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Web 5

Jack Dorsey Announces ‘Web 5’, A New Platform Built On Bitcoin-Based Technology.

Bitcoin supporter Jack Dorsey has announced the launch of Web 5, a new online platform that is a combination of the centralized Web 2 and the decentralized Web 3. Square’s TBD subsidiary is developing a suite of BTC-based technologies to help modernize the financial system. The new platform, which is built on Blockchain, is described as a hybrid of Web3 and Web2.0. According to the report, the platform ensures that the security of individual data is a top concern and that no breaches occur. The Block Head or TBD – the Bitcoin-focused subsidiary of Dorsey’s Block (previously SQ) – presented its new concept for a decentralized internet layer on Friday at CoinDesk’s Consensus Festival in Austin, Texas. Let’s take a look at the Web5 platform announced by Jack Dorsey.

What is Web 5?

To put it in a way, the Internet of Things (IoT) means that everything in your life, and I mean everything, may talk to each other about you, in front of your face, behind your back, and without regard for your feelings. It was amusing to wake up to a robot in the guise of a kitty cat, but Web 5.0 would go even further. The Intelligent Web foreshadows what is to come with the emergence of smart devices that estimate your wants based on your patterns without including many clues. Symbiotic web algorithms will be able to analyze data on a more complicated emotional and cognitive level. This is the Web, which coexists with daily life in perfect harmony, operating without thought and spontaneously engaging with our actions. Computers can be turned into robotic assistants via digital realities. IoT can connect all household equipment to the internet, and it predicts that extremely intelligent interactions between machines and humans could be possible via chip implantation in human brains.

Web 5
Image source: twimg.com

While the monetary layer of Web 5 will be based on Bitcoin, the other technologies that support it are drawn from a variety of cryptography and computer science fields.

Identity and personal data have become the property of third parties. Web 5 brings decentralized identity and data storage to individuals’ applications. It lets developers focus on creating delightful user experiences while returning ownership of data and identity to individuals.” TBD said in a statement published with CoinDesk

source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

Group of Bitcoin Entrepreneurs the Block Head who reports to Jack Dorsey is in charge of Web5 development. To refresh your memory, Web5 is a platform that empowers people to manage their data and identities.

Although TBD’s new project was unveiled on Friday, it is currently under open-source development and has no set release date. Users will be able to engage with one another without the assistance of intermediaries on Web 5, just as they did on Web 3. In theory, this means that there will be no government censorship or centralized service outages, among other claimed benefits. Web 5 will also strive to provide users with a “decentralized identity,” allowing them to fluidly go from app to app without having to log in each time.

Web5 wants people to have the ability to “own their data,” according to TBH. Consider Riya’s digital wallet, which protects her identity, data, and authorizations for external apps and connections. Riya logs onto a new decentralized social media platform with her wallet. Riya, on the other hand, does not need to establish a profile because she has connected to the app with her decentralized identity, and all of the connections, relationships, and postings she makes through the app are saved in her decentralized web node. Riya can switch apps whenever she wishes using Web5, and her social profile follows her.

Another example is Arjun, a music fan who despises having his data tied to a single vendor. It forces him to re-create his playlists and tunes across many music apps on a regular basis. Fortunately, there is a way out of this maze of vendor-locked silos: Arjun can store this information in his decentralized web node. Arjun may give any music app access to his settings and preferences in this way, allowing him to take his tailored music experience with him everywhere he goes. As a result, Web5 will provide people w control over their data. Meanwhile, Mike Brock, TBD’s Product Lead, stated that “with web5, there are no tokens to invest in.”

Xunlei

Xunlei – One Of The Top Internet Companies In China.

Xunlei is a publicly-traded Chinese multinational technology company that was founded in 2003. Based in the technology sector, the company is mainly a provider of online services. It is one of the most widely used internet brands in the country but it is primarily famous for computing and blockchain technology. The headquarters of Xunlei is based in Shenzhen, China. It also has a subsidiary called Shenzhen Xunlei Networking Technologies Co Ltd. Xunlei offers products and services to both individual and enterprise users and the solutions include cloud computing, download acceleration, blockchain, etc. It has also received several awards and accolades for its digital technology, and innovative products, and for consistently being one of the top internet companies in China. 

Story of Xunlei

Although Xunlei was officially founded in 2003, the company’s first prototype emerged in Silicon Valley, the USA in 2002. After one year, when Xunlei was established, Thunder 2 was released for the first time. Within the next year, the company witnessed an increase in the number of users and eventually released Xunlei 3 and Xunlei 4. In 2005, the company hosted a funding round in which it successfully raised $10 million approximately. In the same year, it also released Mini Thunder and Thunder 5. 2006 was a benchmark year for the company as it crossed 100 million users. Moreover, the company’s download-acceleration software became a software with the largest user scale. In 2007, Xunlei signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Google in Beijing. The company also incorporated many implementations in the cross-protocol download section. 

Xunlei
Image source: sinaimg.cn

Expansion

In 2008, the company released a chain of new products together including Thunder Software Assistant, Thunder Game, Thunder Security Assistant, and many more. Later that year, the company held a press conference regarding China’s internet content distribution. Again in 2009, a lot of new products and upgraded versions of some products were released. For example, Xunlei released its Home Digital Entertainment products and along with that launched Thunderbolt Heroes Web Game. In 2010, the number of Xunlei users exceeded the 300 million mark, and paid users reached 1 million. The company also released Thunder 7 that year, thus opening a new era for internet downloads. 

In 2011, it finally released its products for iPad, and the Mac version for Thunder was also released. The company’s online video site, Xunlei Kankan became the first online video site in China to achieve high definition on the whole network. In 2013, the total Xunlei users reached 460 million and the paid users reached 5.2 million. Earlier in 2014, the company received a huge amount of funding of $200 million from Xiaomi followed by which it went public and got listed on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. After the investment, Xioami also partnered with Xunlei to jointly release Star CDN. In 2017, it occupied 42nd place in the list of China’s top 100 internet companies. Recently, the company has released its BaaS platform such that users can deploy their chain with a click, thus making the process much more convenient. 

Jinbo Li – CEO of Xunlei

In April 2020, Jinbo Li became the Chairman and CEO of Xunlei. Li comes with industrial expertise of more than 20 years exclusively in China’s internet and technology sector. He is associated with the company from the very beginning as he helped in establishing and running the core R&D team of the company from 2004 to 2009. In 2010, Li left the company and worked for two other internet ventures for the next four years followed by which he founded Itui International Inc, a mobile application development company. Jinbo Li went to Shandong University followed by Peking University.

Facebook Opens Up About Libra its New Cryptocurrency Project

Only over ten days ago, an article from ‘The Information’ talked about Facebook’s rumoured cryptocurrency project, ‘Libra’, and today, the company has come out in open to announce that it will be launching its own cryptocurrency by the first half of 2020.

The biggest social network company, Facebook Inc., revealed on Tuesday, that it is ready to launch its cryptocurrency in 2020, in order to move its focus from social media to eCommerce and online payments.

libra cryptocurrency
Image Source: fortune.com

The company reported that the new cryptocurrency won’t be a speculative asset, like Bitcoin or the other major cryptocurrencies, but will be a type of digital currency, as stable as the dollar, that people will be able to use for normal expenditures or to transfer money globally.

According to one of the spokespersons from Facebook, the company aims to establish Libra as the first mainstream cryptocurrency, by offering people to pay for online as well as offline services through it. In the beginning, Libra will support online money transfer for the countries that lack traditional banking facilities. And, after some time, it will be used for day-to-day transactions.

Along with the cryptocurrency, the company is also working on its subsidiary, Calibra, a digital wallet, that will be used for the online transactions through the cryptocurrency. According to the company, Libra will be backed by the reserve of assets. Also, the new cryptocurrency will have its own new blockchain platform.

Facebook is excited about Libra but has also got the regulatory concerns. It has been facing backlashes from its users and the regulatory authorities due to the data breaches alligations it holds. A cryptocurrency from a company which has been responsible for these hacks and breaches is quite questionable for the lawmakers and the regulators.

The company has already in talks with the regulators in the United States, Europe and from the other countries, about the launch of its own cryptocurrency. And, these regulators are also going in depth of the announced project from Facebook to get to know more about it. Since it is not purely a cryptocurrency, many of these regularities doubt its privacy.

Facebook revealed that it has partnered with the Geneva-based association Libra for the development of its cryptocurrency. The organisation have been founded by some major companies from around the world, including Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Stripe, eBay, Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Coinbase, Xapo, Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Mercy Corps, and Women’s World Banking, along with Facebook. So these companies will also be playing a crucial role in decisions to be taken for Libra.

Amazon Gets into Blockchain Business; Launches Two New Products

Last year, Amazon was planning for its debut in the blockchain industry with Amazon Web Services (AWS), but due to some reasons, could not come to any conclusions. But, finally, despite the huge plunge that crypto had faced this year, Amazon has launched two of its new products based on the same technology, at the Amazon’s re:Invent conference, held on Wednesday in Las Vegas.

blockchain
Image Source: medium.com

One of the two blockchain platforms that Amazon introduced is the Amazon Managed Blockchain. The platform is specially built for the blockchain developers. It helps them develop blockchain networks without having to create their own blockchain platform. The platform supports the two popular existing blockchain platforms — Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric. Right now, the platform is not available for Ethereum.

“Amazon Managed Blockchain is a fully managed service that allows you to set up and manage a scalable blockchain network with just a few clicks,” Amazon said in an announcement.

The other blockchain based product that Amazon announced at the event is the Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), that is a type of log of transactions, which is transparent, stable, and cryptographically verifiable. A central trusted authority will supervise the ledger. The users can replicate a copy of their blockchain activities with the help of this platform.

“Managed Blockchain can replicate an immutable copy of your blockchain network activity into Amazon Quantum Ledger Database (QLDB), a fully managed ledger database. This allows you to easily analyze the network activity outside the network and gain insights into trends,” company website mentioned.

Amazon’s cloud chief Andy Jassy, took three hours to explain about Amazon’s two products as well as talked about its competitors and their products. “We don’t build things for optics,” he said, “AWS only spends resources on something when they understand the problem. This is something that a lot of companies need,” he added.

The availability terms for most of the services announced at the event are still under the wraps, and most of them are going to be more useful for the IT professionals, rather than the business managers. The blockchain services provided by Amazon are open for signups, and after the verification, the users will be able to create their blockchain networks and add more members to their accounts to simulate a multi-member network.