Here are comes my long list of computer technology trends for 2015:
Digitalisation is coming to change all business sectors and through our daily work even more than before. Digitalisation also changes the IT sector: Traditional software package are moving rapidly into the cloud. Need to own or rent own IT infrastructure is dramatically reduced. Automation application for configuration and monitoring will be truly possible. Workloads software implementation projects will be reduced significantly as software is a need to adjust less. Traditional IT outsourcing is definitely threatened. The security management is one of the key factors to change as security threats are increasingly digital world. IT sector digitalisation simply means: “more cheaper and better.”
The phrase “Communications Transforming Business” is becoming the new normal. The pace of change in enterprise communications and collaboration is very fast. A new set of capabilities, empowered by the combination of Mobility, the Cloud, Video, software architectures and Unified Communications, is changing expectations for what IT can deliver.
Global Citizenship: Technology Is Rapidly Dissolving National Borders. Besides your passport, what really defines your nationality these days? Is it where you were live? Where you work? The language you speak? The currency you use? If it is, then we may see the idea of “nationality” quickly dissolve in the decades ahead. Language, currency and residency are rapidly being disrupted and dematerialized by technology. Increasingly, technological developments will allow us to live and work almost anywhere on the planet… (and even beyond). In my mind, a borderless world will be a more creative, lucrative, healthy, and frankly, exciting one. Especially for entrepreneurs.
The traditional enterprise workflow is ripe for huge change as the focus moves away from working in a single context on a single device to the workflow being portable and contextual. InfoWorld’s executive editor, Galen Gruman, has coined a phrase for this: “liquid computing.” The increase in productivity is promised be stunning, but the loss of control over data will cross an alarming threshold for many IT professionals.
Mobile will be used more and more. Currently, 49 percent of businesses across North America adopt between one and ten mobile applications, indicating a significant acceptance of these solutions. Embracing mobility promises to increase visibility and responsiveness in the supply chain when properly leveraged. Increased employee productivity and business process efficiencies are seen as key business impacts.
The Internet of things is a big, confusing field waiting to explode. Answer a call or go to a conference these days, and someone is likely trying to sell you on the concept of the Internet of things. However, the Internet of things doesn’t necessarily involve the Internet, and sometimes things aren’t actually on it, either.
The next IT revolution will come from an emerging confluence of Liquid computing plus the Internet of things. Those the two trends are connected — or should connect, at least. If we are to trust on consultants, are in sweet spot for significant change in computing that all companies and users should look forward to.
Cloud will be talked a lot and taken more into use. Cloud is the next-generation of supply chain for IT. A global survey of executives predicted a growing shift towards third party providers to supplement internal capabilities with external resources. CIOs are expected to adopt a more service-centric enterprise IT model. Global business spending for infrastructure and services related to the cloud will reach an estimated $174.2 billion in 2014 (up a 20% from $145.2 billion in 2013), and growth will continue to be fast (“By 2017, enterprise spending on the cloud will amount to a projected $235.1 billion, triple the $78.2 billion in 2011“).
The rapid growth in mobile, big data, and cloud technologies has profoundly changed market dynamics in every industry, driving the convergence of the digital and physical worlds, and changing customer behavior. It’s an evolution that IT organizations struggle to keep up with.To success in this situation there is need to combine traditional IT with agile and web-scale innovation. There is value in both the back-end operational systems and the fast-changing world of user engagement. You are now effectively operating two-speed IT (bimodal IT, two-speed IT, or traditional IT/agile IT). You need a new API-centric layer in the enterprise stack, one that enables two-speed IT.
As Robots Grow Smarter, American Workers Struggle to Keep Up. Although fears that technology will displace jobs are at least as old as the Luddites, there are signs that this time may really be different. The technological breakthroughs of recent years — allowing machines to mimic the human mind — are enabling machines to do knowledge jobs and service jobs, in addition to factory and clerical work. Automation is not only replacing manufacturing jobs, it is displacing knowledge and service workers too.
In many countries IT recruitment market is flying, having picked up to a post-recession high. Employers beware – after years of relative inactivity, job seekers are gearing up for change. Economic improvements and an increase in business confidence have led to a burgeoning jobs market and an epidemic of itchy feet.
Hopefully the IT department is increasingly being seen as a profit rather than a cost centre with IT budgets commonly split between keeping the lights on and spend on innovation and revenue-generating projects. Historically IT was about keeping the infrastructure running and there was no real understanding outside of that, but the days of IT being locked in a basement are gradually changing.CIOs and CMOs must work more closely to increase focus on customers next year or risk losing market share, Forrester Research has warned.
Good questions to ask: Where do you see the corporate IT department in five years’ time? With the consumerization of IT continuing to drive employee expectations of corporate IT, how will this potentially disrupt the way companies deliver IT? What IT process or activity is the most important in creating superior user experiences to boost user/customer satisfaction?
Windows Server 2003 goes end of life in summer 2015 (July 14 2015). There are millions of servers globally still running the 13 year-old OS with one in five customers forecast to miss the 14 July deadline when Microsoft turns off extended support. There were estimated to be 2.7 million WS2003 servers in operation in Europe some months back. This will keep the system administrators busy, because there is just around half year time and update for Windows Server 2008 or Windows 2012 to may be have difficulties. Microsoft and support companies do not seem to be interested in continuing Windows Server 2003 support, so those who need that the custom pricing can be ” incredibly expensive”. At this point is seems that many organizations have the desire for new architecture and consider one option to to move the servers to cloud.
Windows 10 is coming to PCs and Mobile devices. Just few months back Microsoft unveiled a new operating system Windows 10. The new Windows 10 OS is designed to run across a wide range of machines, including everything from tiny “internet of things” devices in business offices to phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops to computer servers. Windows 10 will have exactly the same requirements as Windows 8.1 (same minimum PC requirements that have existed since 2006: 1GHz, 32-bit chip with just 1GB of RAM). There is technical review available. Microsoft says to expect AWESOME things of Windows 10 in January. Microsoft will share more about the Windows 10 ‘consumer experience’ at an event on January 21 in Redmond and is expected to show Windows 10 mobile SKU at the event.
Microsoft is going to monetize Windows differently than earlier.Microsoft Windows has made headway in the market for low-end laptops and tablets this year by reducing the price it charges device manufacturers, charging no royalty on devices with screens of 9 inches or less. That has resulted in a new wave of Windows notebooks in the $200 price range and tablets in the $99 price range. The long-term success of the strategy against Android tablets and Chromebooks remains to be seen.
Microsoft is pushing Universal Apps concept. Microsoft has announced Universal Windows Apps, allowing a single app to run across Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1 for the first time, with additional support for Xbox coming. Microsoft promotes a unified Windows Store for all Windows devices. Windows Phone Store and Windows Store would be unified with the release of Windows 10.
Under new CEO Satya Nadella, Microsoft realizes that, in the modern world, its software must run on more than just Windows. Microsoft has already revealed Microsoft office programs for Apple iPad and iPhone. It also has email client compatible on both iOS and Android mobile operating systems.
With Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome grabbing so much of the desktop market—and Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Google’s Android browser dominating the mobile market—Internet Explorer is no longer the force it once was. Microsoft May Soon Replace Internet Explorer With a New Web Browser article says that Microsoft’s Windows 10 operating system will debut with an entirely new web browser code-named Spartan. This new browser is a departure from Internet Explorer, the Microsoft browser whose relevance has waned in recent years.
SSD capacity has always lag well behind hard disk drives (hard disks are in 6TB and 8TB territory while SSDs were primarily 256GB to 512GB). Intel and Micron will try to kill the hard drives with new flash technologies. 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. Later (next two years) Intel promises 10TB+ SSDs thanks to 3D Vertical NAND flash memory. Also interfaces to SSD are evolving from traditional hard disk interfaces. PCIe flash and NVDIMMs will make their way into shared storage devices more in 2015. The ULLtraDIMM™ SSD connects flash storage to the memory channel via standard DIMM slots, in order to close the gap between storage devices and system memory (less than five microseconds write latency at the DIMM level).
Hard disks will be still made in large amounts in 2015. It seems that NAND is not taking over the data centre immediately. The huge great problem is $/GB. Estimates of shipped disk and SSD capacity out to 2018 shows disk growing faster than flash. The world’s ability to make and ship SSDs is falling behind its ability to make and ship disk drives – for SSD capacity to match disk by 2018 we would need roughly eight times more flash foundry capacity than we have. New disk technologies such as shingling, TDMR and HAMR are upping areal density per platter and bringing down cost/GB faster than NAND technology can. At present solid-state drives with extreme capacities are very expensive. I expect that with 2015, the prices for SSD will will still be so much higher than hard disks, that everybody who needs to store large amounts of data wants to consider SSD + hard disk hybrid storage systems.
PC sales, and even laptops, are down, and manufacturers are pulling out of the market. The future is all about the device. We have entered the post-PC era so deeply, that even tablet market seem to be saturating as most people who want one have already one. The crazy years of huge tables sales growth are over. The tablet shipment in 2014 was already quite low (7.2% In 2014 To 235.7M units). There is no great reasons or growth or decline to be seen in tablet market in 2015, so I expect it to be stable. IDC expects that iPad Sees First-Ever Decline, and I expect that also because the market seems to be more and more taken by Android tablets that have turned to be “good enough”. Wearables, Bitcoin or messaging may underpin the next consumer computing epoch, after the PC, internet, and mobile.
There will be new tiny PC form factors coming. Intel is shrinking PCs to thumb-sized “compute sticks” that will be out next year. The stick will plug into the back of a smart TV or monitor “and bring intelligence to that”. It is likened the compute stick to similar thumb PCs that plug to HDMI port and are offered by PC makers with the Android OS and ARM processor (for example Wyse Cloud Connect and many cheap Android sticks). Such devices typically don’t have internal storage, but can be used to access files and services in the cloud. Intel expects that sticks size PC market will grow to tens of millions of devices.
We have entered the Post-Microsoft, post-PC programming: The portable REVOLUTION era. Tablets and smart phones are fine for consuming information: a great way to browse the web, check email, stay in touch with friends, and so on. But what does a post-PC world mean for creating things? If you’re writing platform-specific mobile apps in Objective C or Java then no, the iPad alone is not going to cut it. You’ll need some kind of iPad-to-server setup in which your iPad becomes a mythical thin client for the development environment running on your PC or in cloud. If, however, you’re working with scripting languages (such as Python and Ruby) or building web-based applications, the iPad or other tablet could be an useable development environment. At least worth to test.
You need prepare to learn new languages that are good for specific tasks. Attack of the one-letter programming languages: From D to R, these lesser-known languages tackle specific problems in ways worthy of a cult following. Watch out! The coder in the next cubicle might have been bitten and infected with a crazy-eyed obsession with a programming language that is not Java and goes by the mysterious one letter name. Each offers compelling ideas that could do the trick in solving a particular problem you need fixed.
HTML5′s “Dirty Little Secret”: It’s Already Everywhere, Even In Mobile. Just look under the hood. “The dirty little secret of native [app] development is that huge swaths of the UIs we interact with every day are powered by Web technologies under the hood.” When people say Web technology lags behind native development, what they’re really talking about is the distribution model. It’s not that the pace of innovation on the Web is slower, it’s just solving a problem that is an order of magnitude more challenging than how to build and distribute trusted apps for a single platform. Efforts like the Extensible Web Manifesto have been largely successful at overhauling the historically glacial pace of standardization. Vine is a great example of a modern JavaScript app. It’s lightning fast on desktop and on mobile, and shares the same codebase for ease of maintenance.
Docker, meet hype. Hype, meet Docker. Docker: Sorry, you’re just going to have to learn about it. Containers aren’t a new idea, and Docker isn’t remotely the only company working on productising containers. It is, however, the one that has captured hearts and minds. Docker containers are supported by very many Linux systems. And it is not just only Linux anymore as Docker’s app containers are coming to Windows Server, says Microsoft. Containerization lets you do is launch multiple applications that share the same OS kernel and other system resources but otherwise act as though they’re running on separate machines. Each is sandboxed off from the others so that they can’t interfere with each other. What Docker brings to the table is an easy way to package, distribute, deploy, and manage containerized applications.
Domestic Software is on rise in China. China is Planning to Purge Foreign Technology and Replace With Homegrown Suppliers. China is aiming to purge most foreign technology from banks, the military, state-owned enterprises and key government agencies by 2020, stepping up efforts to shift to Chinese suppliers, according to people familiar with the effort. In tests workers have replaced Microsoft Corp.’s Windows with a homegrown operating system called NeoKylin (FreeBSD based desktop O/S). Dell Commercial PCs to Preinstall NeoKylin in China. The plan for changes is driven by national security concerns and marks an increasingly determined move away from foreign suppliers. There are cases of replacing foreign products at all layers from application, middleware down to the infrastructure software and hardware. Foreign suppliers may be able to avoid replacement if they share their core technology or give China’s security inspectors access to their products. The campaign could have lasting consequences for U.S. companies including Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO), International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Intel Corp. (INTC) and Hewlett-Packard Co. A key government motivation is to bring China up from low-end manufacturing to the high end.
Data center markets will grow. MarketsandMarkets forecasts the data center rack server market to grow from $22.01 billion in 2014 to $40.25 billion by 2019, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.17%. North America (NA) is expected to be the largest region for the market’s growth in terms of revenues generated, but Asia-Pacific (APAC) is also expected to emerge as a high-growth market.
The rising need for virtualized data centers and incessantly increasing data traffic is considered as a strong driver for the global data center automation market. The SDDC comprises software defined storage (SDS), software defined networking (SDN) and software defined server/compute, wherein all the three components of networking are empowered by specialized controllers, which abstract the controlling plane from the underlying physical equipment. This controller virtualizes the network, server and storage capabilities of a data center, thereby giving a better visibility into data traffic routing and server utilization.
Large data center operators will be using more and more of their own custom hardware instead of standard PC from traditional computer manufacturers. Intel Betting on (Customized) Commodity Chips for Cloud Computing and it expects that Over half the chips Intel will sell to public clouds in 2015 will have custom designs. The biggest public clouds (Amazon Web Services, Google Compute, Microsoft Azure),other big players (like Facebook or China’s Baidu) and other public clouds (like Twitter and eBay) all have huge data centers that they want to run optimally. Companies like A.W.S. “are running a million servers, so floor space, power, cooling, people — you want to optimize everything”. That is why they want specialized chips. Customers are willing to pay a little more for the special run of chips. While most of Intel’s chips still go into PCs, about one-quarter of Intel’s revenue, and a much bigger share of its profits, come from semiconductors for data centers. In the first nine months of 2014, the average selling price of PC chips fell 4 percent, but the average price on data center chips was up 10 percent.
We have seen GPU acceleration taken in to wider use. Special servers and supercomputer systems have long been accelerated by moving the calculation of the graphics processors. The next step in acceleration will be adding FPGA to accelerate x86 servers. FPGAs provide a unique combination of highly parallel custom computation, relatively low manufacturing/engineering costs, and low power requirements. FPGA circuits may provide a lot more power out of a much lower power consumption, but traditionally programming then has been time consuming. But this can change with the introduction of new tools (just next step from technologies learned from GPU accelerations). Xilinx has developed a SDAccel-tools to to develop algorithms in C, C ++ – and OpenCL languages and translated it to FPGA easily. IBM and Xilinx have already demoed FPGA accelerated systems. Microsoft is also doing research on Accelerating Applications with FPGAs.
Universal Memory for Instant-On Computing will be talked about. New memory technologies promise to be strong contenders for replacing the entire memory hierarchy for instant-on operation in computers. HP is working with memristor memories that are promised to be akin to RAM but can hold data without power. The memristor is also denser than DRAM, the current RAM technology used for main memory. According to HP, it is 64 and 128 times denser, in fact. You could very well have a 512 GB memristor RAM in the near future. HP has what it calls “The Machine”, practically a researcher’s plaything for experimenting on emerging computer technologies. Hewlett-Packard’s ambitious plan to reinvent computing will begin with the release of a prototype operating system in 2015 (Linux++, in June 2015). HP must still make significant progress in both software and hardware to make its new computer a reality. A working prototype of The Machine should be ready by 2016.
Chip designs that enable everything from a 6 Gbit/s smartphone interface to the world’s smallest SRAM cell will be described at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in February 2015. Intel will describe a Xeon processor packing 5.56 billion transistors, and AMD will disclose an integrated processor sporting a new x86 core, according to a just-released preview of the event. The annual ISSCC covers the waterfront of chip designs that enable faster speeds, longer battery life, more performance, more memory, and interesting new capabilities. There will be many presentations on first designs made in 16 and 14 nm FinFET processes at IBM, Samsung, and TSMC.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM’s OpenPower gang touts first proper non-Big Blue-badged server
With the Open Compute Project now giving advice, eyes are on big biz
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/19/openpower_at_gtc2015/
GTC 2015 The OpenPower Foundation unveiled new hardware – including its first commercially available server – at its first OpenPower Summit on Wednesday, a mini-event nestled within Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference in California.
The foundation has also forged a relationship with the Facebook-led Open Compute Project, which operates in the Intel x86 server space IBM bailed out of.
The OpenPower Foundation came about in 2013 after IBM flicked through ARM’s playbook on licensing processor core designs, and decided – with Google, Nvidia, Mellanox, Tyan, and others – to pull the same moves in the high-performance data center world. IBM agreed to liberally license its Power processor architecture so manufacturers can build server boxes running a GNU/Linux stack and other open-source code. Big Blue provides the CPU blueprints, firmware and software, Nvidia provides the NVlink interconnect and GPUs, and Mellanox does the networking.
This week, Tyan announced its snappily named TYAN TN71-BP012, the first non-IBM-branded, commercially available Power8-powered server built from OpenPower specifications.
Cloud host biz Rackspace has buddied up with the OpenPower gang to offer OpenPower hardware from its cloud, running OpenStack.
OpenPower is not the only consortium touting liberally licensed hardware designs for the data center: Facebook’s Open Compute Project (OCP) is at it as well.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sorry, Europe, you still can’t get refunds on your Steam game purchases
Confusing legal language maintains the status quo for Valve’s digital store.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/03/sorry-europe-you-still-cant-get-refunds-on-your-steam-game-purchases/
Scanning the gaming news headlines recently, I was surprised to see a few reports that Valve had begun offering refunds to European Union customers within 14 days of a digital game purchase on Steam. That would indeed be big news, as getting refunds or any resale value for a Steam purchase is usually near-impossible, aside from some one-off exceptions to policy. After sifting through the legalese, though, it seems that Valve’s refund policy hasn’t actually changed, despite reports to the contrary.
It’s easy to read that “right to withdraw” bit at the beginning of that clause and jump to the conclusion that EU law is forcing Valve to adhere to a 14-day return window. Indeed, the EU’s directive on consumer rights does generally establish a 14-day “right of withdrawal” for the sale of “distance goods” and the execution of some service contracts.
But section 19 of that EU directive explicitly allows sellers of digital goods to ask users to waive that right before they make the purchase, provided the digital goods are delivered immediately.
“So, in short, you get a 14-day return window unless you agree not to have one,”
“Both Valve and Apple are making you agree not to have one… and they do actually have a good reason to do so. Without that waiver, both the Steam store and App Store become a means to rent content for 14 days and never pay for it…”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google, Developers Demo Impressive Gaming and VR Apps For Project Tango Tablet
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/03/18/2241218/google-developers-demo-impressive-gaming-and-vr-apps-for-project-tango-tablet
Google’s Project Tango Android tablet offers a new way to interact with the world through the use of 3D mapping and real-time depth sensing. Combined with custom software and hardware sensors, Project Tango devices are capable of performing over a quarter million 3D measurements per second to create a 3D model of the world we see. There are endless possibilities as Google notes. “What if you could capture the dimensions of your home simply by walking around with your phone before you went furniture shopping? What if the visually-impaired could navigate unassisted in unfamiliar indoor places? And there are obvious big advantages in gaming applications for positioning, augmented reality, etc. Google was offering a first-hand experience with virtual reality gaming using Project Tango at GTC in San Jose today, and the results are pretty impressive.
Google, Top Developers Demo Impressive Gaming And 3D VR Apps For Project Tango Tablet At GTC 2015
Read more at http://hothardware.com/news/google-demos-real-world-gaming-applications-for-project-tango#x1MtzTAQrFoLIy8K.99
Tomi Engdahl says:
Usage of content management systems for websites
http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all
This diagram shows the percentages of websites using various content management systems.
How to read the diagram:
61.3% of the websites use none of the content management systems that we monitor.
WordPress is used by 23.5% of all the websites, that is a content management system market share of 60.7%.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t overlook your biggest security flaw — your talent
http://www.cio.com/article/2898733/security0/dont-overlook-your-biggest-security-flaw-your-talent.html
What’s your best line of defense against cybersecurity threats? Skilled, experienced, highly trained IT talent. Don’t skimp on hiring, training and retention, or your business may suffer the consequences.
The IT skills gap isn’t as bad as you think — it’s worse, much worse. Especially in the area of cybersecurity, that skills gap is a major threat to your business.
The skills gap all IT organizations struggle with can be summed up in three words: “not enough people,” according to author and Wall Street Journal columnist Gary J. Beach
But when the skills gap is viewed through the lens of cybersecurity, it becomes much more than an HR struggle to put bodies in seats – it can be dangerous and costly.
security protection defending shield soldier battle warrior
5 Common Wi-Fi Attacks – and How to Defend Against Them
In addition to using strong passwords, you need to prepare your network for these types of attacks.
Read Now
CIOs must take advantage of their unique position in the C-suite to drive increased emphasis on security spending, hiring quality talent and furthering education and training for that talent, or risk catastrophe.
The paradox inherent in enterprise security is that if you’re doing it right, no one can tell, says Mark Weinstein, founder of social media platform Sgrouples, CEO of MeWe.com and a cybersecurity and privacy expert. According to Weinstein, CIOs must be vigilant about explaining the real risks and threats, and be willing to drive the investments necessary to mitigate them.
“One of the major issues here is that if you’re doing security right, you’re not necessarily going to see the results. You’re not going to get the huge breaches, you’re not going to get the highly publicized failures, which you’d assume is a great thing, but that can lead to complacency — and an unwillingness to invest in skilled talent, preventative technology and education and training to keep organizations secure. So it’s all about being able to understand threats, how they’re evolving and why, and be proactive about heading them off before they occur,” says Weinstein.
“If you’re trying to squeeze out a few extra bucks by hiring cheaper talent, slashing software budgets or eliminating training and education, well, in the short-term you might be rewarded. But someone must be asking the question, loudly, ‘Does this increase our risk? At the highest executive level, some CEOs will say, ‘Well, that’s not my issue, I hired a CIO for that,’ but the constant vigilance about security, risk and threats has to be spread across the entire organization, not just on the shoulders of one exec,” says Varelas
Many organizations do understand the need for continuing IT training, especially in the areas of security, compliance and governance skills, but balk when confronted with the costs of such training, according to a survey from Cybrary, a provider of free massive open online courses (MOOCs) for IT and cybersecurity.
“The data we’ve compiled suggests that companies do not provide enough means for IT training, despite a lack of IT talent and ever-increasing technology and cybersecurity challenges,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
30 tech skills that will get you a $110,000-plus salary
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/19/30-tech-skills-that-will-get-you-a-110000-plus-salary/
eing a tech professional is a good career with plenty of high-paying jobs.
But it’s an ever-changing job market. One day a skill is hot and the next it’s not.
Tech-job-hunting site Dice.com recently published its 2015 Salary Survey, which named the highest-paying tech skills.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch:
Magic Leap demos its augmented reality tech in YouTube video showing in-office gameplay experience
Watch Magic Leap’s Video Of Seamless Augmented Reality Office Game Play
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/19/watch-magic-leaps-video-of-seamless-augmented-reality-office-game-play/
Magic Leap is showing what it might look like to use its hardware for augmented reality gaming in the future, with a new demo of what the team is apparently “playing in the office” right now. The interface, which includes non-game interaction and then a short demo of an in-office virtual shooter experience, was created in tandem with Weta Workshop, a concept art studio responsible for work on projects like Lord of the Rings.
The brief video shows examples of interacting with YouTube and Gmail apps, along with browsing a menu system for OS-level interaction.
The company isn’t saying whether the video above is pure concept, or an example of live software running on its platform
Tomi Engdahl says:
Innovating an End to the Big Data Storage Crisis
HP has found a way to combat power-intensive data centers with automated solutions.
https://ssl.www8.hp.com/hpmatter/issue-no-4-spring-2015/innovating-end-big-data-storage-crisis
With data centers consuming a significant portion of the world’s power and big data only getting bigger, HP is reinventing data storage. Virtualized servers allow for on-demand storage, dramatically improving utilization and eliminating the need for more data centers. And a new class of memory could store data in a fraction of the space used today, perhaps eliminating large-scale centers altogether.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Russia’s Putin IT spend in reverse gear, fast
Sixteen per cent shrinkage last year and further, faster contractions to come
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/20/russias_putin_it_spend_in_reverse_gear_fast/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why I Choose PostgreSQL Over MySQL/MariaDB
http://developers.slashdot.org/story/15/03/19/1930226/why-i-choose-postgresql-over-mysqlmariadb
For the past ten years, developers and tech pros have made a game of comparing MySQL and PostgreSQL, with the latter seen by many as technically superior. Those who support PostgreSQL argue that its standards support and ACID compliance outweighs MySQL’s speed. But MySQL remains popular thanks to its inclusion in every Linux Web hosting package, meaning that a mind-boggling number of Web developers have used it.
Why I Choose PostgreSQL Over MySQL/MariaDB
http://news.dice.com/2015/03/19/why-i-choose-postgresql-over-mysqlmariadb/?CMPID=AF_SD_UP_JS_AV_OG_DNA_
The current version of MySQL/MariaDB is 5.7.6 (released to the community March 9, 2015), while PostgreSQL is 9.4.1. How do these latest versions match up? Let’s take a look.
ANSI Standard Compatible?
Verdict: Tie.
Fully ACID Compliant?
Verdict: Tie
Table Changes Without Locking
Verdict: Tie
Subqueries Can Be Problematic
Verdict: PostgreSQL
JSON Support and NoSQL
Verdict: PostgreSQL
Better Licensing
PostgreSQL has a MIT-style license that allows you to do anything, including commercial use in open or closed source. With MySQL, on the other hand, the client library is GPL, so you must pay a commercial fee to Oracle or supply the source code of your application. (That’s less of an issue when using MySQL in websites; MariaDB uses the GPL 2 license but also has a less restrictive LGPL license for MySQL Client libraries.)
Better Data Integrity
PostgreSQL has always been strict about ensuring data is valid before inserting or updating it. Whereas with MySQL, you need to set the server to a strict SQL mode (STRICT_ALL_TABLES or STRICT_TRANS_TABLES), otherwise adjusted values will be inserted or updated.
Extending the Server
Both databases allow you to extend the server.
Conclusion
I’ve worked with both databases for over ten years and think MySQL has done a great job of improving itself to keep relevant, but I have to confess to favoring PostgreSQL.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 10 to make the Secure Boot alt-OS lock out a reality
Windows 10 hardware must support Secure Boot and won’t have to let you turn it off.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/windows-10-to-make-the-secure-boot-alt-os-lock-out-a-reality/
Those of you with long memories will recall a barrage of complaints in the run up to Windows 8′s launch that concerned the ability to install other operating systems—whether they be older versions of Windows, or alternatives such as Linux or FreeBSD—on hardware that sported a “Designed for Windows 8″ logo.
To get that logo, hardware manufacturers had to fulfil a range of requirements for the systems they built, and one of those requirements had people worried. Windows 8 required machines to support a feature called UEFI Secure Boot. Secure Boot protects against malware that interferes with the boot process in order to inject itself into the operating system at a low level. When Secure Boot is enabled, the core components used to boot the machine must have correct cryptographic signatures, and the UEFI firmware verifies this before it lets the machine start. If any files have been tampered with, breaking their signature, the system won’t boot.
This is a desirable security feature, but it has an issue for alternative operating systems: if, for example, you prefer to compile your own operating system, your boot files won’t include a signature that Secure Boot will recognize and authorize, and so you won’t be able to boot your PC.
At its WinHEC hardware conference in Shenzhen, China, Microsoft talked about the hardware requirements for Windows 10. The precise final specs are not available yet, so all this is somewhat subject to change, but right now, Microsoft says that the switch to allow Secure Boot to be turned off is now optional. Hardware can be Designed for Windows 10 and can offer no way to opt out of the Secure Boot lock down.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Much Should You Pay Your Engineers? (Infographic)
http://blog.startupcompass.co/how-much-should-you-pay-your-engineers
With the world’s ever-expanding appetite for great engineering talent, hiring is becoming a larger and larger challenge for tech companies. Never has it been more critical to know just how much you should pay that promising candidate.
If you’re a startup — How do your salaries compete with more traditional IT firms? Where in the world is the cheapest place to source talent? And if you’re bootstrapping development, which are the least expensive programming languages to work with?
If you’re an IT firm — Are freelance or in-house resources more cost effective? What is a benchmark career path for an engineer?
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM wants a fifth of server market
Intel’s share of the server processors is currently more than 90 per cent. This is no longer the future, if the cell phone circuits dominated by ARM’s objectives are met.
ARM wants to capture 20 percent of server processors of the market by 2020. The goal is hard, because of the current ARM processor share in servers is now less than one per cent.
ARM itself estimates that its processors are based server purchasing and operating costs could be 35 per cent lower than the x96 processors for three years. In addition, the ARM-cards occupy one-third less space in server rack.
There are currently four producers has announced to develop ARM-based server processors. Cavium is most advanced (2.5 GHz).
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2581:arm-haluaa-joka-viidenteen-palvelimeen&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
Not Everyone Planning to Give Up on Windows Server 2003, Survey Shows
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Not-Everyone-Planning-to-Give-Up-on-Windows-Server-2003-Survey-Shows-476485.shtml
Microsoft will stop providing support for Windows Server 2003 on July 14 this year, so after that, computers still running this OS version will no longer get updates and security patches.
Even though the security risks of running an unpatched version of Windows are pretty obvious, especially because we’re talking about a platform that’s in 99 percent of the cases connected to the Internet, a new survey conducted by Spiceworks shows that not all IT admins are planning to migrate from Windows Server 2003 in the next 12 months.
The survey included 1,300 IT professionals, and 22 percent of them admit that upgrading from Windows Server 2003 before July is not on their agenda right now.
The reasons behind this decision are worrying to say the least.
No less than 51 percent of the respondents say that Windows Server 2003 still runs like a charm on their servers, so if everything works so well, why do they need to change it?
48 percent of them explain that they do not have the time to handle such a complex task, while 37 percent say that they lack the financial resources to do it.
According to the survey, companies are preparing on average a budget of $60,000 (€52,000) for this task, which could lead to a $100 billion (€73 billion) business that involves not only migration services but also new software and hardware.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Free Windows 10 to Help Microsoft, Not Partners
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-Windows-10-to-Help-Microsoft-Not-Partners-476476.shtml
Microsoft will offer Windows 10 as a free upgrade within the first year after launch for PCs powered by Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, and everyone expects the market share of the new operating system to skyrocket very fast in the first months of availability.
Obviously, a free upgrade for Windows 10 is pretty good news for users worldwide, but it’s not all just milk and honey for the rest of the Windows ecosystem.
Partners believe that offering Windows 10 free of charge to computers that are powerful enough to run Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 could have a strong impact on new PC sales, as the majority of customers would upgrade their devices instead of buying a new one.
Windows 10 has pretty much the same system requirements as Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, so computers that have been purchased in the last 5 or 6 years should all be able to run the new operating system pretty flawlessly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM plans to win 20 per cent of the server market by the year 2020
More than 48 core ARMv8 chips to unlock the data centre door
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/23/arm_plans_to_win_20_per_cent_of_the_server_market_by_the_year_2020/
ARM Holdings is telling investors it will take 20 per cent of the server silicon market by the year 2020.
The company made the claim last week at an event in Taiwan, sending ripples through the Asian media.
A little searching shows that presentations like this one (PDF) shows that the 20 per cent claim has been used in chats with investors since mid-February 2015
Elsewhere in the presentation, ARM makes it plain that it thinks core data centre workloads are within its reach, especially in hyperscale data centres.
ARM’s long looked a data centre contender thanks to its chips’ low power consumption and cool runnings, ideal features for the dense rigs needed to run efficiently at very large scales. That folks like Cavium have backed the company’s platform by building a 48-core ARMv8 chip, and making sure it plays nice with the Xen hypervisor, doesn’t hurt either.
On the downside, the company’s investor deck was prepared before Intel announced the Xeon D, a full Xeon designed for hyperscale operations.
There’s lots of interest in ARM, but is there enough to generate the growth needed to take it from todays one per cent server share to 20 of the market in 2020?
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9MjY5NzUwfENoaWxkSUQ9LTF8VHlwZT0z&t=1
Tomi Engdahl says:
BIG DATA wizards: LEARN from CERN, not the F500
Silos are for mudbloods
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/23/cerns_atom_big_data_f500/
Big data has a problem: it is being abused. One of the biggest misconceptions is that big data is about archiving everything forever, buying the biggest, cheapest storage pool, and building a giant proverbial barn of hay in order to try to find needles.
Vendor marketing has abused this. Consider marketing that advises that you use that same NAS for Exchange and big data! Big data people have different storage management problems than the normal humble enterprise storage administrators.
Your typical storage administrator may struggle to deal with detailed compliance and disaster recovery issues. A big data admin will struggle to decide if check-pointing 4PB of in memory data is worth the hassle or if it will be cheaper to recreate the data.
Big data requires we rethink how we store data, where we store data, and what we store.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Watch Magic Leap’s Video Of Seamless Augmented Reality Office Game Play
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/19/watch-magic-leaps-video-of-seamless-augmented-reality-office-game-play/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peggy Johnson / The Official Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft partners with Dell, Pegatron and 8 regional OEMs to preinstall Office and Skype on Android devices; expands partnership with Samsung to tablets — Microsoft expands partnerships with leading device manufacturers
Microsoft expands partnerships with leading device manufacturers
http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2015/03/23/microsoft-expands-partnerships-with-leading-device-manufacturers/
We’ve proven that we’re not afraid to look outside ourselves to reinvent ourselves. We’ve received fantastic customer feedback for making Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype available across all platforms. But, we’re far from done. Now we see an opportunity to turn our focus to our device partners — easing mobile access to great apps and services for customers by pre-installing them directly on the device.
Earlier today, we announced an expanded global partnership with Samsung to deliver Microsoft mobile productivity services to both consumer and business customers. Building on that news, I’m pleased to share that we’ve also expanded strategic agreements with leading global OEM Dell, and regional OEMs including TrekStor of Germany, JP Sa Couto of Portugal, Datamatic of Italy, DEXP of Russia, Hipstreet of Canada, QMobile of Pakistan, Tecno of Africa, and Casper of Turkey, as well as top original device manufacturer Pegatron. These 11 hardware partners will pre-install Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, OneDrive and Skype on Android devices coming to market later this year.
For OEMs, these deals will increase the value of and enrich people’s experiences on Android devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lee Hutchinson / Ars Technica:
Review of Dell’s latest Linux laptop, the M3800 Developer Edition: quality build, but poor battery life, 4K scaling issues, high $1500 base price
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/03/review-dell-m3800-developer-edition-is-a-great-linux-pc-with-a-few-rough-edges/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Optical Specs Plug Into Data Center
Microsoft, vendors to define board interfaces
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326102&
Optical communications will take a step closer to server and switch motherboards thanks to a new alliance that will develop interconnect standards. Microsoft has rallied a group of 14 data center vendors to form the Consortium for On-Board Optics (COBO) that hopes to release its first specifications in a year.
COBO will “define electrical interfaces, management interfaces, thermal requirements and pin-outs…[for] optical modules that can be mounted or socketed on a network switch or adapter motherboard,” according to a press statement from the group. It is initially expected to focus on 100 and 400G links.
“The goal is to bring the goodness of faceplate pluggable optics like SFP+ and QSFP+ to the on-board optics market,” said Brad Booth, COBO Chair and principal architect for Microsoft’s Azure Global Networking Services, in an email exchange with EE Times.
Bringing optical connections to the board helps switch makers break through current limits of how many optical ports can fit on the front panel of a system. “This will permit system OEMs to mount the optical modules in the same manner that they mount switch ICs and in a location that benefits power consumption and heat dissipation,” Booth said.
Currently vendors use a variety of proprietary formats for the so called on-board or embedded optics. The COBO specs aim to create a level playing field in which data center operators can choose interchangeable modules from multiple companies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM Will Share Tech With China To Help Build IT Industry There
http://it.slashdot.org/story/15/03/24/0150254/ibm-will-share-tech-with-china-to-help-build-it-industry-there
IBM Corp will share technology with Chinese firms and will actively help build China’s industry, CEO Virginia Rometty said in Beijing as she set out a strategy for one of the foreign firms hardest hit by China’s shifting technology policies. IBM must help China build its IT industry rather than viewing the country solely as a sales destination or manufacturing base, Rometty said. ..
IBM to share technology with China in strategy shift: CEO
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/23/us-china-tech-ibm-idUSKBN0MJ14X20150323
IBM Corp will share technology with Chinese firms and will actively help build China’s industry, CEO Virginia Rometty said in Beijing as she set out a strategy for one of the foreign firms hardest hit by China’s shifting technology policies.
“If you’re a country, as China is, of 1.3 billion people you would want an IT industry as well,” the chief executive said on Monday. “I think some firms find that perhaps frightening. We, though, at IBM … find that to be a great opportunity.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
6 IT Workforce Predictions for 2015
http://www.cio.com/article/2859558/careers-staffing/6-it-workforce-predictions-for-2015.html
2015 promises to be a banner year for IT workers as the unemployment rate continues to plummet, salaries increase and organizations double down on retention and engagement strategies. CIO.com asked experts to predict the biggest trends, technology and strategies that will make an impact on hiring and recruiting in 2015.
Prediction 1: Expect Hiring Explosion in Q1 and Q2
Prediction 2: Companies Will Leverage Mobile and Social Networks to Recruit Passive Talent
Prediction 3: Increased Focus on Employee Engagement and Retention
Prediction 4: Emphasis on Education and Training
Prediction 5: Employees Shift Focus from Full-time Work to Contracting/Freelancing
Prediction 6: HR Department Turn to Big Data
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stephen Shankland / CNET:
Adobe will contribute to Project Spartan; Microsoft’s browser will get better web standards support
http://www.cnet.com/news/adobe-builds-new-features-straight-into-microsofts-browser/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft releases Windows 10 SDK
Microsoft delivers Windows 10 tools for building universal applications
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-delivers-windows-10-tools-for-building-universal-applications/
Summary:Microsoft’s Windows 10 software development kit for writing universal apps is now available for download.
On March 23, Microsoft made available for download the Windows 10 Technical Preview tools for developing for the coming Windows 10 universal application platform.
To get the new tools, developers need to sign up for the Windows Insider Program, install the latest Windows 10 technical preview release and install both Visual Studio 2015 Community Technology Preview (CTP) 6 and the Tools for the Windows 10 Technical Preview, which include the Windows 10 software development kit (SDK).
For the last few years, Microsoft officials have been evangelizing the idea that “One Windows” running across a variety of device types will enable developers to create universal apps that will build on a single runtime, use an increasingly similar set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and developer tools and be available from a single store.
With Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, Microsoft got a step closer to realizing its “One Windows” vision. But with Windows 10, the company is hoping to get even closer to this promised nirvana.
The new universal app platform (UAP)that Microsoft is building with Windows 10 will sit on top of the Windows core. The UAP is a superset of WinRT, the Windows 8 and Windows RT runtime. The migration path to Windows 10 UAP apps is from ‘universal’ 8.1 apps.
Microsoft’s new Windows 10 Universal App Platform: A ‘superset of WinRT’
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-new-windows-10-universal-app-platform-a-superset-of-winrt/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Even faster: Data at the speed of Presto ORC
https://code.facebook.com/posts/370832626374903/even-faster-data-at-the-speed-of-presto-orc/
A few months ago, a few of us started looking at the performance of Hive file formats in Presto. As you might be aware, Presto is a SQL engine optimized for low-latency interactive analysis against data sources of all sizes, ranging from gigabytes to petabytes. Presto allows you to query data where it lives, whether it’s in Hive, Cassandra, Kafka, relational databases, or even a proprietary data store.
We are always pushing the envelope in terms of scale and performance. We have a large number of internal users at Facebook who use Presto on a continuous basis for data analysis. Improving query performance directly improves their productivity, so we thought through ways to make Presto even faster. We ended up focusing on a few elements that could help deliver optimal performance in the Presto query engine.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Developers say the best code is readable code
http://www.itworld.com/article/2898840/developers-say-the-best-code-is-readable-code.html
An informal survey of programmers finds that the most important quality in good software source code is that it be easy to read and understand
What makes software source code good? Is it the use of some clever logic or algorithm? A minimal number of lines of code? Or perfect formatting? Different developers will have different answers to that question, of course, but a new, informal survey finds that the number one quality of good code is simply that it’s easy to read and understand.
This result was published recently by Intent HQ, a U.K.-based company that specializes in audience intelligence
After grouping similar answers together, to Pastrana’s surprise, the number one quality of good code was, by far, readability, mentioned by 78% of interviewees.
Interestingly, other code qualities that Pastrana and his colleagues had presupposed would be ranked higher lagged well behind, such as whether the code actually works (tied for 3rd, mentioned by 25% of respondents) or is easily maintainable (5th, 22%). The rest of the top five answers provided were code that’s testable (2nd, 29%) and simple (tied for 3rd, 25%). Other notable qualities that ranked lower include code that’s documented (18%), extendable/reusable (18%), efficient (12%), and concise (6%).
Based on these results, the company came up with the following definition of good code:
“Good code is written so that is readable, understandable, covered by automated tests, not over complicated and does well what is intended to do.”
The answer to the question “How would you define good code?” that most made Pastrana smile? “Tested, and it doesn’t explode.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
13 insider tips for acing your job interview
http://www.itworld.com/article/2853760/13-insider-tips-for-acing-your-job-interview.html
Esoteric puzzles, landmine questions, ‘cultural fit’ — these 13 tips help you navigate the IT interview process with confidence
IT interview tip No. 1: Don’t be afraid to reach out early
IT interview tip No. 2: Don’t believe everything you read on Glassdoor
IT interview tip No. 3: Find employee blogs and read them in depth
IT interview tip No. 4: Research social culture — it’s as critical as technical focus
IT interview tip No. 5: Understanding the underlying principles of interview puzzles is the key to crushing them
IT interview tip No. 6: Connect with current employees
IT interview tip No. 7: Don’t tilt at windmills
IT interview tip No. 8: Dress as if you already work there
IT interview tip No. 9: Let your personality out
IT interview tip No. 10: Beware the “interviewing the interviewer” trap
IT interview tip No. 11: Help the interviewer imagine you in the position
IT interview tip No. 12: Always speak favorably about former employers
IT interview tip No. 13: Ask for the job
Most interviewers ask if you have any questions for them at the end of the interview. If you are excited about the opportunity, it’s OK to ask, “When do I start?” If the interviewer has hiring authority, he/she may make you an offer on the spot. This question shows enthusiasm and initiative, and at the very least elicits a laugh and ends the discussion on a positive note
Tomi Engdahl says:
JavaScript is the one programming language to learn if you can learn only one
http://www.itworld.com/article/2868413/javascript-is-the-one-programming-language-to-learn-if-you-can-learn-only-one.html
The widely used scripting language is named TIOBE’s programming language of 2014 and continues to be a good one to know no matter how you slice it
If the rich, as they say, just keep getting richer, it should be no surprise that JavaScript was recently named the Programming Language of 2014 by the folks behind the TIOBE programming language index. The TIOBE index, which ranks languages based on web searches, gave the nod to JavaScript due to its strong growth over the year, jumping by 1.70% to an overall share of 3.3%. JavaScript, which edged out other languages that also showed strong growth during the year
By other measures of programming language use and popularity, JavaScript appears even more dominant than it does in the TIOBE and PYPL indexes. RedMonk, which ranks languages twice a year based on their popularity on Stack Overflow and GitHub, had JavaScript tied for #1 with Java in its June 2014 rankings. GitHut, which ranks languages based on the number of active GitHub repositories, has had JavaScript ranked #1 every quarter from Q2 2012 through Q4 2014. During that time,JavaScript projects have consistently made up 15% of active GitHub repos.
Finally, when comparing programming languages based on job demand and average salaries, JavaScript is also at or near the top of the heap.
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP dumps Apple’s Beats audio, partners with Bang & Olufsen
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2901272/hp-moves-on-from-apples-beats-partners-with-bang-and-olufsen-on-audio.html
Hewlett-Packard once relied on Beats for audio technology in its PCs and tablets, but that was before Apple acquired it. HP has now found a new audio partner in Bang & Olufsen.
HP will use Bang & Olufsen audio technology to its PCs, tablets and accessories. The companies will “custom tune” audio for each PC model; different models typically have different hardware specifications in order to meet different expectations. For example, a gaming laptop typically delivers more booming sound than a low-cost laptop.
HP will put the Bang & Olufsen brand on the high-end Spectre, Omen, Envy and some other commercial PCs. The B&O Play label will be on lower-cost Pavilion PCs and tablets. The companies will also resell audio Bang & Olufsen accessories for HP hardware.
The first Bang & Olufsen branded PCs will appear this spring, HP said. The PCs will likely have a sticker attached or logo engraved on them to highlight the audio technology
Tomi Engdahl says:
On The Growth Of Apache Spark
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/19/on-the-growth-of-apache-spark/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1462_-4224713043889780125
This week the fast-growing Apache Spark community is gathering in New York City to celebrate and collaborate on one of the most popular open source projects today.
Launched in U.C. Berkeley’s AMPLab in 2009, Apache Spark has begun to catch on like wildfire during the last year and a half. Spark had more than 465 contributors in 2014, making it the most active project in the Apache Software Foundation and among big data open source projects globally.
Early on, we bet on the cluster-computing platform ourselves, rather than building our own software from scratch.
Its in-memory, parallel processing power runs programs 100X faster than Hadoop MapReduce in memory and 10X faster on disk. This allows dozens of data sources to be blended and harmonized at once.
According to Gartner, 73 percent of organizations will invest in big data by 2016, yet for many so far the promise of big data has been falling short. Spark Software is now widely adopted and was recently acknowledged in the 2014 Gray Sort Benchmark Daytona 100TB category, setting a new data sorting world record.
Early adopters of Spark by sector include consumer-packaged goods (CPG), insurance, media and entertainment, pharmaceuticals, retailers, automotive. Basically any industry where the focus is on the consumer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The AI Resurgence: Why Now?
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/ai-resurgence-now/
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been enjoying a major resurgence in recent months and for some seasoned professionals, who have been in the AI industry since the 1980s, it feels like déjà vu all over again.
AI, being a loosely defined collection of techniques inspired by natural intelligence, does have a mystic aspect to it. After all, we do culturally assign positive value to all things smart, and so we naturally expect any system imbued with AI to be good, or it is not AI. When AI works, it is only doing what it is supposed to do, no matter how complex an algorithm being used to enable it, but when it fails to work–even if what was asked of it is impractical or out of scope—it is often not considered intelligent anymore. Just think of your personal assistant.
For these reasons, AI has typically gone through cycles of promise, leading to investment, and then under-delivery, due to the expectation problem noted above, which has inevitably led to a tapering off of the funding.
Tomi Engdahl says:
TOP500 Supers make boffins more prolific
Universities with big iron become bigger publishers, better PhD factories
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/25/does_your_university_need_hpc_it_depends_on_disciplines/
A comparative analysis of supercomputer ownership by US universities seems to suggest that TOP500-class iron gives institutions a quantifiable edge in physics, chemistry, civil engineering and evolutionary biology.
In the kind of rational decision-making that will upset HPC sales teams
Supers double the efficiency of chemistry research, the study found; in civil engineering the payoff was about 35 per cent greater efficiency, while evolutionary biology got an 11 per cent boost and physics was nine per cent more efficient.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Putting a virtual nose on video games could reduce simulator sickness
http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/24/virtual-nose-could-reduce-simulator-sickness/?ncid=rss_truncated
Virtual reality can be nauseating. It tricks a part of the brain into believing the body is moving, when it’s not. A disconnect between the systems (somatosensory and vestibular, to be precise) can make some people want to throw up. But an ongoing study at Purdue College of Technology suggests that a virtual nose could reduce simulator sickness in video games. When your movement isn’t anticipated by the body’s perceptual system, it triggers motion sickness. That explains why it’s usually a passenger who gets sick in a moving car and not the person driving the car.
In virtual reality, on the other hand, a part of the brain predicts movement, but your body doesn’t move in sync with the visuals. “Simulator sickness is like motion sickness in its effect,” David Whittinghill, assistant professor at the university and director of the Games Innovation Laboratory, told Engadget. “But it’s different in its causes.”
The team took free demos available on Oculus’ site –- “Tuscany Demo” and “RiftCoaster” –- and rebuilt the project files with a virtual nose positioned exactly where the user’s nose would be. When tested on about 40 subjects, the experiment reduced simulator sickness by 13.5 percent. While one group had no virtual nose, the other did. Surprisingly, when the latter group was asked whether the nose was distracting, they were perplexed. “Several of them didn’t believe us when we told them about the nose,” says Whittinghill. “We had to hold up the Oculus headset at a distance so they could see a big honking nose.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Bob Brown / Network World:
Ingres RDBMS creator Michael Stonebraker wins the $1M 2014 A.M. Turing Award
Database pioneer Stonebraker rocks $1M “Nobel Prize in Computing”
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2901680/software/database-pioneer-stonebraker-rocks-1m-nobel-prize-in-computing.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zac Bowden / WinBeta:
Microsoft working on successor to Surface 2 tablet running full Windows instead of Windows RT, and Intel Atom or Core M processor —
EXCLUSIVE: Microsoft is building a successor to the Surface 2 (RT), here are the first details
http://www.winbeta.org/news/exclusive-microsoft-building-successor-surface-2-rt-here-are-first-details
The Surface 2 is currently Microsoft’s latest iteration of its Windows RT based tablet line-up.
WinBeta has learned that Microsoft is planning to launch a successor to the Surface 2 soon, however it won’t be a Windows RT based device. The device will be fanless and sport a low spec’d CPU, being either an Intel ATOM or Intel Core M based processor (we’re not too sure which one they’ve opted for just yet), meaning it will run a full-version of Windows. This is a first for the non-pro Surface line-up, and further solidifies reports regarding the death of Windows RT.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kyle Russell / TechCrunch:
Leap Motion Is Bringing Hand Tracking To The OSVR Headset In May
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/25/leap-motion-is-bringing-hand-tracking-to-the-osvr-headset-in-may/
Tomi Engdahl says:
News & Analysis
Intel’s Xeon Phi to House 72 Cores
System-in-package sports 16-Gbytes
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326121&
Intel finally came out of the closet with its next-generation Xeon Phi multi-processor chip–Knights Landing with triple the performance of its predecessor at 3-teraFLOPS. Using a 2-D on-chip mesh interconnect the Xeon Phi Knights Landing is the first chip to sport Intel’s new Omni-Path off-chip communications.
Until now the Xeon Phi has been mostly used in supercomputers running naturally parallel applications, but many new features in the Knights Landing version may appeal to users running engineering and enterprise workloads. For instance, it is now a standalone chip, and does not have the need for complex software running on a regular Xeon to supervise it.
The Xeon Phi Knights Landing will house more than 60 cores (rumored up to 72) intimately married to a special version of Micron’s Hybrid Memory Cubes mounted in-package yielding effectively 16-Gbytes of on-chip memory. It has enough in-package memory and off-chip DDR (384 Gbytes) to run workloads without adding fancy swapping and caching techniques.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chromebook promotes digital learning for the classroom
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4438987/Chromebook-promotes-digital-learning-for-the-classroom?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20150325&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20150325&elq=df36024f3ffa4bef9daad50266cf4234&elqCampaignId=22222&elqaid=24959&elqat=1&elqTrackId=05a70846288244c0a59c46dae1f6c4b2
RGS, a business unit of Avnet, has launched the RGS Education Chromebook, a purpose-built, ruggedized laptop aimed at school districts looking to deploy digital learning in the classroom with a platform that leverages a Google Chrome OS and Google Apps. The computer is the result of collaboration between RGS, Google, and Intel to provide school districts with a simple, secure, and always up-to-date vehicle to advance and develop students’ digital literacy skills.
A snap-on magnification lens supplied with each unit enables it to function as a microscope. Educators can combine the microscope with popular STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) applications and calculators available in the Google Chrome Web store.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Up Against The (Power) Wall: Power Management And The Path To Exascale Computing
http://www.edn.com/design/power-management/4438985/Up-Against-The–Power–Wall–Power-Management-And-The-Path-To-Exascale-Computing?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_systemsdesign_20150325&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_systemsdesign_20150325&elq=9c1e148675374f6c95c8826f5f82798b&elqCampaignId=22239&elqaid=24982&elqat=1&elqTrackId=158f0f4471104941af513008498baf4a
OK, it’s time for a pop quiz. What do Finland, seawater and the path to Exascale computing have in common? Hint: it’s not rollmop herring. That only accounts for the first two.
The answer is power management, and specifically the problems encountered when you try to shoehorn a large amount of computing power into a constrained space, no matter whether it’s a data center or a supercomputer.
Finland is where Google located their Hamina data center. They picked that country for two main reasons, both related to power management: cheap electricity and a cold climate. The seawater is used to cool the data center – it’s located in a former paper mill which has ¼ mile seawater tunnels which are just the ticket for piping in coolant to the data center heat transfer units – straight from the Bay of Finland.
And Exascale computing? It’s the next big goal in supercomputer performance – and power management is one of the main obstacles to getting there.
Current supercomputers achieve their petaflop-level performance through massively parallel architectures which use megawatts of power
Interestingly, the number 2 and number 6 systems use NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) originally developed for video gaming, to achieve that performance. In fact, 75 of the top 100 systems use GPUs from either NVIDIA, ATI Radeon, or Intel (Xeon Phi).
The number 1 machine, the Tianhe-2 located at Sun Yat-Sen University, makes use of 32,000 Xeon Ivy Bridge processors together with 48,000 Xeon Phi co-processors, for a total of 3,120,000 cores.
And it consumes an eye-popping 17.8MW of power, enough to supply some 5100 homes, which would run around $18M a year with US electricity rates. And that’s not even including the cooling system, which itself uses another 6MW.
Performance-wise, the Tianhe-2 clocks in at around 33 Petaflops (33 x 1015 floating point operations per second). It’s pretty impressive, but that performance is only 1/30 of the exaflop level:1018 operations/sec.
Current-Generation Power Management: Blue Gene/Q
For an in-depth look at a current-generation power management system, let’s examine IBM’s Blue Gene family of machines. The latest generation, Blue Gene/Q (BGQ) is used in 24 TOP500 systems, including Sequoia (#3) and Mira (#5).
Initially it was hoped that Exascale computing might be achieved as early as 2018, but current predictions are 2022 or even later. There are several promising lines of research aimed at both reducing power consumption and eliminating the von Neumann bottleneck, including: lower-power memory; Processing-in-Memory (PIM) technology; quantum computing; and even computer architectures inspired by human brain structure.
At this point, it’s anybody’s guess what a viable Exascale machine will look like, but one thing’s for certain: solving the power management piece of the puzzle will be a key part of a successful strategy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
European Commission Proposes “Digital Single Market” and End To Geoblocking
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/03/25/2227227/european-commission-proposes-digital-single-market-and-end-to-geoblocking
A new initiative from the European Commission proposes a reformed “single digital market”, addressing a number of issues that it sees as obstructions to EU growth, including geoblocking — where services such as BBC’s iPlayer are only available to IP addresses within the host country — and the high cost of parcel delivery and administration of disparate VAT rates across the member states.
European Commission – Press release
Digital Single Market Strategy: European Commission agrees areas for action
Brussels, 25 March 2015
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4653_en.htm
Vice-President for the Digital Single Market Andrus Ansip said: “Let us do away with all those fences and walls that block us online. People must be able to freely go across borders online just as they do offline. Innovative businesses must be helped to grow across the EU, not remain locked into their home market. This will be an uphill struggle all the way, but we need an ambitious start. Europe should benefit fully from the digital age: better services, more participation and new jobs”.
Commissioner for the Digital Economy and Society Günther H. Oettinger said: “Europe cannot be at the forefront of the digital revolution with a patchwork of 28 different rules for telecommunications services, copyright, IT security and data protection. We need a European market, which allows new business models to flourish, start-ups to grow and the industry to take advantage of the internet of things. And people have to invest too – in their IT-skills, be it in their job or their leisure time”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SNIA examines standardised access to object-based disk drives
Agreement on protocol is the key
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/26/snia_and_kinetic_drives_standard_object_disk_access/
The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has a tech workgroup looking at object-based disk drives, such as Seagate’s Kinetic product, and is aiming to standardise access.
Seagate’s Kinetic disk drive has object-style Get and Put interfaces access over a direct Ethernet connection to the drive. HGST is developing its own Ethernet-accessed disk drive.
Such drives are said to be simpler and more efficient to access (from an application point of view) because the traditional host server-disk array controller IO stack can be by-passed by writing and reading directly to and from the disk.
A standard access protocol would provide a lock-in-free method of accessing the drives.
The SNIA (a non-profit association of producers and consumers of storage networking products) website lists this technical project (Object-Based Storage Device (OSD)) specification.
The OSD specification defines low-level storage device functions that enable accessing a storage device through a standard object interface rather than a traditional block-based interface such as SCSI or IDE.
The OSD specification is published through INCITS T10 as part of the SCSI standard.
Divergent object disk access protocols would hinder that.
There are three disk drive manufacturing groups: Seagate/Samsung with its Seagate Kinetic drive; WD/HGST with its HGST development; and Toshiba, which looks to be out in the cold with no object access disk drive technology that we know about.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google throws a 180 on its plans for Dart language
Would-be JavaScript replacement will now compile into JavaScript
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/26/google_does_a_180_on_its_plans_for_dart_language/
Back in 2013, Google felt the Dart language deserved a native virtual machine baked into Chrome, because it felt JavaScript couldn’t deliver the speed it craves. It therefore started the process of getting Dart turned into a standard to help things along.
Fast forward to Wednesday and the Dart team, which Google supports but does not control, has decided Google was wrong, deciding that “In order to do what’s best for our users and the web, and not just Google Chrome, we will focus our web efforts on compiling Dart to JavaScript.”
The reason for the decision seems to be that developers didn’t much care for a Dart VM
That strategy means the VM for Chrome goes out the door.
The post also says that Google Ads is a heavy Dart user and is ever-so-committed to the language for the foreseeable future, so the decision not to do a VM isn’t a sign of decreasing interest in Dart.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hedvig all set to Google-ise that enterprise storage
You want configurable virtual pools of distributed silos. Who doesn’t?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/26/hedvig_aims_to_googleise_enterprise_storage/
Start-up Hedvig aims to bring Google/Amazon cloud-style storage to enterprises, with a virtualised pool of storage aggregated from distributed silos.
It’s just won seed and A-round funding to the tune of $12.5m and has a Distributed Storage Platform technology that early customers – like Intuit, Dovilo, Van Dijk and Paul Hastings LLP – are trying out.
They are told that with it “cloud and data centre professionals can consolidate storage of any type or location into a virtualised pool, which drops the provisioning time and costs to small fractions of what it would take with traditional storage technologies today”.
It “enables complete protocol consolidation by collapsing several layers of the storage stack into a single software platform”.
The software runs on commodity servers and provides elastic storage.
Founder and CEO Avinash Lakshman says it “looks like the infrastructure that Google, Amazon and Facebook run internally, but packaged to bring that capability to any enterprise data centre”.
There seem to be similarities with Primary Data and Springpath
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google promises Pointer Events support, with or without Apple
Chocolate Factory decides lack of support in Safari isn’t a big deal after all
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/26/a_good_day_for_web_standards_google_promises_pointer_event_support_with_or_without_apple/
Google has backtracked on its decision not to implement Pointer Events in the Blink web browser engine used by its Chrome browser.
Pointer Events is a W3C recommendation that makes it easier to support touch and pen control, as well as mouse input. The specification was originated by Microsoft to improve Internet Explorer (IE) for mobile and tablet users, and won support in the web developer community because it is an elegant solution when coding for multiple types of input.
“We love Pointer Events because they support all of the common input devices today – mouse, pen/stylus, and fingers – but they’re also designed in such a way that future devices can easily be added and existing code will automatically support the new device,” said Scott González on the JQuery team.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Adam Lashinsky / Fortune:
Profile: since replacing the legendary Jobs, Tim Cook has led Apple to even greater financial success and changed the culture of the company
Apple’s Tim Cook leads different
http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/tim-cook/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Google Will Not Integrate Its Dart Programming Language Into Chrome
http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/25/google-will-not-integrate-its-dart-programming-language-into-chrome/
Dart is not coming to Chrome, Google announced today.
The lingua franca of the web is JavaScript, but with Dart, Google launched a project that effectively aimed to replace JavaScript. In Google’s view, Dart offered advantages like static typing and other features that made it a better choice for developers.
The idea was for Google and other browser vendors to integrate Dart right into the browser, but even Google itself never did so (except for launching a special build of Chrome that supported it), and now it looks like it never will.
“In order to do what’s best for our users and the web, and not just Google Chrome, we will focus our web efforts on compiling Dart to JavaScript,” Dart co-founders Lars Bak and Kasper Lund wrote today. “We have decided not to integrate the Dart VM into Chrome.”
Dart always allowed developers to write code in Dart and then compile it to JavaScript, so there’s nothing all that new there.
nside of Google, the company’s teams now maintain about a million lines of Dart code, so Google isn’t likely to completely abandon the language anytime soon. Indeed, Bak and Lund note that the Google Ads team especially remains committed to the language.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Laptop with an External Graphics Card?
http://hackaday.com/2015/03/26/a-laptop-with-an-external-graphics-card/
It used to be that desktop computers reigned king in the world of powerful computing, and to some extent, they still do. But laptops are pretty powerful these days, and in our experience, a lot of engineering companies have actually swapped over to them for resource hungry 3D CAD applications — But what if you still need a bit more power?
Now unfortunately this really isn’t quite a simple as running some PCIE extender cables — nope. You’ll have to modify the BIOS first, which according to [Kamueone], isn’t that bad.
He’s using an EXP GDC Beast V6 which uses a mini PCIE cable that can be connected directly to the laptop motherboard
Tomi Engdahl says:
The new structure will cram 10 terabytes to solid-state disk
Intel and Micron have developed a new 3D flash technology, which provides up to three times the recording density of the current of the NAND techniques. Technology provides a standard 2.5-inch solid state hard disk imported up to 10 terabytes of storage capacity.
Technology is the secret of the so-called floating GATE. a floating gate structure. It is commonly used in the technology, which is now for the first time decided to take advantage of 3D NAND circuit, the better the performance, quality and reliability possible.
Intel’s new and Micron NAND flash memory of the memory cells 32 are stacked on top of each layer. MLC structure resulting in a 256-gigabyte circuit structure and TLC (triple-level cell) 384-gigabyte chip. According to Intel, the structure allows more than 3.5 terabytes of memory implementation of the old stick of gum-sized solid-state memory.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2610:uusi-rakenne-ahtaa-10-teratavua-ssd-levylle&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
How rail public transportation has been a leader in the Analytics and Big Data revolution
https://lightrailnow.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/how-rail-public-transportation-has-been-a-leader-in-the-analytics-and-big-data-revolution/
“Apparently without realizing it,” observes the paper, “the public transportation industry, has, for many decades, been at the forefront in utilizing and implementing Analytics and Big Data, from ridership forecasting to transit operations.”
Smarter Railroads
Embedded intelligence, analytics and optimization are reshaping the granddaddy of the transportation industry
http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/rail_transportation/examples/