Monday, May 23, 2011

I got a bitcoin!

I mean to write a more comprehensive Bitcoin (a type of cyber currency) post in the future, but in the meanwhile, there's this...

I got my first bitcoin. It was sent to my address "15fszyyM95UANiEeVa4H5L6va7Z7UFZCYP".



I did this by running a "mining" application on my desktop.



This idea of "mining" is one of the philosophically interesting bits. Bitcoin is a currency, with exchange rates (currently $7 per coin). Instead of giving out coins for free, it gives out coins for some meaningless crypto work. Since my hardware is more efficient at crypto than the average person's, I can make a slight (very slight) profit running mining software.

Amazon Cloud Music Player

The main reason I don't buy songs or many videos form iTunes is because I have to store them and back them up locally. Amazon is now offering to store such things in the "cloud" for me. Today, they have a special $0.99 offer for Lady Gaga's latest album. I can download the MP3's directly to my computer, play on any device (including the iPod) -- but if my hard drive crashes, they are still in Amazon's cloud.

In this way, it's a music version of the Kindle, where all the books are stored in the cloud. Even if my Kindle is destroyed, I can still get a replacement device, and re-download all my purchased books. In much the same way, I could buy a new iPod, and download everything on my Amazon cloud account any time I want.

So here is a screenshot. I'm listening to my purchase, via the web-based player, as I write this.


I'll download these later to my iPod and see how that works.


How much does the the Cloud Drive cost?



My music is placed on my Cloud Drive. I didn't know I had something called a "Cloud Drive". What the heck is that?

Apparently, it's a new service by Amazon. It gives you 5-gigabytes of free storage for things you upload to it. In addition, things you buy from Amazon do not count toward that limit. I suppose everyone who has an account with Amazon now has a "Cloud Drive".

I'm a bit worried that Amazon was doing the typical slimy business practice of giving you a new service without you realizing it, then charging you for it. But, apparently not. The service is free. In addition, with my Lady Gaga purchase, I got a free "one year trial" of the 20-gig version. After a year, it will automatically revert back to the 5-gig -- it will not automatically start charging me.

The iPad revolution

At a local eatery, instead of ordering lunch at the counter, I was confronted with an iPad ordering system. What you see in this picture is an iPad behind a credit-card reader, next to a device that prints receipts, next to a bin of numbers to put on the table so they know where to deliver the food.



The iPad is an astonishing device. Nobody really needs an iPad for anything – yet, they keep showing up. Anybody making a touchscreen device has to ask themselves now: why don't we instead just write an app for the iPad?