NEW NET Weekly List for 29 Nov 2011
Below is the final list of issues for the Tuesday, 29 November 2011, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering at Sergio's Restaurant, 2639 South Oneida Street, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.
The ‘net
1. SkyDrive - designing personal cloud storage for billions of people http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2011/11/22/skydrive-designing-personal-cloud-storage-for-billions-of-people.aspx “SkyDrive has…made a number of updates…added co-authoring to Word Web App so multiple people can work on documents at the same time…opened up a preview for our APIs to make it easy for Windows 8 and other developers to integrate SkyDrive into apps for easy access and sharing for docs and photos…We see three distinct categories…A file-centric view of cloud storage presents your information to you in a traditional file and folder based metaphor…Examples include Dropbox, Windows Live Mesh, and SkyDrive…A device-centric view of cloud storage "hides" the folders from you…The best known example today is iCloud…App clouds are more natural for specific types of personal content like documents, photos and notes. Examples include Google Docs and Evernote…three groups of power users: college students, gadget fans, and photo enthusiasts… represent tomorrow’s mainstream. College students work from multiple locations and collaborate frequently as part of class. Overwhelmingly…on group projects, they start or finish in Microsoft Office…However, in between, almost 75% of students use more than one tool to share and collaborate including email, file clouds like Dropbox, and app clouds like Google Docs…Using these different tools can lead to formatting loss, extra steps and versions, or just confusion, since each tool has its own limitations…Gadget fans…have at least three devices including smartphones, PCs…They want to easily access their content across their devices…less than 10% of these people have devices all running the same operating system family. (If you include devices like e-readers and smart TVs or consoles, this percentage approaches zero.)…Photo enthusiasts…have…hundreds of gigabytes of photos stored on their PCs. File clouds let them easily access and show off their photos from anywhere, but they can quickly hit cloud storage limits. Then they need to buy a cloud storage…since File clouds are primarily designed to replicate the file system online, they often lack rich photo sharing features that these people want. Photo enthusiasts can also use app clouds designed for photos, but these have their own challenges. Often it’s difficult to upload files en masse without file system integration…” http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/11/29/businessinsidermicrosofts-dropbox-c.DTL “This morning, Microsoft unveiled a bunch of changes to SkyDrive…They've solved a lot of the problems that drove us crazy in the last update, and made sharing files a lot easier…Dragging and dropping files from the desktop to SkyDrive works…You can manage files and folders without ripping your hair out. You can do simple things like create, rename, and delete all files folders with right click menu options…” [many questions are prompted by this article, including the role of Facebook in storage of photos (and other files?), whether mature cloud file storage will include auto-backup to local/home storage, and *when* will Gdrive arrive?? – ed.]
2. 50% Of Ecommerce Site Visitors Are Logged In To Facebook http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/ecommerce-logged-in/ “Ecommerce sites should consider how they can personalize their sites using Facebook data, as a new study shows 50% of visitors to ecommerce sites are currently logged in to Facebook…sites can leverage Facebook data to show visitors what friends bought or shared, what products relate to their Likes, and which friends they might want to invite…88% of Internet Retailer Top 200 retail sites are integrated with Facebook…The data was collected using the FB.getLoginStatus() API call…People look at Facebook’s active user count but don’t quite get how pervasive the service is in people’s lives…there may be less risk of sites offending non-Facebook users by adding social functionality than one might expect, because there just aren’t that many hold-outs any more…As we enter the holiday season, there will be a critical mass of shoppers taking actions on ecommerce sites. Those willing to develop or license Facebook integrations can use social data to point visitors to the products most relevant to them…”
3. FTC, Facebook Reach Privacy Settlement http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45479659/ns/today-today_tech/t/facebook-makes-privacy-pledge-ftc-settlement/ “Government regulators…believe the online social network has often misled its more than 800 million users about the sanctity of their personal information…To avoid further legal wrangling, Facebook agreed to submit to government audits of its privacy practices every other year for the next two decades. The company committed to getting explicit approval from its users — a process known as "opting in" — before changing their privacy controls…The FTC also alleged that Facebook displayed personal photos even after users deleted them from their accounts. Facebook's agreement with the FTC requires the company to obey privacy laws or face fines of $16,000 per day for each violation…”
4. Decide.com: Black Friday’s Deals May Not Be the Best http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/business/fridays-deals-may-not-be-the-best.html “Oren Etzioni writes articles about artificial intelligence for scholarly journals, is a renowned expert on data mining and gained fame when Microsoft paid $115 million for Farecast, an airline-ticket price predictor he founded. Now, Professor Etzioni…has directed his considerable intellect at the American ritual of shopping for bargains…It is not until early December, Professor Etzioni’s research shows, that prices are likely to be the lowest for electronics, products that are among the biggest sellers on the Friday after Thanksgiving…Black Friday is for the retailers to go from the red into the black…not really for people to get great deals on the most popular products.”…The added value Professor Etzioni brings to price discussions is…specific recommendations about when to make a purchase…the professor’s start-up company, Decide.com…will pull prices from around the Web, and tell you to buy or wait…the Web site predicts prices for consumer electronics only, though…there are plans to expand to categories like cars…As for appliances, major retailers like Sears tend to discount those at the end of their fiscal quarters (Sears’s next quarter ends Jan. 31.)…on the Friday after Thanksgiving…Because retailers want to impress shoppers with very low prices, the quality of the discounted items can be low…Black Friday is about cheap stuff at cheap prices…”
5. British Library newspaper archive puts 300 years of history online http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/8920672/British-Library-newspaper-archive-puts-300-years-of-history-online.html “People will now be able to search the ‘British Newspaper Archive’, which is made up of four million pages - containing articles from local and regional papers going back to 1700, for details about members of their family who may have been eminent in their local communities hundreds of years ago. The launch of the archive is the first time people will be able to digitally access and search through millions of newspaper articles from the comfort of their homes. Up until now, people have had to travel to the British Library newspaper depository in Colindale, North London, to access the entire collection of 200 local and regional newspapers…”
Gigabit Internet
6. SMCKC launches Google Fiber education campaign http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/22/3281379/social-media-club-launching-google.html “Where Google Inc. has been mostly mute, local social media activists hope to fill a void. The Social Media Club of Kansas City announced Tuesday it’s launching a series of meetings to educate people about Google’s plans to wire Kansas City with ultra-fast Internet…the club hopes to generate ideas about how best to put the faster Internet to use and to spur neighborhood campaigns to bring the service to particular areas…Aaron Deacon, an organizer for the club, said…“(Google officials) acknowledge that there are things that they can’t or won’t answer.”…He also said organizers hope to generate ideas about how poorer neighborhoods can find ways to pay for the service…”
7. Silicon Valley, Seattle … Chattanooga? Tennessee’s ‘Gig City’ Woos Geeks http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/11/chattanooga-gigabit-network/ “…Chattanooga, Tennessee, is dangling wads of cash in front of nerdy innovators everywhere…local and national investors have partnered to launch the Gig City Gig Tank and are offering $300,000 of cold, hard, start-up cash and prizes to be split among entrepreneurs and students with the best ideas…The catch: To claim the prize, you have to go to Chattanooga. When we think of American tech innovation…Silicon Valley and Seattle…come to mind more readily than Chattanooga. But…Tennessee’s fourth largest city…brought the country’s first gigabit-per-second fiber optic network to more than 150,000 households and businesses in a 600-square-mile radius…there are…major kinks to be ironed out. Chief among them is the price tag…Chattanoogans pay more than $300 per month for gigabit service. Not so good compared to the $27 per month some South Koreans are paying for the same speed…The Gig Tank will give each of 10 entrepreneur teams $15,000 to work with, and at the end of the program the team with the best idea will take home $100,000. Ten to 15 students will compete for a $50,000 prize, but won’t receive any start-up cash on the front end…the Gig Tank hails geeks as the pioneers of the 21st century…But geeks are a furtive kind and can be difficult to track…The Gig Tank is asking people on Facebook or Twitter to tag friends who might be good candidates. A $1,000 finder’s fee will be awarded to anyone whose nominee applies and is chosen…”
Security, Privacy & Digital Controls
8. Malls track shoppers' cell phones http://money.cnn.com/2011/11/22/technology/malls_track_cell_phones_black_friday/ “Attention holiday shoppers: your cell phone may be tracked this year. Starting on Black Friday and running through New Year's Day, two U.S. malls…will track guests' movements by monitoring the signals from their cell phones…it can follow shoppers' paths from store to store…While U.S. malls have long tracked how crowds move throughout their stores, this is the first time they've used cell phones…"We won't be looking at singular shoppers…The system monitors patterns of movement. We can see, like migrating birds, where people are going to."…The tracking system, called FootPath Technology, works through a series of antennas positioned throughout the shopping center that capture the unique identification number assigned to each phone (similar to a computer's IP address), and tracks its movement throughout the stores…Manufactured by a British company, Path Intelligence, this technology has already been used in shopping centers in Europe and Australia. And according to Path Intelligence CEO…"There are no risks to privacy, so I don't see why anyone would opt out."…Some retail analysts say the new technology is nothing to be worried about. Malls have been tracking shoppers for years through people counters, security cameras, heat maps and even undercover researchers who follow shoppers around…” [it will be so much less hassle when ubiquitous iris scanners and facial recognition cameras make tracking cell phones unnecessary… - ed.]
9. Android SMS encryption http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerability-management/167901026/security/news/231903505/free-android-encryption-app-released.html “CopyTele announces…the first in a family of SMS text message encryption Apps, ProtecText Free, used to secure SMS texting on telephone based on Android phones. Users can send and receive text messages and be assured that the messages are encrypted both in transit and in storage on their phones, securing them from prying eyes…ProtectText Free is a fully functional version of ProtectText and is FREE for 60-days. If not replaced by ProtectText, the App’s send capabilities are disabled, but all received messages are saved and secure…It is necessary to have the ProtecText App on both telephone devices for proper secure communications…”
10. Full disk encryption is too good, says US intelligence agency http://www.extremetech.com/computing/105931-full-disk-encryption-is-too-good-says-us-intelligence-agency “…federal intelligence agencies, like the FBI, CIA, and NSA…have a problem cracking encrypted hard disks — and according to a new research paper, this is a serious risk to national security. The study…illustrates the difficulty that CSI teams have in obtaining enough digital data to build a solid case against criminals…there are three main problems with full disk encryption (FDE): First, evidence-gathering goons can turn off a computer (for transportation) without realizing it’s encrypted, and thus can’t get back at the data (unless the arrestee gives up his password, which he doesn’t have to do); second, if the analysis team doesn’t know that the disk is encrypted, it can waste hours trying to read something that’s ultimately unreadable; and finally, in the case of hardware-level disk encryption, tampering with the device can trigger self-destruction of the data. The paper..suggests “on-scene forensic acquisition” of data, which involves ripping unencrypted data from volatile, live memory (with the cryogenic RAM freezing technique, presumably)…Research is needed to develop new techniques and technology for breaking or bypassing full disk encryption,” concludes the paper…” [have you used FDE, such as TrueCrypt, and does it perceptibly slow down your computing experience? – ed.]
11. Definitive Post On Why SOPA And Protect IP Are Bad, Bad Ideas http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111122/04254316872/definitive-post-why-sopa-protect-ip-are-bad-bad-ideas.shtml [last week’s NEW NET list had a long item about SOPA, and the SOPA post linked to in this item is also long, so I won’t include an excerpt, but if you want to understand the reasons many knowledgeable people feel SOPA/PIPA is legislation that should not be passed, read this TechDirt article. – ed.]
Mobile Computing & Communicating
12. Up To 30 Gbps: New Chip Enables Record-Breaking Wireless Data Transmission Speed http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/up-to-30-gbps-new-chip-enables-record-breaking-wireless-data-transmission-speed/ “It looks like we can expect faster wireless connections in the near future…electronic parts maker Rohm yesterday announced… it has developed a chip that reached a wireless data transmission speed of 1.5 gigabits per second in experiments, the highest level ever…according to the company, even 30Gbps will be possible in the future. The semi conductor device uses terahertz waves for data transmission…”
13. So you bought a smartphone--now what? http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57329914-94/so-you-bought-a-smartphone-now-what/ “…carriers are increasingly taking their cues from Apple's stores as they look to evolve more into a resource for consumers instead of simply a place to buy cell phones. Last week, AT&T opened up a model store near Chicago with a Genius Bar-like services center. Over the past few months, Verizon Wireless has been rolling out workshops--similar to the classes offered at Apple stores--to help with different smartphones, tablets, and services across its nationwide chain of stores. T-Mobile similarly has been holding "smart clinics" in its stores…improved customer care and advice after the sale underscores a growing need to educate the next wave of customers hit with the smartphone bug--folks who aren't necessarily the most technically savvy. The carriers aren't doing it for the sake of good will; they're looking to build customer loyalty, lower the turnover and product return rate, push additional accessories…smartphones represent a hot-ticket item this holiday, which means a lot of newbies with a lot of questions…These services are more important than ever now as the market evolves past early adopters and tech enthusiasts. The fastest growing segment of smartphone buyers is the over-50 group…” [a short, or long, discussion at the 29 Nov 2011 NEW NET meeting will be about one or several Fox Valley smartphone workshops and the probable need / interest level / value of something like that – ed.]
14. China overtakes U.S. as world’s largest smartphone market http://gigaom.com/mobile/more-smartphones-now-sold-in-china-than-in-u-s/ “…23.9 million smartphones shipped in China during the third quarter of 2011. That figure is slightly above the 23.3 million smartphones shipped in the U.S…in a country with 1.3 billion people, China is where it’s at for smartphone sales growth going forward…China is expected to surpass 1 billion mobile connections by May, 2012…While the leading brands are different, China shares the same reasons for smartphone growth, estimated to be a 58 percent sequential jump from the prior quarter. Heavy carrier subsidies and an “emerging wave of low-cost Android models from local Chinese brands such as ZTE” are two primary factors…Combine subsidies and a flood of Android devices with a growing number of mobile connections and I’d say you’ve got a recipe for another smartphone revolution…”
15. Strong Kindle sales on Black Friday http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/amazon-reports-record-breaking-kindle-sales-on-black-friday/ “…Amazon issued an announcement this morning that it sold four times as many Kindle products this year than on Black Friday 2010. “And last year was a great year,” the company added. The Kindle Fire also remained the “bestselling product across all of Amazon since its introduction 8 weeks ago,” according to Amazon…which simply reported “millions” of Kindle Fire tablets sold thus far…the Kindle Fire was the bestselling tablet at Target stories on Black Friday — beating out Apple’s iPad in total sales…it seems safe to say that the Android-powered Kindle Fire is off to a good start.…”
Apps
16. Occipital Brings 360 Panorama To Android http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/occipital-brings-360-panorama-to-android/ “…Android…getting a killer app from iOS land: 360 Panorama…from Occipital…This is the first real-time panoramic photo capture app for Android, as the others on the Android Market require manual capture of separate photos followed by stitching. With 360 Panorama, you just move the device around to capture the image…it’s one of the easiest tools to take a 360-degree photo. All you have to do is launch the app and pan your camera around to take the photo. You can then save, email or share your photo to Facebook or Twitter…”
17. New ARM Dev Toolkit for Android Addresses Platform 'Hodgepodge' http://www.readwriteweb.com/hack/2011/11/new-arm-dev-toolkit-for-androi.php “…ARM is taking a significant step toward ironing out Android's multiple versioning issues…It's releasing suites of developers' tools, including a free community edition, of its ARM Developers Studio (DS-5), this time including a graphical debugger that it says will eliminate the need for devs to use a clunky, command-line debugger for tuning native code…with DS-5, devs will be able to use Eclipse in Windows to graphically debug native code for ARM processors, using a replacement debug server supplied by ARM…the new gdbserver will also open up access to ARM's NEON registers, an architectural extension for Scorpion processors that expedites multimedia handling. So there's a good possibility that all Android developers, including those who work from a Linux desktop, will have access for the first time to ARM technologies critical to high-speed video…with ARM technology designed to be adaptable to unique and sometimes exclusive form factors and functions, and with so much of the development kit relying on the ability to compile native code alongside Dalvik (Java) code, some degree of fragmentation has been inevitable…The Community Edition of ARM DS-5 is downloadable now, and is free for organizations of 10 employees or fewer, whose annual revenue falls below $100,000.…”
18. New Version of Google Maps Brings Indoor Floor Plans to Your Phone http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/11/google-maps-indoor-update/ “Google Maps 6.0 for Android launched Tuesday with a bold initiative: indoor mapping…the new mobile Maps version allows users to see the entire layout of a mapped building, switch between floor plans if the structure has multiple levels, and locate indoor points of interest like retail stores, bathrooms and ATMs...Google has partnered with more than 25 major businesses…like San Francisco International and Chicago’s O’Hare airports, as well as giant retailers like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s…“GPS is unreliable and doesn’t work well indoors,” said Maps project manager Steve Lee in an interview. “We used similar information to how we’ve implemented the navigation ‘blue dot’ feature in the past, and we’ve been able to improve the accuracy indoors, at an accuracy of about 5 to 10 meters.”…While it’s just a beginning, Google has also launched a beta tool that allows businesses to upload their own floor plans to the Maps database…”
19. iOS shopping apps http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57329184-1/ios-shopping-apps-bar-code-scanners/ “…This week's iOS app collection is all about tools for holiday shopping…Amazon Mobile (Free) is a great one-stop-shopping or price-checking app on the iPhone and will be familiar and intuitive to use for many because it closely resembles the popular online shopping destination. You'll need a strong data or Wi-Fi connection to browse Amazon.com's vast database of merchandise, but you'll generally be able to find anything you need that the retail giant sells…Shop Savvy Premium Barcode Scanner & QR Reader (Free) is one of many in the iTunes App Store, but its fast scanning and unique added features make it a handy shopping companion when checking prices…ShopSavvy lets you use your iPhone camera to "scan" a bar code, then view the item and prices from various locations, and you can scan QR codes at the touch of a button…After a bar code scan, you're presented with an image of the item and given places to shop for it online or at nearby stores (Shop Savvy uses your location), online reviews of the product…The Find (Free) is a shopping comparison app from TheFind that lets you scan bar codes and search for products…Start with a quick scan of a product's bar code or enter a text search, and The Find will return a list of prices from the Web…Once you've scanned something you have the option to browse tabs at the top, showing the results by Web sites, stores near your location, or from a list of stores you prefer…”
20. AirDroid turns your phone into a LAN-enabled web operating system http://androidcommunity.com/airdroid-turns-your-phone-into-a-lan-enabled-web-operating-system-20111128/ “There are a lot of ways to control and access your PC or Mac from your Android device, but the ability to go in the other direction has been sadly underrepresented… until…AirDroid, an app that hosts a local HTTP server on your phone…Just start the app, connect to your home WiFi network and log in from a local PC browser. You can access all of the files currently stored on your phone, including a full image viewer and streaming music player. You can access, install, and back up all of the apps on your phone, even the system apps that non-rooted users normally don’t have access to. You have full access to your Android phone’s contacts, call logs and SMS messages. All from a desktop interface that mimics a minimalist Linux distribution…”
21. SwipePad: A Must Have App for Every Android Device http://www.techdrivein.com/2011/11/swipepad-must-have-app-for-every.html “SwipePad is a simple application that lets you launch any app with a single swipe action from within any other app. Upon being recommended by a friend of mine, SwipePad was one of those applications I installed immediately after receiving my first Android phone. Since then, SwipePad has become an integral part of my daily life…” [which non-default smartphone apps do you use daily? – ed.]
SkyNet
22. Google Announces Plans To Shutter Knol, Friend Connect, Wave, And More http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/google-announces-plans-to-shutter-knol-friend-connect-and-more/ “Since Google CEO Larry Page took the helm this past spring, one of the company’s most visible initiatives has been to trim and shut down its products that haven’t taken off. These have included Aardvark, Google Desktop, Fast Flip, Code Search, Buzz, Jaiku, and even Google Labs — and today, it’s announcing a new batch of products that will be shut down in the coming months. Among the casualties (some of which had previously been announced): Google’s Wikipedia challenger, Google Knol, Google Friend Connect (which is being supplanted by Google+), and Google Wave — which Google ended development on a year ago and will soon close down entirely…”
23. Jared Cohen: Google Ideas director fuses technology and statecraft http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadership/jared-cohen-google-ideas-director-fuses-technology-and-statecraft/2011/11/28/gIQAk9Ld8N_story.html “…Jared Cohen is…the informed doer who moves diverse knowledge into great action. Educated at Stanford and then at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, author of three books, a four-year veteran of policymaking at the U.S. State Department, and adjunct fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, Cohen now runs Google Ideas, a “think/do tank” that is targeting some of the world’s most intractable problems. All this by age 30…Google Ideas, created in October 2010 with Cohen at the helm, is located not in the company’s philanthropic arm but inside its business operations. As a signature event, Cohen gathered on Google’s nickel some 80 ex-extremists – skinheads, neo-Nazis, jihadists. Now former extremists, they knew something about what they spoke, and in collaboration with company employees, terrorist victims, and academic researchers (the former president of Colombia sat with former Colombian guerrillas), they brainstormed on innovative strategies to combat extremism…Jared Cohen is moving Google into new territory to improve our existence, whatever the bottom line…From a week-long trade mission to Russia with Cohen, eBay CEO John Donahoe concluded, “guys like Jared are going to change the world…”
24. Master the New Gmail with These Tips, Shortcuts http://lifehacker.com/5861810/master-the-new-gmail-with-these-tips-shortcuts-and-add+ons “Gmail is the best email client around, and…filled with tricks, shortcuts, and time-saving tools…Today, we're…covering all our favorite Gmail tricks, both old and new. Even if you already consider yourself a Gmail ninja, there's bound to be something here you haven't yet discovered…Tweaking Gmail's New Layout…Mouse Shortcuts…Keyboard Shortcuts…Advanced Searches and Filters…Useful Settings You Should Enable…Gmail Labs You Should Enable…Extensions and Userscripts…Manage All Your Email Accounts from Gmail…Integrate Gmail with the Desktop…”
General Technology
25. ‘Twine’ Foreshadows A Future Where All Objects Talk To The Internet http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/25/twine-foreshadows-a-future-where-all-objects-talk-to-the-internet/ “Want to be notified to turn on the AC when a room reaches a certain temperature? Or when your laundry’s done?...MIT Media Lab alumni Supermechanical have built Twine, a sleek 2.5″ rubber square which connects to Wifi and allows objects to “communicate”…Twine…comes with a web app, ‘Spool’ which allows you to program its sensors with natural language rules like “When: accelerometer is at rest, Then: Tweet” in the case of the laundry done thing…You can hook up the battery operated Twine to communicate through SMS, Twitter, Email and even HTTP requests…The basic Twine comes with an internal temperature sensor and an internal accelerometer…the Twine guys are making optional external sensors including a magnetic switch for doors, a moisture sensor and a breakout board for those of you that want to create your own DIY sensor action. Supermechanical says that it will develop additional sensors for every $10K over its Kickstarter funding goal. Possible options include an RFID reader, a pressure sensor and/or current sensor…the project has received over $60K in funding, and with a donation of $90 you can order your own Twine through Kickstarter — A perfect gift for the person who has everything but a refrigerator door with its own Twitter account…”
26. A data furnace for your home http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/business/data-furnaces-could-bring-heat-to-homes.html “…many technology companies have moved their work to data centers with tens of thousands of power-gobbling servers. Concentrated in one place, the servers produce enormous heat. The additional power needed for cooling them — up to half of the power used to run them — is the steep environmental price we have paid…Researchers, however, have come up with an intriguing option for that wasted heat: putting it to good use in people’s homes…The paper looks at how the servers — though still operated by their companies — could be placed inside homes and used as a source of heat. The authors call the concept the “data furnace.”…If a home has a broadband Internet connection, it can serve as a micro data center. One, two or three cabinets filled with servers could be installed where the furnace sits…In the coldest climate, about 110 motherboards could keep a home as toasty as a conventional furnace does. The rest of the year, the servers would still run, but the heat generated would be vented to the outside, as harmless as a clothes dryer’s…a conventional data center must invest about $400 a year to run each server…The company’s data center could thus cover the homeowner’s electricity costs for the servers and still come out way ahead financially…The idea awaits one big-name Internet company to give it a try — and to be willing to give prospective users enough financial incentive so they’ll consent to have servers take the place of their furnaces in the basement… “We’ve gotten a very strong response, more than I usually get after publishing a scientific paper,” he said. “We heard from several people who are already heating their homes with computer systems…”
27. New nanoparticle electrode could bolster large-scale storage of renewable energy http://www.gizmag.com/stanford-high-power-electrode/20610/ “…renewable energy such as wind and solar are critical to a clean energy future, but just as important is a way to store the energy generated for use when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. Researchers at Stanford University are reporting the development of a new high-power electrode that is so cheap, durable and efficient that it could enable the creation of batteries that are big enough and economical enough for large-scale storage of renewable energy on the grid…Most batteries fail because of accumulated damage to an electrode's crystal structure caused as ions - the electrically charged particles whose movements either charge or discharge a battery - move in and out of the electrode….the atomic structure of the crystals found in the new electrode have an open framework that allows ions to easily move in and out without damaging the electrode. Laboratory tests saw the electrode survive 40,000 charging/discharging cycles, after which it could still be charged to 80 percent of its original capacity…an average lithium-ion battery…can handle around 400 charge/discharge cycles before it deteriorates too much for practical use…At a rate of several cycles per day, this electrode would have a good 30 years of useful life on the electrical grid…”
28. Robotic prison wardens to patrol South Korean prison http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15893772 “Robot wardens are about to join the ranks of South Korea's prison service. A jail in…Pohang plans to run a month-long trial with three of the automatons…The machines will monitor inmates for abnormal behaviour. Researchers say they will help reduce the workload for other guards. South Korea aims to be a world leaders in robotics…The three 5ft-high (1.5m) robots involved in the prison trial have been developed by the Asian Forum for Corrections, a South Korean group of researchers who specialise in criminality and prison policies. It said the robots move on four wheels and are equipped with cameras and other sensors that allow them to detect risky behaviour such as violence and suicide…” [Shazaam! Can you say iRobot! – ed.]
Leisure & Entertainment
29. Cameras Are Small, Quality Is Big http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/technology/personaltech/3-small-cameras-come-up-big-in-photo-quality.html “…if you’re a camera buff, you can give thanks for the arrival of three of the best cameras ever made: the Sony NEX-7, the Samsung NX200 and the Canon S100…they provide the best possible photos from the smallest possible device…Sony’s…NEX series…Even with the lens on, the result is half the size and weight of a traditional S.L.R., while producing the same stunning photographic results…the NEX-7…is shockingly pricey: $1,200 for the body alone, $1,400 with a 3X zoom lens…The NEX-7 is an astonishing piece of engineering…It takes magnificent 24-megapixel photos under almost any conditions…the NEX-5N…($700 with 3X lens), this 16-megapixel model shoots the same 10 frames a seconds…and records the same gorgeous 1080p hi-def video…Samsung NX200 ($900 with 3X lens)…contains a full APS-C sensor inside; it, too, takes sensational pictures and 1080p videos…The NX200 can shoot 30 pictures a second at 5 megapixels…The Sony and Samsung cameras are fantastic micro-S.L.R. cameras, but their lenses keep them from being pants-pocketable…Instead of having a full-size sensor in the smallest possible body, Canon’s new S100 contains the biggest possible sensor in a pocket-size body…a sensor with 88 percent more area than most pocket cameras’ sensors. And it has an f/2.0 lens, a rarity among pocket cameras…This camera costs more than double the usual pocket camera price ($430), but its picture quality blows other cameras off the map. A new processor that can pop off eight frames in a second or deliver 120-frames-a-second slow-motion movies…You can now zoom in while you’re shooting video. Since this camera also packs a 5X zoom and captures 1080p video with stereo sound, there are even fewer reasons to own an actual camcorder anymore…a GPS chip that location-stamps each photo…” [now that most new cell phones have built-in cameras, are ‘photographers’ increasingly the only people who buy cameras that cost more than $49? – ed.]
30. Gametel brings gamepad action to Android and iDevices http://www.gizmag.com/gametel-bluetooth-gamepad/20547/ “…Fructel will soon offer a smartphone- and tablet-compatible accessory tailored for mobile gamers, in the form of the Gametel wireless controller. Compatible with over 50 titles, the gamepad connects via Bluetooth and supports devices running Android 2.1 or higher, as well as iPhone and iPad. Gametel can be considered as a second option for mobile gamers, given that it's very similar to the iControlPad…Operating via Bluetooth, the Gametel offers four navigation and four action buttons, start/select controls, and a couple of buttons controlled with the index fingers. Unlike the iControlPad and Xperia Play, analogue controllers are missing…Provided your phone comes with TV out, you can also use Gametel as a wireless controller and play games on a larger screen. It's additionally possible to pair the phone with up to four controllers, for multiplayer gaming…”
31. Google Music: The Future Home of Independent Musicians? http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rftmusic/2011/11/google_music_the_future_home_o.php “There has never been one place you could go to find out everything you needed about any band anywhere…Among the many that have tried, none has the potential of Google Music Artist Hub. Google Music made its full-scale debut last week. How it will affect the way people consume music seems unclear. Its loudest feature, the Android music store works essentially just like the iTunes store, and you can ask Amazon how easy it is to bite into that market…You can upload up to 20,000 songs from your own library to Google's servers, where they could then be played from the digital device of your choosing: computer, tablet, phone, server…Buried in the myriad bells in whistles of the Google Music launch was Google Music Artist Hub. It's not much now and won't be any time soon, but a year down the road, it could be the first and last place you go to find out about nearly any band…Facebook seems like it should have been the obvious answer. As MySpace's successor and superior in nearly every way for the individual user, its band interface should have followed. But it never did…There have been endless other players on small levels that perform various relatively niche functions. Bandcamp and cdbaby are sites we particularly admire, and others such as Soundcloud and last.fm have their place…But they will never do the most critical thing here, which is get a useful percentage of the musicians in one place and offer the possibility that they might also get on the same page…”
Economy and Technology
32. Nokia Siemens to Cut 23 Percent of Work Force http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/24/technology/nokia-siemens-to-cut-23-percent-of-work-force.html “Nokia Siemens Networks, the equipment joint venture of Nokia and Siemens, said…it planned to cut almost a quarter of its work force…to bolster profit in a stagnating market for network gear. The company said it planned to eliminate 17,000 jobs by the end of 2013…to refocus on mobile broadband equipment, the fastest-growing segment of the market. The reductions will slash the company’s work force by 23 percent from its current level of 74,000. The cuts follow Nokia Siemens’s $1.2 billion purchase of Motorola’s mobile network equipment business in July 2010, which added staff…the reduction would help the company trim annual operating expenses by $1.35 billion by the end of 2013…”
33. Western Digital cleared to buy Hitachi disk drive business http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/23/eu_approves_wd_hgst_buy/ “The EU has said Western Digital can buy the Hitachi GST disk drive business but only if it sells off some 3.5-inch drive production capacity to an EU-approved buyer. The $4.3bn purchase of Hitachi GST, recently renamed Viviti Technologies, is conditional "upon the divestment of essential production assets for 3.5-inch hard disk drives (HDD)…The commission thought that the acquisition of Hitachi GST would, with Seagate buying Samsung's disk drive business, reduce the number of disk drive suppliers to three – Toshiba being the third one. It foresaw particular problems in the 3.5-inch disk market because Toshiba was a minor player in only the enterprise sector of the 3.5-inch market via a Fujitsu HDD business acquisition, meaning only two suppliers effectively: Seagate and WD…”
34. WordAds: How WordPress Helps The Little Guy Make Money http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/wordads/ “…one of the most frequent requests on WordPress.com has been to allow bloggers to earn money from their blog through ads. We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better than AdSense. Well we think we’ve cracked it, and we’re calling it WordAds…”
35. Bank at Walmart? Cheap Prepaid Debit Cards Lure the Fee-Frustrated and Unbanked http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/11/22/bank-at-walmart-cheap-prepaid-debit-cards-lure-the-fee-frustrat/ “Americans feeling disenchanted (or worse) with their banks after years of ever-increasing fees are increasingly turning to an alternative financial tool provided by the world's largest retailer: the Walmart (WMT) MoneyCard. For a flat $3-a-month fee, consumers get a prepaid debit card that they can reload at their convenience. Free direct deposit is also available, and comes with a $10 bonus. The card requires no credit check or bank account, and there's no possibility of overdraft fees, since -- as one enthusiastic user told NPR -- "You can't spend what you don't have, so you can't go over. You don't get in trouble with it."…Walmart…is attracting significant numbers of the unbanked with its MoneyCard. The Federal Reserve estimates that 60 million Americans -- one-fifth of the country -- deal primarily in cash…Walmart…MoneyCenters offer a range of financial services, including affordable check cashing, options for bill payments, and overseas wire transfers, in addition to prepaid debit cards…”
36. The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_bitcoin/all/1 “…November 1, 2008, a man named Satoshi Nakamoto posted a research paper to an obscure cryptography listserv describing his design for a new digital currency that he called bitcoin…Google searches for his name turned up no relevant information; it was clearly a pseudonym…his creation cracked a problem that had stumped cryptographers for decades…digital money…Cypherpunks, the 1990s movement of libertarian cryptographers, dedicated themselves to the project…every effort to create virtual cash had foundered. Ecash…failed in part because it depended on the existing infrastructures of government and credit card companies. Other proposals followed—bit gold, RPOW, b-money—but none got off the ground…computers running the software would compete to solve irreversible cryptographic puzzles…The first miner to solve each puzzle would be awarded 50 new bitcoins…The difficulty of each puzzle would increase as the number of miners increased…the size of each block bounty would halve every 210,000 blocks—first from 50 bitcoins to 25, then from 25 to 12.5, and so on. Around the year 2140, the currency would reach its preordained limit of 21 million bitcoins…Nakamoto himself mined the first 50 bitcoins—which came to be called the genesis block—on January 3, 2009…Laszlo Hanyecz, a Florida programmer, conducted what bitcoiners think of as the first real-world bitcoin transaction, paying 10,000 bitcoins to get two pizzas delivered from Papa John’s. (He sent the bitcoins to a volunteer in England, who then called in a credit card order transatlantically.)…Through 2009 and early 2010, bitcoins had no value at all, and for the first six months after they started trading in April 2010, the value of one bitcoin stayed below 14 cents…in summer 2010, rising demand for a limited supply caused the price on online exchanges to start moving. By early November, it surged to 36 cents before settling down to around 29 cents. In February 2011, it rose again and was mentioned on Slashdot for achieving “dollar parity”; it hit $1.06 before settling in at roughly 87 cents. In the spring, catalyzed in part by a much-linked Forbes story on the new “crypto currency,” the price exploded. From early April to the end of May, the going rate for a bitcoin rose from 86 cents to $8.89…after Gawker published a story on June 1 about the currency’s popularity among online drug dealers, it more than tripled in a week, soaring to about $27. The market value of all bitcoins in circulation was approaching $130 million. A Tennessean dubbed KnightMB, who held 371,000 bitcoins, became worth more than $10 million, the richest man in the bitcoin realm…Bitcoin had begun in the public-interested spirit of open source peer-to-peer software and libertarian political philosophy…But real money was at stake now, and the dramatic price rise had attracted a different element…senator Charles Schumer held a press conference, appealing to the DEA and Justice Department to shut down Silk Road, which he called “the most brazen attempt to peddle drugs online that we have ever seen” and describing bitcoin as “an online form of money-laundering.”…overnight the bitcoin went from being the currency of tomorrow to a dystopian joke. The Electronic Frontier Foundation quietly stopped accepting bitcoin donations. Two Irish scholars specializing in network analysis demonstrated that bitcoin wasn’t nearly as anonymous as many had assumed…As the tone of media coverage shifted from gee-whiz to skeptical, attention that had once been thrilling became a source of resentment…Beyond the most hardcore users, skepticism has only increased…“I suspect Satoshi is a small team at a financial institution,” whitehat hacker Dan Kaminsky says. “I just get that feeling. He’s a quant who may have worked with some of his friends…”
DHMN Technology
37. 3D Printing: Now Cheaper and Easier to Use Than Ever http://www.inc.com/christina-desmarais/entrepreneurs-3D-printing-now-cheaper-easier-to-use.html “Maybe when you first heard about it, you figured 3D printing would be too expensive. Or at least too complicated. Well, things have changed. Not only is 3D printing becoming affordable for small businesses, it's ushering in a host of opportunities that the tinkering entrepreneur didn't have even five years ago…Think about prosthetics, dental aligners, and orthotic shoes that exactly fit a person’s body…It’s even possible to 3D print organs by layering cells on top of one another. Fortunately for entrepreneurs, 3D printing is finally starting to offer the critical combination of affordability, usability, and accuracy that make products designed by individuals a worthwhile venture. “Engineers, innovators, designers, jewelers, artists, doctors, schools, archeologists—anyone who wants to get a new design out, 3D is the way to do it,” says Rachael Dalton-Taggart, director of marketing communications for GeoMagic—a software company that transforms 3D scan data into highly accurate polygon and native CAD models for reverse engineering, product design, rapid prototyping, and analysis. “The only limit is someone's imagination, really…”
38. BoardX: Arduino on steroids http://www.gizmag.com/boardx-diy-electronics-kit/20613/ “…a prospective big stepbrother to Arduino, BoardX is a new DIY electronics kit dreamt up by robotics enthusiast turned entrepreneur, Kevin Green…What separates BoardX from Arduino is its larger physical size, greater current-carrying capacity, and the fact that the board does not come with an integrated processor. Users must select their own…Thanks to its numerous sockets, with 6 add-ons BoardX stands at a height of approximately three inches. An equivalent Arduino stack would reach a foot tall, according to Green…BoardX may make a compelling contender for homebrew projects that require a little more juice…Borne out of frustration at what Green saw as the limitations of existing products, Arduino and Beagle, he went about creating his own board for a solar-powered robot under development by his team of roboticists at Virginia Tech…Green decided to expand the idea into an open source electronics outfit…By publishing and sharing his component designs and code examples under a Creative Commons 3.0 share-alike license, Green hopes to build a community around the BoardX…”
39. Arduino geek develops Cold War Angst, starts spying on satellites (video) http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/22/arduino-geek-develops-cold-war-angst-starts-spying-on-satellite/ “…Start with some Arduino and Gameduino hardware, add a splash of PLAN-13 satellite tracking software from 1983, and finish with a healthy dose of libertarianism. The result? A neat little hack called Angst, designed and built by Mark VandeWettering (aka Brainwagon). It can store details of up to 750 satellites on 128KB of EEPROM memory and display their predicted orbits in all the glory of SVGA…”
40. Layar augmented reality for MAKE Vol 28 (and how to make your own) http://boingboing.net/2011/11/21/layar-augmented-reality-for-ma.html “I love the augmented reality content that Layar created for MAKE's Toys & Games issue. And Gene Becker at Layar, who led this project, kindly wrote a how-to article about creating an augmented reality magazine cover…Augmented reality (AR) is a fun technology that overlays digital media onto the physical world. Modern mobile devices like iPhones and Android phones are loaded with sensors like GPS, accelerometers and cameras that make AR possible. In this project we will augment the cover of MAKE magazine with a digital image and link it to a video on the web. To accomplish this, we'll learn the basics of the Layar AR platform, design a simple AR layer, and develop a very basic web service to deliver the AR layer to your smartphone…”
Open Source Hardware
41. Public Laboratory: Don't Just Report Science, Do It! http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/11/public-laboratory-dont-just-report-science-do-it327.html “…Imagine a science journalism in which the journalist not only reports about science, but also gathers scientific data and develops the tools by which the data is acquired. A growing group of researchers at Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science are working to make that happen. Public Laboratory is a community of makers, social scientists, technologists, biologists, cartographers and activists that are working to develop accessible tools so communities can generate data about local environmental and civic issues…Public Laboratory's Toolkit began with a unique balloon photography technique we call Grassroots Mapping. Using Grassroots Mapping, for under $100, non-specialists can make digital aerial maps that can have higher resolution than those available from actual satellites. The Grassroots Mapping community satellite is a helium-filled weather balloon with a low-cost digital camera attached. In 2010, one of Public Lab's founders, Jeff Warren, developed free and open-source software -- Mapmill and MapKnitter -- that allows Grassroots Mappers to take the photos from their digital camera and "stitch" them into a map…The emergence of affordable digital cameras, smartphones and networked computing offers new possibilities for how we consume and generate information. Public Laboratory's community is researching and developing these possibilities to create a range of affordable scientific tools. One example of such tools is an affordable near-infrared camera produced by hacking $60 consumer digital cameras. Camera sensors actually register infrared light which is invisible to humans, but most cameras filter that information out of our digital pictures. Removing that filter can transform a basic digital camera into a camera useful for "multispectral" photography -- a technology central to the science of remote sensing…it's used by industrial agriculture to monitor plant health and rates of photosynthesis…In Brooklyn's polluted Gowanus Canal, a year-long series of balloon mappings by local activists revealed several plumes of inflow which weren't included in the official Evironmental Protection Agency's Superfund study…Also in Public Laboratory's pipeline is a low-cost spectrometer…”
42. MakerBot open source toy kits for your 3D printer http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2011/11/23/makerbot-projects-launches-with-an-rc-car-dynamo-and-a-windup-robotic-posse/ “…Today we’re launching MakerBot Projects with 3 fun projects. The MakerBot Wind Up Walkers, The MakerBot Dynamo, and the MakerBot Botmobile Remote Control Car…The MakerBot Botmobile is the first open source remote control car. MakerBot’s own designer Michael Curry, took everything he learned from creating the Turtle Shell Racers which were featured on the track at Maker Faire, and created the Botmobile kit. All you need to do is get the kit, print out the parts from thingiverse and you’ll have your own RC car. It’s got a great 12 volt motor, a 2 channel radio controller, a tiny servo for steering, rubber racing tires; all rolled into a a ready-to-go kit. The BotMobile kit requires no soldering, all the parts snap together – It really is a perfect weekend project. The body design is a slick dune buggy – and it’s already on thingiverse (link), ready to be printed. You want to change it or customize it? The design files are open source and are ready for you to turn it into a hot rod…”
43. New Open Source Handheld Video Game System http://www.suite101.com/news/new-open-source-handheld-video-game-system-announced-a397122 “November 21st saw the announcement of the GameGadget, an open source handheld video game system that hopes to make a dent in a market where long-time industry giants Nintendo and Sony are struggling with their respective 3DS and PSP platforms…The GameGadget is expected be available by the end of this year, and developers interested in the platform are encouraged to register at GameGadget.net. An app marketplace similar to Apple's App Store or Google's Android Market is slated for an early 2012 launch…”
44. Open control system for fireworks display http://blog.openpyro.com/2011/11/openpyro-system-is-updated-to-version.html “…Thanks to your interest in our OpenPyro project…we continue to work more actively on the project. Currently, OpenPyro System is updated to version 0.2…Analyzing trends in the fireworks forums, we came to conclusion that many fans are interested in shooting pyromusical fireworks by computer, as well getting ability to manage already acquired equipment…3 control protocols are available (selection by jumper): AlphaFire 12cues, SuperbFire 32cues and our own high-speed protocol OpenPyro…Easy to manufacture, this device will allow anyone to gather it at home and control 30 devices, 32 channels each (for SuperbFire 32cues) with a resolution of 0.4 sec, or 30 devices on OpenPyro Transmitter, 10cues each with discreteness of 0.05 sec…”
Open Source
45. Open source and the open road http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Open-Source-and-the-Open-Road-Part-1-73808.html “…A new wave of really cool devices will soon do more than simply integrate your mobile gadgets with your automobile. Pairing your smartphone with your car's sound system and on-board navigation platform is already old hat. Car makers are now looking at…the notion of your car being treated as one big mobile device. Choosing the operating platform for this new level of connected car functionality will be no easy task for OEMs…high-end cars like the S-class Mercedes-Benz rely on more than 20 million lines of code. The number of coded lines will grow to over 300 million lines of software code once the connected car hits the highways…"I think this is going to be the next really big explosion in terms of the open source ecosystem changing over in the automotive industry. Software as a differentiator for cars is really where the industry is going. We will see the same thing going on with car makers as we see now with apps in other mobile devices…”
46. Ubuntu Linux losing popularity fast. New Unity interface to blame? http://royal.pingdom.com/2011/11/23/ubuntu-linux-losing-popularity-fast-new-unity-interface-to-blame/ “…Ubuntu…has fallen to fourth place in DistroWatch’s latest ranking. Ubuntu has been overtaken by Fedora, Mint, and openSUSE. Mint now holds the number one spot in all of DistroWatch’s rankings going back at least a year, which leads us to wonder why. One reason behind this reversal of fortune for Ubuntu could be the change of default interface in version 11.04 or “Natty Narwhal”, released in April 2011. With the new Ubuntu came Unity, an interface previously seen in Ubuntu Netbook Edition, and Gnome was relegated to an option. There has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding Unity. Now it seems like Canonical…may be paying the price for the change…”
Civilian Aerospace
47. So you want to be a space entrepreneur… http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2011/11/15/so-you-want-to-be-a-space-entrepreneur/ “…A handful of space-age capitalists convened at the Techonomy conference in Tucson, Arizona this week to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the burgeoning field of intergalactic commerce. Among the promising business opportunities waiting in the heavens: new and plentiful sources of energy, resource extraction, zero-gravity manufacturing, real estate and tourism. “Going after an asteroid that’s the size of this room, that literally is a 30-meter long asteroid that has $15 billion worth of platinum rare metals, that’s going to happen someday,” said one of the panelists…The space entrepreneurs…grumbled about many of the same types of day-to-day problems that bedevil their terrestrial counterparts, from access to funding to the pace of technological innovation. Regulations in space are murky and another potential trouble spot. “There’s things like if I was going to go to a defunct satellite and claim it’s mine. Well I can’t, because whoever put it up there in the first place… But then there’s, ‘Who’s to say that I can’t go the moon and start my own country…It’s kind of what you can get away with…”
48. Shackleton Energy Company’s unique approach to mining the moon http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-11/18/moon-mining “…Shackleton Energy Company was founded in 2007 with the goal of preparing the technology and equipment to successfully mine the moon…it has begun a fundraising campaign through crowdfunders Rockethub…Nasa reckons that the Moon has deposits of ice that could be transformed into liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, which can in turn be used as a propellant for spacecraft…the next step will be to establish the infrastructure in space and at the lunar poles to monitor the mining equipment…Shackleton has established a team of explorers, engineers, robotic mining experts, aerospace managers, economists and space policy lawyers, and is working closely with the international space community. The chairman of Shackleton Energy, Bill Stone, who has experience in extreme mining operations, wrote on the project page: "We are ready to launch this space program and will use the proceeds of this offering…to have our industrial astronauts on the Moon by 2020 and be open for business…”
Supercomputing & GPUs
49. Greenest Petaflop Supercomputer Uses NVIDIA GPUs http://www.hpcwire.com/hpcwire/2011-11-23/greenest_petaflop_supercomputer_uses_nvidia_gpus.html “…the world's most energy efficient petaflop-class supercomputer is powered by NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. The Tsubame 2.0 system at the Tokyo Institute of Technology's Global Scientific Information Center (GSIC) ranks as the greenest petaflop-class supercomputer on the recently released Green500 list…Tsubame 2.0 is a heterogeneous supercomputer (combining both CPUs and GPUs)…With sustained performance of 1.19 petaflops per second while consuming 1.2 megawatts, Tsubame 2.0 delivers 958 megaflops of processing power per watt of energy…Tsubame 2.0 is comprised of HP ProLiant SL390 servers with Intel Xeon CPUs accelerated by NVIDIA Tesla GPUs. The Tesla GPUs provide more than 80 percent of its performance…Five of the world's 10 most efficient systems, and 22 of the top 30 most efficient systems, combine GPUs with CPUs…”
50. Intel claims MIC beats GPUs for parallelism http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4230832/Intel-claims-MIC-beats-GPUs-for-parallelism “…Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia Corp. said GPU technology was an essential ingredient on the path to reaching exascale computing within a 20MW power envelope, but Intel has strongly disagreed…pushing forward its own version of parallel architecture, in the form of Many Integrated Cores (MIC)…“We’ve built a very general purpose device, one that’s designed for Parallelism,” said James Reinders, and HPC software specialist at Intel…Reinders posited, it may be better to go for already widely used x86 cores which have been designed for data parallelism and which are much more programmable and “even more exciting on the performance side.” Unlike Nvidia, Reinders said, Intel was not dedicating part of its design or performance to graphics…”
*****
posted by myDigitechnician at 29.11.11
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