Tech News and Commentary

Dave and the team discuss Facebook and biometric privacy rights, Uber wanting to suspend account of COVID-19 affected users and drivers, medial simulation robots, Yahoo! Mobile, an all-electric commercial airline fleet, UK firefighters and a pig pedometer, a James Bond film delay, and more.

Our guest this hour:

Sheila Ronning , CEO and founder - Women in the Boardroom

Joel in Raleigh, North Carolina listens on NewsRadio 680 WPTF and asked: "I have a question about the blockchain technology and "gaps." I keep seeing that term and I'm wondering what they are and what makes "decentralized apps" I guess. But what does that mean and how are they different from the apps we use today?"

http://www.intotomorrow.com/media/podcasts/2020/03-13-2020/03-13-2020-H2S1.mp3

Joel, the gaps you’re talking about are probably “gap limits” which are part of the BIP44 specification but can be a little bit of a problem for some users of digital wallets.

The short version is that after a certain number of unused addresses in a row it is assumed that there are no more unused addresses beyond that point. The most common problem with that is with backups that can lose digital currencies if there’s a number of unused addresses followed by used addresses. It’s a little bit convoluted, but it’s something that exists by design, it’s not really an unintended bug.

As for what a decentralized app is, if we stick to currencies to explain it then it would work like this: your bank stores your money and you can use a website or application to use that money to pay your bills. In a decentralized system like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and so forth, there’s no bank. The money exists and it can be used, but it’s not stored in a central computer or computer system, but distributed in a way that makes it accessible directly to the nodes.

That kind of system frees you from the control of a single endpoint, which is why digital currencies are worrying to governments which have a hard time tracking illegally obtained money and taxable income.

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