Here is my collection of trends and predictions for year 2014:
It seems that PC market is not recovering in 2014. IDC is forecasting that the technology channel will buy in around 34 million fewer PCs this year than last. It seem that things aren’t going to improve any time soon (down, down, down until 2017?). There will be no let-up on any front, with desktops and portables predicted to decline in both the mature and emerging markets. Perhaps the chief concern for future PC demand is a lack of reasons to replace an older system: PC usage has not moved significantly beyond consumption and productivity tasks to differentiate PCs from other devices. As a result, PC lifespan continue to increase. Death of the Desktop article says that sadly for the traditional desktop, this is only a matter of time before its purpose expires and that it would be inevitable it will happen within this decade. (I expect that it will not completely disappear).
When the PC business is slowly decreasing, smartphone and table business will increase quickly. Some time in the next six months, the number of smartphones on earth will pass the number of PCs. This shouldn’t really surprise anyone: the mobile business is much bigger than the computer industry. There are now perhaps 3.5-4 billion mobile phones, replaced every two years, versus 1.7-1.8 billion PCs replaced every 5 years. Smartphones broke down that wall between those industries few years ago – suddenly tech companies could sell to an industry with $1.2 trillion annual revenue. Now you can sell more phones in a quarter than the PC industry sells in a year.
After some years we will end up with somewhere over 3bn smartphones in use on earth, almost double the number of PCs. There are perhaps 900m consumer PCs on earth, and maybe 800m corporate PCs. The consumer PCs are mostly shared and the corporate PCs locked down, and neither are really mobile. Those 3 billion smartphones will all be personal, and all mobile. Mobile browsing is set to overtake traditional desktop browsing in 2015. The smartphone revolution is changing how consumers use the Internet. This will influence web design.
The only PC sector that seems to have some growth is server side. Microservers & Cloud Computing to Drive Server Growth article says that increased demand for cloud computing and high-density microserver systems has brought the server market back from a state of decline. We’re seeing fairly significant change in the server market. According to the 2014 IC Market Drivers report, server unit shipment growth will increase in the next several years, thanks to purchases of new, cheaper microservers. The total server IC market is projected to rise by 3% in 2014 to $14.4 billion: multicore MPU segment for microservers and NAND flash memories for solid state drives are expected to see better numbers.
Spinning rust and tape are DEAD. The future’s flash, cache and cloud article tells that the flash is the tier for primary data; the stuff christened tier 0. Data that needs to be written out to a slower response store goes across a local network link to a cloud storage gateway and that holds the tier 1 nearline data in its cache. Never mind software-defined HYPE, 2014 will be the year of storage FRANKENPLIANCES article tells that more hype around Software-Defined-Everything will keep the marketeers and the marchitecture specialists well employed for the next twelve months but don’t expect anything radical. The only innovation is going to be around pricing and consumption models as vendors try to maintain margins. FCoE will continue to be a side-show and FC, like tape, will soldier on happily. NAS will continue to eat away at the block storage market and perhaps 2014 will be the year that object storage finally takes off.
IT managers are increasingly replacing servers with SaaS article says that cloud providers take on a bigger share of the servers as overall market starts declining. An in-house system is no longer the default for many companies. IT managers want to cut the number of servers they manage, or at least slow the growth, and they may be succeeding. IDC expects that anywhere from 25% to 30% of all the servers shipped next year will be delivered to cloud services providers. In three years, 2017, nearly 45% of all the servers leaving manufacturers will be bought by cloud providers. The shift will slow the purchase of server sales to enterprise IT. Big cloud providers are more and more using their own designs instead of servers from big manufacturers. Data center consolidations are eliminating servers as well. For sure, IT managers are going to be managing physical servers for years to come. But, the number will be declining.
I hope that the IT business will start to grow this year as predicted. Information technology spends to increase next financial year according to N Chandrasekaran, chief executive and managing director of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest information technology (IT) services company. IDC predicts that IT consumption will increase next year to 5 per cent worldwide to $ 2.14 trillion. It is expected that the biggest opportunity will lie in the digital space: social, mobility, cloud and analytics. The gradual recovery of the economy in Europe will restore faith in business. Companies are re-imaging their business, keeping in mind changing digital trends.
The death of Windows XP will be on the new many times on the spring. There will be companies try to cash in with death of Windows XP: Microsoft’s plan for Windows XP support to end next spring, has received IT services providers as well as competitors to invest in their own services marketing. HP is peddling their customers Connected Backup 8.8 service to prevent data loss during migration. VMware is selling cloud desktop service. Google is wooing users to switch to ChromeOS system by making Chrome’s user interface familiar to wider audiences. The most effective way XP exploiting is the European defense giant EADS subsidiary of Arkoon, which promises support for XP users who do not want to or can not upgrade their systems.
There will be talk on what will be coming from Microsoft next year. Microsoft is reportedly planning to launch a series of updates in 2015 that could see major revisions for the Windows, Xbox, and Windows RT platforms. Microsoft’s wave of spring 2015 updates to its various Windows-based platforms has a codename: Threshold. If all goes according to early plans, Threshold will include updates to all three OS platforms (Xbox One, Windows and Windows Phone).
Amateur programmers are becoming increasingly more prevalent in the IT landscape. A new IDC study has found that of the 18.5 million software developers in the world, about 7.5 million (roughly 40 percent) are “hobbyist developers,” which is what IDC calls people who write code even though it is not their primary occupation. The boom in hobbyist programmers should cheer computer literacy advocates.IDC estimates there are almost 29 million ICT-skilled workers in the world as we enter 2014, including 11 million professional developers.
The Challenge of Cross-language Interoperability will be more and more talked. Interfacing between languages will be increasingly important. You can no longer expect a nontrivial application to be written in a single language. With software becoming ever more complex and hardware less homogeneous, the likelihood of a single language being the correct tool for an entire program is lower than ever. The trend toward increased complexity in software shows no sign of abating, and modern hardware creates new challenges. Now, mobile phones are starting to appear with eight cores with the same ISA (instruction set architecture) but different speeds, some other streaming processors optimized for different workloads (DSPs, GPUs), and other specialized cores.
Just another new USB connector type will be pushed to market. Lightning strikes USB bosses: Next-gen ‘type C’ jacks will be reversible article tells that USB is to get a new, smaller connector that, like Apple’s proprietary Lightning jack, will be reversible. Designed to support both USB 3.1 and USB 2.0, the new connector, dubbed “Type C”, will be the same size as an existing micro USB 2.0 plug.
2,130 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Firefox 31 beta arrives with search on new tab page, revamped developer tools, and Android runtime improvements
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/06/13/firefox-31-beta-arrives-search-new-tab-page-cross-platform-developer-tools-native-android-runtime/
Following the release of Firefox 30 just two days ago, Mozilla today updated its Firefox Beta channel to version 31 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android.
All the improvements are focused on helping developers build Web content, apps, and add-ons more easily than before. That includes a canvas debugger and an add-on debugger.
The Android release has two major additions worth expanding on. The first is new Firefox Hub APIs, which allow add-on developers to add their own content to the Firefox for Android homepage.
Last but certainly not least, Mozilla has made performance improvements to what it calls a “native experience” for Web apps on Firefox for Android.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM releases Software-Defined Storage For Dummies – no joke
Plus Big Blue sexes up its boring old GPFS line with new name
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/13/ibm_writes_software_defined_storage_for_dummies_book/
IBM has written its own Software Defined Storage for Dummies book (PDF) focusing on – you guessed it – its home-brewed General Parallel File System Elastic Storage
GPFS is currently being sexed up as Elastic Storage, which has trendy, cloud-like, pay-for-usage connotations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software Defined Storage for Dummies
http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?subtype=BK&infotype=PM&appname=STGE_DC_ZQ_USEN&htmlfid=DCM03004USEN&attachment=DCM03004USEN.PDF
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Debuts Thin Galaxy Tab S With Super AMOLED 2560X1600 Display
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/06/13/0312244/samsung-debuts-thin-galaxy-tab-s-with-super-amoled-2560×1600-display
Samsung unveiled its latest flagship tablet, the Galaxy Tab S, at an event in New York City tonight, and the new device is thin, lightweight, and sports a killer Super AMOLED display. Samsung boasts that the Galaxy Tab S’s 2560×1600 display has 73% better color reproduction than conventional LCD displays and can match colors up to 94% of “nature’s true palette” with deeper blacks and a 100,000:1 contrast ratio.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Shiny flashy people holding DIMMs: Facebook’s data centres are going all-flash
Hey, WD – come join our flashy dating agency
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/13/hp_discover_vegas_facebook_all_flash_datacentre/
The importance of the fab link for major flash product vendors remains strong. We have:
Seagate-Samsung;
Toshiba-Violin and Toshiba-SanDisk partnerships;
Micron-Intel partnership
Western Digital (HGST) and … who?
We tentatively think that HP now sees the Memristor tech as an inside-HP tech and is not focussing much on external sales. Memristor DIMMs in 2016 could change that. We also suggest the SK hynix Memristor manufacturing effort has failed.
Does The Machine conception have disk storage at all, or just Memristor Universal Memory?
Tomi Engdahl says:
NVIDIA Is Better For Closed-Source Linux GPU Drivers, AMD Wins For Open-Source
http://games.slashdot.org/story/14/06/13/1438223/nvidia-is-better-for-closed-source-linux-gpu-drivers-amd-wins-for-open-source
The winner for proprietary GPU driver support on Linux was NVIDIA
The Radeon OpenGL performance with Catalyst had some problems, but at least its performance per Watt was respectable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
OpenVR: Building an Oculus Rift for only $150
http://hackaday.com/2014/06/13/openvr-building-an-oculus-rift-for-only-150/
The Oculus Rift is a really cool piece of kit, but with its future held in the grasp of Facebook, who knows what it’ll become now. So why not just build your own?
Other FPV setups cost close to $300 as well, so getting a device with more features just makes sense. Promptly after realizing this, he faced the Maker’s Dilemma: Buy it, or build it?
The majority of the cost here is in the LCD, with everything else being pretty inexpensive.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Apple TV Might Disrupt Microsoft and Sony
http://stratechery.com/2014/apple-tv-might-disrupt-microsoft-sony/
Beyond the fact most of us had nothing better to do in the 1980s, a big reason to own a gaming console was that they were a phenomenally good deal.
Over the last two generations of consoles, however, prices have actually risen, and today a Playstation 4 or Xbox One is nearly the same price as an average PC.
In some respects, this makes no sense: why hasn’t Moore’s law had the same impact on consoles as it has had on PCs? Moreover, when you consider that consoles now compete with a whole host of new time-wasters like phones, tablets, social networks, dramatically expanded TV offerings, the Internet, etc., it’s downright bizarre.
Tomi Engdahl says:
I am an IT generalist. Am I doomed to low pay forever?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/17/readers_corner_it_generalist_career_path_advice/
Tomi Engdahl says:
European youth believe they lack skills for digital economy
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240219500/European-youth-not-skilled-for-digital-economy
Almost three quarters (70%) of young people believe they will have to acquire digital skills after leaving education because current education systems do not prepare them for work.
A total of 63% of young people surveyed by think tank ThinkYoung and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) said they are not prepared for the digital economy.
The digital revolution will affect and benefit every European – but it is the younger people who will most shape it, and be shaped by it.”
Over 90 million Europeans in Generation Y will enable the next generation of digital enterprises.
“Young people across Europe share a positive outlook towards technology and the opportunities it will create for them in the future workplace.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dell outs malware-beating Optiplex all-in-one desktops for businesses
Sounds like it should be a toothbrush
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2350014/dell-outs-malware-beating-optiplex-all-in-one-desktops-for-businesses
Unlike most all-in-one designs these days that feature an oversized tablet design on a stand, both the Dell Optiplex 3030 and Optiplex 9030 look like standard computers.
The firm added that it has built in a range of security features into the Optiplex line to fight such threats.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Apple TV Might Disrupt Microsoft and Sony
http://stratechery.com/2014/apple-tv-might-disrupt-microsoft-sony/
Beyond the fact most of us had nothing better to do in the 1980s, a big reason to own a gaming console was that they were a phenomenally good deal.
Over the last two generations of consoles, however, prices have actually risen, and today a Playstation 4 or Xbox One is nearly the same price as an average PC.
I think the answer lies in a specific part of disruption theory. Specifically, incumbents are driven by their best customers to add more and more features that drive up the price, causing the incumbents’ product to move further and further away from the average customer’s needs (needs which have actually been decreasing as more entertainment options become available)
Tomi Engdahl says:
SteamBoy Aims To Be The Handheld Steam Machine – Update
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/135381-SteamBoy-Aims-To-Be-The-Handheld-Steam-Machine-Update
SteamOS could be making its way into mobile gaming, according to a new teaser trailer for the SteamBoy console.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP Stabs Microsoft in the Back: Dumps Windows, Prepares Linux-Based Operating System
http://news.softpedia.com/news/HP-Stabs-Microsoft-in-the-Back-Dumps-Windows-Prepares-Linux-Based-Operating-System-446390.shtml
HP, which was actually one of Microsoft’s key partners in the last decade, is trying to move away from Windows in a move that would clearly turn the company into a direct competitor for the Redmond-based software giant.
HP CEO Meg Whitman revealed at her annual customer conference this week that the company is working on a brand new device called “The Machine” which would comprise several new technologies, such as a new type of memory, but would also run a brand new operating system.
And no, we’re not talking about Windows 9, but about a completely new OS that will be developed by HP itself, which is clearly just another move to help the company detach from the Microsoft partnership.
“We want to reignite in all of our universities around the world operating system research which we think has been dormant or stagnant for decades. We are, as part of The Machine, announcing our intent to build a new operating system all open source from the ground up, optimized for non-volatile memory systems,”
“Wintel devices are being challenged by ARM-based devices. We are seeing profound changes in the competitive landscape. Current partners like Intel and Microsoft are turning from partners to outright competitors.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft C# chief Hejlsberg: Our open-source Apache pick will clear the FUD
Redmond goes for deep-cleanse
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/16/anders_hejlsberg_interview/
Roslyn is both the next generation compiler for C# and Visual Basic, and a set of APIs which enable deep integration with developer tools (like Visual Studio) for more powerful code recognition and refactoring.
Since Roslyn is the compiler for the forthcoming C# 6.0, does that mean C# itself is now an open source language? “Yes, absolutely,” says Hejlsberg.
C# 6.0 is expected in Visual Studio 2015, just released to community technology preview.
This is measured open source, of course. The language might be open but the Common Language Runtime (CLR) – the engine that runs the output – is not. And an open-source C# 6.0 does not mean that Microsoft will be ceding control, as Redmond will remain responsible for the code that’s committed to the official C# 6.0 release.
Mono to adopt Microsoft’s baby Roslyn
One of the consequences is that implementations of .NET and C# on other platforms will be more closely aligned with Microsoft’s release. GNOME co-founder Miguel de Icaza started the Mono project for C# on Linux and the Mac, and is now at Xamarin, which creates tools for compiling C# apps for iOS and Android. He appeared on stage with Hejlsberg at Build and will be adopting “Roslyn”.
“They have already got it running, and it is my understanding that they will switch and make Roslyn their IDE engine, the thing that powers IntelliSense, refactoring and so forth,” says Hejlsberg.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Targets Apple With SuperAMOLED Tablet Onslaught
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322735&
The Galaxy Tab S boasts a high-res SuperAMOLED display with 2,560 x 1,600 resolution to rival iPad’s “retina” display. Samsung claims the company’s screen technology provides better color and deeper contrast while consuming less power than the LCD displays in most tablets. Samsung had kept its SuperAMOLED display technology only for the company’s smartphones.
Both wafer-thin tablets measure 6.6mm as compared to the 7.5mm set by Apples latest iPads.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hey, VMware. You’ve got competition – from a Belgian upstart
Did we mention this open source object store isn’t just targeting VMware?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/16/belgian_startup_producing_vsan_competitor/
Belgian startup incubator CloudFounders has an open source project to provide an networked object storage backend to VMware or KVM virtual machines using a VSAN-like Open vStorage Router (OSR).
OSR is a VMware VM, or runs on bare metal in a KVM server, and it scales out by having OSR run on additional virtualised servers linked by 10GbitE, providing a unified NFS namespace across them.
It is VM-aware and provides access to vPOOL storage to them, talking, as it were, VM language to VMs and object-style language to back-end arrays that are running under Ceph, Gluster, OpenStack Swift or other object storage operating systems.
The OSR is used for provisioning (thin), snapshotting, replication and cloning (thin), and all are actioned at the VM level.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is it THE END OF BIG DATA? Quarta Horribilis for high-end storage
People will be talking about the terrible 2014 Q1 for year
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/06/idcs_quarter_from_hell/
IDC has just revealed one of the worst storage quarters for a couple of years as buyers went on a high-end storage strike.
There’s been a quite spectacular slump in the storage business in the first 2014 quarter, according to the beancounters’ Storage Tracker. Notwithstanding the digital-universe-drowning-us-in-Big-Data narrative, the actual storage market shrank this quarter.
“The total (internal plus external) disk storage systems market generated $7.3 billion in revenue, representing a decrease of -6.9 per cent from the prior year’s first quarter and a sequential decline of -17 per cent compared to the seasonally stronger 4Q13.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Supercharges Bing Search With Programmable Chips
http://www.wired.com/2014/06/microsoft-fpga/
Doug Burger called it Project Catapult.
Like Google and every other web giant, Microsoft runs its web services atop thousands of computer servers packed into warehouse-sized data centers, and most of these machines are equipped with ordinary processors from Intel, the world’s largest chip maker. But when he sat down with Lu, Burger said he wanted millions of dollars to build rack after rack of computer servers that used what are called field-programmable arrays, or FPGAs, processors that Microsoft could modify specifically for use with its own software. He said that these chips–built by a company called Altera–could not only speed up Bing searches, but also change the way Microsoft run all sorts of other online services.
The move is part of a larger effort to fix what is an increasingly worrisome problem for big web companies like Microsoft, Google, and Facebook.
After decades of regular performance boosts, chips are no longer improving at the same rate they once were. As their web services continue to grow, these companies are looking for new ways of improving the speed and efficiency of their already massive operations. Facebook is exploring the use of low-power ARM processors. According to reports, Google is too. And now Microsoft is about to roll out FPGAs.
Using FPGAs, Microsoft engineers are building a kind of super-search machine network they call Catapult. It’s comprised of 1,632 servers, each one with an Intel Xeon processor and a daughter card that contains the Altera FPGA chip, linked to the Catapault network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Parallels’ new remote desktop apps let you control your PC like a phone
http://www.engadget.com/2014/06/17/parallels-access-for-android-and-iphone/
Remote desktop apps have an easier time working on tablets, where you have a lot of display area to work with, but they’re frequently awkward on smartphones. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could control a PC at home like it was just another phone app? Parallels is tackling that challenge head-on with smartphone-friendly versions of its Access app for both Android and the iPhone.
You can launch programs, select text and type almost as if the computer’s software were built for a small screen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wikipedia Strengthens Rules Against Undisclosed Editing
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/06/16/wikipedia-strengthens-rules-against-undisclosed-editing/
Beginning Monday, changes in Wikipedia’s terms of use will require anyone paid to edit articles to disclose that arrangement.
“we’re not an advertising service; we’re an encyclopedia.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Do data centers dream of electric sheep? Microsoft announces machine learning cloud
New Azure service sees Redmond open up a bit of its brain to developers
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/16/microsoft_machine_learning_service/
Microsoft is flinging some of its internal machine learning tech up into the cloud, putting its Azure service ahead of rival products from Google and Amazon.
The company’s new “Azure ML” service was announced on Monday and means developers can access machine learning systems hosted in the Azure cloud and even link their applications directly to them.
Recently, Google announced that one of its engineers had built a system that used a neural network to calibrate the relationship between 19 different inputs and a single output – data center power usage effectiveness.
“Machine learning is an incredibly underutilized capability – every app around us could be becoming intelligent,” Sirosh said. “I would love to have the excitement around machine learning be unleashed. It’s just like the birth of the cloud.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
SSD shadiness: Kingston and PNY caught bait-and-switching cheaper components after good reviews
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/184253-ssd-shadiness-kingston-and-pny-caught-bait-and-switching-cheaper-components-after-good-reviews
Over the past few months, we’ve seen a disturbing trend from first Kingston, and now PNY. Manufacturers are launching SSDs with one hardware specification, and then quietly changing the hardware configuration after reviews have gone out. The impacts have been somewhat different (more on that in a moment) but in both cases, unhappy customers are loudly complaining that they’ve been cheated, tricked into paying for a drive they otherwise wouldn’t have purchased.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Crucial MX100 256GB SSD: Cut-throat competition in flash land
Keenly priced sweet-spot storage
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/17/review_crucial_mx100_256gb_ssd/
Micron subsidiary Crucial has caused huge waves in the consumer SSD market with its low-cost M500 drive rang
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bait and Switch – The Sad State of SSDs
By: Chris Ramseyer | Posted: 5 days, 16 hours ago
Read more at http://www.tweaktown.com/blogs/Chris_Ramseyer/93/bait-and-switch-the-sad-state-of-ssds/index.html
alveo says:
Alveo
hi!,I like your writing very so much! proportion we keep up a correspondence more approximately your article on AOL?
I require a specialist in this area to solve my
problem. May be that is you! Taking a look forward to see
you.
Tomi Engdahl says:
4K Monitors: Not Now, But Soon
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/06/17/224208/4k-monitors-not-now-but-soon
4K monitor prices have fallen into the range where mainstream consumers are starting to consider them for work and for play.
“The current version of the HDMI specification (1.4a) can only output a 4096×2160 resolution at a refresh rate of 24 Hz or 3840×2160 at 30 Hz—the latter, half that of what we’re used to on TVs and monitors. Connect up a 4K monitor at 30 Hz via HDMI and you’ll see choppier animations and transitions in your OS.”
The Best 4K Monitor (doesn’t exist yet)
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-4k-monitor-doesnt-exist/
Like 1080p before it, 4K is the new, ultra-high-resolution format that promises better detail and greater image clarity due to the huge number of pixels packed into your screen. “Buttery-smooth text rendering and wonderfully detailed photos,” promises MakeUseOf. Just consider the quality differences between Apple’s Retina Display MacBooks and its standard MacBooks: it’s the same pixel-increasing principle.
That said, we don’t think it’s the right time to buy one.
While most 4K monitors are still very expensive, we’re starting to see a growing number priced under $1,000: Samsung’s $700 U28D590D, Dell’s $700 P2815Q, and Asus’ $650 PB287Q are already available.
Even expensive 4K monitors struggle with the same major weaknesses right now: outdated display connections, beefy hardware requirements, and lack of OS/application support. Cheap 4K monitors can have all those problems and more, sacrificing image quality in order to cut costs.
The advantage of a 4K display is pretty clear: it has four times number of pixels as 1080p—8.29 million versus 2.07 million. This increased level of detail is theoretically indistinguishable to the human eye once you pass a certain distance from a screen (say, more than three feet away from a 50-inch 4K HDTV). However, a desktop monitor is close enough for you to notice the difference.
While 4K content is still in its infancy, there’s no doubt that the media will eventually move that way. In fact, there’s 4K-sized content you can view right now on your desktop PC. More should hopefully be on the way soon, especially if you’re a big Netflix or Amazon Instant Video fan.
Minus some glitching here and there, you can play plenty of today’s best games in full 4K resolution so long as you have a beefy system that can output a high-resolution picture at reasonable frame rates. In other words, the content is already there
“Words don’t do this 4K photo editing setup justice—you have to see it in-person to appreciate it,” describes Microsoft’s Gavin Gear.
One of the major differences between a $3,000 4K monitor and a $700 4K monitor is the quality of panels that can make up the displays. Pricier monitors tend to use higher-quality panels that are better for color reproduction, picture quality, and viewing angles; more inexpensive monitors use cheaper panels that can be better for gaming but also produce a less accurate picture (and horrible viewing angles).
The current version of the HDMI specification (1.4a) can only output a 4096×2160 resolution at a refresh rate of 24 Hz or 3840×2160 at 30 Hz—the latter, half that of what we’re used to on TVs and monitors. Connect up a 4K monitor at 30 Hz via HDMI and you’ll see choppier animations and transitions in your OS. You might also encounter some visible motion stuttering during normal use, and you’ll be locked to a maximum of 30 frames per second for your games—it’s playable, but not that smooth.
An HDMI upgrade to fix these issues isn’t widespread yet, but it’s on the horizon. HDMI 2.0 supports a full 60 Hz refresh rate at 3840×2160.
DisplayPort has enough bandwidth to deliver 4K at 60 Hz, but most 4K monitors can’t accept it natively. Instead, they employ a clever workaround: they pretend that their giant 4K picture is actually two tiled displays—each 1920×2160, and each running at 60 Hz. DisplayPort transmits both “displays” simultaneously from your computer to your monitor, which the latter seamlessly combines into one giant 3840×2160 picture Some monitors can pull the same trick with two HDMI cables.
Most people don’t own a system that’s good enough for gaming on a 4K display—at least, not at highest-quality settings.
If you’re looking to buy a 4K monitor, our recommendation is to wait. We just don’t think the tradeoffs are worth it: the quality and price of panels in 4K monitors; the operating systems and apps that struggle in such a high-resolution playground; and the not-so-great workarounds you’ll have to employ for smooth, lovely pictures.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Unisys phasing out decades-old mainframe processor for x86 chips
Unisys is shifting to Intel’s Xeon chips for its flagship servers
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/547767/unisys_phasing_decades-old_mainframe_processor_x86_chips/
Unisys is phasing out its decades-old mainframe processor, which lags behind in speed and scalability compared to newer chips.
The chip is used in some of Unisys’ ClearPath flagship mainframes, but the company is moving to Intel’s x86 chips in Libra and Dorado servers in the ClearPath line, it said Tuesday.
The aging CMOS chip will be “sunsetted” in Libra servers by the end of August and in the Dorado line by the end of 2015, said Unisys spokesman Brian Daly. Dorado 880E and 890E mainframes will use the CMOS chip until the servers are phased out, which is set to happen by the end of 2015.
“It has not gone away yet because we haven’t surpassed the performance characteristics,”
x86 processors are faster and more power efficient, which makes them a more attractive option, Herkalo said. They are also compatible with the latest components and interconnects, and common hardware infrastructure makes it easier for new Libra and Dorado servers to talk to systems based on Windows and Linux in data centers, Herkalo said.
Unisys’ move to commodity hardware to replace its mainframe processor follows the footsteps of Hewlett-Packard, which is providing a pathway to move from the mainframe-focused Itanium to x86 server chips, both owned by Intel. Historically, less expensive chips have replaced more expensive mainframe chips — x86 faces a threat from the cheaper ARM server processors, which are still being developed and tested.
The servers introduced on Tuesday are designed to operate as black boxes sitting at a higher layer in data centers through which transactions are processed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Move Over Big Data — Here Comes ‘Fast’ Data
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230922
Sometimes fast is just not fast enough. Business execs wanting satisfied customers are finding ways to react quickly – sometimes instantly – to consumer feedback data.
Sometimes fast is just not fast enough. Business execs wanting satisfied customers are finding ways to react quickly – sometimes instantly – to consumer feedback data.
To be sure, while new tools help facilitate fast feedback, they’re not always cheap or the easy to manage. Some technologies are free, or cost just a few hundred dollars, but others can run up to the six-figure range, depending on the size of a company that wants a certain service.
It turns out, 98 percent of survey respondents would recommend the hotel if they simply had a great check-in experience and their room was clean.
“An unhappy customer has a pretty short shelf-life, especially with social media,” says Ryan Smith, Qualtrics’ founder and chief executive officer. “There’s a lot of discussion around big data. I’m a big proponent of fast data.”
Hoping to avoid the damage aired frustrations can yield on channels like Facebook and Twitter, Goodsnitch has created a different way for customers to get a company’s attention. This freemium smartphone app lets customers provide feedback directly to companies in as little as 30 seconds (by tapping rating icons “good” or “not so good,” among other options).
“Businesses have gotten good at supply chain management,” says Rob Pace, a former partner at Goldman Sachs who founded Goodsnitch. “The last mile—that connectivity between customers and employees—is the most important, and fast feedback for those that do it right is going to lead to all sorts of advantages.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Power-Conscious Controllers Reduce Energy Consumption
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1322782&
Reducing power consumption in memory is an ongoing challenge, but designing more energy-conscious controllers is also critical depending on the application.
Silicon Motion recently announced its SM2246EN SATA (6Gb/s) client SSD controller now supports Micron’s 16nm 128Gb MLC NAND flash. In addition to highlighting its performance, the company also emphasized its ultra-low power consumption, which on average is 56mW.
It’s the application that determines whether the power consumption in an SSD controller is a critical system feature
“The power consumption for high-end enterprise SSD controllers is something that nobody really cares about.” When it comes to SSDs for client applications such as PCs, it’s more important to address power use to extend battery life since a lot of SSDs are getting used in ultrabooks and Macbook Air computers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft ‘Catapults’ geriatric Moore’s Law from CERTAIN DEATH
FPGAs DOUBLE data center throughput despite puny power pump-up, we’re told
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/16/microsoft_catapult_fpgas/
Microsoft has found a way to massively increase the compute capabilities of its data centers, despite the fact that Moore’s Law is wheezing towards its inevitable demise.
In a paper to be presented this week at the International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA), titled A Reconfigurable Fabric for Accelerating Large-Scale Datacenter Services, a troupe of top Microsoft Research boffins explain how the company has dealt with the slowdown in single-core clock-rate improvements that has occurred over the past decade.
Tomi Engdahl says:
World’s most powerful ARM processor
Cavium has introduced a new processor family, which takes the cloud and data centers processors to a new level. ThunderX-family on the same chip is crowded at best 48 pieces of 2.5-gigahertz clock to carry out operations ARMv8 kernels.
ThunderX chips eighth-generation ARM cores have 24-48 pieces. According to Cavium ThunderX is currently the most powerful ARM processor.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1497:maailman-tehokkain-arm-prosessori&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
OpenCL language brings more power to programming
Programmable FPGA chip allows sophisticated, efficient parallel calculation. Most of the power will be obtained if the programming is done in a standardized OpenCL language. OpenCL enables the design is also easier to take the district to the next generation.
Multi-core processors required by the parallel programs were developed to create the need for OpenCL (Open Computing Language) programming language in order to create a platform-independent parallel programming standard. OpenCL brings the opportunity to describe parallel algorithms that can be implemented in FPGA circuits, a much higher level of abstraction than hardware description languages such as VHDL or Verilog.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1513:opencl-kieli-tuo-lisaa-tehoa-ohjelmointiin&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Cortana-gate’ ruins Satya Nadella’s Microsoft honeymoon
NO WAY are you putting it on iOS and Android, screech commentards
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2014/06/17/cortanagate_crushes_nadellas_microsoft_honeymoon/
Analysis It looks like Satya Nadella’s honeymoon as Microsoft CEO is over, and it happened during what’s already being called “Cortana-gate” by Redmond’s own commentards.
This began to unravel last week when a manager for Microsoft’s new voice assistant Cortana mused that the service could wash up on iOS and Android, where it would compete with other cloud-based assistants, Apple’s Siri and Google Now.
These comments were sensible, consistent and uncontroversial – so uncontroversial in fact, that most technology sites felt they didn’t merit a story. If Microsoft wants its cloud to succeed, it needs to make its best technology available to the largest number of users. Most of the mobile hardware in the world runs on iOS and Android; Microsoft has already put Office and services like Bing on the iPad and Android, so why stop there?
However, the musings caused great dismay amongst the fiercely loyal owners of Microsoft phones and tablets.
The problem that “Cortana-gate” highlights is that it shows up Nadella’s sticking plaster slogan – “Cloud First Mobile First” – as a fatally ambiguous fudge. Which is really first: cloud or mobile? The answer is always “both”, but this makes no sense when tough decisions must be made.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Will SanDisk move into enterprise kit after its Fusion-io slurp?
They might be onto something if they can sweet-talk HP into a deal
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/18/sandisk_fusionio_buyout_move_to_enterprise_on_cards/
Can SanDisk make a go of moving into the enterprise with its $1.1bn purchase of Fusion-io?
It is a very different market to the consumer space and although the margins are considerably higher, it brings with it many challenges.
And I expect to see some very close ties being built between SanDisk and HP. HP already resell the ioDrive cards and the new 3Par 7450 array utilises SanDisk Enterprise drives; it has been heavily pushed as a partnership between them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Reg man pulls out telescope: Thar be magic quadragons… and lo, a new vendor
Has a strange flash-array beastie emerged in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/23/gartner_magic_quadrant_update/
There is dissent in the flash array vendor ranks over Gartner gurus’ magic quadrant.
woodleigh clothing says:
Excellent post. I’m facing many of these issues as well..
Tomi Engdahl says:
When the Open Automotive Alliance’s formation was announced in January, the group said it would bring the Android operating system to cars “starting in 2014.”
http://gigaom.com/2014/06/18/intel-will-offer-a-customizable-chip-to-keep-data-center-clients-happy/
To ensure that ARM or other alternative architectures don’t gain ground in the data center, Intel is launching a customizable chip that marries its Xeon CPUs with an FPGA.
To meet the needs of webscale and select enterprise customers Intel will build a customizable and programmable CPU that combines an Intel processor and a programmable chip from an undisclosed partner, Diane Bryant, SVP and General Manger of Intel’s data center group, plans to announce onstage at the Gigaom Structure conference Wednesday. Bryant said the customizable CPU is already in development, and would be used in production environments next year.
“We have been engaging directly with large-scale service providers to give them exactly what they need,” said Bryant.
The chip would combine a Xeon processor and a programmable chip known as an FPGA, or a field-programmable gate array. Instead of just placing the FPGA near the chip, which is the usual way one would place an FPGA or other accelerator chip, the two would be linked and able to share access to the memory available to the CPU. This coherency is essential for making the processors faster and avoiding bottlenecks associated with using other accelerators such as graphics processors or even an FPGA that isn’t coherently linked.
The primary companies making FPGAs are Xilinx, Altera and Latice Semiconductor, but Bryant didn’t say what firm it was working with for the FPGA, only that Intel wasn’t designing those itself. However Intel will test and manufacture the entire chip for customers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple SOLDERS memory into new ‘budget’ iMac
No home upgrades for you, tight-fisted fanbois
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/19/help_apple_have_soldered_my_motherboard_shut/
Apple has soldered the memory into its new cheap-ish iMac in an apparent bid to make sure fanbois have no chance of souping up their new not-so-bargain-basement all-in-one computer, according to a teardown team.
The fruity firm has always been interested in making sure the world’s landfill sites are packed with out-of-date Macs, and apparently fixing memory to the mobo in the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops ensures they are more or less impossible to upgrade.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Ars NAS distribution shootout: FreeNAS vs NAS4Free
One is pleasantly functional; the other continues devolving during a journey of pain.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/06/the-ars-nas-distribution-shootout-freenas-vs-nas4free/
If you’ve been following along with our earlier articles on next-gen filesystems like btrfs and zfs, but wanted an easy way to get started without having to learn anything on the command line (or need an easy way to take advantage even though you’re a Windows-only user), you’re in luck. Today, we’re going to look at two ready-to-rock ZFS-enabled network attached storage distributions: FreeNAS and NAS4Free.
If FreeNAS and NAS4Free sound suspiciously similar, it’s because they share a common root. Both are descended from the original FreeNAS code, founded by Olivier Cochard-Labbé in 2005
FreeNAS and NAS4Free are both “turnkey” network attached storage distributions with a relatively simple setup and Web interface for easier management. They each tie a lot of underlying technology together for the ease of the user: ZFS, FTP, CIFS/SMB (Windows networking), AFP (Mac networking, necessary if your NAS is going to be a Time Machine backup target), NFS, iSCSI, and more.
They’re also both designed to be installed directly to a thumb drive on the premise that the NAS system itself is relatively simple and unimportant, whereas maximizing the number of hard drives and the amount of storage available for user data is all-important.
FreeNAS also tends to be noticeably bleeding-edge, which may delight you as a technical enthusiast or quietly horrify you as a more conservative sort of techie. By contrast, NAS4Free dispenses with the fancy stuff and sticks with a more down-to-earth and focused “I am a NAS and I am good at it” game plan.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Saving old software from extinction in the age of cloud computing
Will cloud-dependent software leave anything behind for future historians?
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/06/saving-old-software-from-extinction-in-the-age-of-cloud-computing/
We live in the golden age of cloud computing. Storing user data and preferences on the Internet makes our multi-device lives easier than ever before. Data input on one device is often seamlessly available on every other device, making it a snap to jump from desktop to laptop to smartphone. Some software has come to depend so completely on these cloud servers, though, that we are starting to create a software ecosystem that will be historically untraceable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Java language is trying to reinvent itself and shake off “the day of COBOL” refers
A lot of the language used is no longer considered fashionable. Java had built up in the pressure to keep up with developments. One expert appointed Information Week, java “increasingly mammoth mastodon old-fashioned” and “today’s cobol.”
Java 8′s most notable new features are borrowed from the lambda language commands and APIs that are called streams.
“The old school Java programmers will have to give some thought to update and problem-solving style, if you want to make full use of the advantages of lambda”
Source: http://summa.talentum.fi/article/tv/8-2014/56422
Tomi Engdahl says:
Your Grandfather’s Backup Tools Weren’t Built for Today’s Virtual Environments.
Posted on April 8, 2014 by Tricia ONeill
http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/2014/04/grandfathers-backup-tools-werent-built-todays-virtual-environments.html
When the health of your business rides on the availability of your virtual machines and the applications they run, you shouldn’t be working with legacy backup and recovery tools. You’re not in your grandfather’s data center, so why use his data protection tools?
Yet that’s the case in many data centers. Instead of deploying backup and recovery solutions built for virtual machines, many organizations are using legacy data protection solutions that were designed for physical environments and retrofitted for use in virtualized environments. And here’s the bottom line: Some are finding they aren’t getting everything they need.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oracle acquires LiveLOOK, bolsters its service cloud
http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/2013/12/22/computer-trends-for-2014/comment-page-23/#comment-598381
Summary: LiveLOOK co-browsing technology is used to resolve customer issues through the web and mobile channels.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google’s New Web Starter Kit Is A Boilerplate For Multi-Screen Web Development
http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/19/google-launches-web-starter-kit-a-boilerplate-for-multi-screen-web-development/
Tomi Engdahl says:
3 Unexpected Reasons Your Customers Abandon Cart
http://blog.gigya.com/3-unexpected-reasons-your-customers-abandon-cart/?utm_source=out&utm_medium=psync&utm_campaign=shopigniter&utm_content=var1uk
Shopping cart abandonment — there’s nothing like those three dreaded words to set an ecommerce business on the defensive. Today’s social, multi-device consumers demand shopping experiences that are relevant and seamless, but most businesses fail to successfully deliver on these expectations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BYOD is the wave of the future
Column It’ll be a sea change, but will be worth the cost
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/opinion/2351303/byod-is-the-wave-of-the-future
WE’RE HEADING INTO an era of “bring your own device” (BYOD) in the corporate world, indeed we’re already there, and it’s going to become more common as time goes on.
The migration to BYOD will impact different organisations in various ways and to different extents, depending on their existing information systems that will have to be modified to adapt to the change. For some highly centralised, rigidly standardised IT departments, BYOD is proving a wrenching change, and some will put it off as long as possible or take tentative, incremental approaches to adopting BYOD for this reason, while others that have less rigid and customised IT systems have already transitioned to BYOD as an almost painless process.
Organisations will have to assess the migration costs versus the benefits of moving to BYOD, but for many companies the results have already proved worth the effort.
As IT departments redevelop internal interfaces to adapt to working with generic devices, they will realise savings in equipment expense, management and maintenance costs, as well as the additional benefits of refactoring internal IT systems to be simpler and take advantage of redesigned, decentralised processes that use more modern system architectures and standardised protocols.
Moving to BYOD will require architectural and process redesign wisdom from IT management and, for some organisations it will be a lot of work, but the eventual results should be well worth the cost of migration.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russian media says gov to dump x86, bake own 64-bit ARM
ARM advocates and NSA back-door paranoids rejoice!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/23/russian_media_says_gov_to_dump_x86_bake_own_64bit_arm/
Russian news outlet Kommersant has reported that the nation’s government wants to ditch Intel and AMD processors in favour of a locally-developed ARM effort.
The outlet’s report suggests three state-owned Russian companies are banding together to develop to be called “Baikal” that will use ARM’s 64-bit kernel Cortex A-57 as its base design, offer at least eight cores, be built with a 28nm process and run at 2GHz or more in PCs or servers.
The report also says “It is assumed that Baikal will be delivered to the authorities and state-owned companies.”
While both ITR-TASS and Kommersant say Baikal will find its home in computers run by state-owned entities, neither suggests there’s a national security angle behind the decision.
a move to 64-bit ARM by entities that collectively acquire a million devices a year would be significant because of boost it would give ARM-based servers and PCs
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hadoop And The Future Of Data
http://www.big-dataforum.com/281/hadoop-and-future-data
Quick, name something that is growing as fast as the tidal volumes of data today, specially unstructured data? One good answer would be the fast-growing interest in Hadoop, that open source software framework seemingly bred for taming the data monster.
Estimates from Gartner and IDC put the number of Hadoop production systems today in the 1,000 range. Chicken feed, you say, and that is true relative to the millions of proprietary data management and storage solutions out there.
But that number is going to grow very rapidly, as in 60% compounded over the next four or five years. Moreover, the importance of Hadoop to the organizations and businesses will grow dramatically as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Good god, where will the new storage experts come from?
When a burgeoning cloud means a skills drought
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/19/where_will_the_new_storage_experts_come_from/
As we enter the middle of the 2010 decade, new IT projects are increasingly being designed for the public cloud instead of local IT systems.
Gartner figures that by the end of 2016 we’ll be through the looking glass, with more money spent on “cloud” applications and services than traditional delivery mechanisms. Soon thereafter, it seems, “cloud” applications are set to become “public cloud” applications and down the rabbit hole we go.
New businesses and greenfield departments within existing organisations are the obvious candidates for such a shift. New ventures are already risky enough; it’s understandable that folks in charge wouldn’t want to invest in the upfront capital costs of owning your own equipment.
From a risk management perspective – especially early on – renting your IT as you go makes a sort of sense, even if the total cost if well above that of owning the gear yourself. How many businesses start off by buying the building they’ll use as an office outright? It’s never quite so straightforward.
In our brave new cloudy world, the rental economy for private housing is a good educational tool.
The simple answer is that when the economy goes titsup.com, those folks that own their IT won’t suddenly find themselves without the equipment necessary to run their business.
For those folks who rent their IT, as soon as there’s a hiccup in revenue, they’re screwed. If you can’t pay the bills, “your” IT no longer works. If “your” IT no longer works, you can’t serve your customers. If you can’t serve your customers you stop getting income. You then have two choices: bust out the credit card and pray you don’t end up in a corporate debt spiral; or go out of business.
The skills base for running internal IT is going to collapse. “Systems administrators” will, in a very real sense, soon be obsolete.
Today’s sysadmins will “reskill” for this cloudy future. Many will simply retire.
Once that happens, we are collectively screwed. Only the richest corporations will be able to afford the nerds required to maintain their own IT and thus only the richest corporations* will own IT. They’ll rent it out as they see fit, insulating themselves from economic risk and downturn by turning the knobs on the rest of us.
The ability to “burst” workloads up to the public cloud allows us flexibility while having a minimum of equipment locally allows us to mitigate risk. For those interested in this there are three basic options.
The first option is Microsoft from top to bottom. While it’s got a reasonably mature hybrid offering that you can buy off the shelf today, I have to admit to being less than enthused about the idea of getting into bed with it for another decade or two.
Next up is VMware; like Microsoft, it offers an off-the-shelf hybrid option.
Like Microsoft, VMware seeks to be the vertically integrated stack that owns your future. I am leery of lock-in.
The last viable alternative is Openstack. Openstack has gone from utterly irrelevant also-ran to “proper infrastructure” in the past 18 months. Redhat, IBM, HP and Rackspace