Blockchain importance: PwC

Instead of involving lots of humans in the transaction pipeline and paper processes that take days, weeks, or months to complete, huge volumes of transactions could be validated automatically. Other more complicated transactions that still require humans could at least be simplified with the help of mathematical validation.

From a legal standpoint, the system becomes a “person,” a virtual third-party enforcer that never sleeps. From a computing perspective, that “person” is actually a software agent. The use of agents will be essential to scaling recordkeeping and providing visibility to the historical record.

Source: Blockchain importance: PwC

Read More

Blockchain defined | PwC

In the simplest case, a smart contract would make it possible to lock out a driver whose authorization to drive a rental car had expired. In more complex scenarios, rental car companies could automate the operation of entire facilities.

From a legal standpoint, the system becomes a “person,” a virtual third-party enforcer that never sleeps. From a computing perspective, that “person” is actually a software agent. The use of agents will be essential to scaling recordkeeping and providing visibility to the historical record.

Source: Blockchain defined: PwC

Read More

Blockchain Introduction and Forecast: PwC

Smart transactions enable smart contracts

Blockchain ledger technology opens the door not only to decentralized transactions, but also to smart (that is, automated and computable) transactions and smart (computable and self-executing) contracts that can take advantage of smart transactions. A smart contract is a digitally signed, computable agreement between two or more parties. A virtual third party—a software agent—can execute and enforce at least some of the terms of such agreements.

Source: Blockchain Introduction and Forecast: PwC

Read More

The Blockchain Will Do to Banks and Law Firms What the Internet Did to Media

The “killer app” for the early internet was email; it’s what drove adoption and strengthened the network. Bitcoin is the killer app for the blockchain. Bitcoin drives adoption of its underlying blockchain, and its strong technical community and robust code review process make it the most secure and reliable of the various blockchains. Like email, it’s likely that some form of Bitcoin will persist. But the blockchain will also support a variety of other applications, including smart contracts, asset registri

Source: The Blockchain Will Do to Banks and Law Firms What the Internet Did to Media

Read More

How Blockchain Applications Will Move Beyond Finance

In their seminal work on the theory of the firm, Michael Jensen and William Meckling defined the firm as a “nexus of contracts” — the idea that firms are nothing more than a collection of contracts between various parties, such as employees, customers, and shareholders. Cryptocurrencies may one day enable a completely new type of organization by allowing us to securely transfer value and allocate resources through smart contracts. Whereas this new type of organization may achieve the speed and efficiency of

Source: How Blockchain Applications Will Move Beyond Finance

Read More

Digital Currency: What the Heck Is It?

When you consider the fact that any series of transactions can be tracked with one hundred per cent accuracy (what’s called an immutable audit trail), and that built-in encryption means it’s inherently secure, blockchain suddenly becomes the ideal technology for a variety of financial functions and exchange mechanisms. And forward-thinking companies, including some of our country’s big banks, are already investing in that potential.

Source: Digital Currency: What the Heck Is It?

Read More

Cognitive law outthinks data overload | IBM

It used to take up to 23 days to conduct routine legal research. Now, working with Watson, ROSS Intelligence is using cognitive technology to read legislation, court decisions and secondary sources to find answers in seconds, that help lawyers move quickly from the routine to the essential.

Few law firms of any size can survive in their present form unless they make affordable, quality representation a top priority. Now that ROSS Intelligence has tapped into Watson’s cognitive abilities, firms have the ability to do just that. Along the way, they just might just transform the entire industry.

Source: ROSS and Watson tackle the law – IBM Watson

Read More

Disrupting Industries With Cognitive Computing

With cognitive computing, we are now able to unlock the value in ALL the data — from internal, external and even publicly available sources — available to a business. Much of this data was previously inaccessible as it existed in was unstructured (documents, emails, social media posts and images etc.), or was dispersed among any many systems and silos. Hear how two companies are already using cognitive computing to disrupt their industries:

Source: Disrupting Industries With Cognitive Computing

Read More

Is the Life Expectancy of Companies Really Shrinking? – Only Dead Fish

It’s difficult to navigate through all the myriad factors to identify what might really be behind this picture, but perhaps the real story is less about the impending death of large businesses and more about their need to adapt – to move through business and product life cycles more quickly than before, to be more focused on systematic experimentation and organising swiftly around opportunity.

Source: Is the Life Expectancy of Companies Really Shrinking? – Only Dead Fish

Read More