September 2018 — Consensus AI Community Update
Developer News
Mining Pool
Most seasoned miners know when the block difficulty reaches a certain point, mining with CPUs or even GPUs won’t cut it; this is inevitable as a blockchain network grows. The good thing is, even though the competition is getting tougher, so is the network’s security.
To make CPU miner functionality in the GUI wallet beneficial, we’re finalizing work on mining pool software to collectively harness the combined hash rate of participating members and offer shared block rewards to them. The mining pool software will be rolled out in the second half of October.
Research Update
1. Proof-of-Compute technical paper
Since launching the network in early August, the team has been working tirelessly on the Proof-of-Compute consensus algorithm, which utilizes the combined computing power of the Sentient network to secure the blockchain by performing machine learning computations.
We are getting ready to release the technical paper outlining the algorithm and the beta version of the testnet that will be launched in the next 6–7 weeks.
2. Our research team just got stronger!
We welcomed Jim Brink and Steve Hockema into the Sentient research team last month. Jim and Steve will be working closely with Oleg (CEO) focusing their collective energy on the Proof-of-Compute research.
Jim has over 15 years experience architecting software platforms, at all levels from firmware to cloud. He co-developed the first PDF annotation and SSH apps for the iPhone in 2008. Previously, he was a software architect at security startup Determina (acquired by VMWare). Jim was admitted to the Math Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley, but left to pursue less structured areas of interest.
Steve has over 25 years of industry and academic experience in related technical fields. He holds a joint Ph.D. in Computer and Cognitive Science from Indiana University and Master’s and Bachelor’s degrees in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. His academic research was in the areas of Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Cognitive Modelling.
More recently, Jim and Steve are known for creating Branchfire, a software design company that built productivity tools currently being used by over a million people worldwide. Jim served as the Chief Technology Officer for the company and Steve lead engineering; and now, they are both working towards the Consensus vision!
Sentient GUI Wallet Update Coming
In anticipation of bigger things to come, we’ve been working on some bug fixes for the Sentient GUI Wallet, including the function to check for (and apply) updates as well as various display issues. The updated version of the Sentient GUI application for Mac OS, Linux, and Windows is now live; you can find the updated release version on sentient.org/app. And a massive thanks to everyone for contributing feedback.
Nuno Silva joins Consensus as Chief Product Officer
We proudly welcome Nuno Silva as Chief Product Officer for Consensus. Nuno has a number of impressive experiences under his belt; apart from building communities and managing technical teams for over a decade, he developed tools and protocols for processing enormous volumes of digital data and metadata for two of the world’s leading crowd-sourced licensing websites, Getty Images, and 500px — where Oleg and Dustin (CSO) also worked. They were colleagues from 2014–2016, working together to launch the licensing business unit that eventually lead to the acquisition of the company.
Nuno was also a founder of Stocksy United, a royalty-free stock photo and video website for which Nuno helped build a co-op platform with a governance structure allowing for equitable treatment of the community; this gained him international recognition for Stocksy’s innovative and profitable business model.
Nuno is now bringing his talents to Consensus, as he shares the same ambitious vision of improving our collective co-existence. Additionally, his interest in making sense of large data sets, building communities, and working at the forefront of this burgeoning industry has become a driving force motivating him to take part in the project.
“The technologies available to us right now are really powerful. But like any emerging technology, it takes products that make sense to consumers to bridge that gap. Products need to be useful and also engaging,” says Nuno.
A lot is happening for Consensus and lots more on the way, so check back for more updates!
