BitCoin - The Secure, Digital Currency (of the future?)

Now, we'll admit, this one is tricky to explain. So, we'll quote Wikipedia on this one:

"Bitcoin (BTC) is a cryptocurrency first described in a 2008 paper by pseudonymous developer Satoshi Nakamoto, who called it a peer-to-peer, electronic cash system. Bitcoin creation and transfer is based on an open source cryptographic protocol and is not managed by any central authority. Each bitcoin is subdivided down to eight decimal places, forming 100 million smaller units called satoshis Bitcoins can be transferred through a computer or smartphone without an intermediate financial institution."

"The processing of Bitcoin transactions is secured by servers called bitcoin miners. These servers communicate over an internet-based network and confirm transactions by adding them to a ledger which is updated and archived periodically using peer-to-peer filesharing technology. In addition to archiving transactions, each new ledger update creates some newly-minted bitcoins. The number of new bitcoins created in each update is halved every 4 years until the year 2140 when this number will round down to zero. At that time no more bitcoins will be added into circulation and the total number of bitcoins will have reached a maximum of 21 million bitcoins."

"Bitcoin is accepted in trade by merchants and individuals in many parts of the world... See the whole wikipedia entry here. 

The USD price of a bitcoin increased ten-fold in early 2013 from $13 on 1 January to $190 on 9 April."

Well, don't worry, if you didn't follow everything up there - even we are trying to get our heads around this whole new stuff! But, here's a short video that takes you through some of this and hopefully makes it easier.

Will this be a kind of new trend as the global economy continues to battle one challenge after another? Guess, only time will tell...

The Price of Gas - What We Don't Pay For...

As the population in the world continues to grow, the limited resources on our Planet continue to come under stress. It's a no-brainer that human kind has been the largest disruptive force on the planet to change the natural world. Enough is being said about this, but probably not enough is done about it.

As the population in cities continue to grow, the global economy is not sparing anyone or anyplace the stress this causes. Little do we realize.... Here's an eye opening insight what goes into making of a gallon of gas for your car, and why the price we pay is much less than what it costs.

Share this with your close ones, if you believe, change is necessary to save Planet Earth (eventually).

Animation: Shave It

A nice little animation about a monkey who ventures into the growing urban spaces the world over. A short story with a strong environmental message.

Firefox Flicks 2013 - Anyone, Anywhere

Firefox Flicks is a global video contest about the power of the mobile. The 2013 edition is presently underway and here's one of the early round award winners. We just liked it, so we thought, let's share it with our followers too! If you like it, share it on.

What does that alphabet stand for - Popular Acronyms and Initials Decoded

H.G. Wells, P.G. Wodehouse, J.K. Rowling, SCUBA diving, M&Ms... all of these are extremely familiar names and acronyms that most of us have heard or grown up hearing. But, there's a certain mystery around these - what exactly do some of these stand for?

Well, here's a cool capsule by the folks at mentalfloss.com put together to get to the bottom of many of these. It's an interesting watch - and probably will put that mind at ease the next time you go for a jog in your Adidas sneakers!