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The “FAANG” firms of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet have gained notoriety through allegations of data privacy violations and stifling competition. Legislation to curtail the power of Big Tech through taxes and regulations is also increasingly supported internationally, including a recently passed news sharing regulation in Australia.
However, the “FAANG” firms do not define the technology industry. Several other innovative technologies are challenging well-established institutions and decentralizing many sectors, increasing accessibility among other benefits. This article will examine a couple technological developments which are leading the way in decentralization.
As a cryptocurrency, Bitcoin falls within the realm of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). There are several roles that centralized institutions play in finance and economics.
For example, central banks are in charge of regulating currency supply. Centralized institutions also control transactions with cash alternatives. Credit card companies serve as intermediaries by facilitating the communication between the merchant’s bank and consumer’s bank and maintaining a centralized ledger of transactions.
Merchants risk losing substantial business by not accepting credit cards, so they are forced to accept high transaction and interchange fees. Since the industry has only a few key players—Visa, American Express, MasterCard, and Discover—firms continue charging high fees to merchants without much risk of losing business.
For a cryptocurrency to be successful, it must replace centralized institutions by having rules governing currency supply and maintaining a history of transactions. Bitcoin uses blockchain technology to maintain a decentralized ledger of transactions. This means that an identical ledger is stored on all nodes, or computers, within the Bitcoin network. Transactions are stored as a sequence of “blocks”, each consisting of a large number of transactions. Together, the ordered blocks form the blockchain. Bitcoin “mining” describes the process of forming new blocks on the blockchain, which can be done by any node on the network.
Bitcoin’s supply is also capped to ensure it can permanently maintain value. As the supply increases, the reward for mining new Bitcoins will fall, and low transaction fees will presumably replace currency creation.
If cryptocurrencies were to become widespread, most people worldwide would have access to the same currency. Combined with Bitcoin’s digital nature, this would ease the process of peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding or any financial exchange.
Financial intermediaries would be cut out, including credit card companies with large transaction fees and banks with high interest rates. Furthermore, central banks’ influence on currencies would be much reduced, addressing concerns of inflationary pressures and devaluation for many currencies.
The trend towards online learning has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Platforms such as edX and Coursera allow at-home learners to develop numerous skills, and they offer verifiable certificates for a fee or subscription. Online coursework can lead to a promotion or new career without an expensive, time-consuming degree.
However, the present online learning environment has limitations. At a university, students can work with professors, collaborate on research, and access support for independent research. Research is a skill that requires strict adherence to empirical processes, and it must go through an extensive process of peer review before publication. Current online learning platforms are not designed to guide students through this process.
Founded in 2021, Jinso makes research accessible to everyone. Jinso connects high school student to experienced researchers who can provide one-on-one mentorship. Jinso students can also publish their completed papers. Jinso brings a major benefit of a traditional university into the online ecosystem where it is accessible to younger students.
By reaching audiences which may not traditionally have access to higher education, Jinso inspires young individuals to build a research resume and ultimately seek a diploma or career in academia. In geographic areas where researchers may not have access to the most prestigious universities and academic journals, Jinso is a great way to get recognized by mainstream research. With Jinso, the entire research process becomes more accessible, scalable, and meritocratic.
GitHub is a popular platform used by computer scientists to manage their collaborative projects, but a similar program does not exist for academic work. There is no standard platform to create work, connect with others, and share work in one place. Most platforms only fall into one or two of these categories.The Jinso collaboration tool is a better way for groups to work on projects. By bringing the entire academic collaboration process onto one tool, it simplifies workflows and communication.The first steps for using the Jinso platform are:
Once a user builds a network, they can create new Groups that consist of their network members. By default, the creator of a group is the admin. The most common Group is a research group, but the platform can manage several other types of academic projects. Platform users can create study groups for sharing course materials or groups of club members for extracurricular work.The admin of the Group has the ability to add new members at any time.
Admins are also responsible for creating Projects within Groups.
A Project for a research group is usually a research paper, but Projects can also be other forms of documents that could benefit from discussion and revisions. Examples include study guides, business plans, articles, and essays. Each Group can have an unlimited number of Projects within it, and all Projects within a Group are shared among the same members.
Once a user builds a network, they can create new Groups that consist of their network members. By default, the creator of a group is the admin. The most common Group is a research group, but the platform can manage several other types of academic projects.
Platform users can create study groups for sharing course materials or groups of club members for extracurricular work.The admin of the Group has the ability to add new members at any time. Admins are also responsible for creating Projects within Groups.
A Project for a research group is usually a research paper, but Projects can also be other forms of documents that could benefit from discussion and revisions. Examples include study guides, business plans, articles, and essays. Each Group can have an unlimited number of Projects within it, and all Projects within a Group are shared among the same members.
When a new Project is created, an initial revision must be shared. This can either be plain text or a PDF.
The Project will be immediately visible to all Group members with the first revision shown. Group members can comment on the revision with questions or feedback, and others can reply to comments.When another revision of the paper has been completed, the Group admin can add a new revision to the same Project.
The revision will become visible above the prior revision, and it will have a new comment box associated with it. Projects make it simple to keep track of a paper’s entire revision history and discussions at each stage.
For each revision, Group admins can also create subtasks. Arrows allow Group members to view all of the different subtasks and comment on them individually. Subtasks allow a paper to be analyzed in unique components. For example, a research paper can have a unique subtask for each of its sections, and collaborators can discuss them all separately in the comment boxes. Jinso is a quicker way to collaborate on long-term projects. It makes it easier to connect, share, and manage the development of ideas and papers. You can create a Jinso account and start using the platform today for your research and academic needs at jinso.io.
The “FAANG” firms of Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Alphabet have gained notoriety through allegations of data privacy violations and stifling competition. Legislation to curtail the power of Big Tech through taxes and regulations is also increasingly supported internationally, including a recently passed news sharing regulation in Australia.
However, the “FAANG” firms do not define the technology industry. Several other innovative technologies are challenging well-established institutions and decentralizing many sectors, increasing accessibility among other benefits. This article will examine a couple technological developments which are leading the way in decentralization.
As a cryptocurrency, Bitcoin falls within the realm of Decentralized Finance (DeFi). There are several roles that centralized institutions play in finance and economics.
For example, central banks are in charge of regulating currency supply. Centralized institutions also control transactions with cash alternatives. Credit card companies serve as intermediaries by facilitating the communication between the merchant’s bank and consumer’s bank and maintaining a centralized ledger of transactions.
Merchants risk losing substantial business by not accepting credit cards, so they are forced to accept high transaction and interchange fees. Since the industry has only a few key players—Visa, American Express, MasterCard, and Discover—firms continue charging high fees to merchants without much risk of losing business.
For a cryptocurrency to be successful, it must replace centralized institutions by having rules governing currency supply and maintaining a history of transactions. Bitcoin uses blockchain technology to maintain a decentralized ledger of transactions. This means that an identical ledger is stored on all nodes, or computers, within the Bitcoin network. Transactions are stored as a sequence of “blocks”, each consisting of a large number of transactions. Together, the ordered blocks form the blockchain. Bitcoin “mining” describes the process of forming new blocks on the blockchain, which can be done by any node on the network.
Bitcoin’s supply is also capped to ensure it can permanently maintain value. As the supply increases, the reward for mining new Bitcoins will fall, and low transaction fees will presumably replace currency creation.
If cryptocurrencies were to become widespread, most people worldwide would have access to the same currency. Combined with Bitcoin’s digital nature, this would ease the process of peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding or any financial exchange.
Financial intermediaries would be cut out, including credit card companies with large transaction fees and banks with high interest rates. Furthermore, central banks’ influence on currencies would be much reduced, addressing concerns of inflationary pressures and devaluation for many currencies.
The trend towards online learning has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Platforms such as edX and Coursera allow at-home learners to develop numerous skills, and they offer verifiable certificates for a fee or subscription. Online coursework can lead to a promotion or new career without an expensive, time-consuming degree.
However, the present online learning environment has limitations. At a university, students can work with professors, collaborate on research, and access support for independent research. Research is a skill that requires strict adherence to empirical processes, and it must go through an extensive process of peer review before publication. Current online learning platforms are not designed to guide students through this process.
Founded in 2021, Jinso makes research accessible to everyone. Jinso connects high school student to experienced researchers who can provide one-on-one mentorship. Jinso students can also publish their completed papers. Jinso brings a major benefit of a traditional university into the online ecosystem where it is accessible to younger students.
By reaching audiences which may not traditionally have access to higher education, Jinso inspires young individuals to build a research resume and ultimately seek a diploma or career in academia. In geographic areas where researchers may not have access to the most prestigious universities and academic journals, Jinso is a great way to get recognized by mainstream research. With Jinso, the entire research process becomes more accessible, scalable, and meritocratic.
