Like many other foreign journalists descending on Japan amid a resurging pandemic to cover the Tokyo Olympics, Cathal Kelly had to endure nonsensical airport procedures on arrival: …verify forms, verify apps, get new forms, verify those forms, get our forms all mixed up, get them unmixed, spit in a tube, wait to hear how that... Continue Reading →
The claims of what quantum computing can do are dizzying: from forecasting financial crashes to solving optimization problems to leading to an “apocalypse.” There is, however, a wide schism between those who boost quantum computing and others who are more grounded. This schism exposes how the incredibly difficult to understand technology, through a process of... Continue Reading →
Bitcoin’s self-appointed talking heads have gone on yet another aggressive campaign to defend the cryptocurrency. This time the casus belli is the bitcoin network’s excessive electricity consumption, estimated at 116 TWh/year, a bit more than the annual electricity consumption of the Netherlands. The campaign went into overdrive after Tesla announced its quick reversal from accepting... Continue Reading →
[Disclaimer: the analysis and views expressed in this article are solely my own unless stated otherwise.] Maple Leaf Angels (MLA) just concluded a banner year, despite the pandemic (fiscal year ended on March 31st). Total dollar investments were 32% bigger than the previous year, making this one of the most active years in MLA history.... Continue Reading →
[Acknowledgemet: I’d like to thank the artist Samar Hejazi for taking the time to walk me through her experiences and reflections on Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs). You can check out her own NFT (shown above) here and the rest of her amazing work here.] Chris Dixon, a VC partner at Andreessen-Horowitz, theorized that activity within the crypto space evolves... Continue Reading →
Earlier this month, Coindesk reported on how IBM’s blockchain team has all but vanished. Missed revenue targets, reorganizations, and layoffs seem to have deprioritized IBM’s blockchain efforts and blended its offerings into the rest of the business. Is this yet another sign pointing to the elusiveness of enterprise blockchain? — Blockchains enable value exchange and shared... Continue Reading →
Around the globe, digital financial services (fintechs) that claim to serve the underrepresented (unbaked or underbanked) are causing widespread hardships. While ostensibly “democratizing” and speeding access to financial services, time and time again, fintechs are taking advantage of regulatory gray areas and exploiting users, who tend to be vulnerable. For example, in India and Kenya,... Continue Reading →
Data from Q2 and Q3 of this year show that the pandemic-induced acceleration of digital transformation isn’t taking shape as believed by many. Below I present charts that demonstrate retreating Telehealth trends, uneven SaaS revenue growth rates, and declining demand for tech jobs. Put together, this data confirms that despite the realities of remote work,... Continue Reading →
Last year, Facebook revealed a cryptocurrency and payment system called Libra. At the time, I joined a chorus of skeptics in saying that the project was misguided and must change for it to survive. Change it did. In April 2020, the Libra Association released its white paper v2.0, describing how it would assuage serious government... Continue Reading →
Microsoft’s Satya Nadella pronounced that, amid the pandemic, they’ve “seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.” Nadella’s words quickly became a catchphrase, which appears ad nauseam, though in different forms, in articles and thought-pieces that seem to come out on an hourly basis. For example, Forbes said that “because of COVID-19, manufacturing... Continue Reading →
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