We have been covering the Mintchip story since April of 2012 when the Royal Canadian Mint made a commercial advertising it and challenging software programmers to make an app that will be used in conjunction with it. The commercial portrays Mintchip as the ‘evolution of currency’, tries to portray it as our inevitable future. The commercial describes Mintchip as a digital form of currency. Value is recorded on MicroSD cards in smart phones, tablets or laptop/desktop computers because it can also be loaded onto chips found in USB sticks. In the commercial it also states that some future devices might also be compatible with it that are not even invented yet. Click HERE for Mintchip commercial mentioned above.
Jan Hannemann, an app developer, along with many other recipients entered the Mintchip challenge that was portrayed in the commercial. Hannemann’s idea, MintWallet, made him win the grand prize of $50,000 for best application. His goal was to make virtual currency to be “like instant messaging for your wallet.” Using cloud technology and push notifications, users could use MintChips for payments, for literally pretty much anything.
“Winning app MintWallet allows users to send money, or requests for money to other users. It relies on a peer-to-peer network to connect users and allow the transfer of digital cash. It ties in QR codes so every payment request will have a QR code automatically generated. That allows payment usages such as scanning the code at a parking meter to pay for your time at a spot. There’s also a “split the bill” feature so a group eating out together at a restaurant can quickly pay their share without any hassle.”
~ SOURCE
MiniCheckout is another popular choice winner for the MintChip Challenge which allows users with Mintchip technology to scan items they are purchasing from a grocery store (or other place) by taking a picture of the barcode and paying for everything they buy digitally through the smart phone. This kind of correlates to IBM’s commercialwhere it portrays a man just shoving grocery items into his pockets and he just walks out of the store because everything is automatically deducted from his chip.
So what’s the difference between debit cards and mintchip?
Emergency workers transport a person to an ambulance following a crash between a city bus and a Via Rail train, Wednesday September 18, 2013 in Ottawa (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)
A double-decker Ottawa city bus drove through warning lights and guard rails into the side of a crossing passenger train, killing six and injuring at least 30, witnesses to the collision said Wednesday. The corner had been on a “severe public safety issue” list for more than a decade.
Five people were pronounced dead on scene, while the sixth died in hospital, after the OC Transpo bus slammed into theVia Rail train that was pulling into Fallowfield Station, in the suburb of Barrhaven, southwest of Ottawa. Ten people were rushed to hospital in critical condition.
Three of the six deceased have been positively identified but police are not releasing names at this time out of respect to the victims’ families.
The driver of an Ottawa bus has been identified as Dave Woodard. Woodard’s name has not been released by the Ottawa police, but is being widely reported by CTV, the Ottawa Citizen and the CBC.
“One of Woodard’s family members, who did not want to be identified, said everyone is struggling with the loss. She chose to wait until the entire family was informed about the tragic death before speaking publicly about Woodard,” wrote the Citizen. It was Woodard’s wife’s birthday on Tuesday.
The train’s locomotive and a passenger car came off the tracks, but all of the casualties were on the bus, with no injuries among the 100 people on the train. The train came to a halt about 100 metres west of the accident site.
The city’s double-decker buses can seat up to 82 people. OC Transpo said they do not know how many were on the bus Wednesday morning.
Images posted to the Transportation Safety Board’s Flickr page, seem to indicate the bus hit the side of the train’s locomotive under the driver’s cab, less than a metre from the nose.
Bus passengers said they yelled “Stop! Stop!” as the bus ran through warning symbols at the train crossing. The driver has been confirmed to be among the deceased by the union. The union said the driver had about ten years of experience.
“People started screaming, ‘Stop, stop!’ because they could see the train coming down the track,” Tanner Trepanier, who was sitting on the top level of the bus, told The Canadian Press.
A woman — who turned out to be a man — sent the victim a recording of his actions and threatened to post the graphic video on public sites unless a payment was made. Thinkstock / Getty
Police say two young Toronto-area men found themselves caught in an extortion trap after exposing themselves online.
Durham region police say a 21-year-old Whitby man was convinced by a woman he’d just met in an online chat room to take off his clothes and fondle himself on a webcam.
Moments later, the woman — who turned out to be a man — sent the victim a recording of his actions and threatened to post the graphic video on public sites and send it to all of the victim’s friends unless a payment of 500 euros (C$690) was made.
The amount was paid, but when the young man received demands for even more money, he called police.
As the possibility of a military strike against Syria looms, some details of Canada’s supporting role in the conflict have emerged.
Canada has given $5.3-million to the Syrian opposition to support the rebels in anti-government propaganda since April 2012, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAIT).
Canadian funding has helped Syrian rebels establish a pirate radio network and training for journalists and bloggers “in an effort to rapidly increase international credibility of the Syrian opposition and visibility of humanitarian news reporting from Syria,” the government says.
Canada contributed $650,000 toward helping the Syrian Justice and Accountability Centre establish a secure database as part of a program to help support “research and collect evidence of human rights violations for use in future Syria-led transitional justice processes.”
Providing communications equipment has been a priority for the government.
Canada has also provided pre-paid airtime for satellite Internet communication devices with the goal of “increasing co-ordination between opposition networks of local civilian actors involved in local administration and political leadership, during both the conflict and transition phases in Syria,” according to the DFAIT.
In a joint project with the U.S. State Department and the U.K., Canada has contributed to an opposition-controlled media apparatus that produces content for broadcast and print.
The Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives has devised training programs specializing in journalism, activism and leadership, conflict-resolution and community development, to which the government has given $237,000.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird have been firm that Canada’s role in any military action in Syria will be entirely symbolic. Continue Reading
Our tax dollars are funding psychological warfare programs, without our knowledge or consent. Very similar to this:
[Potent News editor’s note: There definitely is unrest on the ground in Syria but the antagonists are the western powers and those they fund and arm for the purpose of invading Syria. My intention in posting this article/videos is not to say all the violence is fake, to be clear, but I simply wish to point out that the west is fueling the fire in these shameful ways.]
I would suggest that you let your MP and anyone else know how you feel about that!
We have been covering the Mintchip story since April of 2012 when the Royal Canadian Mint made a commercial advertising it and challenging software programmers to make an app that will be used in conjunction with it. The commercial portrays Mintchip as the ‘evolution of currency’, tries to portray it as our inevitable future. The commercial describes Mintchip as a digital form of currency. Value is recorded on MicroSD cards in smart phones, tablets or laptop/desktop computers because it can also be loaded onto chips found in USB sticks. In the commercial it also states that some future devices might also be compatible with it that are not even invented yet.
by Terry Wilson
PN 