Is the Privacy Coin Ending Zcash (ZEC)? – Somag News

According to Coin Metrics data, last year, Zcash started to stop using a negative price.

In January 2018, Zcash saw the peak in the number of active addresses with more than 100.000 active addresses and the number of active addresses started to decrease gradually. The decline started slowly and Zcash maintained its 90,000 active addresses until June 2018.

Throughout the rest of 2018, things have changed dramatically in July 2018, where the number of active addresses has halved, before continuing to decline rapidly to date. The number of active Zcash addresses has now reached 11.218, the lowest level since October 2016.

Zcash uses a complex cryptography (encryption) to allow completely private crypto currency transactions. However, unlike Monero, custom operations are not enabled by default. As a result, the use of privacy features has historically been low. Worse still, many crypto currency exchanges began to delistice their privacy coins due to legal concerns, and as a result, such crypto currencies lost momentum.

Zcash also fell to close to 97 percent, dropping to its current value of $ 27.84 after its $ 900 peak in January 2018 over the past two years. The price has just fallen by almost half in the last year.

People trade less Zcash now. Zcash saw last years trading volume continue to decline as it fell to $ 150 million in the second quarter of 2019, after a summit of over $ 300 million per day.

Although Zcash has seen the number of active wallet addresses decrease in recent months, the market-wide trend is different. Many other crypto currencies have recently experienced a significant rise in network activity. Among them, Decred (DCR) stands out, and the crypto currency has seen a dramatic increase in the number of active addresses in the second half of 2019, moving towards the all-time high, and trading volume has risen considerably. However, the price of the DCR fell by 30 percent during the same period.

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Is the Privacy Coin Ending Zcash (ZEC)? - Somag News

Sorry But Bitcoin Can Still Drop to $2.7K While Everyones Bullish – Cointelegraph

As the Bitcoin price (BTC) begins to slowly ascend, the question on everyones minds is whether the latest bottom is in, or whether there is more pain ahead.

In this article, I will aim to provide some insight as to what one can expect based on the information from the charts.

Daily crypto market performance. Source: Coin360.com

BITCOIN CME futures daily chart. Source: TradingView

In last week's analysis, I pointed out that the CME gap was higher than the weekend price, 7% higher in fact, and as expected this gap was filled on Dec. 4 as a $560 candle appeared out of nowhere taking the price from around $7,240 to $7,800 in a matter of minutes.

One thing that is worth noting here is that although the Bitcoin price experienced this explosive move, the price was only maintained for a few hours, before returning to its previous level. With this in mind, lets consider the gap that needs to be filled this forthcoming week.

The Bitcoin price closed on the CME Futures charts at $7,495, and at the time of writing this Sunday evening, Bitcoin is trading at around $7,514. With barely any difference in the price this week, the CME gap filling will not be something so easy to spot unless, of course, the price of Bitcoin continues to rise.

If Bitcoin gains $200-$300 or higher throughout the week, those in longs should keep an eye on $7,495 to avoid any unpleasant repercussions. But what else could be in store this week?

BTC USD MACD daily chart. Source: TradingView

Again, looking at last weeks outlook, the moving average divergence convergence (MACD) indicator looked poised for a bullish cross. As can be seen from the chart above, the cross occurred marking the end of the current bearish trend that the digital asset had been experiencing since the MACD crossed bearishly on Nov. 9.

Whilst the MACD cannot give an expected duration for the next bullish phase, it is at least moving in a northbound direction for the time being. What one would hope to see next is this being replicated on higher time frames as it is the weekly MACD that spells elation or doom.

BTC USD MACD Weekly chart. Source: TradingView

The weekly MACD is quite possibly the best indicator one can use when attempting to time when to buy and sell Bitcoin. Since October 2016, there have been just 8 crosses. Four bullish and four bearish, and we are currently awaiting a bullish cross.

What concerns me about the current pattern on the MACD is that it currently mimics that of the same pattern around April/May 2018, a period that many may recall was full of crypto twitter experts calling the bottom.

However, what happened next was 10 more months of a bearish trend. So is Bitcoin going to experience this yet again so soon? What about the miners? What about the halving? What about the stock-to-flow ratio that people are ramming down our throats as just cause for another bull run?

Well, I decided to see if any other indicators correlate, and it turns out, they do.

BTC USD RSI weekly chart. Source: TradingView

The weekly RSI is also now showing the same pattern as it did around April/May 2018. Should the same pattern continue, the bottom falls around May 2020.

This is quite interesting, considering the mining reward halving falls at the same time; and historically the price of Bitcoin typically increases after, not before the event.

Thus, for now, there could still be validity in the stock-to-flow ratio argument as well as the mining reward halving impact. But how much did the Bitcoin price fall during this last phase? Can that give us an indication as to what price the bottom could be?

BTC USD Price: Coinmarketcap

During the first 2 weeks of May 2018, BTC price ranged between $8,800 and $9,900. This would average out at around $9,500. The bottom of this bear cycle was on Feb. 8, 2019, at a price of $3,391.

That represented a further 64% downside, which if applied to todays Bitcoin price of $7,514 would put the bottom around $2,705 by May 2020.

However, history has no real reason to repeat itself. Yet for some reason, it does tend to rhyme, so perhaps the next few months are only going to get worse for the digital asset.

BTC USD weekly chart. Source: TradingView

Last week provided lots of opportunities for Bitcoin to begin to approach the $10,000 range once more. But sadly, after the CME gap was filled, the price failed to hold up. As such, Bitcoin needs to maintain its price above $6,900 which is shown as support on the weekly Bollinger Bands (BB) indicator to have any hope of regaining some of its value.

Should the BTC/USD increase throughout the week, the resistance I see as key for the bulls is around $9,200, which could then flip the Bitcoin market bullish.

I dont think I need to repeat the bearish scenario. The $6,900 level must be defended. Should this price breakdown, I expect an aggressive sell-off to lows around the $2,700 region over the next 5-6 months.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the @officiallykeith and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph. Every investment and trading move involves risk. You should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Originally posted here:

Sorry But Bitcoin Can Still Drop to $2.7K While Everyones Bullish - Cointelegraph

Ripple (XRP) Price Poised For Further Gains, Bitcoin Rising – newsBTC

Ripple price is showing a lot of positive signs against the US Dollar, similar to bitcoin. XRP price remains well supported and it could rally above $0.2320.

In the past few days, there was a steady rise in ripple price from the $0.2150 support area against the US Dollar. XRP price gained pace above the $0.2180 and $0.2200 resistance levels.

Moreover, there was a close above the $0.2240 resistance and the 100 hourly simple moving average. It opened the doors for more gains and the price climbed above the $0.2280 and $0.2300 levels.

However, the price seems to be facing a strong resistance near the $0.2320 area. A high was formed near $0.2326 and the price is currently correcting lower. It already traded below the 23.6% Fib retracement level of the recent wave from the $0.2240 low to $0.2326 high.

Ripple is currently testing the $0.2280 support area. Besides, the 50% Fib retracement level of the recent wave from the $0.2240 low to $0.2326 high is near the $0.2283 level.

More importantly, there is a key bullish trend line forming with support near $0.2265 on the hourly chart of the XRP/USD pair. Additionally, the trend line coincides with the 61.8% Fib retracement level of the recent wave from the $0.2240 low to $0.2326 high.

Therefore, the price is likely to find a strong support near the $0.2240 zone. If there is a downside break below $0.2240, the price could correct substantially and it might test the $0.2180 level.

On the upside, an immediate resistance is near the $0.2300 level. The main resistance area is near the $0.2320 level, above which the price could continue to rise towards the $0.2350 and $0.2400 resistance levels in the coming sessions.

Ripple Price

Looking at the chart, ripple price is trading with a bullish bias above the $0.2240 support area. As long as there is no close below $0.2240, there are high chances of a strong upward move above the $0.2320 and $0.2350 levels.

Hourly MACD The MACD for XRP/USD is slowly moving into the bearish zone.

Hourly RSI (Relative Strength Index) The RSI for XRP/USD is currently correcting lower and it is near the 50 level.

Major Support Levels $0.2280, $0.2240 and $0.2180.

Major Resistance Levels $0.2300, $0.2320 and $0.2350.

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Ripple (XRP) Price Poised For Further Gains, Bitcoin Rising - newsBTC

Token Outperformed Bitcoin in 2019 According to Bloomberg News – U.Today

Cover image via 123rf.com

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed here is not investment advice it is provided for informational purposes only. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of U.Today. Every investment and all trading involves risk, so you should always perform your own research prior to making decisions. We do not recommend investing money you cannot afford to lose.

Over the last two years, Ethereum seemed to be one of the most troubled platforms and cryptos with its congestion problems, Tron trying to lure its developer teams over to its blockchain, etc.

Now, that on Sunday, December 8, the long-expected Istanbul hard fork finally took place, some analysts are predicting Ether price to start growing and recover the $423 level soon after June next year.

The Twitter-famous analyst CryptoWolf (@IamCryptoWolf) has brought some good news to the Ethereum community, sharing his thoughts on the ETH price spike he expects as early as summer next year (right after the BTC halving, funny as it sounds).

The expert believes that after more than half-a-year of a correction due to the Falling Wedge and three months of MACD bullish divergence, ETH has already broken out of its resistance area and is going to start surging soon.

CryptoWolf believes that at some point after June next year, Ether price will reach the 61.8 Fib level which means 0.05661 BTC or $423 in traditional fiat.

Image via Twitter

Another trading expert in digital assets - @CryptoMichNL has shared a similar bullish forecast on ETH.

Speaking of the recent Ethereum FUD, he compares it with the FUD that hit the community when Binance announced theban for US citizens on the main platform as it was about to open its American branch.

I dont expect much more downside, he says about Ethereum price.

One of Ethereum developers, Nina Breznik, spreads the word, saying that next year the Ethereum Foundation intends to stop funding to internal dev teams, starting with young projects.

Ethereum has stopped finding her particular project PlayProject as of December 1.

In response to that, the Tron chief executive, Justin Sun, who views Ethereum as a major competitor and has been doing his best to let Tron surpass it since Trons migration from Ethereum to the mainnet, calls on Ethereum devs to migrate to Tron. Again - the first time he did it was a year ago.

In the fall last year, Justin Sun announced the creation of a special fund for financing those devs to decide to ditch Ethereum and start working on the Tron chain.

Original post:

Token Outperformed Bitcoin in 2019 According to Bloomberg News - U.Today

Crypto Market Update: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) See Mild Green While Tezos (XTZ) Storms into Top – U.Today

Cover image via 123rf.com

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed here is not investment advice it is provided for informational purposes only. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of U.Today. Every investment and all trading involves risk, so you should always perform your own research prior to making decisions. We do not recommend investing money you cannot afford to lose.

Over the last two years, Ethereum seemed to be one of the most troubled platforms and cryptos with its congestion problems, Tron trying to lure its developer teams over to its blockchain, etc.

Now, that on Sunday, December 8, the long-expected Istanbul hard fork finally took place, some analysts are predicting Ether price to start growing and recover the $423 level soon after June next year.

The Twitter-famous analyst CryptoWolf (@IamCryptoWolf) has brought some good news to the Ethereum community, sharing his thoughts on the ETH price spike he expects as early as summer next year (right after the BTC halving, funny as it sounds).

The expert believes that after more than half-a-year of a correction due to the Falling Wedge and three months of MACD bullish divergence, ETH has already broken out of its resistance area and is going to start surging soon.

CryptoWolf believes that at some point after June next year, Ether price will reach the 61.8 Fib level which means 0.05661 BTC or $423 in traditional fiat.

Image via Twitter

Another trading expert in digital assets - @CryptoMichNL has shared a similar bullish forecast on ETH.

Speaking of the recent Ethereum FUD, he compares it with the FUD that hit the community when Binance announced theban for US citizens on the main platform as it was about to open its American branch.

I dont expect much more downside, he says about Ethereum price.

One of Ethereum developers, Nina Breznik, spreads the word, saying that next year the Ethereum Foundation intends to stop funding to internal dev teams, starting with young projects.

Ethereum has stopped finding her particular project PlayProject as of December 1.

In response to that, the Tron chief executive, Justin Sun, who views Ethereum as a major competitor and has been doing his best to let Tron surpass it since Trons migration from Ethereum to the mainnet, calls on Ethereum devs to migrate to Tron. Again - the first time he did it was a year ago.

In the fall last year, Justin Sun announced the creation of a special fund for financing those devs to decide to ditch Ethereum and start working on the Tron chain.

Read more here:

Crypto Market Update: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) See Mild Green While Tezos (XTZ) Storms into Top - U.Today

Bitcoin SV Node project receives Chainsights Award for Blockchain Technology Breakthrough of 2019 – CoinGeek

Bitcoin Association Founding President Jimmy Nguyen accepted a CHAINSIGHTS award in Beijing on behalf of the Bitcoin SV Node project, which was feted as one of the Blockchain Technology Breakthroughs of the year. The award recognizes blockchain applications that took the lead in combining blockchain technology with actual application scenarios in 2019. The Bitcoin SV Node is a project of the Bitcoin Association, the global industry organization which advances Bitcoin SV; its lead developer is Daniel Connolly and technical director is Steve Shadders, and they lead work by a strong development team at nChain.

The honor was presented at the red-carpet EDGE Awards hosted in conjunction with the T-EDGE technology conference. The event is one of biggest technology summits in China, organized by Chinese tech media outlet TMTPost and blockchain news and data provider ChainDD. It comes just one day after the Bitcoin Association successfully hosted its first BSV China conference in Beijing where Nguyen was a featured speaker along with Bitcoin creator Dr. Craig S. Wright.

The winners were chosen after a public poll, and then final selection by a special judging panel. The award focused on projects that create a big breakthrough in key technology, and applications that create easier and optimized solutions for blockchain use.

This year, the Bitcoin SV Node projects work has focused on technical improvements to achieve massive scaling of the Bitcoin networkwhich was Bitcoins original Satoshi Vision. The BSV network now regularly surpasses BTC for more daily transaction volume and bigger average block sizes. Last week, for the first time, the BSV network also surpassed Ethereum in 24 hour transaction volume on certain daysreaching over 850,000 transactions in 24 hours. BSV is the only blockchain project seeking to massively scale to support high transaction volume, keep fees super low to enable micropayments and microtransactions, and provide bigger data capacity for enterprise uses.

China is recognizing the power of BSVs technical achievements for blockchain scaling. This past week, Nguyen and Dr. Wright have taken a power-packed trip to Beijing, giving lectures to students at Asias #1 ranked Tsinghua University, as well as doing speaking appearances and meetings with business and technology representatives. Joining them are Bitcoin Associations China team China Manager Lise Li and China Ambassador Lin Zheming, CEO of Mempool.

Legal mind promotes a business friendly Bitcoin message

Theres no doubt Nguyen has been one of Bitcoins most prominent and energetic advocates. As Bitcoin Association president, he has spent much of the past year travelling the world and appearing on many stages to deliver Bitcoin SVs message of massive scaling, real business use, true economic benefits, protocol stability, and legal compliance.

A former digital technology lawyer since the 1990s, Nguyen worked with many businesses to navigate early growth of the Internet economy. With that experience, Nguyen highlights that Bitcoinlike the Internetwill only achieve global usage by winning business and government support with a legally responsible approach.

This message is making Bitcoin, as Satoshi Nakamoto originally intended it, far more appealing to large enterprises, institutional investors and world governments. After years of unfulfilled promises and uncertainty over how Bitcoin should actually function, many investors and potential enterprise users had backed away. This had a negative impact not only on Bitcoin adoption, but also its unit value.

Chinas leadership in blockchain

China has been a leader in the blockchain industry for years including for mining and mining hardware, and application development. Recently, Chinas President Xi Jinping gave a high-profile speech recognizing blockchain as one of the core innovative technology sectors that China should lead.

TMTPost was founded in 2012, and has become one of Chinas leading business and technology media sources. It publishes in both Chinese and English.

ChainDD spun off from TMTPost in 2018, and is a blockchain news and data provider. It is the number 1 blockchain-related news app in China, and has also launched US operations to expand its global presence.

Editors note: This article has been updated with new details.

To receive the latest CoinGeek.com news, special discounts on CoinGeek Conferences and other inside information direct to your inbox, please sign up for our mailing list.

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Bitcoin SV Node project receives Chainsights Award for Blockchain Technology Breakthrough of 2019 - CoinGeek

Alfresco Adds Powerful, New Information Governance to Reduce Effort to Discover, Manage, and Hold Records Wherever They Live – Business Wire

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alfresco Software, a commercial, open source software company, announced today the availability of powerful, new Information Governance capabilities for the Alfresco Digital Business Platform. Alfresco has updated its Alfresco Governance Services, introduced new Federation Services that enable Manage in Place records management, enhanced its E-Discovery and Legal Hold with artificial Intelligence (AI), and added Governance to Desktop Synchronization.

Managing exponential increases in regulatory changes (e.g. The European Unions General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR], the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA], Californias Consumer Privacy Act [CCPA] etc.) has lead to an upsurge in compliance risk, and the accompanying rise of regulatory fees (and fines) are some of the many significant, ongoing concerns for executives across all organizations no industry or government is immune.

Tony Grout, Chief Product Officer, Alfresco, said: Businesses and government agencies have a duty to protect their customers or citizens personal information and adhere to policies and procedures that include demonstrating a clear audit trail of compliance. The Alfresco Digital Business Platform offers automated records management and AI-assisted information governance for compliance officers and data caretakers. Our solution can help them minimize risk and protect the integrity of electronically stored information (ESI) across multiple, different and disparate repositories, and take this level of control all the way to a users' desktop.

New Federated Search and Manage-in-Place Records Management

Alfresco Federation Services is a new addition to Alfrescos portfolio and provides a powerful federated search and manage-in-place functionality to access, control and govern content residing in more than sixty different business and content repository types. This also enables users to conduct a search across multiple, disparate databases from a single application and without the need for content migration.

This allows users to search, view, and manage content from Alfresco and non-Alfresco repositories (e.g. Network File Shares, OpenText, Documentum, Microsoft SharePoint, Dropbox and more) from a single search user interface (UI) and take action upon the search results for instance, place the content on hold or export it in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) XML export format for ingestion into e-discovery or review tools.

Grout noted: Regardless of where the content lives, users can search and govern documents living in Dropbox, Documentum, FileNet, Sharepoint, Google Drive, Jira tickets, Slack and email conversations, and many other content repositories without ever leaving their Alfresco environment.

With Federation Services, Alfresco Governance Services now provides a single point of access - with a modern responsive user interface - to all the information resources in an organization. With Alfresco Federation Services powering federated records management, users are able to improve information governance across all their content repositories from the same Alfresco user experience.

Search and Legal Holds Supercharged with Artificial Intelligence

Alfresco Governance Services now includes enriched search and Legal Hold supercharged by AI. The Legal Hold process is frequently complex due to the sheer volume of structured and unstructured data that needs to be scanned and evaluated, resulting in massive scale and costly e-discovery tasks. Alfresco uses AI to enrich the discovery of relevant content and metadata, thus helping accelerate the identification, hold, and control of legally-sensitive information.

Grout added: Legal Hold is not a new concept, but the complexity and challenge of e-discovery grows exponentially when data needs to be retrieved or managed across geographic borders and across different systems. Special compliance and operational issues arise concerning privacy and protection laws in the location where the content is stored adding to the overall complexity of managing the data. Transferring content between jurisdictions within a country can also raise issues. By using Alfrescos Digital Business Platform, users can manage the data that may be relevant to an e-discovery task, manage discovery-associated costs, and create a holistic view of the data lifecycle of their organization.

Alfresco's AI-assisted Legal Hold can significantly help legal and IT professionals by providing enhanced document search and management capabilities, better enabling them to quickly and comprehensively identify the facts and relevant content that matter for litigation purposes for improved, cost-effective legal outcomes.

Grout continued: Importantly, legal and IT professionals can continue to use the applications that they are most accustomed to using (for example, Microsoft Outlook and/or others) to perform their Legal Hold discovery, which means they dont have to learn new programs or struggle through complex, new processes.

Desktop Synchronization

Further, the Alfresco Digital Business Platform now includes Desktop Synchronization, which not only synchronizes content between a repository and a desktop, but also synchronizes the records management policies associated with that content. This ensures all documents even those working documents stored on a user's desktop retain a predefined level of governance.

When a user accesses a document and reviews it on their desktop computer, they will have the same record management policies applied as if they were viewing the document from the source repository. If a user declares a document as a record on their desktop, then that document will automatically be declared a record in the repository and on any other desktop computers that synchronize with that piece of content.

Additional Information Governance Innovation

Other new additions and capabilities on the Alfresco Digital Business Platform include:

Grout added: Organizations are facing stricter compliance regulations and the prospect of substantial penalties. Even though many have responded to immediate pressures, Alfresco Governance Services provides capabilities that can better enable these organizations to more effectively and efficiently manage their risk and control processes. And those organizations that deliver an improved quality of information governance will be able to offer improved customer service and outcomes, reduce their compliance costs, and mitigate the risks in their operations.

About Alfresco

Alfresco Software, Inc. (Alfresco) is a commercial, open source software company that builds and markets a cloud-native, process, content and governance intensive Digital Business Platform. It is a single, integrated platform built from the ground up by Alfresco and is used to digitize processes, manage content and securely govern information. Alfresco is used by more than 1,300 industry-leading organizations, including Cisco, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Delta Dental, Liberty Mutual, LexisNexis, Pitney Bowes, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, NASA, RBC Capital Markets and the US Navy Department. Founded in 2005, Alfresco has its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and operations in Atlanta, GA., Maidenhead and London, UK, and Sydney, Australia. For more information about Alfresco, please visit http://www.alfresco.com.

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Alfresco Adds Powerful, New Information Governance to Reduce Effort to Discover, Manage, and Hold Records Wherever They Live - Business Wire

The Simpsons even predicted the Anthony Joshua v Andy Ruiz Jr rematch – GIVEMESPORT

Anthony Joshua produced one of the best performances of his career to defeat Andy Ruiz Jr in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night.

The 30-year-old is the heavyweight champion of the world once more following his unanimous points victory over the Mexican.

Joshua knew he could ill-afford to suffer another defeat against Ruiz, who pulled off a huge upset back in June, and he came back and produced a tactical masterclass to silence his doubters.

"I have got a long way to go, Joshua told BBC Radio 5 Live after the fight. It's not about me, it's about Britain. We have taken boxing to the world and I'm always here to support grassroots boxing.

I don't want to talk too much because I have done that a lot in the past, and a big mouth is not what people respect.

While Joshua was the bookies favourite to win the fight, the outcome was far from a foregone conclusion.

Ruiz Jr had already beaten AJ once and many fancied him to end his opponents career.

But did The Simpsons correctly predict that Joshua would be too strong for Ruiz?

As youre probably already aware, The Simpsons boasts a remarkable track record when it comes to predicting future events.

The hugely-successful animated series correctly predicted that Donald Trump would become the US President, the NSA spying scandal, various Super Bowls, FIFAs corruption scandal, future technology and much more.

Theres loads of evidence on YouTube and elsewhere on the internet and, to be honest, its a bit spooky.

Now, this latest prediction is a bit more light-hearted than others.

A still from the fight between Drederick Tatum and Homer Simpson looks extremely similar to a punch that Joshua landed on Ruiz Jr.

And many people on social media were quick to make the same joke

You have to admit, the two shots side-by-side are almost identical. Weird, huh?

The Simpsons episode in question first aired back on November 10, 1996. So the creators were 23 years ahead of their time on this occasion.

Ruiz probably wont be overly pleased at being compared to Homer, although he has admitted that he came into the Joshua rematch in poor shape.

I gained too much weight, he told reporters. I dont want to give excuses, he won. He boxed me around. If we do a third fight you best believe Im going to get in shape. Ill be in the best shape of my life.

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The Simpsons even predicted the Anthony Joshua v Andy Ruiz Jr rematch - GIVEMESPORT

Artificial intelligence will affect Utah more than other states, new study says – Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY Utahs economy could be more affected by artificial intelligence than other states, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

The study predicted that Salt Lake and Ogden-Clearfield would be among the 10 top regions in the United States for workforces impacted by artificial intelligence.

Up to this point, most research surrounding the impact of technology on employment has focused on the effect of automation on blue-collar jobs, like clerical, manufacturing or construction jobs.

But this report predicted that in the future, artificial intelligence will actually have the most profound impact on white-collar fields like law, engineering and science. That includes tech-based economies like Utahs Silicon Slopes.

Among the most AI-exposed large metro areas are San Jose, California, Seattle, Salt Lake City and Ogden, Utah all high-tech centers, the study states.

What explains this shift in the types of jobs affected by artificial intelligence and how will Utah and other states across the country be affected by it?

Who could be affected?

Much of the discussion about artificial intelligences potential impact on the future whether optimistic or apocalyptic lumps it in with other forms of automation, including robotics and software, the report states.

But the role of artificial intelligence in the future economy should be considered on its own, said Mark Knold, senior and supervising economist for the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

Thats because artificial intelligence involves programming computers to perform tasks which, if done by humans, would require intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, prediction or planning, as defined by the report.

This means that artificial intelligence could potentially replace jobs which involve not just what humans can do, but how humans think. Thats why artificial intelligence could threaten jobs that are typically considered white collar because they primarily deal with human reasoning and problem solving, said Knold.

Artificial intelligence will be a significant factor in the future work lives of relatively well-paid managers, supervisors and analysts, the report states.

But Dan Ventura, professor of computer science at Brigham Young University, said that right now, artificial intelligences primary strength is in tasks involving pattern recognition, such as facial recognition or medical diagnostics, he said, and even those advancements have been subject to criticism for inaccuracy and racial bias.

AI is getting really good at pattern recognition and finding patterns in data, better than humans in some cases, said Ventura. I can say with some level of confidence that the types of jobs that involve that kind of work are potentially vulnerable to being displaced by AI.

But artificial intelligence is nowhere near being able to take on such complex tasks as making judgments and complex decisions, said Ventura. For example, artificial intelligence could detect the presence of a tumor but it would take a human doctor to decide whether to operate, perhaps in concert with discussions with the patient or the patients family.

The kinds of jobs where theres a lot more judgment, subjectivity, human impact, they arent even in the ballpark of being able to do something like that right now, said Ventura. I dont think those kinds of jobs are in any kind of danger in the near future, he said.

The upshot

Both Ventura and Knold say AI shouldnt be viewed only through the lens of fear.

While some industries are likely to be disrupted and some jobs will become obsolete, Ventura predicts, artificial intelligence could also actually create new jobs.

Those jobs could be complementary to work performed by artificial intelligence, such as quality control, or could involve making decisions about information produced through artificial intelligence. In some professions, artificial intelligence could speed up or take care of the busy work, said Ventura, leaving the human professionals more time and resources to focus on decision-making or qualitative analysis.

Knold added that demographic trends indicate that as the baby boomer generation ages out of the workforce, the younger generation which is less populous wont supply enough workers to replace the jobs that the older generation has vacated, said Knold.

In the future, when you have less human brains around, artificial brains could become more valuable and more profitable, he said.

Artificial intelligence could help companies thrive even with less human workers, he said.

The fear is that AI will replace workers and youll have higher unemployment, said Knold. But I think what it will do is help replace missing workers and not displace existing work.

Ventura said that while making such predictions is important to help people start thinking about what careers and skills to build to be prepared for the future, as this technology is still rapidly developing, its very difficult to know how it might actually affect the workforce.

Its important to take this kind of analysis with a grain of salt, said Ventura. Predicting the future is notoriously difficult.

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Artificial intelligence will affect Utah more than other states, new study says - Deseret News

Artificial intelligence apps, Parkinsons and me – BBC News

In my work as a journalist I am lucky enough to meet some brilliant people and learn about exciting advances in technology - along with a few duds.

But every now and then I come across something that resonates in a deeply personal way.

So it was in October 2018, when I visited a company called Medopad, based high up in London's Millbank Tower.

This medical technology firm was working with the Chinese tech giant Tencent on a project to use artificial intelligence to diagnose Parkinson's Disease.

This degenerative condition affects something like 10 million people worldwide. It has a whole range of symptoms and is pretty difficult to diagnose and then monitor as it progresses.

Medopad's work involves monitoring patients via a smartphone app and wearable devices. It then uses a machine learning system to spot patterns in the data rather than trying to identify them by human analysis.

In its offices we found one of its staff being filmed as he rapidly opened and closed his fingers - stiffness in these kind of movements is one of the symptoms of Parkinson's.

As we filmed him being filmed, I stood there wondering whether I should step in front of the camera and try the same exercise.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

For some months, I had been dragging my right foot as I walked and experiencing a slight tremor in my right hand.

I had first dismissed this as just part of getting older, but had eventually gone to see my GP.

She had referred me to a consultant neurologist, but at the time of filming I was still waiting for my appointment.

As we left Medopad, I clenched and unclenched my fingers in the lift and reflected on what I had seen. A few days later my coverage of the project appeared on the BBC website.

Three months on, in January this year, I finally met the consultant.

She confirmed what I had long suspected - I was probably suffering from idiopathic Parkinson's Disease. The "idiopathic" means the cause is unknown.

As I got to grips with the condition and started a course of medication, I quickly found out that there are all sorts of unknowns for people with Parkinson's.

Why did I get it? How quickly will the various symptoms develop? What are the hopes of a cure?

There are no reliable answers.

My response has been to take a great interest in how the technology and pharmaceutical industries are investigating the condition.

Developments in artificial intelligence, coupled with the availability of smartphones, are opening up new possibilities, and this week I returned to Medopad to see how far it had progressed.

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I asked the firm's chief executive, Dan Vahdat, whether he had noticed anything that suggested I might have a special interest in Parkinson's when I first visited.

"I don't think we noticed anything specifically," he said.

"But - and that's weird for me to tell you this - I had this intuition that I wanted to get you to do the test."

That, of course, did not happen but over the last year there has been a clinical trial involving London's King's College Hospital.

People with Parkinson's have been given a smartphone app, which their relatives use to record not just that hand-clenching exercise but other aspects of the way they move.

"We think this technology can help to quantify the disease," Dan explained.

"And if you can quantify the disease, it means you can see how the disease progresses.

"It gives you lots of opportunities, in terms of treatment adjustments, interventions at the right time, potentially screening a larger cohort of patients with the technology in ways that were not possible before."

This made me think about my own situation.

Since February, I have been prescribed Sinemet - one of the most common Parkinson's drugs - in the form of two tablets taken three times a day.

While some patients see an instant impact, I cannot say I notice much effect.

If anything my main symptom, dragging my right foot, has got slightly worse. When I see my consultant every four months we discuss whether the prescription should be adjusted, but it is difficult for me to quantify my symptoms.

Dan told me this was exactly the kind of scenario they are trying to address.

"We think you will end up having a more continuous observation via machine and the doctors can look at it remotely. And with that they will be able to adjust your treatment, if needed, because potentially right now you're either overdosing or underdosing."

I am now going to get access to the trial app and look forward to finding out what it says about me.

This is just one of many projects run by a variety of companies where real-time data is collected from people with Parkinson's and other conditions via their handsets.

The search for a cure to Parkinson's goes on. We appear to be a long way off, but in the meantime quantifying a condition like mine could do a lot to improve how I and many others cope with the symptoms.

What is exciting to me is that the smartphone revolution, which I have documented since watching Steve Jobs unveil the iPhone in 2007, now promises to change healthcare just as it has transformed many other aspects of our lives.

And I hope to continue reporting on that revolution for many more years.

Read the original:

Artificial intelligence apps, Parkinsons and me - BBC News