Here are some ICT trends for year 2019 picked from various sources (linked to sources) and edited by me:
General: From AI to Moore’s Law, the entire industry is deep in the throes of massive changes. The future will be characterized by smart devices delivering increasingly insightful digital services everywhere. While CPUs continue to evolve, performance is no longer limited to a single processor type or process geometry.
Business: There seems to be a clear evidence from this research that businesses are adopting and looking to capitalise on the benefits of Big Data, the Internet Of Things and Sensor technology for their mobile workforces.
Open source: 2019 Will Be the Year of Open Source in software and even in hardware. We saw more activity in open source than ever before in 2018. And the momentum isn’t likely to slow down in 2019.
Web is mobile: According to the statistics of FICORA, Ofcom, the PC has lost its place as the first device and platform for web browsing. Almost half of the web browses the web with a smart phone, which places a requirement on all online services from shops to news sites.
Multiple devices: As the number of different IT devices continues to grow, there are more and more devices in use at the same time.
Situations and tasks that utilize and use multiple devices together have become commonplace. We need to think how how user interfaces could better support multi-device sharing.
Artificial intelligence: It seems that AI Market Ramps Everywhere. The AI term creates hope for some, fear for others, and confusion for all. Artificial intelligence (AI) is what the Internet of Things was two years ago – overhyped and not very well understood. The obvious shift is the infusion of AI (and its subcategories, machine learning and deep learning) into different markets. It seems that you don’t need to be artificial intelligence wizard anymore to use some AI – at best, implementation can be picked up by GitHub without really understanding anything. AI Still Has Trust Issues for many. There are also views that now hot artificial intelligence is the bubble that broke out last in the 1990s because at present, artificial intelligence and man form a bad cyborg. You need to separate AI Hype From Reality because it seems to be a miraculous thing where almost nobody knows what it is.
AI chips: While GPUs are well-positioned in machine learning, data type flexibility and power efficiency are making FPGAs increasingly attractive. Today, selling custom chips for artificial intelligence is still a small business. Intel, the largest manufacturer of computer processors, has appraised the current market at $2.5 billion, one half of one percent of the estimated value of the 2018 global semiconductor market. At a press event at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show, Intel announced the Nervana Neural Network Processor (NNP-I), an AI chip for inference-based workloads that fits into a GPU-like form factor. Google and NXP advance artificial intelligence with the Edge TPU.
AI-driven development: AI-driven development looks at tools, technologies and best practices for embedding AI into applications and using AI to create AI-powered tools for the development process.
Huge data: It seems that It’s All About The Data. Data creation, management and processing always have been a winning business formula. It takes lots of data to train AI systems and IoT systems generate a lot of data.Data scientists now have increasing amounts of data to prepare, analyze and group — and from which to draw conclusions. The entire tech industry has changed in several fundamental ways over the past year due to the massive growth in data. Many data science tasks will be automated. Hardware and software are no longer the starting points for technology design. It’s now about data processing, flow and throughput.
Digital twins: A digital twin is a digital representation that mirrors a real-life object, process or system. Digital twins can also be linked to create twins of larger systems, such as a power plant or city. The idea of a digital twin is not new but is has become hot when AI and IoT were added to the mix.
Power consumption: Globally, ICT today consumes 8% of all electricity and doubles every year. I think we needs new semiconductor technologies and maybe also more optimized software that does more but consumes less power.
Memories: DRAM market growth stops in 2019. GDDR6 and HBM2 impacts system design. There is disparity between the different types of DRAM, from GDDR to HBM.
Faster storage: Apacer has CFexpress card, which supports PCIe and the new NVMe 1.3 protocol, transfers data at a rate of two gigabytes per second.
Heterogeneous architectures: Need for increased computing power requires new multi-processor architectures (hybrid processors). Heterogeneous design is changing the starting point for chip design so that integration is now more the real challenge rather than the processor core. Many ARM processors already use hybrid architecture. Intel has unveiled a new Foveros architecture that addresses the challenge of Arm processors.
Immersive technologies: Users can interact with the world with immersive technologies such as augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR). AR brings new possibilities. A smart space is a physical or digital environment in which humans and technology-enabled systems interact in increasingly open, connected, coordinated and intelligent ecosystems.
Open hardware: Can RISC-V – Linux of Microprocessors – Start an Open Hardware Renaissance? RISC-V is an open source processor command set that can be used with the same principles as Linux code. RISCV is now being firmly linked to Linux as the Linux Foundation and the RISC-V Foundation have agreed to work together to promote open code development and RISC-V deployment. For the first time, Arm architecture will be a serious challenger in millions, even billions of embedded devices. Companies like Hi-Five, NVIDIA and WDplan to release product with RISC-V in them. This year RISC-V does not compete with traditional CPUs on PCs. Also MIPS hardware architecture is opening up.
Containers: Is Kubernetes the new application server? If you thought there was a lot of chatter about Kubernetes in 2018, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Software robotics: Software robotics becomes widely available. Robot Framework will be important on this.
Intel processors: Intel Announces Faster Processors Patched for Meltdown and Spectre, New Intel Architectures and 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 3D Logic Chip Packaging Technology. 5 Observations From Intel’s Event article says that mysterious locations, codenames and process delays are on the top of the list. Intel’s Foveros Lakefield technology for making smaller chips.
AMD processors: Ryzen mobile processors would begin showing up in ultrathin and gaming laptops by the end of the first quarter. AMD starts to use 7nm technology: Radeon VII GPU will be available and it is promised to be 27% to 62% faster, third-generation Ryzen desktop processor and second-generation EPYC server processor will be available starting later this year. AMD is challenging Intel in Chromebooks with A-Series CPUs and launching Ryzen Mobile 3000-Series chips with 2nd-generation Ryzen Mobile parts.
ARM processors: Taking aim at Intel, Qualcomm launches chip for business PCs. 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. The Snapdragon 8cx is also the world’s first 7-nanometer PC processor platform and promises superior performance for laptop. Intel’s position on laptops is very strong and Qualcomm has a big hill to get up if it really wants to challenge Intel’s PC side. Huawei Rolls 7nm ARM Server CPU Kunpeng 920 that is said to outperform ThunderX2, Ampere by 25%. Rumors are circulating that Apple will obsolete x86-based computers in favor of its own SoC-powered successors.
NVIDIA: RTX 2060 GPU was introduced. GeForce RTX™ graphics cards are powered by the Turing GPU architecture and the all-new RTX platform. This promises to give you up to 6X the performance of previous-generation graphics cards and brings the power of real-time ray tracing and AI to your favorite games. GeForce RTX 20 Series GPUs to gaming laptops.
Microsoft hardware: Microsoft reportedly working on Xbox and Windows webcams for 2019.
Windows security: 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,
Storage: NVMe Hits a Tipping Point. A show dedicated to NVM Express (NVMe) next month solidifies an industry-wide sentiment that the host controller interface and storage protocol hit a tipping point in the last year. It is expected that we’re going to see the majority of new products coming out with NVMe. There are already relatively young NVM Express Over Fabrics (NVMe-oF) specification and even some hard disk enclosures using NVMe.
Fibre channel: Broadcom Nudges Fibre Channel to 64G using 64G optical modules (just starting to sample) and PCIe Gen 4 connections that are not yet generally available on x86 servers.
Faster PCIe:PCIe 4.0 is ready. The PCISIG organization has completed the new 4.0 version of the PCIe bus, and now the technology is expected to be deployed on the devices. It is possible to to get the full PCIe 4.0 speed with both copper and fiber. It seems that this year PCIe 4.0 comes to wider us for x86 servers.
FPGA: FPGA Graduates To First-Tier Status because FPGAs are better for certain types of computation than CPUs or GPUs.While GPUs are well-positioned in machine learning, data type flexibility and power efficiency are making FPGAs increasingly attractive.
Enterprise software:Legacy enterprise applications and software systems have a reputation for being clunky, expensive, and almost impossible to keep up to date. Rethink your enterprise software systems and consider whether cloud-based options like SaaS may better serve your needs. Office 365 is massively successful. AWS services are running the backend of thousands of major companies now. As internet connections and speeds increase, the cloud becomes more and more viable as it is more cost effective to centralize computer hardware reducing costs for companies and employee overhead.
Windows 10: Microsoft is building a Chromium-powered web browser that will replace Edge on Windows 10. Microsoft could be preparing to ditch the EdgeHTML layout engine of its unloved Edge browser in Windows 10 in favour of Chromium. Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is improved. Microsoft new Windows 10 reserves ~7GB of disk space for updates, apps, and more to ensure critical OS functions always have space.
Light Windows: Microsoft is working on Windows Lite, a super lightweight, instant on, always connected OS that runs only PWAs and UWP apps, to challenge Chrome OS. Microsoft’s ‘Centaurus’ device is yet another potential piece of its Chromebook-compete strategy.
Coding for Windows: Microsoft has released a public preview of Visual Studio 2019 for Windows and Mac. Microsoft open sources its most popular Windows UX frameworks and says the first preview of .NET Core 3.0 is now available — Microsoft is open sourcing WPF, Windows Forms and Win UI via GitHub.
Quantum computing: Quantum computing is a type of nonclassical computing that is based on the quantum state of subatomic particles that represent information as elements denoted as quantum bits or “qubits.” Quantum computers are an exponentially scalable and highly parallel computing model. They can work well on some specific tasks suitable for them, but are not suitable for most generic computing tasks we are used to.
Blockchain: Blockchain is a type of distributed ledger, an expanding chronologically ordered list of cryptographically signed, irrevocable transactional records shared by all participants in a network. It can work with untrusted parties without the need for a centralized party (i.e., a bank). Businesses should begin evaluating the technology to see if it fits their business or not. You need to separate Blockchain hype from Reality because it seems to be a potentially miraculous thing where almost nobody knows exactly what it is to what it is good for. Check this related Dilbert comic.
Related predictions and trends articles:
Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2019
Virtual reality implementation: observations and predictions
5 IT job trends to watch in 2019 – because success starts with talent
Digital transformation reality check: 10 trends
These are the 15 best US tech companies to work for in 2019, according to Glassdoor
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat:
Google expands its Flutter mobile app SDK, previously focused on Android and iOS, to the web, desktop, and embedded devices — At its I/O 2019 developer conference today, Google launched version 1.5 of Flutter, its open source mobile UI framework that helps developers build native interfaces for Android and iOS.
Google expands Flutter mobile app SDK to the web, desktop, and embedded devices
https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/07/google-expands-flutter-mobile-app-sdk-to-the-web-desktop-and-embedded-devices/
At its I/O 2019 developer conference today, Google launched version 1.5 of Flutter, its open source mobile UI framework that helps developers build native interfaces for Android and iOS. But that’s no longer true: The mobile framework is now a multi-platform UI framework, supporting the web, desktop, mobile, and even embedded devices. Flutter’s mission has expanded to building “the best framework for developing beautiful experiences for any screen.”
Google today released the first technical preview of Flutter for the web, designed for building “highly interactive, graphically rich content.”
Flutter for desktop is no longer an experimental project — it has graduated into the Flutter engine. The targets are not production-ready yet, but Google has published early instructions for developing Flutter apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
At the same time, Flutter for Chrome OS use is growing, both for running Flutter apps and as a developer platform, since it supports execution of both Android and Linux apps. You can use Visual Studio Code or Android Studio to develop a Flutter app that you can test and run locally on a Chromebook without an emulator. You can also publish Flutter apps for Chrome OS to the Google Play Store.
https://flutter.dev/
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Microsoft Build 2019 Keynote in under 14 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZkp0qBBmpw
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google I/O 2019 event summarized
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5hgDLc618M
All of the important announcements from Google’s I/O event in 13 minutes.
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AnandTech:
Intel shares its chip roadmap through 2023, says the 10nm product family will be available from the middle of this year, plans first 7nm product for 2021 — At Intel’s Investor Day today, CEO Bob Swan and Murthy Renduchintala spoke to the ability of the company with respect to its manufacturing capabilities.
Intel Details Manufacturing through 2023: 7nm, 7+, 7++, with Next Gen Packaging
by Ian Cutress & Anton Shilov on May 8, 2019 4:35 PM EST
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14312/intel-process-technology-roadmap-refined-nodes-specialized-technologies
the delay of its 10nm process has obviously raised multiple question marks, and has done for several years.
Back in 2013, Intel envisoned its 10nm to succeed the 14nm by providing 2.7x density, with new technologies such as Self-Aligned Quad Patterning (SAQP), Contact over Active Gate (COAG), Cobolt Interconnects, and new packaging technologies such as EMIB and Foveros. Intel admits that this was an ambitious plan
This ended up pushing 10nm out into a later time frame. In this case, Intel pushed 10nm out to 2019 (technically they shipped Cannon Lake in small quantities on 10nm in 2017, however that is nothing more than a curio in the timeline of semiconductors), and filled the gap with 14+ and 14++.
Intel has stated that its 10nm product family (beyond Cannon Lake) will start to be available from the middle of this year (2019), with Ice Lake on client platforms (notebooks).
Intel will be launching multiple 10nm products through 2019 and 2020, including server based 10nm in the first half of 2020:
Intel states that it will have 7nm in production and launching a product in 2021. That sounds very aggressive for a company that has had issues with 10nm.
Intel provided this slide, which shows a monolithic PC-Centric die with a multi-die Data-Centric chip built on both Foveros and EMIB. This corroborates our discussion with Intel’s chiplet and packaging team, who also stated that we would see Foveros and EMIB on a combined product – specifically the GPU.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:
Microsoft’s Kevin Gallo talks about how the company is trying to undo the divide between UWP and Win32, future of Microsoft’s app store, and more — Is Microsoft’s UWP going away? Is the Microsoft Store on its way out? Microsoft Corporate VP Kevin Gallo explains the latest twists …
Microsoft wants to close the UWP, Win32 divide with ‘Windows Apps’
Is Microsoft’s UWP going away? Is the Microsoft Store on its way out? Microsoft Corporate VP
https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-wants-to-close-the-uwp-win32-divide-with-windows-apps/
Kevin Gallo explains the latest twists in Microsoft’s long and winding Windows developer platform strategy.
For months, many pundits, partners and customers have wondered aloud whether Microsoft’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP) has a future. Officially, the story is UWP is alive and well. But the Win32 platform lives on and seems to be back on Microsoft’s radar screen. So what’s the real story?
When Microsoft launched UWP in 2015, officials promised that the platform would provide apps with better performance and security
Developers would be able to use a common set of programming interfaces across Windows 10, Windows Phone, HoloLens and more, officials said, when selling the UWP vision. The downside: UWP apps would work on Windows 10-based devices only. Developers would have to do work to get their apps to be UWP/Store-ready. And Win32 apps wouldn’t get UWP features like touch and inking.
Arguably, Gallo told me, “we shouldn’t have gone that way,”
Over the past year or so, Microsoft has been trying to undo some of the effects of what Gallo called the “massive divide” between Win32 and UWP by adding “modern desktop” elements to Win32 apps.
“By the time we are done, everything will just be called ‘Windows apps,’” Gallo told me. “We’re not quite there yet.” But the ultimate idea is to make “every platform feature available to every developer.”
Last year, Microsoft introduced “XAML Islands,” which is technology aimed at helping Windows developers to use UI elements from UWP in their existing Win32 applications, including Windows Forms and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) technologies.
In short, Microsoft’s new goal is to try to make all features available to all of the Windows frameworks. Saying that Microsoft is dropping or deprecating any of the Windows frameworks seems to have been declared from on-high as a big no-no. Instead, Win32, UWP, Windows Presentation Foundation are all “elevated to full status,” as Gallo told me.
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How Much Will Software Developers Earn in 2020?
https://www.eeweb.com/profile/astefanuk/articles/how-much-will-software-developers-earn-in-2020
Things are looking good for software developers. Projected growth is largely driven by the increasing demand for mobile, health care, and computer security software.
A few decades ago, if you wanted to have a software application created, you simply needed to hire a developer and all of your problems would be over. However, increasing development challenges coupled with a shortage of skills have led to the spiking demand for software development skills. As the law of supply and demand would dictate, the situation has blown the salary package of software developers through the roof.
Although the news of a high salary may excite many, it’s important to carefully look at the bigger picture. For example, which country/region pays the best salaries? A
According to a report by the IDC, the global population of software developers in 2018 was estimated to be 22.30 million. Of this number, 11.65 million worked full-time, 6.35 million part-time, and 4.30 million non-professionally.
Restricting these numbers to countries, the United States hosts the largest population of developers, clocking in at 651,017. The U.S. is closely followed by China with 183,805, and India comes in a close third. However, this matrix is expected to see a major overhaul, with India expected to surpass the U.S. and China by 2023.
For instance, in 2011, software developers earned an average of $89,280. Fast-forward to today, and the average global salary of a software engineer has pole-vaulted to $101,709. With that said, it’s important to emphasize that these numbers may vary depending on the city, country, region, and continent.
Eastern Europe emerges as one of the regions in Europe that has the cheapest workforce. The highest mean salary in a country like Ukraine is $24,652 annually.
Software developer salary by coding experience
Another crucial element that greatly influences the developer’s salary is their coding experience. For example, earning an annual salary of $200,000 is unusual, although not unheard of. Salary.com indicates that a developer in the U.S. with five years of experience and above can earn up to $146,893. Using the same parameter, Glassdoor.com puts the number at $112,000.
In France, the same job cadre would attract a $40,000 salary package. On the other hand, Germany and Canada allow developers with the same experience to ask for anything between $55,000 and $75,000.
When it comes to salary by industry, machine-learning (ML) developers take the day. The average salary is $114,826
However, 2020 looks promising for these professionals. It is projected that software engineering employment opportunities will grow at a rate of 24% by the year 2026, as compared to 11% of all other occupations combined.
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Intel’s Xe Graphics Architecture to Support Hardware-Accelerated Ray Tracing
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-xe-graphics-ray-tracing,39224.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
For Better Computing, Liberate CPUs From Garbage Collection
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/this-little-device-relieves-a-cpu-from-its-garbage-collection-duties
Without you noticing (much), your computer is working hard in the background to organize its memory system. On top of its many tasks, a CPU must do something called “garbage collection,” whereby it identifies and deletes redundant or irrelevant data from applications to free up additional memory space.
Garbage collection is meant to spare programmers from having to manually address this unnecessary data, but the automated process that CPUs are tasked with consumes a lot of computational power—up to 10 percent or more of the total time a CPU spends on an application.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Path to a Modern, Efficient, Scalable and Fault Tolerant Infrastructure
https://www.montel.fi/cloud-modernization
Tomi Engdahl says:
Keeping an open source project alive when people leave
https://opensource.com/article/19/5/code-missing-community-management
How to find out what’s done, what’s not, and what’s missing.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Paul Ford / Wired:
Why I (Still) Love Tech: In Defense of a Difficult Industry — We have graduated, along with oil, real estate, insurance, and finance, to the big T. Trillions of dollars. Trillions! Get to that number any way you like: Sum up the market cap of the major tech companies, or just take Apple’s valuation on a good day.
https://www.wired.com/story/why-we-love-tech-defense-difficult-industry/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tangled in .NET: Will 5.0 really unify Microsoft’s development stack?
.NET Framework? Mono? Xamarin? .NET Core? Blazor? Java interop?
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/16/will_net_5_really_unify_microsoft_development_stack/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon’s Away Teams laid bare: How AWS’s hivemind of engineers develop and maintain their internal tech
Cloud giant’s structure, staff practices revealed
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/14/amazons_away_teams/
Tomi Engdahl says:
RIP Hyper-Threading? ChromeOS axes key Intel CPU feature over data-leak flaws – Microsoft, Apple suggest snub
Plug pulled on SMT tech as software makers put security ahead of performance
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/14/intel_hyper_threading_mitigations/
n conjunction with Intel’s coordinated disclosure today about a family of security vulnerabilities discovered in millions of its processors, Google has turned off Hyper-Threading in Chrome OS to fully protect its users.
Meanwhile, Apple, Microsoft, IBM’s Red Hat, QubesOS, and Xen advised customers that they may wish to take similar steps.
The family of flaws are dubbed microarchitecture data sampling (MDS), and Chipzilla’s official advisory is here, along with the necessary microcode updates to mitigate the data-leaking vulnerabilities and list of affected products. Installing these fixes and disabling Intel’s Hyper-Threading feature is a sure fire way to kill off the bugs, though there may be a performance hit as a result.
Tomi Engdahl says:
So Long Dual-Booting Windows on a Chromebook: Project Campfire is deprecated
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/05/15/1752208/so-long-dual-booting-windows-on-a-chromebook-project-campfire-is-deprecated?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Project Campfire turned up in the Chromium world this past August. The intent was to let a Chromebook boot not just into Chrome OS but directly into another operating system such as Linux or Windows.
Unfortunately, the project is shutting down.
So long dual-booting Windows on a Chromebook: Project Campfire is deprecated
https://www.aboutchromebooks.com/news/chromebook-project-campfire-dual-boot-windows-shut-down-altos/
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Rivals in gaming, Microsoft and Sony team up on cloud services
https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/16/rivals-in-gaming-microsoft-and-sony-team-up-on-cloud-services/
The two companies will explore joint development of future cloud solutions in Microsoft Azure to support their respective game and content-streaming services. In addition, the two companies will explore the use of current Microsoft Azure datacenter-based solutions for Sony’s game and content-streaming services.
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100 ways to learn Python and R for data science
https://opensource.com/article/19/5/learn-python-r-data-science
Want to learn data science? Find recommended courses in the Data Science Repo, a community-sourced directory of Python and R learning resources.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Don’t test in production? Test in production!
https://opensource.com/article/19/5/dont-test-production
Yes, testing in production is risky, but we should still do it, and not in rare or exceptional cases.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to wrangle log data with Python and Apache Spark
https://opensource.com/article/19/5/log-data-apache-spark
Case study with NASA logs to show how Spark can be leveraged for analyzing data at scale.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to convert Excel files to HTML or JSON
https://opensource.com/article/19/5/convert-excel-files-html-json
Open source libraries make it simple to display Excel data on websites, apps, or third-party tools.
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LzLabs kills Swisscom’s mainframes – but it’s not the work of a vicious BOFH: All the apps are now living on cloud nine
Software lobbed up into the clouds without having to recompile a line, apparently
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/16/lzlabs_kills_swisscoms_mainframes/
Data Centre
LzLabs kills Swisscom’s mainframes – but it’s not the work of a vicious BOFH: All the apps are now living on cloud nine
Software lobbed up into the clouds without having to recompile a line, apparently
By Max Smolaks 16 May 2019 at 08:00
31 Reg comments SHARE ▼
destroy
Swiss software upstart LzLabs says its first customer has successfully kicked the mainframe habit and moved all of its big iron applications into the cloud – without having to rewrite or recompile any code.
Swisscom, the country’s largest telco, has replaced 2,500 MIPS (Millions of Instructions Per Second) worth of IBM mainframes with a handful of x86 commodity servers housed in public cloud data centres, using the platform LzLabs dubbed SDM – the software-defined mainframe.
LzLabs was established in 2011 to find a way to drag the ancient mainframe architecture, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century. Despite being big, heavy and really expensive to maintain, mainframes are still widely used by the world’s largest businesses. The most serious problem facing Big Iron is the lack of relevant skills – for instance, COBOL, the language of mainframe software, is rarely taught at universities these days.
Lzlabs developed a platform that serves as a translation layer, converting mainframe commands into cloudy API calls and back. The customer doesn’t have to understand the underlying mainframe application – which could have been written 40 years ago, with zero documentation, by the people who are long dead. What LzLabs is doing has more in common with application containers than virtual machines
“The [mainframe] load module interacts with the operating system through the language environment, it never interacts directly,” he explained.
“We’ve created a language environment that is compatible with the way the ones on the mainframe work, so the load module only ever talks to us – through this language lab – and then we just simply turn around and use whatever underlying facilities are available to us – Postgress, Linux, LDAP, and so on, to get the job done.
An implicit benefit of the SDM platform is that the mainframe workloads can now be plugged into all the sexy, fashionable open source tools – Cresswell mentioned two, OpenShift and Ceph, and yes, the company has a close relationship with Red Hat.
The migration took a lot of planning – Swisscom started talking to LzLabs back in 2015, and only flipped the switch this month, following several rehearsals. The migration process took a single weekend night, during which 2.5TB of capacity was shifted onto Swisscom’s public infrastructure – the same infrastructure it leases to customers.
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With foldable phones in limbo, foldable display laptops are on the horizon
https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/20/with-foldable-phones-in-limbo-foldable-display-laptops-are-on-the-horizon/
Last week, Lenovo showed off a prototype ThinkPad X1.
it’s 13.3 inches that can be collapsed into half the size, making it a lot easier to take with you.
It’s a slick prototype
Dell, too, recently told Gizmodo that it’s experimenting with a similar form factor.
All of this is complicated by the fact that the foldable phone category has been plagued with issues
Samsung indefinitely pushed back the launch date of the Galaxy Fold
Samsung’s model certainly failed in real-world testing
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Supertietokoneiden ikoni myytiin
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2019/05/20/supertietokoneiden-ikoni-myytiin/
Kaksi tietokonealan pioneeria yhtyy, kun Hewlett Packard Enterprice kertoi ostavansa Cray-supertietokonemerkin. HPE syntyi, kun Hewlett Packard jakautui vuonna 2015 kahtia mikrotietokoneita ja kirjoittimia sekä it-ratkaisuja toimittaviksi yrityksiksi.
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Windows, Chromebooks Further Embrace Linux
https://www.electronicdesign.com/iot/windows-chromebooks-further-embrace-linux?NL=ED-005&Issue=ED-005_20190522_ED-005_857&sfvc4enews=42&cl=article_2_b&utm_rid=CPG05000002750211&utm_campaign=25711&utm_medium=email&elq2=d024c04cce434b28b6b357770d8ce4dd&oly_enc_id=0452E0081834E9U
Linux is ubiquitous when it comes to embedded systems, but it’s now within the Windows 10 and Chromebooks ecosystems.
Linux has been in the news quite a bit recently. Red Hat, now part of IBM, released Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8. It incorporates many of the features in Fedora: the Danified Yum (DNF) package manager, the web-based management console based on Cockpit project (Fig. 1), and a universal base image (UBI). The UBI, freely available and redistributable, provides a secure, stable Linux platform.
Application Streams (AS) are a new approach to RHEL that separates the applications normally bundled with the operating system.
Ansible DevOps is also baked into RHEL 8 System Roles. This isn’t surprising given that RHEL 8 targets enterprise and cloud servers.
RHEL 8 runs on 64-bit AMD/Intel platforms, 64-bit ARM platforms, IBM Power Systems little endian systems, and IBM Z platforms. Based on the 4.18 Linux kernel
Windows and Linux Make Nice
Windows and Linux have been playing together for a while, but the next major update of Windows 10 will support a full Linux kernel. The kernel is part of the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) that’s been available for some time. The new kernel is the latest long-term support version, 4.19.
WSL is still primarily a developer’s tool. It’s more efficient than running a virtual machine for Linux and the text windows coexist with Windows’ own applications. It’s possible to run graphical Linux applications by running an X Windows server Windows application that acts as a display for an X Windows-based Linux application.
Linux on Chromebooks
Linux has been underlying Chromebooks, which have become popular to the point of being an alternative to Mac and Windows-based PCs and laptops. The latest crop of Chromebook systems will now be Linux-ready according to Google, the source of Chromebook software. This is a follow on to last year’s support of desktop Linux on Chrome OS. Chrome OS is its own Linux distribution with an Ubuntu heritage.
Google is taking a coexistence approach. Chrome OS runs in parallel with any of the alternatives like Ubuntu or Fedora Linux. The Chrome OS switcher app launches a Termina virtual machine (VM) to run the other Linux.
Chrome OS has also supported Android applications.
2019 isn’t really the year of the Linux Desktop, even with Chromebooks everywhere, but Linux continues to sneak into more places. Though Windows remains the desktop of choice for most users, it’s now more amenable to Linux developers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Edge is… actually GOOD now!?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AND5MMmbZsE
Microsoft Edge is now Chromium-based, and the web hath frozen over. So, is the new Edge worth trying now, or is it all just a gimmick?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Mac fans’ eyes mist over: Someone’s re-created HyperCard
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/03/27/mac_fans_eyes_mist_over_someones_recreating_hypercard/
ViperCard takes a bite out of old-style programming
The ViperCard Website will bring pangs to anybody who remembers HyperCard from the late 1980s
https://www.vipercard.net/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yet another Linux distribution shuts down, and the Open Source community should be worried
https://betanews.com/2019/05/22/antergos-linux-dead/
More and more people are trying Linux-based operating systems these days, and with Windows 10 being so hated, that should not be a surprise. Sadly, while the Linux community should be thriving from Microsoft’s missteps with Windows, it feels like the opposite is happening. The Linux Mint development team is experiencing turmoil, for instance, while Scientific Linux has shut down entirely.
Unfortunately, things are getting even more dire, as yet another Linux distribution has shut down. This time, the operating system is the Arch-based Antergos.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Where IBM and Red Hat go from here
https://www.zdnet.com/article/where-ibm-and-red-hat-go-from-here/
Sometime in the next few months, IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat will go through. Here’s what will happen to Red Hat afterwards.
after IBM began its Red Hat acquisition for $34
I believe Red Hat will remain, for all practical purposes, an independent company within IBM. As IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said in said in a conversation with Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst, “I don’t have a death wish for $34 billion.” Rometty continued, “I’m not buying them to destroy them. It’s a win win for our clients. It’s a way to drive more innovation.”
In short, “Jim and I have both agreed — Red Hat should stay an independent unit.”
IBM and Red Hat has been saying that all along. I believe them.
Let’s get real. This is a make or break decision for IBM. This is the single biggest technology deal in history. While IBM has stopped its decline in revenues, it’s still losing market share to its rivals such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
IBM tried to reinvent itself for the cloud age but it hasn’t worked well. According to RightScale’s 2018 State of the Cloud report, IBM lags well behind AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud.
IBM needs an injection of fresh blood. Red Hat gives IBM that transfusion with it Kubernetes-based hybrid cloud programs and its top-of-the-line staffers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel rolls out Clear Linux Developer Edition
https://www.zdnet.com/article/intel-rolls-out-clear-linux-developer-edition/
Intel’s own Clear Linux distribution has a new installer and a developer edition for x86 programmers. Intel is also doubling down on securing popular open-source projects and offering new open-source AI and deep learning and data analytics software developer stacks.
Intel may not come quickly to mind if you were asked to name an open-source company but the chip manufacturer wants to change that. At its Open Source Technology Summit (OSTS), Intel introduced a major update of its Clear Linux distribution and Intel-specific programmer toolkits.
https://clearlinux.org/
Clear Linux OS is an open source, rolling release Linux distribution optimized for performance and security, from the Cloud to the Edge, designed for customization, and manageability.
Tomi Engdahl says:
What Happened To Dell?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Td67CdWNI
Since its 1984 launch in Michael Dell’s dorm , Dell has evolved from a PC maker to a $90 billion in revenue and services in storage, servers, cloud infrastructure and data security. Since then, CEO, Michael Dell has taken his company public, private and then public again as it tried to keep up with changing consumer and business customer needs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ian Cutress / AnandTech:
AMD announces five Ryzen 3000 Series CPUs, including the Ryzen 9 3900X, a new mainstream desktop 4.6 GHz chip with 12 cores, coming July 7 for $499
AMD Ryzen 3000 Announced: Five CPUs, 12 Cores for $499, Up to 4.6 GHz, PCIe 4.0, Coming 7/7
by Ian Cutress on May 26, 2019 11:30 PM EST
https://www.anandtech.com/show/14407/amd-ryzen-3000-announced-five-cpus-12-cores-for-499-up-to-46-ghz-pcie-40-coming-77
Tomi Engdahl says:
What to expect at Microsoft Build 2019: AI, Azure, and more
https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/02/what-to-expect-at-microsoft-build-2019-ai-azure-and-more/
Tomi Engdahl says:
HP’s latest VR Backpack swaps gaming for the workplace
The kit has been given a major performance boost.
https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/28/hp-s-latest-vr-backpack-swaps-gaming-for-the-workplace/
HP is still trying to make VR backpacks happen. But its latest offering, unlike its 2017 release, is intended for workplace scenarios such as training and VR development instead of gaming, and packs a powerful punch for tether-free VR creativity.
Again, the backpack is powered by laptop tech, but with an 8th Generation Intel Core and Nvidia GeForce RTX2080 the kit offers a 30 percent performance boost and 25 percent more powerful graphics than the previous iteration. There’s a range of ports, including two USB 3.0s, a Thunderbolt-enabled USB-C, a HMD power port and a headphone-mic combination port.
Everything is powered by a pair of hot-swappable batteries
VR backpacks are a niche product — and expensive, too. When HP launched its 2017 model with a $3,500 price tag, many questioned whether there’s any place for them in the consumer market. This new release suggests HP has been pondering the same, because there’s certainly more potential for it in an industrial scenario
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel keynote at Computex 2019 in 11 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4G_41DSfQQ
Intel showed off a number of improved processors, and finally officially announced its 10th gen line of chips, based on their 10nm Ice Lake cores. Details are still scarce, but these chips should start showing up in ultra-portable laptops this year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD’s Ryzen 3rd generation and Navi chips will blow up the processor market
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzEeAGptLyg
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why Intel is STRUGGLING Against AMD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i67R5bnb14
How has AMD turned the tide against Intel lately, and is Team Blue also struggling on other fronts?
Comments:
Competition is always good for the consumer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel dual-screen gaming laptop prototype Honeycomb Glacier Hands-On at Computex 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7_lLBCsYaI
Read more:
Intel’s gaming laptop prototype is a dual-screen PC with a point
Honeycomb Glacier is a new form-factor concept focused on companion displays.
https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/29/intel-dual-screen-laptop-prototype-hands-on/
Gallery: Intel’s Honeycomb Glacier concept hands-on at Computex 2019 | 12 Photos
Tomi Engdahl says:
INSANE Dual Screen Laptop! – ASUS Zenbook Pro Duo First Look
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtmDi_4YJoQ
The ASUS Zenbook Pro Duo is the first two-screen notebook we’ve seen that REALLY makes a lot of sense. It’s a fantastic idea, and realistically every laptop maker is going to be doing this in the next year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Qualcomm & Lenovo’s 5G laptop Project Limitless First Look at Computex 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3QEAYvYdDg
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD Keynote at Computex 2019 in 9 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qqBijKHuHM
Tomi Engdahl says:
I thought that’s what Windows Vista was… and Win7… and Win8… Win10…
Microsoft hints at a new “modern” operating system designed to support different form factors
https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/29/microsoft-hints-at-a-new-modern-operating-system-designed-to-support-different-form-factors/
at Computex in Taipei was relatively lowkey. Instead of revealing new products, the company hinted at what it wants in a modernized operating system. Intriguingly, Microsoft’s blog post about the keynote does not mention Windows, lending credence to speculation that it is developing a new “super-secure” OS.
According to the blog post by Nick Parker, corporate vice president of consumer and device sales, a modern OS should enable “form factor agility” by being flexible enough to be integrated into different types of devices
He added that a modern OS should include seamless updates, done invisibly in the background without forcing people to stop using their computers and be secure by default, preventing attacks by separating the state from the operating system and the compute from applications.
A modern OS would constantly be connected to LTE 5G and use AI to help make apps more efficient. It would also support different kinds of input, including pen, voice, touch and even the ability to use your eyes to control apps or write
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2019/05/28/enabling-innovation-and-opportunity-on-the-intelligent-edge/
Tomi Engdahl says:
C. J. Hughes / New York Times:
Enormous arenas are being built with esports in mind, such as the $10M Esports Stadium Arlington in Texas and the planned $50M Fusion Arena in Philadelphia
As E-Sports Grow, So Do Their Homes
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/business/esports-arenas-developers.html
To provide fans with a richer experience, developers are creating arenas that are designed for pro gaming.
The rise of e-sports is no surprise to anyone who has followed the video game industry. They are expected to bring in more than $1 billion in global revenue this year, as millions of fans watch hundreds of events from all over.
But those fans typically view the matches from home on streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube. Only $104 million, less than 10 percent of the total revenue in 2019, is expected to come from merchandise and ticket sales, according to Newzoo, an e-sports analytics firm. For fans to spend more money, they need an environment that provides a richer experience.
To accommodate that need, developers had focused on adapting smaller spaces, including nightclubs and even a 1950s office complex. Now, enormous arenas are being built with e-sports in mind.
“E-sports are definitely a growing segment of the entertainment industry,” said Mr. Worthe, who expects more arenas to spring up in the area.
Tomi Engdahl says:
AMD Details 7nm Processors, Intel Brings AI to PCs
https://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1334764
AMD certainly got an edge over Intel at Computex in Taipei this week, announcing pricing and availability of the third generation Ryzen processors, which are based on its 7nm Zen 2 core. Meanwhile, Intel announced shipments of its 10nm Intel Core Ice Lake processor and that it is bringing artificial intelligence (AI) to the PC. And, Nvidia revealed its EGX edge AI platform.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Julia: a Language for the Future of Cybersecurity
https://pentestmag.com/julia-a-language-for-the-future-of-cybersecurity/
Julia 1.0 was released in 2018. It is a language created to have both the high-level simplicity as Python, but low-level performance as C. In this tutorial we will do some cool coding with it…
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://fraktio.fi/blogi/komponentit_liikkeelle_2/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gating production in DevOps
https://opensource.com/article/19/5/gating-production-devops
DevOps is all about the balance of risk without slowing people down.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Browser vendors win war with W3C over HTML and DOM standards
https://www.zdnet.com/article/browser-vendors-win-war-with-w3c-over-html-and-dom-standards/
W3C hands over development of HTML and DOM standards to browser vendors (WHATWG).
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Hidden Vulnerability of Test-Driven Development
https://www.ranorex.com/blog/test-driven-development/
Test-driven development (TDD), continuous testing and related practices have many advantages, including more flexibility, easier code maintenance, and a faster development cycle. But they also have a weakness: failure exhibition, or what I call the “Red moral hazard.” This vulnerability is common, but many software professionals are still unaware that they’re causing it.
First, a bit of context is necessary. “Red, Green, Refactor” is the widely recognized motto of TDD:
Red: Create a test and make it fail
Green: Minimally modify the implementation to pass the test
Refactor: Eliminate duplication and otherwise enhance the style of the implementation
Too often, though, programmers entirely skip Red. To do so undercuts the value of Green and Refactor, and therefore all of TDD. Worse, all the possible remedies for the omission have their own problems.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://choosealicense.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
4 open source mobile apps for Nextcloud
https://opensource.com/article/19/5/mobile-apps-nextcloud
Increase Nextcloud’s value by turning it into an on-the-go information hub.