Latest news with #Zink
Business Insider
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
ATMTA Unveils Zink: A Groundbreaking SVM Layer 1 Blockchain with Zero-Knowledge Identity
Empowering Users with Secure On-Chain Profiles, Seamless Permissions, and a New Era of Decentralized Innovation ATMTA, the innovative development team behind the blockbuster blockchain game Star Atlas, today announced the launch of Zink, a revolutionary Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) Layer 1 blockchain. Designed to redefine digital identity and blockchain interactions, Zink introduces a patent-pending zero-knowledge on-chain profile system, enabling unprecedented security, control, and efficiency for users across decentralized applications. Going live Aug. 13 at 12:00 PM PST, the Zink announcement includes the release of a comprehensive lite paper detailing the protocol's tokenomics and technical architecture. This marks the beginning of an exciting roadmap that culminates in the network's mainnet genesis event in December. Key highlights of the Zink launch include: On-Chain Identity Revolution: At the core of Zink is its zero-knowledge on-chain profile, powered by ATMTA's patent-pending 'player profile' primitive, branded as the zProfile. This innovative account architecture provides global permission settings across connected applications, allowing users to automate transaction approvals—such as in-game actions—without compromising security on core assets. It eliminates the need for manual approvals in high-frequency scenarios while maintaining robust protection, setting a new standard for user-centric blockchain experiences. SVM Base Layer: Built on the high-performance Solana protocol, Zink leverages the Solana Virtual Machine to create a scalable, efficient Layer 1 ecosystem. This foundation enables the spawning of a new decentralized universe, optimized for speed, low costs, and seamless interoperability. ZINK Token: The native utility token of the network, ZINK powers transactions, validator staking, user staking, and consensus mechanisms. It serves as the economic backbone of the Zink ecosystem, incentivizing participation and growth. Following the launch, Zink's roadmap includes: Starting in September, XP tracking will commence, kicking off an airdrop campaign that rewards early adopters and community contributors. XP (experience points) will be earned through a variety of mechanics, including participating in Star Atlas gameplay across the MMO built in UE5, SAGE browser 4X game, Holosim, a fully free-to-play port of SAGE, locking ATLAS and POLIS in the Star Atlas DAO lockers, trading on the Galactic Marketplace, amongst others. The airdrop will run through December, distributing 10% of the total ZINK token supply to eligible participants. In December, the genesis event will officially launch Zink on mainnet, transitioning the protocol to full operational status, with all current and future Star Atlas game logic running on the network. 'Zink represents the amalgamation of years of investment into sophisticated infrastructure necessary to operate fully onchain game systems, and beyond. With Zink, we're forging a new frontier where every individual's digital identity empowers them to shape a decentralized universe, and form a true emotional connection to the network they reside on.' says CEO and Founder Michael Wagner. 'On Zink, your digital persona, your avatar, has meaning, represents status and reputation, and can unlock value in ways not possible with existing blockchains.' Zink represents ATMTA's continued commitment to pushing the boundaries of blockchain technology, building on the success of Star Atlas, which has captivated millions with its immersive metaverse and play-to-earn mechanics. For more information on Zink, including the lite paper, visit About ATMTA, Inc. ATMTA is a pioneering development studio at the intersection of gaming and blockchain technology. Best known for creating Star Atlas, a next-generation multiplayer metaverse game on Solana, ATMTA is dedicated to building secure, scalable, and user-empowered digital ecosystems. Headquartered in Las Vegas, NV, ATMTA continues to innovate in the Web3 space, blending cutting-edge tech with engaging experiences. Zink
NBC News
06-07-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Getting to Europe is cheaper this summer — but everything costs more when you're there
Indeed, Tourism Economics found travel spending by U.S. residents abroad rose 8.6% in the first four months of the year from the same period a year earlier. 'This indicates continued U.S. outbound demand,' the firm said. While the economy and household finances always influence travel demand, 'today those factors are looking to have more of a negative impact than positive one,' said Nicki Zink, deputy head of industry analysis at the market research firm Morning Consult. In the group's recent survey, 31% of consumers said both the state of the U.S. economy and personal financial pressures are reducing their interest in leisure travel in the next three months, 'higher than any other factor we survey about,' said Zink. For its own part, the tourism market research firm Future Partners found 47% of American travelers are likely to venture abroad in the next 12 months, but 35% said uncertainty around U.S. policy changes had already caused them to reconsider or delay those plans. And in a NerdWallet survey last month, 11% of consumers said they'd scrapped international travel plans this year over global relations or economic uncertainty. Plenty of Americans are still packing their passports, though. Millennials, for example, 'are increasingly considering international destinations, despite the higher cost compared with domestic trips,' said Zink, adding that interest in destinations across South and Central America, the Caribbean and northern Europe have risen this year. Wealthy travelers are also still traveling with gusto, extending a trend that has intensified since the recovery from the pandemic. 'Our affluent clients are still going after those bucket-list adventures and once-in-a-lifetime experiences,' said Mandee Migliaccio, CEO of the New Jersey-based agency Stepping Out Travel Services. 'While they're definitely keeping an eye on the headlines, they typically won't change plans unless a destination really becomes unstable.' Migliaccio acknowledged she has seen some subtle shifts lately, with some clients asking to trim flight costs or deciding to skip a stop to keep things more efficient. 'It's not so much 'I can't go' as it is, 'How can I make this work for me?'' she said. 'People are being strategic, spending where it matters most, and opting for curated experiences over excess.'
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Voices of Veterans: Colonel John Zink shares his story of service in the United States Air Force, Army Air Corps
May 2—AUSTIN — Texas Land Commissioner and Veterans Land Board (VLB) Chairwoman Dr. Dawn Buckingham announced the next installment of the series highlighting the VLB's Voices of Veterans oral history program May 2. This week, they highlight the service of Colonel John Zink who served in the U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Air Force. Zink, the son of a World War I Veteran, decided to join the military after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II. He went into the service in June 1942 while attending flight school. Even though Zink had never ridden in an airplane before flight school, his love of aircraft began as a young child. "Well, as far back as I can remember, I was always interested in airplanes. One of the car dealers in my county had a Stenson Reliant. He used to land it in my neighbor's pasture field, and every time he did, I'd run down there and drool over the airplane — I guess that's the right term — and I always wanted to fly." Like his peers, Zink felt that joining the military at this pivotal moment for America was the "right thing to do." He also recognized that the emergency circumstances created by Pearl Harbor's bombing would allow him to fly in the military without attending college. When discussing his first flight, Zink said he had two feelings. "Number one was I'm gonna do it, and the other one was, I'm sort of scared to do it. And I guess the joy overtook the other one." Zink graduated with the rank of second lieutenant and was extremely pleased to go on to fly fighter aircraft, specifically the Lockheed P-38 Lighting. Zink described this historic fighter, saying, "A P-38 was a twin-engine fighter plane built by Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. It was designed in the late 1930s by Kelly Johnson and his engineering staff. Kelly was the head of engineering at Lockheed in those days. And first flew in late 1940 [...] The first ones were probably delivered to the Air Force in mid-1941 in very small quantities. And then, when the war broke out, the contracts were increased." At an Air Force base in Rabaul, near the Solomon Islands, Zink recalled that the Japanese had six airfields with over 400 planes. He was a part of the 13th Air Force, and they were to cover 24 Douglass SBD Dauntless dive bombers and 24 Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers on a dive-bombing mission. "We had 16 P-38s on the mission, and as they started the dive-bombing run why, the Japanese fighters attacked from above. We don't know exactly how high they were, but we were about 16,000, so they were probably 20,000. There was a thin deck of cloud above us, and we couldn't see 'em. And so, we followed the dive bombers down, and as we went down, I saw several P-38s crash in the water." Zink also described the dangers of compressibility that afflicted the P-38 and how one pilot was rescued after being shot down during that mission. "As you gain speed in a P-38, the lift point would move back on the wing, and if it got to a certain point, it would actually blank out the elevator, and you couldn't pull out of the dive. Whether these airplanes got into compressibility or actually were shot down, we'll never know for sure, but we did see three of 'em go down in real tight formation and hit the water [...] there were 16 P-38s — 8 of them shot down or lost. We picked up one pilot seven days later, and, by the way, he's 90 some years old and still living. We escorted the bombers back out off the target, and then we headed home." Zink spoke about the difficulty of losing friends and people he had attended flying school with and how combat was a rough experience as they fought the numerous Japanese forces. However, as they learned, Zink said, "We became more mature [and] gained experience from the mistakes that we made. We stopped losing airplanes, losing our fighters to the Japanese fighters. One of the things we've always been very proud of is that we never lost a bomber we were escorting to the Japanese fighters." The P-38 pilots flew several bombing missions themselves, and Zink recalled being proud of the accuracy of their bombing with relatively little experience. He flew missions near northwest New Guinea, the Celebes, the East Indies, and Borneo for nine months. Zink recalled participating in long-range missions that cover over a 700-mile radius. He flew an incredible 157 missions over the Pacific Ocean while being deployed for 20 months. Though he was discharged and needed rest due to combat fatigue, Zink's military career did not end after his service during World War II. He would also make an impact during the Korean War as a top-notch pilot. Click here to listen to Colonel John Zink tell his story.
Daily Mail
29-04-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Deadly new Viagra-cocaine trend that millions of men are secretly doing before WORK... as addicts reveal terrifying tales of 7.30am binges
For six years, 30-year-old Eric Zink's morning routine did not vary. He'd wake at his home near Los Angeles, pour himself a 7.30am shot of vodka, do a line of cocaine, and take a Viagra. Then he'd drive to work. At the time, Zink had been an alcoholic and drug addict for almost a decade. The cocaine ramped up his libido, but restricted the flow of blood to his penis. So his dealer was supplying Viagra, in addition to his steady stream of cocaine.
The Guardian
26-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Sister Europe by Nell Zink review – all the ideas Trump deems most dangerous
On 7 March 2025 the New York Times published a list of words that the Trump administration was systematically culling from government documents and educational materials. This list, which includes the words 'gender ideology', 'affirming care', 'confirmation bias', 'ethnicity', 'identity', 'immigrants', 'racism', 'prostitute', 'political', 'intersectional' and 'privilege', reads like a bingo card for Nell Zink's astonishingly prescient new novel, Sister Europe, in which a large cast of racially, economically and gender-diverse characters convene over the course of a single evening to attend a literary awards ceremony in Berlin. On its surface, Sister Europe is a comedy of manners set among Berlin's exclusive and elusive cultural elite. The prose is searingly quick, revelatory and funny: Zink's dialogue reads like our best plays. Entertaining banter could be this book's largest trophy, were it not for the contents of the banter, which are so ambitious and ethically interested that they make it clear that Zink is one of our most important contemporary writers. Like the film classic My Dinner with Andre, in Sister Europe the interactions between characters are vehicles through which philosophical quandaries are explored. However, while the questions in My Dinner with Andre are largely posed in the abstract, here they are shockingly specific. For example, Demian, a German art critic, struggles to reconcile his admiration for the Arabic writer being honoured, Masud, with racist elements in Masud's writing: On reading [Masud's] books, Demian discovered to his consternation a grating and persistent anti-Black racism. Was it excusable? He excused it, on the grounds that it would be hard for an anti-Black racist to do much damage in Norway, where anti-Muslim racism was a deadly threat (admittedly much of it intersectional, directed against Somalis). Was it patronising to suspend his ethical standards because the man was a genius, or Eurocentric not to suspend them, and which was worse? In this way, Zink repeatedly names systems of power without being moralistic. She is simultaneously stringent and funny, which is disarming. Humour is one of our best tools for processing extreme violence: Zink knows this, and accordingly deploys her singular wit throughout. Over the course of the evening, Zink's characters vocalise their desires, fears and prejudices. Nothing, including narrating from the consciousness of an economically privileged 15-year-old trans girl who tries her hand at streetwalking, is off limits. The most working-class character in the book is an Israel-loving antisemitic German cop who takes bribes from pimps but also delivers an exacting critique of the decriminalisation of prostitution under the Social Democratic-Green German government in 2002. In this way, Zink endows each of her characters with both moral high grounds and glaring blind spots. In Sister Europe, as in life, who is the oppressed and who is the oppressor is not fixed. The ever-shifting flow of social and sexual power between the characters is nerve-racking and tantalising: there are no saints and no demons. Though her work is rarely discussed in the context of politics, Zink is one of our most ambitious and explicitly political writers. Here she shows us that the Trump administration's embargoed words are not weapons, but questions. Nothing is more dangerous to a dictator than someone who can anticipate, and therefore interrogate, their actions. Sister Europe performs an intellectually rigorous interrogation of the ideas the Trump administration deems most dangerous, all the while dressed in the outfit of an extravagant Hermes-clad literary gala. While this is a novel of ideas, the narrative is never cold or cerebral. It's beautifully felt, and emotionally open-handed. I wanted love and joy for each of the 13 main characters, which the book (surprisingly!) delivers. As the long night is coming to an end, and morning is threatening to creep over the winter streets of Berlin, Zink's large cast pairs off and an unlikely couple trade pillow talk: Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion He whispered hesitantly, speaking into the towel over her ear, 'You want to change your life.' 'That was stupid,' she replied. 'Life should change me. I don't want to be destructive of a living thing, flattening it with my identity.' She said the word slowly. As though identities were something ubiquitous, but distasteful, like dust mites, that might be dispensed with, given careful hygiene. This book is not a rejection of identity politics, but a plea for the possibility of an evolving self; a bid against inner stagnancy. Like Erasure by Percival Everett, Sister Europe addresses the claustrophobia that can accompany an identity. No character, real or imagined, enjoys being flattened. Rita Bullwinkel's novel Headshot is published by Daunt. Sister Europe by Nell Zink is published by Viking (£14.99). To support the Guardian buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply.
