Current News/Innovations

The head of the Bitcoin Foundation, Llew Claasen, has urged people to invest "no more than they can afford" in the crypto-currency. He was speaking at the TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania about the potential for Bitcoin in Africa. Billions lack access to formal banking, but the uptake of mobile money means many are willing to embrace alternatives. Bitcoin had been adopted in Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, he said. The digital currency had particular resonance in countries with volatile economies, he said. "It offers people a chance to protect their savings from government abuse of monetary policy. "A lot of people in Zimbabwe are interested in it as an alternative financial system, but that is not an easy thing to do formally as we don't want to be perceived as wanting to disrupt economies," he told the BBC. Small businesses The Washington-based Bitcoin Foundation is a non-profit organisation that promotes the use of Bitcoin around ...

IBM on Tuesday announced a collaboration with Walmart, Kroger and a group of other food businesses to use blockchain technology to trace the origin of foodstuffs amid potential food-borne illness outbreaks. The technology, which IBM describes as a distributed ledger, tracks where food products were grown, when they were picked, where they were transported to and how they were used. The data management has multiple applications, but IBM highlighted its ability to increase food safety. IBM said it can take weeks or months for health officials to track down the source of illnesses caused by contaminated foods -- like salmonella and E. coli. The company says blockchain-based systems can cut that time down. "In the case of the global food supply chain, all participants -- growers, suppliers, processors, distributors, retailers, regulators and consumers -- can gain permissioned access to known and trusted information regarding the origin and state of food for their transactions,...