technology
Nifty News: Melania Trump drops NFT, Arabian Camels produces NFT film and Whitney Houston keeps selling hits
Catch up on nonfungible token (NFT)-related news this week from restaurants to movies and music. Below is a roundup of stories you don’t want to miss. Melania Trump’s eyes become an NFT Former first lady Melania Trump launched her own NFT platform and dropped her first digital collectible titled “Melania’s Vision,” which will be on sale through the rest of the month. “Melania’s Vision” is a watercolor art piece by artist Marc-Antoine Coulon. The limited-edition digital artwork will be available for 1 SOL ($150) and includes an audio recording from Mrs. Trump. The Melania Trump NFT platform utilizes the Solana blockchain protocol and is powered by Parler, an alternative social media network. “Melania’s Vision” NFT...
$33.5 billion worth of ETH ‘trapped’ in largest Ethereum contract
The single largest Ethereum contract containing 8,641,954 Ether (ETH) worth $33.5 billion is sitting idle because it cannot be spent or sent. A Twitter user highlighted the Beacon chain contract claiming it to be the largest Ethereum contract with billions of dollars worth of ETH “trapped” inside it. BREAKING: 8,641,954 ETH ($32 billion) trapped in single largest Ethereum contract and unable to be sent or spent. Will require hard fork that hasn’t been written or specified yet. Timing and terms of hard fork still unknown.https://t.co/xcXPwbS93v — Tomer Strolight | Not interested in your trades. (@TomerStrolight) December 14, 2021 The contract in question is an Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain staking contract launched in November 2020, and it cannot be spent without a hardfork. Beacon ...
Mintable app to support minting NFTs on the layer two Immutable X protocol
Mintable marketplace announced its partnership with Immutable X, a StarkWare-based layer-two solution for nonfungible tokens (NFTs) on Ethereum, to make over 24 million NFTs on Immutable X available for sale on Mintable. This integration will enable users to deposit ETH and ERC-20 tokens with instant confirmation and no gas fees. According to Mintable’s Twitter thread, Mintable and Immutable X share a vision to scale NFT marketplaces by offering access to NFTs to the masses. 1/We’re thrilled to partner up with @Immutable X – the 1st & leading Layer 2 for #NFTs on Ethereum! All NFTs on Immutable X are now available for trade on https://t.co/NJ1lSPqL1Q! ✅ Zero gas fees✅Instant secure trades✅100% carbon neutral. Details: https://t.co/TQh7Cggq2z — Mintable ...
Solana on-chain development increases after a recent DDoS attack
Solana — whose native crypto, SOL, is the fifth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization — is leading on-chain development charts despite a recent distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. As per Santiment data, Solana surpassed the daily GitHub submission rates of Polkadot and Cardano to become the leading blockchain over the past month. The number of daily GitHub submissions for Solana reached 90 between Nov. 12 and Monday, followed by Polkadot at 76 and Cardano at 65. Daily GitHub submissions Bitcoin, Solana, Cardano and Polkadot from Nov. 12–Dec. 13, 2021. Source: Santiment The surge in on-chain development activity for Solana comes in the wake of a recent DDoS attack on Thursday that slowed down the network considerably. The fifth-largest blockchain managed to mitigate the i...
Enterprise blockchain to play a pivotal role in creating a sustainable future
Bitcoin (BTC) is often used to criticize all blockchain-based projects. This is understandable since Bitcoin was the first project to use a blockchain, is arguably the most recognizable and is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap. In the first half of this article, I will use Bitcoin as a proxy for all blockchain-based projects because most people associate blockchain with Bitcoin. Anything environmentally positive that can be said about Bitcoin will be doubly true for the vast majority of newer blockchain-based projects since Bitcoin uses the oldest version of blockchain technology. Blockchain energy consumption Bitcoin has been attacked for high energy consumption. Headlines pointing out that Bitcoin’s electricity usage is comparable to a country’s total consumption is a popula...
This App Generates Your Dream Festival Lineup Flyer Using Your Spotify Playlists
We all conjure dream music festival lineups in our heads, but a new app called Anthems is taking it a step further. When first launching Anthems, the app requests access to your Spotify account. From there, they are able to access your playlists and listening history. Anthems then takes your most-listened-to artists of all-time and constructs a festival lineup comprising a handful of those you just couldn’t stop rinsing. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I learned it would be digging through my crates. But I was pleasantly surprised by all of the selections and would be willing to pay top dollar to check out this lineup, regardless of how strange it would be to see ILLENIUM and Boombox Cartel at a music festival with The 1975 and Ca...
This Wearable Device Lets You Play Music Out of Thin Air—Without an Instrument
Learning a real instrument these days is outdated. Mictic‘s newest wearable device allows users to turn their movements and creativity into a playable “air instrument,” which can also be connected to digital audio workstations like Ableton and played like any other MIDI controller. To use the device, the user simply attaches it to their wrist like a watch. The wearable connects to a phone via Mictic’s application and its sensors measure movements to play user-selected instruments. For example, select a piano and use your hands to simulate playing the keys, and voilà—you’re Beethoven or Mozart or Stevie Wonder. Mictic will offer 15 sounds and soundscapes in a variety of musical styles and genres. Recommended Articles “We hope that people will ...
TIDAL Revamps DJ Tools With Sights on Revolutionizing How Streaming Platforms Can Aid Artists
In the highly competitive market of music streaming, TIDAL‘s strength has always been separating itself from the rest of the pack. With the recent revamp of the platform’s DJ tools, they are set to be the only one transforming the art of DJing in their own unique way. TIDAL has long offered integrations with Serato, djay Pro, Pioneer, Denon, and Virtual DJ, but now offers DJUCED and edjing as well. This means DJs will be able to select music from their TIDAL library and stream high-fidelity tracks directly to a myriad of DJ software. In continuation of their pursuit to influence the art of DJing, they’re offering curated playlists for DJs to choose from, such as rap instrumentals and afrobeat hits. Guest playlist curators like D-Nice also offer their own p...
No Tickets, No Problem: You Can Now Enter Red Rocks By Scanning Your Palm
Thanks to a new partnership between Red Rocks and Amazon, we’re now a step closer to living in a real-life Black Mirror episode. Fans entering concerts at the iconic Colorado open air venue can now scan their palm in lieu of tickets or digital barcodes using Amazon One, the company’s biometric technology. After purchasing a pass to any given show, ticket-holders will be able to gain entry simply by hovering their palm over a touchless Amazon One device at the amphitheatre’s gates. An Amazon One palm reader. Amazon Prospective users must first enroll in the Amazon One program, which has to be done in person and takes less than a minute. Recommended Articles “When a ticketholder is ready to enter the amphitheater using their palm, there is a designated entry...
New Skin-Reactive Analog Synthesizer Taps Into Users’ “Inner Energy”
For great musicians, their instruments become extensions of their bodies, acting as a conduit for creative expression. A new analog synthesizer from SOMA Laboratory seeks to do the same, applying this mind-body connection to electronic music. Blending together “inner” and “energy,” the ENNER synthesizer is described as a “body-patching synth” that connects a player’s emotional state to its metal pads through weak electrical currents. Its sounds are deeply sensitive to human touch, dependent on the pressure, speed and angle with which a performer uses the device. “Your hands become the central part of the circuitry,” the synth’s description reads. “Signals (passing) through your body define the mixing, volume, timbre, fe...
Ekiti governor constitutes white paper committee on college fumigation crisis
Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi, has set up a White Paper Committee to consider the report of the Investigative Panel set up by the state government to look into the circumstances that led to the hospitalisation of some students of the College of Health Sciences and Technology, Ijero Ekiti, after a controversial fumigation exercise of the institution in May. According to a statement by the Governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Yinka Oyebode, on Friday, titled, ‘Fayemi constitutes White Paper Committee on report of College of Health Sciences Ijero-Ekiti crisis’, the setting up of the White Paper Committee “follows the submission of reports by the Investigation Panel, chaired by the Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Dr Olabanji Filani.” The Committee, which is to be chaired by the ...
Moderna starts human trials of an mRNA-based flu shot
Moderna gave its mRNA-based seasonal flu vaccine to the first set of volunteers in a clinical trial, the pharmaceutical company announced today. The start of the trial marks the next stage of the company’s work on this type of vaccine technology after the overwhelming success of its COVID-19 vaccine, which was built using the same strategy. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA vaccines were still largely experimental, even as they were heralded as the future of vaccine development. People who get an mRNA vaccine are injected with tiny snippets of genetic material from the target virus. Their cells use that genetic information to build bits of the virus, which the body’s immune system learns to fight against. The high efficacy of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTec...
