Just because something needs to get done doesn’t mean that it will. I have learned this in many contexts, most recently in writing about the pharmaceutical industry. They come up as a good candidate to use Blockchain as a way of stopping counterfeiting. By all accounts, they continue to sit on their hands. While there are profound losses coupled with compromised safety, it’s not a priority, […]
6 posts
This breakthrough is from a corporation, not a government. Previous innovation, such as ARPANET, came from such sources. It is likely that the priorities will be different. The sudden increase in speed implies the possibility of intermediate steps. As IBM reminded everyone after Google’s announcement, they too have a 53 qubit machine, albeit one that runs much slower and steadier. Google’s innovation is likely to be […]
The Blockyball or Blockhelix is on the way. Quantum computing is here. Google made it work with a 53 qubit processor called Sycamore cooled to nearly absolute zero. The 3 minutes and 30 seconds of calculations done would take 100,000 computers 10,000 years to replicate. IBM says that their own 53 qubit processor, with conventional engineering, could replicate Google’s results in 2 1/2 days. It […]
For libraries, Blockchain represents the opportunity to build their own networks. Beyond being independent of such entities as OCLC, libraries will be able to redefine relationships with patrons. The lessons of the past show how this opportunity can either define the future or be passed by. Here are the three main lessons from the past of Bibframe, Word and Linux. Agreement to act is necessary. Bibframe […]
Le Central in San Francisco has kept the same stew going for over 40 years. A perpetual stew or soup is something from the era before refrigeration, constantly kept warm, never completely emptied and with new ingredients added to fill the pot. So it is with the Linux kernel. It was released in 1991. Since then, there has always been something new. It mixes with the old […]
Most of what we have written about concerns new peer-to-peer paradigms, which are inspired by blockchain and BTC (Bitcoin). If financial networks can be peer-to-peer, what about other things? Now it’s time to look in the other direction. Is blockchain supporting old paradigms? It is. In terms of how things worked a couple of industrial revolutions ago, it’s a tool like a wrench. A wrench can […]