Gartner believes that software and hardware companies do better in 2013 than last year. I hope so this happens, it would be good for the industry. Gartner Says Worldwide IT Spending Forecast to Reach $3.7 Trillion in 2013. That would be 4.2 percent increase from 2012 spending. At the moment uncertainties surrounding prospects for an upturn in global economic growth are the major retardants to IT growth. According to the IT market research form Forrester IT market will grow globally by 3.3 per cent this year in U.S. dollar terms. Europe continues to decline (except Nordic countries, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), and growth is slower in Japan and India.
Worldwide IT spending increases were pretty anemic as IT and telecom services spending were seriously curtailed last year. Gartner believes that this uncertainty is nearing resolution and thus Earth’s anemic IT budgets to bounce back in 2013. Wall Street Beat: 2013 IT Spending Forecasts Look Upbeat article mentions that fiscal cliff deal will help unlock spending on mobility, analytics, collaboration and security technology.
According to the EPA, the average office worker uses about 10,000 sheets of paper each year. There is again a Campaign To Remove Paper From Offices. A campaign started by HelloFax, Google, Expensify, and others has challenged businesses to get rid of physical paper from their office environment in 2013. The Paperless 2013 project wants to move all documents online. The digital tools that are available today. The paperless office technology is here – we just need to use it more than our printers.
Intel x86 and ARM duopoly will continue to dominate this year. Both of the processor will sell well on their own main application fields, and they try to push to each others territories. This means that ARM tries to push to servers and x86 is trying to push more heavily to mobile devices.
Software manufacturers aim to hardware business: Microsoft, Valve, Google etc..
Still IT buyers expect too much from software they buy. This has happened earlier for long time and I expect that to continue. IT systems are easier to develop than user brains, but still system that are hard to learn are pushed to users.
IT service companies sill “sell air”. It is a good business to sell promises first and then when you get money try to do make the promised product with it. And are you sure that the backups your service provider makes can really be restored?
This year will not be a year for Linux on desktop. The fact that currently Amazon’s top selling laptop runs on Linux does not change that. Linux is more heading to smart phones and tablets that to win normal desktop.
Gaming on Linux gets boost. Valve released Steam gaming system for LinuxUbuntu users have run to use Steam game service (at the moment 0.8% of Steam users use Ubuntu, the service was started to as beta on December 2012). Valve will release this year it’s own Linux based Steam Box gaming console. Exclusive interview: Valve’s Gabe Newell on Steam Box, biometrics, and the future of gaming.
Windows 8 slow start continues. Windows 8 sales are well below projections. Computer sales dropped after release of Windows 8. U.S. consumers hesitant to make switch to Windows 8. Uncertainty could turn Windows 8 into the next Vista. Independent report says that Windows 8 Even Less Popular Than Vista and Microsoft voice says that its new OS are chugging along quite nicely, thank you very much, in much the same fashion as Windows 7 before it. Who to believe? Let’s wait and see what happens. I expect that some users will get Significant booting challenges on EFI systems when upgrading to Windows 8.
Interest in Java will decrease compared to other languages for various reasons, recent security issues playing part on that. C Beats Java As Number One Language According To TIOBE Index. It happened already.
Software optimization becomes again talked about when CPU usage on cloud system is easily measured and costs money. Cost-Aware Architectures will be talked bout. Keeping control over cost, architecturally, is just plain hard. Usually engineers we are remarkably badly trained in thinking about cost, but corporate bean counters can now start to ask how we save cost in running the software in cloud. Pinterest Cut Costs from $54 to $20 Per Hour by Automatically Shutting Down Systems.
The world of smart connected devices (desktops, notebook, tabs and smartphones) is becoming bigger and bigger on the expense of traditional PC manufacturers. At the end of 2012 HP is still top of PC league, but trailing fourth in all-devices rankings. Samsung leads the pack in terms of device shipments and Apple is next. Lenovo is the third biggest shifter of devices on the planet. The bets for increased sales are being placed behind smartphones and tablets.
It’s deja vu all over again. You see the phrase “any time, any place, anywhere” in relation to mobile access. Mobile devices bring back that old client-server feeling. The realization dawned that client-server brought with it as many problems as it solved. Following a period of re-centralisation using Web-based architectures, it looks as if we are beginning to come full circle. When the next generation is getting all excited about using mobile apps as front-ends for accessing services across the network, we can’t help noticing parallels with the past. Are HTML5 and cross-platform development and execution environments are now with us to save us? In the real world, the fast and reliable connectivity upon which this model depends just isn’t there in most countries at the moment.
End of netbooks as we know it. Netbook sales go to zero. All major manufacturers in this category has ended making netbooks. They have been replaced with booming tablet sales.
Tablet PC shipments are expected to reach more than 240 million units worldwide in 2013, easily exceeding the 207 million notebook PCs that are projected to ship, according to NPD DisplaySearch Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report. The market that has been dominated by one major player, Apple, but Android tablets are quickly getting more market share.
Thin client devices seem to be popping up here and there. Dell introduces HDMI stick that turns any screen into a thin client PC. And so will several other small stick computers coming. Raspberry Pi pocket computer is selling like hot pies (nears one million milestone).
Directly soldered to board CPUs are already norm on smart phone, tablets and some laptops. There will be more and more questions when manufacturers start to drop CPU sockets on the computers. Rumors about Intel Corp.’s plan to abandon microprocessor sockets in the future has been flowing and official response has been:
Intel to Support CPU Sockets for Foreseeable Future. AMD Vows Not to Drop Microprocessor Sockets in Next Two Years. Question is still when transition to BGA starts to happen on desktop PCs.
USB speed will increase again this year. So there is again a new USB version. The future of USB 3.0 coming mid-year with data speeds doubling to 10Gbps. USB 3.0 speed to DOUBLE in 2013 article tells that USB 3.0 – aka SuperSpeed USB – is set to become 10 gigabits per second super-speedy, with a new specification scheduled for a mid-2013 release. The aim is to brings USB closer to the class-leading Thunderbolt standard. It is expected that the new specification ends to consumer hardware a year later.
Higher resolutions will become commonplace. Earlier full HD was a target. Now high end devices are aiming to “retina” and 4K resolutions. Panasonic shows off 20-inch Windows 8 tablet with insane 4K resolution Qualcomm outs Snapdragon 800 and 600: up to 2.3GHz quad-core, 4K video, due by mid 2013.
Solid state storage becomes cheaper and cheaper. You can get ssd-storage at as low as less than one dollar per gigabyte. Moore’s Law may not be running out of steam in memory as we have an insatiable appetite for memory these days. Nowadays our tastes are changing from DRAM to nonvolatile flash memory used in SSD device. For example Kingston just unveiled the world’s first 1TB USB stick and SSD drives are also getting bigger every day. We are already encountering floating-gate scaling problems for NAND flash and answer to the scaling problem appears to be growing devices “up”.
2013 in storage is dominated by flash and file systems. We will finally see some all-flash arrays starting to ship from the big boys – and this will bring credibility to some of the smaller players. Management tools are going to be big again. Expect a lot of pain as infrastructure teams try to make things just work.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft building touch-screen feature into Chrome
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57584582-93/microsoft-building-touch-screen-feature-into-chrome/
To spread its flexible Pointer Events interface beyond Windows 8 and IE10, Microsoft programmers are trying to build support into Google’s browser.
Through the peculiar dynamics of Web standard politics and the open-source programming cooperation, Microsoft is helping Google with support for a feature to let browsers flexibly handle input from touch screens, mice, and pens.
The interface, which uses the same approach as in Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, already is built into Internet Explorer 10. The World Wide Web Consortium last week promoted the Pointer Events specification to “candidate recommendation” status, an important step on the path to standardization.
Microsoft already had built a test version of Pointer Events support for WebKit, the browser engine project from which Blink diverged earlier this year.
“This progression from Last Call Working Draft to Candidate Recommendation is a mark of the effective collaboration among Microsoft Corp., Google, Mozilla, Opera, Nokia, jQuery, and others to help sites take advantage of new interactive devices for the Web,”
“We see Pointer Events as a great way to unify the haphazard models that exist today for mouse, touch, and other pointer devices.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
European PC sales drop in history – the cause of Windows 8?
In Western Europe, sales in the January-March, 12.3 million PCs, says research firm Gartner.
PC sales were down from the same period last year 20.5 percent.
Research analyst Meike Escherichin the Windows 8 operating system with computers are not able to increase PC sales.
“While the new Metro-style system is suitable for new devices, so users are wondering the suitability of traditional PC-based computers,” Escherich said.
Computer manufacturer HP and Acer experienced in the first quarter, more than 30 percent drop in sales as compared to the same period last year. Dell’s sales fell by almost 15 per cent.
Lenovo and Apple, in turn, increased their sales in January-March.
The five largest computer manufacturer’s aggregate market share is 60.8 per cent.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/euroopan+pcmyynnissa+historiallinen+pudotus++syyna+windows+8/a901918?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-16052013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Q&A: Nick Carr on 10th anniversary of ‘IT Doesn’t Matter’
A decade after writing controversial essay, Nick Carr talks about what he got right, what he got wrong
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/051413-carr-qa-269730.html
“IT Doesn’t Matter” is 10 years old. How do you think the ideas have held up?
The article was really about the IT infrastructure, which is basically what IT departments were mainly concerned with 10, 11 years ago. I think that has become fairly uninteresting from a strategic point of view. Back then, IT companies tried to sell the latest server model as the key to strategic advantage — you need to be on the cutting edge of infrastructure or your business is going to be overwhelmed by competitors.
When you think about the backlash, what were people most upset about?
The biggest backlash came from IT companies. Steve Ballmer called it hogwash, Carly Fiorina dissed it. All the vendors were really up in arms. That’s because — and this was one of my intents — the article went right after what was the essential marketing message that vendors were using then. Which is: You need to be on the cutting edge or you’re going to get left behind. You need to spend big money on the latest hardware and software. And I said well, no, you don’t. And that was upsetting to them.
Back then, the article was only available to subscribers. What might it have been like if it were widely available on the Internet?
Back then, if the world had been like it is now, I think it would have gone viral, but I think it would have been forgotten very quickly, which is true of a lot of things that go viral today. I think it would have made a big splash immediately, but I’m not sure it would have had the kind of long-lasting impact that it had in coming out in print in the Harvard Business Review. It was a different world.
How did the article change your career?
It completely changed it. Based on the reaction to the article, I got a contract from Harvard Business School Press, which was a separate operation but a sister company to Harvard Business Review, to expand it into a book, “Does IT Matter?”, which came out a year later in 2004.
Some of the details are outdated, of course. But in some ways what I think I did that hadn’t been done before, or at least hadn’t been done as clearly as I set it out
How far along are we on the path to the cloud? Are companies making progress?
This also happens to be the fifth anniversary of my book “The Big Switch,” which was about cloud computing. And in that book, I said that I thought we were talking about a 20-year transition. I think that’s probably still true. If we’re five years into that, there’s still more than a decade to go.
As IT makes that transition, what skills are most important?
My focus for the last five years has shifted more toward the cultural and social implications of computers, so I haven’t been focused strongly on trends in IT. I do think that IT ultimately is going to be a smaller department in terms of headcount, but the successful IT departments and IT managers will play a more strategic and kind of consultative role — thinking about marketing implications of apps and social media and things like that.
What are you working on today?
I’m working on a new book.
Do people still ask about your older work?
Yes. One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of colleges in introductory IT classes will use “IT Doesn’t Matter” as the first thing students read to get them talking about bigger issues of how IT fits into a company.
Thanks for taking a trip down memory lane and revisiting the article 10 years later. Any last comments?
In talking about 10 years ago, the article was very much in my mind influenced by the dot-com collapse. There had been so much hype — the only thing that matters is IT, it’s going to take over everything.
Gerry Wilson says:
Back in the day, before I decided to become involved in healthcare, I majored in computer science. I still code for ‘kicks and grins’. My two oldest children are majoring in computer science at the Univ. of Wash. Hope they ‘get beefed’ up on all things regarding IT. Anyway, thank you for the informative post.
tomi says:
Thank you for your feedback.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Many Turns in a Screw? Big Data Knows
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887324059704578472671425572966-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwNTExNDUyWj.html
Companies’ pursuit of “big data”—collecting and crunching ever larger amounts of information—is often thought of as another way to figure out exactly what customers want. But big data is also a means of measuring millions of little things in factories, such as how many times each screw is turned.
That is what Raytheon Co. is doing at a new missile plant in Huntsville, Ala. If a screw is supposed to be turned 13 times after it is inserted but is instead turned only 12 times, an error message flashes and production of the missile or component halts, says Randy Stevenson, a missile-systems executive at Raytheon. Improvising with a defective screw or the wrong size screw isn’t an option, he says. “It’s either right or it’s not right.”
Raytheon is one of many manufacturers installing more sophisticated, automated systems to gather and analyze factory-floor data.
Manufacturers are looking harder at data partly because of increasing pressure from customers to eliminate defects and from shareholders to squeeze out more costs. Regulators are also demanding more data collection to trace safety problems. The cost of computers, scanners and other hardware has also come down, and technology for storing and moving data has improved.
At the same time, factory equipment has “got smarter,” says Mike Lackey, a vice president at SAP. The newest equipment comes with computerized controls that make it easier to collect data and share it with the rest of the company or suppliers.
“It allows us to be more consistent,”
At Raytheon, Mr. Stevenson says the new capabilities mean Raytheon is catching more flaws as they occur. In the past, some of those flaws would have been discovered later by inspections; others might never have been noticed.
He adds that “millions of dollars have been spent across this industry to rework, repair and replace” screws, bolts or other fasteners that weren’t installed right or didn’t meet specifications.
Raytheon also can keep data for each missile automatically, including the names of all the machine operators who worked on any part of it and the humidity and temperature at each stage of production. That could help the company go back and figure out what went wrong if flaws emerge. In the past, some of that data had to be typed in, creating the risk of errors.
Before using a sealant, the operator must flick the tube under a bar-code reader so a computer can verify it is exactly the right sealant. The computer also knows exactly how much torque should be applied by any wrench or screwdriver. And operators aren’t permitted to use the wrong wrench.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paul Otellini’s Intel: Can the Company That Built the Future Survive It?
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/intel-may-have-lost-the-iphone-battle-but-it-could-still-win-the-mobile-war/275825/
As the CEO steps down, he leaves the Intel machine poised to take on the swarming ecosystem of competitors who make smartphone chips.
Forty-five years after Intel was founded by Silicon Valley legends Gordon Moore and Bob Noyce, it is the world’s leading semiconductor company. While almost every similar company — and there used to be many — has disappeared or withered away, Intel has thrived through the rise of Microsoft, the Internet boom and the Internet bust, the resurgence of Apple, the laptop explosion that eroded the desktop market, and the wholesale restructuring of the semiconductor industry.
Under his watch since 2005, it created the world’s best chips for laptops, assumed a dominant position in the server market, vanquished long-time rival AMD, retained a vertically integrated business model that’s unique in the industry, and maintained profitability throughout the global economic meltdown. The company he ran was far larger, more complex and more global than anything Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore could have imagined when they founded it in 1968.
In the last full year before he ascended to chief executive, Intel generated $34 billion in sales. By 2012, that number had grown to $53 billion.
“By all accounts, the company has been incredibly successful during his tenure on the things that made them Intel,”
Even Otellini’s natural rival, former AMD CEO Hector Ruiz, had to agree that Intel’s CEO “was more successful than people give him credit for.”
But Paul Otellini’s Intel spent $19.5 billion on R&D during 2011 and 2012. That’s $8 billion more than Google. And a substantial amount of Intel’s innovation comes from its manufacturing operations, and Intel spent another $20 billion building factories during the last two years. That’s nearly $40 billion dedicated to bringing new products into being in just two years! These investments have continued because of Otellini’s unshakeable faith that eventually, as he told me, “At the end of the day, the best transistors win, no matter what you’re building, a server or a phone.” That’s always the strategy. That’s always the solution.
Despite the $53 billion in revenue and all the company’s technical and business successes, the question on many a commentator’s mind is, Can Intel thrive in the tablet and smartphone world the way it did during the standard PC era?
The industry changes ushered in by the surge in these flat-glass computing devices can be seen two ways. Intel’s James prefers to see the continuities with Intel’s existing business. “Everyone wants the tablet to be some mysterious thing that’s killing the PC. What do you think the tablet really is? A PC,” she said. “A PC by any other name is still a personal computer. If it does general purpose computing with multiple applications, it’s a PC.” Sure, she admitted, tablets are a “form factor and user modality change,” but tablets are still “a general purpose computer.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
New CEO vows Intel will be more responsive in mobile push
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/16/us-intel-krzanich-idUSBRE94F0YC20130516
Intel Corp’s new CEO Brian Krzanich said on Thursday that under his leadership the top chipmaker will be more responsive to customers in an intensified focus on the fast-growing smartphone and tablet market where it lags its rivals.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PC slump hits Dell earnings
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57584915-92/pc-slump-hits-dell-earnings/
The company, which reported earnings five days earlier than expected, posts a dismal first quarter due to the continued crumbling of the PC market.
As the PC market continues to spiral downwards, the world’s third-largest PC maker is tumbling down with it.
It’s not a huge surprise that Dell’s first-quarter earnings are weak, based on results from previous quarters.
The PC market is slipping while the post-PC market continues to expand. Dell missed a beat by failing to embrace post-PC devices as quickly as other manufacturers.
Earlier this year, the company projected a modest growth in the PC industry, in line with Windows 8′s release. But in denying that the traditional PC is on its way out, its forecasts didn’t line up with what’s actually happening on the front line.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Code base salaries drop – here’s why?
The software industry was born in the United States last year, 64 000 new jobs, and the labor force grows, the average wages fell by about two per cent. The phenomenon is therefore not reached agreement, but is considered as an explanation for young hackers, lower initial wages.
The average annual salary in America coder was 99 $ 000, or about 77 000 in 2012, about $ 2,000 less than the previous year.
Tech America-interest group, deputy director of the Matthew Kazmierczak notes that it was completed, little gained experience in a rich code base salary may be reduced remuneration reason. However, even in a recession because of increased competition may have an impact.
Software industry employed in the last year, 5.95 million people in USA, which is about 1.1 per cent more than previous year
The software services is the best-paid technical aspect.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kehittaja/koodarien+palkat+putosivat++tassa+syy/a902141?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-17052013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Big data does not convince business leaders
Most of the IT and business managers are handling large databases still have reservations.
Big data recovery has already spawned a new support business operations such as analytics, storage, and data description (data visualization) around the cloud start-up company focused on SiSensen Marketing Bruno Aziza says.
“The market is evolving, but the solutions are still complicated and expensive. Companies are trying to race to come up with best practices in the use of big data,” he says.
Big Data hype floating around due to many factors. The two biggest reasons are the huge amounts of data storage, as well as the growth and development of methods of analysis.
Affairs Internet (Internet of Things, IOT) is the buzzword in which various devices can be connected to networks in many parts. That is, data can be processed in real time.
Aziza’s view, the data volumes and new tools have democratized big data, so that companies of all sizes are able to take advantage of a really large databases.
Hadoop vendor Cloudera produce manager Justin Erickson points out that, despite the widespread use big data, many companies do not know how to use large databases in the right way.
“Compared to Traditional database systems Hadoop is optimized to handle and store really masive amounts of data,” Erickson says.
“Hadoop is the most economical way to deal with big data,”
Aziza believes that Hadoop Takes SMEs in the same line of large companies with big data in use.
Forrester study shows that big data’s will still take a long time to mature business, Cio.com notes.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/cio/big+data+ei+vakuuta+yritysjohtajia/a902114?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-17052013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Big Data is a Big but Young Market
http://www.cio.com/article/733353/Big_Data_is_a_Big_but_Young_Market?page=1&taxonomyId=3024
A recent survey by Forrester found that 7% of IT executives and 9% of business leaders feel they have gained a true return on investment from big data. That means there’s a lot more business can be doing to glean insights from the massive amount of data that’s potentially available to them.
A panel discussion at Interop in Las Vegas featuring a combination of startup entrepreneurs and a representative from one of the leading big data companies concluded that the big data market is still in its early days, but the opportunity is huge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Seeking Absolution, EA Kills Its Obnoxious Online Pass Program
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/05/ea-kills-online-pass/
Just over a month after winning Consumerist’s “Worst Company in America” award for the second year in a row, Electronic Arts is taking steps toward redemption with videogame fans.
The company is killing its controversial “Online Pass” program, which forced buyers of used games to pay extra for access to online components of EA’s titles. Each game included in the program came with a slip of paper imprinted with a unique code that had to be entered before the game would work online.
Once the code was used, the game’s online modes would only function on the device it was entered on.
The Online Pass program was hugely unpopular with EA’s customers
The company has had numerous PR debacles in recent years. Its online DRM scheme for SimCity was a disaster
Tomi Engdahl says:
Larry Page wants to see your medical records
http://www.itworld.com/legal/356676/larry-page-wants-see-your-medical-records
The Google co-founder also wants an area tech companies can experiment without worrying about restrictive laws.
A day after breaking an almost year-long silence on a medical condition that had affected the way he speaks, Google co-founder Larry Page said Wednesday that people should be more open about their medical histories.
“I just disclosed yesterday my voice issues, I got so many thoughtful emails from people and advice,” he said answering an audience question at the Google I/O developer event in San Francisco. Page said he had originally thought his own medical information should be very private, but the response he got from his blog post caused a rethink.
The Google CEO guessed most people are guarded about their medical history because of insurance reasons.
“You’re very worried that you’re going to be denied insurance. That makes no sense, so maybe we should change the rules around insurance so that they have to insure people,” he said to a round of applause.
While insurance might be one issue, the intensely private nature of the information in a medical record is probably why most people want it kept private.
Tomi Engdahl says:
In the Cloud
The cloud computing movement has done a great deal to promote platform agnosticism, from consistent (Web-based) UIs to cross-platform APIs that allow applications to synchronize data. And with most users being constantly connected via 3/4G, Wi-Fi or wired networks to the Internet, cloud services have been one of the most hassle-free ways to make your data available across devices.
Source: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/making-linux-and-android-get-along-its-not-hard-it-sounds
‘
Tomi Engdahl says:
Today’s CIOs speak business-buzzwords as a second language. And there’s a good reason for that. There is a trend among CIOs to distance themselves from being regarded as technologists and to put themselves forward as business strategists.
How to talk like a CIO
http://www.itworld.com/it-management/356749/how-talk-cio
How do CIOs talk, and what do they talk about? How does their manner of speaking set them apart as C-worthy material? And, perhaps the most important question of all: Can a little pussycat learn to growl and purr like a C-level lion?
The speaker finished and waited for questions, but the room hesitated.
“Those with the highest sexual drive are always the first to ask a question,” he said.
That worked. A suitably virile young guy raised his hand.
The audience laughed. But here’s the thing: The speaker was spot-on.
In a business setting, of course, you’d swap “leadership potential” for “sexual drive.”*
But whether you call it charisma, or leadership caliber, one trait that distinguishes a leader from a follower is the courage to be the first to clap, nod, or raise your hand. It’s how we tell an innovator from a lackey. A manager from a help-desk staffer. A CIO from a pocket-protector peon.
Being the first to respond means you’re not waiting to see how everyone else responds. Even if you’re the first to mutter “Good idea,” Lowndes says, speaking up first is “proof positive you’re a person who trusts his or her own instincts.”
That self-confidence is the sign of a leader. For those who dream of climbing the corporate ladder, it makes sense to analyze the speaking and comportment styles of the people who’ve already done it. In IT, you must ask yourself: How do CIOs talk, and what do they talk about?
1. Speak no tech jargon (unless a higher-up speaks it first)
“The senior VP had serious technical chops, but he wasn’t about to demonstrate them in front of his peers. He feared, justifiably, that if he did so he’d get classified as a techie and taken out of consideration as a possible future CEO.”
“I haven’t been a CIO, but decades in IT have been similar at lower levels. My challenge was to understand what the user’s problem was so I could apply technology to address it.”
“At some larger corporations I’ve consulted to, the C-levels speak a lot of management buzzword gobbledygook,” she says. “Still, being able to sling that lingo around and appear to follow it when it’s slung can make all the difference, especially when one is trying to fit in or adapt to a specific corporate culture quickly.”
2. Learn to shut up
Responding appropriately to a given context boils down to listening skills.
3. How to be the (beloved!) bearer of bad news
A sign of a good leader is if you can bear bad news such as these unpleasant tidbits. The key: Be sympathetic.
“It’s not the news that makes someone angry. It’s the unsympathetic attitude with which it’s delivered,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell Project Ophelia USB Android stick to ship in July, priced at $100
http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/18/dell-ophelia-usb-android-ships-july/
The Android pendrive / USB computer we saw back at CES may be one of many, but distinctive thanks to its mainstream PC-maker origins. We’re still lacking a lot of the specifics, other than that there’s WiFi, Bluetooth, Wyse PocketCloud integration, plus, of course, HDMI and Android 4.something. There will likely be a few enterprise-friendly features too (administration tools, remote wiping) reports PC World.
Tomi Engdahl says:
International Space Station makes switch from Windows 8 to Linux
New operating system provides better performance
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Computer_Systems/Servers/International_Space_Station_makes_switch_from_Windows_8_to_Linux.aspx
In what can only be described as a major achievement for the Linux community, the International Space Station has made the decision to switch dozens of Windows XP-running laptops over to Debian 6 for the purpose of supporting the ISS crew with a wide range of capabilities for day-to-day operations, including location tracking, inventory control, interfacing with cameras, and more.
“We needed an operating system that was stable and reliable — one that would give us in-house control,” said Keith Chuvala, the United Space Alliance contractor manager involved in the switch. “So if we needed to patch, adjust or adapt, we could.”
Chuvala is specifically referencing that Linux is an open-source operating system. This means that a community overseeing a Linux distribution like Debian 6 can issue quick notices and patches.
How much faster is a Debian issue addressed than Windows? The operating system’s site claims that mail sent over to the mailing list are addressed in 15 minutes or less . . . by the individuals who actually developed the program.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell dumps its public cloud offerings
It will offer public cloud services through partners rather than its own public cloud
http://www.itworld.com/cloud-computing/357227/dell-dumps-its-public-cloud-offerings
May 20, 2013, 12:16 PM — Dell has become one of the first high profile companies to dump its public cloud ambitions, announcing today that it will no longer invest in its OpenStack and VMware-based cloud services.
Network World’s Brandon Butler just last week suggested Dell might discontinue its OpenStack cloud and now Dell has essentially confirmed it.
Instead of offering its own public cloud, Dell will sell through partners. Initial partners include Joyent, ScaleMatrix and ZeroLag.
Curiously, it appears that none of those platforms is built on OpenStack. ZeroLag is based on VMware’s technology and Joyent’s cloud is proprietary. ScaleMatrix, whom I hadn’t heard of, mentions OpenStack on its web site but doesn’t appear to have built a cloud service on the technology. I’ve asked for more details though in case I’m wrong about ScaleMatrix. The Dell spokeswoman said the company planned to continue offering OpenStack public cloud services through its partners.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New SSD storage drives are deceptive
Computer new SSD storage drives are not more durable than traditional mechanical disks – on the contrary, they can break down more easily. Also, recovering data from fault conditions can be more difficult.
New flash-based technology, SSDs are not as durable as users think. This is the assessment sheet manufacturer and a data recovery service experts.
Traditional hard drives weakness of the mechanical parts of the rotary disc. Serious loss of data will be more and more in a flash disks.
Taking into account that the SSD plates are use much less than mechanical hard drives, they are are received proportionately greater than the mechanical hard drives by data recovery companies.
Nordic Seagate Manager Christer Bernerhoft says that the latest mechanical disc decomposition of a percent, the lowest ssd discs, it is 15 per cent.
To save the data of a corrupted SSD discs is also difficult
“Manufacturers have a different logic storage cells of reading, that is, their software and driver circuits are different,”
Böhretin that is particularly important to verify whether the ssd disc used for encryption such that the data can be restored.
“Some of the plates is a device-level encryption, so data recovery is not possible.”
Manufacturers have been able to lower the prices of SSD drives, but it has been moving in a more favorable nelitilaiseen mlc-cell technology of the past records of a two compartment SLC technology. Flash cells are required for mlc less half-discs, which lowers costs.
The downside mlc discs are more sensitive to the damaged, and at the same speed. The difference may be several years much resistance of recordings containing the active.
Falling apart of a mechanical hard drive can be identified in time that the disk is noisy or files will be lost. In contrast, SSDs are not necessarily breaking any advance warning.
This corruption can caused by physical damage, electronics failure or system software failure.
Hard drives remain popular for a long time, believes Christer Bernerhoft from Seagate.
“Mechanical disc is still the most powerful recording medium when high capacity.”
One hundred euros will get you a two-terabyte hard drive. At the same time money ssd disc only offers 128 GB of capacity.
Christer Bernerhoft believes rising trend of hybrid discs with flash memory
Source: http://www.3t.fi/artikkeli/uutiset/teknologia/uudet_ssd_tallennuslevyt_ovat_petollisia
Tomi Engdahl says:
Analyst: Most data centers use virtualization for select applications only
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/2013/05/infonetics-data-center-operators.html
“Server virtualization has been the focus of the data center industry for several years now, and the largest data center owners and Internet content providers like Google are ubiquitously exploiting virtual machines,” says Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research.
Howard adds, “Yet the reality is the bulk of data center owners are more pedestrian in their deployments, finding it more operationally convenient to leave many areas of their data centers alone, using server virtualization for only select applications.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
One in ten laptops shipped last quarter had a touchscreen, says report
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/21/4350922/one-in-ten-laptops-shipped-last-quarter-had-a-touchscreen-displaybank
Over the seven months since Microsoft released Windows 8, the sales data haven’t been encouraging, with IDC reporting a 13.9 percent decline in the PC industry last quarter, its largest on record.
But it looks like there’s one bright spot: as much as 10 percent of new laptops sold that quarter included touchscreens. The numbers — 46 million laptop shipments, 4.57 million with touchscreens
Since the release of Windows 8, every major PC manufacturer has added at least one touchscreen machine to its lineup
10 percent of price-conscious buyers paying extra for non-essential components could be seen as a significant win.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Unveils Xbox One
http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/05/21/1739209/microsoft-unveils-xbox-one
“Today at a press conference leading up to E3, Microsoft unveiled its next-gen games/entertainment console, the Xbox One. Their stated goal for the Xbox One is to have a single device provide “all of your entertainment.””
“Watch TV” will bring up the TV app very quickly.
” Hardware specs: 8-core CPU/GPU, 8GB RAM, a Blu-ray drive, a 500GB HDD, USB 3.0, and Wi-fi Direct.”
What we know about the Xbox One
http://news.cnet.com/8301-33692_3-57585577-305/what-we-know-about-the-xbox-one/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title
CNET’s Bridget Carey breaks down the new features of the Xbox One, including live TV and Kinect controls, and what questions Microsoft still needs to answer.
Xbox One Revealed
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/05/xbox-one/
From Green Light to Boot-Up: Behind the Scenes of Xbox One’s Development
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/05/xbox-one-development-photos/
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Honor for the Creator of the GIF
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/an-honor-for-the-creator-of-the-gif/
Among the thousands of file formats that exist in modern computing, the GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, has attained celebrity status in a sea of lesser-known BMPs, RIPs, FIGs and MIFFs. It was honored as a “word of the year” in 2012, and Tuesday night, its inventor, Steve Wilhite, will be accepting a lifetime achievement award at The Webby Awards.
Now, almost any fragment of digital culture can be spun up into a grainy, gratifying animation. GIFs provide a platform for nearly everything, it seems — from rapid-fire political commentary to digital art to small moments of celebrity intrigue.
Invented in 1987, today the GIF has become the aesthetic calling card of modern Internet culture.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD slips to fourth spot as Qualcomm and Samsung capitalize on mobile processor sales
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/21/4350966/qualcomm-samsung-beat-amd-processor-sales
A fall in demand for desktop PCs and continued growth of the smartphone and tablet market saw AMD fall from second to fourth place for microprocessor sales in 2012. According to a new report from IC Insights, Qualcomm and Samsung overtook AMD to reach second and third spot respectively after they both posted year-on-year growth, thanks to increased sales of their ARM-based mobile processors. Intel continued to dominate the market — despite seeing a 1 percent decline last year.
ntel and AMD’s declines mirror the rapid fall in demand for legacy PCs and hardware — in the first quarter of 2013 alone, PC sales saw “the steepest decline ever in a single quarter.” In attempt to overcome this trend, AMD has said it will include ARM processors inside its x86 Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) later this year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft unveils Xbox One: the ultimate all-in-one home entertainment system
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/May13/05-21XboxPR.aspx
Tomi Engdahl says:
Do Developers Need Free Perks to Thrive?
http://www.datamation.com/careers/do-developers-need-free-perks-to-thrive.html
Cutting back on perks may seem like a smart business move—until developers start leaving the company.
Tomi Engdahl says:
More than half of Windows 8 users just treat it like Windows 7
Almost nobody using Windows Store apps, survey finds
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/22/windows_8_soluto_survey/
For all Microsoft’s hype about The Interface Formerly Known As Metro (TIFKAM), more than half of all Windows 8 users ignore the new Start Screen and treat the OS as if it were Windows 7, according to a study by PC management firm Soluto.
61 per cent of desktop PC users launched a TIFKAM app less than once per day. The same was true for 60 per cent of laptop users.
Tablet and touchscreen laptop users did launch TIFKAM apps more often, but 58 per cent of touchscreen laptop owners still did so less than once per day. Same for 44 per cent of tablet owners.
Taken all together, tablet users launched a TIFKAM app 2.71 times per day, on average – which is pathetic, when you consider that tablet owners are meant to be doing absolutely everything with touch.
Put bluntly, it would be fair to say that most desktop PC users never use Microsoft’s vaunted new UI at all – or they only do so when they absolutely have to.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The revolution in desktop – “desktop tablet”
The computers are emerging in an entirely new class of device – table mats. World’s largest PC manufacturer, HP has now presented the first equipment that combines a desktop computer and a large-sized tablet. Several competitors have already released their own table tablet. The devices have their pros and cons.
Source: http://www.tietokone.fi/uutiset/vallankumous_poytakoneisiin_poytatabletit_tulevat
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP Envy Rove 20 is the company’s stab at a giant all-in-one Windows 8 tablet
http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/23/4357512/hp-envy-rove-20-is-the-companys-stab-at-a-giant-all-in-one-windows-8
It’s hard to say if there’s a market yet for an all-in-one touchscreen PC that you can just pick up and carry around, but it seems that no Windows PC maker wants to be left out. Hot on the heels of Dell’s XPS 18, Sony’s VAIO Tap 20, and the Asus Transformer AIO, Hewlett-Packard has announced the Envy Rove 20. It’s a tabletop PC with a 20-inch touchscreen, a four-hour battery, and a spring-loaded kickstand that folds flat into the frame.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The chip manufacturer AMD is warming up to the idea Android-chips
The chip manufacturer AMD starting to warm up to the idea of chip manufacture Android devices. The company has stated on several occasions that it is not interested in manufacturing chips other than Windows 8 devices.
The company emphasizes, however, continue to manufacture chips for Android only if the manufacturers are interested in them.
Source: http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/siruvalmistaja+amd+lampenee+ajatukselle+androidsiruista/a903705?s=r&wtm=tietoviikko/-23052013&
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software supply chain’s soft underbelly
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/supply-chain-reaction/4414342/Software-supply-chain-s-soft-underbelly
With all the attention on counterfeit electronic components, it’s easy to overlook the vulnerabilities of other supply chains in the computing industry. A recent Gartner report calls attention to the importance of investigating the supply chains of software, services, and even data. The report warns that the “IT supply chain” has become alarmingly insecure.
One example the report cites is the admission in May 2012 by Chinese mobile-phone maker ZTE that one model of its Android phone had a backdoor installed in its software. The backdoor, which was found only in smartphones shipped to the United States, allowed installation of arbitrary applications and full access to any data stored on the phone. There could be other smartphones with similar vulnerabilities, says the report.
To protect against such hacks, corporations need to institute a formal IT supply-chain risk-management program, including investigation into the robustness of software-update mechanisms, says the report. For smartphones, in particular, it recommends asking all hardware and software suppliers for specifics on how they update firmware and software.
The Gartner report notes that just because this happened in a ZTE phone doesn’t necessarily mean that the company had a nefarious motive.
That’s a perfect example of why today’s convoluted IT supply chain is increasingly insecure. The Gartner report says software supply chains can be easy targets because of increased use of outsourced software development. Even if a company uses its own developers, many use thirdparty libraries and frameworks that include open-source software, which can be vulnerable.
Are you doing what you should to ensure the integrity of your software supply chain?
Tomi Engdahl says:
MariaDB vs. MySQL: A Performance Comparison
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/13/05/22/1651203/mariadb-vs-mysql-a-performance-comparison
“MariaDB is a fork of the MySQL source code, split off in the wake of concerns over what Oracle would do with MySQL licensing. In addition to its role as a ‘drop-in replacement’ for MySQL, MariaDB also includes some new features that (some claim) make it better than MySQL. Jeff Cogswell compares MySQL and MariaDB and suggests (in his opinion) that there’s ‘more than enough reason to ditch MySQL and switch over to MariaDB and stay there.’ ”
MariaDB vs. MySQL: A Comparison
http://slashdot.org/topic/bi/mariadb-vs-mysql-a-comparison/
Should You Switch?
Clearly the new MariaDB features aren’t all that fantastic
So should you make the move over to MariaDB?
First, consider the possible risk (the suits in upper management love to hear about risks and benefits). If you switch to MariaDB, you might start using features only available to MariaDB (which so far isn’t likely) and then find yourself unable to go back to MySQL without a huge amount of work. But I’m going to propose that such a thing isn’t really a risk, given some of the broader issues.
Consider all the questions around Oracle and what it will do with MySQL licensing. Free-and-open MySQL competes with Oracle’s proprietary and extremely competitive tools. That alone is grounds for concern—will Oracle do something to impede MySQL’s development? (Some would argue that’s already happening.)
And what about compatibility between MySQL and MariaDB? The MariaDB team works hard to continue with full compatibility with MySQL, and they continue to pull in bug fixes from the source. But the new features (and numbering scheme) suggest that, despite best efforts, the two platforms will increasingly diverge.
If Oracle adds some new features to MySQL that MariaDB doesn’t adopt, well, those features obviously won’t be available to you. And if you use MariaDB features unavailable to MySQL, you won’t be able to switch back to the latter—provided you had any reason to switch in the first place. MariaDB shows every indication that it will be around for quite awhile, while you can’t really say the same of Oracle’s MySQL. In other words, even though the new features in MariaDB might not be useful to everyone, there is (in my opinion) more than enough reason to ditch MySQL and switch over to MariaDB and stay there.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why the ‘Star Trek Computer’ Will Be Open Source and Apache Licensed
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/05/22/216213/why-the-star-trek-computer-will-be-open-source-and-apache-licensed
“The crazy kids at Fogbeam Labs have a new blog post positing that there is a trend towards advanced projects in NLP, Information Retrieval, Big Data and the Semantic Web moving to the Apache Software Foundation. Considering that Apache UIMA is a key component of IBM Watson, is it wrong to believe that the organization behind Hadoop, OpenNLP, Jena, Stanbol, Mahout and Lucene will ultimately be the home of a real ‘Star Trek Computer’?”
Why The “Star Trek Computer” will be Open Source and Released Under Apache License v2
http://fogbeam.blogspot.fi/2013/05/why-star-trek-computer-will-be-open.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
The third screen: Will all Windows 8 apps run on Microsoft’s Xbox One?
http://www.zdnet.com/the-third-screen-will-all-windows-8-apps-run-on-microsofts-xbox-one-7000015757/
Summary: MS CRM on your Xbox One? Will any and all Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 apps be allowed to run on the just-announced Xbox One?
After Microsoft’s May 21 Xbox One reveal — which included information about the coming Xbox One operating system that is based on Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor technology — some developers and users were left wondering whether Microsoft is going to enable any Metro-Style Windows 8 or Windows RT application to run on the next Xbox.
Microsoft officials aren’t talking about the Xbox One developer story yet; it sounds like they are planning/hoping to hold off until the Build 2013 conference in late June to share more details on that. But here’s what I’ve gleaned from talking to my sources about this.
As we learned yesterday, the Xbox One OS includes a host OS, which is a heavily modified Hyper-V hypervisor; and two partitions. One partition, called the “Exclusive” partition, is a custom virtual machine (VM) that is designed just for games. It is designed to give games on the Xbox One complete control on everything from memory management to storage, I hear. While games can be paused or switched, only one game can run at a time in this VM. (If Microsoft steps up its support for indie games on Xbox One, those games are going to run in this partition.)
The other piece of the new OS the “Shared” partition. It’s called shared because multiple applications can share this VM. According to one of my contacts, this VM is based on the Windows 8 “core,” which means the kernel, file system, graphics stack, networking stack and security elements. Like the Windows core that is shared with Windows RT and Windows Phone 8, the Shared partition core is based on the WinRT application programming interface (API). One of my sources said internally it’s actually called WinXRT, the same way that the Windows Phone implementation of WinRT is known internally as WinPRT.
On top of the Xbox One Shared Partiion core, the Xbox team created a custom UI for Xbox One. Microsoft supposedly isn’t going to allow just anyone to write apps that can run here; devs will have to be chosen and invited, the way that they are now on Xbox 360.
I’d think as Microsoft continues to add more features and functionality to Windows 8, starting with Windows 8.1 (Blue), some of these security/reliability/performance-focused features will find their way back into the Shared Partition Core. So yeah…
Tomi Engdahl says:
Xbox One runs three operating systems, including cut-down Windows for apps
http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/21/xbox-one-runs-three-operating-systems/
The latest update out of the currently unfolding announcement in Redmond: the next-generation Xbox will run three operating systems simultaneously. Complementing Windows 8 and RT on PCs and tablets, there’ll be a third distinct version of Microsoft’s operating system that has been pared down specifically for the new console. This will be the main system OS used to run apps such as Skype and other non-game titles downloaded from the Xbox storefront. At the same time, virtualization technology similar to Microsoft’s Hyper-V will be used to allocate the bulk of system resources to a second, dedicated “Xbox OS” when the user loads up a game. This game OS will remain a fixed entity throughout the life of the console, so that game developers can be confident their games will run regardless of how much the Windows side of the machine gets updated. Finally, the third OS sounds like a small layer to assist with the virtualization, allowing the two main personalities of the console to talk to each other. Read on for more.
We’re not sure yet just how much of the Windows 8 experience will be carried over to the Xbox, although the pictures shown on stage suggest we’ll get something like a Start Screen with live tiles that mirror the rest of Microsoft’s ecosystem.
At a deeper level, the triple-OS approach is meant to work in conjunction with the console’s ability to produce numerous visual “panes,” which are full 1080p layers generated independently and displayed one on top of the other. These panes could could allow a user to play full-fledged Xbox games while also seeing their fantasy football app or Skype chat updating in a overlaid Windows pane. The multi-OS system also makes sense in relation to the HDMI passthrough feature, which will allow 1080p output from a separate source such as a cable box to be played in a window while another app or game is also running on top or alongside.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Surprise! Mozilla can produce near-native performance on the Web
We put Mozilla’s JavaScript subset—asm.js—to the test.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/native-level-performance-on-the-web-a-brief-examination-of-asm-js/
In a bid to make JavaScript run ever faster, Mozilla has developed asm.js. It’s a limited, stripped down subset of JavaScript that the company claims will offer performance that’s within a factor of two of native—good enough to use the browser for almost any application. Can JavaScript really start to rival native code performance? We’ve been taking a closer look.
JavaScript performance became a big deal in 2008. Prior to this, the JavaScript engines found in common Web browsers tended to be pretty slow. These were good enough for the basic scripting that the Web used at the time, but it was largely inadequate for those wanting to use the Web as a rich application platform.
JIT compilation provided great scope for accelerating the performance of JavaScript programs, but it has its limits. The problem is JavaScript itself. The behavior of the language makes it hard to optimize. In languages such as C and C++, the behavior of a program is baked in when the program is compiled.
In JavaScript, the way an object is meant to behave can change at more or less any time. A JIT engine could produce executable code to make an object behave one way, and then that object could be modified to invalidate the executable code. This means that the executable code has to be quite conservative to guard against this kind of modification.
Browser developers are, therefore, in a frustrating position. They want scripting engines that are faster to enable the browser to be used for a wider range of applications, but their efforts to improve performance are hamstrung by JavaScript itself. The language simply isn’t designed for high performance optimization.
This has all led to a number of efforts to change JavaScript itself. The first notable one is Google Dart.
Mozilla proposed an alternative. Rather than using an entirely new language, Mozilla defines a strict subset of JavaScript that it calls asm.js. The asm.js subset of JavaScript is very limited. It eschews, for example, JavaScript’s object-oriented constructs. As a result, it also eschews many of JavaScript’s hard-to-optimize dynamic capabilities.
This representation is much lower level than that found in traditional JavaScript programs, but it comes with an important constraint: it’s nonetheless still JavaScript.
The result is that, unlike Dart programs that need a Dart engine or explicit translation to JavaScript, asm.js programs already run in any browser. They’re just JavaScript programs, albeit weird JavaScript programs that don’t look like anything that a human would ever produce.
Browsers that recognize and have explicit support for asm.js can, however, take advantage of this knowledge to perform better optimization.
Mozilla doesn’t really intend for developers to write asm.js programs directly, however. Instead, the idea is that compilers use asm.js as the target, with programs themselves written in some other language.
That language is typically C or C++, and the compiler used to produce asm.js programs is another Mozilla project: Emscripten. Emscripten is a compiler based on the LLVM compiler infrastructure and the Clang C/C++ front-end. The Clang compiler reads C and C++ source code and produces an intermediate platform-independent assembler-like output called LLVM Intermediate Representation. LLVM optimizes the LLVM IR. LLVM IR is then fed into a backend code generator—the part that actually produces executable code. Traditionally, this code generator would emit x86 code. With Emscripten, it’s used to produce JavaScript.
Emscripten can be used in two modes. It can produce regular JavaScript and it can produce asm.js JavaScript.
An annoying development model
The JavaScript programs that Emscripten produces are huge. The binary-tree test, for example, results in a 16,896 byte native code executable. Its JavaScript counterparts are 379,784 bytes for regular JavaScript and 667,207 bytes for asm.js. Aside from the download implications this would have (though they can be mitigated through HTTP compression), these are simply huge JavaScript files. It turns out that most browsers aren’t really built for this kind of thing. Try to use your browser’s built-in debugging tools (whether Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer) and you’ll find that they get awfully slow, to the point of being unusable.
But maybe that doesn’t matter because you wouldn’t really want to debug the JavaScript anyway. The JavaScript emitted by Emscripten is of a comparable level of abstraction to native assembly code.
A technique for addressing this, at least in part, is being developed. Source Maps should allow JavaScript debuggers to correlate between the compiled source and the thing that generated it. However, the debugging experience still, in practice, leaves an awful lot to be desired. Native code debuggers are complex and capable things, allowing easy transitions between source and assembly view, step-by-step execution with both source and assembly granularity, structured views of in-memory data, and much more besides. JavaScript debuggers are generally less mature, and asm.js makes this immaturity more acute.
Presently, your best bet is to debug native code using native debugging tools and hope that the Emscripten compilation works as it should.
Amazingly, asm.js actually works
asm.js works. It was surprising. We expected better-than-JavaScript performance, but we thought that Mozilla must have been cooking the books somehow with its claims of “within 2× native performance.” With some provisos around multithreading and SIMD code, the company was telling the truth. It really is that fast, and it can be very close to native performance.
In spite of that, it still may not be fast enough.
asm.js may fall a bit short of delivering truly native performance when compared to native code—but it might yet be valuable as a way of beating JavaScript itself.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Who needs an Xbox One? Nvidia shows off new speedy graphics card
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/23/nvidia-launches-its-geforce-gtx-780-for-pc-gaming-that-is-faster-than-xbox-one/
You could wait for the Microsoft Xbox One or the Sony PlayStation 4 to arrive this fall, or you could play PC games with better graphics now. Nvidia is launching its GeForce GTX 780 graphics chip today that will be able to run outstanding visuals in the latest generation of computer games.
Numerous gamer-PC makers are launching new computers today based on the new 250-watt chip, which can execute 4.0 teraflops in single-precision mode.
It’s worth noting that game consoles always lag behind the PC in performance. That’s because console makers have to lock in on a design a couple of years ahead of the launch and then give that specification to game developers so they make launch titles. The custom chip takes a while to design, and it can be engineered better than a general-purpose PC to run games.
But PC makers have the advantage of just taking the fastest off-the-shelf graphics chip and marrying it with other state-of-the-art components. They can build a more modern machine that isn’t based on last year’s technology. So it’s no surprise that a new Nvidia graphics chip with expensive PC trappings will be able to run circles around game consoles that haven’t launched yet.
Tomi says:
Reports: New Xbox could DOOM second-hand games market
The cost of your cloudy new console
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/24/xbox_second_hand_games_drm/
Microsoft has been quite cagey about its plans for games licensing on the new Xbox One, but multiple reports now suggest there’s going to be very little incentive for a second-hand games market anymore, and buyers could get stung with extra charges.
On Thursday Consoledeals.co.uk received a note from a senior member of a UK retailer saying that each second-hand Xbox One game will require a £35 ($53) activation fee to run.
Now MCV reports another industry source saying that while Microsoft isn’t setting prices per se, they are setting up a royalty system for themselves and the game publisher on second hand purchases that provides little incentive for the stocking of a second-hand selection.
Once a game has been sold to the shop it is registered and deleted from the seller’s Xbox account, and each new game is coded into Microsoft’s servers once activated.
The Xbox One is going to usher in a new generation of computer games
“The ability to trade in and resell games is important to gamers and to Xbox. Xbox One is designed to support the trade in and resale of games. Reports about our policies for trade in and resale are inaccurate and incomplete. We will disclose more information in the near future,” a Microsoft spokesperson told El Reg.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Source confirms Intel’s big score: Samsung tablet using an Atom chip
http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/24/source-confirms-intel-scores-with-an-atom-chip-in-upcoming-samsung-tablet/
Intel’s long years investing in mobile processors are about to pay off with its biggest win to date. We’ve confirmed that the next Samsung Galaxy tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3, will have an Intel Atom chip based on the Clover Trail code name.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to us that Samsung has chosen the Intel chip over other competing ARM-based solutions, including Samsung’s own Exynos mobile processors. If it’s true, that could mean that Intel’s mobile processor business is finally getting some traction.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed to us that Samsung has chosen the Intel chip over other competing ARM-based solutions, including Samsung’s own Exynos mobile processors. If it’s true, that could mean that Intel’s mobile processor business is finally getting some traction.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Files Dispute Against Current Owner of XboxOne.com
http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/05/27/0024201/microsoft-files-dispute-against-current-owner-of-xboxonecom
“Microsoft might have one of the most talked-about products at the moment with the Xbox One, but would you believe it doesn’t own the rights to the most obvious domain name to accompany it? Domain squatting is a real issue for companies about to launch a new product. If they register a domain before the official launch, people can find that and subsequently ruin the company’s surprise”
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM announces LG as lead partner for Cortex A50 series
Joins Samsung in supporting 64bit ARM chips
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2270545/arm-announces-lg-as-lead-partner-for-cortex-a50-series
CHIP DESIGNER ARM has announced that LG Electronics will be the lead partner for its` Cortex A50 series processors.
ARM’s Cortex A50 series is arguably the firm’s most important design to date, as it uses the ARMv8 architecture that has 64-bit support. The firm announced that LG will be the lead partner for the A50 series of chips that includes the Cortex A57 and its next generation Mali GPUs.
“The close interaction between the CPU and GPU becomes increasingly important as solutions transition between the 32-bit and 64-bit world. Being able to implement Full Profile GPU Compute in conjunction with ARM Big Little processing configurations will be a key driver to the overall performance and capabilities of our devices.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sony’s PS4 takes on the Xbox One with 2013 release date
Sony confirms console’s release timing in a newspaper ad
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2270502/sonys-ps4-takes-on-the-xbox-one-with-2013-release-date
JAPANESE ENTERTAINMENT GIANT Sony revealed on Friday that it will release the Playstation 4 (PS4) in the UK by the end of 2013.
A full page advert in UK newspaper the Metro reveals that the PS4 will be coming to the UK this year, and hints that the games console will see a full worldwide release before 2013 is up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Xbox One can talk to you, will feature remote play
http://www.polygon.com/2013/5/24/4361974/the-xbox-one-can-talk-to-you-will-feature-remote-play
Microsoft’s day-long media outing for the Xbox One this week was only the first of a two-stage unveiling for the new console, and the E3 event won’t be just about games.
The Xbox One’s heavy reliance on the Kinect for voice commands will eventually include two-way conversations, according to two sources who tested out the still-in-development feature.
In one possible scenario, Kinect used its facial recognition to scan a room full of people and note if there was someone in the room it didn’t recognize. It then told the console owner that there is someone in the room it didn’t recognize and asked the new person to identify themselves. Once the person said their name, Kinect welcomed them and saved their information to the console.
Xbox One’s ability to speak will allow it to function more like the iPhone’s Siri, according to Microsoft officials who presented the feature. The voice may not be available at the console’s launch, but if it isn’t it will be added in a post launch patch within the first few months.
In a demonstration of the feature, a source told us that a message popped up on their screen asking if it was OK if the player they were Skyping with could take over the game. Once the friend took over, the first player was able to watch them play the game. Either player could end the remote play with a button push.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Cloud-based virtualization goes mobile
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4415091/Cloud-based-virtualization-goes-mobile
LOS ANGELES–Virtualization and cloud orchestration turned a corner here at Citrix Synergy 2013 this week, where for the first time users’ Windows desktops became available on any PC, Mac, Android or iOS device, taking virtualization to its logical conclusion of allowing business users to access their desktops from any laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Cloud service providers also got a boost this week as Citrix demonstrated its IT innovation called IT-as-a-service, which allows any SP to muscle into the cloud service space that today is dominated by Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle, Rackspace and a few other giants. Also at the event, Nvidia Corp. demonstrated how its virtual graphics processing unit (vGPU) capabilities can be used to run intensive cloud-based applications at speeds indistinguishable from those on a local GPU.
“The partner model is the core of our virtualization and cloud orchestration businesses,”
“Government employees, financial service officers and medical personnel are some of our biggest customers,” said Dave Moxey, senior director for marketing and strategy at Citrix. “These professional users love that their data stays secure behind their corporate firewalls, but is still accessible as encrypted screenshots that can’t be eavesdropped on even if a user loses their device.”
Earlier this year, Citrix surrendered ownership of Xen hypervisor to the open-source Linux Foundation and CloudStack to the open-source Apache Software Foundation. In return, Intel, AMD Amazon, Google, Samsung and other leading firms made similar contributions to those open-source virtualization and cloud orchestration foundations virtually assuring interoperability among all future virtualization and cloud orchestration service providers.
For the future, Citrix is currently researching how to similarly standardize machine-to-machine (M2M) interactions including deep-packet inspection and realtime analytics that optimize M2M data traffic without compromising the user experience. Using the same business model that accounted for it previous success at vitualiztion and cloud orchestration, Citrix recently acquired ByteMobile for its M2M expertise.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Xbox One: Cloud Will Quadruple the Power, Says Microsoft
http://games.slashdot.org/story/13/05/27/1140245/xbox-one-cloud-will-quadruple-the-power-says-microsoft
“for every console Microsoft builds, it will provision the CPU and storage equivalent of three Xbox One consoles in the cloud.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lenovo Aims at U.S. Smartphone Market
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424127887323336104578502843289017624-lMyQjAxMTAzMDIwNTEyNDUyWj.html
China’s Lenovo Group wants to start selling smartphones in the U.S. within a year, its chief executive said, as the company behind the ThinkPad brand tries to repeat the success of its personal-computer business.
Lenovo is pushing aggressively into the smartphone market just as the traditional PC industry is struggling with shrinking demand. Consumers are spending more money on mobile devices, and the weak economy is pushing corporate clients to hold off on office PC purchases.
The market for smartphones “is more like the fashion industry,” said Mr. Yang. “We know the importance of marketing, and we will strengthen that.”
In the PC market, Lenovo has used acquisitions to increase its global presence.
“If an acquisition helps us quickly build capability, we would consider it,” said Mr. Yang
The company aims to increase smartphone sales to 50 million units in its current fiscal year, up from 30 million in the year that ended in March.
“The PC market will not grow as fast as it did before,” Mr. Yang said. While desktop and laptop PCs still account for more than 80% of Lenovo’s revenue, the company has seen rapid growth in smartphones. In the latest quarter, Lenovo’s smartphone shipments in China more than doubled from a year earlier.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hardcore Console Gamers Don’t Want Much, Just the Impossible
http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/05/xbox-one-gaming/
Microsoft announced the Xbox One this week, and the reaction from hardcore gamers is that the sun is about to fall from the sky.
“Oh my God, where are the games? Can you believe they spent so much time talking about television? Who cares about sports? Shut up about Game of Thrones! Aren’t there any games besides Madden and Call of Duty? Microsoft is dead to me!”
But to the dedicated gamers that wish Microsoft would stop pushing the all-in-one entertainment angle — do you really know what you’re asking for?
It’s not hard to figure out what the gaming-first crowd wants: a super-powered box that connects to the TV, has a handheld controller and has a huge library of games from the biggest-budget epics to the breakout indie hits. They don’t want a PC because they don’t want to mess with settings and deal with crashes; they want a standard platform that Just Works. It can do other things, sure, but games are the meat and everything else is somewhere between the gravy and the pepper shaker.
Hey, that sounds like an awesome product! Tuned precisely to our very needs. Say, do you know how many companies — in the entire world — currently offer such a product?
Two.
So it’s down to just Microsoft and Sony.
And as we are all now aware, Microsoft’s strategy has shifted from gaming to everything.
How’s that working out for Sony?
Oh, right. It can’t seem to figure out a way to make any money off the PlayStation business.
So as a general matter, Sony’s PlayStation business is not making money. And yet they’re doing everything hardcore gamers want. PlayStation 3 is a graphical powerhouse. They’re giving online gaming away for free, instead of charging 60 bucks a year like Microsoft does. They pour money into indie developers and generate critically acclaimed arthouse hits like Journey.
Surely Microsoft’s Xbox business is doing even worse, right?
Hm. Well, although Cousins points out that the division of the company that contains Xbox has, over its lifetime, lost a bunch of money, we can see a clear upward trend in recent years.
There may be no way to make money selling a bleeding-edge $500 games-only box with $60 games anymore. The expense of producing it all may be well out of whack with what players are willing to spend to get it.
There may be no way to make money selling a bleeding-edge $500 games-only box with $60 games anymore. The expense of producing it all may be well out of whack with what players are willing to spend to get it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Console manufacturers don’t want much, just the impossible
http://www.pcper.com/news/Editorial/Console-manufacturers-dont-want-much-just-impossible
So, as Wired editorial states it: hardcore console gamers don’t want much, just the impossible. They want a “super-powered box” tethered to their TV; they want the blockbuster epics and innovative indie titles; they want it to “just work” for what they do. The author, Chris Kohler, wrote his column to demonstrate how this is, and has for quite some time been, highly unprofitable.
I think the bigger problem is that the console manufacturers want the impossible.
Console manufacturers have one goal: get their platform in your house and require their hand be in the pocket of everything you do with it.
Well, looking at the Wired article, not only are console gamers ultimately overspending: it is still not enough! Consoles truly benefit no-one! The console manufacturers are not doing any more than maybe breaking even, at some point, eventually, down the line, they hope. Microsoft and Sony throw obnoxious amounts of money against one another in research, development, and marketing. Redundant technologies are formed to pit against their counterparts with billions spent in marketing to try to prove why either choice is better.
All of this money is spent to corral users into a more expensive experience where they can pocket the excess.
Going back to the editorial’s claims: with all of this money bleeding out, Microsoft wants to appeal more broadly and compensate the loss with more cash flowing in. Sure, Microsoft has wanted a foothold in the living room for decades at this point, but the Xbox Division bounces between profitability and huge losses; thus, they want to be an entertainment hub if just for the cash alone.
And the internet might even be the solution. The web browser is capable, today, of providing amazing gaming experiences and it does not even require a plugin. It is getting more powerful, even faster than the rate at which underlying hardware has evolved.
You could, in some browsers today, plug a USB flash drive into your computer; browse to some “index.html” file on it; and run an Unreal Engine 3 (and as Epic stated in a recent interview, soon Unreal Engine 4) game that is programmed in Javascript and is stored on that USB device. Never an internet connection required — although if you wanted online features, web browsers are kind-of good at that, go figure.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Opera releases new Chromium-powered desktop browser for Mac and Windows
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/05/28/opera-previews-its-new-desktop-browser-for-mac-and-windows-made-from-scratch/
Norway’s chief browser software company, Opera, is offering people a chance to download its latest desktop browser (version 15) for Windows and Mac, which typically happens ahead of a general release.
Dubbed Opera Next as per usual, this time the browser was “made from scratch” and given a revamp to offer users a sleeker and easier browsing experience, the company says in a statement.
new feature that we recently saw pop up in Opera’s all-new Android browser: a curated content recommendation system called, simply, ‘Discover’.
Opera says the latest generation of its desktop browser has been “completely re-engineered under the hood”, with the most notable change being that it now runs on Chromium – as expected.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP, Dell stack up back-end iron for XenDesktop 7 virty PCs
Turning tablets and thin clients into PCs without the actual PC
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/28/hp_dell_vdi_xendesktop/
Companies whose staffers work from tablets and smartphones don’t have to buy Microsoft’s Surface tablets or Windows Phones to enable them to use the firm’s Windows applications.
Businesses can instead slice up a bunch of servers into virtual PCs and stream them out to workers’ fondleslabs or smartphones using either VMware View or Citrix Systems XenDesktop to broker those ethereal desktops.
With the actual PC business stinking on ice and Citrix getting ready to ship its XenDesktop 7 VDI broker by the end of June, Hewlett-Packard and Dell are gearing up their back-end iron to put it to good use.
HP has been peddling preconfigured VirtualSystem hardware stacks that bundle XenDesktop atop its BladeSystem blade servers for some time. The reference architecture comes in two flavors, and uses Microsoft’s Hyper-V server virtualization slicer to contain the PC images.
Dell is bringing XenDesktop to its Active System 800 converged system stacks, which debuted last October, and is also rolling out an entry VDI setup based on its rack and tower servers for customers who need something a little less than the full on XenDesktop running on a bunch of blade servers.
Dell’s Wyse people also cranked out some new thin clients. The Zenith Pro 2 is built explicitly to run XenDesktop, and the D90Q7 and Z90Q7 are based on AMD’s new quad-core “Kabini” Fusion APUs. Dell also put out a D10D thin client based on a dual-core Fusion APU.