All posts tagged: Solution

Bitcoin’s ‘Last Resort’ Quantum-Safe Solution Just Got 79% Cheaper: StarkWare

Bitcoin’s ‘Last Resort’ Quantum-Safe Solution Just Got 79% Cheaper: StarkWare

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Felix Ng via Cointelegraph, The estimated computational cost to prepare a quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction has fallen below $67 after a week of optimization, down from the roughly $320 spent on the first such mainnet transaction in August, according to StarkWare. The results came after participants in the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Optimization Challenge found ways to push down the GPU computation needed to build a quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction. The reduction could make the experimental defense (which doesn’t require changes to the network’s consensus rules) against future quantum attacks more practical for Bitcoin holders. However, the latest optimizations have only been demonstrated in benchmark tests. “A construction that costs a few hundred dollars per transaction is a demo. One that costs $67 is closer to something a holder with a large unexposed balance might reach for in an emergency,” StarkWare wrote in its Sept. 23 update. The dashboard now shows the estimated cost has dropped to $66. Quantum-Safe Bitcoin an “emergency” solution StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy published the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) design in April, outlining a …

Sweden’s solution to stop spam callers: Be ruder!

Sweden’s solution to stop spam callers: Be ruder!

Published by Jenni Sidey

Swedish police have a message for anyone who thinks they’re talking to spam callers: hang up the phone, and embrace being rude. Local authorities are teaming up with five national celebrities in a new campaign to empower people to push back against scam callers. Just like in the United States, scammers are a major issue. Polisen, Sweden’s national police force, estimates they made off with $575.3 million in ill-gotten gains in 2025 alone. And while online scams utilizing increasingly convincing generative AI tools are on the rise, the bulk of the money lost here came from old-fashioned phone scams.  “The message is simple: Dare to be rude – it could save you from being scammed,” Polisen wrote in a blog post promoting the campaign. Citizens over 60-years-old are targeted most frequently, and this Swedish campaign is primarily trying to reach that demographic. The outreach includes testimonials from actors Suzanne Reuter, Lennart Jähkel, and Christina Schollin, as well as journalist Claes Elfsberg. They point out that politeness and a willingness to hear someone out, laudable qualities …

Polar Instant Dye Shampoo: A long-lasting solution for vibrant colour

Polar Instant Dye Shampoo: A long-lasting solution for vibrant colour

Published by Daniella Wilson

For a quick and easy, hassle-free alternative, Polar Instant Dye Shampoo takes a different approach to box dye. Boasting the ease of a simple shampoo application, it takes the stress out of hair colour maintenance. Plus, the colour holds for up to six weeks, too. The two-part system is a mess-free alternative to traditional dye that foams and rinses like a regular shampoo, meaning you don’t need to use bowls, brushes, or gloves. Many hair colour products contain ammonia, which can cause damage to the hair over time. However, Polar Instant Dye Shampoo is ammonia-free. It keeps things gentle when it comes to the ingredients list, too, which features botanicals and conditioning ingredients to leave the hair feeling soft with each touch-up. Keen to know more about Polar Instant Dye Shampoo? Keep reading to discover how it works, how to use it and the key benefits of this hair dye alternative. (Polar Haircare) What is Polar Instant Dye Shampoo and how does it work? Polar Instant Dye Shampoo isn’t like other, traditional home box dyes, …

How ‘Somatics’ Became the Solution to Modern Life

How ‘Somatics’ Became the Solution to Modern Life

Published by Daniella Wilson

When clients go to Sybil Ottenstein for therapy, they tend to arrive with answers. Many of them have seen shrinks before. They can tell her which events from their past were formative, and point to the ripple effects in their current life. They’re like detectives, she told me, with all the dots connected on their corkboard of evidence. Intellectually, they’ve cracked the case. The problem is that they don’t feel any better. That’s why they’re seeking something different from Ottenstein: somatic psychotherapy. Traditional talk therapy could be seen as a top-down approach. You identify problems in your thinking, your habits, or your life, and hope that by working through them, you can resolve physical manifestations of emotional issues—the chest palpitations of anxiety, the stomachache of stress. Somatic therapy, by contrast, works from the bottom up. Ottenstein typically starts her sessions by asking clients to slow down and pay attention to corporeal sensations: “What does it feel like in your chest? In your throat?” As they talk, she encourages them to stay in their body, to …

A low-tech solution from the past may be your best defense against AI deepfakes

A low-tech solution from the past may be your best defense against AI deepfakes

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET’s key takeaways Deepfakes and AI clones get more sophisticated and harder to detect. Advanced attacks involve long-term infiltration of a company’s systems.  Experts recommend low-tech security protocols that offer better defenses. In January 2024, an employee at professional services firm Arup joined a video call with someone they believed included the company’s CFO. This call resulted in 15 wire transfers to third-party accounts totaling about $25m.  Every participant on the other side of the video call was an AI-generated clone cobbled together from public appearances and earnings calls of Arup executives. Also: 6 essential strategies to defend against AI-powered threat actors  “Seeing and hearing someone is no longer proof they are real,” said Deepak Gupta, technical CEO at GrackerAI, when discussing the Arup incident with ZDNET. “Any protocol that relies on ‘I recognized their face and voice’ is now broken.”  We live in a post-truth world where employees handle millions of dollars in company funds every year. Mistakes can be expensive, even when attacks …

How Burbank found a solution to downtown doom

How Burbank found a solution to downtown doom

Published by Sam Flores

A Burbank landlord trying to land a trendy ice cream shop tenant got a critical assist from the city that helped seal the deal. When a Van Leeuwen Ice Cream representative came to look at his space in the center of downtown Burbank in April, a senior city official was there to help woo the brand, said Kurt Kaufman of West Coast Investors, which owns the property. “She said, ‘Look, guys, we aren’t the city of L.A. We can make things happen,’” he recalled. “They were able to open in quite record speed.” Van Leeuwen had expected to have to wait until next year, but was able to open its doors in time for peak ice cream season, summer, in part because of the city’s help. While downtown Los Angeles is languishing, Burbank is booming. Its secret formula, the city says, is embracing businesses, helping the homeless and keeping streets clean, to make downtown a go-to destination for more shoppers, diners and commuters. “You have to be vigilant with your maintenance, with your homeless outreach, …

Why worms (and microbes) are catching on as a manure pollution solution

Why worms (and microbes) are catching on as a manure pollution solution

Published by Miika Tikkanen

“I think we’re going to enable a larger-scale use and adoption of it that could be meaningful to agriculture,” he says, adding: “These will become basically soil production facilities.”  Concerns Determining how well vermifiltration and other manure management approaches work will require more time and more research, experts say.  Katharine Dickson, an agricultural emissions scientist who recently finished a postdoctoral program at UC Davis, says there should be in-the-field accounting to ensure that any of these methods are working as well as hoped—or to the degree government policy programs assume. All of which is tricky to achieve given the dynamic biological processes playing out in live animals and microbial communities on open farms, she adds. “Vermifiltration, for example, depends on a live earthworm population whose performance is sensitive to temperature, moisture, and toxicity, and can shift with seasonal conditions or changes in herd size and manure characteristics on a given farm,” Dickson said in an email.  The use of carbon credits to earn money from vermifiltration projects raises a different set of potential concerns. Most …

It’s not your fault you keep skipping workouts – and there is a solution

It’s not your fault you keep skipping workouts – and there is a solution

Published by Daniella Wilson

Picture the scene. It’s Wednesday evening. You’re working late. A slew of curveballs from colleagues has left you mentally drained. A sink full of dirty dishes and an overflowing laundry basket await you at home. And now it’s time for the gym – followed by a healthy home-cooked meal, of course. For many of us, myself included, this scenario feels all too familiar. In reality, though, we’re far more likely to grab a sandwich and crash on the sofa than stick to our fitness plans. Sign up for the Well Enough newsletter here The problem is that a workout plan is only as good as your ability to follow it. In other words, the perfect workout is useless if you never do it. That’s why, especially for beginners, fitness routines need to be as friction-free as possible. And that is the theme of this week’s newsletter. A few weeks ago, we had a special kettlebell edition of this newsletter, sharing a five-step plan for overhauling your fitness fortunes at home using just a couple of …

Ibogaine: A Psychedelic Solution to the Opioid Epidemic?

Ibogaine: A Psychedelic Solution to the Opioid Epidemic?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Ibogaine is a psychoactive alkaloid found in the root bark of Tabernanthe iboga, a shrub native to Central and West Africa. For generations it has been used in Bwiti spiritual and initiation ceremonies in Gabon and neighboring regions. Ibogaine produces a profound long-lasting psychedelic state, potentially 24-48 hours. Many describe the dream-like experience as a personal “life review.” In the late 20th century, people began to notice something remarkable: some individuals who took ibogaine reported that their opioid or cocaine cravings dramatically decreased, and that withdrawal symptoms were blunted or even temporarily absent. This kicked off decades of underground use and small research programs looking at ibogaine as a potential “anti-addiction” medicine. In the United States, ibogaine is currently a Schedule I substance—classified as having “no accepted medical use” and a high potential for abuse. It is not FDA-approved for any indication. Most treatment with ibogaine today happens in clinics in Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and a few other countries with more permissive laws. Trump’s new executive order, passed April 18, 2026, is removing legal impediments …

The solution to creeping technofacism? Be annoying

The solution to creeping technofacism? Be annoying

Published by Sam Flores

It began as a way to tell a better story. A small, semi-transparent rectangle floating in midair above home plate, first rolled out by ESPN in 2001, showed something approaching the strike zone of a Major League Baseball player. As a flat, rigid representation of a fluctuating and notional three-dimensional space, it wasn’t perfect. But it gave viewers some sense of what players, pitchers and umpires were figuring out in real time: What counts as a ball and a strike in the most subjective of all spectator sports? Armed with footage of strike calls that sailed wide of the supposed mark, supplemented by cameras wedged into the masks of umps and catchers, commentators had proof of umpires’ tendencies to expand or contract the plate. To be sure, it was an improvement. Compared to the cheesy comet-tails that NBC began editing into slo-mo pitch replays in the ‘80s, ESPN’s ghostly “K-Zone” felt deadly serious: a technological marvel for an objective, computer-assisted age. Anyone reading this on an internet-connected device in 2026 already knows the trajectory of …