He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance: one cannot fly into flying. — Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Planes, trains and automobiles? — Lions, tigers and bears? — Oh my!

This week Elastos took to the open skies and to the open road, and someday…no one will be behind the wheel. But for now, Rong the Tiger and the distinguished team at Elastos are driving this train across hard earned track, and we left Kansas a while back.

Did you say autonomous cars? Powered with the security of blockchain? Connected to your mobile phone? The largest car maker in China? Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

Oh, and we got an airline.

Elastos continued its forward momentum this week. Let’s recap.

Technical dynamics

1. Defined the related basic classes of SPV C++ SDK packaging; discussed SDK interface definition

2. Discussed the joint mining of sidechains and determined the independent rotational consensus of each sidechain. Determined the charging and distribution methods for side chain mining miner’s fees

3. Researched bitcoin interface specifications; optimized RESTFUL and JSON RPC interfaces to facilitate cooperation with all parties

4. Combined and determined the new Github repository structure. The Elastos Runtime Github repository adds continuous integration tools that can be compiled automatically

5. Completed the main web wallet upgrade [1.0.17]. Troubleshooted the possibility that wallets cannot import multi-address, multi-UTXO wallets under certain circumstances

6. Optimized block synchronization speed

7. The RT compiler was upgraded to clang and now supports cmake compilation

8. Carrier test tool linux version was completed

9. Building cloud development environment so that developers do not have to build their own development environment. Initial build was completed, still needs to be optimized

10. The ID chain Know Your Customer business process has been completed

11. ElaPay project design completed, starting development

12. Carrier-based RPC development was completed, entering the testing and debugging stages.

Community News

● The official website has added whitepapers in German, Hindi, Arabic and Spanish

● From April 15th to April 23rd, the Elastos Community will work with partners to develop a UK community for development and activities.

● The Elastos Video Contest deadline is July 15th. https://medium.com/elastos/elastos-video-contest-final-version-5efb9fbebf19

Events and Meet-Ups:

April 7th

Feng Han discussed Elastos and blockchain with World Bank Chief Security Officer Zhijun Zhang at Johns Hopkins University.

April 8th

Feng Han made a presentation at George Washington University. Pan Jiang, Counsellor of the Science and Technology Department of the Chinese Embassy in the United States also attended and gave a speech.

Elastos ecosystem construction committee member Dinghe Hu attended a Huobi Blockchain roundtable.

April 9th

Rong Chen was interviewed by Blockchain Hall of Fame. He had a conversation on “Internet Values” with NetEase director Xiaqing Yang.

April 10th

Rong Chen had a discussion with Elastos partner and founder of Viewchain, Xiaodong Wang, on technology implementation plans and details.

Rong Chen hosted the event Six Dimensions of the Internet and Blockchain at Tsinghua University.

April 11th

Feng Han and Jeff Hattern hosted a beer Garden Meetup in Montreal.

Meetups in London

Elastos will be hosting two events in London. The first will be April 19th@ London South Bank University. Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/leading-blockchain-project-from-china-1st-elastos-ela-official-uk-meet-up-tickets-44843234321

The second will be April 21@ Chapter Spitalfields. Link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/top-blockchain-project-from-china-2nd-elastos-uk-meet-up-tickets-44844466005

Meetup in NYC

Rong Chen and Feng Han will host an event on May 12th at Fordham University.

https://www.meetup.com/Elastos-New-York-Meetup/events/249579979/

Meetup in LA: The Future of Blockchain & The Entertainment Industry

Elastos will be hosting a meetup in Santa Monica (location and date TBD) to discuss how Elastos can revolutionize the entertainment industry. Details can be found here: https://www.meetup.com/LA-blockchain-fintech-cryptocurrency/events/249312404/

Elastos Forms Strategic Partnership with Far Eastern Air

Huafu Enterprise Holdings Limited and Far Eastern Air (FAT) recently launched their own digital currency ALLN (Airline and Life Networking) that can be used in the purchase of flights, hotels, tourism, and real estate. Now, with a strategic partnership with Elastos, ELA will also be accepted as payment in their system.

Rong Chen spent two days with the companies last week forming the partnership and discussing possible further collaboration in the future. FAT, a 61 year old company, has become the most profitable airline in Taiwan with service to destinations in China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan Islands.

Real world usage will help drive adoption of any coin and this partnership is an exciting step towards seeing ELA used for the purchase of actual goods and services.

Hi, I’d like to upgrade to first class…ELA? No problem.

Link: https://medium.com/elastos/ela-accepted-as-a-payment-method-in-commercial-airline-industry-4f5cade27dd

Elastos Implemented into SAIC Smart Car Test

General Motors first introduced the idea for a driverless car at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. The idea was for a radio-guided car that would work in conjunction with a modern highway. By 1958, GM developed the Firebird, the first driverless car that connected an electrical cable to a track much like a cable car. It would seem that the autonomous car was always inevitable, always somewhere in the minds of every carmaker. There was just one problem: the technology did not exist.

Autonomous cars require technologies like radar, advanced GPS, wheel sensors, cameras, and light detection and ranging systems. Robotics pioneer and autonomous car creator Sebastian Thurn has said, “There was no way, before 2000, to make something interesting. The sensors weren’t there, the computers weren’t there, and the mapping wasn’t there.” Now, with numerous car companies researching and developing autonomous car projects, including tech companies like Google and Uber, the technology is emerging. But is the trust?

Self-driving cars offer several benefits to society in theory. They are potentially safer and better for the environment. But the biggest question seems to be if the public will trust a car, or the software in the car, to drive it. It is one thing to accept the error of a human driving a car, but quite another to accept it from a machine or a software program. Trust and security will be paramount. But who can offer trust, security and world-class software? Elastos.

Shanghai Automobile Group, the largest car manufacturer in China, recently completed a test that implemented Elastos software in the central control system of a test car. This test was a thorough examination of Elastos software and a success to say the least. A full article on the tests can be found here: https://medium.com/elastos/auto-giants-new-blockchain-game-7e044dbe12b8

What is interesting here is not just the partnership with the largest car manufacturer in China, or the concept of autonomous cars and the huge benefit they can have on our societies, especially our ever-growing urban societies. What really sets these tests apart is Elastos security. Elastos is designed to protect its operating system from attacks and this defense oriented approach is possibly the most important thing to consider in the internet of things market. Computer and information systems professor at the University of Houston, Chris Bronk stated, “Security has often been an after thought in the design of those systems.” With a multitude of objects becoming “smart” and connecting to the internet, an enormous amount of new vulnerabilities could be created, and smart cars are no exception. It is hard to imagine everyday objects like cars and refrigerators being hacked, but it can and already has happened.

Elastos strength is the exact strength needed for the future — and internet of things security is just one of its many global use cases that will continue to evolve in the next decade. Things are about to get radical — and we need a radical operating system and a radical team behind it.

Rong Chen spoke about the Elastos vision on the NEO News Today podcast at the beginning of the year, and his words tie all of this together quite nicely, “It used to be a driver drives, now it’s autonomous driving. Now, can we have this internet, this new smart web, being autonomous, self-driving? We’re all driving towards this huge vision that we see — that smart economy, that smart web. That’s very exciting.”

Thoughts and Conclusions

The French poet Arthur Rimbaud once wrote, “One must be absolutely modern.” On a week where the United States House and Senate held joint committee hearings to discuss data privacy for its citizens, an issue that faces potentially billions of people globally, Elastos revolutionary vision is truly emerging at the right time and is truly the definition of modern. Rong Chen has said there will be room for both centralized internet companies, “chain grocery stores,” and modern decentralized organizations like Elastos, “farmer’s markets.” One involves a middle man, takes a cut of the profits, and compiles data on its customers. The other allows for person to person interaction without a middle man, and allows assets to be distributed more evenly — like a fine organic butter.

The centralized internet platforms, or “fenced gardens” as Rong calls them, segregate the internet while in many cases concurrently “sharing” your data with third parties, because they, not you, own this data. This allows the profits to go to the centralized corporation, and allows “mistakes,” as one CEO put it before Congress this week, that result in mass data breaches. These fenced gardens allow you to produce the content and share it within those walls, but only the central authority can truly own and share the data outside of those walls. This does not sound much like a garden at all, but another fenced-in institution in our society.

But on a peer to peer platform with decentralized applications that allow the same file sharing and communication and “platform for ideas” that some social networks espouse as their current virtues, Elastos envisions all of the strengths of the modern landscape of the internet but without the self-centered corporate mentality. Elastos is an organization. A shepherd ushering in a new vision of the internet that does not put walls around gardens, but allows the creation of endless harvests of ideas without limits. It invites developers to create the next decentralized vision. It invites absolute modernity.

The conversation of data privacy is happening this week and is one of the very few issues with bipartisan support in the current political climate in America.

Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, said about the hearing, “All of the convenience and the connection that we are now seeing comes with a price. Our privacy has been invaded in a manner that would have been unthinkable even 20 years ago. This nation needs a serious conversation about the proper role of these companies. Should Facebook, Google, and Amazon be allowed to control so much of the internet? Today’s hearing must be considered as a beginning, not an end, of the discussion about the dramatic impact that Facebook, technology companies in general and the internet at large play in our society.”

In light of this conversation, an image comes to mind, sprung forth from the halls of freedom and revolution. Imagine this: Rong Chen and his millions of lines of original code, cascading over the ether to the sound of Queen’s “I Want to Break Free.”

Because it’s time.

So if you ‘want to break free,’ because you’ve ‘fallen in love’ with Elastos — you’re not alone — you’re a part of something — something big.

There is a beautiful music in the air this week. Can you hear it? It is the dawning of a new web. A smart web. And it emanates from the musicality of the Elastos vision. It’s not just the code, but something altogether invisible. Jimi Hendrix said, “What’s good or bad doesn’t matter to me; what does matter is feeling and not feeling. If only people would…think in terms of feeling… You’ve got to know much more than just the technicalities of notes; you’ve got to know what goes between the notes.”

It’s true. There is a feeling about Elastos. Can you feel it? It’s what goes between the notes, between the lines, those millions of lines of original code, that pinnacle of the life’s work of a visionary, because that is the intangible… the ineffable… the mysterious and indescribable essence of the vision that births the results into our physical world, all over our planet, that will connect us all like we have never been connected before. No middle man, no central authority, no big brother taking a cut, owning your data, selling your data, and making you just an analytical commodity. “You own your data,” says Feng Han.

So take back your identity. Break free. Fall in love.

Free the web.

Onward! Upward! Elastos!