Over the weekend, Ross Ulbricht’s lawyer, Joshua Dratel, filed a motion asking the court to dismiss all charges against the Silk Road kingpin. It’s largely what you’d expect from a bullish defense attorney. But here’s the twist: Dratel throws bitcoin under the bus.
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Iceland is not exactly a model country for a booming economy, but you can more or less say that it has gotten a wee bit richer on Tuesday, in terms of its cyberspace presence, thanks to the launch of a virtual currency known as Auroracoin. It is hoped that this virtual currency might eventually replace the crown by circumventing the island’s capital controls, although it will be a long, rocky and winding road ahead of it.
Auroracoin Virtual Currency Launched In Iceland original content from Ubergizmo. 
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Cryptocurrency is the name given to the variety of virtual currencies out there today. The most popular is certainly Bitcoin. One of the newest is Dogecoin, which started as a joke and then got real. Another new cryptocurrency has been tipped called Coinye West. As you might guess it is a Kanye West themed virtual currency.
The catchphrase for Coinye West is “WE AIN’T MININ’, WE PICKIN’.” I don’t really know what that means. The max number of Coinye coins that can be mined is 66,666,666,666 – something that supposedly is a nod to Kanye’s ties to the Illuminati. This is starting to sound like a Dan Brown book.
Vice says that they wanted to talk to the creators of Coinye West, but they wouldn’t talk on the phone. The reason was simple, and quitelogical. The creators said, “[we] want to stay sorta anonymous in case Kanye gets pissed off.”
[via Vice]
Let’s play a little game called Good Idea/Bad Idea. Round One: Saving money. That’s a good idea! Round two: Saving thousands of dollars in a Bitcoin wallet that’s highly susceptible to hackers and heists. As the customers of Bitcoin payment processor BIPS will tell you, that’s a bad idea.
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A Vancouver group is planning to put what’s thought to be the world’s first Bitcoin ATM into service next week. Putting aside the weird irony of a physical ATM accessing a strictly virtual currency, this got me wondering: would you use a Bitcoin ATM?
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Jeff Bezos, whose fortune is probably built upon real money, has decided to invent a fake one for his customers. Amazon is launching a virtual currency, called Amazon Coins, which is designed to encourage Kindle Fire users to buy apps, games and in-app item purchases. When it launches in May, Amazon plans to give away tens of millions of dollars worth of free coins to consumers, just to get ’em hooked — before pulling the old switcheroo and demanding users stump up their hard-earned in order to be able to buy things from Farmville.
Filed under: Tablets, Internet
Source: Amazon
For all the enthusiasm Oregon Scientific put into launching (and naming) its MEEP! tablet, the company has been a bit timid about getting the kid-friendly Android device into the market — we’re just seeing it go on sale eight months after it was first shown to the world. Now that the slate is here, it may be worth the patience from parents. The 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 chip, 512MB of RAM, 800 x 480 screen and 4GB of storage won’t have the adults regretting their Kindle Fire purchases, but the MEEP! does come in a smash-resistant form with remote parental control and an allowance-based store that lets kids ‘buy’ apps with virtual coins. Oregon helps its case through the use of Ice Cream Sandwich, preloaded games like Angry Birds and a raft of accessories for games and music. The $150 asking price is just low enough that we can see a few families starting their youngest technophiles on a MEEP! before graduating them to bigger, badder tablets with less punctuation in the name.
Filed under: Tablets
Oregon Scientific MEEP! tablet ships for $150, gives kids a safe, exclamation-filled place to play originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 21:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Well, BitInstant is insistent that it will launch a BitCoin debit card, but MasterCard is claiming it will not be part of the plans. After a mock up of the plastic made the rounds featuring the company’s logo, the financial powerhouse felt it necessary to reach out to us, clarifying its non-involvement.
“MasterCard has no relationship with BitInstant. There are issuers who allow the conversion of Bitcoins to US dollars and other currencies, delivered on prepaid cards. However, we’re not aware of this particular programme from BitInstant.”
Of course, if you read the transcript of Charlie Shrem’s chat announcing the plans, he never actually names MasterCard. The logo was likely meant as a placeholder — one that some outlets took a little too literally.
Interestingly, this doesn’t actually mean that MasterCard won’t be involved… just that the company isn’t at this point in the process. BitInstant released its own statement, just hours after the card house contacted us, saying that it has been working with MasterCard affiliates, but had yet to submit to the financial firm directly.
“The card program is moving forward and the arrangement with MasterCard will be handled in due time at the proper stage of the process by the partners who work directly with that company.”
So, what have we learned today? Not a whole heck of a lot actually, other than the fact that putting out a debit card is a complicated business. You’ll just have to stay tuned to see how this shakes out.
Filed under: Internet
MasterCard denies BitCoin card rumors, BitInstant says it’s still on track originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 19:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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