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:
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
North, a NY-based company that makes $999 Focals AR glasses, acquires the IP and tech behind Intel’s cancelled Vaunt AR glasses — The Focals AR glasses should ship ‘very shortly’ — North, the company behind the Focals AR glasses, has acquired the “technology portfolio” …
North has acquired the patents and tech behind Intel’s Vaunt AR glasses
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/17/18144221/north-focals-intel-vaunt-patents-ar-glasses
The Focals AR glasses should ship ‘very shortly’
North, the company behind the Focals AR glasses, has acquired the “technology portfolio” behind another set of AR glasses, the cancelled Intel Vaunt glasses. The company wouldn’t disclose the terms of the deal, but Intel Capital is a major investor in North and led its last financing round in 2016.
Tomi Engdahl says:
10 Best Places in the World for Tech Workers to Live
https://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/10-best-places-in-the-world-for-tech-workers-to-live/d/d-id/1333153
This ranking considers factors like mobile and broadband speed, quality of life and property affordability, as well as tech salaries, and you’ll probably be surprised by which city was number one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
5 Observations From Intel’s Event
Mysterious locations, codenames and process delays are on the top of the list.
https://semiengineering.com/5-observations-from-intels-event/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
Google repeatedly pushes the web in a proprietary direction to improve its services on Chrome, making Microsoft’s adoption of Chromium a loss for the open web
Google isn’t the company that we should have handed the Web over to
Analysis: Microsoft adopting Chromium puts the Web in a perilous place.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/the-web-now-belongs-to-google-and-that-should-worry-us-all/
With Microsoft’s decision to end development of its own Web rendering engine and switch to Chromium, control over the Web has functionally been ceded to Google. That’s a worrying turn of events, given the company’s past behavior.
Chrome itself has about 72 percent of the desktop-browser market share. Edge has about 4 percent. Opera, based on Chromium, has another 2 percent. The abandoned, no-longer-updated Internet Explorer has 5 percent, and Safari—only available on macOS—about 5 percent. When Microsoft’s transition is complete, we’re looking at a world where Chrome and Chrome-derivatives take about 80 percent of the market, with only Firefox, at 9 percent, actively maintained and available cross-platform.
In terms of raw percentages, Google won’t have quite as big a lock on the browser space as Microsoft did with Internet Explorer—Internet Explorer 6 peaked at around 80 percent, and all versions of Internet Explorer together may have reached as high as 95 percent. But Google’s reach is, in practice, much greater: not only is the Web a substantially more important place today than it was in the early 2000s, but also there’s a whole new mobile Web that operates in addition to the desktop Web.
Embrace and extend, Mountain View style
Google is already a company that exercises considerable influence over the direction of the Web’s development. By owning both the most popular browser, Chrome, and some of the most-visited sites on the Web (in particular the namesake search engine, YouTube, and Gmail), Google has on a number of occasions used its might to deploy proprietary tech and put the rest of the industry in the position of having to catch up.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ian Hamilton / UploadVR:
Facebook open sources its DeepFocus VR research, which aims to create ultra-realistic visuals for eye-tracking headsets
Facebook Open Sources ‘DeepFocus’ VR Research
https://uploadvr.com/facebook-open-sources-deepfocus-vr-research/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Corrie Driebusch / Wall Street Journal:
Dealogic data: 38 tech and internet companies valued at $1B+ had an IPO in 2018, the most since 2000
Tech Unicorns Are Going Public at Near-Record Pace
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-unicorns-are-going-public-at-near-record-pace-11545138000?mod=itp_wsj&ru=yahoo
In 2018, 38 companies valued at $1 billion or more at the time of their IPO listed shares in the U.S.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.tivi.fi/Kaikki_uutiset/keksinto-tamakin-paperien-skannaaminen-hoituu-langattomalla-hiirella-6753126
https://bgr.com/2018/12/14/mouse-with-document-scanner-built-in/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Introducing Project Mu
https://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2018/12/19/%e2%80%afintroducing-project-mu/
The Microsoft Devices Team is excited to announce Project Mu, the open-source release of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) core leveraged by Microsoft products including both Surface and the latest releases of Hyper-V. UEFI is system software that initializes hardware during the boot process and provides services for the operating system to load. Project Mu contributes numerous UEFI features targeted at modern Windows based PCs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Accused Of Sabotaging Microsoft’s Edge Browser By Ex-Engineer
https://fossbytes.com/google-accused-of-sabotaging-microsofts-edge-browser-by-ex-engineer/?fbclid=IwAR1fyqKErNzsf3FWlNJuByUXVSGuY73Gouvx_RspjT8r6aQa-0SA0pX6GGY
Recently Microsoft announced it is abandoning the development of EdgeHTML-based web rendering engine and switching to Google’s Chromium-based browser.
Now an ex-Edge developer named Joshua Bakita has revealed that Microsoft had to ditch EdgeHTML rendering engine because of the regular changes continuously pushed by Google on its sites.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft officially announces ‘Windows Sandbox’ for running applications in isolation
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-officially-announces-windows-sandbox-for-running-applications-in-isolation/
Microsoft’s coming ‘Windows Sandbox’ feature is a lightweight virtual machine that allow users to run potentially suspicious software in isolation. It could debut in Windows 10 19H1.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nearly 40 Percent of Tech Workers Believe They’re Depressed
https://uk.pcmag.com/news/118768/nearly-40-percent-of-tech-workers-believe-theyre-depressed
BY ANGELA MOSCARITOLO 11 DEC 2018, 10 A.M.
Some 38.78 percent of the 10,081 tech workers recently surveyed by the anonymous business social network Blind said they believe they believe they are depressed. Amazon had the highest rate of employee depression, followed by Microsoft and Intel.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Over 65 percent of new developers are self-taught. I’m surprised it’s not 100 percent
https://thenextweb.com/dd/2018/12/11/over-65-percent-of-new-developers-are-self-taught-im-surprised-its-not-100-percent/
HackerRank today published the 2018 edition of its Student Developer Report. The survey, which looks at educational and language trends across over 10,000 students, has some interesting findings, the most fascinating of which is that over 65 percent of students are self-taught.
27.39 percent said they learned to code via self-directed learning. A further 37.70 percent said they learned via a combination of school and individual study. Only 31.90 percent said they only learned to code at school.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Creating an interactive geoplotting demo – experiences with GeoPandas and Plotly
https://www.reaktor.com/blog/creating-an-interactive-geoplotting-demo-experiences-with-geopandas-and-plotly/?utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=Julkaisu%3A+““Let’s+say+you’re+moving+from+one+area+in+Finland…”&utm_source=facebook&hsa_acc=273790800&hsa_ver=3&hsa_net=facebook&hsa_cam=6111539242874&hsa_grp=6111539244074&hsa_ad=6111539244474&hsa_src=fb
Are you planning on doing a quick prototype or demo in Python that utilizes geospatial plots, and want to use a library to do the heavy lifting? There are loads of different libraries to choose from, and it can be hard to know which one’s right for you.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Stock markets suffer their worst Christmas Eve trading day
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/24/twas-the-trading-day-before-christmas/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
Twas the last trading day before Christmas, and on the trading floor,
Most stocks were falling, and then falling some more,
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin all the banks had called,
In hopes that full coffers were still in their vaults.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Here comes the downturn
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/23/here-comes-the-downturn/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
It’s remarkable how fast the tenor of the times has changed. Only a few months ago we were in a boom that seemed like it might never end. Now the yield curve has inverted; the markets have gone bear; and Google Trends has the word “recession” at its highest level since 2009. There seems to be near-universal consensus that a major, worldwide economic downturn is coming.
You can make a pretty good case that technology, as an industry, will actually see a net benefit from any downturn. Note how tech essentially ignored the Great Recession of 2008 and kept on thriving
The theory goes: every industry is becoming a technology industry, and downturns only accelerate the process, because software is eating the world, and recessions bring fresh carrion we don’t even have to hunt. It’s plausible. It’s uncomfortable, given how much real human suffering and dismay is implicit in the economic disruption from which we often benefit. And on the macro scale, in the long run, it’s even probably true. Every downturn is a meteor that hits the dinosaurs hardest, while we software-powered mammals escape the brunt.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Silicon Valley’s year of reckoning
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/24/silicon-valleys-reckoning/
Mission statements like ‘connecting the world’ and ‘don’t be evil’ didn’t hold water in 2018
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.mongodb.com/evolved?_bf=6102912965742&utm_medium=PS&utm_source=Facebook&utm_campaign=Atlas_ACIDTransactions_1433&utm_content=Interest&jmp=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
Electronics-recycling innovator is going to prison for trying to extend computers’ lives
https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-microsoft-copyright-20180426-story.html
A Southern California man who built a sizable business out of recycling electronic waste is headed to federal prison for 15 months after a federal appeals court in Miami rejected his claim that the “restore discs” he made to extend computers’ lives had no financial value, instead ruling that he had infringed on Microsoft Corp. to the tune of $700,000.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The most popular articles on agile in 2018
https://opensource.com/article/18/12/best-of-agile?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
2018 featured some fantastic content for agile aficionados, see the top ones and a few you may have missed.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mara Hvistendahl / MIT Technology Review:
Chinese tech companies have thrived thanks to government incentives that allowed them to grow, but government ties can also prove problematic as they go global
China’s tech giants want to go global. Just one thing might stand in their way.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612598/chinas-tech-giants-want-to-go-global-just-one-thing-might-stand-in-their-way/
Multibillion-dollar companies like Alibaba and Tencent have thrived thanks to a government that provided incentives but otherwise let them grow. Can they count on that in the future?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Banana Pi To Launch A 24-Core Arm Server
https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/12/26/banana-pi-24-core-arm-server/
SinoVoIP has been offering Banana Pi single board computers for several years. Their boards are generally based on Arm processors, offered at a relatively decent price
The company is also known for providing subpar documentation and firmware images, but a fairly active community still formed around their boards
The company has now demonstrated something a little different with a 24-core Arm server that should eventually be sold as a Banana Pi server board or actual server, as the full details are yet to be known.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Chrome’s new UI is ugly, and people are very angry
The new UI is trash, users say.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-chromes-new-ui-is-ugly-and-people-are-very-angry/
Every major user interface (UI) redesign project is a hit and miss game, and Google’s new Chrome UI appears to be a colossal miss.
Designed with mobile devices in mind, the new Chrome user interface style was officially rolled out in September this year, with the release of Chrome version 69.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Three MacOS Malware samples went undetected by most antivirus providers
https://cyware.com/news/three-macos-malware-samples-went-undetected-by-most-antivirus-providers-da35932d
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Shamoon Sample from France Signed with Baidu Certificate
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-shamoon-sample-from-france-signed-with-baidu-certificate/
A new sample of Shamoon disk-wiping malware was uploaded from France recently to the VirusTotal scanning platform. It tries to pass as a system optimization tool from Chinese technology company Baidu.
This new Shamoon variant was uploaded on December 23, 2018, and is signed with a digital certificate from Baidu, issued on March 25, 2015. The signature is no longer valid, as it expired on March 26, 2016.
The targets attacked by the threat actor behind this malware are typically oil and gas companies in the Middle East region. The latest Shamoon samples hit companies in the same area as well as Europe, deleting files on infected systems and making the machines unbootable.
Tomi Engdahl says:
JungleSec Ransomware Infects Victims Through IPMI Remote Consoles
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/junglesec-ransomware-infects-victims-through-ipmi-remote-consoles/
A ransomware called JungleSec is infecting victims through unsecured IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface) cards since early November.
When originally reported in early November, victims were seen using Windows, Linux, and Mac, but there was no indication as to how they were being infected. Since then, BleepingComputer has spoken to multiple victims whose Linux servers were infected with the JungleSec Ransomware and they all stated the same thing; they were infected through unsecured IPMI devices.
IPMI is a management interface built into server motherboards or installed as an add-on card that allow administrators to remotely manage the computer, power on and off the computer, get system information, and get access to a KVM that gives you remote console access.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2018: The Year Machine Intelligence Arrived in Cybersecurity
https://www.darkreading.com/network-and-perimeter-security/2018-the-year-machine-intelligence-arrived-in-cybersecurity/d/d-id/1333556
Machine intelligence, in its many forms, began having a significant impact on cybersecurity this year – setting the stage for growing intelligence in security automation for 2019.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mission statements like ‘connecting the world’ and ‘don’t be evil’ didn’t hold water in 2018
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/24/silicon-valleys-reckoning/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Aparajita Saxena / Reuters:
Dell shares close at $45.41, giving it a valuation of ~$16B in its return to public markets, after Dell bought back shares tied to its interest in VMware
Dell returns to market with NYSE listing
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-dell-ipo-idUSKCN1OR14E
Dell Technologies Inc (DELL.N) returned to public markets on Friday, nearly six years after the company’s founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Dell took it private in what was then the biggest buyout since the financial crisis of 2008.
A logo of Dell Technologies is seen at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 28, 2018.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amid plummeting stocks and political uncertainty, VCs urge their portfolios to prepare for winter
https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/25/amid-plummeting-stocks-and-political-uncertainty-vcs-urge-their-portfolios-to-prepare-for-winter/?utm_source=tcfbpage&sr_share=facebook
The warning signs are flashing faster and more furiously now, and investors are increasingly urging their startups to take notice.
With the Dow Jones Industrial Average enduring a Christmas Eve rout of historic proportions, and other indices entering bear market territory, the long-predicted end of the latest bull market is upon the technology industry.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Who’s Hiring and Who’s Firing: A Flood of Tech Jobs Expands Beyond the U.S. West Coast
https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/whos-hiringwhos-firing-a-tsunami-of-tech-jobs-flows-beyond-western-us
Massive expansion plans announced by Apple, which plans to add thousands of jobs in Texas, and Google, which will add thousands of jobs in New York, dominated engineering job news during the last quarter of 2018. Their announcements followed Amazon’s decision to select two cities for its own expansion—in Virginia and New York.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Facebook Keeps Messenger From Crashing on New Year’s Eve
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/software/how-facebooks-software-engineers-prepare-messenger-for-new-years-eve
On New Year’s Eve, millions of people will use Facebook’s Messenger app to wish friends and family a “Happy New Year!” If everything goes smoothly, those messages will reach recipients in fewer than 100 milliseconds, and life will go on. But if the service stalls or fails, a small team of software engineers based in the company’s New York City office will have to answer for it.
Messenger’s 1.3 billion monthly active users send more messages on New Year’s Eve than on any other day of the year. Many hit “send” (represented as a blue arrow in the app) immediately after the clock strikes midnight in their respective time zones.
It’s a problem familiar to anyone who works on networks or services that see a dramatic spike in use at a particular time of day or year. U.S. telecommunications companies frequently install new base stations ahead of Super Bowls, state fairs, and presidential inaugurations for similar reasons.
“The biggest thing we worry about is: How do you prevent that cascading failure from happening?”
—Thomas Georgiou, software engineer
And people often try to resend messages that don’t appear to make it through right away, which piles on more requests.
Or, as Ahdout puts it, “once you start falling behind, you fall behind more.”
One way is to perform extensive load testing ahead of time
During a high-volume event, this allows the team to quickly discard certain types of messages, such as read receipts, to focus its resources on delivering ones that users have composed.
“We set up our systems so that if it comes to that, they start shedding the lowest-priority traffic.”
—Isaac Ahdout, engineering manager
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:
The Biggest IT Failures of 2018
https://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/computing/it/it-failures-2018-all-the-old-familiar-faces
This year proved once again that IT-related failures “are universally unprejudiced: they happen in every country; to large companies and small; in commercial, nonprofit, and governmental organizations; and without regard to status or reputation.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
The mantra for this year’s sysadmin: Work smarter, not harder
https://opensource.com/article/18/12/best-of-sysadmin?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
These top articles cover containers, monitoring, networking, and more. Plus, learn how to be lazy.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The people, processes, and tools of DevOps in 2018
https://opensource.com/article/18/12/top-devops?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Check out the 2018 DevOps dirty dozen—the 12 most popular articles from the year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
2018: Top 10 biggest news stories from Linux and open source world
https://www.cyberciti.biz/linux-news/top-10-biggest-linux-and-open-source-news-stories/
Tomi Engdahl says:
PCI Express 4.0 as Fast As Possible
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXMJeozEl4A
The newest version of PCI Express will start appearing on motherboards soon – but is there anything compelling about it?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hyperscale Data Centers: A Game Changer for SSD Designs
https://www.eeweb.com/profile/lauro/articles/hyperscale-data-centers-a-game-changer-for-ssd-designs
Changes to 2020 SSD controllers versus 2018 SSD controllers are comparable to the task of migrating from HDD controllers to SSD controllers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Microsoft is replacing Edge (and what comes next)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UZ93g5f-i4
Edge is getting the axe. Microsoft is replacing its rendering and JavaScript engines with tech from Google’s Chromium. Here’s what that means for the future of Microsoft, Google, the web and the open source community.
Tomi Engdahl says:
http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/8922-pc-tietokoneita-myytiin-viime-vuonna-lahes-entiseen-tapaan
Viime vuonna myytiin 259,4 miljoonaa PC-tietokonetta. Takavuosien volyymeistä alalla ei enää edes uneksita, mutta toisaalta nyt pudotusta tuli Gartnerin mukaan edellisvuodesta vain 1,3 prosenttia. Neljännellä neljänneksellä PC-kauppa hidastui hieman enemmän.
Lenovo nousi viime vuonna valmistajien listan kärkeen.58,5 miljoonaa myytyä mikroa tarkoitti 22,5 prosentin markkinaosuutta ja o nousua HP:n ohi listan ykköseksi. HP myi viime vuonna 56,3 miljoonaa konetta eli pari prosenttia edellisvuotta enemmän.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Larry Dignan / ZDNet:
IDC reports global PC shipments in Q4 were down 3.7% YoY, while Gartner estimates a 4.3% YoY decline, amid CPU shortages and the US-China trade war — IDC and Gartner market share stats illustrate how trade wars and CPU shortages hurt fourth quarter sales for PC makers.
PC sales stumble in Q4 amid CPU shortages, China trade war
https://www.zdnet.com/article/pc-sales-stumble-in-q4-amid-cpu-shortages-china-trade-war/
IDC and Gartner market share stats illustrate how trade wars and CPU shortages hurt fourth quarter sales for PC makers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gartner Says Worldwide PC Shipments Declined 4.3 Percent in 4Q18 and 1.3 Percent for the Year
Lenovo, HP and Dell Accounted for 63 Percent of Shipments in 4Q18
https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-01-10-gartner-says-worldwide-pc-shipments-declined-4-3-perc
Worldwide PC shipments totaled 68.6 million units in the fourth quarter of 2018, a 4.3 percent decline from the fourth quarter of 2017, according to preliminary results by Gartner, Inc. For the year, 2018 PC shipments surpassed 259.4 million units, a 1.3 percent decline from 2017. Gartner analysts said there were signs for optimism in 2018, but the industry was impacted by two key trends.
“Just when demand in the PC market started seeing positive results, a shortage of CPUs (central processing units) created supply chain issues. After two quarters of growth in 2Q18 and 3Q18, PC shipments declined in the fourth quarter,” said Mikako Kitagawa, senior principal analyst at Gartner. “The impact from the CPU shortage affected vendors’ ability to fulfill demand created by business PC upgrades. We expect this demand will be pushed forward into 2019 if CPU availability improves.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Getting started with chaos engineering: 3 top reads in 2018
https://opensource.com/article/18/12/getting-started-chaos-engineering?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Learn how to build more performant, safe, and secure systems with chaos engineering.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to create presentations with Beamer
https://opensource.com/article/19/1/create-presentations-beamer?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Beamer brings LaTeX’s powerful typesetting features and ecosystem to creating slides.
Tomi Engdahl says:
GitHub Free users now get unlimited private repositories
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/07/github-free-users-now-get-unlimited-private-repositories/?sr_share=facebook&utm_source=tcfbpage
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is the Linux philosophy still relevant in 2019?
https://opensource.com/article/19/1/linux-philosophy-poll?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Take our poll and share your opinion on whether the Linux philosophy still holds sway today.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Plans to learn a new tech skill in 2019? What you need to know
https://opensource.com/article/18/12/tech-skills-online-learning?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Go on a tour of the current state of online technology education.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Monitoring application performance with Performance Co-Pilot
https://www.redhat.com/en/blog/monitoring-application-performance-performance-co-pilot?sc_cid=7016000000127ECAAY
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://github.com/sharkdp/hexyl
hexyl is a simple hex viewer for the terminal. It uses a colored output to distinguish different categories of bytes (NULL bytes, printable ASCII characters, ASCII whitespace characters, other ASCII characters and non-ASCII).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kiintolevyille ahdetaan yhä enemmän dataa
http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8947&via=n&datum=2019-01-16_15:10:17&mottagare=30929
Toshiba Electronics Europe esitteli juuri MG08-sarjan yrityslevynsä, jossa tallennuskapasiteetti on nostettu peräti 16 teratavuun. Tämä onnistuu pakkaamalla yhdeksän levyä tiiviiseen heliumilla täytettyyn koteloon. Samaa rakennetta Toshiba käytti jo viime vuonna 14 teratavun levyissään.