News

Signal Now Supports In-App MobileCoin Cryptocurrency Payments

Signal’s latest beta version has introduced a new payment feature, called Signal Payments, allowing users to send and receive cryptocurrency from within the app.

Published

3 years ago

April 16, 2021

Joanna Melki

signal now supports mobilecoin cryptocurrency payments

The latest beta version of the privacy-oriented instant messaging platform Signal has introduced a new cryptocurrency payment feature, called Signal Payments, allowing its users to send and receive MobileCoin tokens directly from the Signal app.

Initially, the cryptocurrency payment feature will be available only to Signal users living in the United Kingdom, but support for more regions is planned for the future.

Signal

“Signal Payments makes it easy to link a MobileCoin wallet to Signal so you can start sending funds to friends and family, receive funds from them, keep track of your balance, and review your transaction history with a simple interface,” explains Signal in the official announcement. “As always, our goal is to keep your data in your hands rather than ours; MobileCoin’s design means Signal does not have access to your balance, full transaction history, or funds.”

Following the launch of the beta integration of MobileCoin, the value of a single MOB token jumped from $7 to over $60.

It’s no coincidence that MobileCoin was picked as the first cryptocurrency supported by the messaging app. The platform’s founder, Moxie Marlinspike, is listed as MobileCoin’s technical adviser, and some keen observers have pointed out that his involvement could be much deeper than both he and MobileCoin admit.

According to an early version of the MobileCoin whitepaper, Marlinspike was the project’s original CTO. If this information is true, then the decision to integrate MobileCoin should raise some serious questions among users, questions some members of the crypto community have already voiced their opinions.

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“Signal sold out their user base by creating and marketing a cryptocurrency based solely on their ability to sell the future tokens to a captive audience,” said Bitcoin Core developer Matt Corallo, who also used to be a contributor.

MobileCoin CEO Joshua Goldbard disputed the authenticity of the whitepaper, claiming that it wasn’t written by anyone at MobileCoin even though the project’s current whitepaper is almost identical to it. Marlinspike refused to say anything about his professional relationship with MobileCoin.

News

Adobe Reveals New AI Tools That Will Wow Photoshop Novices

The company is forging ahead with its Firefly-based AI features, but some professionals have copyright concerns.

Published

23 mins ago

April 24, 2024

Nour Nasir

Adobe

On Tuesday, April 23, Adobe announced a beta version of Photoshop boasting several fresh features aimed at helping users generate new images and manipulate existing files through text prompts. The latest generative AI additions harness the power of Adobe’s new Firefly Image 3 model.

Among the highlights of the update is the Generate Image tool, designed to generate images based on textual cues, providing users who struggle with a blank canvas a starting point to work from. Additionally, Generative Fill, an existing tool for background completion or image expansion, now incorporates a Reference Image function. The enhancement enables users to guide the tool’s output towards a specific aesthetic or theme by uploading an image as a reference.

adobe photoshop ai update firefly image 3 model

The new AI tools significantly simplify the process of translating creative ideas into images and should be useful to both Photoshop novices and seasoned pros. Firefly Image 3 now has the ability to produce astonishingly realistic images, and its enhanced understanding of text prompts is now considered industry-leading.

Despite facing scrutiny over its training data and a backlash from certain segments of the creative community, Adobe remains committed to integrating generative AI features into its entire software suite. The company continues to assert that Firefly is a safe, ethical option for commercial use and positions it as an alternative to competitors like Midjourney and Stable Diffusion —both of which have faced allegations of using copyrighted material without proper attribution or compensation.

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Despite Adobe’s confidence in Firefly’s abilities, recent findings have uncovered that its training dataset includes AI-generated images sourced from Midjourney and similar platforms, raising questions about the integrity of Adobe’s claims regarding the model’s commercial viability.

While Adobe maintains that its generative AI models are trained on licensed or public domain content from Adobe Stock, enthusiast Nick St. Pierre recently pointed out on X (formerly Twitter) that “over 13% of all images on Adobe Stock are AI-generated,” and that “most of the generated content comes from Dalle and Midjourney”.