IT seems to be growing again. Gartner forecasts worldwide IT spending will increase 4.5% this year to $3.68 trillion, driven by artificial intelligence, big data analytics, blockchain technology, and the IoT.
Digital transformations are fashionable. You won’t find an enterprise that isn’t leveraging some combination of cloud, analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning to better serve customers or streamline operations. But here’s a hard truth about digital transformations: Many are failing outright or are in danger of failing. Typical reasons for failing are not understanding what is digital transformation (different people understand it differently), lack of CEO sponsorship, talent deficiency, resistance to change. Usually a technology-first approach to digital transformation is a recipe for disaster. Truing to just push trough technically unfeasible transformation idea is another way to fail.
The digital era requires businesses to move with speed, and that is causing IT organizations to rethink how they work. A lot of IT is moving off premises to SaaS providers and the public cloud. Research outfit 451 standout finding was that 60 per cent of the surveyed enterprises say they will run the majority of their IT outside the confines of enterprise data centres by the end of 2019. From cost containment to hybrid strategies, CIOs are getting more creative in taking advantage of the latest offerings and the cloud’s economies of scale.
In 2018 there seems to be a growing Software Engineering Talent Shortage in both quantity and quality. For the past nine years, software engineers have been at the top of the hardest to fill jobs in the United States. And same applies to many other countries including Finland. Forrester projects that firms will pay 20% above market for quality engineering talent in 2018. Particularly in-demand skills are data scientists, high-end software developers and information security analysts. There is real need for well-studied, experienced engineers with a formal and deep understanding of software engineering. Recruiting and retaining tech talent remains IT’s biggest challenge today. Most CIOs are migrating applications to public cloud services, offloading operations and maintenance of computing, storage and other capabilities so they can reallocate staff to focus on what’s strategic to their business.
The enterprise no longer is at the center of the IT universe. It seems that reports of the PC’s demise have been greatly exaggerated and the long and painful decline in PC sales of the last half-decade as tailed off, at least momentarily. As the sales of smartphones and tablets have risen, consumers had not stopped using PCs, but merely replaced them less often. FT reports that PC is set to stage a comeback in 2018, after the rise of smartphones sent sales of desktop and laptop computers into decline in recent years. If that does not happen, then PC market could return to growth in 2019. But the end result is that PC is no longer seen as the biggest growth driver for chip makers. An extreme economic shift has chipmakers focused on hyperscale clouds.
Microservices are talked about a lot. Software built using microservices is easier to deliver and maintain than the big and brittle architectures or old; these were difficult to scale and might take years to build and deliver. Microservices are small and self-contained, so therefore easy to wrap up in a virtual machine or a container (but don’t have to live in containers). Public cloud providers increasingly differentiate themselves through the features and services they provide. But it turns out that microservices are far from being one-size-fit-for-all silver bullet for IT challenges.
Containers will try to make break-trough again in 2018. Year 2017 was supposed to be the year of containers! It wasn’t? Oops. Maybe year 2018 is better. Immature tech still has a bunch of growing up to do. Linux Foundation’s Open Containers Initiative (OCI) finally dropped two specifications that standardise how containers operate at a low level. The needle in 2018 will move towards containers running separately from VMs, or entirely in place of VMs. Kubernates gains traction. It seems that the containers are still at the point where the enterprise is waiting to embrace them.
Serverless will be talked about. Serverless computing is a cloud computing execution model in which the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources. Serverless architectures refer to applications that significantly depend on third-party services (knows as Backend as a Service or “BaaS”) or on custom code that’s run in ephemeral containers (Function as a Service or “FaaS”), the best known vendor host of which currently is AWS Lambda.
Automation is what everybody with many computers wants. Infrastructure automation creates and destroys basic IT resources such as compute instances, storage, networking, DNS, and so forth. Security automation helps keeping systems secure. It bosses want to create self-driving private clouds. The journey to self-driving clouds needs to be gradual. The vision of the self-driving cloud makes sense, but the task of getting from here to there can seem daunting. DevOps automation with customer control: Automatic installation and configuration, Integration that brings together AWS and VMWare, workflows migration controlled by users, Self-service provisioning based on templates defined by users, Advanced machine learning to automate processes, and Automated upgrades.
Linux is center of many cloud operations: Google and Facebook started building their own gear and loading it with their own software. Google has it’s own Linux called gLinux. Facebook networking uses Linux-based FBOSS operating system. Even Microsoft has developed its own Linux for cloud operations. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a very fine idea.
Memory business boomed in 2017 for both NAND and DRAM. The drivers for DRAM are smartphones and servers. Solid-state drives (SSDs) and smartphones are fueling the demand for NAND. NAND Market Expected to Cool in Q1 from the crazy year 2017, but it is still growing well because there is increasing demand. Memory — particular DRAM — was largely considered a commodity business.
Lots of 3D NAND will go to solid state drives in 2018. IDC forecasts strong growth for the solid-state drive (SSD) industry as it transitions to 3D NAND. SSD industry revenue is expected to reach $33.6 billion in 2021, growing at a CAGR of 14.8%. Sizes of memory chips increase as number of layer in 3D NAND are added. The traditional mechanical hard disk based on magnetic storage is in hard place in competition, as the speed of flash-based SSDs is so superior
There is search for faster memory because modern computers, especially data-center servers that skew heavily toward in-memory databases, data-intensive analytics, and increasingly toward machine-learning and deep-neural-network training functions, depend on large amounts of high-speed, high capacity memory to keep the wheels turning. The memory speed has not increased as fast as the capacity. The access bandwidth of DRAM-based computer memory has improved by a factor of 20x over the past two decades. Capacity increased 128x during the same period. For year 2018 DRAM remains a near-universal choice when performance is the priority. There is search going on for a viable replacement for DRAM. Whether it’s STT-RAM or phase-change memory or resistive RAM, none of them can match the speed or endurance of DRAM.
PCI Express 4.0 is ramping up. PCI-standards consortium PCI-SIG (Special Interest Group) has ratified and released specifications for PCIe 4.0 Specification Version 1. Doubling PCIe 3.0’s 8 GT/s (~1 GB/s) of bandwidth per lane, PCIe 4.0 offers a transfer rate of 16 GT/s. The newest version of PCI Express will start appearing on motherboards soon. PCI-SIG has targeted Q2 2019 for releasing the finalized PCIe 5.0 specification, so PCIe 4.0 won’t be quite as long-lived as PCIe 3.0 has been. So we’ll See PCIe 4.0 this year in use and PCIe 5.0 in 2019.
USB type C is on the way to becoming the most common PC and peripheral interface. The USB C connector has become faster more commonplace than any other earlier interface. USB C is very common on smartphones, but the interface is also widespread on laptops. Sure, it will take some time before it is the most common. In 2021, the C-type USB connector has almost five billion units, IHS estimates.
It seems that the after-shocks of Meltdown/Spectre vulnerabilities on processors will be haunting us for quite long time this year. It is now three weeks since The Register revealed the chip design flaws that Google later confirmed and the world still awaits certainty about what it will take to get over the silicon slip-ups. Last pieces of farce has been that Intel Halts Spectre, Meltdown CPU Patches Over Unstable Code and Linux creator Linus Torvalds criticises Intel’s ‘garbage’ patches. Computer security will not be the same after all this has been sorted out.
What’s Next With Computing? IBM discusses AI, neural nets and quantum computing. Many can agree that those technologies will be important. Public cloud providers increasingly provide sophisticated flavours of data analysis and increasingly Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Central Banks Are Using Big Data to Help Shape Policy. Over the past few years, machine learning (ML) has evolved from an interesting new approach that allows computers to beat champions at chess and Go, into one that is touted as a panacea for almost everything. 2018 will be the start of what could be a longstanding battle between chipmakers to determine who creates the hardware that artificial intelligence lives on.
ARM processor based PCs are coming. As Microsoft and Qualcomm jointly announced in early December that the first Windows 10 notebooks with ARM-based Snapdragon 835 processors will be officially launched in early 2018, there will be more and more PCs with ARM processor architecture hitting the market. Digitimes Research expects that ARM-based models may dominate lower-end PC market, but don’t hold your breath on this. It is rumoured that “wireless LTE connectivity” function will be incorporated into all the entry-level Window 10 notebooks with ARM processors, branded by Microsoft as the “always-connected devices.” HP and Asustek have released some ARM-based notebooks with Windows 10S.
Sources:
Ohjelmistoalan osaajapula pahenee – kasvu jatkuu
PC market set to return to growth in 2018
PC market could return to growth in 2019
PC sales grow for the first time in five years
PCI-SIG Finalizes and Releases PCIe 4.0, Version 1 Specification: 2x PCIe Bandwidth and More
Hot Chips 2017: We’ll See PCIe 4.0 This Year, PCIe 5.0 In 2019
Outsourcing remains strategic in the digital era
8 hot IT hiring trends — and 8 going cold
EDA Challenges Machine Learning
The Battle of AI Processors Begins in 2018
How to create self-driving private clouds
ZeroStack Lays Out Vision for Five-Step Journey to Self-Driving Cloud
2017 – the year of containers! It wasn’t? Oops. Maybe next year
2018′s Software Engineering Talent Shortage— It’s quality, not just quantity
How Central Banks Are Using Big Data to Help Shape Policy
Digitimes Research: ARM-based models may dominate lower-end PC market
Intel Halts Spectre, Meltdown CPU Patches Over Unstable Code
Spectre and Meltdown: Linux creator Linus Torvalds criticises Intel’s ‘garbage’ patches
Meltdown/Spectre week three: World still knee-deep in something nasty
What’s Next With Computing? IBM discusses AI, neural nets and quantum computing.
PCI Express 4.0 as Fast As Possible
Microsoft has developed its own Linux!
Microsoft Built Its Own Linux Because Everyone Else Did
Facebook has built its own switch. And it looks a lot like a server
Googlella on oma sisäinen linux
Is the writing on the wall for on-premises IT? This survey seems to say so
12 reasons why digital transformations fail
7 habits of highly effective digital transformations
857 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘The gulf between apps and infrastructure is blurring’ says boss of DevOps darling Puppet
Code automation biz waves its big data yardstick
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/09/puppet_data_exhaust/
DevOps biz Puppet held a stage show in San Francisco on Tuesday, because that’s how IT vendors get attention these days. It’s a rite of passage for Silicon Valley companies of a certain size.
Puppet clearly understands the requirements of the digital dog-and-pony show: palatable pop tunes prior to the keynote; breakfast buffet (with bacon); choice of strawberry- or cucumber-infused water; posse of event-sponsoring cloud-service vendors; table for the press with a power strip; and, above all, enthusiasm for esoteric subject matter.
CEO Sanjay Mirchandani opened the morning’s evangelism with a recap of Puppet’s recent accomplishments. The company now has nine offices globally and made two acquisition in the past 12 months, Distelli and Reflect.io.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mehedi Hassan / Thurrott.com:
Google debuts Pixel Slate, a Chrome OS tablet with a 3000×2000 display, 8-16GB of RAM, front and rear cameras, no 3.5mm jack; coming later in 2018 from $599 — Google just took the wraps off a new Chromebook device at its hardware event today. The company is launching its new Pixel Slate …
Google Launches a Pixel-Branded Premium Chromebook Tablet
https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/chrome-os/chromebook/188285/google-launches-a-pixel-branded-premium-chromebook-tablet
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft has open sourced its 60,000+ patent portfolio by joining the Open Invention Network.
Microsoft open-sources its patent portfolio
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-open-sources-its-entire-patent-portfolio/
By joining the Open Invention Network, Microsoft is offering its entire patent portfolio — with the legacy exception of its Windows and desktop application code — to all of the open-source patent consortium’s members.
Several years ago, I said the one thing Microsoft has to do — to convince everyone in open source that it’s truly an open-source supporter — is stop using its patents against Android vendors. Now, it’s joined the Open Invention Network (OIN), an open-source patent consortium. Microsoft has essentially agreed to grant a royalty-free and unrestricted license to its entire patent portfolio to all other OIN members.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3 areas to drive DevOps change
https://opensource.com/article/18/10/tales-devops-transformation?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Driving large-scale organizational change is painful, but when it comes to DevOps, the payoff is worth the pain.
The truth is that driving large-scale organizational change is painful. It hurts for those having to change their values and behaviors, it hurts for leadership, and it hurts for the people just trying to do their jobs. In the case of DevOps, though, I can tell you the pain is worth it.
The bottom line is that investments into technical process improvement translate into better business outcomes.
DevOps leaders must help executives come along for the ride. Educating leaders gives them options when they’re making decisions and makes it more likely they’ll choose paths that help your company.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Your pal in IT quits. Her last words: ‘Converged infrastructure…’ What does it all mean? We think we can explain
The tech that is, not this made-up mystery
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/11/converged_infrastructure/
IT infrastructure has become more complex as virtualization and private clouds have added more cream and sponge to the technology layer cake within businesses.
Tech budgets, meanwhile, are tightening, and the number of staff with skills to manage specialized areas such as networking and storage appears to be falling. This has led to somewhat of a shortage of folks with the right skills.
Enter converged infrastructure. Vendors have begun packaging their products to make them supposedly simpler to deploy and manage by virtue of the fact the hardware has been pre-integrated, and is largely, depending on who they and you are, ready to slot into a data center.
Converged infrastructure supposedly delivers servers, storage, and networking hardware all in a pre-configured bundle that works together with a fully validated software stack. In addition, you’ve got a single point of contact for support in the event of problems.
The idea of converged infrastructure is certainly proving popular: worldwide revenue for such integrated systems stood at $3.2bn during the first quarter of 2018, representing a year-on-year increase of 19.6 per cent, according to figures from analyst firm IDC.
But all of this integration comes with downsides. Products are often limited to a range of configurations that are optimized only for particular workloads. If you want something a little different you’re stuck. There is, too, the risk of getting locked in to a single supplier as there exists no industry standards for converged infrastructure – it’s convergence on a vendor-by-vendor basis.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Passes Acer To Become Top 5 PC Vendors In the US
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/10/10/2341213/microsoft-passes-acer-to-become-top-5-pc-vendors-in-the-us?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
During the 3rd Quarter of 2018, Microsoft reportedly broke into the top five list of PC vendors in the U.S. for the first time, thanks to its line of Surface computers, laptops, and tablets.
Q3 2018 was flat; it did not continue the growth we saw in the previous quarter. Gartner estimates that worldwide PC shipments increased 0.1 percent to 67.2 million units while IDC counts a 0.9 percent decline to 67.4 million units. Gartner’s top five vendors were Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, and Acer (in that order) while IDC’s were Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, and Apple (also in that order).
Gartner: Microsoft passes Acer to become top 5 PC vendor in the U.S.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/10/gartner-microsoft-passes-acer-to-become-top-5-pc-vendor-in-the-u-s/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner Says Worldwide PC Shipments Experienced Flat Growth in the Third Quarter of 2018
CPU Shortage Could Bring New Challenges to PC Market, but Won’t Impact Demand
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2018-10-10-gartner-says-worldwide-pc-shipments-experienced-flat-growth-in-the-third-quarter-of-2018
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 67.2 million units in the third quarter of 2018, a 0.1 percent increase from the third quarter of 2017, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. The global market has shown modest stability for two consecutive quarters.
EMEA, Asia/Pacific and Japan experienced growth in the third quarter of 2018, while the U.S. and Latin America declined. Latin America showed the steepest decline of 8.5 percent after showing some stabilization earlier in 2018. However, these results are in line with Gartner’s expectations in view of CPU supply constraints for the rest of the year.
“The PC market continued to be driven by steady corporate PC demand, which was driven by Windows 10 PC hardware upgrades. We expect the Windows 10 upgrade cycle to continue through 2020 at which point the upgrade demand will diminish,”
“Although the third-quarter results did not show any material impact, the Intel CPU shortage could influence the PC market moving forward with price increases and changes to the vendor landscape. While this shortage will have some short-term impacts, Gartner does not see any lasting impact on overall PC demand. Current expectation is that the shortage will continue into 2019, but Intel will prioritize the high-end CPU as well as the CPUs for business PCs. In the meantime, AMD will pick up the part of the market where Intel cannot supply CPUs.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Pixelbook: Reviewing the Android-on-Chrome OS experience
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4461171/Google-Pixelbook–Reviewing-the-Android-on-Chrome-OS-experience?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=link&utm_medium=EDNConsumerElectronics-20181010
Tomi Engdahl says:
This nonprofit is planning to store data in DNA housed on the Moon
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/a-nonprofit-plans-to-store-human-knowledge-in-dna-and-store-it-on-the-moon
Imagine, for a second, that human life has been snuffed out like the flame of a candle. Wouldn’t it be nice if we’d archived the sum of our knowledge for whoever might come along next?
That’s the idea behind the Arch Mission Foundation, a nonprofit exploring ways to store vast amounts of information. in formats that will last for “thousands to millions” of years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Power Issues Grow For Cloud Chips
https://semiengineering.com/power-issues-grow-in-high-performance-computing/
Optimizing processor design in high-performance computing now requires lots of small changes.
“It was estimated in 2014 that 2% of the U.S. energy consumption went into powering up data centers alone,” said Ankur Gupta, director of field applications at Ansys. “Four years later, that number may be more like 5%. The economics of running these data centers is driving companies to ask why computers are consuming all this energy.”
Data centers are using simulation tools to analyze racks of servers because each device is a heat source that needs to be cooled. That typically involves what type of cooling is used and whether heat dissipation and cooling can be optimized.
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8551-intelin-vaikeudet-nakyvat-jo-pc-markkinoilla
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Next Great (Digital) Extinction
https://www.wired.com/story/ideas-joi-ito-great-digitization-event/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/digievankelistan-raju-sanoma-puolet-maailman-suurimmista-yrityksista-kaatui-alle-20-vuodessa-varo-ettei-firmallesi-kay-samoin-6743057
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tivi.fi/CIO/tasapainoa-tyon-ja-yksityiselaman-valille-nailla-keinoilla-jaksat-polkea-it-n-oravanpyoraa-6744733
How to strike a work/life balance
http://www.itpro.co.uk/careers/work-life-balance/28199/how-to-strike-a-worklife-balance
We are all encouraged to work harder, but how can you find a balance between your work and your life?
With businesses trying to do more with less resources, the work/life balance of the modern worker is becoming increasingly challenging.
Tight deadlines, international business dealings, and the ability to work from pretty much anywhere – thanks to smartphones and mobile broadband – at anytime, has resulted in people feeling like they are more ‘on the clock’ than off it when it comes to treading the line between chasing results at work and getting some downtime at home.
Some people might thrive in such a situation, but others could struggle, especially if they have an equally demanding family life. As such, those who fail to get the balance right can end up running themselves down and getting increasingly stressed, tired and even ill.
So to remain a productive worker without burning out it is ever-more important to strike a healthy work/life balance. These following tips can set you on the right path to achieving that day-to-day nirvana.
Tomi Engdahl says:
DevOps: What’s in it for managers?
https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2018/10/devops-what-s-it-managers?sc_cid=7016000000127eyAAA
DevOps and a classic command-and-control management structure do not mix. So how do you get managers on board? One key: New measures of success
DevOps, we hear, is all about empowering teams: Cross-functional teams of engineers, testers, operations, security people. They get to be augmented, more capable, and more successful. They can manage their time, work out what needs to happen, and agree on project goals.
So, what’s in it for managers? The answer is simple. If your organization works on a model where managers are incentivized to build large teams, set specific short-term targets, micro-manage their resources, and just keep accruing larger and larger budgets, then the adoption of DevOps will be an overwhelmingly negative experience for them. They will fight against it,
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.htbridge.com/blog/devops-security-devsecops-not-always.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Uptime Myth: Why Uptime Does Not Mean Availability
https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2018/10/devops-what-s-it-managers?sc_cid=7016000000127eyAAA
(System) Uptime != (Service) Availability
The uptime of the IT infrastructure – an important KPI in many companies and IT departments – was unchanged after the failure, but the availability of applications and services suffered. This fact leads me to the question: What is uptime, what is availability, and how do both differ?
Uptime is a measure of system reliability, expressed as the percentage of time a machine, typically a computer, has been working and available.
Availability is the probability that a system will work as required when required during the period of a mission.
100% Uptime Is Irrelevant Nowadays
The fabulous 100% uptime is and has been an unattainable objective. In times of high availability solutions, an application or service can still be available even during the installation of hardware updates, since the application may be moved dynamically and without interruption to another hardware system, but the physical component in turn requires a restart, which leads inevitably to a downtime (and with it < 100% uptime).
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://talented.fi/blog/why-it-recruitment-needed-a-change/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=employment-options&utm_content=options-apply-with-talented&utm_reference=why-talented
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tech stocks (and the stock market) are tanking thanks to rising interest rates
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/10/tech-stocks-and-the-stock-market-are-tanking-thanks-to-rising-interest-rates/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
Tech stocks tanked today amid a broader stock market slide as nervous investors worried that the 10-year bull run in public stocks may be coming to an end.
The S&P 500 dropped 3.3 percent while Nasdaq composite index (which is the market where many of the largest U.S. tech companies are traded) lost 4 percent of its value
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel to Support 128GB of DDR4 on Core 9th Gen Desktop Processors
by Ian Cutress on October 15, 2018 9:00 AM EST
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13473/intel-to-support-128gb-of-ddr4-on-core-9th-gen-desktop-processors#
One of today’s announcements threw up an interesting footnote worthy of further investigation. With its latest products, HP announced that their mainstream desktop platforms would be shipped with up to 32GB of memory, which was further expandable up to 128GB. Intel has confirmed to us, based on new memory entering the market, that there will be an adjustment to the memory support of the latest processors.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen dies of cancer at age 65
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/15/microsoft-co-founder-paul-allen-dies-of-cancer-at-age-65.html
Microsoft Co-Founder Paul Allen died at 65 from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The Seattle billionaire disclosed earlier this month that he was receiving treatment for the disease.
Allen ranked among the world’s wealthiest individuals. As of Monday afternoon, he ranked 44th on Forbes’ 2018 list of billionaires with an estimated net worth of more than $20 billion.
“He possessed a remarkable intellect and a passion to solve some of the world’s most difficult problems, with the conviction that creative thinking and new approaches could make profound and lasting impact,” Hilf said in a statement.
Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft with Allen, said that “personal computing would not have existed without him”
Current Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said Allen made “indispensible” contributions to Microsoft and the technology industry. Nadella also said he learned a lot from Allen and will continue to be inspired by him.
“As co-founder of Microsoft, in his own quiet and persistent way, he created magical products, experiences and institutions, and in doing so, he changed the world,” Nadella said in a statement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/satoja-miljardeja-kankkulan-kaivoon-kiina-jatkaa-kieltopolitiikkaansa-peliyhtiot-hataa-karsimassa-6745033
Kiinalaiset peliyhtiöt ennakoivat, että hallinto jatkaa uusien pelien julkaisukieltoa ensi vuoden puolelle, kertoo talouslehti Financial Times. Tämä on tuntuva isku esimerkiksi suomalaisen Supercellin ostaneelle Tencentille.
China Freezes Game Approvals Amid Agency Shakeup
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-15/china-is-said-to-freeze-game-approvals-amid-agency-shakeup
China’s regulators have frozen approval of game licenses amid a government shake-up, according to people familiar with the matter, throwing the world’s biggest gaming market into disarray.
The whole sector has been rattled as gaming companies from online giant Tencent Holdings Ltd. to small developers await approvals. Tencent, the country’s gaming and social media goliath, has shed more than $160 billion in market value since its January peak, while smaller players complain they are struggling to survive without new titles.
Tencent confirmed there has been a temporary suspension as it reported earnings Wednesday. Its profit fell for the first time in at least a decade, results it said were due in part to its inability to profit from its most popular games, including the hit PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
“At this point in time, we don’t have visibility on when exactly the official approval will start yet,”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Printer Makers Are Crippling Cheap Ink Cartridges Via Bogus ‘Security Updates’
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/18/10/15/220235/printer-makers-are-crippling-cheap-ink-cartridges-via-bogus-security-updates?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Printer maker Epson is under fire this month from activist groups after a software update prevented customers from using cheaper, third party ink cartridges. It’s just the latest salvo in a decades-long effort by printer manufacturers to block consumer choice, often by disguising printer downgrades as essential product improvements. For several decades now printer manufacturers have lured consumers into an arguably-terrible deal: shell out a modest sum for a mediocre printer, then pay an arm and a leg for replacement printer cartridges that cost relatively-little to actually produce.
Printer Makers Are Crippling Cheap Ink Cartridges Via Bogus ‘Security Updates’
Epson is just the latest company to wage covert war on consumer choice.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pa98ab/printer-makers-are-crippling-cheap-ink-cartridges-via-bogus-security-updates?utm_source=mbtwitter&utm_source=reddit.com
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Decline of Dell…What Happened?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgDjQLyFXTA
In terms of market share, Dell was once the number one PC maker in the world. Over a decade ago, they’ve lost their spot and have yet to get it back. They had some major troubles but have since made some major changes to address them. This video talks about how Dell grew to be the number one PC maker, how they lost their spot, and how they stand today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Khari Johnson / VentureBeat:
GitHub debuts Actions for devs to automate workflows and build, share, and execute code inside containers, security alerts for Java and .NET projects, and more
GitHub launches Actions to execute code in containers and security alerts for Java and .NET projects
https://venturebeat.com/2018/10/16/github-launches-actions-to-execute-code-in-containers-and-security-alerts-for-java-and-net-projects/
The GitHub code repository, which has been used by 31 million developers around the world in the past year, today announced a sweeping series of changes, including Actions, a new way for developers to automate workflows and build, share, and execute code inside containers on GitHub.
In a phone interview with VentureBeat, GitHub head of platform Sam Lambert called Actions the “biggest thing we’ve done since the pull request” and compared it to Shortcuts for automating workflows introduced for iOS 12 last month.
Actions will be made available in limited public beta for Developer, Team, and Business Cloud plans on GitHub. They’re designed to make it possible for any team to adopt the best workflows
“A lot of the major clouds have built products for sysadmins and not really for developers, and we want to hand power and flexibility back to the developer
A number of security measures were also made available today, including the Security Advisory API for access to all vulnerabilities found by GitHub for integration into your existing tools and services.
Security vulnerability alerts for Java and .NET code were introduced today to deliver automated notifications and insights into how to fix issues with your code. Proactive security alerts were first introduced last year for Ruby, JavaScript, and Python.
Also new: token scanning for public repositories. This feature allows GitHub to alert a developer or even their cloud provider if secret keys or passwords are, for example, accidentally pushed into a public channel.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jordan Novet / CNBC:
IBM reports Q3 revenue of $18.76B, down 2% YoY, vs $19.10B est., Cognitive Solutions revenues of $4.1B, down 6% YoY; stock down 4%+ after hours
IBM falls after revenue misses
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/ibm-earnings-q3-2018.html
IBM’s previous trend of declining revenue is back.
The company did notch new cloud deals in the quarter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/10/16/edgesta-tulee-ensi-vuoden-ykkostermi/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s Nadella: We want our tech to be used for good
Microsoft’s CEO also says at the Wired25 conference that antitrust law
https://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-says-wants-tech-to-be-used-for-good/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0b&linkId=58238902
Microsoft wants its tech to be used for good, not evil, the company’s CEO said.
Satya Nadella, speaking Monday at the Wired25 conference in San Francisco, noted that the tech industry has a responsibility for how its technology is used.
“We start from saying, look we want to take tech and empower the world with it,” Nadella said. “Our responsibility is to ensure that what tech we provide is being used for good.”
Big tech has been facing questions lately about who it does business with. Employees at companies like Google have protested the use of its technology — from cloud computing to artificial intelligence — by the Defense Department. Microsoft has faced fire from employees over its contract with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has separated members of families that cross US borders illegally. And other companies are facing criticism over their ties to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has been building relationships in the technology industry, particularly through its partnership with Japanese telecom giant SoftBank. But that relationship and the country’s other ties are being reexamined in light of the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Cloud computing rival Google earlier this month pulled out of bidding for a $10 billion Pentagon contract after employee protests.
“If big tech companies are going to turn their backs on the Department of Defense, we are in big trouble,” Bezos said. “This is a great country, and it does need to be defended.”
Nadella, Microsoft’s third CEO since it was founded 43 years ago, has been working to change the company’s image, both among employees and everyone else.
At Microsoft, he’s attempted to change the company’s historically sharp-elbowed culture to a more collaborative and supportive one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arm doodles server, comms CPUs in public before they leak out in open-source code…
Data center blueprints get Neoverse brand, roadmap
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/16/arm_neoverse_infrastructure/
chip designer Arm has lightly sketched out in public its future processor designs that are aimed at powering internet servers and infrastructure.
Think CPU cores, chip interconnects, memory subsystems, and so on, for semiconductor manufacturers to use in silicon brains for data center systems, edge devices, and networking and telecommunications gear. Arm really wants to nuzzle its way into server and telecoms racks, tiptoeing past Intel Xeons and AMD Epycs, and so here’s the intellectual property it hopes will do the trick.
Right now, Arm has its 16nm Cosmos platform, which includes the Cortex-A72 and A75 CPU cores. We’re told infrastructure hardware using this platform is being used in production right now.
Come 2019, and Arm hopes to launch the 7nm Ares platform, then the 7nm+ Zeus platform in 2020, and the 5nm Poseidon platform in 2021. These are all designs by Arm that will be licensed to chipmakers for powering backend infrastructure servers and related hardware. A roadmap out to 2021 is important: Arm wants to demonstrate to its customers and its customers’ customers that it has a long bench of blueprints they can rely on.
Tomi Engdahl says:
LG and Lenovo reportedly working on secret tablet with a 13-inch foldable display
https://www.androidauthority.com/lg-lenovo-foldable-tablet-914627/
LG Display is reportedly working on a 13-inch foldable display for use in a Lenovo tablet.
The company is thought to be aiming to supply the panel to Lenovo in the second half of next year.
While we have heard plenty about foldable phones, this is the first we have heard about a foldable tablet.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The uproar over Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance could mark the end of an era in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley hoped the Khashoggi story would go away; instead, it may end an era
https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/17/silicon-valley-hoped-the-khashoggi-story-would-go-away-instead-it-may-end-an-era/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
It’s amazing how quickly things can change. Exactly a week ago, we wondered if Saudi Arabia’s money might finally become radioactive in light of the disappearance of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yet the Khashoggi story has not faded away. In stark contrast, it just became so graphic that to ignore it is no longer an option.
SoftBank — the Japanese conglomerate that has been shoveling billions of Saudi dollars into tech and other companies — seems to be having second thoughts.
it may well be that a journalist who many in Silicon Valley had never heard of until two weeks ago causes its long economic boom to bust.
It may sound far-fetched; it isn’t. A huge percentage of the money flowing into Silicon Valley in recent years has come from the kingdom. That’s been just fine with founders and investors
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s GitHub: ‘Kotlin for Android now fastest-growing programming language’
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsofts-github-kotlin-for-android-now-fastest-growing-programming-language/
The number of developers hosting projects built with Google-backed Kotlin is surging.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 10 BSOD problems: Microsoft offers up driver fix for HP crashes
https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-bsod-problems-microsoft-offers-up-driver-fix-for-hp-crashes/
Blue screen of death crashes fixed by removing HP keyboard driver with known compatibility issues.
Microsoft has released a fix for an HP driver that was causing blue screen of death (BSOD) on some HP machines running Windows 10 versions 1803 and 1809.
Microsoft said it pulled the buggy software, an HP keyboard driver, from Windows Update on October 11 to contain the problem.
As ZDNet reported at the time, several HP users were reporting machines displaying the error message WDF_VIOLATION after installing Microsoft’s October Patch Tuesday update.
According to Microsoft, the HP keyboard driver version 11.0.3.1 has a “known incompatibility with certain HP devices” running the two latest releases of Windows 10.
A day after pulling the faulty HP driver from Windows Update, Microsoft released the update KB 4468304, which removes the incompatible driver from HP devices that are waiting to restart. Microsoft warns users with devices in this state not to restart their machines.
This update will be automatically downloaded through Windows Update, but users can install the update manually from the Microsoft Update Catalog.
“If Windows Update has installed the HP keyboard driver version 11.0.3.1, and you are pending a restart, do not restart your device,” Microsoft warns in a support document.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 10 users: Chrome 70 means you don’t need Edge, Microsoft Store to run PWAs
https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-users-chrome-70-means-you-dont-need-edge-microsoft-store-to-run-pwas/
Chrome 70 opens up progressive web apps to Windows 10 users who don’t want to use Edge or Microsoft Store.
Google’s Chrome 70 was released on Tuesday and with it comes support for desktop progressive web apps (PWAs) on Windows 10 that look and behave like normal desktop apps.
Websites like Twitter and Spotify that support PWAs can now launch on Windows 10 without the usual address bar, tabs, and navigation buttons, offering a more native app experience.
Chrome has supported desktop PWAs since Chrome 67 on Chrome OS, but Chrome 70′s support for Windows 10 significantly expands the potential use of PWAs given that Chrome is far more widely used on Windows than Microsoft Edge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Software developers today, by the numbers: 4 takeaways
https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2018/10/software-developers-today-numbers-4-takeaways?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
What makes IT stars tick? New data shows what developers want to learn – and shape – in today’s enterprise
Tomi Engdahl says:
Keep Your Healthcare IT Healthy with PRTG (Part 1): DICOM and HL7 Sensors
https://blog.paessler.com/keep-your-healthcare-it-healthy-with-prtg-dicom-and-hl7-sensors?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Burda-Blog-Global&utm_content=healthcaremonitordicom&hsa_src=fb&hsa_ver=3&hsa_ad=23843161473940129&hsa_cam=23843161473900129&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_acc=2004489912909367&hsa_grp=23843161473950129
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tim Berners-Lee building a decentralized internet, Mojang opening Minecraft game code, and more news
https://opensource.com/article/18/10/news-october-13?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Catch up on the biggest open source headlines from the past two weeks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Technical Cheat Sheets for Developers
https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2017/05/23/technical-cheat-sheets-for-developers/?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Playing Video Games Affects Your Body And Brain
https://www.iflscience.com/technology/how-playing-video-games-affects-your-body-and-brain/
Tomi Engdahl says:
2020-luvulla sinullakin on digitaalinen kaksonen
https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2018/10/05/2020-luvulla-sinullakin-on-digitaalinen-kaksonen
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robotic process automation
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotic_process_automation
Robotic process automation (or RPA) is an emerging form of business process automation technology based on the notion of software robots or artificial intelligence (AI) workers.[1]
Tomi Engdahl says:
How OpenStack Barbican deployment options secure your cloud
https://opensource.com/article/18/10/are-your-secrets-secure?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Are your secrets secure? Choose the right OpenStack Barbican deployment option to protect the privacy and integrity of your cloud.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Introducing Magic — Decentralized Internet Service from the Future
https://medium.com/helloitsmagic/introducing-magic-decentralized-internet-service-from-the-future-80250cd037fa
Tomi Engdahl says:
Talk over text: Conversational interface design and usability
https://opensource.com/article/18/10/conversational-interface-design-and-usability?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
To make conversational interfaces more human-centered, we must free our thinking from the trappings of web and mobile design.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stop hiring for culture fit: 4 ways to get the talent you want
https://opensource.com/open-organization/18/10/reconsider-culture-fit?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
If you’re looking for talented people you can turn into cultural doppelgängers—rather than seeking to align productive differences toward a common goal—you’re doing it wrong.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Building Blocks Of Future Compute
How Arm sees its role in emerging segments of tomorrow’s compute challenges.
https://semiengineering.com/the-building-blocks-of-future-compute/
SE: Privacy, cybersecurity, silicon photonics, quantum computing are all hot topics today. What do you find really interesting with these emerging areas?
Hennenhoefer: Photonics, quantum computing, superconductive, the end of Moore’s Law — they’ve always been 10 years out for my whole career. Some might actually happen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apple to dump Intel CPUs from Macs for Arm – yup, the rumor that just won’t die is back
Star analyst uses 2020 vision to predict macOS move
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/10/18/apple_to_dump_intel_again/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top Ten Intel® Software Developer Stories October
https://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/2018/10/11/top-ten-intel-software-developer-stories-october?utm_source=Facebook.com&utm_medium=Social+Media&utm_campaign=AllZones_ASMO_October2018_TopTrendingContentBlog
Tomi Engdahl says:
4-phase approach for taking over large, messy IT systems
https://opensource.com/article/18/10/phase-approach-IT-systems?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Hit the ground running with these strategies and toolsets for ops teams taking over complex infrastructure.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/10/16/raportti-ohjelmistorobotiikka-tehostaa-prosesseja/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook