Advances in Computers thread

[ScienceRocks]

Drexel University library installs new iPad rental vending machine
Lindsey Caldwell | Apr 2, 2015
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In a partnership with the Free Library of Philadelphia, Drexel University is launching an iPad vending machine for students and local residents. The last time most of us went to the library was in our student days in college. Even then, the quiet atmosphere was more attractive than the stacks of books. Librarians are acquainting themselves with the fact that students are still reading, but much of it is coming from digital sources and sitting in an uncomfortable chair at a library desktop computer isn't going to cut it, when it comes to digital literacy.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Computers that mimic the function of the brain
2 hours ago by Amanda Morris

GB migration. Credit: Nature Nanotechnology (2015) doi:10.1038/nnano.2015.56

Researchers are always searching for improved technologies, but the most efficient computer possible already exists. It can learn and adapt without needing to be programmed or updated. It has nearly limitless memory, is difficult to crash, and works at extremely fast speeds. It's not a Mac or a PC; it's the human brain. And scientists around the world want to mimic its abilities.

Both academic and industrial laboratories are working to develop computers that operate more like the human brain. Instead of operating like a conventional, digital system, these new devices could potentially function more like a network of neurons.

"Computers are very impressive in many ways, but they're not equal to the mind," said Mark Hersam, the Bette and Neison Harris Chair in Teaching Excellence in Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering. "Neurons can achieve very complicated computation with very low power consumption compared to a digital computer."

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-mimic-function-brain.html#jCp

 

[ScienceRocks]

WiFi Calling offers coverage for UK homes, small offices
30 minutes ago by Nancy Owano weblog

EE on Tuesday announced the launch of WiFi Calling to make calls and texts available in every home and small office in the UK. The launch could have a positive economic impact on productivity. This, said the company, will benefit over 4 million people across the UK who lose connection in at least one room in their home. Research carried out by ICM on behalf of EE in March (a poll of 2,000 adults) found almost one in ten people have one room or more in their home where they have no mobile connectivity. This increases to 15 percent for people in rural and semi-rural areas.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-wifi-coverage-uk-homes-small.html#jCp

Time for America to do this.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Instagram adds new color tools for tweaking photos
By Emily Price

Now you can get a bit more creative with your Instagram photos thanks to two new creative tools: Color and Fade. The feature is available now for Android users, and will be headed to iOS in a few days.

 

[ScienceRocks]

At Least One State has a (Fiber) Backbone: Connecticut To Become First 'Gigabit State'

Talk about your labor-saving, productivity-enhancing inventions — dozens of Connecticut towns are now on a path towards installing wholesale fiber networks connecting all homes and businesses. And those flinty Yankees won’t be paying for the installation of these open access networks themselves, because fiber, with its predictable up-front cost and steady returns, is an excellent longterm investment for private companies. Meanwhile, any ISP will be able to use these networks to sell service directly to homes and businesses.

Result: world-class connectivity at low prices for Connecticut residents in towns across the state — including in rural areas where getting online is a struggle. As Elin Katz, the Consumer Counsel of the State of Connecticut, puts it, “It’s like building the road — and anyone can drive their cars on it."

Hopefully it makes it to Oregon soon.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Research team develops 'smart' window
8 minutes ago by Evan Lerner

This illustration shows how a full-sized “smart” window could switch from transparent to an opaque pattern, via a motorized stretcher hidden in the frame. Credit: Jenny Sabin

Commonplace as they are, windows are an important piece of technology. Beyond architectural aesthetics, a building's ecological footprint depends heavily on how its internal light and heat are managed. With this in mind, researchers from around the world are trying to make windows "smarter" by tailoring their properties to be more responsive and finely tuned to changing needs.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-team-smart-window.html#jCp

 

[ScienceRocks]

Review: Samsung Galaxy S6 edge
By Will Shanklin
April 8, 2015
16 Pictures

In our review, we picked the Galaxy S6 as the best smartphone you can buy today. But how does its curved-screen sibling fit into the picture? Join Gizmag, as we walk you through the minor – but stunning – differences in the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Graphene looking promising for future spintronic devices
2 hours ago

Enlarge
The researchers fabricated the spintronics devices at the Nano fabrication laboratory at Chalmers University of Technology. From left: Saroj Prasad Dash, Venkata Kamalakar Mutta and André Dankert. Credit: Oscar Mattsson

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have discovered that large area graphene is able to preserve electron spin over an extended period, and communicate it over greater distances than had previously been known. This has opened the door for the development of spintronics, with an aim to manufacturing faster and more energy-efficient memory and processors in computers. The findings will be published in the journal Nature Communications.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-graphene-future-spintronic-devices.html#jCp

 

[ScienceRocks]

Tape storage milestone demonstrates record in areal density of 123 billion bits per square inch
37 minutes ago

FUJIFILM Corporation announced that in conjunction with IBM, a new record in areal data density of 123 billion bits per square inch on linear magnetic particulate tape has been achieved. This breakthrough in data density equates to a standard LTO cartridge capable of storing up to 220 terabytes of uncompressed data. 220TB is more than 88 times the storage capacity of the current LTO Ultrium 6 tape. A tape of this size can preserve the human genome of 220 people on a single cartridge. This is the highest capacity storage media ever announced, including HDD, BD and solid memory NAND flash. This is the 4th time in less than 10 years that Fujifilm and IBM have accomplished record breaking storage capacities on tape.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-tape-storage-milestone-areal-density.html#jCp

 

[ScienceRocks]

DARPA strengthens lines of communication with digital close air support system test
By David Szondy
April 10, 2015
3 Pictures

Since the First World War, airplanes have acted as Close Air Support (CAS) for infantry, though it's been a rocky marriage marked by poor communications and difficult teamwork. DARPA's Persistent Close Air Support (PCAS) project aims to improve coordination between air and ground forces by means of a digital system that works up to seven times faster than regular paper maps and voice radio instructions, and with greater accuracy.

 

[ScienceRocks]

SkyOrbiter internet drone completes maiden test flight
By Stu Robarts
April 10, 2015
8 Pictures

A Portuguese company that wants to use drones to provide internet access to offline areas of the world has completed its first test flight. Quarkson plans to use solar-powered SkyOrbiter drones that will stay airborne for weeks, months or even years at a time and will fly at altitudes of up to 22,000 ft (6,700 m).

 

[ScienceRocks]

Electrical control of quantum bits in silicon paves the way to large quantum computers

A UNSW-led research team has encoded quantum information in silicon using simple electrical pulses for the first time, bringing the construction of affordable large-scale quantum computers one step closer to reality.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-electrical-quantum-bits-silicon-paves.html#jCp

 

[percysunshine]

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Nostalgia is fun;

Dark Roasted Blend Early Supercomputers A Visual Overview

 

[ScienceRocks]

Intel, Cray to collaborate on $200M supercomputer deal
Intel Cray to collaborate on 200M supercomputer deal ExtremeTech

Cray has announced it’s entered a massive deal with Intel to build a new machine capable of reaching up to 180 petaflops. Current peak performance of the Tianhe-2, the most powerful supercomputer on the planet as of last November’s Top500 list, is just 54.9 petaflops. The massive new system will be built at the Argonne National Laboratory and are part of a joint collaboration between that facility, Oak Ridge, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The deal in question is actually for a pair of systems. The flagship supercomputer, Aurora, will be based on Cray’s “Shasta” architecture and will integrate Intel’s HPC framework. In practice, this means Xeon processors as CPUs and the successor to Knights Landing, Knights Hill. Little is known about Knights Hill — it isn’t expected until 2017 at the earliest, with a 10nm process, likely a modified Atom core (the upcoming Knights Landing will use a tweaked version of Intel’s 14nm Airmont).

 

[ScienceRocks]

Researchers enhance spintronics using graphene'

Researchers enhance spintronics using graphene ExtremeTech

It’s become increasingly clear in recent years that current methods of scaling and developing next-generation computer processors aren’t capable of restoring historic trends. While work continues on extending current technologies, many researchers and corporations have turned their attention to alternate methods and concepts for computing. One such alternative is spintronics — and while it’s proven exceedingly difficult to adapt for computer processors, new data suggests graphene might hold the key to solving some of these problems.

 

[ScienceRocks]

DARPA wants to make software obsolescence obsolete
By David Szondy
April 11, 2015

One unfortunate fact of modern life is that functional new software becomes non-functional old software with depressing regularity. For most people, this means predictable episodes of frustration, but for the US military, it's a more serious problem. DARPA's new Building Resource Adaptive Software Systems (BRASS) project aims to take a major shot at avoiding this obsolescence by developing software systems that can still operate properly a hundred years from now.

 

[ScienceRocks]

IBM sets new tape storage record
By David Szondy
April 13, 2015
6 Pictures

For many people, tape memory is a dead technology found only on reel-to-reel computers in old 1960s movies. However, it’s still a major storage medium and a new breakthrough by IBM Research and Fuji Film has produced a low-cost particulate magnetic tape with a record density of 123 billion bits of uncompressed data per square inch, which represents 88 times more capacity than 2012's LTO-6 tape cartridge

 

[ScienceRocks]

Samsung, Nvidia may collaborate on 14nm GPUs — but on what type of silicon?

Samsung Nvidia may collaborate on 14nm GPUs but on what type of silicon ExtremeTech

Samsung’s foundry is having a darn good 2015. The Samsung Galaxy S6’s Exynos 7420 is the first chip built on the 14nm process, and early reviews suggest that the company’s decision to wait for its own homegrown solution instead of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 paid off. With multiple companies, including Qualcomm and (it’s rumored) Apple itself tapping Samsung for their 14nm needs, the manufacturing arm of the Korean giant is set to have a banner year. It’s natural, therefore, to see a headline talking up an Nvidia-Samsung GPU collaboration and think “Hey, that could totally happen.”

According to the Korea Times, Samsung has won a contract to manufacture GPUs for Nvidia. That publication quotes a source as saying: “The latest agreement between Samsung and Nvidia is another positive factor lifting Samsung’s logic chip business unit. The timing looks good as increased foundry customers justify the Korean chip giant’s moves to find new revenue sources.” The source then goes on to claim that the deal is worth “a few million dollars.”

It’s possible that this is a translation error, or that the deal in question is merely for early pilot production. But we believe a Samsung-Nvidia deal is dubious for several reasons. In addition to the low dollar value specified in the Korea Times story — “a few million” dollars would barely pay for initial design work, much less any major product ramp — there are questions of timing and fundamental process suitability.

Which 14nm node?
Samsung has two 14nm nodes: 14nm LPE and 14nm LPP. 14nm LPE stands for “Low Power Early,” and promises improved power consumption and performance, but the cream of the crop will arrive later, with 14nm LPP (Laser-Produced Plasma) and a further 15% improvement. Critically, however, both of these are low-power nodes with a specific focus on SoCs and IoT (Internet of Things) types of devices. To date, no manufacturer has announced that they intend to build a high-power product on a Samsung process node, and Samsung has no experience in building that kind of hardware.

Now, one might ask — what about GlobalFoundries? GF, after all, has at least some limited experience in building GPUs thanks to its work on Kaveri, Carrizo, and socketed Kabini. It also knows something about building chips that consume up to 140W thanks to its CPU work with AMD. While all these things are true, they don’t change the fact that GloFo’s 14nm process technology is a straight-up port of Samsung’s work — GF’s own 14nm-XM tech is off the table and under the rug.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Electrically controlling quantum bits in silicon may lead to large quantum computers
April 15, 2015
[+]

A UNSW-led research team has encoded quantum information in silicon using simple electrical pulses for the first time, bringing the construction of affordable large-scale quantum computers one step closer to reality.

A video camera that powers itself
Could lead to a future self-powered digital watch with camera?
April 15, 2015
[+]

A prototype self-powered video camera that can produce an image every second of a well-lit indoor scene has been invented by a research team led by Shree K. Nayar, T.C. Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia Engineering.

 

[ScienceRocks]

IBM creates a research group to test Numenta, a brain-like AI software

IBM has established a research group in San Jose, Calif., to work on what could be the next big thing in artificial intelligence software. This news came on April 8 after 100 people were assigned to the project, according to the MIT Technology Review. The IBM team will work on algorithms created by Jeff Hawkins, founder of Numenta.
Hawkins spent time creating a theory to explain the inner workings of the human brain, and then applied the concepts to a software blueprint. His algorithms operate in a network, aimed at recreating the behavior of repeating circuits of about 100 neurons in the brain. These neurons can be found on the outer layer of the brain in the neocortex.