, which is inherent to the distributed ledger.

    One solution enabling such an architecture is Airnode, a Web3 middleware that connects any web API directly to any blockchain application. Companies that have adopted Airnode make up the API3 Alliance, which is “a collective of API providers who have signed up to enable this first-party use of their API for Web3 applications,” said Vänttinen. “Adopting Airnode is a pledge from API companies to make their API blockchain-compatible.”

    The API3 Alliance is one significant initiative aiming to extend the capabilities of smart contracts and blockchain applications. This could enable such environments to call an API to send a text message or email, or grab sports scores, collect maps data and so on. Thus far, participating APIs in the API3 Alliance come from sectors such as agriculture, biotechnology, communications, open banking, insurance, supply chain management and many others. The initiative also accepts applications from API providers that want to join the marketplace.

    Benefits of a Common Web3 Integration Layer

    So, what are the benefits of embracing an industry-standard middleware for web-API-to-blockchain connectivity? Well, according to Vänttinen, it is the best way to enable complex off-chain computation. Enacting intricate computing on the chain is quite resource-intensive, resulting in high transaction fees. By extending particularly complicated calculations externally, blockchain applications could reduce operational overhead. “The industry is long overdue for connection between the real world and blockchain,” said Vänttinen. (By real-world, I assumed he meant other architectural styles that pre-date blockchain.)

    Having a standard implementation could also reduce the development burden for the API provider to support nuanced technologies. Whereas other solutions would require someone in-house to operate blockchain nodes, Airnode is more of a plug-and-play API gateway that could be deployed on AWS as a Lambda function, Vänttinen said. This usability makes it easy for API-based services to appeal to Web3 applications, thus quickly opening a new potential growth segment.

    Of course, Vänttinen admitted, the concept of syncing with off-chain processes is still at a very early stage. There are competing philosophies about how to address it on the market, and some foundational issues have not yet been resolved. For example, most efforts have focused on Read operations to acquire raw data. The next step will be having the middleware ‘oracle’ incorporate off-chain Write capabilities, too. Furthermore, more PubSub-like formats will be important to enable event listeners capable of reactive qualities.

    Final Thoughts

    The Web3 trend is bringing more decentralized, blockchain-based applications to fruition. But, such applications can’t operate in a closed-off world. To experience the full breadth of digital possibilities, they’ll likely need to figure out how to incorporate off-chain computations and mesh with alternative communication software libraries. Naturally, this will require integrations with web APIs, which have become an important method of cloud-based communication.

    The API3 Alliance is “here to propose a solution to the API connectivity problem for Web3,” said Vänttinen. “When a data provider is blockchain-compatible, you can apply the reputation of the data provider in this decentralized data feed … The importance of this becomes more clear when you talk about connecting off-chain services and microservices with smart contracts.”

    Airnode and the surrounding API3 Alliance is one initiative spearheading the connection of APIs and smart contracts. But, this is just one method in a maturing field. What do you think about bridging the two paradigms? Comment on your experience below!

  • Can Web 3.0 Solve the Linkrot Crisis?

    Can Web 3.0 Solve the Linkrot Crisis?

    Data on the web is more ephemeral than you realize. A recent examination of linkrot and content drift by Harvard Law School found that as time progresses, web-based content is becoming more and more lost. By analyzing half a million links within New York Times articles, 6% of deep links from 2018 were found to be inaccessible, and 72% of links from 1998 were completely dead.

    The rotting web could have severe consequences that affect society’s collective understanding. Consider links used to substantiate pivotal arguments in the course of law. Studies now show that 49% of hyperlinks in Supreme Court decisions no longer function. The linkrot situation undermines humanity’s shared intelligence, which the Internet once promised.

    So much of the content on the web is outdated, inaccurate or has changed its URL destination, a problem known as content drift. Therefore, band-aids like the Wayback Machine internet archive have risen as a steward of the historical web archives. However, some proponents in the industry argue we need a more modern, decentralized, immutable reference for this historical data. You may have guessed where this article is heading—blockchain.

    I recently met with Jonathan Victor, Protocol Labs, to see how Web 3.0 and blockchain might be used to solve the linkrot endemic. According to Victor, smart contracts that reference canonical URLs could help create a more resilient web. This would, in effect, require a peer-to-peer model with shared ownership and incentive models to sustain content longevity.

    The State of Linkrot

    The longer data sits, the higher the likelihood of losing track of it. Forgotten databases and rising data storage costs can easily lead to whole networks of websites and user data being accidentally (or intentionally) destroyed. Putting so much faith in private companies to preserve data indefinitely is not viable, explained Victor.

    Public data isn’t really as public as you think it is. And older, user-generated content is often the first domino to fall. For example, a massive amount of media on MySpace was deleted in a botched server migration in 2015. In 2021, Yahoo Answers similarly erased 16 years of user-generated content in its shutdown. Surprisingly, users have little ownership or control of their data on forums and social media. A ban on Twitter, for example, could result in inactive links within posts.

    When an article points to a website, this imbues an implicit dependency on an external organization to keep the domain live, said Victor. The second dependency is on the domain owner to keep content unchanged. “If we can talk about content and how to reference it in a different way, maybe we can create references that are much more resilient,” suggested Victor.

    How Web 3.0 Can Help

    One way to solve the linkrot issue is to create a ‘fingerprint’ for web resources. This could be a canonical reference to specific pieces of content. Organizations would store and retrieve content based on a hash of that contract itself, Victor explained. Such a system would likely require an incentive-based, non-exploitative, decentralized network where web users own their data and control who profits from it.

    Some have coined this concept Web 3.0. Victor describes Web 3.0 as a broad classification of distributed technologies and tools that enable a peer-to-peer internet underpinned by blockchain.

    For example, one open source project spearheading progress on this front is IPFS, the InterPlanetary File System. IPFS is a peer-to-peer hypermedia protocol that uses blockchain to store cryptographic hashes. The project is “designed to preserve and grow humanity’s knowledge by making the web upgradeable, resilient and more open.” With IPFS, a client requests content using the hash and retrieves content. IPFS is based on Filecoin, a permissionless storage network.

    Benefits

    A decentralized nature fits the original goal of the open web, allowing creators to own and share content horizontally. If you can decouple data storage and retrieval from a specific location, it gives you an impressive ability to rearchitect modern communication, said Victor. This could have a number of benefits:

    • Redundancy: First off, a major benefit is the redundancy of data. Distributed nodes assure data is globally available and temporally accessible. Resources are in multiple locations, ensuring better global availability and temporal persistence.
    • Incentives: An incentive-based decentralized network could use block rewards to subsidize costs, helping fund storage initiatives. Building on the blockchain can also ease payment acceptance aspects — great for donation-based data hosting groups.
    • Efficiency: By using smart contracts, you can programmatically handle storage requests. “Blockchain gives you higher-level primitives to run this stuff automatically,” said Victor. This helps tie on-chain activities to real-world storage, Victor added.
    • Low-cost: It can be cheaper to store content on distributed networks than a typical cloud provider. Impressively, Victor estimated it would cost 1/1000 of the cost of Amazon. A distributed environment could also bring speed gains; similar to torrenting, seeding from distributed sources increases speed in orders of magnitude, said Victor.
    • Communal ownership: Such a model could spur more communal ownership for some content. This could benefit public-good assets that don’t have a clear owner. According to Victor, this aspect especially benefits universities and open source data initiatives that rely on public support to function.

    A Compelling Problem

    Constructing a new peer-to-peer Internet obviously has significant barriers. Namely, a decentralized structure requires a large group effort, and this community action may be difficult to encourage, let alone coordinate. It will also require consolidation around open standards and protocols, as many different decentralized projects crowd the scene. Shifting pre-existing architectures to this new style could also introduce roadblocks.

    “A lot of content on the internet becomes a public good,” says Victor. Yet, perpetual access to this content is fickle, even for well-established online communities. Some research has found the average lifespan of a website to only be 100 days. Hosting fees or accidental failures are often root causes for the loss of data.

    The fragility of the web is an issue that will take not only innovative development effort, but a radically new mindset to tackle. “It’s a really compelling problem,” added Victor. Using blockchain-based smart contracts to store canonical references for content is one proposed solution. But Web 3.0 is in a primitive stage, and to progress, it will take significant community action.

    Doing so in a way that is sustainable will be the trick. Open standards and blockchain-based protocols could allow the technical means for such a network to flourish. And a cryptocurrency backing could help incentivize participation and provide a means of funding. This decentralized non-ephemeral storage could help enable perpetual storage for the web’s most precious resources.

  • Enterprise Blockchain Adoption Hinges on DevOps

    Enterprise Blockchain Adoption Hinges on DevOps

    There is a lot of excitement around blockchain right now, for a good reason. Production use cases continue to emerge across sectors such as manufacturing, energy, air travel, insurance and finance. Gartner predicts that by 2023, organizations using blockchain smart contracts will see a 50% increase in their data quality.

    Yet, Gartner also predicts that blockchain will reduce data availability by 30%. Before its use can reach ubiquity, blockchain-based application development has some hurdles to overcome. And if enterprises are to get on board, executives will need to see tangible proof of its value in the form of reduced expenses and increased profits directly correlated with blockchain adoption.

    “Enterprises aren’t going to change their business model to adopt a new technology,” said CasperLabs CEO Mrinal Manohar. Just as it’s difficult to dramatically alter the UX for established products, it’s similarly difficult to change the developer experience for established software production routines.

    I recently met with Manohar to discuss the limitations and the changes required to accelerate enterprise blockchain adoption. According to Manohar, much of it boils down to taking a DevOps approach—reducing energy use, enabling CI/CD, ensuring stable development environments and providing room for change and ongoing testing—will be critical to spur adoption. This could also mean abstracting complexity away from the developer and end users. However, once more production proofs are out there, the shift toward blockchain will be swift and it will be massive.

    What’s Hindering Enterprise Adoption?

    Enterprise adoption comes down to UI and UX, said Manohar. He predicts blockchain will follow a similar path as the internet. In its command-line days, the internet was only adopted by die-hard techies. But once visual-based actions were possible through the browser, consumer interest exploded.

    Similarly, blockchain might see more production use once the complexity is pushed to the background. “A technology is awesome when it’s 99% invisible,” said Manohar. However, at the moment, blockchain is 99% visible, he adds. For example, it isn’t easy to spin up a node and test a blockchain app. Lowering the requirements to 50% with more abstraction, simulation and integration with cloud providers could help tremendously.

    In general, Manohar believes that four key factors are hindering enterprise adoption:

    1. Enterprises need a lower energy footprint. Attaining high throughput on a public network without sacrificing decentralization and security is tricky. If blockchain drains operations when scaled, organizations may simply opt for a centralized data store. Therefore, enterprises will require a blockchain with minimal energy requirements.
    2. Large companies want developer environments that are similar to what’s already in place. In many ways, blockchain throws out the old playbook. But such a significant shift is a hard sell across multiple IT divisions. Large companies will require blockchain abilities that plug into the existing developer stack. Using a blockchain with familiar programming languages and plugins to popular IDEs like Visual Studio and IntelliJ will decrease onboarding effort.
    3. They need more control. Blockchains typically use immutable contracts. This is great for sustaining a shared distributed history, but Manohar believes that contracts need to be more malleable to enable continual upgrades. Furthermore, there is the issue of privacy when adopting blockchain. Some implementers don’t want all 100% of data to be on the public chain. Having the ability to maintain both private and public nodes for smart contracts could help enable more flexibility.
    4. Enterprises want ongoing support. Some companies will be autonomous using open source, but most enterprises will not adopt new or emerging technology without a support email attached to it, said Manohar. Thus, there may be a need for professional services and outsourced blockchain experts.

    Applying a DevOps Perspective

    Another big boon to accelerating blockchain adoption could be considering a DevOps perspective. To Manohar, introducing DevOps into blockchain requires more continuous updates, mitigations to avoid breaking change and simulations to enable better testing environments.

    An immutable blockchain infrastructure seems to be at odds with the DevOps creed of rapid deployment. Thus, Manohar said that choosing a blockchain that enables more mutability will help upgrade contracts and allow functionality to change over time. For core infrastructure changes that affect the entire public chain, the majority of validators must, of course, accept upgrades before they are distributed.

    Simple functionality, like a push notification, could ease this process to allow a quick Yes or No response from operators.

    Another potential concern is backward compatibility. What if the aggregate introduces significant breaking change? Manohar said that while this is technically possible, it’s improbable. “That would be a controversial upgrade,” he said, and validators have an incentive to keep a sturdy system intact. “They only do it if they think it’s better for the long-term health of the network.” But guardrails on this process will help avoid edge cases. Thankfully, if a change did disturb a minority of users, a blockchain can be forked. We’ve already seen this occur with Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin, or Ethereum Classic and Ethereum, for example.

    Another shift that will help enterprises embrace DevOps in their use of blockchain will be better testing and deployment processes. It’s notoriously challenging to test blockchain applications while they are tapped into the broader network. Thus, engineers could benefit from a simulated runtime wholly divorced from the main network for testing purposes.

    The Future of Blockchain Development

    So, what does the future of blockchain enterprise adoption look like? Well, it appears we will continue to see new novel use cases emerge that use blockchain in innovative ways. For example, Manohar pointed to the use of blockchain to power an NFT digital twin, a patent marketplace, a tagging system for supply chains and the mortgage processes for a core banking system. Within these scenarios, he noted how blockchain is exorcising cost in many ways; smart contracts are being used to avoid legal fees, eliminate manual processing and improve fault attribution.

    Before blockchain can go mainstream, however, work must be done to bring other enterprises into the fold. Namely, it will necessitate more abstraction of the infrastructure layer. In this effort, low-code integration capabilities could help make API connections to ERP systems or cloud service providers more accessible.

    To inspire adoption, the economy must also change its perspective on what constitutes blockchain success. As of now, common KPIs are surface-level, like: How many wallets? What is the trading volume? Instead, Manohar believes we need to focus on proving actual cost savings from blockchain adoption. Once accountants are publicly reporting revenue gains, shareholders will demand that every company do this, he said.

    “Once that catalyst happens, adoption will happen very, very fast, and demand for blockchain in enterprises will be massive.” At that point, some years down the line, blockchain may truly power a new economy.

  • Making Blockchain-Based App Dev More Accessible

    Making Blockchain-Based App Dev More Accessible

    Blockchain has many potential uses cases outside of cryptocurrency. Established sectors such as financial, automotive, supply chain, and mobility could soon move to adopt decentralized applications and distributed ledgers. The technology has even been hailed as the ideal foundation to maintain a connected economy once humans go interplanetary.

    Recently, spectators note a swelling interest in decentralized, peer-to-peer, autonomous development approaches. Eyeing the excitement around cryptocurrency and blockchain, many developers are eager to start experimenting with their own blockchain-based applications. This incoming disruption could remove the middle man and give power back to people, says blockchain and cryptocurrency entrepreneur Max Kordek.

    However, building your own blockchain from scratch is incredibly difficult. So, I recently met with Max Kordek, co-founder, Lisk, to understand how to make blockchain-based app development more accessible. According to Kordek, there are many benefits to creating your own blockchain, but simplifying the creation process will be necessary to empower new startups and enable this new paradigm to flourish.

    Potential Use Cases

    The decentralized, tamper-proof nature of blockchain has disruptive potential to remove central authority and give more data control to the collective hive. “For me, it’s all about removing the middle man,” said Kordek. “It gives power back to the people.” Cryptocurrency is obviously the most widespread use case; Bitcoin is proof that a blockchain-based system can see mass adoption. But there are many other use cases outside of cryptocurrency where similar record-keeping is important.

    For example, the automotive industry could link data across manufacturers or share data between vehicles. NFTs are using blockchain to represent one-of-a-kind digital art objects. The airline industry is looking to blockchain to synchronize partner ecosystems. Blockchain is also transforming online gaming by substantiating in-game value systems.

    From insurance to supply chains to transportation, most industries hold a potential blockchain use case. But blockchain isn’t constrained to only terrestrial scenarios. Information systems engineers foresee blockchain powering future in-space economies. With significant funding going toward asteroid mining and Mars missions, an interplanetary humanity seems inevitable. Compared to Bitcoin, “Ethereum is a better choice for the interplanetary economy,” said David Vandervort. Gathering transactions in blocks and pinging satellites could enable monetary transactions from planet to planet. “An interplanetary financial system would have to be built on blockchain technology,” Kordek said.

    There is ripe potential in countless areas. But who will be leading this shift? According to Kordek, we may see corporations augmenting existing structures with blockchain. However, established enterprises will find it challenging to unshackle themselves from legacy systems. Instead, new startups are more likely to have a bigger say in the blockchain revolution. “It’s much more realistic that an entirely new startup adopts blockchain and structures their entire business around blockchain,” said Kordek.

    The State of Blockchain Development

    After Bitcoin was established, other developers forked the project and changed parameters to introduce new cryptocurrencies, such as Litecoin and Dogecoin. Eventually, Ethereum came along, which was unique as it enabled developers to build apps with smart contracts. However, “the developer ecosystem was horrible at the beginning,” explained Kordek. “It was the wild west of development.” To this day, it’s still very complicated to develop on Ethereum, he added. Plus, since it is open source and immutable, it’s vulnerable to security threats. “It’s like the biggest bounty program in the world—if there’s one bug, contracts are drained.” Ethereum also has scalability issues — it can only run 30 transactions per second, equating to 1 million transactions per day.

    For these reasons, it may be better to build your own blockchain. However, doing so is a difficult task. From a research perspective, this requires a lot of theoretical knowledge, Kordek explained. Blockchain also introduces new maintenance concerns—since the infrastructure is always on, it is unstoppable, making patching a bug or pushing an update tenuous at best. If hundreds of millions of dollars are dependent upon a stable network, one mistake could have drastic repercussions. The high development and QA roadblocks make prototyping blockchain-based systems from scratch challenging. “Experimentation is essential to bring an industry forward,” said Kordek. “It’s important we simplify blockchain development so more experimentation can happen.”

    Open-Source SDKs Make Blockchain More Usable

    So, how do we make blockchain more accessible so that experimentation can occur? Well, a lot of progress has already been made via ready-made open source language-specific SDKs. For example, there’s Polkadot (Rust), Cosmos (Go) and Lisk (JavaScript). Kordek is an advocate for language-specific libraries that fit a team’s programming preferences. Out of these, he favors JavaScript, as it’s generally easier to learn and already supports many web-based interfaces.

    These projects are not about the smart contracts themselves; they’re about improving your own blockchain creation process. According to Kordek, going down this route grants more control in the early days. If something is broken, you can fix and push and update. If tokens are hacked, you could roll back and adjust things, he said.

    As companies get bigger and bigger, the technology could have a centralizing effect. “How can we somehow bring power back to people?” asks Kordek. Blockchain is one profound answer, empowering new entrants to alleviate problems across industries — it could even help us boldly go where no one has gone before.

  • Unifying Partner Ecosystems With a Distributed Ledger

    Unifying Partner Ecosystems With a Distributed Ledger

    Blockchain has become famous in recent years for powering the cryptocurrency craze. But the fundamentals behind blockchain could prove helpful in other areas of the data economy, too. Because, as the value of data rises, so does the need for accurate, real-time data sharing across multiple partners.

    As we saw recently, global trade is surprisingly fickle. If a 1,300 ft long cargo ship can end up blocking the Suez Canal for an entire week, imagine how many data record incongruities the shipping and logistics industries have to sort out each day. Similarly, other partner networks, such as food distribution or airline affiliates, for example, must constantly share data back and forth to remain in business.

    Since a distributed ledger is external yet sharable with partners, it opens some interesting data-sharing possibilities. Similar to merges for collaborative software, partners would retrieve and manipulate the distributed ledger, which would act as a source of truth for status on a physical object or a piece of data. Essentially, this process could reduce manual reconciliation efforts and avoid disputes when something goes wrong.

    I recently spoke with “father of serverless” and AWS Lambda inventor Tim Wagner. Wagner, now heading Vendia, shared with me why he foresees distributed ledgers as the future for real-time, business-to-business data sharing. “Supply chains are surprisingly brittle,” Wagner said. To solve this problem, we need an “automation of that workflow that isn’t centralized any longer,” he said.

    Role of a Distributed Ledger

    A distributed ledger could be especially relevant for a multi-party supply chain. Within multi-partner agreements, data tracking is complex, and many partners struggle to come together. “Companies are struggling for a lack of truth,” said Wagner. “Everyone wants their own copy of the data, but they want it to be locked to what everyone is seeing at the same time.”

    For example, take supply chain management. Suppose an automotive parts manufacturer produces a chassis. They send it to a shipping logistics provider, who then sends it to an automaker to complete assembly of an automobile. If the chassis breaks at some point during these handoffs, whose fault is it? Without a system of record, you open a big problem of distrust, Wagner explained.

    Or, consider an airline ecosystem. Partner airlines must often coordinate multi-carrier flight plans, apply discounts or settle unused travel vouchers. Often, it’s difficult to track the journey of these transactions between organizations. An externalized ledger could help partner airlines follow the route of a single passenger, helping to ease financial settlements.

    “It’s not just about sharing, which is hard enough, but it’s really about sharing with control,” said Wagner. These days, tracing the lineage of data is critical, as is having real-time visibility into an object’s state. A distributed ledger could help these partner ecosystems have a record they can all trust. Wagner describes this as a tamper-proof, immutable record — an “unassailable source of truth.”

    Would This Replace Partner APIs?

    What’s especially interesting to the integration-minded is that the distributed ledger concept could supplant established business-to-business communication models. Over the last couple of decades, most partner integrations have moved to RESTful API connections. One company opens up data access, and another authenticated partner makes HTTP API calls to integrate data into their own application.

    Yet, the issue here is that the API is only a layer on top of a private database owned by the provider. Located behind closed doors, there’s no industry-wide real-time data synchronization. API calls are good for data retrieval and manipulation, but stringing a sequence of thousands of transactions together is difficult, described Wagner. Retaining the time-series integrity of a complex database is a little too much for synchronous calls to handle.

    Instead of opening access to an internal platform via API, Wagner believes that a distributed ledger is a better fit for certain business-to-business machine automation. “Any place where you see API-level protocols developed to maturity is a good sign; there is a good chance distributed ledgers will find greater speed,” he said. “Trying to pull that information through APIs and pray you’re finding the right data is difficult to manage.”

    For example, Wagner referred to how some animal shelters are creating a global repository to avoid siloed records. In doing so, they are making a global animal rescue schema for a unified database that could hopefully help every pet find a home.

    Communicating with the ledger would still involve calls, but likely not your typical RESTful requests. Wagner advocates for the use of GraphQL as a better method to involve clients around changes. With a GraphQL API, stakeholders can query, mutate and subscribe against changes in a distributed system. GraphQL isn’t perfect, but its easy data mechanics make it a Goldilocks-style middle ground between REST and SQL, said Wagner.

    Getting Buy-In

    A synchronized distributed ledger could help resolve disputes and reduce manual checks. But, how do we get buy-in? How can you convince an entire partner ecosystem to align around a distributed ledger as a source of truth?

    Wagner says there is usually a leader or single manufacturer leading the charge. This figure is likely a more prominent, well-respected player in the process. But for a digital ledger system to be successful, it must also satisfy other criteria too, Wagner said:

    • Data schema forethought: Agreeing upon a shared data schema may be a challenge. Ecosystems will require forethought when designing a data model for the long haul.
    • Compliance: There are many new data regulations to consider, such as GDPR, CCPA and PCI. “You can’t blindly copy data the way you used to,” said Wagner.
    • Governance: As enterprises deal with data crossing boundaries, they must apply governance measures to satisfy compliance and maintain security. This governance needs to be tightly associated with data and offer fine-grained control.
    • High performance: A distributed ledger requires operational flexibility for large objects, such as a 5 TB file, noted Wagner.
    • Redaction capabilities: Whereas some partners must see all fields, others may, by law, be limited in what they can view. Thus, a ledger must include the ability to redact fields. Wagner described this as “intentional redaction or visibility control of individual customer records.”

    Of course, different industries are at very different points along their digital journey, some more advanced than others. Change may be easier for, say, financial services supporting ACH payment technology, which Wagner described as being “ripe for natural organic expansion into a data-centric methodology.”

    The Poor Man’s Blockchain

    Tapped into the same feed, an extensive partner ecosystem could use a blockchain-esque arrangement to stay on the same page. This could help reduce manual reconciliation typically handled through email or over the phone.

    Yet, as distributed systems experts are few and far between, implementing such technologies will most likely involve a cloud platform solution, said Wagner. He jokingly calls this the “poor man’s blockchain.” Such a solution must be cloud-friendly, enterprise-focused and easy to integrate and deploy.

    As more and more critical data begins to reside outside company walls, “organizations have to reconstitute that data to work with partners,” said Wagner. A distributed ledger could, in effect, act as a sort of outsourced centralized IT, enabling a data model for serverless environments.

  • Unlocking Enterprise Blockchain Potential with Low-Code Capabilities

    Unlocking Enterprise Blockchain Potential with Low-Code Capabilities

    Since the rise of Bitcoin more than a decade ago, companies have been trying to harness the potential of blockchain technology for enterprise applications. Industries that used to operate in silos are becoming increasingly connected, and the lines of where one ecosystem ends and another begins are blurring. In this connected age, blockchain can provide organizations with new opportunities to share and collaborate with their partners, other industry-players, government organizations and even academia. 

    On a more tangible front, integration would ultimately help establish new end-customer experience possibilities and establish new revenue streams. Especially, as we continue to navigate forward in the midst of COVID-19, enterprises are looking for innovative ways to adapt their business to best operate in the new world. Beyond that, supply chain operations are more critical than ever before. Across industries, maintaining a steady flow of essential goods, protective equipment and much more is critical to the health and safety of our frontline workers. Blockchain can help manage this flow and mitigate risks, helping deliver on that need for instant agile flexibility.

    Understanding the Opportunities

    Use cases are innumerable and it’s impossible to ignore the ongoing COVID-19 crisis as we discuss the potential applications for any technology. In the short-term, blockchain provides an added layer of transparency and data accuracy — minimizing the risk for any potential fallout from supply and value chain disruption during this time. With this transparency and data accuracy comes improved tracking of important supplies and materials such as PPE and ventilators, streamlined patient consent and triage capabilities for overwhelmed hospital staff and much more.

    With that, the applications will only continue to expand as industry operations return to normal in the hopefully-near future. Government agencies can develop a seamless international credit bureau, for example. As it stands, different countries have different processes and standards for credit scores or distribution of stimulus funding. With blockchain, governments could potentially develop a universal credit system that allows for international travelers and frequent movers to reap the benefits of their positive credit scores, no matter where they are. 

    Manufacturers can use blockchain to truly optimize their supply chain operations — understanding as much information about a purchase order throughout the lifecycle of a product or part. Take a heavy equipment manufacturer, for example. Blockchain provides access to data that will allow them to understand how their equipment is being used by their customers, when each particular piece of machinery will need maintenance, how to optimize predictive and emergency repair and replacement services, and more — all while understanding and contextualizing what the impact of these external operations will have on its own internal supply chain as well. In today’s world, this information is especially valuable for manufacturers who are shifting their focus to help support the development of PPE and other COVID-19 response essentials.

    Within banking and financial services, cross-bank and cross-border transfers are exponentially streamlined with blockchain integration. Instead of requiring validation and authentication from intermediaries, blockchain allows for instant transfers, with the same level of security and assurance. From a functionality standpoint, this also brings an added layer of convenience for both the end-user and the banks involved. These same conveniences provide a crucial layer of service during times of crisis as well. Through blockchain integration, stimulus allocation can be instantly approved and deposited into bank accounts for all citizens, regardless of existing banking preferences like direct deposit.

    Similarly, in the education sector, blockchain can make it easier for student records to be transferred between universities and other academic institutions — whether a student plans to transfer a few credits, transfer full-time or study abroad. 

    These are just a few of the many use cases for enterprise blockchain. So, what’s keeping them from becoming mainstream?

    Acknowledging the Barriers of Entry

    While the benefits are undeniable, adoption has been slow. But there is definitely interest, and adoption can soon surge. Gartner reported back in 2018 that business value added by blockchain adoption is projected to reach a whopping $3.1 trillion by 2030. But, only 10% of businesses will undergo radical blockchain-driven transformation by 2022. 

    Why is adoption slow to start? Companies are dipping their toes into the water, but studies have shown that a majority of enterprises are holding back due to regulatory uncertainty (48%), trust issues (45%) and an inability to bring partners together to build a network (44%). Other studies have reported that the “very high” difficulty in platform selection, a lack of in-house expertise on use case development and questions about privacy are the top barriers of entry. 

    What will change between now and 2030? How will these concerns be directly addressed? To answer this, it is important to note that these barriers of entry derive from a lack of foundational understanding of blockchain. More education will come, and more experts will rise. That said, integration doesn’t happen overnight. Blockchain, like any other emerging technology, takes time to integrate at scale.

    It’s understandable why companies are hesitant to go all in at the moment — as organizations are often strapped for resources, and the talent that is needed to build a blockchain platform from scratch is hard to come by. That said, those who don’t invest early are likely to be left behind by thriving early-adopters. Luckily, there is a solution to the challenges that are holding adoption back — one that takes away the need for resource expenditure and dedicated developer teams.

    Leveraging Low-Code

    Low-code development platforms allow enterprises to reap the benefits of complex code, without the need to dedicate valuable time and resources toward development from the ground-up. “Plug and play” customization allows them to address specific needs within their organization, and prioritize implementation on a smaller scale without the stress of diving head-first into an infrastructural overhaul. 

    Especially during our ongoing COVID-19 crisis, low-code eliminates the need for large dev teams to develop new software applications, allowing for a streamlined, timely transition as organizations dedicate their valuable resources elsewhere to help minimize the negative impact of COVID-19 on their workforce and their surrounding communities.

    Beyond this epidemic, these benefits provide risk-averse C-level decision makers with an easy and confident investment opportunity, as well as disruptive tools that deliver on the growing need for constant innovation — in an era where agility and digital transformation are now a necessity. In fact, the main reasoning behind an organization’s low-code adoption is to accelerate said digital transformation and increase responsiveness to the business (66%, respectively).  

    Low-code directly addresses the aforementioned barriers of entry that come with blockchain investment — or any complex, resource-dependent software investment for that matter. With low-code, even non-developers can build high-tech applications. Devs are often expensive and good talent is often hard to come by. Because of this, the ability to get the same quality output with minimal input is extremely valuable.

    Beyond the simple cost and scarcity of good talent, dev teams often have significant backlogs, which make it hard for them to keep up with industry and business demands. There are benefits of having a non-developer heavily ingrained in the development process as well, as they will have an overall better understanding of the function that the application will serve, and how it fits into the overall business structure.

    Bridging Together Low-Code and Blockchain

    Upon evaluation of the barriers of entry that keep blockchain from widespread adoption, as well as the glaring benefits that low-code programming brings to enterprises with limited resources and talent, the potential for low-code blockchain to minimize enterprise concerns and justify investment is obvious.

    By reducing the need for dedicated network developers that would originally be required to build the blockchain platform from the ground-up, enterprises can build and maintain a trusted network with clicks, not code. Users will be able to create and share blockchain objects with familiar functionality — essentially interacting with the platform in the same way they would interact with any CRM data object.

    The simplicity and ease of use of low-code blockchain makes it so that trusted networks can grow organically, faster. Integration across the entire partner network is simple and can be completed with just a few clicks — making it easier to bring new third-parties on board to join the trusted network, ultimately making the blockchain platform and user network exponentially more valuable in the long-term.

    Blockchain adoption will undoubtedly pick up steam, aided by the low-code capabilities that now exist. The minimized risk and resource expenditure that comes with low-code will make blockchain adoption much more appealing to those who are currently skeptical. Additionally, once low-code serves as the entry-point for enterprise adoption, organizations will begin to expand upon the capabilities of their own blockchain networks — and ultimately drive further innovation. 

    Eventually, we’ll see new ecosystem partnerships forming, and end-customer experiences improving. Early leaders will become more comfortable with the idea of experimenting with new, previously unimaginable use cases of their own.

    Looking Ahead to 2030

    We are approaching a turning point with blockchain in the enterprise. Low-code development platforms will provide enterprises with the opportunity to adopt blockchain technology with minimal risk and proven ROI. As more enterprises build trusted networks through low-code blockchain, industry-agnostic innovation will elevate all participating organizations and deliver truly exceptional results — for both, the network partners and their end-customers as well. 

    The blockchain hype is justified. We have been searching for a way to manifest its potential without over-complicating the process of bringing it to life. Low-code does just this, without fault.

  • Why the Public Versus Private Blockchain Debate Is the Wrong Conversation

    Why the Public Versus Private Blockchain Debate Is the Wrong Conversation

    When blockchain burst onto the scene in 2009/2010, we watched as Bitcoin forever disrupted our monetary system. As the technology hits critical mass—a recent Deloitte survey showed a 2000% increase in interest in blockchain since its inception—the revolution has forked into two sides. There are the purists who want to only keep blockchains public, and the upstarts who see huge value in its private uses. 

    When lines are drawn in the sand of any disruptive change, it can seem like there is an undeniable right. But, what if we’re getting in the way of real revolution by fighting an unnecessary battle?

    Breaking Down the Beef

    The Argument for Public, or Permissionless, Blockchains

    Down with centralization, eliminate the middleman. Satoshi minimalists evangelize for a pure peer-to-peer system, uncorrupted by larger networks, corporations or governments. The beauty of Bitcoin was the emergence of databases both immutable and unburdened by firewalls, accessible to anonymous players who bought into a shared economic belief system. Complete transparency on a global scale was its defining feature. In this thrilling first wave of ICO-driven public blockchains, it was considered unsportsmanlike, if not unethical, to build and sell permissionless entities without an associated cryptocurrency. Any enterprise-driven motive would surely pollute the blockchain’s democratic roots.

    The Argument for Private, or Permission, Blockchains

    Amid all the enthusiasm for open read-and-write blockchains around cryptocurrencies, there started a rumble around the question of private blockchains. Permission-based platforms, in which access to read and write was assigned, were designed to address two vital issues:

    • Data relevancy — Bitcoin lovers champion a world in which institutions don’t have control over information and transactions. But, the reality in the enterprise world is commerce businesses need a hold on both. If the data you’re tasked with managing is relevant to only a handful of parties, why would you want to broadcast it to more?
    • Data privacy — If at the end of the day, not all data is meant to be shared at large—supplier-vendor relationships, financial transactions or health data, for instance—it has no place on a public blockchain to begin with. 

    What the Debate Is Missing

    The conversation regarding public versus private blockchain doesn’t have to be a polarizing one. It’s not an either/or debate but rather a question of application. Private blockchains don’t have to be viewed as the enemy, or a replacement for public ones. They are simply a case-specific option.

    When taken out of the theoretical arena, there is room for both open read-and-write blockchains and those with access restrictions. What we find in practice, having developed numerous blockchain applications for both entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, is that the apparently different requirements of each tend to converge over time.

    That is, many applications built by entrepreneurs will integrate with one or more large corporate enterprises at some point, and will therefore need to address their needs (affordability, speed, boundaries, etc.). Similarly, many enterprise applications are tackling obstacles that currently prevent them from making their solutions more open and capable of incorporating tokens of some form.

    Both sides are invested in the value of bringing integrity around data. So, arguing over whether to support private or public blockchains misses the point. The real world has needs for both.

    A Call for Both Public and Private

    The gifts of blockchain technology are extraordinary. It is our best defense against the threats of theft, fraud and hackers, and can bring needed efficiency to every aspect of the digital landscape. Enterprises need to ensure some level of security, privacy, compliance and performance that only a private blockchain can provide.

    We also need public blockchains. They serve an enormous purpose whose value should never be denied. But private blockchains are not the enemy. To waste time demonizing them gets in the way of our tackling larger, more urgent questions. Where is this technology going next? How can we make best use of it in our daily lives? And, most importantly, how powerful will we be if we understand we’re all in this together?

     

    Andrew Filipowski

     

    This article was co-authored by Andrew “Flip” Filipowski, co-founder and co-CEO at Fluree. Flip was COO of Cullinet and was also the founder and CEO of PLATINUM technology, inc. He grew PLATINUM into the 8th largest software company in the world at the time of its sale to Computer Associates for $4 billion dollars. Upside Magazine named him one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Information Technology. A recipient of Entrepreneur of the Year Awards from both Ernst & Young and Merrill Lynch, Flip has also been awarded the Young President’s Organization Legacy Award and the Anti-Defamation League’s Torch of Liberty award for his work fighting hate on the Internet.

  • Don’t Let ‘Hindsight 2020’ Be Your DevOps Strategy

    Don’t Let ‘Hindsight 2020’ Be Your DevOps Strategy

    The idea of DevOps originated a little over a decade ago with a desire to ensure efficiency in the overall software development and delivery process. Constant operational hurdles that have been hampering flawless and frequent delivery of applications have led organizations to think beyond and to come up with continuous improvements in their processes and tooling. Thus, DevOps has evolved into a solid practice to aid enterprises with an end-to-end feedback enabled framework that spans across various functions and stakeholders to design, develop and deliver quality software.

    The IT landscape over the last few years has changed significantly. Companies are building secure applications and large volumes of workloads are being transformed to the public cloud. Nowadays, firms are actively applying AI technologies to transform their businesses more than they were just a few years ago. Some companies are still investing heavily on building their own complex AI platforms involving expensive infrastructure, but most companies have realized the value in leveraging AI as a service offered by leading cloud providers.

    Digital initiatives and IoT have further increased the use of cloud-based services and the need for automated deployment and delivery of applications and services. Seamless integration of the CI/CD pipeline for on-premise or deployment to the cloud is possible only with a solid DevOps practice. For organizations that are ambitious and striving to get ahead of the game in order to accelerate the growth of their businesses, DevOps is indispensable.

    To successfully implement some of the current major trends in IT, organizations are required to have a mature DevOps practice in place.  In October 2019, Gartner published its predictions on technology trends for 2020. We’ll pick a few from those to discuss the crucial role that DevOps is expected to play in them, and the critical success factors for companies to be advanced forward.  

    Strategic Trends in IT and the Role of DevOps

    Hyperautomation

    Gartner’s analysis on strategic technology trends for 2020 has hyperautomation as the number one trend. Hyperautomation, which enables organizations to function as autonomous digital enterprises, will be leveraging latest technologies such as 5G networks, intelligent edge devices, advanced data analytics, expanding RPA with AI, etc. Firms aspiring to implement AI and ML on a grand scale will want to take advantage of the diverse range of complex machine learning algorithms implemented on scalable cloud infrastructure and offered as services.

    Instead of recreating everything from scratch, organizations will simply upload their data to the cloud and train algorithms based on their business processes and needs. For hyperautomation initiatives to be successful, organizations need to implement end-to-end fully automated DevOps processes with the relevant tooling to specifically address the varied needs from several perspectives. Speed, agility and ensuring an error-free repeatable process will be basic requirements for hyperautomation.

    On-demand deployment of transient infrastructure on the cloud, driven by infrastructure as code and configuration as code will be a primary requirement for rapid development and testing of artifacts that form components of hyperautomation. Fully automated pipelines for the creation and deployment of containers will become a core requirement not only for hyperautomation but in general for most applications. The involvement of DevOps to manage data virtualization, obfuscation and uploading data to the cloud will become more significant to increase the overall efficiency of the automated CI/CD pipelines for hyperautomation projects. 

    Democratization of IT

    Democratization of technology is about making technology more accessible to common people. Gartner has predicted this to be another major trend for 2020. Smartphones and the internet have already played a major role on this front and have enabled people with the technology, tools and data to help make better decisions. Democratization of technology in the IT world is about enabling the IT community and it gets more and more interesting day by day.

    With container technologies such as Docker Desktop that can run on a user’s laptop, a developer now has access to pre-configured container images of various operating systems and other platforms that can be pulled from container registries within seconds. Cloud services such as IaaS, SaaS and PaaS add to this by providing more independence to the development teams apart from making the entire process agile and faster. Democratization at these levels also leads to setting a different level of expectations on the overall velocity of development and delivery of applications. All these services in isolation, i.e. when not connected together through a strong DevOps process and toolset, will not produce the expected level of agility and speed.

    An end-to-end DevOps process works all the way: from triggering the build of a container image as the code is built, deploying an environment on the cloud, integrating with other components, testing artifacts with automated testing and finally to producing a production-worthy artifact. When IT teams get more democratic, they will run their domain the way they perceive beneficial and produce the best possible outcome with quality and speed to make their teams and the organization successful. DevOps will be the means to achieving that goal.

    Internet of Things

    Edge devices are getting smarter by the day. Mass manufacturing of intelligent controller boards, such as the ESP 8266 and ESP 32, is making it extremely cheap to build edge devices with data storage and processing capabilities locally within the device itself instead of communicating with a cloud based central system for command and control. However, such intelligent devices need to be kept up-to-date on security patches, bug-fixes, firmware updates, etc. A solid DevOps framework that integrates testing of patches/fixes, and deploys tested artifacts to remote edge devices is an absolutely essential component of an organization’s IoT ecosystem.

    Some controller boards run light-weight versions of Linux and have the capability to additionally run a Docker engine. This helps ensure consistency through deployment of updated containers via a DevOps pipeline to the edge devices. Convergence of cloud and digital transformation initiatives, especially in IoT over the last few years, has widened the scope of DevOps. Major cloud providers are already offering several services to integrate edge devices with a full-fledged CI/CD pipeline leveraging DevOps processes and tools. 

    Blockchain

    Application developers and IT managers spend a great deal of time either fixing bugs or recovering systems from breakdowns caused by bugs. If best practices, processes and tools are put to proper use, this wasted effort can be greatly reduced and the entire development and delivery process could be made more efficient. Blockchain demands building a strong foundation in IT and raises the need for higher quality in software development, delivery and IT operations on the whole.

    Organizations have to take a closer look at their current capabilities and process maturity before embarking on a journey involving blockchain. Firms that have faced failures with blockchain can certainly vouch for the fact that the failure wasn’t caused by the concept of blockchain or the algorithms that drive it. Rather they had resulted because the rest of the IT systems weren’t reliable enough to keep up with the strict demands of the blockchain systems. DevOps and automation will certainly help improve the security, quality, reliability and repeatable deployment of applications. When the systems that feed the blockchain application go through such increments of improvement, the net effect is that the organization is getting closer to implementing a solid blockchain solution.

    Success Factors

    Firms are moving fast toward the cloud for IaaS and PaaS services. As DevOps, CloudOps and SecOps are converging, CIOs are becoming conscious about building organizations that encapsulate these functions under one leadership in order to set shared goals and ensure synergies across these functions. Organizations with strict compliance requirements and governance would need to involve their operations teams to lay the rules regarding using cloud services.

    Application development teams and users are still dependent on several operations teams to design and implement secure cloud connectivity and to establish the rules around using cloud services. While a strong governance is absolutely essential, there is a high possibility for firms to lose their agility and get caught once again in a mess if these operational processes are not smoothen and streamlined. For the strategic initiatives on implementing the new trends to succeed, it is vital for DevOps to be able to operate without any hurdles.

    Below are a few critical success factors worth considering.

    Dev and Ops in a Box

    Organizational structure plays a key role in determining the success of DevOps. Keeping applications development, DevOps and infrastructure operations very closely aligned with overlapping goals, KPIs and roadmaps is a key to success. Companies that operate these functions independently without proper alignment fail to establish an organization-wide DevOps culture and rarely reap the full benefits of DevOps.

    Full-Stack Engineers for DevOps

    It is important to develop a DevOps culture across the company. At the same time, it is equally important to bring in experts who can evangelize DevOps and take a completely fresh look at how things are done. Experienced DevOps professionals can pin-point areas for improvement, and additionally help accelerate the adoption rate of DevOps. Settling for high-quality resources that have full-stack experience is absolutely essential if you are in for a long run with DevOps. Global companies should seriously consider placing such experienced resources close to the development and operations teams. While it may be cost-effective to recruit resources offshore, that may not be such a good idea if your active development and infrastructure teams are onshore. 

    Trained Internal Resources

    Training internal resources are extremely important in order to carry out the recommendations from experts and to make DevOps a habit. Trained resources have to be deployed immediately to work on DevOps initiatives alongside the experts. To establish synergy and increase collaboration, it is a good idea to send development and operations resources to some common training courses and sessions.

    Wrapping Things Up

    Research organizations are closely observing the direction in which most organizations are moving toward in order to improve their speed, efficiency, agility and their overall ability to provide services that are secure and reliable. Business strategy and technology feed each other and as a result, some key trends in technology emerge from time to time.

    We looked at some of the trends that are going to be prominent in 2020 and the role that DevOps would have in implementing these technologies. Regardless of any specific technology, it is important to automate the integration and delivery of applications. DevOps processes and tooling will help a great deal in accelerating the pace of implementing new technologies and leveraging them in business applications.

    The organization of IT teams and a focus on recruiting the right talents will determine the overall success of DevOps. Training internal staff would help sustain the culture of DevOps in companies and fuel further growth in this space. DevOps will not be an optional function any more. It will be an essential component of the culture, and firms that adapt themselves sooner to this culture will be the ones most successful in implementing the current and future trends in technology.

    — Sridhar Asvathanarayanan

  • IBM Earns Record 9,100 Patents in 2018, Tops U.S. Patent List

    IBM’s inventions include use of AI to help people converse, protect the earth’s lakes and combat voice phishing

    ARMONK, N.Y. – 8 Jan 2019: IBM (NYSE: IBM) inventors received a record 9,100 patents in 2018, marking the company’s 26th consecutive year of U.S. patent leadership. IBM led the industry in the number of artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, security and quantum computing-related patent grants.

    “IBM is committed to leading the way on the technologies that change the way the world works – and solving problems many people have not even thought of yet,” said Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and CEO. “Our clients and their customers are the beneficiaries of these innovations, particularly our leadership in AI, cloud, blockchain and security for business.”

    Overall, nearly half of the 2018 patents relate to pioneering advancements in AI, cloud computing, security, blockchain and quantum computing.

    The industry-leading 1,600 AI patents IBM inventors were granted in 2018 include new ways to use AI to help us converse and protect the earth’s lakes and waterways. AI also played a large role in the more than 1,400 security patents IBM inventors were granted in 2018, including an AI-powered security approach to combat voice phishing.

    Some IBM patents granted in 2018 include:

    • Project Debater is a first-of-a-kind AI system from IBM Research that can debate humans on complex topics. IBM inventors patented an approach to use machine learning to identify evidence, such as relevant text segments in unstructured text data, which supports or opposes a claim or topic under consideration. This could help provide advancements in how machines and humans interact in conversation.
    • IBM inventors patented an intelligent system that could be used to identify, characterize, and monitor vertical temperature profiles and gradients, which affect marine life, in lakes and other aquatic ecosystems. Analytics combined with the IBM Cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) mapping has helped IBM along with collaborators to engineer the world’s smartest lake, Lake George.
    • “Phishing” occurs when a person or computer system tries to obtain sensitive information from unknowing victims. Most recently, phishers have turned to voice phishing, or “vishing,” in which unsuspecting victims are called directly and “vishers” use a voice over IP (VoIP) system to mask their identity. IBM has patented an AI system that could, with permission from the primary user, analyze conversation patterns between two parties in order to identify attempts by one of the parties to deceive the other. The system could send an alert message in real-time to warn a potential vishing victim and help company IT experts better prevent and manage computer and mobile security threats.

    IBM inventors received more than 2,000 cloud computing patents in 2018, including a patent on a specialized monitor for unikernel-based virtual machines that takes a lightweight approach to improving isolation and security between a cloud application and its host, while also reducing provisioning times and improving performance. The approach is related to IBM’s research in container security and could enable organizations to more easily move data and applications securely across cloud and on- premises environments.

    IBM inventors also continue to break ground in the development of blockchain and its rapid pace of global adoption. IBM was granted a patent on an approach for encrypting data stored in a blockchain. Members of a blockchain network can put data on a blockchain that they would like to share with other blockchain network members.

    However, instead of storing the data openly for any of the blockchain participants to see, members can encrypt their data within the blockchain and only those that have been given a decryption key can read the data. IBM has enabled this patented capability to users of the open source Hyperledger Fabric.

    IBM researchers also patented significant inventions in quantum computing, including a new way of miniaturizing components to improve the performance of quantum computers.
    The new patents were granted to a diverse group of more than 8,500 IBM inventors in 47 different U.S. states and 48 countries.

    For more information about IBM’s patent and innovation leadership, see www.research.ibm.com/patents/

    * 2018 patent data sourced from IFI CLAIMS Patent Services: http://www.ificlaims.com

  • Blockchain Startup RNDR Surpasses GPU Capacity of Public Cloud Tech Giants with World’s Largest GPU Cloud Rendering Network

    Blockchain-based graphics rendering platform beta surpasses the cumulative on-demand GPU rendering power on the public cloud; Offers partners unlimited, scalable GPU rendering, AI, and compute on the cloud

    LOS ANGELES, October 17, 2018 – Blockchain-based rendering platform RNDR has revealed data from its Q2 beta testing survey, supporting the conclusion that its global decentralized network of graphics processing units (GPUs) is powering is the world’s largest cloud network of its kind. Topping the cumulative capacity of all GPU instances from major public cloud providers, this discovery came as a result of a survey taken by over 1,200 individuals during beta testing for the RNDR platform with regard to their contribution to the network and the amount of processing power they are collectively lending from their devices.

    Survey results showed that in total, the RNDR network is harnessing the power of over 14,000 GPUs, with 11,000 GPUs currently compatible with the platform, and a combined GPU rendering power of 1.5 million OctaneBench (OB). OctaneBench is a GPU benchmarking utility created by OTOY for its application, OctaneRender. For comparison, a .60 cents/hour G2 instance on Amazon Web Services (AWS) delivers around 37 OB, and a centralized version of the RNDR service, which launched in 2013 on Amazon G2 instances in partnership with AWS, Autodesk, and later, Google and other major cloud providers, is capacity limited  at under 1 million OB. RNDR’s decentralized technology allows the network to utilize the computing power of everyday GPU owners distributed across the world, eliminating ceilings related to capacity and network speed that exist within systems currently offered by the biggest cloud players.

    RNDR is an advancement of established cloud-based rendering company OTOY, which leverages blockchain technology and a distributed network of idle GPUs to render graphics more quickly and efficiently. The project has received early support from industry luminaries such as Hollywood producer JJ Abrams, and famed talent agent Ari Emanuel.

    Jules Urbach, CEO of OTOY, said “We have been working for quite some time now to build the RNDR network and have reached unprecedented levels in cloud computing, putting us at the top with the largest tech companies in the world. Our vision when we first began this journey was to scale and democratize rendering, creating more efficient processes and to reach not only high-power Hollywood studios, but also everyday content creators who might not otherwise have access to this technology. RNDR is the key to ushering in the increasingly virtual future of entertainment – from AR to VR to video games to film. This significant milestone further demonstrates that we are that much closer to reaching our goal, and we can’t wait to show the world what our platform can do in the near future.”

    OTOY’s sophisticated cloud-rendering technology has been used to create visuals in some of the past decade’s most notable works including Westworld, Star Wars, Avatar, AntMan and the Wasp, and many other films and tv shows, along with four out of five Emmy Nominees in this year’s Outstanding Title Design category. OTOY has also partnered with Facebook to provide post-processing tools for projects created with The Manifold camera, and Unity to enable game developers to create advanced cinematic graphics. As the entertainment space continues to evolve, applications requiring high-quality renderings in real-time will require more computing power than what is currently available. RNDR’s platform will enable the acceleration of this graphics creation, providing speed, massive data storage, instant software updates, and heavy-duty processing without the massive hardware or infrastructure costs that come with other current options.

    RNDR’s distributed blockchain GPU compute network provides the scale to make the rendering of stunning content displays widely available for the first time. The RNDR platform is currently in beta testing, with a full release set to go live later this year.

    For more information, visit www.rendertoken.com, read the whitepaper here, and join RNDR’s Telegram channel here.