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.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Startup to Open Source Parallel CPU
Rex targets 10x leap in performance/watt
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324759&
A startup founded by two teenagers is designing a parallel processor that it hopes delivers a 10x leap in performance per watt for high-end systems. Rex Computing will make open source its instruction set architecture in hopes of rallying supporters around it.
The startup’s ambitions are high, as explained by chief executive Thomas Sohmers, who recently became old enough to sign the company’s contracts. He aims to create an alternative to today’s processors and accelerators, which are too expensive (mainly in power consumption) to scale to the exaflop performance researchers hope to deliver in the next decade.
Sohmers was recently elected co-chairman of the high-performance working group under the Open Compute Project (OCP) started by Facebook. He hopes Rex can finish the design of its neo core as early as January and make it open source through the group.
The 3W Neo chip (above) packs into 80 mm2 256 cores, each consisting of a 64-bit ALU, IEEE floating point unit, and 128 Kbits of SRAM scratch pad memory. Each core has a 16 Gbyte/s link to its neighbors with about 384 Gbytes/s of aggregate bandwidth between chips.
Sohmers was inspired by Adapteva’s Epiphany chip, on which he based his first prototypes.
http://www.rexcomputing.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Finnish information technology is 8 th best in the world
The UN World Telecommunication Union ITU on Monday published the ICT Development Index composites index. Finland retained 8th place in the UN’s annual 166 in the information and communications technology review.
Source: http://www.digitoday.fi/yhteiskunta/2014/11/25/suomen-tietotekniikka-on-8nneksi-parasta-maailmassa/201416290/66?rss=6
ITU releases annual global ICT data
& ICT Development Index country rankings
Denmark ranks in first place in global ICT Development Index (IDI)
http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2014/68.aspx#.VHRCOMlM0im
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Chrome will block all NPAPI plugins by default in January, drop support completely in September
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/24/google-chrome-will-block-all-netscape-plugin-api-plugins-in-january-drop-support-completely-in-september/
Google today provided an update on its plan to remove Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface (NPAPI) from Chrome, which the company says will improve the browser’s security, speed, and stability, as well as reduce complexity in the code base. In short, the latest timeline is as follows: Block all plugins by default in January 2015, disable support in April 2015, and remove support completely in September
For context, Google first announced in September 2013 that it was planning to drop NPAPI.
The latest usage data (for October 2014) shows the following launch percentages:
Silverlight (11 percent of Chrome users, down from 15 percent)
Google Talk (7 percent of Chrome users, down from 8.7 percent)
Java (3.7 percent of Chrome users, down from 8.9 percent)
Facebook Video (3 percent of Chrome users, down from 6 percent)
Unity (1.9 percent of Chrome users, down from 9.1 percent)
Google Earth (0.1 percent of Chrome users, down from 9.1 percent)
The above six are part of a small number of popular plugins currently whitelisted and allowed by default in Chrome
In April 2015, this will no longer be an option as NPAPI support will be disabled by default in Chrome and Google will unpublish extensions requiring NPAPI plugins from the Chrome Web Store. That being said, Google will provide an override for advanced users (via an “enable-npapi” flag) and enterprises (via Enterprise Policy) to temporarily re-enable NPAPI.
Web developers who use or build these plugins can find out more information in the NPAPI deprecation guide.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel promises 10TB+ SSDs thanks to 3D Vertical NAND flash memory
November 21st, 2014 at 5:54 pm – Author Anton Shilov
http://www.kitguru.net/components/memory/anton-shilov/intel-promises-10tb-ssds-thanks-to-3d-v-nand-flash-memory/
At present solid-state drives with extreme capacities are very expensive and even the best of them cannot match high-capacity hard disk drives for nearline storage applications. However, thanks to the evolution of NAND flash memory in general, and 3D vertical NAND (3D V-NAND) in particular, the situation may change soon and SSDs with 10TB or higher capacities will become reality.
Intel Corp. revealed at its Investor Meeting 2014 event this week that in the second half of 2015 its joint venture with Micron Technology – Intel Micron Flash Technologies (IMFT) – will start mass production of 3D vertical NAND flash memory chips with up to 256Gb (multi-level cell, 2-bit-per cell) or 384Gb (triple-level cell, 3-bit-per cell) capacity. 3D V-NAND flash memory chips will feature 32-layer vertically stacked cell arrays that are “interconnected” using four billion through silicon vias (TSVs).
The upcoming 3D NAND chips from Intel and Micron will enable solid-state drives with capacities simply not possible today. According to Rob Crooke, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s non-volatile memory group, the 3D NAND will enable 10TB and larger solid-state storage solutions in the next two years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
We have a winner! Fresh Linux Mint 17.1 – hands down the best
Beats Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Elementary
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/24/mint_17_1_review/
Linux Mint 17.1 is the first example of what the Mint project team can do when they’re focused on their own system rather than on making the latest Ubuntu work with Mint.
That’s because Mint 17.1 sticks with the Ubuntu released earlier this year – the first time this desktop Linux has not gone with the more recent Ubuntu.
It’s a welcome upgrade for Mint fans.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft exams? Tough, you say? Pffft. 5-YEAR-OLD KID passes MCP test
Proud dad: ‘son cached his opportunity’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/15/five_year_old_passes_microsoft_certified_professional_exam/
Wannabe techies take note: A five-year-old kid from Coventry has passed Microsoft’s Certified Professional exam.
According to the BBC, Ayan Qureshi – under the guidance of his dad, Asim – first showed an interest in computing at the age of three.
When the young lad arrived at the exam centre to sit the test, invigilators initially expressed concern about his age. But his father reassured them that the kid, who is now six, would do just fine on his own.
“The hardest challenge was explaining the language of the test to a five-year-old,” he said. “But he seemed to pick it up and has a very good memory.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Attack of the one-letter programming languages
http://www.infoworld.com/article/2850461/application-development/attack-of-the-one-letter-programming-languages.html
From D to R, these lesser-known languages tackle specific problems in ways worthy of a cult following
Tomi Engdahl says:
Debra Donston-Miller, November 26, 2013
36 Comments
10 Skills IT Pros Need for Cloud Computing
- See more at: http://www.buildyourbestcloud.com/147/10-skills-it-pros-need-cloud-computing#sthash.oyYX9aLi.dpuf
Tomi Engdahl says:
Researchers Say the Tech Worker Shortage Doesn’t Really Exist
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/11/25/0623241/researchers-say-the-tech-worker-shortage-doesnt-really-exist
“There’s no evidence of any way, shape, or form that there’s a shortage in the conventional sense,”
The Tech Worker Shortage Doesn’t Really Exist
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-24/the-tech-worker-shortage-doesnt-really-exist
“There’s no evidence of any way, shape, or form that there’s a shortage in the conventional sense,” says Hal Salzman, a professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers University. “They may not be able to find them at the price they want. But I’m not sure that qualifies as a shortage, any more than my not being able to find a half-priced TV.”
For a real-life example of an actual worker shortage, Salzman points to the case of petroleum engineers, where the supply of workers has failed to keep up with the growth in oil exploration. The result, says Salzman, was just what economists would have predicted: Employers started offering more money, more people started becoming petroleum engineers, and the shortage was solved. In contrast, Salzman concluded in a paper released last year by the liberal Economic Policy Institute, real IT wages are about the same as they were in 1999. Further, he and his co-authors found, only half of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) college graduates each year get hired into STEM jobs. “We don’t dispute the fact at all that Facebook (FB) and Microsoft (MSFT) would like to have more, cheaper workers,” says Salzman’s co-author Daniel Kuehn, now a research associate at the Urban Institute. “But that doesn’t constitute a shortage.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Julie Bort / Business Insider: HP Misses On Revenue, All Businesses Down Except PCs
http://www.businessinsider.com/hp-reports-earnings-2014-11?op=1
HP just reported its fourth quarter earnings: inline with profits and a miss on revenue.
Revenue was down in just about every business unit. The only bright spot was the PC division, where revenue was up 4% year over year with a 4.0% operating margin, entirely due to businesses finally buying new PCs. Consumer PC revenue was down 2%.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Netflix Sues a Former Exec — Now Yahoo’s CIO — For Allegedly Collecting Kickbacks
http://recode.net/2014/11/25/netflix-sues-a-former-exec-now-yahoos-cio-for-allegedly-collecting-kickbacks/
The Netflix suit says Kail, who joined the company in 2011, arranged Netflix contracts with IT service companies Vistara and NetEnrich, and then pocketed commissions of 12 percent to 15 percent of the monthly fees Netflix paid each company.
Netflix says it paid the two companies a total of $3.7 million from 2012 until Kail’s departure, which would mean he could have collected between $450,000 and $560,000.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IDC: iPad Sees First-Ever Decline As Wider Tablet Shipment Growth Drops 7.2% In 2014 To 235.7M Units
http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/25/idc-ipad-sees-first-ever-decline-as-overall-tablet-shipment-growth-drops-7-2-in-2014-to-235-7m-units/
As Apple rides a cresting wave in the stock market with its market cap now dancing around $700 billion, a dark cloud moves in from IDC. The analysts report today that full-year iPad shipments will decline for the first time in its history, amid a sluggish market overall for tablets.
Apple — which ironically now offers more models of its iPad tablet than ever before — will ship 64.9 million iPad tablets in 2014, a decline of 12.7% on the total number of shipments a year ago. The bigger tablet market will see shipments of 235.7 million units, growth of 7.2% over 2013.
This is a big drop in growth. As a point of comparison, tablet shipments between 2012 and 2013 grew 52.5%.
Tomi Engdahl says:
C’mon, Brocade: QLogic’s left the Fibre Channel game. Flat revenues again?
Plus: Is storage firm REALLY shopping itself…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/25/peg_levelling_at_brocade/
Brocade is a member of the flat revenue Earth society, with its mix of annual and quarterly Fibre Channel and Ethernet revenues hardly changing between last year and this year.
It’s a mature market and Brocade is holding its own but the growth spark is fizzling out. Can anything be done to reignite the fire? A Wall Street Journal article speculated it was trying to shop itself last month.
He says Brocade is positioned well for the “new IP”: one that is “optimised for the unique requirements of the cloud, social, mobile, and Big Data.” Sounds pretty much like last year’s IP – but this one is “open software-driven, agile, and [has] secure networking architectures.”
New software-defined networking apps will be delivered next year. Carney said: “Customers are ready to move away from vendor-driven proprietary systems that are overly complex and impede their ability to rapidly respond to changing business requirements.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is LTO Tape On Its Way Out?
http://it.slashdot.org/story/14/11/26/0044239/is-lto-tape-on-its-way-out
With LTO media sales down by 50% in the last six years, is the end near for tape? With such a large installed base, it may not be imminent, but the time is coming when vendors will find it increasingly difficult to justify continued investment in tape technology
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samsung Shows ‘Eye Mouse’ For People With Disabilities
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/11/25/2056210/samsung-shows-eye-mouse-for-people-with-disabilities
Samsung today announced a project among a group of its engineers to build an input device that allows people with limited mobility to operate a computer through eye movement alone. The EYECAN+
they’ll soon be making the design open source
Samsung ‘eye mouse’ helps the paralyzed use PCs, will be made open-source
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2852052/samsung-eye-mouse-helps-the-paralyzed-operate-computers.html
Although the eye-tracking technology may have other applications, Samsung sees it as particularly helpful for those paralyzed as a result of a spinal cord injury. Other potential users include those with progressive neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. It is illness in which patients lose control of mobility and in the later stages are only able to use their eyes.
The portable, wireless device sits below the computer monitor and can respond to the eye movements of a user 60 to 70 centimeters away. After a one-time calibration process, the Eyecan+ shows a pop-up menu on the screen, which provides 18 commands that the user can choose from.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NSF Commits $16M To Build Cloud-Based and Data-Intensive Supercomputers
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/11/26/0048227/nsf-commits-16m-to-build-cloud-based-and-data-intensive-supercomputers
he systems — “Bridges” at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and “Jetstream,” co-located at the Indiana University Pervasive Technology Institute and The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center — respond to the needs of the scientific computing community for more high-end, large-scale computing resources while helping to create a more inclusive computing environment for science and engineering.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Technology quiz reveals that nobody including quiz drafters knows anything about IT
<0.5 get TRUE/FALSE answer right on Moore's Law
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/26/technology_quiz_reveals_that_nobody_including_quiz_drafters_knows_anything_about_it/
A terrifying new quiz has indicated that the state of knowledge among Americans regarding IT topics is abysmally low: but the questions are such as to indicate that even the drafters of the quiz didn't know much.
The quiz in question is one from Pew Research, intended to find out "What Internet Users Know about Technology and the Web". It was conducted among a supposedly representative group of 1,066 American internet users earlier this year, by means of emailing them a link to the questionnaire.
It would seem that one major internet technique that most of the respondents had not grasped was the use of search engines to find things out, as their responses – despite the rather basic level of the questions – were stupefyingly ignorant.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Internet Users Know about Technology and the Web
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/11/25/web-iq/
Results of the “Web IQ” Quiz
American internet users’ knowledge of the modern technology landscape varies widely across a range of topics, according to a new knowledge quiz conducted by the Pew Research Center as part of its ongoing series commemorating the 25th anniversary of the World Wide Web.
Substantial majorities of internet users are able to correctly answer questions about some common technology platforms and everyday internet usage terms.
On the other hand, relatively few internet users are familiar with certain concepts that underpin the internet and other modern technological advances. Only one third (34%) know that Moore’s Law relates to how many transistors can be put on a microchip, and just 23% are aware that “the Internet” and “the World Wide Web” do not, in fact, refer to the same thing
Many online Americans also struggle with key facts relating to early—and in some cases, more recent—technological history.
Tomi Engdahl says:
College Student Spends Summer Coding OpenStack; Discovers the Ins and Outs of Open Source
http://www.buildyourbestcloud.com/549/college-student-spends-summer-coding-openstack-discovers-ins-and-outs-open-source
Under the auspices of the Google Summer of Code program, which pays college students stipends to write code in a particular open source discipline, Argentinian student Victoria Martínez de la Cruz has been spending the summer creating code for OpenStack’s messaging module, Marconi.
One of the biggest takeaways from her experience so far is to have patience. Yes, you have to learn the code base well and get familiar with the submission and approval process and the overall workflow.
“[E]ven though you succeeded submitting your change, the review process take[s] more time than you thought and you need to be open minded to explain the decisions you took to reviewers and accept changes that could make your code better,” she writes.
The collaboration aspect is what de la Cruz feels is the most empowering experience of her internship, mainly because she was able to give feedback on others’ code as well as get comments on what she’s written.
Tomi Engdahl says:
This pocket-sized gesture controller aims to replace your mouse
http://www.engadget.com/2014/11/24/flow-programmable-bluetooth-controller/
If a new Indiegogo project has its way, you could soon be waving goodbye to that old, beloved mouse of yours. Meet Flow, a small gadget that pairs with your desktop or laptop and can be programmed with shortcuts to your most frequently used actions. At launch, Flow is said to offer support for more than 30 applications, including popular ones like Final Cut Pro X, Photoshop, Premiere, SoundCloud, Spotify and YouTube.
Flow. An intuitive & precise wireless controller.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/flow-an-intuitive-precise-wireless-controller
Flow is a programmable shortcut to your favorite actions.
We work on graphic design, video editing or CAD on a daily basis. Keyboard and mouse are great but they are far from giving you the same sensitivity and abilities as your hand.
The same applies for music, browsing or presentations. We need a tool that gives us flexible shortcuts and perfect control, a tool that makes the things we love fast, precise, intuitive and fun.
That’s why we created Flow, a freely programmable wireless controlle
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Firmware Support Package for the Internet of Things
http://rtcmagazine.com/articles/view/103818
There are a number of unique firmware requirements for embedded systems and IoT that do not require the familiar BIOS but rather domain- and application-specific needs. Specific firmware support addresses these unique needs in the embedded and IoT space.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Intel and Micron May Finally Kill the Hard Disk Drive
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/11/25/2027220/how-intel-and-micron-may-finally-kill-the-hard-disk-drive
For too long, it looked like SSD capacity would always lag well behind hard disk drives, which were pushing into the 6TB and 8TB territory while SSDs were primarily 256GB to 512GB. That seems to be ending. In September, Samsung announced a 3.2TB SSD drive. And during an investor webcast last week, Intel announced it will begin offering 3D NAND drives in the second half of next year as part of its joint flash venture with Micron.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Revisiting Open Source Social Networking Alternatives
http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/revisiting-open-source-social-networking-alternatives–cms-22445
Talk about 15 minutes of fame: upstart social networking startup Ello burst on the scene in September with promises of a utopian, post-Facebook platform that respected user’s privacy. I was surprised to see so many public figures and media entities jump on board—mainly because of what Ello isn’t. It isn’t an open source, decentralized social networking technology. It’s just another privately held, VC-funded silo.
In reality, the road to a usable open source social networking technology is paved with the wreckage of good intentions.
Remember Diaspora? In 2010, it raised $200,641 on Kickstarter to take on Facebook with “an open source personal web server to share all your stuff online.” Two years later, they essentially gave up, leaving their code to the open source community to carry forward.
For this series, I’m going to introduce you to six of these technologies:
Diaspora
Pump.io
GNU Social
Tent.io
GetStream.io
BuddyCloud
This article will briefly walk through the state of these solutions
Tomi Engdahl says:
AI for software development
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/embedded-insights/4437716/AI-for-software-development?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141126&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20141126&elq=b8bff4f832de495696b31d84dff806d7&elqCampaignId=20371
Recently, Rice University announced a research project that aims to apply AI principles to software development. In particular, the PLINY project will analyze vast databases of open source software code and provide a tool that would help developers “autocomplete” their code whenever they need help. Like the autocomplete functions on many text processors, the tool would estimate what developers are trying to create, and then find existing code blocks that implement the intended function and suggest them to the programmer. The result could be a significant boost in programming efficiency.
Clearly, programming efficiency needs boosting. Embedded software has continued to increase in complexity while project schedules have shrunk, placing ever more pressure on software developers to generate code quickly. The ability to automatically identify and drop in existing code segments would be a godsend.
The industry has tried to implement such code re-use in the past, but it has been difficult to scale. For existing, manual re-use practices to be effective, the code has to be developed with modularity a central feature. This includes using things like self-evident naming conventions, well-defined data interfaces, and exceptional documentation. Then, there needs to be a database of reusable code created so that developers can readily find a suitable block to drop into their design. In the press of shrinking project schedules, however, such design tactics are difficult to justify and maintain for anything beyond high-value, frequently-used code blocks such as drivers, protocols stacks, and the like.
The PLINY project would help scale code re-use down to smaller blocks by automating many of the steps involved.
Next for DARPA: ‘Autocomplete’ for programmers
http://news.rice.edu/2014/11/05/next-for-darpa-autocomplete-for-programmers-2/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple’s $700 BEEELLION market cap makes it more valuable than Switzerland
Cuckoo clocks and cheese no match for iThings
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/26/apple_700_beeelion_market_cap_makes_it_more_valuable_than_switzerland/
Apple has achieved a record-breaking market capitalisation of $700bn – making it more valuable than Switzerland.
The cash-laden fruity firm has now become the most expensive company in human history, after its stock rose to a high of $119.75 yesterday.
At its peak during trading yesterday, Apple reached a market cap of $703bn, before dipping slightly to end the day to a pathetic $690bn.
“Given Apple’s significant portfolio refresh over the past three months, the lack of innovation from competitors, and a constructive spending backdrop in the US market, we believe Apple has opportunity to shine bright this holiday season,” said Brian White, an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pure: We’ve created the Everlasting Gobstopper of Storage – ‘Forever Flash’
Upstart claims ‘perpetual storage’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/20/pure_storage_refreshes_flash_forever/
In recent months, as ever, we’ve seen a lot of “refreshments” on the storage scene.
Getting back to Pure’s extension of its Flash Forever maintenance contract. This now “extends the usable life of all Pure Storage FlashArrays indefinitely, for both new and existing customers with current maintenance contracts.”
It includes:
consistently flat or better maintenance and service (M&S) pricing with no out-year increases—ever,
free controller upgrades with every three year M&S contract renewal and
no-cost proactive replacement of equivalent or better hardware components when needed, including flash in the event of wear.
Pure CEO Scott Dietzen evangelised in a canned quote: “Today, we are liberating [customers] from legacy disk-era business practices with the introduction of ‘perpetual storage’.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Unity Finally Releases Its Long Promised User Interface Creator
http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/26/unity-4-6-finally-brings-the-long-promised-user-interface-creator/
Good news, everyone!
Once upon a time, Unity promised to overhaul the way developers would build user interfaces in their Unity-powered games.
At long last, Unity has shipped version 4.6 of its visual game development system — and with it, the long promised UI editor.
If you’re not a Unity user, here’s what you need to know: Unity is a super powerful game creation engine that allows developers to work in a WYSIWYG-style interface. Games built in Unity work on nearly any platform (iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, all the next-gen consoles, etc.) with minimal tweaking. You still need to know how to code to make things work the way you want, but the whole system is considerably more visual/drag-and-drop than the game engines of yesteryear.
With today’s release, however, UI creation gets the support it deserves. Interfaces are designed right within the game editor itself, and “smart anchoring” and smooth resizing systems keep everything where it should be regardless of screen resolution. Unity’s fantastic animation system has been integrated into the UI workflow, allowing for things like bouncing buttons or things that fly into view. Meanwhile, the whole thing has been built with performance in mind, and to work across any platform that Unity supports.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SF Has An S&M Problem
http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/23/sf-has-an-sm-problem/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity
Our Sales and Marketing costs are killing us.
For years, subscription-based pricing popularized by Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startups has been pitched to us as a way of reducing S&M costs. Traditionally, software was sold as a license along with a maintenance contract that ensured deep upfront revenues and a continuous stream of income.
Unlike the complexity of that on-premise implemented and managed software, SaaS was supposed to be simpler for customers to use and pay for. That simplicity not only saves on maintenance costs for overburdened IT departments, but also theoretically lowers the sales touch required for a sale, generating revenue efficiency for the provider. By pricing software as a subscription, startups forego upfront revenue from a license fee in exchange for higher and more reliable renewable revenue.
It hasn’t worked out that well.
The evidence is strikingly poor for the subscription model when it comes to actual dollars and cents.
New Relic, the SaaS application monitoring startup, announced its IPO earlier this month as well, and its earnings record is similar. The company had revenues of $63 million in the year before March 31, with $58 million in sales and marketing costs.
These high ratios between revenues and sales and marketing expenses are certainly not new for companies heading to the public markets.
Now, I know the standard excuse here is that these subscription companies are “growing rapidly” and this is all just “an investment in the future.” With subscription pricing, the entire model follows from renewals, with the logic being that once you have acquired a customer, the profit margin will rapidly increase as active sales costs come down.
The challenge is that low-touch sales never seem to be low cost. If a customer is shelling out a serious amount of money from its IT budget to pay for a service, there is going to have to be constant attention paid to that customer to ensure that they are happy with the service while ensuring that they don’t defect to a competitor. This goes far beyond a support subscription, which handles the day-to-day maintenance of ensuring performance of the service for the customer. The CIO needs to know the provider is listening to their concerns, and that means a sales infrastructure.
Furthermore, gross margins for SaaS startups in particular are lower than for companies selling traditional software licenses, since these startups don’t just sell code, but also have to manage data centers and other infrastructure to maintain the software service. With less margin, startups should be more efficient with S&M spending.
Even a company as massive as SalesForce has arguably not found its marketing scale yet. In its most recent quarter, SalesForce’s S&M costs represented more than 51% of total revenue, and more than 67% of gross profit.
Does SaaS still offer a compelling model for some startups? Sure, just take a look at Slack. Given its innate virality as a social tool in the workforce, it is entirely credible to believe that the company can have an off-the-shelf product with a subscription pricing model and avoid the S&M problems that plague others in the enterprise space. But it has an advantage with organic growth that few other B2B startups share.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The gender imbalance in IT is real, ongoing and ridiculous
The Z80 and 6502 generation wore the sexist stereotype, now it’s up to them to fix it
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/27/the_gender_imbalance_in_it_is_real_ongoing_and_ridiculous/
Something happened between the early and late 1980s that turned IT into a male-dominated profession. And not just male-dominated, but something just on this side of misogynistic.
There were always a few brave women with enough sheer pluck to stick it out in these frat house working environments, but by and large men climbed into their IT clubhouse, stuck a NO GIRLS sign on the door, and held that line for a generation.
The closing of IT to women began when marketers identified young, nerdy males as the key to sales of those first-generation machines. The mostly-male subculture of hobby microcomputing grew into advertising and media messaging that completely cut women out of the computing revolution. In 1983’s War Games, Matthew Broderick hacks into WOPR while Ally Sheedy looks on in wonder. That’s Hollywood telling women they don’t have a meaningful role in IT.
The War Games generation have grown up. Now principal engineers and senior managers, their perceptions of gender and competence in IT have translated into an industry whose conferences and culture, frequently described as ‘sausagefests’, consist of men talking to men.
Yes, there are exceptions. There are always exceptions. But the existence of these exceptions proves the point: the gender imbalance in IT is real, it’s ongoing, and it’s ridiculous.
No one has to say this explicitly. A young woman simply needs to cast her eye on the way the culture around IT has developed over the last 30 years to see this for herself.
In 1970, women had a two professional career paths open to them. Today, every professional path will take them in – except IT.
It’s up to us to fix this.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Consortium Roadmap Shows 100TB Hard Drives Possible By 2025
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/14/11/26/2145205/consortium-roadmap-shows-100tb-hard-drives-possible-by-2025
An industry consortium made up by leading hard disk drive manufacturers shows they expect the areal density of platters to reach 10 terabits per square inch by 2025, which is more than 10 times what it is today.
Key to achieving greater bit density is Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) and Bit Patterned Media Recording (BPMR).
Tomi Engdahl says:
DragonFly BSD 4.0 Released
http://bsd.slashdot.org/story/14/11/26/184238/dragonfly-bsd-40-released
release40
DragonFly BSD 4.0
http://www.dragonflybsd.org/release40/
Version 4 of DragonFly brings Haswell graphics support, 3D acceleration, and improved performance in extremely high-traffic networks. DragonFly now supports up to 256 CPUs, Haswell graphics (i915), concurrent pf operation, and a variety of other devices.
32-bit i386 architecture no longer supported
As announced during the 3.8 release, DragonFly BSD is 64-bit only. No 32-bit installation images have been generated, and no compatibility work is being done for 32-bit systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Oh No They Didn’t: European Parliament Calls For Break Up Of Google
Body passes resolution calling for “unbundling” of search from rest of company.
http://searchengineland.com/oh-didnt-european-call-unbundling-search-rest-google-209813
The widely anticipated, non-binding vote calls upon the European Commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, to “enforce EU competition rules [and] to consider proposals with the aim of unbundling search engines from other commercial services.”
The vote happened earlier today and was approved 384 to 174 with 56 abstentions. Beyond the “break up Google” angle (Google was not identified by name), the European Parliament called for the creation of a single digital market in Europe for the purpose of:
Increasing tax revenues
Promoting “non-discriminatory online search”
Preventing the “secondary exploitation” of search data
Developing uniform rules for cloud computing
Promoting net neutrality
The resolution essentially has no legal force. It’s a “political statement.” It’s also an aspirational statement of policy goals. However it indicates the political climate and mood throughout Europe, which is increasingly hostile to Google (except of course for consumers).
The European Commission is the body that has the real teeth and power in this matter.
It’s clear there’s a lot of frustration — even exasperation — behind this vote and Europe’s seeming inability to date to “do anything about Google.” Europe has been unable to produce home-grown competitors that can challenge the online hegemony of internet companies such as Google and Facebook. The company’s PC market share is much higher in Europe than in the US and Android is the dominant smartphone operating system there by far.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sheelah Kolhatkar / Businessweek:
How Anita Sarkeesian is battling sexism and gamergate harassment in the $25B video game industry
The Gaming Industry’s Greatest Adversary Is Just Getting Started
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-11-26/anita-sarkeesian-battles-sexism-in-games-gamergate-harassment
Sarkeesian had been invited by the university’s Center for Women and Gender to give a talk about sexism in the video game industry, which has lately become the kind of topic that generates death threats, in large part because of Sarkeesian’s work.
The strange part is that Sarkeesian is essentially an academic who has spent the past two years putting together a scholarly criticism of video games as a medium, through a series called “Tropes vs Women in Video Games,” published on her website Feminist Frequency. She finds disturbing, recurring themes in the ways that women are depicted in games
Each time a new video comes out, the harassment spikes. People impersonate Sarkeesian, creating fake accounts with her photo. Some spread false information.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HMC Spec Update Signals Healthy Adoption
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1324781&
The odds of Hybrid Memory Cube becoming a viable successor to conventional DRAM are improving with the release of specification 2.0 from the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (HMCC). Highlights of the HMCC 2.0 specification include increased data-rate speeds, from 15 Gbit/s in 1.0, up to 30 Gbit/s, and migrating the associated channel model from short reach (SR) to very short reach (VSR) to align with existing industry nomenclature. HMC uses a vertical conduit called through-silicon via (TSV) that electrically connects a stack of individual chips to combine high-performance logic with DRAM die. The memory modules are structured like a cube, instead of being placed flat on a motherboard, allowing dramatic performance improvements over DDR4 with lower power consumption.
When work began on the first specification, which was finalized and released in May 2013, 15 Gbit/s seemed like a good starting point, says Black, as it was at the top end of serial interfaces. The consortium has leveraged the work of other standards organizations to develop HMCC since its inception. It released an update to HMCC 1.0 in February.
Handy notes that Intel has embraced HMC with its next-generation Intel Xeon Phi processor. Intel is collaborating with Micron to offer up to 16GB of high-performance memory and more than five times the sustained memory bandwidth compared with DDR4, along with improved power-efficiency and space-savings.
Like him, Handy sees HPC applications as an early user of HMC. “Supercomputing is usually the proving ground for concepts that later become commercial.” In addition, he sees high-end routers and networking gear using ASICs as a driving force for the adoption of HMC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wormhole in Interstellar Movie Designed with a Linux OS
The production team of the movie used Red Hat
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Wormhole-in-Interstellar-Movie-Designed-with-a-Linux-OS-465762.shtml
The Interstellar movie has been released not long ago and it was an instant success, despite some of the criticism that has been expressed by a number of physicists. To make thinks even more interesting, at least for Linux users, it looks like the production team used Linux to built the black hole in the movie.
It’s not really a secret that the scientific community is mostly using Linux for their work and the same applies for production studios that work on movies.
One of the main challenges of rendering a wormhole was the fact that it’s actually a 3D object.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A WHOPPING 8 million Windows Server 2003 systems still out there
Refresh activity to be XP-like, biz still pondering next move
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2014/11/27/windows_server_2003_tech_data_gartner/
Windows Server 2003 refresh activity has yet to show up in a major way across the UK tech channel amid estimates that eight million physical systems are still out there in the wild – not all of which will be replaced like-for-like.
Security updates and fixes for the 11-year-old operating system will no longer be made available by Microsoft from 14 July when extended support expires.
Many in the IT channel view this as a major opportunity to breathe new life into server sales after a period of stagnation, but according to Tech Data CEO Bob Dutkovsky, this is not happening in a major way yet.
“Everyone of our server partners have programmes in place to energise the opportunity,” he told analysts on a Q3 conference call, “so the energy is building around it.
“But I don’t think it’s accurate to say that we’ve seen much motion yet. If you look at the PC refresh, it had a similar profile to it – it started rather slowly and then the reality set in, and the refresh actions happened.”
Early in the summer, HP Enterprise Group executive veep Bill Veghte told us 11 million Windows Server 2003 machines were in use worldwide, with 2.7 million in Europe.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software firms are over-valued, says Huawei
It’s only code, you greedy chunters
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/27/huawei_software_companies_are_overvalued/
Inflated valuations for software companies are discouraging possible acquirers, says Chinese giant Huawei.
The Chinese giant’s global IT chief Yelai Zheng told us the high prices software companies asked made them less attractive to Huawei.
“Communications companies are not expensive but IT and software companies are,” said Zheng, who built up Huawei’s $16bn wireless business from scratch. He is now president of IT products, which means network and storage gear sold into enterprises, rather than into carriers.
Zheng explained that software companies under-estimate the cost of integration into a larger company. Motivation can also be an issue once a company has been absorbed.
“If we acquire a not-so-strong company we won’t be able to develop as well,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Millennials Want: Black Friday, Cyber Monday Edition
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robasghar/2014/11/26/what-millennials-want-black-fridaycyber-monday-edition/
Millennials may be “digital natives,” but more of them intend to shop on Black Friday than on Cyber Monday in 2014, according to a study by the Olympia Media Group.
Marketers everywhere are searching for the Holy Grail of marketing to millennials. In anticlimactic fashion, Burns suggested that no such grail exists.
“Many times brands don’t truly understand their customer,” Burns told me.
“They act as if millennials are one homogeneous group and they put some [generic] strategy in place for them.”
Indeed, past research by the Boston Consulting Group and others has shown that millennials, a $1.3 trillion market annually, have a different relationship with brands than older generations do.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Slashdot: IT Career Path After 35?
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/14/11/30/1546210/ask-slashdot-it-career-path-after-35
“All my friends seem to be moving towards a managerial role, and I’m concerned about my increasing age in a business where, according to some, 30 might as well be 50. But I still feel young, and feel like I have so much to learn.”
“Have you managed to stay current and marketable long after 35?”
Tomi Engdahl says:
In scathing critique, former Googler says Google+ “has lost its way”
http://venturebeat.com/2014/11/29/in-scathing-critique-former-googler-says-google-has-lost-its-way/
Of course, there’s been plenty of debate about whether Google+ has been a success, a failure, or just something that’s hanging in a puzzling limbo at Google. Earlier this year, the executive who oversaw Google+, Vic Gundotra, left Google, adding to speculation about how committed the company is to the service’s future.
But in a new post on Medium, Messina makes it clear that he’s hugely disappointed in the way Google+ has turned out. He believes the company missed a gigantic opportunity to re-invent social networking in a positive way for the future.
“Lately, I just feel like Google+ is confused and adrift at sea,” he wrote. “It’s so far behind, how can it possibly catch up?”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel to carry on subsidising tablets
http://channeleye.co.uk/intel-to-carry-on-subsidising-tablets/
The attempt by Intel to penetrate the tablet market has cost it dear in subsidies over the last two years.
But it appears that the chip giant hasn’t given up the ghost on such a plan and, according to Taiwanese wire Digitimes, is likely to pour more cash into the venture.
Intel’s problem is that it has faced overwhelming competition on price from companies that use microprocessors from Mediatek and Qualcomm, based on designs from British chip designer ARM.
- See more at: http://channeleye.co.uk/intel-to-carry-on-subsidising-tablets/#sthash.2U5mYKLj.dpuf
Tomi Engdahl says:
NAND designs: Vendors hustle to get flash closer to compute
PUSH that data faster, storage boy
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/01/getting_flash_closer_to_compute/
Multi-socket, multi-core CPUS are demanding entities: they have a gargantuan appetite for data which they suck up through a CPU-memory channel from DRAM, the server’s memory.
This access happens in nanoseconds, billionths of a second. Getting data from places beyond memory, such as PCIe server flash cards, SSDs directly attached to the server or fitted to networked arrays, or disk drives, takes much longer and the compute core has to sit there, idling, waiting for the data it needs.
In a modern factory, decades of mass-production, just-in-time delivery and build-to-order experience mean that any factory assembling process is designed so that all the components necessary are available, on hand just when needed. The whole point of factory processes is that an assembly line doesn’t stop, that multiple lines can operate at once, and that component logistics processes are in balance and deliver components in the right amounts and at the right speed to the assembly points in a production process.
A server is a data factory and it has, at its apex, a simple – in outline – process involving bringing data to compute. here is a sequence of stages getting that data to compute, such as from disk or sensor to the server’s memory and then to the CPU cores. Fast caches are used to buffer slow data delivery sources downstream from memory.
But server compute efficiency has improved in leaps and bounds, newer generations of processors, server virtualisation and current containerisation are enabling servers to run more applications, meaning the cores want more and more data – more immediately – with every compute cycle.
A two-socket by eight-core server can often have a greater data need than its memory and downstream storage infrastructure can deliver at any one time.
Flash memory improves data IO speed at whatever stage it is used in this downstream infrastructure and often this enough – put SSDs in the networked array to replace disks. Put flash caches in the array controller. Put SSDs in a server’s own directly-attached storage (DAS) slots. Put flash storage on PCIe flash cards which have faster data access than SATA or SAS-connected SSDs in the server’s DAS infrastructure.
What if we could put flash though directly onto the memory bus, in the same was as DRAM chips are accessed, through DIMMs, dual in-line memory modules.
Memory access latency – nanoseconds – billionths of a second
Disk access latency – milliseconds – thousandths of a second
PCIe flash access latency – microseconds – millionths of a second
Flash DIMM access latency – claimed to have 80 per cent lower latency than PCIe flash
Diablo Technologies of Canada has enabled this with its Memory Channel Storage (MCS) and it partners with a flash chip and SSD supplier, SanDisk, who sells the resulting ULLtraDIMM technology products to OEMs such as Huawei, Lenovo and Supermicro.
Diablo testing with a 15 per cent read/write ratio saw PCIe flash having a 105 microsecond mean write latency while its MCS flash had a 29 microsecond mean write latency – 3.6X better.
Diablo suggests that MCS technology is good for virtual SAN (VSANM workloads as it can:
Eliminate a need for external storage arrays
Provide extremely fast commit to clustered nodes for high-availability
Has predictable IOPS and latency for heavy workloads
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google sold more Chromebooks to US schools than Apple did iPads in Q3
http://9to5google.com/2014/11/30/chromebook-outsell-ipad-education/
According to the latest data from IDC, Google, for the first time ever, has overtaken Apple in United States schools. The research firm claims that Google shipped 715,000 Chromebooks to schools in the third quarter, while Apple shipped 702,000 iPads to schools. Chromebooks as a whole now account for a quarter of the educational market (via FT).
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARMv8 Workload Optimized Processors
http://www.eeweb.com/news/armv8-workload-optimized-processors
Cavium, Inc. announced the release of single socket and dual socket versions of its ARMv8 ThunderX™ family of processors. The workload optimized ThunderX CN88xx product line is the highest performance family of ARMv8 SoC processors for next generation Data Center and Cloud infrastructure.
ThunderX is the fifth generation of high performance, multi-core processors from Cavium targeting Data Centers and Cloud infrastructure.
The first ARM based SoC that scales from 24 to 48 cores in a pin compatible foot print.
The first ARM based SoC to be fully cache coherent across dual sockets using Cavium Coherent Processor Interconnect (CCPI™).
ThunderX includes four families with custom I/O and accelerators optimized for target workloads:
ThunderX_CP: For Cloud compute workloads such as public & private clouds, webcaching, web serving, search and social media data analytics.
ThunderX_ST: For Cloud storage, big data and distributed data bases.
ThunderX_NT: For Telecom/ NFV server and embedded networking applications.
ThunderX_SC: For Secure computing applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
1.7 billion annually on inundated data loss and operation breaks
EMC storage solutions has announced the global Data Protection Index survey results. Although the business information management is extremely important for businesses, information security is has major shortcomings.
A lot of problems are caused by the current hot trends hybrid cloud applications, big data, and mobile devices. Their protection is difficult, says 62 percent of the respondents.
Murphy’s Law declares that if things can go wrong, they are also likely to go. As many as 71 percent of the respondents were not completely sure that all the data can be, if necessary, to restore the problem after situations.
65 percent of the respondents had more than one security provider and the average of the three. The study showed that the more security vendor company had, the more likely it occurred in disorders such as data loss and downtime. Causes and consequences of relationship research does indeed give an answer.
“Many companies are still clearly challenges in keeping up with the IT environment for the rapid development.”
Financial terms of interruptions and loss of information caused by a total of 1.7 trillion dollars (1.36 trillion euros) losses per year.
The biggest problems were the causes of hardware failures (53%), power problems (39%) and software problems (38%). Security breaches, such as viruses and spyware, were to blame for 23 per cent of cases.
Source: http://www.tivi.fi/kaikki_uutiset/17+biljoonaa+hukkuu+vuodessa+datahavikkeihin+ja+toimintakatkoksiin/a1033268
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hortonworks falls well short of billion dollar IPO expectations
We’ve Had it Oop to here with over-enthusiastic valuations
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/02/hortonworks_falls_well_short_of_billion_dollar_ipo_expectations/
Hortonworks builds and distributes a version of the big data storage and analysis engine Apache Hadoop – first developed by Yahoo! from a paper by Google.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Firefox 34 Arrives With Video Chat, Yahoo Search As Default
http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/12/01/2326225/firefox-34-arrives-with-video-chat-yahoo-search-as-default
Mozilla today launched Firefox 34 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android. Major additions to the browser include a built-in video chat feature, a revamped search bar, and tab mirroring from Android to Chromecast.
Firefox 34 arrives with Firefox Hello video chat, revamped search, and Chromecast tab mirroring from Android
http://venturebeat.com/2014/12/01/firefox-34-arrives-with-firefox-hello-video-chat-revamped-search-and-chromecast-tab-mirroring-from-android/
The biggest addition for the desktop platforms is Firefox Hello, a new Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC) calling feature powered by Spanish carrier Telefonica. In Firefox 33 beta, Mozilla first introduced an experimental WebRTC feature that let users make free voice and video calls without needing to download additional software or plugins, or even to create an account.
Now the company is going further by partnering with Telefonica to providing users with what it calls “the first global communications system built directly into a browser.” Firefox Hello is powered by the OpenTok real-time communications platform from TokBox, a Telefonica company.
Mozilla wants to ensure users don’t need to hand over personal information in exchange for using its free communication service. Not only do you not have to sign up for a service, but you also don’t need the same software or hardware as the person you want to call, since WebRTC is compatible with Chrome and Opera browsers as well.
To use it, open Firefox, click on the chat bubble icon inside the customize menu, and connect with anyone who has a WebRTC-enabled browser by sharing the generated callback link. To call you, they’ll naturally need Firefox 34.
While an account isn’t required, Firefox Hello does let you sign in with your Firefox Account so you can initiate or receive direct calls with other Firefox Account users who are online, without having to share a callback link first. You can be reached on every computer that you’re signed into.
Firefox Hello also offers contact management.
For context, WebRTC is an open project that lets Internet users communicate in real-time via voice and video by simply using a WebRTC-compatible browser. It enables Web app developers to include real-time video calling and data sharing capabilities in their products, which can range from games to video conferencing tools.
Firefox has supported WebRTC support for months, and Mozilla has been showing it off in various forms.
Tomi Engdahl says:
One year on, Windows 8.1 hits milestone, nudges past XP
Funny what lack of choice can do
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/02/windows_8_1_breaks_10_per_cent/
The number of PC running Windows 8.1 nudged past Windows XP for the first time in November.
Windows 8.1 broke the global 10 per cent market-share barrier a year after general release, and has now hit 19.95 per cent, according to latest data from StatCounter.
Windows XP, released in 2001, slipped down 1.26 percentage points to 10.69 per cent – down from 11.95 per cent.
They are both poor relations to Windows 7, though, which remains the dominant PC operating system at 50.34 per cent, which is actually UP from 49.66 per cent the month before.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What benchmarks CAN tell you about your solid-state drives
What if you DON’T wish to torture data until it confesses to anything you want?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/02/storage_ssds/
When it comes to storage, what benchmarks to use, how to configure them and how to interpret the results has been the subject of many a heated debate.
Benchmarks are supposed to provide empirical data that can be used as evidence for drawing rational conclusions. Of course, if you torture data long enough it will confess to anything you want, and not everyone wants the same thing.
In today’s storage world, flash is the new hotness. SSDs are different from traditional “spinning rust” hard drives. Despite this, they are largely used for the same tasks.
This alone gives rise to epic discussions about whether or not benchmarking tools are valid, even if (or especially if) they haven’t been tuned to be SSD-aware.
What is more, writes of different sizes and patters are handled differently. As you can see, SSD awareness in benchmarking can make a big difference to the numbers you get.
Turn the knobs a bit at a time and figure out where the cliff is
Not everyone is testing virtual machines or trying for 500,000 IOPS. Many people just need to test the disks that are attached to their desktops, notebooks or servers. Here, any number of consumer tools can help.
A hundred companies can all use the same operating system on the same storage and see completely different results
Tomi Engdahl says:
Goodbye Microsoft Clip Art, welcome Bing Images
Even in the 90′s Microsoft Office Word word processing and PowerPoint slide shows, one of the most popular features was small, clip art called images, which could liven up a slide show or a Word document.
According to Microsoft, clip art use has declined steadily as the cow’s tail, when people have found the internet and it offers endless image catalog.
Even in the 90′s Microsoft Office Word word processing and PowerPoint slide shows, one of the most popular features was small, clip artiksi called images, which could liven up a slide show or a Word document.
According to Microsoft, clip Artin use has declined steadily as the cow’s tail, when people have found the internet and it offers endless image catalog.
“Office.com Clip Art and the gallery is closed for the winter,” Microsoft’s Doug Thomas writes.
“Office photo gallery of use has been steadily falling, when people are prefer to use Internet search engines,” Thomas explains
Office.com Clip Art gallery will replace Bing Images search option. Bing searches and filters available to users a Creative Commons license published photos copyright avoid disputes.
Source: http://www.mbnet.fi/artikkeli/tietokoneet/hyvasti_microsoftin_clip_art_tervetuloa_bing_images