What Are Smart Contracts? A Beginner’s Guide to Smart Contracts

June 7, 2017

Example: Suppose you rent an apartment from me. You can do this through the blockchain by paying in cryptocurrency. You get a receipt which is held in our virtual contract; I give you the digital entry key which comes to you by a specified date. If the key doesn’t come on time, the blockchain releases a refund. If I send the key before the rental date, the function holds it releasing both the fee and key to you and me respectively when the date arrives. The system works on the If-Then premise and is witness

Actually, when it comes to smart contracts, we’re stepping into a sci-fi screen. The IT resource center, Search Compliance suggests that smart contracts may impact changes in certain industries, such as law. In that case, lawyers will transfer from writing traditional contracts to producing standardized smart contract templates, similar to the standardized traditional contracts that you’ll find on LegalZoom. Other industries such as merchant acquirers, credit companies, and accountants may also employ smart contracts for tasks, such as real time auditing and risk assessments. Actually, the website Blockchain Technologies sees smart contracts merging into a hybrid of paper and digital content where contracts are verified via blockchain and substantiated by physical copy.

Source: What Are Smart Contracts? A Beginner’s Guide to Smart Contracts

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ICOs and VCs | AVC

June 2, 2017

So, while ICOs represent a new and exciting way to build (and finance) a tech company, and are a legitimate disruptive threat to the venture capital business, they are not something I am nervous about and they are not something USV is nervous about. We are excited about them when they are the right thing for our portfolio companies and we are encouraging those companies to use this new approach. We are also investing in tokens, through token funds, and directly on or own.

Thanks Chris for the find!

Source: ICOs and VCs – AVC

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What is An Initial Coin Offering? The Future of Fundraising (ICO) | Blockgeeks

June 2, 2017

ICO is the abbreviation of Initial Coin Offering. It means that someone offers investors some units of a new cryptocurrency or crypto-token in exchange against cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Since 2013 ICOs are often used to fund the development of new cryptocurrencies. The pre-created token can be easily sold and traded on all cryptocurrency exchanges if there is demand for them. With the success of Ethereum ICO are more and more used to fund the development of a crypto project by releasing token which is somehow integrated into the project. With this turn, ICO has become a tool that could revolutionize not just currency but the whole financial system. ICO token could become the securities and shares of tomorrow.< /blockquote>

Source: What is An Initial Coin Offering? The Future of Fundraising (ICO) – Blockgeeks

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The First Wave of Corporate AI Is Doomed to Fail

May 23, 2017

Artificial intelligence is a hot topic right now. Driven by a fear of losing out, companies in many industries have announced AI-focused initiatives. Unfortunately, most of these efforts will fail. They will fail not because AI is all hype, but because companies are approaching AI-driven innovation incorrectly. And this isn’t the first time companies have made this kind of mistake.

We suggest taking a portfolio approach to AI projects: a mix of projects that might generate quick wins and long-term projects focused on transforming end-to-end workflow.

There is little doubt that an AI frenzy is starting to bubble up. We believe AI will indeed transform industries. But the companies that will succeed with AI are the ones that focus on creating organizational learning and changing organizational DNA. And the ones that embrace a portfolio approach rather than concentrating their efforts on that one big win will be best positioned to harness the transformative power of artificial learning.

Source: The First Wave of Corporate AI Is Doomed to Fail

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What next for blockchain? | McKinsey & Company

May 16, 2017
Video available at source

On the consumer side, if I’m being really honest, there isn’t a tremendously compelling use case for somebody like me—somebody who lives in New York, higher socioeconomic status, who’s fairly well served by the current financial system. What’s interesting is that it doesn’t mean that the system that serves me fairly well is a good system. Right? When you actually dig into the financial system as we know it today, it’s fairly antiquated. It’s primarily built on technology that was created in the 1970s.

Source: What next for blockchain? | McKinsey & Company

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Getting serious about blockchain | McKinsey & Company

May 16, 2017
Video available at source

If you’re the CEO of a big company, the first thing is to conceptualize this right. This is not like another technology, like AI [artificial intelligence], the cloud, robots, drones, the Internet of Things, and all of the rest of the stuff that are part of this fourth industrial revolution.This is the transactional platform that will enable all of those things to be part of the economy. When we have autonomous vehicles moving around, all of those transactions, everything from how they power themselves to how people pay for them, will be done through a distributed ledger. The Internet of everything needs a ledger of everything for it to work.

Source: Getting serious about blockchain | McKinsey & Company

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Artificial Intelligence & Traditional Law Firms

May 8, 2017

Matthew Peters, National Innovation Leader at McCarthy Tétrault

“People don’t have to worry,” says Khalid Al-Kofahi, vice-president, R&D at the Thomson Reuters Centre for Cognitive Computing, a new technology centre that will focus on research in machine perception, reasoning, knowledge management and human-computer interfaces. “Most of the innovations in artificial intelligence and machine learning will introduce automation at the task level, which will allow people to focus on more complex tasks.”

All of this does not bode well for traditional law firms. A recent global research study by Deloitte concluded that conventional law firms are no longer meeting today’s business needs. The majority (55 per cent) of participants in the study — legal counsel, CEOs and CFOs — have taken or are considering a significant review of their legal suppliers. The study also points out that purchasers of legal services want better and more relevant technologies, to be used and shared on integrated platforms.

The drive toward AI, however incrementally, will likely also mean that law firms are going to have to review their traditional billing model, says Furlong. The time when law firms were the only game in town, where lawyers were the “only vehicle” by which legal services could be delivered, is coming to a close, and AI is going to help to put that to an end, he says. “All of these innovations like artificial intelligence are going to reduce the amount of time and amount of effort required to obtain a legal outcome, so the very lax business model of selling time and expertise, rather than outcomes and results, is coming to an end.”

Source: Artificial intelligence | Canadian Lawyer

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