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:
Lucas Matney / TechCrunch:
Fortnite-maker Epic Games announces a PC and Mac game store to rival Steam’s, coming “soon”, with 88% of revenue going to developers, up from 70% on Steam — Fortnite-maker Epic Games is capping off their insanely successful 2018 with an even more ambitious product launch …
Fortnite-maker aims for Steam’s head with Epic Games Store
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/04/fortnite-maker-aims-for-steams-head-with-epic-games-store/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Zac Bowden / Windows Central:
Sources: Microsoft is building a Chromium-powered web browser that will replace Edge as the default browser on Windows 10
Microsoft is building a Chromium-powered web browser that will replace Edge on Windows 10
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-building-chromium-powered-web-browser-windows-10
Microsoft is throwing in the towel with Edge and is building a new web browser for Windows 10, this time powered by Chromium.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier Part 1: Hardware
https://www.electronicdesign.com/embedded-revolution/nvidia-jetson-agx-xavier-part-1-hardware?sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=21733&utm_medium=email&elq2=0b418d20cd3e4d0789c36fa0d08dd670
Part one of Technology Editor Bill Wong’s multipart examination of NVIDIA’s Jetson AGX Xavier platform takes a look at the hardware—how does it stack up against the TX2 in terms of performance and efficiency?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows Lite Is Microsoft’s Answer to Google Chrome OS
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-lite-is-microsoft-s-answer-to-google-chrome-os/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Valve Lets Raspberry Pi Take Over Where the Steam Link Left Off
https://blog.hackster.io/valve-lets-raspberry-pi-takes-over-where-the-steam-link-left-off-884d3d773cae
But, due to poor sales, Valve has discontinued the Steam Link. Luckily, the Raspberry Pi is taking on the mantle with a Valve-developed Steam Link app.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/0/1743353164093954254/
Steam Link now in BETA on Raspberry Pi
The Steam Link app is now available in beta on the Raspberry Pi 3 and 3 B+ running Raspbian Stretch
Tomi Engdahl says:
Should Software Developers Be Generalists or Specialists?
https://simpleprogrammer.com/generalists-specialists/?utm_content=bufferc8f2e&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
The age-old debate of whether or not you should become a specialist or a generalist.
Should you become a “jack-of-all-trades” and a “full-stack developer,” or should you specialize in one or two areas of software development and “go deep?”
Well, it turns out this is sort of a false dichotomy.
The real answer is both.
Let’s find out why.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm expands its PC bet with its new 7nm 8cx platform
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/06/qualcomm-expands-its-pc-bet-with-its-new-7nm-8cx-platform/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
Qualcomm wants to become a major player in the PC/laptop market. Now that there is Windows 10 on ARM, that’s more than a pipe dream, but in its earliest iterations, those Qualcomm-based Windows 10 laptops used the Snapdragon 850 system on a chip that was specifically designed for PCs but still very much a direct descendant of its smartphone platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IBM selling Lotus Notes/Domino business to HCL for $1.8B
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/07/ibm-selling-lotus-notes-domino-business-to-hcl-for-1-8b/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
IBM announced last night that it is selling the final components from its 1995 acquisition of Lotus to Indian firm HCL for $1.8 billion.
IBM paid $3.5 billion for Lotus back in the day. The big pieces here are Lotus Notes, Domino and Portal. These were a big part of IBM’s enterprise business for a long time, but last year Big Blue began to pull away, selling the development part to HCL
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm lays off 269 employees in North Carolina and California
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/07/qualcomm-lays-off-269-employees-in-north-carolina-and-california/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Qualcomm’s struggling data center business was hit another massive blow as the company laid off hundreds. The news, first revealed by the Information, has since been confirmed by TechCrunch.
The chipmaker laid off 269 employees in all
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/qualcomm-lays-off-269-employees-in-data-center-business
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chinese stocks plummet as Huawei CFO arrest raises trade fears
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/05/stocks-plummet-as-huawei-arrest-sparks-trade-fears/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Edge goes Chromium (and macOS)
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/06/microsoft-edge-goes-chromium-and-macos/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
ETL – EXTRACT TRANSFORM LOAD.
https://www.adverity.com/etl-data-integration-analytics-quality/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign=pillar_etl&hsa_acc=100437940101357&hsa_src=fb&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_cam=6102642782952&hsa_ver=3&hsa_grp=6102642784152&hsa_ad=6103204057152
LEARN EVERYTHING ABOUT THE MOST IMPORTANT TECHNICAL ACRONYMS FOR MODERN DATA-DRIVEN MARKETERS
Tomi Engdahl says:
Blueprint for a team with a DevOps mindset
https://opensource.com/article/18/12/blueprint-team-devops-mindset?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Culture is the greatest challenge when embarking on a DevOps transformation.
It should come as no surprise that the culture of an organization and its engineering teams is the greatest challenge when embarking on a DevOps mindset transformation. The organization needs to influence through leadership and autonomy, promoting a culture of learning and experimentation, where failure is an opportunity to innovate, not persecute.
Tomi Engdahl says:
IT Monitoring with an Open Source or a Commercial Solution? It’s More Than a Question of Money.
https://blog.paessler.com/it-monitoring-with-open-source-or-a-professional-solution?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Burda-Blog-Global&utm_content=opensourcereallyfree&hsa_cam=23843265053580129&hsa_src=fb&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_ver=3&hsa_ad=23843265059440129&hsa_acc=2004489912909367&hsa_grp=23843265053570129
Hardly any company can do without comprehensive IT monitoring. But when choosing the right solution, the question often arises whether an IT administrator should work with freeware or an open source option, or whether a commercial solution should be bought. Just to be clear: No IT company and almost no IT product can do completely without open source.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why does Windows require a restart after installing updates? If I understand correctly, this could be avoided if the Windows development team made clever use of their own “shadow copy” technologies.
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-Windows-require-a-restart-after-installing-updates-If-I-understand-correctly-this-could-be-avoided-if-the-Windows-development-team-made-clever-use-of-their-own-shadow-copy-technologies
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nyt se tapahtui: kännykkäpiirin teho Intelin prosessorin ohi
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8821-nyt-se-tapahtui-kannykkapiirin-teho-intelin-prosessorin-ohi
Qualcomm on esitellyt uuden Snapdragon-arkkitehtuuriin perustuvan prosessorin, joka lupaa Intelin suorittimia paremmat tehot kannettaviin tietokoneisiin. Snapdragon 8cx on samalla maailman ensimmäinen 7 nanometrin prosessissa valmistettu PC-suoritinalusta.
Kannattaa kuitenkin laittaa jäitä hattuun: Intelin asema läppäreissä on erittäin vahva ja Qualcommilla on iso mäki noustavanaan, jos se haluaa tosissaan haastaa Intelin PC-puolella.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taking aim at Intel, Qualcomm launches chip for business PCs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-qualcomm-intel/taking-aim-at-intel-qualcomm-launches-chip-for-business-pcs-idUSKBN1O52EF
Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O), the biggest supplier of chips for mobile phones, on Thursday pushed further into the PC market with a line of chips designed to power business machines.
Qualcomm’s “Snapdragon” processor chips historically have been at the heart of mobile phones like Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google Pixel phone and many Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) devices.
But the chips Qualcomm used in those early PCs were essentially modified versions of the chips it sold for mobile phones. At an event in Hawaii on Thursday, Qualcomm officials said they have created a new series of chips called the Snapdragon 8cx that will be dedicated to PCs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
FPGA Graduates To First-Tier Status
https://semiengineering.com/fpga-graduates-to-first-tier-status/
Achronix’s CEO looks at the value of customized acceleration, and why FPGAs are better for certain types of computation than CPUs or GPUs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Matthew Hughes / The Next Web:
Survey of 900 IT companies in US and Europe finds that Microsoft Teams’ marketshare grew from 3% in 2016 to 21% in 2018, while Slack grew just 2% to 15% in 2018 — A report from Spiceworks shows that adoption of Microsoft Teams – the Slack rival from Redmond – is growing rapidly and is set …
Microsoft Teams is growing ridiculously fast
https://thenextweb.com/apps/2018/12/10/microsoft-teams-is-growing-ridiculously-fast/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm Redoubles Effort to Enter PC Market With New Chip
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-06/qualcomm-redoubles-effort-to-enter-pc-market-with-new-chip
Qualcomm Inc. announced a more powerful chip that the company hopes will help it break Intel Corp.’s stranglehold on the market for personal computer processors.
The Snapdragon 8cx series is Qualcomm’s first chip specifically designed for computers.
Qualcomm’s pitch is that laptops using its chips will go days without needing to be plugged in, and will always be connected to the internet via cellular networks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon’s Homegrown Chips Threaten Silicon Valley Giant Intel
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/10/technology/amazon-server-chip-intel.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&fbclid=IwAR2dTPxFUuRVuI2Fm0urZMYyNhZ_TIs7vDU6cDwHzxz3GEfuBKjOSoR6Xgo
Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer and largest cloud-computing company, is pushing into a new line of work: computer chips.
Late last month, the company, based in Seattle, revealed that it had spent the last few years building a new chip for use inside the millions of servers in its data centers around the world.
Amazon does not plan to sell this chip directly to customers
Intel has struggled to keep up with recent technology trends, from the increasing use of mobile devices to artificial intelligence, as influence over chip designs has been shifting to Amazon, Apple and Google, which already dominate much of the rest of the tech industry.
Intel acknowledges that companies like Amazon want to reduce their dependency on one big chip supplier.
About 35 percent of the server chips sold around the world go to about 10 companies, including large internet companies like Amazon and a handful of telecommunication firms
“The belief was that you needed some magic to build a processor, particularly a server processor,”
Amazon executives believe the chip, which was designed to be more energy efficient, will help reduce the cost of electrical power in its data centers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows Server 2019 Includes OpenSSH
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/12/11/windows-server-2019-includes-openssh/
The OpenSSH client and server are now available as a supported Feature-on-Demand in Windows Server 2019 and Windows 10 1809! The Win32 port of OpenSSH was first included in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update and Windows Server 1709 as a pre-release feature. In the Windows 10 1803 release, OpenSSH was released as a supported feature on-demand component, but there was not a supported release on Windows Server until now.
What is the state of OpenSSH and PowerShell?
PowerShell Remoting over SSH is supported with PowerShell Core.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/core-powershell/ssh-remoting-in-powershell-core?view=powershell-6
Tomi Engdahl says:
Azul Systems Collaborates with Microsoft to Bring Free Java Production Support on Microsoft Azure and Azure Stack
https://www.azul.com/press_release/free-java-production-support-for-microsoft-azure-azure-stack/
Java developers on Microsoft Azure and Azure Stack can build and run production Java applications using Azul Systems Zulu Enterprise builds of OpenJDK without incurring additional support costs
Release highlights:
Azul Systems is making fully compatible and compliant commercial builds of Java SE available for Java developers on Microsoft Azure via a new strategic collaboration with Microsoft
Azul Systems will provide fully-supported Zulu Enterprise builds of OpenJDK for Azure for all long-term support (LTS) versions of Java, starting with Java SE 7, 8, and 11
New Java offering is designed to make Azure-based Java deployments worry-free by incorporating quarterly security updates and bug fixes
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Azul Systems, the award-winning leader in Java runtime solutions, today announced a new collaboration with Microsoft.
Announcement Background
The Java SE landscape is undergoing a change in release cadence and support availability. In September 2017, Oracle announced the end of free public security updates and platform bug fixes for Java SE 8 and Java SE 11, effective January 2019. This announcement was in addition to the introduction of a six-month cadence of future Java releases, and the designation of long term support (LTS) versions of Java SE to be released every three years.
Azul’s Zulu Enterprise builds of OpenJDK are compatible and compliant builds of OpenJDK that have been extensively tested and certified by Azul Systems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ron Miller / TechCrunch:
Dell votes to buy back VMware tracking stock and go public again, to trade on NYSE beginning December 28 under the symbol DELL
Dell votes to buy back VMware tracking stock and go public again
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/11/dell-votes-to-buy-back-vmware-tracking-stock-and-will-likely-go-public/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Louis Rossmann builds PCs worse than the Verge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZwa43sHUXY
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Verge: How NOT to Build a Computer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jciJ39djxC4
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tech that died in 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGZ4KmSMbuk
We bid farewell to all the tech products that failed, folded and fizzled out of existence this year. (And brace ourselves for tech that is doomed in 2019.)
Tomi Engdahl says:
VRgineers looks to set a new gold standard with their $5,800 VR headset
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/11/vrgineers-looks-to-set-a-new-gold-standard-with-their-5800-vr-headset/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Thought VR was too expensive and too bulky? Well, VRgineers is here with a giant $5,800 headset to prove that you lack perspective.
The headset sports a 180-degree field-of-view, dual 2560 x 1440 OLED displays and a form factor that’s massive
The headset has integrated Leap Motion hand-tracking, is compatible with a variety of tracking systems and leans heavily on voice controls.
What VRgineers has built is quite obviously professional-focused
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s The Key to Providing Mainframe Access for Web and Mobile?
https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/03/12/whats-the-key-to-providing-mainframe-access-for-web-and-mobile-initiatives
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mainframes working with you: Online transaction processing (OLTP)
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/zosbasics/com.ibm.zos.zmainframe/zconc_onlinetrans.htm
Tomi Engdahl says:
Huawei, Google and the tiring politics of tech
Plus Oath price drop and the impossibility of Western infrastructure
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/11/huawei-google-and-the-tiring-politics-of-tech/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
Tomi Engdahl says:
6 steps to optimize software delivery with value stream mapping
https://opensource.com/article/18/12/optimizing-delivery-value-stream-mapping?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Learn how VSM can help you streamline processes, boost efficiency, and better meet customer expectations.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NVIDIA has reached the highest highs and the lowest lows, all in the span of a couple of weeks
After losing half its value, Nvidia faces reckoning
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/12/nvidia-perfect-storm/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
Over the past two months, Nvidia’s stock has dropped from a closing price of $289.36 on October 1 to today’s opening of $148.42, a decline of 48.8 percent.
It takes a lot for a company to lose nearly half its value in such a short period of time, but Nvidia is proving that an otherwise strong technology business can disappear in the blink of an eye. The company faces an almost perfect barrage of headwinds to its core products that is stalling its plans for long-term chip domination.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Announces Faster Processor Patched for Meltdown and Spectre
https://hackaday.com/2018/12/12/intel-announces-faster-processor-patched-for-meltdown-and-spectre/
Intel just announced their new Sunny Cove Architecture that comes with a lot of new bells and whistles. The Intel processor line-up has been based off the Skylake architecture since 2015, so the new architecture is a fresh breath for the world’s largest chip maker. They’ve been in the limelight this year with hardware vulnerabilities exposed, known as Spectre and Meltdown. The new designs have of course been patched against those weaknesses.
Fact Sheet: New Intel Architectures and Technologies Target Expanded Market Opportunities
https://newsroom.intel.com/articles/new-intel-architectures-technologies-target-expanded-market-opportunities/
Intel Demonstrates 10nm-based PCs, Data Center and Networking Systems, Next-Gen ‘Sunny Cove’ Architecture with AI and Crypto Acceleration, and Industry’s First 3D Logic Chip Packaging Technology
Tomi Engdahl says:
Apache Spark – Computerphile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDVPcqGpEnM
Analysing big data stored on a cluster is not easy. Spark allows you to do so much more than just MapReduce. Rebecca Tickle takes us through some code.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Richard Lai / Engadget:
ASUS says CEO Jerry Shen is stepping down, to be replaced by two co-CEOs from January 1, and it will shift mobile strategy to focus on gamers and power users — Earlier today, ASUS announced that long-time CEO Jerry Shen is stepping down ahead of “a comprehensive corporate transformation” …
ASUS CEO resigns as company shifts mobile focus to power users
Jerry Shen will be replaced by two co-CEOs as of January 1st.
https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/13/asus-ceo-resigns-mobile-strategy-gaming-power-users/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Laskentatehon kasvu vaatii moniprosessoriarkkitehtuuria
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2018/12/13/laskentatehon-kasvu-vaatii-moniprosessoriarkkitehtuuria/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Announces Faster Processor Patched for Meltdown and Spectre
https://hackaday.com/2018/12/12/intel-announces-faster-processor-patched-for-meltdown-and-spectre/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fact Sheet: New Intel Architectures and Technologies Target Expanded Market Opportunities
https://newsroom.intel.com/articles/new-intel-architectures-technologies-target-expanded-market-opportunities/
Intel Demonstrates 10nm-based PCs, Data Center and Networking Systems, Next-Gen ‘Sunny Cove’ Architecture with AI and Crypto Acceleration, and Industry’s First 3D Logic Chip Packaging Technology
Tomi Engdahl says:
Making Sense Of DRAM
What kind of memory is used where and why.
https://semiengineering.com/making-sense-of-dram/
Graham Allan, senior manager for product marketing at Synopsys, examines the different types of DRAM, from GDDR to HBM, which markets they’re used in, and why there is such disparity between them.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Are Silicon Valley’s Highest-Paying Tech Jobs?
https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/where-are-silicon-valleys-highest-paying-tech-jobs
Tomi Engdahl says:
Annie Pei / CNBC:
Intel extends partnership with esports company ESL in $100M deal to provide tech, including high-powered CPUs and 5G, for esports events worldwide through 2021
Intel and ESL sign 3-year, $100 million deal, adding heft to booming esports market
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/13/intel-signs-100-million-dollar-deal-with-esports-company-esl.html
Intel and esports company ESL have extended a long-standing partnership, signing a three-year, $100 million deal designed to boost the profile of electronic sports worldwide.
Intel will provide the technology — including high-powered computer processors and 5G — for some of the best-known esports events through 2021.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Klint Finley / Wired:
Data shows GraphQL, a Facebook-developed open source data query language, has seen a sharp rise in adoption among JavaScript developers over the past two years
How Facebook Made a Universal Open Source Language for the Web
https://www.wired.com/story/how-facebook-made-universal-open-source-language-web/
The code that runs the web is a melting pot of programming languages and technologies. JavaScript, the most popular language on the web, is the standard for writing code that runs in your browser. But the server side is much more diverse. Java (no relationship to JavaScript) remains popular, as do PHP, Python, and Ruby. Mobile app developers, meanwhile, have their own preferred languages, like Kotlin for writing Android apps or Apple’s Swift for iOS.
application developers increasingly outsource parts of their software to cloud services that handle tasks such as sending text messages; the companies offering those services need to make them compatible with multiple programming languages.
Historically, that lingua franca has been something called REST, short for “representational state transfer,”
But a more flexible alternative called Graph Query Language, developed by Facebook, is spreading fast and has won over companies ranging from GitHub to Audi.
GraphQL is heavily inspired by another language called Facebook Query Language
Adam Neary, a tech lead at Airbnb, says the company chose to use GraphQL because of the limitations of REST.
Last month Facebook announced that it would establish an independent organization under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation to own and manage GraphQL.
Introduction to GraphQL
https://graphql.org/learn/
GraphQL is a query language for your API, and a server-side runtime for executing queries by using a type system you define for your data. GraphQL isn’t tied to any specific database or storage engine and is instead backed by your existing code and data.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
PlanetScale, a database-as-a-service startup based on tech that helped scale YouTube, exits stealth, has raised $3M seed from prominent tech executives in April
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/13/planetscale/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Virtual reality gaming and the pursuit of “flow state”
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/16/in-raverunner-nothing-stops-the-vr-flow/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
You need to stop procrastinating. Maybe it’s time for some…
Bulletproof Coffee, Modafinil, nootropics, microdoses of acid, caffeine from coffee, caffeine from bracelets, aromatherapy, noise-canceling headphones, meditation, custom co-working spaces, or productivity apps?
Whatever your choice, workers today (especially in the tech industry) will do just about anything to be more productive.
In 2014, a Gallup Poll found that the average American worker only spends a depressing 5% of their day in flow. A 2016 Atlantic article hypothesized that the main reason that we’re decreasing in productivity as a workforce is that we’re not introducing new technologies quickly enough. Tech like robotics and smartphones could add a productivity push, but aren’t being integrated into the workplace.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Virtual reality implementation: observations and predictions
https://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/brians-brain/4461367/Virtual-reality-implementation–observations-and-predictions?utm_source=Aspencore&utm_medium=EDN&utm_campaign=social
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Essential Apps That Make Your Sysadmin Life Easier
https://blog.paessler.com/applications-that-make-your-sysadmin-life-easier?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Burda-Blog-Global&utm_content=10essentialapps&hsa_grp=23843282445890129&hsa_ad=23843282473100129&hsa_acc=2004489912909367&hsa_ver=3&hsa_src=fb&hsa_cam=23843282445830129&hsa_net=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
The woman who invented the word processor and online flight booking system has died
https://qz.com/work/1494071/the-woman-who-invented-the-word-processor-and-online-flight-booking-system-has-died/?utm_source=parAO
It’s hard to overstate how deeply Evelyn Berezin’s legacy is rooted in daily life. Every time you type a document or make airline reservations or a bank transaction online, you are using technology pioneered by Berezin, who died Dec. 8 at the age of 93. She may be one of the most important figures in tech history that you’ve never heard of.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://blog.getbootstrap.com/2018/12/13/bootstrap-3-4-0/
That’s not a typo—today we’re shipping Bootstrap 3.4.0, a long overdue update to address some quality of life issues, XSS fixes, and build tooling updates to make it easier for us, and you, to develop.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Siobhan Roberts / New York Times:
Profile of Stanford computer scientist Donald Knuth, author of The Art of Computer Programming, a Bible of its field with more than one million copies in print — Donald Knuth, master of algorithms, reflects on 50 years of his opus-in-progress, “The Art of Computer Programming.”
The Yoda of Silicon Valley
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/science/donald-knuth-computers-algorithms-programming.html
Donald Knuth, master of algorithms, reflects on 50 years of his opus-in-progress, “The Art of Computer Programming.”
With more than one million copies in print, “The Art of Computer Programming” is the Bible of its field. “Like an actual bible, it is long and comprehensive; no other book is as comprehensive,” said Peter Norvig, a director of research at Google. After 652 pages, volume one closes with a blurb on the back cover from Bill Gates: “You should definitely send me a résumé if you can read the whole thing.”
When Dr. Knuth started out, he intended to write a single work. Soon after, computer science underwent its Big Bang, so he reimagined and recast the project in seven volumes. Now he metes out sub-volumes, called fascicles. The next installation, “Volume 4, Fascicle 5,” covering, among other things, “backtracking” and “dancing links,” was meant to be published in time for Christmas.