Solving The Carbon Problem One Blockchain At A Time

 Climate change is one of the most challenging collective problems the world has faced to date. Whether we will be able to curb our carbon emissions quickly enough to avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change is still very much in question.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemmagreen/2018/09/19/solving-the-carbon-problem-one-blockchain-at-a-time/amp/

Korea Taps Samsung's Blockchain Tech to Fight Customs Fraud

South Korea's customs authority is looking to adopt Samsung's blockchain tech as the backbone of a decentralized customs clearance system.

Samsung SDS, the conglomerate's IT arm, said on Friday that the Korea Customs Service has inked a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that will see Samsung's Nexledger blockchain utilized for the new platform.

Forty-eight domestic institutions, including public agencies and shipping and insurance companies, have also signed the MOU, says the firm, aiming to participate as nodes on the distributed network to bring more transparency to the customs process.

The effort seeks to share the necessary series of export documents from a number of entities, such as customs declarations and delivery forms, and is being designed to "fundamentally block document forgery," as well as make the export process more efficient.

Korea Customs Service started working with Samsung on the blockchain use case back in May, when it joined the tech giant's newly launched shipping and logistics consortium.

As CoinDesk reported in April, Samsung SDS had already started developing its blockchain platform for international shipments – one it expected to reduce costs in that sector by 20 percent.

The new customs initiative is also in line with the South Korean government's overall agenda for driving blockchain adoption in pubic services, having allocated dedicated government funding.

Currently, the Ministry of ICT is focusing on developing six pilot projects for public services, one of which is customs clearance.

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https://www.coindesk.com/korea-taps-samsungs-blockchain-tech-to-fight-customs-fraud/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/09/blockchain-set-to-increase-global-trade-by-1-trillion

Article: HTC Exodus: The blockchain phone that could change the internet as we know i

HTC Exodus: The blockchain phone that could change the internet as we know it

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https://www.techradar.com/amp/news/htc-exodus-the-blockchain-phone-that-could-change-the-internet-as-we-know-it

Google Now Provides a Big Data View of the Ethereum Blockchain

Internet search giant Google has added ethereum to its big data analytics platform BigQuery.

Making the announcement in a blog post on Saturday, the company said that, while an API exists for commonly used functions such as checking transaction status or wallet balances, it's not so easy to access all of the data stored on the ethereum blockchain.

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https://www.coindesk.com/google-now-provides-a-big-data-view-of-the-ethereum-blockchain/

A Canadian Government Body Has Built an Ethereum Blockchain Explorer

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) announced Monday that it has built an ethereum blockchain explorer.

The organization wrote in a news release that its Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) is now hosting the explorer on the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) through services provided by Bitaccess, a blockchain startup.

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https://www.coindesk.com/a-canadian-government-body-has-built-an-ethereum-blockchain-explorer/

US Border Officials to Test Blockchain for Certificate Tracking

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) plans to trial blockchain technology to verify North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) certificates.

CBP Division of Business Transformation and Innovation head Vincent Annunziato said the agency was beginning a "live fire testing" of a blockchain platform to certify that imported products originated where they claim during CBP's 2018 Trade Symposium in Atlanta, according to the American Shipper.

The new system, which will launch in September, is going to help CBP verify information about imported goods and check how foreign suppliers act toward American importers, he said. The system can also be used to authenticate trademarks and check on an item's physical properties.

"I can even go in and say, 'hey, I need a little information on the stitching,' or, 'I need information on what colors are viable,'" Annunziato said.

Annunziato said the blockchain system could be used in a mobile app, which would replace a paper-based manual process for verifying such information, thereby streamlining the agency's work.

He also provided an update to the agency's work with the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC). As previously reported by CoinDesk, COAC formed a special group advising the Secretaries of Treasury and Homeland Security on the agency's commercial operations last November. The body was said to focus on emerging technologies in general and on blockchain in particular.

This week, Annunziato confirmed that the committee was working to develop a proof-of-concept blockchain platform to verify intellectual property by confirming the relationship between licensees and licensors. The technology could ultimately eliminate paper processes, manuals and databases, CPB hopes.

The CBP press o

https://www.coindesk.com/us-border-officials-to-test-blockchain-for-tracking-import-certificates/