Bitcoin Gang Inches Towards 100-Member Mark, Hits $13-Billion Value

Enhanced regulatory oversight in India and other countries seems to be having little impact on spread of bitcoins and other virtual currencies, whose number is fast moving towards a century with a total valuation of close to $13 billion.

A number of new entrants, such as bitgem, catcoin, unobtanium and sexcoin, have arrived on the scene even as regulators across the world grapple with risks posed by such currencies and transactions conducted through them.

At least 93 virtual currencies are at present being used by people across the world over the internet, as also for some offline transactions, and their total valuation has reached $13 billion (over 80,000 crore), out of which bitcoin alone accounts for over $9 billion, according to market estimates.At end of December last year, the number of virtual currencies stood at 67.

Microsoft Names India-born Satya Nadella as CEO

Software giant Microsoft named Hyberabad-born Satya Nadella as its new Chief Executive Officer, replacing Steve Ballmer.“As Satya Nadella becomes the third CEO of Microsoft, he brings a relentless drive for innovation and a spirit of collaboration to this new role,” Microsoft said in a statement.

Nadella, 46, is taking over at a time when the world’s largest software company is expanding its focus to devices and cloud infrastructure.“The opportunity ahead for Microsoft is vast, but, to seize it, we must move faster, push harder and continue to transform,” Nadella said in the statement.

“During this time of transformation, there is no better person to lead Microsoft than Satya Nadella,” Microsoft founder and former Chairman Bill Gates said. Gates said that Nadella is a proven leader with hard-core engineering skills, business vision and the ability to bring people together.

Formerly Executive Vice President of the Cloud and Enterprise Group at the software giant, Nadella was leading the development of one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world. Gates will assume a new role as Technology Advisor and devote more time to the direction of the company’s products and technology.

The New World’s Most Powerful Laser Can Destroy Any Planet Humans Want

Researchers and scientists from around the world are working in collaboration to produce the world’s most powerful laser which can give new insight into how the cosmos was created. The laser is being built in the Czech Republic and funded by the EU.

The High-Repetition-Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System (HAPLS) is a laser which will emit a beam that is 100,000 times more powerful than all of Earth’s power stations combined. The beam will have an intensity of 1,023 watts per square centimeter and will last for a very short instant (1/100,00th of a billionth of a second). The laser has been nicknamed the Death Star because of its similarity to Darth Vader’s laser-powered base in Star Wars.

The Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) Beamlines project is the lab where HAPLS is being developed and will hopefully be completed by 2017. The system will combine technologies from around the world. HAPL will be made of two interconnected laser systems, designed by US-based Lawrence Livermore Labs, and will require a space of 4.6 by 17 meters, plus an additional 4 square meters for the final laser pulse compressor. It relies on a scheme called “double-chirped pulse amplification” which enables high signal to noise in the output pulses which will seed HAPLS.

HAPLS will deliver extremely short, high-power laser pulses to generate secondary sources of electromagnetic radiation and accelerate charged particles. Scientists are very optimistic that it will enable new scientific discoveries and will provide advancements in the fields of physics, medicine, biology and material sciences.