Prediction articles:
2020: A consumer electronics forecast for the year(s) ahead
AI Chips: What Will 2020 Bring?
CEO Outlook: 2020 Vision: 5G, China and AI are prominent, but big changes are coming everywhere
Top 10 Tech Failures From 2019 That Hint At 2020 Trends – Last year’s tech failures often turn into next year’s leading trends
Trends:
AMD’s 7nm Ryzen 4000 CPUs are here to take on Intel’s 10nm Ice Lake laptop chips
Top 9 challenges IT leaders will face in 2020: From skills shortages to privacy concerns
From the oil rig to the lake: a shift in perspective on data
In December 2020, the new IEC/EN 62368-1 will replace the existing safety standards EN 60950-1 and EN 60065-1
Use of technology money outside company IT department is the new normal
Tech to try:
12 Alternative Operating Systems You Can Use In 2020
CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION: WHAT IT IS AND WHY YOU NEED IT
Research:
Universal memory coming? New type of non-volatile general purpose memory on research, some call it UltraRAM.
1,318 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arm Announces Cortex-R82: First 64-bit Real Time Processor
by Andrei Frumusanu on September 3, 2020 9:00 AM EST
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16056/arm-announces-cortexr82-first-64bit-real-time-processor
Arm is known for its Cortex range of processors in mobile devices, however the mainstream Cortex-A series of CPUs which are used as the primary processing units of devices aren’t the only CPUs which the company offers. Alongside the microcontroller-grade Cortex-M CPU portfolio, Arm also offers the Cortex-R range of “real-time” processors which are used in high-performance real-time applications. The last time we talked about a Cortex-R product was the R8 release back in 2016. Back then, the company proposed the R8 to be extensively used in 5G connectivity solutions inside of modem subsystems.
Another large market for the R-series is storage solutions, with the Cortex-R processors being used in HDD and SSD controllers as the main processing elements.
Tomi Engdahl says:
3DFabric: The Home for TSMC’s 2.5D and 3D Stacking Roadmap
by Dr. Ian Cutress on September 2, 2020 11:00 AM EST
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16051/3dfabric-the-home-for-tsmc-2-5d-and-3d-stacking-roadmap
Tomi Engdahl says:
Jez Corden / Windows Central:
Sources: Xbox Series X will be priced at $499 and will launch on November 10, 2020 alongside the Xbox Series S — The Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X together. — Microsoft is set to hold a press event soon to showcase the next-gen console pricing, and it’s pretty familiar. — What you need to know
Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S release date and price finally revealed
https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-series-x-and-xbox-series-s-release-date-and-price-finally-revealed
Microsoft is set to hold a press event soon to showcase the next-gen console pricing, and it’s pretty familiar.
What you need to know
Xbox Series S console design finally leaked.
We can confirm the Xbox Series S is $299, and the Series X is $499.
Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X will launch on November 10, 2020.
Microsoft has since partially confirmed our report, unveiling the Xbox Series S with a $299 price tag.
Christine Fisher / Engadget:
Microsoft confirms a budget version of its next-gen console, the $299 Xbox Series S, says it is the “smallest Xbox ever” — After a flurry of leaks, Microsoft has been forced to prematurely confirm the existence of a second-generation console: the Xbox Series S. The company …
Xbox Series S is official, tiny and will only cost $299
The leaks were true.
https://www.engadget.com/xbox-series-s-price-073345112.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://etn.fi/index.php/13-news/11116-maailman-nopein-grafiikkamuisti-siirtaa-teratavun-sekunnissa
Tomi Engdahl says:
‘If Everyone Hates Object-Oriented Programming, Why Is It Still So Widely Spread?’
https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/09/06/0245222/if-everyone-hates-object-oriented-programming-why-is-it-still-so-widely-spread?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Slashdot%2Fslashdot%2Fto+%28%28Title%29Slashdot+%28rdf%29%29
Object-oriented programming “has been wildly successful. But was the success just a coincidence?” asks Stack Overflow’s blog:
Asking why so many widely-used languages are OOP might be mixing up cause and effect. Richard Feldman argues in his talk that it might just be coincidence. C++ was developed in the early 1980s by Bjarne Stroustrup, initially as a set of extensions to the C programming language. Building on C , C++ added object orientation but Feldman argues it became popular for the overall upgrade from C including type-safety and added support for automatic resource management, generic programming, and exception handling, among other features.
Then Java wanted to appeal to C++ programmers and doubled down on the OOP part. Ultimately, Sun Microsystems wanted to repeat the C++ trick by aiming for greatest familiarity for developers adopting Java. Millions of developers quickly moved to Java due to its exclusive integration in web browsers at the time. Seen this way, OOP seems to just be hitching a ride, rather than driving the success.
If everyone hates it, why is OOP still so widely spread?
OOP has been wildly successful. But was the success just a coincidence? And can it still offer something unique in 2020 that other programming paradigms cannot?
https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/09/02/if-everyone-hates-it-why-is-oop-still-so-widely-spread/
In the August edition of Byte magazine in 1981, David Robson opens his article, which became the introduction of ‘Object-Oriented Software Systems’ for many, by admitting up front that it is a departure from what many familiar with imperative, top-down programming are used to.
“Many people who have no idea how a computer works find the idea of object-oriented programming quite natural. In contrast, many people who have experience with computers initially think there is something strange about object oriented systems.”
It is fair to say that, generations later, the idea of organizing your code into larger meaningful objects that model the parts of your problem continues to puzzle programmers. If they are used to top-down programming or functional programming, which treats elements of code as precise mathematical functions, it takes some getting used to. After an initial hype period had promised improvements for modularising and organising large codebases, the idea was over applied. With OOP being followed by OOA (object-oriented analysis) and OOD (object-oriented design) it soon felt like everything you did in software had to be broken down to objects and their relationships to each other. Then the critics arrived on the scene, some of them quite disappointed.
Some claimed that under OOP writing tests is harder and it requires extra care to refactor. There is the overhead when reusing code that the creator of Erlang famously described as a case when you wanted a banana but you got a gorilla holding the banana. Everything comes with an implicit, inescapable environment.
Other ways of describing this new way of solving problems include the analogy between an imperative programmer as “a cook or a chemist, following recipes and formulas to achieve a desired result” and the object oriented programmer as “a greek philosopher or 19th century naturalist concerned with the proper taxonomy and description of the creatures and places of the programming world.”
Was the success just a coincidence?
OOP is still one of the dominant paradigms right now. But that might be due to the success of languages who happen to be OOP. Java, C++ and Kotlin rule mobile for Android and Swift and Objective-C for iOS so you can’t develop software for mobile unless you understand the object-oriented approach. For the web, it’s JavaScript, Python, PHP and Ruby.
What can OOP do that is unique to it?
There are some valuable aspects to OOP, some of which keep it omnipresent even when it has its drawbacks. Let’s look at the cornerstones of OOP.
Encapsulation. This means that data is generally hidden from other parts of a language—placed in a capsule, if you will. OOP encapsulates data by default; objects contain both the data and the methods that affect that data, and good OOP practice means you provide getter and setter methods to control access to that data. This protects mutable data from being changed willy nilly, and makes application data safer.
Supposedly, it is one of the greatest benefits of OOP. Even though it is most commonly associated with object-oriented programming, the concept itself is in fact separate from it and can be implemented without using objects. Abstraction is a complementary concept to encapsulation here; where encapsulation hides internal information, abstraction provides an easier-to-use public interface to data. In any case, it is not uniquely a OOP feature and can be done with modules isolating a system function or a set of data and operations on those data within a module.
Inheritance. Because objects can be created as subtypes of other objects, they can inherit variables and methods from those objects. This allows objects to support operations defined by anterior types without having to provide their own definition. The goal is to not repeat yourself—multiple uses of the same code is hard to maintain. But functional programming can also achieve DRY through reusable functions. Same goes for memory efficiency. Even though inheritance does contribute to that, so does the concept of closures in FP.
While inheritance is a OOP specific idea, some argue its benefits can be better achieved by composition. If you lose inheritance, objects and methods quickly dissolve as the syntactic sugar for structs and procedures they are. Note that: Inheritance is also necessary to allow polymorphism, which we discuss below.
Polymorphism. Literally, shape-changing, this concept allows one object or method, whether it’s a generic, an interface, or a regular object, to serve as the template for other objects and methods. There are many forms of polymorphism. A single function can be overloaded, shape-shift and adapt to whichever class it’s in. Object oriented programming tends to use a lot of subtyping polymorphism and ad-hoc polymorphism, but again, this is not a concept limited to OOP.
What’s to come?
OOP has, however, been wildly successful. It may be that this success is a consequence of a massive industry that supports and is supported by OOP.
So what about the developers themselves? Our Developer Survey this year shows that they are gaining more and more purchasing influence. Well, if we also look at what developers prefer to work with, Haskell and Scala are among the most loved programming languages. Scala gets you the second highest salary. So maybe with more FP evangelism, they will climb the list of most popular languages, too.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 4.9 Percent Year-to-Year in July
https://www.semiconductors.org/global-semiconductor-sales-increase-4-9-percent-year-to-year-in-july/
Worldwide sales in July increase 2.1 percent on a month-to-month basis as all major regional markets post sales increases
Tomi Engdahl says:
Regionally, sales increased on a year-to-year basis in the Americas (26.3 percent), China (3.5 percent), and Asia Pacific/All Other (1.4 percent), but decreased in Japan (-0.4 percent) and Europe (-14.7 percent).
https://www.semiconductors.org/global-semiconductor-sales-increase-4-9-percent-year-to-year-in-july/
Tomi Engdahl says:
NVIDIA just made EVERYTHING ELSE obsolete
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucutmH2KvSQ
Nvidia’s GeForce Ultimate Countdown turned out to be the RTX 3000 series reveal, and I’ve got some thoughts…
Tomi Engdahl says:
No, Kubernetes doesn’t make applications portable, say analysts. Good luck avoiding lock-in, too
K8s may even make it hard to use the cloud’s best bits
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/08/kubernetes_app_portability_problems/
Do not make application portability your primary driver for adopting Kubernetes, say Gartner analysts Marco Meinardi, Richard Watson and Alan Waite, because while the tool theoretically improves portability in practice it also locks you in while potentially denying you access to the best bits of the cloud.
The three advance that theory in a recent “Technical Professional Advice” document that was last week summarised in a blog post.
The Register has accessed the full document and its central idea is that adopting Kubernetes can’t be done without also adopting a vendor of your preferred Kubernetes management tools.
https://blogs.gartner.com/marco-meinardi/2020/09/04/adopting-kubernetes-application-portability-not-good-idea/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hyperscalers shopped for at least 540,000 extra servers and 75 Exabytes of storage in Q2
Revenue dips regardless as big enterprise players struggle during lockdown
https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/09/hyperscalers_buying_spree_q2_2020/
Hyperscalers went on a buying spree in 2020′s second quarter.
The new figures, provided by IDC, cover the period between April and June, during which a hefty portion of the world’s population were working and socialising from home during lockdowns.
In total, the quarter saw 3.2m servers shipped, almost 20 per cent more than the same period last year, but less than the industry’s record-breaking 3.3m units in the first quarter.
Vendors that IDC rates as “ODM Direct” – the likes of Qanta that sell direct to clouds – saw unit sales increase 61.5 per cent to 1.1 m units, up . Inspur, the Chinese company that which makes gear for cloud operators, shipped 353,329 units, up 52.7 per cent year-on-year.
Between ODMs and Inspur alone, shipments likely to be headed for the clouds jumped by 540,000 units. By comparison, shipments from most traditional vendors grew in single figures, with Dell shipments down 10 percent.
Dell still scored 14 percent of all revenue, a point behind HPE’s share of the $24 billion spent on servers in the quarter. Inspur took 10.5 per cent thanks to 77 per cent year-on-year growth, and Lenovo and IBM both captured about six per cent.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arm Targets Computational Storage with 64-bit Processor Running Linux
https://www.eetimes.com/arm-targets-computational-storage-with-64-bit-processor-running-linux/
Targeting next-generation enterprise and computational storage solutions, Arm has announced its highest performance Cortex-R processor, the Cortex-R82, featuring 64-bit support and Linux capability, and addressing up to 1TB of DRAM. The company said the processor is appropriate for solid-state drives (SSDs), hard-disk drives (HDDs) and built-in storage solutions.
Real-time embedded systems such as SSDs have historically required less then 4GB of DRAM and addressable space and have not needed to run Linux. With continually increasing storage capacities and performance requirements saturating throughput of storage host interfaces, the 4GB limit and inability to run Linux are adding complexity, and in some cases, becoming barriers.
The Cortex-R82 processor, a 64-bit processor capable of addressing up to 1TB of address space is optimized for such systems, enabling higher performance, real-time compute with more addressable space and the ability to run Linux for the next generation of computational storage devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Innovative Technology Disrupts the Electronics Distribution Industry
https://www.eetimes.com/how-innovative-technology-disrupts-the-electronics-distribution-industry/
Every once in a while, a company comes along with an innovative technology to completely disrupt an industry. That’s the case with Sourceability and the electronics distribution industry. Founded on July 15, 2015, in Doral, Florida, Sourceability became a global supplier in just six months. Today, it has 13 offices and 6 representations offices in the United States, Israel, China, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Singapore, Slovakia, Sweden, Taiwan, and the Netherlands. It is ranked 22nd on the 2020 Top 50 Electronics Distributors List, according to Source Today, with 2019 revenue over $167 million. (Source)
This begs the obvious question: How could a startup do so much, so fast?
Electronics distribution has been around for many years. Its basic function is to supply components and subsystems to those who need them. The industry has become very competitive and profit margin has been eroding over the years. Component sourcing is tedious and time-consuming. For example, trying to get a quote for a new project may take days of buyers and suppliers going back and forth.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Gallium Nitride (GaN) Ac-Dc Desktop Power Adapters
Gallium Nitride (GaN) is a wide bandgap semiconductor compound that offers many advantages over more traditionally-used silicon. The use of GaN as a transistor in switching applications can increase efficiency, reduce form factor, and extend the operating temperature range. This makes GaN perfect for desktop adapters and other power conversion applications where high efficiency and small form factor are desired.
https://www.cui.com/gan-ac-dc-power-adapters?utm_medium=paid-advertising&utm_source=ee-times-eu&utm_campaign=gan-adapters&utm_content=newsletter-text&utm_term=gan-adapters-organic-page&utm_campaigntype=product-line&utm_campaignid=44082.6212731482
Tomi Engdahl says:
Salary growth slowed by job satisfaction was up for U.S. engineers in 2019, according to the latest survey results from IEEE-USA.
Job Satisfaction Jumps for U.S. Engineers While Salary Growth Slows
https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/job-satisfaction-jumps-for-us-engineers-while-salary-growth-slows
In 2019, the typical tech professional IEEE member earned US $148,500 in 2019, excluding overtime, profit sharing, and side hustles. That’s up from $145,000 in 2018, a 2.4 percent increase, leaving real income virtually unchanged. It’s also a smaller bump than the 4.5 percent increase that 2018 saw over 2017.
That’s the topline news in the 2020 edition of the IEEE-USA Salary & Benefits Survey, released this month. But other numbers paint a more nuanced picture.
In spite of the salaries staying relatively flat, job satisfaction is way up. The survey used a scale of -2 to +2 to calculate average satisfaction in several categories. Overall satisfaction broke the 1.0 mark for the first time in 2019. The jump affected all categories of satisfaction tracked in recent years, including engineers’ satisfaction with technical challenges, employer’s support for technical vitality, compensation, and opportunities for advancement.
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/09/slacks-earnings-detail-how-covid-19-is-both-a-help-and-a-hindrance-to-cloud-growth/?tpcc=ECFB2020
Tomi Engdahl says:
Unity launches its Cloud Content Delivery service for game developers
https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/10/unity-launches-it-cloud-content-delivery-service-for-game-developers/?tpcc=ECFB2020&fbclid=IwAR01g_oGIBtH6D7njIOUVOWPtFk4Ir1xgyLBxqL2ZBOs72UI-8pRn_8g81o
Unity, the company behind the popular real-time 3D engine, today officially launched its Cloud Content Delivery service. This new service, which is engine-agnostic, combines a content delivery network and backend-as-a-service platform to help developers distribute and update their games. The idea here is to offer Unity developers — and those using other game engines — a live game service option that helps them get the right content to their players at the right time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sometimes it takes a burning platform, right?
97% Of Executives Say Covid-19 Sped Up Digital Transformation
http://on.forbes.com/6183GsvTT
Twilio recently surveyed 2,569 enterprise decision-makers about digital transformation, and clearly, Covid-19 was the burning platform that finally made laggards take the plunge. The result: a six-year acceleration in digital transformation efforts across the board.
97% of executives say the pandemic sped up their digital transformation
95% say they’re looking for new ways to engage customers
79% say Covid-19 increased budgets for digital transformation
“We’ve had to rethink every type of interaction that consumers have with their favorite brands and vendors,” Twilio chief customer officer Glenn Weinstein told me in a recent TechFirst podcast. “One silver lining on this very, very dark cloud has been that it has accelerated companies’ impetus to do digital transformation, to make a change, and specifically to accelerate communications through digital means.”
One of the most critical changes companies had to make was to move to contactless transactions, Weinstein says. That includes SMS, payments, and multiple forms of communications like live chat online or even more old-school systems like interactive voice response systems.
“If a competitor is coming up with ways to have contactless transactions and you don’t, you could fall behind, again, in weeks,” Weinstein told me.
The good news for businesses that haven’t yet digitally transformed, Weinstein says, is that it’s getting easier and easier to leapfrog some of the technology stages companies have had to work through and quickly modernize with cheaper, easier-to-integrate platforms.
One major advantage now: the cloud.
“You can get stood up so quickly today compared to 5 or 10 or 15 years ago,” Weinstein says. “It’s remarkable the transformation that the cloud has had, not just to computing, but to communications, specifically.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forecasts: ICs, Fabs, Help Maintain Our Virtual Presence
https://www.eetimes.com/forecasts-ics-fabs-help-maintain-our-virtual-presence/
Global pandemics are hell on public health, but this one has so far continued to fuel demand for the chips and related manufacturing gear that make possible our virtual connections.
A pair of IC technology forecasts this week underscore the unforeseen kick in the pants provided the insidious plague: one predicting a substantial increase in fab equipment spending through 2021; the other recording a bump in global microprocessor sales after a year of declines.
Most surprising is the upbeat forecast from SEMI, the IC gear tracker, which projects global fab equipment will increase a healthy 8 percent this year, followed by a projected 13 percent jump in 2021. It should be noted the rosy forecast comes after a 9 percent decline in fab equipment sales during the down-year of 2019.
Still, virtually no one foresaw a virus unleashed by horseshoe bats in China transforming the chip technology landscape.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Second Quarter 2020 Global Semiconductor Equipment Billings Up 26% Year-Over-Year, SEMI Reports
https://www.semi.org/en/news-resources/press/Q2-2020-wwsems
Tomi Engdahl says:
HSMC promised China’s first 7 nm chips. It didn’t go well.
HSMC promised China’s first 7 nm chips. Now it’s gone bust, leaving only a half-built headquarters.
https://technode.com/2020/09/09/hsmc-promised-chinaa-first-7-nm-chips-it-didnt-go-well/
A government-backed semiconductor manufacturing project based in the central Chinese city of Wuhan has gone belly-up, with key operator HSMC mired in debt. The local government said the project amounts to nearly RMB 128 billion (around $18.7 billion) in investment.
Chinese media recently reported that the construction of the Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Project, which was planned to house China’s first 7-nanometer (nm) chip fabrication plant in a 650,000 square meter (around 160 acre) structure, had been at a standstill since December.
Local newspaper National Business Daily said in a report (in Chinese) on Monday that work had stopped on the project’s headquarters in Wuhan as of Thursday, with no buildings completed. The newspaper cited a contractor of the project as saying that construction had been halted because workers had not been paid.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The World’s First 8-Channel RTSA Oscilloscope
https://www.keysight.com/fi/en/cmp/2020/introducing-the-world-s-first-8-channel-rtsa-oscilloscope.html
The Keysight Infiniium MXR-Series oscilloscope offers up to eight-channels with up to 6 GHz of bandwidth on every channel. It enables high-speed digital engineers to get from symptom to resolution faster by combining the efficiency of eight instruments in a one-bench solution.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Does your engineering firm need a tech stack?
Learn how to develop or fine-tune an integrated tech stack at your engineering firm
https://www.csemag.com/articles/does-your-engineering-firm-need-a-tech-stack/?oly_enc_id=0462E3054934E2U
Tomi Engdahl says:
How computational design, modeling are changing engineering
Visual scripting tools empower engineers by leveraging the power of coding and computational design to automate tasks and optimize data
https://www.csemag.com/articles/how-computational-design-modeling-are-changing-engineering/?oly_enc_id=0462E3054934E2U
Tomi Engdahl says:
Data centers achieve a new level of high-tech
Designing solutions for data center clients — whether hyperscale or colocation facilities — requires advanced engineering knowledge
https://www.csemag.com/articles/data-centers-achieve-a-new-level-of-high-tech/?oly_enc_id=0462E3054934E2U
Tomi Engdahl says:
16 Places To Buy A Linux Laptop With Linux Preloaded
https://www.cyberciti.biz/hardware/laptop-computers-with-linux-installed-or-preloaded/
Are you looking for Linux laptops? Do you want a Linux system without having to pay a Microsoft tax? The hardest part of using Linux is to find out the correct hardware. Hardware compatibility and drivers can be a big issue. But where one can find Linux desktops or Laptop for sale? Here are sixteen places to buy a preinstalled Linux Desktop and Laptop.
Tomi Engdahl says:
#PAM4 signaling has made it to #memory interfaces, in what may well be the dawn of the multi-level logic era Micron USA
PAM4 makes it to memory interfaces
https://www.edn.com/pam4-makes-it-to-memory-interfaces/?utm_content=bufferd38e8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=edn_facebook&utm_campaign=buffer
Tomi Engdahl says:
We can’t predict how AMD’s newest chips will perform against NVIDIA’s, or any other competitors for that matter. However, we do specialize in analyzing financial metrics and recommending how investors should move on the stock market. Let’s see what the numbers say.
Attractive-Rated AMD Chips Away At Competitor Growth
http://on.forbes.com/6184Gsvea
AMD is one of the most well-known technology companies in the world, and the pandemic has only bolstered its already-prestigious position. With a host of processors, business software, and personal and professional computing solutions in production, it’s no wonder why their products inhabit a large percentage of work and work-from-home offices, or why notebook and server processors lead the charge.
Tomi Engdahl says:
SoftBank is nearing a deal to sell Arm Holdings to NVIDIA for more than $40 billion.
SoftBank near $40 billion deal to sell Arm Holdings to Nvidia
https://on.mktw.net/3mjrLmm
The union of Arm, Nvidia would create a powerhouse in the chip industry
SoftBank Group Corp. is nearing a deal to sell British chip designer Arm Holdings to Nvidia Corp. for more than $40 billion, the latest in a series of big asset sales by the Japanese technology conglomerate.
Arm and Nvidia (NVDA) have been in exclusive talks for several weeks and a deal could be sealed early next week, assuming it isn’t derailed at the last minute.
Nvidia is a fast-growing industry player whose chips are used to run the intense calculations for graphics—and play a key role in videogaming, cloud-computing and other activities for which the coronavirus pandemic has stoked demand. That has sent its shares up more than 100% this year, making it the best-performing stock in the S&P 500 index (SPX) .
Tomi Engdahl says:
VirtualBox gains support for Linux kernel 5.8
https://betanews.com/2020/09/06/virtualbox-linux-kernel-5-8/
Tomi Engdahl says:
12 Unnecessary Windows Programs and Apps You Should Uninstall
Wondering which Windows 10 apps to uninstall? Here are several unnecessary Windows 10 apps and programs you should remove.
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-windows-programs-uninstall/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Does an SSD or HDD Consume More Power for Your Computer?
https://www.therevisionist.org/reviews/ssd-vs-hdd-power-consumption/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hintaopas.fi/huomioitavaa-kannettavan-valinnassa–ecXyAC1xAAACUATmSl
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.kauppalehti.fi/uutiset/ilmestyiko-sininen-kuolemanruutu-moni-katuu-katkerasti-windows-10-paivityksen-asentamista/2b63e2fd-d83d-47d0-9d2c-aadbdee2bb89
Tomi Engdahl says:
How to Wipe Your Hard Drive
https://uk.pcmag.com/how-to/88534/how-to-wipe-your-hard-drive
Planning to get rid of your PC? Here’s how to make sure all the personal files on your hard drive are erased and unrecoverable, whether you’re running Windows 10, Windows 8.1, or Windows 7.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Airflow vs. Luigi vs. Argo vs. MLFlow vs. KubeFlow
Choosing a task orchestration tool
https://datarevenue.com/en-blog/airflow-vs-luigi-vs-argo-vs-mlflow-vs-kubeflow?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=%5BNew%5D+Articles+-+Conversion+Goals&utm_content=Airflow+vs.+Luigi
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windows 10 updates cause nasty blue screen of death and more — what to do
By Roland Moore-Colyer
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/windows-10-updates-cause-nasty-blue-screen-of-death-and-more-what-to-do
Windows 10 August security updates keep throwing up errors inldung serios crashes
Tomi Engdahl says:
#HeterogenousIntegration technology enables #semiconductor device manufacturers to combine components into a single composite device with complex & advanced functionality
https://buff.ly/3bNYjAe
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia confirms $40B purchase of Arm, bringing together two chip giants
https://tcrn.ch/3iuIbGf
After weeks of on-and-off speculation, Nvidia this evening confirmed that it intends to buy chip design giant Arm Holdings for a total of up to $40 billion from existing owner SoftBank, which bought the company for $32 billion in 2016. The boards of all three parties have approved the outline of the deal.
Nvidia is buying all of Arm’s product groups except for its Internet of Things division, which was one of several areas where Arm has striven in recent years to expand as it attempts to grow outside of its core mobile chip design business.
Owing to the complex ownership structure and the multiple countries involved, closing is expect to take one and a half years, and will require regulatory and antitrust approvals in the U.S., the United Kingdom where Arm is headquartered, China, and the European Union.
Tomi Engdahl says:
NVIDIA to Acquire Arm for $40 Billion, Creating World’s Premier Computing Company for the Age of AI
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-to-acquire-arm-for-40-billion-creating-worlds-premier-computing-company-for-the-age-of-ai?ncid=so-twit-58914#cid=gnl_so-twit_en-us
Tomi Engdahl says:
Rambus says it clocked 4.0 Gbps on its HBM2E memory interface (PHY and controller), which is a desirable speed for AI/ML training and HPC. The memory interface and an HBM2E DRAM from SK hynix ran at 3.6 Gbps, with 460 GB/s bandwidth on a single HBM2E device. SK hynix and Alchip will be developing a 2.5D HBM2E memory system solution using TSMC N7 process and CoWoS advanced packaging.
https://investor.rambus.com/press-releases/press-release-details/2020/Rambus-Advances-HBM2E-Performance-to-4.0-Gbps-for-AIML-Training-Applications/default.aspx
Tomi Engdahl says:
Synopsys unveiled OptoCompiler, a solution for photonic integrated circuit (PIC) design, layout implementation, and verification. Aimed at enabling electronic-photonic co-design, OptoCompiler combines schematic-driven layout and advanced photonic layout synthesis in a single platform and includes features for hierarchical design plus the ability to use dedicated native photonic simulators. Inphi Corporation noted it has used the platform in multiple tapeouts.
Synopsys Introduces the Industry’s First Unified Electronic and Photonic Design Platform
Synopsys OptoCompiler Enables Fast, Easy and Scalable Photonic IC Development
https://news.synopsys.com/2020-09-09-Synopsys-Introduces-the-Industrys-First-Unified-Electronic-and-Photonic-Design-Platform
Tomi Engdahl says:
China’s most ambitious semiconductor investment project halted
State-backed HSMC, which aims to compete with TSMC and Samsung, experiences capital chain rupture
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4004304
China’s top memory chipmaker unable to wean off US
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2020/09/11/2003743176
China’s top flash memory chipmaker sees no easy way to replace US chipmaking gear, underscoring how a further crackdown on the supply of US technology would devastate the local semiconductor industry.
Yangtze Memory Technologies Co (長江存儲) gets more than 80 percent of its equipment from the US and Japan, said Zheng Jiuli (鄭久利), vice president in charge of supply chain management.
While some Chinese suppliers have made breakthroughs in areas, including etching and coating, there are not enough local alternatives to replace everything, he added.
“Long-term investments in innovation and R&D [research and development] have led to technological advantages” at US and Japanese suppliers, Zheng said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Nvidia to buy Arm from SoftBank in a $40B deal, says it will keep Arm’s HQ in UK, expand R&D facilities there, and keep Arm’s open licensing business model
Nvidia Buys SoftBank’s Arm in Record $40 Billion Chip Deal
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-13/nvidia-buys-softbank-s-arm-for-40-billion-in-biggest-chip-deal
Nvidia Corp. agreed to buy SoftBank Group Corp.’s chip division Arm Ltd. for $40 billion, taking control of some of the most widely used electronics technology in the semiconductor industry’s largest-ever deal.
Nvidia will pay $21.5 billion in stock and $12 billion in cash for the U.K.-based chip designer, including a $2 billion payment at signing. SoftBank may receive an additional $5 billion in cash or stock if Arm’s performance meets certain targets, the companies said Sunday in a statement. An additional $1.5 billion will be paid to Arm employees in Nvidia stock.
SoftBank shares surged as much as 10% on news of the deal and renewed talks for the company going private.
Arm’s importance far outweighs its revenue, which comes from licensing chip fundamentals and selling processor designs. Its technology is at the heart of the more than 1 billion smartphones sold annually. Chips that use its code and its layouts are in everything from factory equipment to home electronics.
“It’s a company with reach that’s just unlike any company in the history of technology,” Nvidia Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said in an interview. “We’re uniting Nvidia’s leading AI computing with Arm’s vast ecosystem.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
It’s Official: Nvidia Buys Arm
https://www.eetimes.com/nvidias-arm-acquisition-reportedly-close-to-announcement/
https://www.uusiteknologia.fi/2020/09/14/nvidia-ostaa-armn-40-miljardin-dollarin-jattikauppa/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Forecasts: ICs, Fabs, Help Maintain Our Virtual Presence
https://www.eetimes.com/forecasts-ics-fabs-help-maintain-our-virtual-presence/
Global pandemics are hell on public health, but this one has so far continued to fuel demand for the chips and related manufacturing gear that make possible our virtual connections.
A pair of IC technology forecasts this week underscore the unforeseen kick in the pants provided the insidious plague: one predicting a substantial increase in fab equipment spending through 2021; the other recording a bump in global microprocessor sales after a year of declines.
Most surprising is the upbeat forecast from SEMI, the IC gear tracker, which projects global fab equipment will increase a healthy 8 percent this year, followed by a projected 13 percent jump in 2021. It should be noted the rosy forecast comes after a 9 percent decline in fab equipment sales during the down-year of 2019.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Patrick Moorhead / Forbes:
Analysis of Nvidia’s purchase of Arm, which will impact nearly every chip market segment, with statements from NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang and Arm CEO Simon Segars
It’s Official- NVIDIA Acquires Arm For $40 Billion To Create What Could Be A Computing Juggernaut
https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2020/09/13/its-officialnvidia-acquires-arm-for-40b-to-create-what-could-be-a-computing-juggernaut/
The following are the deal highlights per the press release:
Price: $40 billion, NVIDIA stock and cash
Accretion: immediately accretive to NVIDIA non-GAAP gross margin and EPS
Cambridge investments: Create “world-class” AI research and education center for healthcare, life sciences, robotics, and self-driving cars. Also, build an Arm/NVIDIA-based AI supercomputer for research
Softbank ownership: Will keep 10% stake in new entity
The following are the operating highlights:
Arm operating structure: Arm will operate as an NVIDIA division
Arm locality: Arm will continue to be headquartered in Cambridge
IP locality: Will keep registration in the UK
Licensing model: continue to operate its open-licensing model while maintaining its global customer neutrality
Analyst opinion
The NVIDIA-Arm deal is not only the largest semiconductor deal by dollar volume at $40B, but I believe the one with the most significant impact. I think the deal “fits like a glove” in that Arm plays in areas that NVIDIA does not or isn’t that successful, while NVIDIA plays in many places Arm doesn’t or isn’t that successful. NVIDIA brings incredible capitalization to Arm which, as we have seen since its Softbank acquisition, Arm has increased its market presence and competitiveness. Softbank investment has enabled Arm’s thrusts in the datacenter, automotive, IoT and NPU markets. I believe the NVIDIA adder can only make it stronger as long as it sticks with its commitment to let Arm do what they do best, which is creating and licensing IP in a globally-neutral way which it is committing.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is excited about the future vision of the combined companies. He told me, “We’re about to enter a phase where we’re going to create an internet that is thousands of times bigger than the internet that we enjoy today. A lot of people don’t realize this. And so, so we would like to create a computing company for this age of AI.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft’s Project Natick underwater datacenter experiment confirms viability of seafloor data storage
https://tcrn.ch/2Fy759t
Microsoft has concluded a years-long experiment involving use of a shipping container-sized underwater data center, placed on the sea floor off the cost of Scotland’s Orkney Islands. The company pulled its ‘Project Natick’ underwater data warehouse up out of the water earlier this year at the beginning of the summer, and spent that last few months studying the datacenter, and the air it contained, to determine the model’s viability.
The results not only showed that using these offshore submerged data centers seems to work well in terms of performance, but also revealed that the servers contained within the data center proved to be up to eight times more reliable than their dry land counterparts. Researchers will be looking into exactly what was responsible for this greater reliability rate, in the hopes of also translating those advantages to land-based server farms for increase performance and efficiency across the board.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A teacher Carmen Castrejon shared a Facebook post on Sep. 3, explaining how to display what you’re writing onto a laptop camera without fancy equipment.
Teacher invents low-tech laptop & CD lifehack to screen handwritten notes for online class
Improvise, adapt and overcome.
https://mothership.sg/2020/09/cd-zoom-hack-camera-teacher/
A teacher Carmen Castrejon shared a Facebook post on Sep. 3, explaining how to display what you’re writing onto a laptop camera without fancy equipment.
This is especially helpful for teachers and lecturers who may frequently need to show workings as they are being written.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia’s Arm deal sparks quick backlash in chip industry
By Stephen Nellis, Josh Horwitz, Hyunjoo Jin
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-arm-holdings-m-a-nvidia-industry-anal/nvidias-arm-deal-sparks-quick-backlash-in-chip-industry-idUKKBN2650GT
SAN FRANCISCO/SHANGHAI/SEOUL (Reuters) – Nvidia Corp’s $40 billion agreement to acquire Arm Ltd from SoftBank Group Corp 9984.T is likely to meet strong opposition from Nvidia’s chip industry rivals, analysts say, with murmurs of protest emerging in South Korea and China within hours of the deal’s announcement.
Arm has unparalleled reach as a supplier of designs and intellectual property to most of the global semiconductor industry, licensing its technology to customers such as Intel Corp INTC.O, Qualcomm Inc QCOM.O and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd 005930.KS who increasingly compete with Nvidia.
Arm’s open approach of licensing its designs to all comers has turned the 160 billion chips sold based on its technology into a huge ecosystem of devices from smart phones to smart toasters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARM co-founder starts ‘Save Arm’ campaign to keep independence amid $40B Nvidia deal
https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/14/arm-co-founder-starts-save-arm-campaign-to-keep-independence-amid-40b-nvidia-deal/?tpcc=ECFB2020
ARM Holdings, the UK semiconductor company, made history for the second time today, becoming the country’s biggest tech exit when Nvidia announced over the weekend that it would buy it from SoftBank for $40 billion in an all-stock deal. (ARM’s first appearance in the record books? When SoftBank announced in 2016 that it would acquire the company for $32 billion.)
But before you can say advanced reduced instruction set computing machine, the deal has hit a minor hitch. One of ARM’s co-founders has started a campaign to get the UK to interfere in the deal, or else call it off and opt for a public listing backed by the government.
Hermann Hauser, who started the company in 1990 along with a host of others as a spin-out of Acorn Computers, has penned an open letter to the UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson in which he says that he is “extremely concerned” about the deal and how it will impact jobs in the country,