It seems that PC market seems to be stabilizing in 2016. I expect that the PC market to shrinks slightly. While mobile devices have been named as culprits for the fall of PC shipments, IDC said that other factors may be in play. It is still pretty hard to make any decent profits with building PC hardware unless you are one of the biggest players – so again Lenovo, HP, and Dell are increasing their collective dominance of the PC market like they did in 2015. I expect changes like spin-offs and maybe some mergers with with smaller players like Fujitsu, Toshiba and Sony. The EMEA server market looks to be a two-horse race between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Dell, according to Gartner. HPE, Dell and Cisco “all benefited” from Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s EMEA x86 server organisation.
Tablet market is no longer high grow market – tablet maker has started to decline, and decline continues in 2016 as owners are holding onto their existing devices for more than 3 years. iPad sales are set to continue decline and iPad Air 3 to be released in 1st half of 2016 does not change that. IDC predicts that detachable tablet market set for growth in 2016 as more people are turning to hybrid devices. Two-in-one tablets have been popularized by offerings like the Microsoft Surface, with options ranging dramatically in price and specs. I am not myself convinced that the growth will be as IDC forecasts, even though Company have started to make purchases of tablets for workers in jobs such as retail sales or field work (Apple iPads, Windows and Android tablets managed by company). Combined volume shipments of PCs, tablets and smartphones are expected to increase only in the single digits.
All your consumer tech gear should be cheaper come July as shere will be less import tariffs for IT products as World Trade Organization (WTO) deal agrees that tariffs on imports of consumer electronics will be phased out over 7 years starting in July 2016. The agreement affects around 10 percent of the world trade in information and communications technology products and will eliminate around $50 billion in tariffs annually.
In 2015 the storage was rocked to its foundations and those new innovations will be taken into wider use in 2016. The storage market in 2015 went through strategic foundation-shaking turmoil as the external shared disk array storage playbook was torn to shreds: The all-flash data centre idea has definitely taken off as a vision that could be achieved so that primary data is stored in flash with the rest being held in cheap and deep storage. Flash drives generally solve the dusk drive latency access problem, so not so much need for hybrid drives. There is conviction that storage should be located as close to servers as possible (virtual SANs, hyper-converged industry appliances and NVMe fabrics). The existing hybrid cloud concept was adopted/supported by everybody. Flash started out in 2-bits/cell MLC form and this rapidly became standard and TLC (3-bits/cell or triple layer cell) had started appearing. Industry-standard NVMe drivers for PCIe flash cards appeared. Intel and Micron blew non-volatile memory preconceptions out of the water in the second half of the year with their joint 3D XPoint memory announcement. Boring old disk disk tech got shingled magnetic recording (SMR) and helium-filled drive technology; drive industry is focused on capacity-optimizing its drives. We got key:value store disk drives with an Ethernet NIC on-board and basic GET and PUT object storage facilities came into being. Tape industry developed a 15TB LTO-7 format.
The use of SSD will increase and it’s price will drop. SSDs will be in more than 25% of new laptops sold in 2015. SSDs are expected to be in 31% of new consumer laptops in 2016 and more than 40% by 2017. The prices of mainstream consumer SSDs have fallen dramatically every year over the past three years while HDD prices have not changed much. SSD prices will decline to 24 cents per gigabyte in 2016. In 2017 they’re expected to drop to 11-17 cents per gigabyte (means a 1TB SSD on average would retail for $170 or less).
Hard disk sales will decrease, but this technology is not dead. Sales of hard disk drives have been decreasing for several years now (118 million units in the third quarter of 2015), but according to Seagate hard disk drives (HDDs) are set to still stay relevant around for at least 15 years to 20 years. HDDs remain the most popular data storage technology as it is cheapest in terms of per-gigabyte costs. While SSDs are generally getting more affordable, high-capacity solid-state drives are not going to become as inexpensive as hard drives any time soon.
Because all-flash storage systems with homogenous flash media are still too expensive to serve as a solution to for every enterprise application workload, enterprises will increasingly turn to performance optimized storage solutions that use a combination of multiple media types to deliver cost-effective performance. The speed advantage of Fibre Channel over Ethernet has evaporated. Enterprises also start to seek alternatives to snapshots that are simpler and easier to manage, and will allow data and application recovery to a second before the data error or logical corruption occurred.
Local storage and the cloud finally make peace in 2016 as the decision-makers across the industry have now acknowledged the potential for enterprise storage and the cloud to work in tandem. Over 40 percent of data worldwide is expected to live on or move through the cloud by 2020 according to IDC.
Open standards for data center development are now a reality thanks to advances in cloud technology. Facebook’s Open Compute Project has served as the industry’s leader in this regard.This allows more consolidation for those that want that. Consolidation used to refer to companies moving all of their infrastructure to the same facility. However, some experts have begun to question this strategy as the rapid increase in data quantities and apps in the data center have made centralized facilities more difficult to operate than ever before. Server virtualization, more powerful servers and an increasing number of enterprise applications will continue to drive higher IO requirements in the datacenter.
Cloud consolidation starts heavily in 2016: number of options for general infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud services and cloud management software will be much smaller at the end of 2016 than the beginning. The major public cloud providers will gain strength, with Amazon, IBM SoftLayer, and Microsoft capturing a greater share of the business cloud services market. Lock-in is a real concern for cloud users, because PaaS players have the ancient imperative to find ways to tie customers to their platforms and aren’t afraid to use them so advanced users want to establish reliable portability across PaaS products in a multi-vendor, multi-cloud environment.
Year 2016 will be harder for legacy IT providers than 2015. In its report, IDC states that “By 2020, More than 30 percent of the IT Vendors Will Not Exist as We Know Them Today.” Many enterprises are turning away from traditional vendors and toward cloud providers. They’re increasingly leveraging open source. In short, they’re becoming software companies. The best companies will build cultures of performance and doing the right thing — and will make data and the processes around it self-service for all their employees. Design Thinking to guide companies who want to change the lives of its customers and employees. 2016 will see a lot more work in trying to manage services that simply aren’t designed to work together or even be managed – for example Whatever-As-A-Service cloud systems to play nicely together with their existing legacy systems. So competent developers are the scarce commodity. Some companies start to see Cloud as a form of outsourcing that is fast burning up inhouse ITops jobs with varying success.
There are still too many old fashioned companies that just can’t understand what digitalization will mean to their business. In 2016, some companies’ boards still think the web is just for brochures and porn and don’t believe their business models can be disrupted. It gets worse for many traditional companies. For example Amazon is a retailer both on the web and increasingly for things like food deliveries. Amazon and other are playing to win. Digital disruption has happened and will continue.
Windows 10 is coming more on 2016. If 2015 was a year of revolution, 2016 promises to be a year of consolidation for Microsoft’s operating system. I expect that Windows 10 adoption in companies starts in 2016. Windows 10 is likely to be a success for the enterprise, but I expect that word from heavyweights like Gartner, Forrester and Spiceworks, suggesting that half of enterprise users plan to switch to Windows 10 in 2016, are more than a bit optimistic. Windows 10 will also be used in China as Microsoft played the game with it better than with Windows 8 that was banned in China.
Windows is now delivered “as a service”, meaning incremental updates with new features as well as security patches, but Microsoft still seems works internally to a schedule of milestone releases. Next up is Redstone, rumoured to arrive around the anniversary of Windows 10, midway through 2016. Also Windows servers will get update in 2016: 2016 should also include the release of Windows Server 2016. Server 2016 includes updates to the Hyper-V virtualisation platform, support for Docker-style containers, and a new cut-down edition called Nano Server.
Windows 10 will get some of the already promised features not delivered in 2015 delivered in 2016. Windows 10 was promised coming to PCs and Mobile devices in 2015 to deliver unified user experience. Continuum is a new, adaptive user experience offered in Windows 10 that optimizes the look and behavior of apps and the Windows shell for the physical form factor and customer’s usage preferences. The promise was same unified interface for PCs, tablets and smart phones – but it was only delivered in 2015 for only PCs and some tablets. Mobile Windows 10 for smart phone is expected to start finally in 2016 – The release of Microsoft’s new Windows 10 operating system may be the last roll of the dice for its struggling mobile platform. Because Microsoft Plan A is to get as many apps and as much activity as it can on Windows on all form factor with Universal Windows Platform (UWP), which enables the same Windows 10 code to run on phone and desktop. Despite a steady inflow of new well-known apps, it remains unclear whether the Universal Windows Platform can maintain momentum with developer. Can Microsoft keep the developer momentum going? I am not sure. In addition there are also plans for tools for porting iOS apps and an Android runtime, so expect also delivery of some or all of the Windows Bridges (iOS, web app, desktop app, Android) announced at the April 2015 Build conference in hope to get more apps to unified Windows 10 app store. Windows 10 does hold out some promise for Windows Phone, but it’s not going to make an enormous difference. Losing the battle for the Web and mobile computing is a brutal loss for Microsoft. When you consider the size of those two markets combined, the desktop market seems like a stagnant backwater.
Older Windows versions will not die in 2016 as fast as Microsoft and security people would like. Expect Windows 7 diehards to continue holding out in 2016 and beyond. And there are still many companies that run their critical systems on Windows XP as “There are some people who don’t have an option to change.” Many times the OS is running in automation and process control systems that run business and mission-critical systems, both in private sector and government enterprises. For example US Navy is using obsolete operating system Microsoft Windows XP to run critical tasks. It all comes down to money and resources, but if someone is obliged to keep something running on an obsolete system, it’s the wrong approach to information security completely.
Virtual reality has grown immensely over the past few years, but 2016 looks like the most important year yet: it will be the first time that consumers can get their hands on a number of powerful headsets for viewing alternate realities in immersive 3-D. Virtual Reality will become the mainstream when Sony, and Samsung Oculus bring consumer products on the market in 2016. Whole virtual reality hype could be rebooted as Early build of final Oculus Rift hardware starts shipping to devs. Maybe HTC‘s and Valve‘s Vive VR headset will suffer in the next few month. Expect a banner year for virtual reality.
GPU and FPGA acceleration will be used in high performance computing widely. Both Intel and AMD have products with CPU and GPU in the same chip, and there is software support for using GPU (learn CUDA and/or OpenCL). Also there are many mobile processors have CPU and GPU on the same chip. FPGAs are circuits that can be baked into a specific application, but can also be reprogrammed later. There was lots of interest in 2015 for using FPGA for accelerating computations as the nest step after GPU, and I expect that the interest will grow even more in 2016. FPGAs are not quite as efficient as a dedicated ASIC, but it’s about as close as you can get without translating the actual source code directly into a circuit. Intel bought Altera (big FPGA company) in 2015 and plans in 2016 to begin selling products with a Xeon chip and an Altera FPGA in a single package – possibly available in early 2016.
Artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning will be talked about a lot in 2016. Neural networks, which have been academic exercises (but little more) for decades, are increasingly becoming mainstream success stories: Heavy (and growing) investment in the technology, which enables the identification of objects in still and video images, words in audio streams, and the like after an initial training phase, comes from the formidable likes of Amazon, Baidu, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and others. So-called “deep learning” has been enabled by the combination of the evolution of traditional neural network techniques, the steadily increasing processing “muscle” of CPUs (aided by algorithm acceleration via FPGAs, GPUs, and, more recently, dedicated co-processors), and the steadily decreasing cost of system memory and storage. There were many interesting releases on this in the end of 2015: Facebook Inc. in February, released portions of its Torch software, while Alphabet Inc.’s Google division earlier this month open-sourced parts of its TensorFlow system. Also IBM Turns Up Heat Under Competition in Artificial Intelligence as SystemML would be freely available to share and modify through the Apache Software Foundation. So I expect that the year 2016 will be the year those are tried in practice. I expect that deep learning will be hot in CES 2016. Several respected scientists issued a letter warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) in 2015, but I don’t worry about a rogue AI exterminating mankind. I worry about an inadequate AI being given control over things that it’s not ready for. How machine learning will affect your business? MIT has a good free intro to AI and ML.
Computers, which excel at big data analysis, can help doctors deliver more personalized care. Can machines outperform doctors? Not yet. But in some areas of medicine, they can make the care doctors deliver better. Humans repeatedly fail where computers — or humans behaving a little bit more like computers — can help. Computers excel at searching and combining vastly more data than a human so algorithms can be put to good use in certain areas of medicine. There are also things that can slow down development in 2016: To many patients, the very idea of receiving a medical diagnosis or treatment from a machine is probably off-putting.
Internet of Things (IoT) was talked a lot in 2015, and it will be a hot topics for IT departments in 2016 as well. Many companies will notice that security issues are important in it. The newest wearable technology, smart watches and other smart devices corresponding to the voice commands and interpret the data we produce - it learns from its users, and generate appropriate responses in real time. Interest in Internet of Things (IoT) will as bring interest to real-time business systems: Not only real-time analytics, but real-time everything. This will start in earnest in 2016, but the trend will take years to play out.
Connectivity and networking will be hot. And it is not just about IoT. CES will focus on how connectivity is proliferating everything from cars to homes, realigning diverse markets. The interest will affect job markets: Network jobs are hot; salaries expected to rise in 2016 as wireless network engineers, network admins, and network security pros can expect above-average pay gains.
Linux will stay big in network server marker in 2016. Web server marketplace is one arena where Linux has had the greatest impact. Today, the majority of Web servers are Linux boxes. This includes most of the world’s busiest sites. Linux will also run many parts of out Internet infrastructure that moves the bits from server to the user. Linux will also continue to rule smart phone market as being in the core of Android. New IoT solutions will be moist likely to be built mainly using Linux in many parts of the systems.
Microsoft and Linux are not such enemies that they were few years go. Common sense says that Microsoft and the FOSS movement should be perpetual enemies. It looks like Microsoft is waking up to the fact that Linux is here to stay. Microsoft cannot feasibly wipe it out, so it has to embrace it. Microsoft is already partnering with Linux companies to bring popular distros to its Azure platform. In fact, Microsoft even has gone so far as to create its own Linux distro for its Azure data center.
Web browsers are coming more and more 64 bit as Firefox started 64 bit era on Windows and Google is killing Chrome for 32-bit Linux. At the same time web browsers are loosing old legacy features like NPAPI and Silverlight. Who will miss them? The venerable NPAPI plugins standard, which dates back to the days of Netscape, is now showing its age, and causing more problems than it solves, and will see native support removed by the end of 2016 from Firefox. It was already removed from Google Chrome browsers with very little impact. Biggest issue was lack of support for Microsoft’s Silverlight which brought down several top streaming media sites – but they are actively switching to HTML5 in 2016. I don’t miss Silverlight. Flash will continue to be available owing to its popularity for web video.
SHA-1 will be at least partially retired in 2016. Due to recent research showing that SHA-1 is weaker than previously believed, Mozilla, Microsoft and now Google are all considering bringing the deadline forward by six months to July 1, 2016.
Adobe’s Flash has been under attack from many quarters over security as well as slowing down Web pages. If you wish that Flash would be finally dead in 2016 you might be disappointed. Adobe seems to be trying to kill the name by rebranding trick: Adobe Flash Professional CC is now Adobe Animate CC. In practive it propably does not mean much but Adobe seems to acknowledge the inevitability of an HTML5 world. Adobe wants to remain a leader in interactive tools and the pivot to HTML5 requires new messaging.
The trend to try to use same same language and tools on both user end and the server back-end continues. Microsoft is pushing it’s .NET and Azure cloud platform tools. Amazon, Google and IBM have their own set of tools. Java is on decline. JavaScript is going strong on both web browser and server end with node.js , React and many other JavaScript libraries. Apple also tries to bend it’s Swift programming language now used to make mainly iOS applications also to run on servers with project Perfect.
Java will still stick around, but Java’s decline as a language will accelerate as new stuff isn’t being written in Java, even if it runs on the JVM. We will not see new Java 9 in 2016 as Oracle’s delayed the release of Java 9 by six months. The register tells that Java 9 delayed until Thursday March 23rd, 2017, just after tea-time.
Containers will rule the world as Docker will continue to develop, gain security features, and add various forms of governance. Until now Docker has been tire-kicking, used in production by the early-adopter crowd only, but it can change when vendors are starting to claim that they can do proper management of big data and container farms.
NoSQL databases will take hold as they be called as “highly scalable” or “cloud-ready.” Expect 2016 to be the year when a lot of big brick-and-mortar companies publicly adopt NoSQL for critical operations. Basically NoSQL could be seem as key:value store, and this idea has also expanded to storage systems: We got key:value store disk drives with an Ethernet NIC on-board and basic GET and PUT object storage facilities came into being.
In the database world Big Data will be still big but it needs to be analyzed in real-time. A typical big data project usually involves some semi-structured data, a bit of unstructured (such as email), and a whole lot of structured data (stuff stored in an RDBMS). The cost of Hadoop on a per-node basis is pretty inconsequential, the cost of understanding all of the schemas, getting them into Hadoop, and structuring them well enough to perform the analytics is still considerable. Remember that you’re not “moving” to Hadoop, you’re adding a downstream repository, so you need to worry on systems integration and latency issues. Apache Spark will also get interest as Spark’s multi-stage in-memory primitives provides more performance for certain applications. Big data brings with it responsibility – Digital consumer confidence must be earned.
IT security continues to be a huge issue in 2016. You might be able to achieve adequate security against hackers and internal threats but every attempt to make systems idiot proof just means the idiots get upgraded. Firms are ever more connected to each other and the general outside world. So in 2016 we will see even more service firms accidentally leaking critical information and a lot more firms having their reputations scorched by incompetence fuelled security screw-ups. Good security people are needed more and more – a joke doing the rounds of ITExecs doing interviews is “if you’re a decent security bod, why do you need to look for a job”
There will still be unexpected single points of failures in big distributed networked system. The cloud behind the silver lining is that Amazon or any other cloud vendor can be as fault tolerant, distributed and well supported as you like, but if a service like Akamai or Cloudflare was to die, you still stop. That’s not a single point of failure in the classical sense but it’s really hard to manage unless you go for full cloud agnosticism – which is costly. This is hard to justify when their failure rate is so low, so the irony is that the reliability of the content delivery networks means fewer businesses work out what to do if they fail. Oh, and no one seems to test their mission-critical data centre properly, because it’s mission critical- So they just over-specify where they can and cross their fingers (= pay twice and get the half the coverage for other vulnerabilities).
For IT start-ups it seems that Silicon Valley’s cash party is coming to an end. Silicon Valley is cooling, not crashing. Valuations are falling. The era of cheap money could be over and valuation expectations are re-calibrating down. The cheap capital party is over. It could mean trouble for weaker startups.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple WWDC 2016: Banality and predictability
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4442225/Apple-WWDC-2016–Banality-and-predictability?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160616&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20160616&elqTrackId=387f1a391e5a46bdb85eb66b35166b39&elq=c5a535eafa744991bb6c5281e0276f65&elqaid=32702&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=28566
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Apple WWDC 2016: Banality and predictability
Brian Dipert -June 15, 2016
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It’s telling when one of the biggest “splashes” to come out of an event is the “news” that a pending operating system upgrade will finally (in its tenth major iteration) allow for selective uninstall of default bundled applications, followed closely by the “news” that another operating system has been renamed. That, dear readers, in a nutshell sums up the 2016 edition of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Charlie Warzel / BuzzFeed:
Sources: Due to objections from Apple and others, Unicode did not approve a suggested rifle emoji in the latest Unicode 9 update coming this June
Thanks To Apple’s Influence, You’re Not Getting A Rifle Emoji
No realm of modern life is immune to the contentious national debate over guns, including emojis.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/thanks-to-apples-influence-youre-not-getting-a-rifle-emoji?utm_term=.ov0jXVMBp#.ioOBM0zNY
Tomi Engdahl says:
Katherine Noyes / PCWorld:
Google opens dedicated machine learning research center in Zurich to focus on machine intelligence, natural language processing, and machine perception
Google revs its AI engines with a new European research group
It will focus primarily on machine learning
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3084717/google-revs-its-ai-engines-with-a-new-european-research-group.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Project Malmo: Using Minecraft to build more intelligent technology
http://blogs.microsoft.com/next/2016/03/13/project-malmo-using-minecraft-build-intelligent-technology/#sm.0018qtf6313jgehksw91oag4ome77
That may seem like a pretty simple job for some of the brightest minds in the field, until you consider this: The team is trying to train an artificial intelligence agent to learn how to do things like climb to the highest point in the virtual world, using the same types of resources a human has when she learns a new task.
“We’re trying to program it to learn, as opposed to programming it to accomplish specific tasks,” said Fernando Diaz, a senior researcher in the New York lab and one of the people working on the project.
Microsoft researchers are using Project Malmo for their own research, and they have made it available to a small group of academic researchers under a private beta. This summer, Project Malmo will be available via an open-source license.
From doing to learning
Over the past few years, artificial intelligence researchers have gotten very good at teaching computers to do specific, often complicated tasks. Computers can now understand speech and translate it. They can recognize images and write captions about them.
But despite all these advances, computers still aren’t very good at what researchers call general intelligence, which is more similar to the nuanced and complex way humans learn and make decisions. A computer algorithm may be able to take one task and do it as well or even better than an average adult, but it can’t compete with how an infant is taking in all sorts of inputs – light, smell, touch, sound, discomfort – and learning that if you cry chances are good that Mom will feed you.
“The things that seem really easy for us are actually the things that are really difficult for an artificial intelligence,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Open MPI gets closer to exascale-ready code
Next version release candidate drops, stable gets bug-fixes
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/20/open_mpi_gets_closer_to_exascaleready_code/
Big iron sysadmins: there’s a significant upgrade to OpenMPI in the works.
Late last week, OpenMPI released v2.0.0rc3, which brings a full Version 2 of the message passing interface closer to fruition.
Open MPI is an open source implementation of the MPI Forum’s message passing standards. It covers a variety of 32-bit and 64-bit systems. It’s a project that easily qualifies for the epithet “venerable”, having first landed in 2005.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Xeon Phi Solos
May beat GPUs at deep learning
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329946&
Intel’s 72-processor Xeon Phi now boots stand-alone, rather than as a coprocessor, to tackle any multiprocessing task—especially brain-like deep learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Intel says the bootable Xeon Phi scales to any number of processors using Intel’s scalable-system framework (SSF) with integrated on-chip fabric, Omni-Path fiber and silicon photonics. Speed was bumped to 1.5-GHz for high-performance computing (HPC) orchestration while maintaining its low-power energy budget compared with GPU-based and other competing high-speed multicore arrays tied to PCIe, according to Intel.
“The Xeon Phi is the world’s first CPU with integrated fabric in-package,”
He also claimed that Xeon Phi arrays of were 1.38 times faster than GPUs (based on 32-nodes running GoogLeNet deep learning image classification compared with a single Intel Xeon Phi processor with 87 percent efficiency compared to 32 NVIDIA Tesla K20 GPUs with 62 percent efficiency*). In a 128-node array, the Xeon Phi was claimed to perform Deep Learning 50 times faster than GPUs (based on a GPU running AlexNet*.
The latest Xeon Phi now has 16-Gbyte of in-package memory with 500-Gbyte per second sustained bandwidth as well as up to 384-Gbyte paths to off-chip double-data-rate (DDR4) memory. It also has dual ports to Omni Path fiber and on-chip 512-bit parallel advanced vector extensions (AVX-512). Intel predicts sales of 100,000 Xeon Phi units in 2016 to more than 50 original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), independent software vendors (ISVs) and middleware partners.
Tomi Engdahl says:
93 petaflops, which is three times more tougher performance. Almost 41 000 processors. 10.6 million units of account. The new world’s most powerful supercomputer is incomprehensible machine.
This is a new machine called the Chinese Taihulight. It moved a few years statistics management supercomputer Tianhe-II – from China also – second place by a clear margin.
Tianhe II calculation was Intel processors. Taihulightin processors are the Sunway brand. Taihulight is three times the Tianhe-II to three times more effective and more efficient.
Taihulightin power consumption is 15.37 MW. Or 6 GigaFLOPS per watt.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4616:kiinalainen-superkone-iski-jarjettomat-teholukemat&catid=13&Itemid=101
Top500 list
http://www.top500.org/lists/2016/06/
Tomi Engdahl says:
China Makes World’s Fastest Supercomputer With 10 Million Cores And 93 Petaflops Speed
http://fossbytes.com/china-worlds-fastest-supercomputer-taihulight-125-petaflops/
Short Bytes: China has surprised everyone by developing TaihuLight, the world’s fastest supercomputer, beating its own Tianhe-2. The new machine is made by China using its homegrown processors after the U.S. banned the export of Intel chips to the country. TaihuLight runs at a staggering 93 petaflops per second and features 10.65 million processor cores.
The top 500 ranking of the world’s most powerful supercomputers was introduced 23 years ago. For the first time in history, China has toppled the US to become the country with the most entries on the list. Now, China has 167 machines on the list, compared to the U.S.’s 165.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Says Edge Browser Is More Power-Efficient Than Chrome
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/06/20/1444202/microsoft-says-edge-browser-is-more-power-efficient-than-chrome
It’s no secret that Google’s Chrome browser eats up a considerable amount of memory (and by extension, battery). On Monday, Microsoft announced that its Edge browser has succeeded on that front. Citing several tests, Microsoft claims Edge browser is a better choice for portable device owners. The company took four identical laptops running Windows 10 to see which of the four most popular browsers would be most efficient when it comes to battery life. Interestingly, Chrome was the first to kill the laptop in the video streaming test at 4 hours and 19 minutes. Firefox closely followed its rival at 5 hours and 9 minutes, while Opera (running on the same tech as Chrome) managed to hit 6 hours and 18 minutes. In Microsoft’s tests, it was found that Edge was best of the bunch when it came to enjoying a video online, lasting for 7 hours and 22 minutes.
Get more out of your battery with Microsoft Edge
Read more at https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/06/20/more-battery-with-edge/#ITiHGJHXfW3lXlSb.99
Tomi Engdahl says:
Warning: CDOs can be hazardous to your CIO’s health
http://www.cio.com/article/3085604/cio-role/warning-cdos-can-be-hazardous-to-your-cios-health.html
Hiring a CDO can prove disruptive to businesses, creating competition and conflict between the anointed digital leaders and CIOs and potentially CMOs, says PwC. But there is some good news.
The rise of the chief digital officer (CDO) has generated its fair share of agita among CIOs, many of whom view the role as competition for their IT budgets or as a threat to their authority. CEOs must recognize that bringing in a digital leader from outside can disrupt IT and marketing departments if the transition isn’t handled delicately.
PwC has outlined five CDO archetypes that detail a CDO’s potential range of responsibilities.
The progressive thinker: Collaborating closely with the CEO, the progressive thinker will focus on digital strategy and innovation.
The creative disrupter: The creative disrupter offers a more hands-on approach to the continuous development of new digital technologies and business models and solutions. Curran says the disrupter is especially valuable in companies facing severe and dramatic changes
The customer advocate: Best suited in customer-intensive industries such as retail, banking and travel, advocates will work with or replace CMOs and sales heads as they focus solely incustomer satisfaction
The innovative technologist: Similar to a CIO or CTO, this CDO promotes new digital technologies, such as Internet of Things, mobility, social media and analytics, to transform the company’s value chain. Curran says companies in manufacturing industries should consider turning to these executives to further optimize their supply chains
The universalist: This is the dream role for CIOs who regard themselves as highly strategic.This CDO manages all aspects of a digital transformation. This executive reports to and has absolute execution power from the CEO.
“The key lies in understanding where you stand on your path to digital maturity”
“There is a big risk in creating [the CDO role] because you can disenfranchise big parts of your organization,”
no CIO wants other departments capturing some of their budgets — are a big reason why CIOs want digital tucked under their wings. Although only about 6 percent of the world’s top 1,500 companies have installed a CDO, companies are assigning increasing importance to the notion of a dedicated digital leader, PwC says
To help CEOs figure out what type of digital leader they need to accomplish their goals, PwC has outlined five CDO archetypes that detail a CDO’s potential range of responsibilities.
As companies move to catch up with the digital future, they are taking a close look at what kind of executive they need to lead the way. More and more frequently, that executive is the chief digital officer, or CDO — although there are some variations in the actual title. It is that person’s task to define the company’s digital strategy and execute its cross-functional transformation into a fully digital enterprise.
But companies that are still searching for a CDO (and even some that have already appointed a digital leader, if only temporarily) continue to struggle to find the executive who best fits their strategic goals, digital business model, and current and digital capabilities and operations. It is, after all, a tall order, and the executive must step into this newly created position with the experience, personality, leadership abilities, and aggressiveness needed to carry out the necessary transformation.
The key question for these companies: What do they want their digital leader to accomplish? In order to help companies in their efforts to find the right CDO, we have defined five CDO “archetypes” — the progressive thinker, the creative disrupter, the customer advocate, the innovative technologist, and the universalist. These model types are not meant to be examples of specific executives a company might hire, but rather to serve as an indication of the CDO’s potential range of roles and responsibilities.
The right CDO for your company’s future: The five archetypes of a chief digital officer
http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/reports/cdo-companys-future
Tomi Engdahl says:
New JavaScript standard approved:
ECMA-262
7ᵗʰ Edition / June 2016
ECMAScript® 2016 Language Specification
http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/7.0/
This Ecma Standard defines the ECMAScript 2016 Language. It is the seventh edition of the ECMAScript Language Specification. Since publication of the first edition in 1997, ECMAScript has grown to be one of the world’s most widely used general purpose programming languages. It is best known as the language embedded in web browsers but has also been widely adopted for server and embedded applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple File System
https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/APFS_Guide/Introduction/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40016999-CH1-DontLinkElementID_27
Apple File System is a new, modern file system for iOS, OS X, tvOS and watchOS. It is optimized for Flash/SSD storage and features strong encryption, copy-on-write metadata, space sharing, cloning for files and directories, snapshots, fast directory sizing, atomic safe-save primitives, and improved file system fundamentals.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Twitter pays up to $150M for Magic Pony Technology, which uses neural networks to improve images
https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/20/twitter-is-buying-magic-pony-technology-which-uses-neural-networks-to-improve-images/
Twitter today is taking another step to build up its machine learning muscle, and also potentially to improve how it delivers photos and videos across its apps: the company is acquiring Magic Pony Technology (that is really the name), a company based out of London that has developed techniques of using neural networks (systems that essentially are designed to think like human brains) and machine learning to provide expanded data for images — used, for example, to enhance a picture or video taken on a mobile phone; or to help develop graphics for virtual reality or augmented reality applications.
Terms of the deal are not being disclosed but we have two separate sources who tell us that Twitter is paying $150 million in all for the deal.
This is the third machine learning startup Twitter has acquired, after Whetlab last year, and Madbits in 2014.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Unicode Blog:
Unicode 9.0 now available with 7.5K new characters, six new scripts, 72 new emoji, and support for lesser-used languages — Version 9.0 of the Unicode Standard is now available. Version 9.0 adds exactly 7,500 characters, for a total of 128,172 characters. These additions include six new scripts and 72 new emoji characters.
Announcing The Unicode® Standard, Version 9.0
http://blog.unicode.org/2016/06/announcing-unicode-standard-version-90.html
Version 9.0 of the Unicode Standard is now available. Version 9.0 adds exactly 7,500 characters, for a total of 128,172 characters. These additions include six new scripts and 72 new emoji characters.
Important symbol additions include:
19 symbols for the new 4K TV standard
72 emoji characters
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Flow, an IFTTT-like tool for managing workflows, launches on iOS; Android version in works
Microsoft Flow, a tool for managing workflows, launches on iOS
https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/20/microsoft-flow-a-tool-for-managing-workflows-launches-on-ios/
Microsoft Flow, the company’s recently launched workflow management tool, has now arrived on mobile in the form of an iOS application. Essentially a direct competitor to IFTTT, Microsoft Flow debuted in April on the web, offering an interface that lets you mash up up two or more cloud services in order to create workflows – like those that let you automate file synchronization, alerting, data organization and more.
Competing services, including IFTTT and Zapier, have been around longer and offer a larger list of supported connections. Microsoft Flow, meanwhile, is more focused on integrations with Microsoft’s own business tools, like Office 365, Dynamics CRM, PowerApps, and Yammer, as well as those that are used in organizations, like MailChip, GitHub, Salesforce, Slack, and others.
However, you can use Microsoft Flow to automate a number of common scenarios, like getting a text message whenever your boss emails you, saving the results of a Twitter search to an Excel file, copying files from OneDrive to SharePoint, copying photos from Instagram to Dropbox, and many more.
With the new iOS application, you can now manage your previously created “flows” from your smartphone.
For flows that are mission-critical, you can configure the app to send you push notifications when something goes wrong so you can launch the app then triage the issue in real-time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Welcome to the future, where bots make the bad dates go away
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/21/11975700/ghostbot-texting-dating-bot-app-mean-texts
Dating is a bleak, bleak endeavor. Between seemingly endless swipes, missed IRL connections, and no one being emotionally available, it’s dark out there — and sometimes, it can even be dangerous, especially for women. Burner — a company that lets people create temporary phone numbers — markets itself as an option for online daters (or journalists) who have yet to vet matches in person. Today, the company is launching a new experiment in modern dating called Ghostbot. The name about sums it up; it’s a bot that ghosts people for you. Ghosting implies that one person in the relationship stops responding entirely to texts and phone calls. Ghostbot differs in that it keeps communication going, but with the goal of discouraging the texter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Achronix FPGA-Based Accelerator-6D PCIe Board for Data Center & Network Acceleration
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329959&
A data center (or datacenter) is a centralized repository for the storage, management, and dissemination of data and information. Many people tend to think of data centers in the context of search engines like Google and Bing; others regard data centers as being the purview of huge entities like Amazon; in reality, almost every organization of any significance has a data center facility that centralizes its IT operations and equipment and houses the network’s most critical systems.
All data centers share the same priorities, although their weighting may vary depending on the target application. These priorities include power efficiency, scalability, flexibility, longevity, cost, and performance. Additional requirements include monitoring, security, and the ability to support new types of applications as and when they appear on the market.
Today’s data centers are struggling to accommodate exponential growth in the amount of data being processed, searched, and disseminated.
Modern CPUs are tremendously powerful and they are well-suited for high-level decision-making and control tasks, but they are not optimal for certain functions like unstructured search, the encryption and decryption of humongous amounts of data, machine learning, and packet processing. Furthermore, the computational power offered by CPUs cannot scale economically to keep pace with ever-increasing data center requirements.
The solution is hardware acceleration, which may be implemented using a variety of technologies, including ASICs, FPGAs, GPUs, and NPUs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Xeon Phi Solos
May beat GPUs at deep learning
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329946&
Intel’s 72-processor Xeon Phi now boots stand-alone, rather than as a coprocessor, to tackle any multiprocessing task—especially brain-like deep learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Intel says the bootable Xeon Phi scales to any number of processors using Intel’s scalable-system framework (SSF) with integrated on-chip fabric, Omni-Path fiber and silicon photonics. Speed was bumped to 1.5-GHz for high-performance computing (HPC) orchestration while maintaining its low-power energy budget compared with GPU-based and other competing high-speed multicore arrays tied to PCIe, according to Intel.
“The Xeon Phi is the world’s first CPU with integrated fabric in-package,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner: The IT spending implications of Brexit
http://www.cio.com/article/3088599/it-industry/gartner-the-it-spending-implications-of-brexit.html
Global IT spending still expected to grow, but Brexit trimming the amount
The Brexit vote puts a drag on global IT spending, but the U.K. will see the worst impact, Gartner said in a new spending forecast.
Gartner had predicted a rise in U.K. tech spending by 1.7% this year, for a total spend of $179.6 billion in U.S. dollars. But this forecast was before Thursday’s decision by U.K. voters to leave the European Union.
The Brexit vote lowers the 2016 U.K. spending estimate between 2% and 5%, moving it into negative territory, said Gartner Friday. It expects U.K. IT spending to remain negative into next year.
The leading reason for the decline is summed up in one word by Gartner analyst John Lovelock: “Uncertainty.”
“It’s going to be persistent problem over the next six months,” said Lovelock, regarding the Brexit vote. The U.K. not only faces the loss of Prime Minister David Cameron, who plans to resign by October, but two years of negotiation with the EU over the terms of the exit.
Global IT spending is not spared. Gartner had forecast $3.4 trillion this year, a gain of 1.5% in constant dollars. It has revised that to say that global IT spending this year “will remain” above a 1.2% increase this year.
The IT spending most affected in both consumer and business markets is discretionary spending, said Lovelock.
Tomi Engdahl says:
One simple change can increase your laptop’s battery life by 50%
http://bgr.com/2016/06/20/microsoft-edge-battery-life-comparison/
It wasn’t long ago that we were celebrating the release of Opera’s power saving mode, but on Monday, Microsoft decided to prove to everyone that its own proprietary browser might be the best in the market for your battery.
In a new blog post, Microsoft Edge web platform team director Jason Weber explains how Edge can help save your computer or tablet battery.
“We designed Microsoft Edge from the ground up to prioritize power efficiency and deliver more battery life, without any special battery saving mode or changes to the default settings,” says Weber. “Our testing and data show that you can simply browse longer with Microsoft Edge than with Chrome, Firefox, or Opera on Windows 10 devices.”
Get more out of your battery with Microsoft Edge
Read more at https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/06/20/more-battery-with-edge/#yQSYCf7euWU7qvp8.99
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘Linux vs Windows’ Challenge: Phoronix Tests Popular Games
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/06/25/2320214/linux-vs-windows-challenge-phoronix-tests-popular-games
Michael Larabel at Phoronix has combined their new results from intensive Linux/Windows performance testing for popular games on Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA graphics cards, and at different resolutions. “This makes it easy to see the Linux vs. Windows performance overall or for games where the Linux ports are simply rubbish and performing like crap compared to the native Windows game.”
The Relative Windows vs. Linux Performance For NVIDIA, Intel & AMD
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OB-Analytics-Win-Linu-AMDNV
It’s too bad that so many Linux games perform so poorly compared to the original Windows games, regardless of graphics card brand / driver. Hopefully in due time with the next generation of games making use of Vulkan that we’ll see better performance relative to Windows.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New C++ Features Voted In By C++17 Standards Committee
https://developers.slashdot.org/story/16/06/26/1851201/new-c-features-voted-in-by-c17-standards-committee
The upcoming C++17 standard has reached Committee Draft stage, having been voted on in the standards committee meeting in Oulu, Finland this Saturday
https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/comments/4pmlpz/what_the_iso_c_committee_added_to_the_c17_working/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon is so eager to hire great engineers, it’s poaching them from itself
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-aws-is-poaching-engineers-from-itself-2016-6?op=1%3fr=US&IR=T&IR=T
Amazon’s hugely popular and important cloud-computing division, Amazon Web Services, has a classic problem: It can’t hire qualified engineers fast enough.
But Amazon is solving it an unusual way: Teams are poaching newly hired engineers from each other right at the point that a hiring manager makes an offer, sources at Amazon Web Services told Business Insider and Amazon confirmed.
A spokesperson tells us (emphasis ours):
“We’re a fast-growing company, have several businesses with compelling job opportunities, give new employees options on where they start, and love that people come to Amazon in one role and then are able to move to another after a few years.”
In the offer letter, Amazon’s HR department gives the person a chance to take a job in another department in a hot, highly visibility area, such as Alexa or drones.
New hires love the option, but the practice is causing some frustration among hiring managers, people have told Business Insider.
As every manager knows, hiring is the hardest, most time-consuming part of the job, and it’s not fun to find a great person only to have another team scoop up that person at the last minute.
Once a person lands on a team, with so much growth, promotions within AWS can happen quickly.
Someone with previous management experience can wind up being a team leader/manager within months, we were told, although others say this fast-track promotion is rare.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nonvolatile DIMMs Boost App Performance
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329994&
The idea of nonvolatile DIMMs (NVDIMMs) has been around some time, but it’s only been in the last couple of years that the new persistent memory category has begun to see some momentum.
Recently, Micron Technology Inc.’s Crucial brand announced the availability of NVDIMM server memory to help protect data in the event of a system power loss. But while that backup capability was identified as one the early uses for NVDIMMs, they are also starting to be used as a way to boost application performance as a tier between fast flash storage and even faster DRAM.
Without NVDIMMs, companies have relied on uninterruptible power supplies, SSDs, mechanical hard drives (HDDs) or other devices to ensure the security of critical data. These approaches, however, mean long backup and restore times due the latency and write times of SSDs and spinning disk, which are a lifetime for today’s applications like relational databases, scale-out storage, data analytics and in-memory databases.
Crucial’s NVDIMM server memory combines the performance of DRAM and the persistence of NAND onto a single module. In the event of a power loss, the NVDIMM will back up all DRAM data to the NAND while utilizing a backup power source known as an ultracapacitor. When power is restored to the system, the data in the NAND is restored on the DRAM. Servers recognize these NVDIMMs as identical to RDIMMs and they behave the same during normal operation.
Baxter said this first offering is riding the coattails of HP Enterprise persistent memory news at the end of March, offering a turnkey system with NVDIMMs, and Microsoft, which has added block storage support for NVDIMMs in Windows Server 2016.
“Anybody who wants to buy an NVDIMM capable system can do so without a lot of system integration including bios enablement and hardware integration,” Baxter said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Brexit Ripples Through Tech Community
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329996&
Since the Brexit vote ended with 51.8% in favor of leaving the European Union and 48.2% wishing to remain, the UK will go back to becoming its own sovereign state in a process that the Washington Post notes may take years to complete.
Britain’s exit from the European Union is expected to impact not only that country, but also the companies that do business there.
Trip Chowdhry, an analyst with Global Equities Research, noted in a report that these outcomes will likely occur:
Unrestricted Free Flow of goods, services, materials, and labor from the rest of Europe to Britain will cease.
Labor costs will go up in Britain.
There will be an oversupply of certain skills and shortage of others.
Due to the above, the cost of goods and services will go up, and will make Britain noncompetitive in world markets.
Britain’s economy will shrink.
Increase in labor and material costs will reduce or altogether eliminate the profit margins of businesses — thereby reducing the overall value of the businesses based in Britain.
The net worth of business owners will be reduced — including that of shareholders of public companies. The situation is one factor that might possibly prefigure a stock market collapse.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia Builds Connections to AI Researchers
Qualcomm demos prototype 5G system
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1329990&
Deep Learning rapidly gaining importance in the development of automated vehicles. To expand its position and to secure access to the latest developments in this area, chipmaker Nvidia has entered a closer relationship with the German Artificial Research Center (DFKI).
Nvidia appointed the Kaiserslautern, Germany, based institution a GPU Research Center. In Nvidia’s parlance, GPU Research Centers are institutions who apply graphics processing units (GPUs) in specific research areas. The GPU manufacturer is rather picky with this attribute; only leading scientific institutes receive Nvidia’s appointment.
GPU hardware provided to the DFKI will be applied in the first place in the area of Deep Learning. Currently, many scientific breakthroughs in the realm of Artificial Intelligence are associated to Deep Learning. In particular, Deep Learning is a hot candidate for the technologies that will enable self-driving vehicles to orientate themselves even in environments that are subject to dynamic changes.
One of the reasons why Deep Learning is currently so successful is the availability of high-performance GPUs that can run highly parallel training algorithms for Deep Learning.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Dan Seifert / The Verge:
Google launches Cast for Education to let students cast their screens to the classroom projector, debuts quizzes feature for Forms, and opens up VR Expeditions — It’s no secret that Google’s Chromebooks have seen the most success in the classroom, and have quickly become the de facto education computer
Google is making its educational tools more powerful
Students will be able to cast their screens to the teacher’s projector
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/27/12033492/google-is-making-its-educational-tools-more-powerful
It’s no secret that Google’s Chromebooks have seen the most success in the classroom, and have quickly become the de facto education computer in the US thanks to their low cost and easy management. Today, Google is announcing new tools and expanded capabilities of its existing tools for educators that stand to make its position in the classroom even stronger.
The first new tool is Cast for Education, which lets students and teachers share their screens from anywhere in the classroom to the computer that’s plugged into the projector. Teachers turn their main computer into a Cast destination and then can approve Cast requests from students on a case by case basis. Google says the idea behind this feature is to expand the use of the projector – one of the most widely used devices in the classroom – to people other than the teacher and to foster improved interaction with students. Cast for Education is designed to work with the complex wireless networks that are often found in schools and allows both video and audio sharing. It is available in beta as a Chrome app that works in Chrome OS, Mac, and Windows for free starting today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Microsoft’s open source .NET Core project, which brings .NET Core and ASP.NET Core to Linux, OS X, and other OSes, reaches version 1.0
Microsoft’s open source .NET Core and ASP.NET Core hit 1.0
https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/27/microsofts-open-source-net-and-asp-net-core-hit-1-0/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Natasha Singer / New York Times:
Amazon unveils Inspire, an online education service for teachers, offering free lesson plans, teaching modules, and other digital resources
Amazon Unveils Online Education Service for Teachers
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/28/technology/amazon-unveils-online-education-service-for-teachers.html?_r=0
Tomi Engdahl says:
Now Intel swings axe at sales, marketing peeps
Top buyers like Lenovo and Acer told to deal direct with Cali mothership
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/27/intel_latest_layoffs/
Intel has turned its axe on sales and marketing staff as part of its ongoing workforce decimation.
In April, Chipzilla announced it will lay off 12,000 employees worldwide – roughly one in ten of its 107,000 staffers – over the coming months as it weans itself off the dwindling desktop computer market. People working on doomed product lines – such as its Atom mobile processors – were among the first to be let go.
Tomi Engdahl says:
.NET Core 1.0 Released, Now Officially Supported By Red Hat
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/16/06/27/177244/net-core-10-released-now-officially-supported-by-red-hat
Microsoft on Monday announced the release of .NET Core, the open source .NET runtime platform. Finally! (It was first announced in 2014). The company also released ASP.NET Core 1.0, the open-source version of Microsoft’s Web development stack.
ArsTechnica reports:
Microsoft picked an unusual venue to announce the release: the Red Hat Summit. One of the purposes of .NET Core was to make Linux and OS X into first-class supported platforms, with .NET developers able to reach Windows, OS X, Linux, and (with Xamarin) iOS and Android, too.
Announcing .NET Core 1.0
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/06/27/announcing-net-core-1-0/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Says It’s in Love With Linux. Now It’s Finally Proving It
http://www.wired.com/2016/06/microsofts-open-source-love-affair-reaches-new-heights/
It’s official: Microsoft code isn’t just for Windows anymore.
Today, the company released .NET Core 1.0, a version of its popular software development platform that will run not just on its own Windows operating systems, but on the Linux and Mac OS X operating systems as well. What’s more, .NET Core is open source, meaning that any developer can not only use it for free to build their own applications, but also modify and improve the platform to suit their needs and the needs of others.
All this highlights an enormous change not only in Microsoft, but in the software industry as a whole. Over the last decade, the world’s tech businesses, from Google and Facebook and Twitter on down, have increasingly used Linux and other open source software to build their online services and other technologies, and as a result, IT vendors—the companies that help businesses build their online services—have moved closer and closer to the open source way. This includes Microsoft, one of the largest IT vendors. In order to compete, Microsoft must ensure not only that .NET is open source, but that other important Microsoft IT tools run on all operating systems, including, most notably, Linux
As Microsoft put the finishing touches on .NET, it also released a preview version of its SQL Server database software that runs on Linux.
Traditionally, Microsoft only supported running software on its own operating systems, perhaps out of fear of cannibalizing the sales of Windows licenses. But the world has changed, and Microsoft is changing with it.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Concrete Problems in AI Safety
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.06565v1.pdf
Rapid progress in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) has brought increasing attention to the potential impacts of AI technologies on society.
In this paper we discuss one such potential impact: the problem of accidents in machine learning systems, defined as unintended and harmful behavior that may emerge from poor design of real-world AI systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / ZDNet:
Microsoft, Codenvy, and Red Hat announce open source Language Server Protocol (LSP) for IDEs — Codenvy, Microsoft, and Red Hat have announced they are adopting a universal Language Server Protocol for integrated development environments. — Microsoft — yes, Microsoft …
Open-source Microsoft protocol aims to be a programming standard
http://www.zdnet.com/article/open-source-microsoft-protocol-aims-to-be-a-programming-standard/
Codenvy, Microsoft, and Red Hat have announced they are adopting a universal Language Server Protocol for integrated development environments.
The LSP is a collaborative effort to provide a common way to integrate programming languages across code editors and integrated development environments (IDEs). The protocol extends developer flexibility and productivity by enabling a rich editing experience within a variety of tools for different programming languages.
“Historically, most programming languages have only been optimized for a single tool. This has prevented developers from using the editors they know and love, and has limited opportunities for language providers to reach a wide audience,” said Tyler Jewell, Codenvy CEO and Eclipse Che project lead. Jewell continued, “With a common protocol supported by Microsoft, Red Hat, and Codenvy, developers can gain access to intelligence for any language within their favorite tools.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Satya Nadella / Slate:
Examining principles for the development and applications of AI as well as the human skills and values future generations must prioritize — Advanced machine learning, also known as artificial intelligence or just A.I., holds far greater promise than unsettling headlines about computers beating humans …
The Partnership of the Future
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/06/microsoft_ceo_satya_nadella_humans_and_a_i_can_work_together_to_solve_society.html
Microsoft’s CEO explores how humans and A.I. can work together to solve society’s greatest challenges.
Advanced machine learning, also known as artificial intelligence or just A.I., holds far greater promise than unsettling headlines about computers beating humans at games like Jeopardy!, chess, checkers, and Go. Ultimately, humans and machines will work together—not against one another. Computers may win at games, but imagine what’s possible when human and machine work together to solve society’s greatest challenges like beating disease, ignorance, and poverty.
Doing so, however, requires a bold and ambitious approach that goes beyond anything that can be achieved through incremental improvements to current technology. Now is the time for greater coordination and collaboration on A.I.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Lenovo moves enterprise, data center hardware manufacturing to Europe
http://www.cablinginstall.com/articles/pt/2016/05/lenovo-moves-enterprise-data-center-hardware-manufacturing-to-europe.html?cmpid=Enl_CIM_DataCenters_June282016&eid=289644432&bid=1445640
With the move, the company says its EMEA customers and partners will benefit from faster delivery times and greater flexibility to meet their needs when manufacturing partner, Flex (formerly Flextronics) begins production of Lenovo’s x86 server products in Hungary, the company stated in a press release. Production will begin in summer 2016 and will complement the existing Flex production of the ThinkServer product line, as well as a number of other products.
The decision to move manufacturing to Europe is said to be based on the benefits arising from establishing production closer to the company’s core customer and partner base. Manufacturing in the European Union will enable an improvement of up to five days on delivery times to customers (depending on the country) and lower operation costs (reduced freight costs) that can be passed on to customers and partners.
Lenovo Announces Move to Manufacture Enterprise and Data Center Products in Europe
Lenovo’s long-term manufacturing partner, Flex, begins production in Summer 2016
http://news.lenovo.com/news-releases/lenovo-announces-move-to-manufacture-enterprise-and-data-center-products-in-europe.htm
Tomi Engdahl says:
Facebook to open-source AI hardware design
https://code.facebook.com/posts/1687861518126048/facebook-to-open-source-ai-hardware-design/?utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=outbrain&utm_campaign=outbrain
Faster, more versatile, and efficient neural network training
Big Sur is our newest Open Rack-compatible hardware designed for AI computing at a large scale. In collaboration with partners, we’ve built Big Sur to incorporate eight high-performance GPUs of up to 300 watts each, with the flexibility to configure between multiple PCI-e topologies. Leveraging NVIDIA’s Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform, Big Sur is twice as fast as our previous generation, which means we can train twice as fast and explore networks twice as large. And distributing training across eight GPUs allows us to scale the size and speed of our networks by another factor of two.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft tweaks aggressive Windows 10 upgrade prompt following complaints
http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/28/12049876/microsoft-windows-10-upgrade-notification-change
Microsoft started aggressively pushing its Windows 10 upgrade notifications back in February. While more than 300 million machines are now running the OS, some people haven’t been particularly happy with how they received the upgrade. Microsoft is paying out $10,000 to a woman in Seattle who claims that Windows 10 installed itself on her work computer without her permission.
Microsoft’s initial upgrade prompts for Windows 10 were relatively clear, but in recent months the company tweaked its prompt so that if you simply dismissed it using the “Red X” the upgrade would schedule itself anyway.
“Since we introduced a new upgrade experience for Windows 10, we’ve received feedback that some of our valued customers found it confusing,” admits Windows chief Terry Myerson, in a statement to The Verge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Post Brexit tech spending to rise like a lead balloon
Vendors deliver sobering message to staff
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2016/06/28/brexit_vendor_memo_canalys_forecast/
Yet another analyst has delivering a damning forecast for tech spending following last week’s UK referendum decision to leave the European Union as major suppliers prepare staff for what could months of slowing sales.
Channel-watcher Canalys projected local sales spending of $90bn to $100bn for the year before Brits voted to leave the EU, but warned the decision has “shorter- and longer-term implications”.
First up, it has re-modelled predictions and “expects this to fall by up to 10 per cent in 2016, based on public sector and businesses cutting expenditure to reduce risk,” said principal analyst Matthew Ball.
“The outlook for 2017 could be even worse, with up to a 15 per cent decline as IT budgets are set lower on the prediction of a tough year ahead and ongoing uncertainty,” he added.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MongoDB launches Atlas to manage deployments: Taking the Ops out of DevOps
‘The most interesting thing we’ve done as a company since day one,’ says exec
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/28/mongodb_launches_atlas_to_manage_deployments_taking_the_ops_out_of_devops/
MongoDB is launching Atlas, the company’s first DBaaS, offering easy management of instances – initially on AWS, but soon to come to Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
The service intends to alleviate devs of tedious evenings wasted with hardware provisioning, covering failure recovery, software patching, upgrades, configuration and backups.
Kelly Stirman, the company’s strategy veep, explained to The Register that the user experience was receiving a single bill from MongoDB “while we handle the infrastructure, the upgrades, the security. You get to decide what region, and how big a server you want – and if you need change in that size you just click a button and our engineers sort it out.”
Atlas is pitched as “unlimited, elastic scalability, either by scaling up on a range of instance sizes or scaling out with automatic sharing, all with no application downtime.”
The company believes that the majority of MongoDB’s use is in the cloud, and the plan is that Atlas is the best way to manage that. “There are millions of Mongo instances,” said Stirman, “this is a huge opportunity for us.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Never-never chip tech Memristor shuffles closer to death row
Execution warrant close to being signed for Fink’s folly
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2016/06/28/memristor_moves_closer_to_death_row/
The Memristor always was a rich company’s technology toy, but Meg Whitman wants HPE to be lean and mean, not fat and wasteful, with HPE Labs producing blue sky tech that rarely becomes a product success.
Memristor was first reported by HPE Labs eight years ago, as a form of persistent memory. At the time HP Labs Fellow R. Stanley Williams compared it to flash: “It holds its memory longer. It’s simpler. It’s easier to make – which means it’s cheaper – and it can be switched a lot faster, with less energy.”
Unfortunately it isn’t simpler to make and still isn’t here. NVMe SSDs have boosted flash’s data access speed, reducing the memory-storage gap, and Intel/Micron’s 3D XPoint SSDs will arrive later this year as the first viable productised technology to fill that gap.
WDC’s SanDisk unit is working on ReRAM technology for its entry into storage-class memory hardware, and HPE has a partnership with SanDisk over its use.
SanDisk foundry partner Toshiba has a ReRAM interest.
WDC’s HGST unit has been involved with Phase Change Memory.
IBM has demonstrated a 3bits/cell Phase Change Memory (PCM) technology.
Samsung has no public storage-class memory initiative, although it has been involved in STT-RAM .
The problem for HPE with Memristor is that it would need volume manufacturing to get the cost down.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Put storage inside the individual hosts of a virtual cluster? You’re CRAZY… Like a fox
Our man Trev thinks 2016 is hyperconvergence’s year
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2016/06/23/hyperconvergence_mainstream_timeline/
Hyperconvergence, putting storage inside the individual hosts of a virtual cluster, was supposed to save us from the cost and expense of centralized storage. Thus far, mainstream providers of hyperconvergence have largely failed to deliver on this promise. 2016 looks set to be the year this finally changes.
Nutanix has been the standard bearer for the hyperconvergence market because it is the loudest and brashest of the bunch.
The big squeeze
Like it or not, Nutanix has become almost a household name in tech. It certainly is the name amongst ordinary sysadmins when people talk about hyperconvergence. Other vendors’ offerings – including VMware’s VSAN itself – are described as “like Nutanix but”, with the differentiator from the marketing leader being the focus of discussion.
“Nutanix, but you can afford it” changes the game. The other mainstream-focused HCI vendors – Scale, Cloudweavers and so forth – are on notice. Half-measures officially won’t cut it any more. They turn the marketing dials all the way to 11 or they evaporate. It’s as simple as that.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Let’s Stop Freaking Out About Artificial Intelligence
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/16/06/28/1958224/lets-stop-freaking-out-about-artificial-intelligence
Former Google CEO, and current Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and Google X founder Sebastian Thrun in an op-ed on Fortune Magazine have shared their views on artificial intelligence, and what the future holds for this nascent technology. “When we first worked on the AI behind self-driving cars, most experts were convinced they would never be safe enough for public roads. But the Google Self-Driving Car team had a crucial insight that differentiates AI from the way people learn. When driving, people mostly learn from their own mistakes. But they rarely learn from the mistakes of others. People collectively make the same mistakes over and over again,”
Let’s Stop Freaking Out About Artificial Intelligence
http://fortune.com/2016/06/28/artificial-intelligence-potential/
The positives outweigh the negatives. So let’s get to work.
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is all around us today—and it’s often invisible as we go about our daily lives.
Companies are successfully using AI for credit card fraud detection, speech recognition, Web search rankings, automated customer service, legal discovery, photo search, translation, and even farming. A few weeks ago, Google’s AI program AlphaGo beat Lee Sedol, a human champion of Go, an ancient and complex game long thought to be beyond computers’ ability to master. It won after learning to play from millions of games. After studying millions of patient records, Stanford’s AI Lab and IBM’s Watson diagnose certain types of cancer more accurately than human physicians. The list of positive uses of AI is growing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Fellow Talks Neural Nets, Deep Learning
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330004
We are already living with deep learning and large-scale neural networks, as evidenced by the growing number of applications that rely on computer vision, language understanding, and robotics. What we now want most from machine learning, said Google Senior Fellow Jeff Dean to the audience at SIGMOD 2016 keynote today (Tuesday, June 28), is “understanding.”
“We now have sufficient computation resources, large enough interesting data sets,” Dean told SIGMOD attendees. “We can store tons of interesting data but what we really want is understanding about that data.”
In a keynote talk, Dean outlined the history of machine learning (ML) and neural networks and various ways to program models to take advantage of raw data coming through in the form of images or audio. He also detailed how ML has taken shape at Google, which recently announced that it will open a machine learning center in Europe. The company developed its own accelerator chips for artificial intelligence it calls tensor processing units (TPUs) after the open source TensorFlow algorithms it released last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft’s Windows 10: Anniversary Update to hit August 2; 350 million devices and counting — Microsoft will release Windows 10 on August 2 across the more than 350 million active devices where it is now running, and on other coming new PCs, phones and more.
Microsoft’s Windows 10: Anniversary Update to hit August 2; 350 million devices and counting
http://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-windows-10-anniversary-update-to-hit-august-2-350-million-devices-and-counting/
Microsoft will release Windows 10 on August 2 across the more than 350 million active devices where it is now running, and on other coming new PCs, phones, and more.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD Buys PC Gaming Software Firm
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330022&
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) said Wednesday (June 29) it acquired HiAlgo Inc., a developer of PC gaming technology. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
AMD (Sunnyvale, Calif.) said HiAlgo’s software is designed to work with AMD’s Radeon RX Series GPUs, increasing GPU efficiency and improving the overall consistency of gaming experiences. The company added that the acquisition lays the groundwork for gaming innovation in Radeon software for GPUs.
AMD is the third-ranked vendor of GPUs overall, trailing Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp., according to Jon Peddie Research.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PCIe 4.0 Heads to Fab, 5.0 to Lab
Next-gen debate–25 or 32 Gbits/s?
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1330006&
A handful of chips using PCI Express 4.0 are heading to the fab even though the 16G transfers/second specification won’t be final until early next year. Once it gets all the details sorted out, the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI SIG) aims to start work in earnest on a 5.0 follow on running at either 25 or 32GT/s.
Cadence, PLDA and Synopsys demoed PCIe 4.0 physical-layer, controller, switch and other IP blocks at the PCI SIG’s annual developer’s conference here. They showed working chips, boards and backplanes that included a 100 Gbit/s Infiniband switch chip using PCIe 4.0.
It’s been more than six years since the PCI SIG ratified its last major standard, the 8 GT/s PCIe 3.0.
“We know we can take PCIe to the next generation, we just have to work out the details,”
The questions about version 5.0 are many. They include determining if it will be backward compatible and still defined as a chip-to-chip link as all PCI standards have been to date.
“We can’t play the encoding trick,” said Yanes noting the version 3.0 adopted 128b/130b encoding up from 8b/10b previously used.
Demand will come from the usual suspects. Networking cards already hitting 100 Gbit/s rates will need faster chip links as will next-generation graphics processors and solid-state drives.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DMCA Notices Remove 8,268 Projects On Github In 2015
https://news.slashdot.org/story/16/06/29/2325210/dmca-notices-remove-8268-projects-on-github-in-2015
Github’s transparency report for 2015 shows that the site received many DMCA notices that removed more than 8,200 projects. “In 2015, we received significantly more takedown notices, and took down significantly more content, than we did in 2014,” Github reports. For comparison, the company received only 258 DMCA notices in 2014, 17 of which responded with a counter-notice or retraction. In 2015, they received 505 takedown notices, 62 of which were the subject of counters or withdrawals.
DMCA Notices Nuke 8,268 Projects on Github
https://torrentfreak.com/dmca-notices-nuke-8268-projects-on-github-160629/
Popular code repository GitHub has just published its transparency report for 2015. While receiving a relatively modest 12 subpoenas for user data last year, the site also handed seven gag orders. It also received large numbers of DMCA notices which took down more than 8,200 projects.
Without a doubt, Github is a huge player in the world of coding. The platform is the largest of its type in the world with the company currently reporting 15 million users collaborating across 38 million repositories.
“In 2015, we received significantly more takedown notices, and took down significantly more content, than we did in 2014,” Github reports.
GitHub’s 2015 Transparency Report
https://github.com/blog/2202-github-s-2015-transparency-report
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Next Stage of Software Automation
https://www.eeweb.com/news/the-next-stage-of-software-automation
Parker Software has released ThinkAutomation 4.0, a sweeping update to the company’s leading business automation software. The upgrade adds extensive new functionality to the product, such as sentiment analysis, social media monitoring and SMS-driven automation, making it ideal for logistics, marketing and retail businesses looking to streamline processes.
ThinkAutomation allows businesses to increase efficiency by automating tasks and processing documents and inbound messages. Version 4.0 builds on these functions with advanced document processing, which allows automatic conversion of file formats as well as attachment analysis, and SMS hotline functionality that can improve business communications.
Automated SMS functionality allows businesses to update systems via text.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software Heritage, the “Library of Alexandria of software,” launches today
Wants to enable the next generation of software studies by amassing source code.
http://arstechnica.co.uk/business/2016/06/software-heritage-the-library-of-alexandria-of-software-launches-today/
The Software Heritage project aims to “collect, organise, preserve and make easily accessible the source code of all software that is publicly available.” Calling itself the “Software Wikipedia,” the “Internet Archive for source code,” and even the “Library of Alexandria of software,” it believes “a single and universal archive making software source code readily available will facilitate access to the knowledge contained therein, support programming education, and create a reference catalogue with all knowledge about this software.”
At launch, the project says that it had already “ingested in the Software Heritage archive a significant amount of source code, possibly assembling the largest source code archive in the world.” That currently amounts to 2 billion source files, 600 million commits, and 22.7 million projects.