Microsoft Now Accepts Bitcoin

bitcoins
Microsoft, the famous multinational corporation that powers much of the world’s computing infrastructure with its Windows OS, now accepts Bitcoin online for its digital products. Microsoft users, in America only for now, can even fund their Microsoft/Windows Live or XBox Live accounts using Bitcoin, at the current exchange rate. Once Microsoft’s Bitcoin acceptance is at 100%, businesses and end users alike can pay for services such as Azure or even Windows Phone apps.
Once Microsoft starts accepting Bitcoin worldwide, the frictionless transactions will truly begin to flow. With $86.63 b in annual revenue and $172.38 b in total assets, Microsoft is the new largest company in the world to accept Bitcoin. Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates has previously admitted that “Bitcoin Technology is key.”

Source: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/microsoft-now-accepts-bitcoin-bitpay/

Microsoft has started to accept Bitcoin payments, allowing customers to buy apps, games and videos from online stores with the crypto-currency.
The new feature, which was quietly added to its website last night, has been enabled by a partnership with payment processing startup BitPay.
Customers can now use Bitcoin to add money to their Microsoft account, but not use it to pay for goods directly. Once you add money to your Microsoft account you can use it to buy apps, games and other digital content from the Windows, Windows Phone, Xbox Games, Xbox Music and Xbox Video stores.
“Most Bitcoin transactions should process immediately. If it doesn’t, please wait up to two hours for the transaction to complete before contacting support,” says a support page on Bitcoin on Microsoft’s website. “Money added to your Microsoft account using Bitcoin cannot be refunded, so make sure to review your transaction before paying with your digital wallet.”
Currently the feature is limited to the US, and those customers here in the UK are not able to add funds to their account with a Bitcoin payment.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11286998/Tech-giant-Microsoft-accepts-Bitcoin-payments.html

Inventor Develops Synthetic “Leaf” That Produces Oxygen

Julian Melchiorri, a graduate of the Royal College of Art, claims to have developed a silk leaf that could create oxygen for space travel as well as make the air nicer here on Earth. The leaf was developed in conjunction with a silk lab from Tufts University

The leaf is created from a matrix of protein extracted from silk and chloroplasts, the organelle that allows plants and algae to perform photosynthesis. When provided with light and water, the synthetic leaf allegedly acts just like a real leaf and produces oxygen.

“It’s very light, low energy-consuming,” he explains. “It’s completely biological and my idea was to use the efficiency of nature in a man-made environment. I created some lighting out of this material, using the light to illuminate the house but at the same time to create oxygen for us.”

Malchiorri isn’t content to just think of a few small fixtures within the house as the only use for this product. His dreams for Silk Leaf are out of this world.

“NASA is researching different ways to produce oxygen for long-distance space journeys to let us live in space,” he continued. “This material could allow us to explore space much further than we can now.”

In addition to meeting the breathing demands of astronauts and the first colonists of Mars and beyond, the material could be used on the facades of buildings and inside ventilation systems in order to generate fresh oxygen.

Check out this video:

The “first man-made biological leaf” could enable humans to colonise space from Dezeen on Vimeo.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/technology/inventor-develops-synthetic-leaf-produces-oxygen#veIGETekmYcthCLf.99