ARM processor becomes more and more popular during year 2012. Power and Integration—ARM Making More Inroads into More Designs. It’s about power—low power; almost no power. A huge and burgeoning market is opening for devices that are handheld and mobile, have rich graphics, deliver 32-bit multicore compute power, include Wi-Fi, web and often 4G connectivity, and that can last up to ten hours on a battery charge.The most obvious among these are smartphones and tablets, but there is also an increasing number of industrial and military devices that fall into this category.
The rivalry between ARM and Intel in this arena is predictably intense because try as it will, Intel has not been able to bring the power consumption of its Atom CPUs down to the level of ARM-based designs (Atom typically in 1-4 watt range and a single ARM Cortex-A9 core in the 250 mW range). ARM’s East unimpressed with Medfield, design wins article tells that Warren East, CEO of processor technology licensor ARM Holdings plc (Cambridge, England), is unimpressed by the announcements made by chip giant Intel about the low-power Medfield system-chip and its design wins. On the other hand Android will run better on our chips, says Intel. Look out what happens in this competition.
Windows-on-ARM Spells End of Wintel article tells that Brokerage house Nomura Equity Research forecasts that the emerging partnership between Microsoft and ARM will likely end the Windows-Intel duopoly. The long-term consequences for the world’s largest chip maker will likely be an exit from the tablet market as ARM makes inroads in notebook computers. As ARM is surely going to keep pointing out to everyone, they don’t have to beat Intel’s raw performance to make a big splash in this market, because for these kinds of devices, speed isn’t everything, and their promised power consumption advantage will surely be a major selling point.
Windows 8 Release Expected in 2012 article says that Windows 8 will be with us in 2012, according to Microsoft roadmaps. Microsoft still hinting at October Windows 8 release date. It will be seen what are the ramifications of Windows 8, which is supposed to run on either the x86 or ARM architectures. Windows on ARM will not be terribly successful says analyst but it is left to be seen is he right. ARM-based chip vendors that Microsoft is working with (TI, Nvidia, Qualcomm) are now focused on mobile devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) because this is where the biggest perceived advantages of ARM-based chips lie, and do not seem to be actively working on PC designs.
Engineering Windows 8 for mobile networks is going on. Windows 8 Mobile Broadband Enhancements Detailed article tells that using mobile broadband in Windows 8 will no longer require specific drivers and third-party software. This is thanks to the new Mobile Broadband Interface Model (MBIM) standard, which hardware makers are reportedly already beginning to adopt, and a generic driver in Windows 8 that can interface with any chip supporting that standard. Windows will automatically detect which carrier it’s associated with and download any available mobile broadband app from the Windows store. MBIM 1.0 is a USB-based protocol for host and device connectivity for desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices. The specification supports multiple generations of GSM and CDMA-based 3G and 4G packet data services including the recent LTE technology.
Consumerization of IT is a hot trend that continues at year 2012. Uh-oh, PC: Half of computing device sales are mobile. Mobile App Usage Further Dominates Web, Spurred by Facebook article tells that the era of mobile computing, catalyzed by Apple and Google, is driving among the largest shifts in consumer behavior over the last forty years. Impressively, its rate of adoption is outpacing both the PC revolution of the 1980s and the Internet Boom of the 1990s. By the end of 2012, Flurry estimates that the cumulative number of iOS and Android devices activated will surge past 1 billion, making the rate of iOS and Android smart device adoption more than four times faster than that of personal computers (over 800 million PCs were sold between 1981 and 2000). Smartphones and tablets come with broadband connectivity out-of-the-box. Bring-your-own-device becoming accepted business practice.
Mobile UIs: It’s developers vs. users article tells that increased emphasis on distinctive smartphone UIs means even more headaches for cross-platform mobile developers. Whose UI will be a winner? Native apps trump the mobile Web.The increased emphasis on specialized mobile user interface guidelines casts new light on the debate over Web apps versus native development, too.
The Cloud is Not Just for Techies Anymore tells that cloud computing achieves mainstream status. So we demand more from it. That’s because our needs and expectations for a mainstream technology and an experimental technology differ. Once we depend on a technology to run our businesses, we demand minute-by-minute reliability and performance.
Cloud security is no oxymoron article is estimated that in 2013 over $148 billion will be spent on cloud computing. Companies large and small are using the cloud to conduct business and store critical information. The cloud is now mainstream. The paradigm of cloud computing requires cloud consumers to extend their trust boundaries outside their current network and infrastructure to encompass a cloud provider. There are three primary areas of cloud security that relate to almost any cloud implementation: authentication, encryption, and network access control. If you are dealing with those issues and software design, read Rugged Software Manifesto and Rugged Software Development presentation.
Enterprise IT’s power shift threatens server-huggers article tells that as more developers take on the task of building, deploying, and running applications on infrastructure outsourced to Amazon and others, traditional roles of system administration and IT operations will morph considerably or evaporate.
Explosion in “Big Data” Causing Data Center Crunch article tells that global business has been caught off-guard by the recent explosion in data volumes and is trying to cope with short-term fixes such as buying in data centre capacity. Oracle also found that the number of businesses looking to build new data centres within the next two years has risen. Data centre capacity and data volumes should be expected to go up – this drives data centre capacity building. Data centre capacity and data volumes should be expected to go up – this drives data centre capacity building. Most players active on “Big Data” field seems to plan to use Apache Hadoop framework for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers. At least EMC, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, Informatica, HP, Dell and Cloudera are using Hadoop.
Cloud storage has been very popular topic lately to handle large amount of data storage. The benefits have been told very much, but now we can also see risks of that to realize. Did the Feds Just Kill the Cloud Storage Model? article claims that Megaupload Type Shutdowns and Patriot Act are killing interest to Cloud Storage. Many innocent Megaupload users have had their data taken away from them. The MegaUpload seizure shows how personal files hosted on remote servers operated by a third party can easily be caught up in a government raid targeted at digital pirates. In the wake of Megaupload crackdown, fear forces similar sites to shutter sharing services?. If you use any of these cloud storage sites to store or distribute your own non-infringing files, you are wise to have backups elsewhere, because they may be next on the DOJ’s copyright hit list.
Did the Feds Just Kill the Cloud Storage Model? article tells that worries have been steadily growing among European IT leaders that the USA Patriot Act would give the U.S. government unfettered access to their data if stored on the cloud servers of American providers. Escaping the grasp of the Patriot Act may be more difficult than the marketing suggests. “You have to fence yourself off and make sure that neither you or your cloud service provider has any operations in the United States”, “otherwise you’re vulnerable to U.S. jurisdiction.” And the cloud computing model is built on the argument data can and should reside anywhere around the world, freely passing between borders.
Data centers to cut LAN cord? article mentions that 60GHz wireless links are tested in data centers to ease east-west traffic jams. According to a recent article in The New York Times, data center and networking techies are playing around with 60GHz wireless networking for short-haul links to give rack-to-rack communications some extra bandwidth for when the east-west traffic goes a bit wild. The University of Washington and Microsoft Research published a paper at the Association of Computing Machinery’s SIGCOMM 2011 conference late last year about their tests of 60GHz wireless links in the data center. Their research used prototype links that bear some resemblance to the point-to-point, high bandwidth technology known as WiGig (Wireless Gigabit), which among other things is being proposed as a means to support wireless links between Blu-ray DVD players and TVs, replacing HDMI cables (Wilocity Demonstrates 60 GHz WiGig (Draft 802.11ad) Chipset at CES). 60 GHz band is suitable for indoor, high-bandwidth use in information technology.. There are still many places for physical wires. The wired connections used in a data center are highly reliable, so “why introduce variability in a mission-critical situation?”
NASA unplugs last mainframe
IBM mainframes no longer a NASA workhorse
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/nasa-unplugs-last-mainframe
It’s somewhat hard to imagine that NASA doesn’t need the computing power of an IBM mainframe any more but NASA CIO posted on her blog today at the end of the month, the Big Iron will be no more at the space agency.
Marshall Space Flight Center powered down NASA’s last mainframe, the IBM Z9 Mainframe
Even though NASA has shut down its last one, there is still a requirement for mainframe capability in many other organizations.
Cheap Ultrabooks? Not before 2013
http://www.reghardware.com/2012/02/13/ultrabooks_will_not_hit_mainstream_price_points_before_2013_say_vendors/
Hoping for Ultrabook prices to plummet before you take the plunge? You may have to wait a while. These skinny laptops won’t hit the $599-699 (£379-442) band until 2013, notebook manufacturers reckon.
And this glum forecast is shared by component makers, DigiTimes says.
Ultrabook price unlikely to achieve sweet spot until 2013
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120213PD207.html
Sources from the supply chain also pointed out that the production cost of ultrabooks is still rather high, especially the cost of SSDs, which is 10-fold higher than a traditional hard drive, while custom-made ultra-thin panels and components also play large parts in the overall cost for the vendors. However, as vendors work on reducing their costs, ultrabooks’ ASPs have a chance to reach US$799 in the second quarter.
[...] that (there has been once Windows NT for DEC Alpha and still Windows Server 2008 for Itanium). ARM is now hot and Microsoft is active pushing Windows 8 to use it. Sinofsky shows off Windows 8 on ARM and [...]
United Nations aims for cloud interoperability
http://www.cloudpro.co.uk/cloud-essentials/2813/united-nations-aims-cloud-interoperability
The UN’s International Telecommunication Union creates a new group focused on standardising cloud computing
The Working Party on Cloud Computing will begin by examining reports from an ITU focus group. The plan is to build on these initial findings and create formal recommendations for the ITU to offer the technology industry.
“Cloud computing is an industry expected to grow at an annual growth rate of roughly 30 per cent,” read a statement from the ITU.
“However, concerns with the portability – freedom to transfer data between the clouds of different providers – and the interoperability of cloud solutions has led to calls for standardisation to fuel further industry growth.”
NoSQL databases not just for the ‘cool kids’
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/13/couchbase_nosql_survey/
Relational DBMSes ‘too rigid’
Back in December, Couchbase, one of the front-runners in the NoSQL race, did a poll asking companies what their plans were for adopting NoSQL technologies
About half of the companies polled say they have already funded NoSQL projects during the first half of 2012
“NoSQL database technology has its roots in large, consumer web companies,” Phillips wrote. “Google gave us BigTable. Amazon created Dynamo. Many of the early adopters of systems like Couchbase and MongoDB were of this ilk: Zynga, SmugMug, AOL, TheKnot.com and the like. But we’ve been seeing increasing adoption from ‘more traditional’ industries – financial services, insurance, automotive, transportation, media, manufacturing – and the survey results indicate that NoSQL will become even more ‘horizontal’ in 2012 and beyond. I did not expect we would find the level of interest in this breadth of industries, this soon.”
http://www.tietokone.fi/uutiset/isuppli_kiintolevykriisi_ohi_ensi_syksyna
Thailand’s devastating floods affecting the hard drive on the market for a long time, warns research firm IHS iSuppli.
Hard drives increase in the prices has been reflected in the prices of equipment and component availability problems have even stopped the manufacturers’ production lines.
Although deliveries of the first and second quarter will increase dramatically, reached pre-crisis level of delivery in the autumn.
Using virtualization to consolidate data traffic on a single network appliance
http://www.eetimes.com/design/embedded/4218018/Using-virtualization
For network routers, servers, and switches the jobs of monitoring, analyzing, and securing computing resources have never been more important. We have already seen a marked increase in data traffic but some are warning of a traffic explosion. According to a report from ABI Research, the volume of global annual data traffic will exceed 60,000 petabytes in 2016, over seven times more than the 8,000 petabytes expected in 2011. ABI has also predicted that the fastest year-on-year growth will occur in 2012, at 58 percent.
To handle this increased traffic without blowing the budget organizations will need more server power and storage capacity in their data centers.
Today, network appliances are typically single server implementations, with few providing more than one application. It is common for several network appliances to be accessing a single monitoring location. For example, a typical scenario could be three appliances monitoring the same connection, with one monitoring specific flows, another providing performance analysis, and a third providing intrusion detection functionality.
If all appliances are based on the same operating system, it is possible to consolidate them using intelligent network adapters that can distribute data and share data between multiple applications. Such solutions exist today.
VMware Direct Path allows a virtual machine to control a physical network adapter. This allows existing network appliance applications to be transferred to a virtual environment:
While the above implementation works, it still requires a dedicated network adapter for each virtual client.
By using a data distribution virtual machine as a server virtual machine based on VMware’s VMCI (Virtual Machine Communication Interface), it is possible to distribute and replicate data to multiple virtual machine clients. The data distribution virtual machine can thus distribute or replicate data captured by a single intelligent network adapter to multiple client virtual machines each supporting a separate network appliance.
Cost, space and power demands require that network appliances are as effectively and efficiently utilized as their application server counterparts.
UK authorities take down a U.S. domain: Could it happen to you?
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/uk-authorities-take-down-a-us-domain-could-it-happen-to-you/3039
Summary: If you thought the Patriot Act ‘debacle’ was one-sided, with U.S. authorities striking at the heart of Europe, UK authorities can hit back just as hard.
A UK law enforcement agency has shut down a popular music blog in the style of a U.S. Department of Homeland Security domain name seizure.
Confirmed by SOCA: “Yep, we did that,” according to a spokesperson.
Rackspace hosted the content in question, and its domain was registered with GoDaddy; both are U.S. companies.
Because of their UK presence, it means the parent companies are tied between complying with U.S. law, and their wholly-owned subsidiaries in the UK and Europe are tied by European laws and localised legislation.
On a practical level, if UK law enforcement request the takedown of a domain outside of its jurisdiction, the UK subsidiary can be forced to pass on the request to its U.S. parent company. From there, the U.S. parent must comply with UK law as it could face lawsuits and other legal nasties in the region
Once again, the issue falls down to jurisdiction. Forgive me for banging on about it again, but this is exactly why the Patriot Act has such a damaging effect on European businesses, consumers, and even governments.
Ultrabook prices to drop 20-30% in early March to April
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120213PD215.html
Prices of the existing ultrabooks are expected to see a 20-30% drop in early March to April to help digesting notebook vendors’ inventories as Intel is set to announce its next-generation Ivy Bridge platform in April, according to analysis offered by sources from channel retailers.
Future of computing – Part 3: The ILP Wall and pipelines
The greater the parallelism, the greater the pain in complexity, heat and programming
http://www.edn.com/article/520901-Future_of_computing_Part_3_The_ILP_Wall_and_pipelines.php?cid=EDNToday_20120214
HP chiefs bet big at Vegas on cloud payday
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2012/02/15/hp_cloud_vegas/
Cloud computing is forecast to balloon to an $143bn industry by 2013, according to HP’s internal analysis, and the tech company wants to put a framework in place for resellers to help it swipe a slice of the action.
HP unveiled new Packaged Consulting Services for pure resellers – cloud, storage and networking services – with standard pricing and discounts to make quotations easier without investing in specialised accreditations for sales staff.
“Last year, HP invested more than $1bn in programmes across its portfolio to help partners pursue growth markets and win more business.
HP to double R & D money
http://www.tietokone.fi/uutiset/hp_kaksinkertaistaa_tuotekehitysrahat
Las Vegas – casino partner conference in which organized the HP’s CEO announced that the company plans to double the money you spent on product development. At the same time was also given to understand that the WebOS operating system is far from being finally buried.
Google may launch Android 5.0 in 2Q12, say Taiwan makers
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120215PD209.html
Viewing that the adoption of Android 4.0 has fallen short of original expectations and Microsoft will launch Windows 8 in the third quarter of 2012, Google is likely to launch Android 5.0 (Jelly Bean) in the second quarter and appeal for adopting Android 5.0 and Windows 8 in the same tablet PC, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers.
Brand vendors can either choose to adopt only Android 5.0 or add Android 5.0 to Windows 8 devices with the ability to switch between the two OSes without the need to shut down the computer.
Windows 8 and Android Jelly Bean: To wait or not to wait?
New operating systems look to complete our transition to a touch-screen world, but are we patient enough to wait? It’s especially tricky if you’re in need of both a new phone and laptop.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57379826-1/windows-8-and-android-jelly-bean-to-wait-or-not-to-wait/#ixzz1mdAXDyCL
The Internet Big Five By Product Strength
http://battellemedia.com/archives/2012/01/the-internet-big-five-by-product-strength.php
This one focuses on core product lines where all (or most) of these companies are playing. For me, these product lines, taken together, are the basis of what we might call “the operating system of our lives.”
Here’s the chart
http://battellemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/TheIntBigFiveByProdv2.png
Mountain Lion
http://daringfireball.net/2012/02/mountain_lion
Apple PR with the offer of a private “product briefing”.
A presentation that started with the day’s focus (“We wanted you here today to talk about OS X”) and a review of the Mac’s success over the past few years (5.2 million Macs sold last quarter; 23 (soon to be 24) consecutive quarters of sales growth exceeding the overall PC industry; tremendous uptake among Mac users of the Mac App Store and the rapid adoption of Lion).
And then the reveal: Mac OS X — sorry, OS X — is going on an iOS-esque one-major-update-per-year development schedule. This year’s update is scheduled for release in the summer, and is ready now for a developer preview release. Its name is Mountain Lion.
Apple sees a fundamental difference between software for the keyboard-and-mouse-pointer Mac and that for the touchscreen iPad. Mountain Lion is not a step towards a single OS that powers both the Mac and iPad, but rather another in a series of steps toward defining a set of shared concepts, styles, and principles between two fundamentally distinct OSes.
In the Cloud, a Data Breach is Only As Bad As Your Contract
http://www.cio.com/article/700343/In_the_Cloud_a_Data_Breach_is_Only_As_Bad_As_Your_Contract
Loss of control is one of the main things that gives people pause when they think about putting their data in the cloud. We’ve all seen how painful a data breach can be, and it can seem almost like asking for trouble to put your data in the hands of someone else. It’s hard enough to prepare for a breach when you’re in control. How do you do it when you put someone else in charge?
Intel ponders solar-powered CPU tech in graphics, memory
Intel is looking to drive down processors’ power consumption
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/415905/intel_ponders_solar-powered_cpu_tech_graphics_memory
Intel last year showed the low-power processor — charged only by the light from a reading lamp — running Windows and Linux PCs. Intel is expected to share further details about the processor, which is code-named Claremont, at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco next week.
The CPU, which is the size of a postage stamp, is also known as the near-threshold voltage (NTV) CPU for its ability to keep operating at extremely low voltage levels. The CPU’s power consumption could go down to as little as 280 millivolts when running at 3MHz, and up to 1.2 volts when running at around 1Ghz when more performance is needed.
The NTV CPU is designed to bring extreme energy efficiency to computing devices, said Justin Rattner, Intel’s chief technology officer, in a briefing ahead of the show.
“It’s allowing us to make Intel’s product more [power efficient] across the compute continuum” while reaching appropriate performance levels, Rattner said.
The energy gains are about five to 10 times with NTV, Rattner said.
“The design has generated an extraordinary amount of interest,” Rattner said.
Intel Gets Serious With Solar-powered CPU Tech
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/02/19/2346225/intel-gets-serious-with-solar-powered-cpu-tech
Yes Intel did demo a solar cell powering a Pentium, but that was merely to make a point about the inefficiencies of near-threshold voltage (NTV) CPUs. They have no particular focus on Solar powered processors.
Near-threshold voltage (NTV) CPUs are the focus of Intel’s research here.
NTV transistors can switch at voltages just the threshold for the device’s powered state, and CPUs made of these can idle along at extremely low voltage doing real work (slower) or they can ramp up the power and work much faster.
The Register has a much better explanation of this technology [theregister.co.uk] than the linked article.
Intel shows off near threshold voltage chip wizardry
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/19/intel_isscc_ntv_digital_radio/
“VCC has a quadratic impact on power consumption,” Rattner explained. “Energy efficiencies peak as you approach the threshold voltage – in fact, you want to be a little over peak.”
The idea is to have devices run at low voltages and power consumption rates that would be akin to a sleep mode in today’s chips. And NTV techniques are not just limited to processors used in hand-held devices like smartphones and tablets, but to everything all the way up to exascale supercomputers, says Rattner. The important thing is that NTV techniques allow a chip’s performance and power to scale as voltage scales up and down, and to do so across a wide dynamic range.
What Intel will talk about at ISSCC is that the Claremont chip was actually etched in 32 nanometer processes and that the chip can run at a wide range of voltages and clock speeds, from 280 millivolts at 3MHz to 1.2 volts at 915MHz, with power consumption as low as 2 milliwatts in power consumption in a low-power mode where it is still operating, not in sleep mode.
The Pentium chip recast using NTV techniques in 32 nanometer processes was 4.7 times as energy efficient as a Pentium forged using 32 nanometer techniques without the NTV adaptations.
Intel ups the ante on Moore’s Law with speed + low energy
http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/19/at-chip-engineering-conference-intel-continues-to-obey-moores-law/
Intel is announcing several advances in chip technology today that show it is keeping up with the demanding pace of Moore’s Law, which predicts a doubling of semiconductor performance every two years.
“Energy efficiency has been Intel’s goal for many years now,” said Justin Rattner, chief technology officer at Intel, in a call with reporters. “We do it to minimize the energy impact on the environment but also to make Intel’s products more scalable across the computing continuum.”
That means Intel is creating energy efficient chips for low-power mobile devices all the way up to high-performance supercomputing chips. In contrast to past years where performance alone mattered, Intel’s chips are now designed to work within limited energy budgets.
Virtualized or Not? We’ve Got Numbers
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5536/virtualized-or-not-we-got-numbers
Even back in 2008, IDC expected that 52% of the servers would be used for virtualization, but in other reports the numbers were significantly lower. For example, more recently (April 2011) IDC reported that about 20% of all newly purchased servers are used in virtualized environments.
The 20% virtualized servers number seems low, but you have to drill down a bit in the data.
Canonical did a survey among 6000 (!) users of Ubuntu Server. Interestingly, 50% of the respondents stated that they use Ubuntu server as a guest OS inside a VM, in other words it runs virtualized.
Interestingly, VMware and not Xen or KVM are the most used hypervisors
Forget Public Cloud or Private Cloud, It’s All About Hyper-Hybrid
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/021012-forget-public-cloud-or-private-255987.html
Cloud computing has gone from being a promising technology to a reality that brings a unique set of challenges along with benefits. To fully leverage the disruptive potential of cloud without getting trapped in a web of integration complexity, CIOs and their IT organizations need to focus on what it means to rethink their business as a collection of services.
“As cloud offerings added vertical business capability offerings to the horizontal IT capacity services, the adoption question changed from “if” to “when”–and the answer is frequently “now,”" White, principal and CTO of Deloitte Consulting, and Briggs, director and deputy CTO, write in their Tech Trends 2012: Elevate IT for Digital Business report
“When preparing to move ahead, start by articulating the business goals, identifying key security risk and compliance considerations, and investigating potential cloud and traditional solutions,” they said.
Speed to solution through rapid, low-risk implementation can be a benefit of cloud computing: get ready to think big, start small, fail fast and scale soon
Tech Trends 2012
Elevate IT for digital business
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Services/consulting/technology-consulting/technology-2012/index.htm
Top 10 Microsoft Windows 8 features to be excited about
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/2153019/microsoft-windows-features-excited
Intel to show Atom-based ‘Rosepoint’ chips with integrated Wi-Fi
http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/19/2810041/intel-rosepoint-atom-wi-fi-integrated
It looks like Intel’s taking its mobile business seriously: the company plans to bring a new chip to ISSCC 2012 in San Francisco this week that integrates a dual-core Atom processor and a Wi-Fi transceiver on the same silicon. We don’t have too many details yet, but the 32nm SoC codenamed Rosepoint is expected to bring significant reductions in power, cost, and size to Intel-powered smartphones, tablets, and laptops.
According to Wired, the chip won’t be ready for primetime until at least halfway through the decade
Windows web browsing falls seven per cent in six months
Tablets and smartphones are to blame
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2153615/windows-web-browsing-falls-seven-cent-months
web browsing done by machines running Windows dropping to 71.4 per cent in February 2012.
Microsoft’s problem is two-fold. Users seemingly are shying away from traditional PCs, the vast majority of which run its Windows operating system, and onto tablets. That wouldn’t be a major problem in itself but Microsoft is struggling badly with its Windows Phone operations and in the tablet market it is merely a bystander, so not only are users moving away from Wintel machines but onto machines where its software is not an option.
Chitika’s figures signal problems for Microsoft and other companies that depend on desktop and laptop sales.
Sony and Tokyo Tech develop record-setting 6.3Gbps chip for 60GHz transmissions
http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/20/2811344/sony-millimeter-wave-60ghz-tokyo-institute-technology
Sony and a research team at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed an RF and baseband chip capable of wireless data transfers at up to 6.3Gbps operating on the 60GHz millimeter wave band. The new chip is specifically for use on mobile devices, and is being showcased at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco this week.
The 60GHz millimeter wave band (so called because of its wavelength of 1 to 10 millimeters) is not only used for those uncomfortable airport security screenings, but also for standards like Wireless Gigabit (WiGig) and WirelessHD (WiHD).
HP ARM-based servers expected to be available for testing in 2Q12
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20120217PD208.html
Hewlett-Packard (HP) has been working on a long-term project named Project Moonshot
Exascale by 2018: Crazy …or possible?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/20/exascale_timeline_is_a_2018_end_date_possible/
HPC blog I recently saw some estimates that show we should hit exascale supercomputer performance by around 2018. That seems a bit ambitious – if not stunningly optimistic
Right now the fastest super is Fujitsu’s K system, which pegs the Flop-O-Meter at a whopping 10.51 petaflops.
This implies an increase in performance of around 115% per year over the next six years. Is this possible?
The technology challenges are mind-boggling, and it’s clear that simply applying ‘smaller but faster’ versions of today’s technology won’t get us over the exascale hump. It’s going to take some technology breakthroughs and new approaches.
It may take a few years longer, but not too many
Why corporate cloud storage doesn’t add up
http://www.infoworld.com/d/data-center/why-corporate-cloud-storage-doesnt-add-186784
Full-on outsourcing of corporate storage needs is a puzzling concept, to say the least
As IT continues in a zigzag path of figuring out what to do with this “cloud” stuff, it seems that some companies are getting ahead of themselves. In particular, the concept of outsourcing storage to a cloud provider puzzles me. I can see some benefits in other cloud services (though I still find the trust aspect difficult to reconcile), but full-on cloud storage offerings don’t make sense outside of some rare circumstances.
And in most cases, there’s little to be gained by deploying file storage in this way. Sure, removing the onus of backing up those files is a net gain for IT, but then again, there’s already storage in the data center running the servers
Then there’s the bandwidth issue. If you’re moving all your user files offsite, you better have invested in tons of bandwidth, as well as robust failover circuits for when the primary circuit gives out.
And the circuits need to be fast, because for decades users have been accustomed to instantaneous file access. You may find that you’ve spent more on expensive high-speed data circuits than you’ve saved by going to the cloud.
Don’t forget that fast, reliable storage is very cheap these days.
SanDisk daddy: Flash to ‘checkmate’ hard drives by 2020
Next on the hit list: DRAM
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/22/eli_harari/
Harari made what he identified as “bold predictions” about the future of NAND, namely that it will not only overtake and supplant most if not all hard drive–based storage, but also that DRAM is on its hit list, as well.
Although SSDs aren’t going to fully replace hard disk drives anytime soon, he says, it’s important to note that mobile computing is already ushering in the hard drive’s doom. “In smartphones, tablets, and ultrabooks, flash is inside. That game is over.”
But flash is also the future in the enterprise and in the cloud, he believes.
NAND, I believe, will disrupt DRAM. Today, the cost of NAND per gigabyte is 10 times lower than the cost of DRAM … and that’s not likely to change.
With a 10X price differential, he argued, having ten times as much flash as system memory in a PC is a clear choice.
Intel’s (latest) mobile comeback
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/21/intel-mobile-chip-strategy/
CEO Paul Otellini thinks he’s finally found a way to get Intel into the mobile game. Will phone makers take his call?
Most striking of all was what the audience couldn’t see: the tiny Intel microprocessor — called Medfield — inside. The phone wasn’t for sale (it was a prototype Intel had put together), but the crowd cheered anyway. After years of delays and missteps, Intel, it seemed, finally had a viable product to show for its efforts in mobile phones.
“Would I have liked to be earlier? Yes,” Otellini told Fortune in an interview
Ironically, Intel used to manufacture ARM processors for early smartphones and PDAs like the Palm Treo. But in 2006, Otellini sold its entire mobile product line, called XScale, to Marvell Technology Group
COMMENTS:
Intel’s risk profile is asymetric w.r.t. ARM’s. ARM loses very little if Intel gains a double digit percentage market share in smartphones. ARM partners are shipping now close to ten billion units per year – losing 100 million smartphones to Intel will be peanuts.
Intel essentially loses everything if ARM takes an equivalent market share from them in servers and PCs. Couple that with what happens if ARM wins further business in vertically integrated companies such as Samsung and Apple (say, they steal the macbook business), it starts to look very shaky for Intel.
ARM has such a breadth of products for so many market segments that it will be almost impossible for Intel to shift it’s focus to compete with all of that.
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It’s easy to put a prototype together and show it off, but it’s another thing to make an actual product that will sell.
Intel will never sell an x86 processor that will be used in a mobile phone. The x86 processor is nowhere near as power-efficient as ARM processors.
CIA to software vendors: A revolution is coming
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/22/us-cia-software-idUSTRE81L03C20120222
Rather than stick with traditional all-you-can-eat deals known as “enterprise licensing agreements,” the CIA wants to buy software services on a “metered,” pay-as-you-go basis, Ira “Gus” Hunt, the agency’s top technology officer, told an industry conference.
“Think Amazon,” he said, referring to the electronic commerce giant where the inventory is vast but the billing is per item. “That model really works.”
Venture capital sees big returns in big data
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/21/us-venture-bigdata-idUSTRE81G1HO20120221
the “dashboard” of real-time analytics that can instantly spot trends and enable the site to tweak its offerings on the fly
Venture capitalists say the big-data wave is just starting to build. Li, for one, sees limitless opportunity in mobile. “The mobile device is the single best data-capture device ever,” he said. “Always with you, and it generates a ton of data.”