What Does the Ethereum Merge Mean?

 Had exactly this question in mind when I read of the 'Ethereum merge'. Below an intro and much more at the link.

What The Merge Means,  by Ali Yahya  from https://a16zcrypto.com/ 

September 15, 2022

The Merge – the major Ethereum upgrade that happened early Thursday morning – will go down as one of the most important moments in the history of open source. It’s hard to think of a cooler example of a community of hundreds of developers across many organizations driving years of open-ended research and hard technical development.

Many people don’t realize: Transitioning Ethereum to “proof-of-stake” (PoS) – an alternative to “proof-of-work” (PoW) mining for reaching consensus on blocks of transactions – was an insane feat. The update involved hot-swapping the most important component of Ethereum’s architecture – its consensus mechanism – *while it was running*. All this occurred while maintaining perfect uptime for millions of users, thousands of decentralized applications (dapps), and hundreds of billions of dollars secured.

I believe Ethereum is a far superior blockchain now than it was before. Why? Let’s review some of the advantages.

Energy efficiency

Post-Merge, Ethereum is now 100x+ more energy-efficient than it was before. Participating in consensus no longer expends the enormous amount of electricity that PoW does. After The Merge, energy usage of ETH will be comparable to the datacenters of web2.  ... '   (more at the link) 

Brands Want more Insights from POS Data

In Retailwire: Makes much sense.  Includes expert discussion.

Brands want more insights from retail POS data
by Guest contributor Glenn Taylor

Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from the Retail TouchPoints website. .... 

While brand manufacturers continue to invest in POS analytics and gather relevant customer data from retailer partners, 77 percent still believe they can be doing more with the data to improve their business, according to a report from Askuity. .... "  

Don't Forget Point of Sale

It is still a very important, vibrant place.  Even understood after I spent all of today shopping online.  In Marketing Mag.    " .... Everyone might going crazy for digital these days but that shouldn’t mean we neglect bricks-and-mortar, writes Rosemary Chegwyn. Here she identifies some important considerations when creating point of sale (POS) solutions. ... " 

Intuit Heads to the Aisle with Aislebuyer

Late to this one, but thought I would close the books on my coverage of the in retail-buying system Aislebuyer, developed by my former colleague Andrew Paradise, and mentioned here a number of times.   It was sold this past April to Intuit. Which will give Intuit some interesting further presence in the retail aisle beyond their other POS system.   Congratulations to Andrew.

Further now Andrew has started a multiplayer gaming site called Skillz.    An article about Skillz here. And a further explanatory video.  " .... Skillz Says Real-Money Betting in Mobile Games Is Paying Off ... ".  Intriguing idea which dances around the definition of games and betting.   Will follow up on this.  Good luck Andrew.

How P&G Leverages Downstream Data

On how P&G uses a major source of Big Data, from Point of Sale:
Focusing on store-level data enables CG companies to win in modern retail. Here, a member of Procter & Gamble’s Retailer Connect Program candidly reveals how the company is using POS data to identify out-of-stock/zero sales incidents and then act in store to fix those opportunities and drive sales.... "