I did not have time to post my computer technologies predictions t the ends of 2016. Because I missed the year end deadline, I though that there is no point on posting anything before the news from CES 2017 have been published. Here are some of myck picks on the current computer technologies trends:
CES 2017 had 3 significant technology trends: deep learning goes deep, Alexa everywhere and Wi-Fi gets meshy. The PC sector seemed to be pretty boring.
Gartner expects that IT sales will growth (2.7%) but hardware sales will not have any growth – can drop this year. TEKsystems 2017 IT forecast shows IT budgets rebounding from a slump in 2016, and IT leaders’ confidence high going into the new year. But challenges around talent acquisition and organizational alignment will persist. Programming and software development continue to be among the most crucial and hard-to-find IT skill sets.
Smart phones sales (expected to be 1.89 billion) and PC sales (expected to be 432 million) do not grow in 2017. According to IDC PC shipments declined for a fifth consecutive year in 2016 as the industry continued to suffer from stagnation and lack of compelling drivers for upgrades. Both Gartner and IDC estimated that PC shipments declined about 6% in 2016.Revenue in the traditional (non-cloud) IT infrastructure segment decreased 10.8 per cent year over year in the third quarter of 2016. Only PC category that has potential for growth is ultramobile (includes Microsoft Surface ja Apple MacBook Air). Need for memory chips is increasing.
Browser suffers from JavaScript-creep disease: This causes that the browing experience seems to be become slower even though computer and broadband connections are getting faster all the time. Bloat on web pages has been going on for ages, and this trend seems to continue.
Microsoft tries all it can to make people to switch from older Windows versions to Windows 10. Microsoft says that continued usage of Windows 7 increases maintenance and operating costs for businesses as malware attacks that could have been avoided by upgrading to Windows 10. Microsoft says that continued usage of Windows 7 increases maintenance and operating costs for businesses. Microsoft: Windows 7 Does Not Meet the Demands of Modern Technology; Recommends Windows 10. On February 2017 Microsoft stops the 20 year long tradition of monthly security updates. Windows 10 “Creators Update” coming early 2017 for free, featuring 3D and mixed reality, 4K gaming, more.
Microsoft plans to emulate x86 instructions on ARM chips, throwing a compatibility lifeline to future Windows tablets and phones. Microsoft’s x86 on ARM64 Emulation is coming in 2017. This capability is coming to Windows 10, though not until “Redstone 3″ in the Fall of 2017.
Parents should worry less about the amount of time their children spend using smartphones, computers and playing video games because screen time is actually beneficial, the University of Oxford has concluded. 257 minutes is the time teens can spend on computers each day before harming wellbeing.
Outsourcing IT operations to foreign countries is not trendy anymore and companied live at uncertain times. India’s $150 billion outsourcing industry stares at an uncertain future. In the past five years, revenue and profit growth for the top five companies listed on the BSE have halved. Industry leader TCS too felt the impact as it made a shift in business model towards software platforms and chased digital contacts.
Containers will become hot this year and cloud will stay hot. Research firm 451 Research predicts this year containerization will be US $ 762 million business and that Containers will become 2.6 billion worth of software business in 2020. (40 per cent a year growth rate).
Cloud services are expected to have 22 percent annual growth rate. By 2020, the sector would grow from the current 22.2 billion to $ 46 billion. In Finland 30% of companies now prefer to buy cloud services when buying IT (20 per cent of IT budget goes to cloud).Cloud spend to make up over a third of IT budgets by 2017. Cloud and hosting services will be responsible for 34% of IT budgets by 2017, up from 28% by the end of 2016, according to 451 Research. Cloud services have many advantages, but cloud services have also disadvantages. In five years, SaaS will be the cloud that matters.
When cloud is growing, so is the spending on cloud hardware by the cloud companies. Cloud hardware spend hits US$8.4bn/quarter, as traditional kit sinks – 2017 forecast to see cloud kit clock $11bn every 90 days. In 2016′s third quarter vendor revenue from sales of infrastructure products (server, storage, and Ethernet switch) for cloud IT, including public and private cloud, grew by 8.1 per cent year over year to $8.4 billion. Private cloud accounted for $3.3 billion with the rest going to public clouds. Data centers need lower latency components so Google Searches for Better Silicon.
The first signs of the decline and fall of the 20+ year x86 hegemony will appear in 2017. The availability of industry leading fab processes will allow other processor architectures (including AMD x86, ARM, Open Power and even the new RISC-V architecture) to compete with Intel on a level playing field.
USB-C will now come to screens – C-type USB connector promises to really become the only all equipment for the physical interface.The HDMI connection will be lost from laptops in the future. Thunderbolt 3 is arranged to work with USB Type-C, but it’s not the same thing (Thunderbolt is four times faster than USB 3.1).
World’s first ‘exascale’ supercomputer prototype will be ready by the end of 2017, says China
It seems that Oracle Begins Aggressively Pursuing Java Licensing Fees in 2017. Java SE is free, but Java SE Suite and various flavors of Java SE Advanced are not. Oracle is massively ramping up audits of Java customers it claims are in breach of its licences – six years after it bought Sun Microsystems. Huge sums of money are at stake. The version of Java in contention is Java SE, with three paid flavours that range from $40 to $300 per named user and from $5,000 to $15,000 for a processor licence. If you download Java, you get everything – and you need to make sure you are installing only the components you are entitled to and you need to remove the bits you aren’t using.
Your Year in Review, Unsung Hero article sees the following trends in 2017:
- A battle between ASICs, GPUs, and FPGAs to run emerging workloads in artificial intelligence
- A race to create the first generation of 5G silicon
- Continued efforts to define new memories that have meaningful impact
- New players trying to take share in the huge market for smartphones
- An emerging market for VR gaining critical mass
Virtual Reality Will Stay Hot on both PC and mobile.“VR is the heaviest heterogeneous workload we encounter in mobile—there’s a lot going on, much more than in a standard app,” said Tim Leland, a vice president for graphics and imaging at Qualcomm. The challenges are in the needs to calculate data from multiple sensors and respond to it with updated visuals in less than 18 ms to keep up with the viewer’s head motions so the CPUs, GPUs, DSPs, sensor fusion core, display engine, and video-decoding block are all running at close to full tilt.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Ex-NSA techies launch data governance tool for future algorithm-slavery
Immuta debuts Projects for machine learning governance, ‘interpretability is key’ – CEO
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/25/immuta_data_governance_tool/
Immuta, a data governance startup in Maryland run by former US National Security Agency technicians, has developed a method to govern how data is used by machine learning algorithms.
Dubbed “Projects,” the new addition to Immuta’s data governance platform embeds what the company considers “key GDPR [EU's General Data Protection Regulation] concepts, such as purpose-based restrictions and audits on data,” which will allow data scientists to run complicated algorithms on data without breaching privacy laws.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Amazon may be using disk drives with hot-swappable components
Patent calls for drives in which mechanical bits and electronics aren’t bound together
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/26/amazon_special_cloud_disks/
Amazon’s won a patent for “Hard disk drive assembly with field-separable mechanical module and drive control”.
In Amazon’s world disk drives have two distinct systems. There’s a “drive mechanical module” comprising a drive’s arms, heads, spindle, motor and platters. And there’s a “control module”, basically the drive’s motherboard.
But as the patent notes, when disk drives fail “Many hard disk drives failures may only involve electrical components (such as a semiconductor chip failure) or only mechanical components (such as an actuator failure). Nevertheless, repairing the data storage system may require removing and replacing both the mechanical components and the electrical components of the hard disk drive.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Northrop Grumman can make a stealth bomber – but can’t protect its workers’ W-2 tax forms
‘Stolen creds’ used to swipe data on aerospace giant’s staff
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/04/24/northrop_grumman_breach_worker_w2s/
Northrop Grumman has admitted one of its internal portals was broken into, exposing employees’ sensitive tax records to miscreants.
In a letter [PDF] to workers and the California Attorney General’s office, the aerospace contractor said that between April 18, 2016 and March 29, 2017, crooks infiltrated the website, allowing them to access staffers’ W-2 paperwork for the 2016 tax year.
These W-2 forms can be used by identity thieves to claim tax rebates owed to employees, allowing the crims to pocket victims’ money. The corp sent out its warning letters on April 18, the last day to file 2016 tax returns.
Tomi Engdahl says:
How Facebook Is Combining Augmented Reality and AI
https://www.designnews.com/electronics-test/how-facebook-combining-augmented-reality-and-ai/89960987656661?cid=nl.x.dn14.edt.aud.dn.20170426.tst004t
At its 2017 F8 developers conference, Facebook announced a new platforms that will let developers create artificial intelligence-driven augmented reality applications for the social network.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Your next computer could be in a data center
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/30/your-next-computer-could-be-in-a-data-center/?sr_share=facebook
Your next computer could be in a data center
Your next computer could be in a data center
Computers have become more powerful and more portable, letting you execute some compute-intensive tasks on your laptop. But internet connections have also become incredible faster, making it much easier to outsource some tasks to servers sitting in a data center.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft announces Code Builder extension for Minecraft: Education Edition, which introduces the Agent, a sidekick who helps kids execute coding instructions
Minecraft Code Builder introduces programming to block-stacking students
https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2017/05/02/minecraft-code-builder-introduces-programming-block-stacking-students/#.tnw_mj1CF5vJ
Microsoft today announced Code Builder for Minecraft: Education Edition. This new extension will teach kids how to code with the help of an assistant within the building block video game.
Code Builder introduces the Agent, a tiny sidekick, who executes coding instructions given via programs like Tynker, MakeCode, or ScratchX. Students learn how to use code to get the Agent to build things, solve problems, or even dance.
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge:
Microsoft updates Teams with education-focused tools, including a dashboard for student’s work with access to learning materials, available this summer
Microsoft’s Slack competitor is designed to hook students with emoji, stickers, and GIFs
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/2/15515464/microsoft-edu-teams-for-schools-education
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft unveils Windows 10 S, a more powerful competitor to Chrome OS
https://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2017/05/02/microsoft-unveils-windows-10-s-powerful-competitor-chrome-os/#.tnw_c4xPmgA0
At its event in New York today, Microsoft announced a new iteration of Windows 10: Windows 10 S. As long rumored, it’s Microsoft’s challenger to Chrome OS.
Microsoft is calling it a streamlined version of Windows 10, optimized to run on lower-end hardware. But Windows 10 usually starts off pretty smooth even on cheap computers – problems arise as computers slow down over time, which is why Microsoft is promising the “same performance on the first day of school as the last.”
The company showed off how Windows 10 S logs in much faster than Windows 10 Pro, which is supposed to help lessons in classrooms get started quickly. It’s supposed to have much-improved battery life, and is much faster to deploy – Microsoft said a school was able to install Windows 10 S on 600 PCs with 30 USB keys in one day.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Optane and the Specification Game
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1331631&
The introduction of Intel’s latest Optane-based product offers an interesting play on the specification game.
The introduction of Intel’s latest Optane-based product provides an interesting play on the specification game. The claim for the latest 16GB and 32GB boards was for an endurance of 100GB/day and a TBW of 182.5TB.
The JESD218B-01 standard[Ref 1] specifies and acknowledges two endurance standards: the total number of writes over the lifetime of the device in TeraByte writes (TBW), and drive writes per day (DWPD) – the latter expressed as number, not bits, bytes nor TBytes.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Names New Data Center Chief as Bryant Takes Leave
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331688&
Intel Corp. CEO Brian Krzanich Wednesday (May 3) announced a new leader for its Data Center Group (DCG) due to a leave of absence being taken by Diane Bryant, the business unit’s president.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Micron Leap Frogs NVMe Over Fabric Standards
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331681&
Micron Technology has created a new Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) over Fabric architecture ahead of standards development that is pushing it further along in its evolution toward becoming a storage company.
Today at its flash storage summit in New York, the company announced the Micron SolidScale architecture for low-latency, high-performance access to compute and storage resources. In an advance telephone briefing with EE Times, senior product line manager Andy Fisher said NVMe over Fabric standard in development is still somewhat immature, but that the SolidScale software-defined storage architecture will provide the benefits of shared storage with performance of server-side flash. “What we’re really talking about is innovating ahead of the standard,” he said. “We think there’s too much value here to wait.”
One “epidemic issue” that SolidScale will address in the data center is CPU underutilization, said Fisher, which he said are starving for data, as NVMe SSDs deployed in application servers today are on average using less than 50 percent of their IOPS and capacity. He said the goal is to “democratize” NVMe SSDs. Micron’s scale-out storage infrastructure provides the same benefits of a centralized, single pool of storage with the performance of local in-server SSDs.
Tomi Engdahl says:
M’soft Gives Deeper Look into HoloLens
Sensor/processor integration needed
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331675
A computer vision specialist from Microsoft gave a deep dive into the challenges and opportunities of its HoloLens in a keynote at the Embedded Vision Summit here. His talk sketched out several areas where such augmented reality products still need work to live up to their promise.
The HoloLens “will be the next generation of personal computing devices with more context” about its users and their environments than today’s PCs and smartphones, said Marc Pollefeys, an algorithm expert who runs a computer vision lab at ETH Zurich and joined the HoloLens project in July as director of science.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The codec must know artificial intelligence
Services and products based on machine learning have, in a short time, been offered to a range of companies. At the same time, the number of experts grows and the sector gets new perspectives. The developer must now have an artificial intelligence, says software company Qvik system engineer Jerry Jalava.
The breakthrough in artificial intelligence is already visible in the skills profiles of software workers and in the growing needs of companies. The development over the last year is largely due to cloud-based machine learning interfaces and software frameworks. These cloud services enable the use of artificial intelligence even in smaller companies.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/6260-koodaajan-pitaa-nyt-osata-tekoalya
Tomi Engdahl says:
What’s Next In Neural Networking?
Technology begins to twist in different directions and for different markets.
http://semiengineering.com/whats-next-in-neural-networking/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel launches consumer version of Optane memory, combining the best qualities of DRAM and NAND
Optane memory shows us a future glimpse into the future of flash memory: low-latency and dense
http://www.electronicproducts.com/Hardware/Computers/Intel_launches_consumer_version_of_Optane_memory_combining_the_best_qualities_of_DRAM_and_NAND.aspx
Like a miser reluctantly counting out coins he does not wish to spend but must, Intel finally introduces its first 3D Xpoint products based the 3D Xpoint technology that it’s been touting for years as the next big innovation in computer memory — a pair of solid state drives (SSDs): the Optane SSD DC P4800X, an enterprise-level 375GB PCIe card, and a consumer-level product with the brand name “Optane Memory.” The latter comes in two variants: a 16GB SSD listed at $44 and a 32GB drive for $77. Both are add-in modules for PCs built around 7th Generation Intel Core microprocessors.
Because Intel is still perfecting the manufacturing process, however, the SSDs are underwhelming in terms of storage capacity. Consequently, the company had to invent a niche application for them.
Disappointment with these first two products will almost certainly be a temporary problem. If production techniques are improved as expected, subsequent products will become increasingly dense. If so, 3D Xpoint will begin to fulfill its promise as a replacement for the types of memory that currently dominate the market.
The vast majority of the computer memory market is served by magnetic memory in the form of hard disk drives (HDDs) and two semiconductor memories — DRAM and NAND (aka flash).
NAND memory is dense and nonvolatile, but not as fast as DRAM (high-latency), and a bit pricier, so NAND is rarely a suitable replacement for DRAM. SSDs based on NAND tend to get used when it’s important to have nonvolatile memory and HDDs are too slow. Some data centers are replacing HDDs with NAND-based SSDs, but, for now, usually only when money is no object. The latest “hard drives” with tens of terabytes are actually NAND SSDs.
Intel and Micron developed 3D Xpoint to get the best of both worlds — fast, dense, nonvolatile, and relatively inexpensive.
Intel has been saying all along that 3D XPoint will be roughly 1,000 times faster than NAND, with 1,000-times-higher write endurance. Compared to DRAM, 3D XPoint memory is supposed to be about 10 times denser. In a presentation last August, Intel said that it tested Optane against its own NAND, and Optane was 10 times faster on reads, had three times the endurance, four-times-greater performance on write IOPS (input/output operations per second), and drew 30% less power.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Research Blog:
Google details how it uses deep learning, Street View imagery to update Maps; open sources TensorFlow model for image text extraction
Updating Google Maps with Deep Learning and Street View
http://research.googleblog.com/2017/05/updating-google-maps-with-deep-learning.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tablet Shipments Decline for 10th Straight Quarter
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331695&
Global shipments of tablets declined year-over-year for the 10th consecutive quarter in the first quarter of this year as enthusiasm for the devices continues to wane, according to market research firm International Data Corp.
According to Ryan Reith, a vice president at IDC who runs the company’s tablet tracker program, the rate at which the tablet market exploded from the launch of the original iPad in 2010 until 2013 was unlike most consumer-oriented markets. “However, it appears for many reasons consumers became less eager to refresh these devices, or in some instances purchase them at all,” Reith said.
IDC believes the leading driver for tablet contraction continues to be increased dependency by consumers on smartphones along with minimal technology and form factor progression in tablets.
Tablet OEMs shipped about 36.2 million tablets in the first quarter, a decrease of 8.5 percent compared with the first quarter of 2016, IDC (Framingham, Mass.) said. The rate of contraction, while steep, marked a reduction from the previous five quarters, when the tablet market contracted by double digit percentage points, according to IDC.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Re-defines Xeons
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331691&
LAKE WALES, Fla. ‐ Intel plans to add a super-scalable new Xeon processor family of supercomputer caliber central processing units sometime around the middle of this year.
The bottom line is that the whole group of Xeon models will be joined into a single family that allows easy scalability for top to bottom, instead of just marketing a mis-mash of Xeon E5 and E7 SKUs (stock keeping units).
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hybrid cloud: The ‘new’ but not-new IT service platform
The combination effect
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/04/is_hybrid_cloud_the_new_it_service_platform/
Today, the term hybrid IT is typically used when talking about bridging IT on multiple premises. But this is an oversimplification. Buried deep within any hybrid IT discussion will be a need to talk about standards, compliance and some difficult decisions about how we even conceptualize our approach to IT.
As a marketing term “hybrid-anything” means the integration of two things that were previously separate. A hybrid storage array contains both flash and magnetic media. Hybrid WAN networking is a network topology containing more than one connection type, for example MPLS and an internet-based tunnel.
In 2017, however, when we talk about “hybrid IT” we’re talking about a combination of on-premises IT and public cloud IT. Sometimes we might even throw in service-provider hosted IT as well. But we should always be clear what sort of hybridization we are talking about.
IT is already hybrid
Throwing the word “hybrid” at it implies that we should think of multi-premises IT as a novelty bringing dramatic changes, especially in ease of use. Like smooshing together a PDA, MP3 player and mobile phone changed the world with the smartphone, hybrid IT will change the face of IT!
However, there is nothing special, novel or unique about hybrid IT. It isn’t something that you should consider doing. It isn’t something you need to draft long term plans for. Hybrid IT is, except in exceptionally niche cases, something you are already doing.
IT services can be broken into three broad categories. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS).
IaaS has no special sauce. Push button, receive operating system. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on premises, in AWS or a service provider cloud, it’s just a VM with an OS in it. PaaS requires a little bit more attention
IaaS and PaaS are easy to do as a multi provider affair.
SaaS is different. SaaS has traditionally been something that consumed as a contract with the SaaS developer directly, and where the platform that they used was not discussed. One would get a Dropbox subscription, but wouldn’t specify “Dropbox on Google Cloud”.
This is starting to change. Smaller vendors are taking advantage of the marketplaces offered by public, private and service provider clouds. Salesforce, for example, is large enough to bully customers into ignoring which cloud provider they use, but provides services on all the major public clouds.
Cloud brokerage
IaaS and PaaS are not inherently bad.
This has created a market for cloud brokers – third parties that will find you the best place to run your workloads based on criteria you select. These criteria can be price, latency, data sovereignty, data locality, regulatory certification and so forth.
As provider prices and capabilities change, the cloud broker will advise clients to move workloads. Depending on how deeply integrated the cloud broker’s software is with the customer’s infrastructure, they may even be able to trigger workload migrations for the customer.
It is, of course, possible to build a virtual cloud broker as a software widget.
The ability to easily move workloads from A to B is a prerequisite to play the multi-premises IT game properly. As a bare minimum there needs to be a way to get data and configurations from one place to another.
This begins a discussion about standards.
SaaS should “just work” between different providers, but often doesn’t.
Hybrid IT is what we’re doing right now, today. Collectively, we will only increase the diversification of workload placement with time.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Poor old Intel. No flash profits for you
Chipzilla’s SSD tech is solid, but can’t seem to shake losses
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/04/no_flash_profits_for_chipzilla/
Intel is a formidable competitor in the enterprise and consumer SSD business but it has yet to stop losing money. The key to that looks to be increasing SSD sales volume and making XPoint a success.
“The company noted that demand outpaced supply during the quarter (no surprise).”
And it still made a whopping loss: “Losses were driven by the company’s ongoing investments in 3D NAND and its 3D XPoint development.” But: “However, the company expects to run at breakeven for the core business in 2H2017 and be profitable for the entire non-volatile memory business near the end of 2018.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
systemd-free Devuan Linux hits RC2
GNOME, KDE, and Cinnamon are now off the menu
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/05/devuan_release_candidate_2/
Devuan Linux has released its second release candidate.
Devuan was created by self-described “Veteran Unix admins” who find Debian’s adoption of systemd abhorrent, because they want complete control over the packages that load when Linux boots. “Devuan decided to fork not only the base distribution, but also its governance,” the group writes, “because Debian has made it difficult to avoid systemd as init, entangling the system with unnecessary dependencies.”
A 1.0.0 release candidate emerged just under a fortnight ago and today the developers announced Devuan Jessie 1.0.0 RC2.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Corbin Davenport / Android Police:
IDC: worldwide tablet shipments declined 8.5% over the past year, Q1 is the tenth straight quarter in decline
http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/04/worldwide-tablet-shipments-declined-8-5-past-year-q1-tenth-straight-quarter-decline/
Remember when everyone thought tablets would replace PCs, at least for average consumers? Yeah, that didn’t happen. In fact, the opposite is happening. In a report from the International Data Corporation (IDC), worldwide tablet shipments in Q1 2017 have dropped 8.5% compared to Q1 2016, with just 36.2 million devices shipped.
In addition, Q1 2017 is the tenth straight quarter where the tablet market saw a decline, with the previous five quarters recording double-digit drops. It’s worth noting that the IDC only counts ‘slates’ (tablets lacking a keyboard) and ‘detachables’ (tablets with first-party keyboards) as tablets.
There are a few reasons for this continuing decline, which shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. Convertible laptops, commonly referred to as 2-in-1s, have been cannibalizing the tablet market for a while now. The rise of larger smartphones didn’t help tablets either.
Apple remained top dog over the past quarter, with 8.9 million unit shipments. Samsung followed in second place, with Huawei, Amazon, and Lenovo rounding out the top five manufacturers.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Intel Ramps up 3D NAND, NVMe SSDs
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331701&
Intel’s latest “cloud inspired” SSDs for data centers are part of the company’s efforts to push forward the 3D NAND option and the the NVMe standard.
Jonmichael Hands, a product marketing manager at Intel, said the company’s two new 3D NAND SSDs were specifically designed for cloud data center scenarios, but that those conditions apply to more than cloud service providers.
Intel’s 3D NAND SSDs are aimed at converged infrastructure deployments where capacity is important, but also flexibility so that enterprises can easily re-task systems for new workloads, as well as improved both CAPEX and OPEX, said Hands.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Speeding Up Neural Networks
http://semiengineering.com/speeding-up-neural-networks/
Adding more dimensions creates more data, all of which needs to be processed using new architectural approaches.
Neural networking is gaining traction as the best way of collecting and moving critical data from the physical world and processing it in the digital world. Now the question is how to speed up this whole process.
But it isn’t a straightforward engineering challenge. Neural networking itself is in a state of almost constant flux and development, which makes it something of a moving target. There are more than 20 different types of neural networks today. Some are more in favor one month than the next.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The new languages threaten java and C
Java and C continue to be on the top of the list, based on search engine results, on the popularity of programming languages in Tioba’s May list. However, both have lost their popularity over the past year.
n May, the java is still a clear number one. It’s more than twice as popular as C, which in turn is almost twice as popular as C ++. Python has now become the fourth most popular in C #.
The new rankings are sixth out of Visual Basic .NET as well as the eighth out of the top 10 list. Google’s Go-language rose by the end of the year, from 42th to 16th.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/6271-uudet-kielet-uhkaavat-javaa-ja-c-ta
More:
TIOBE Index for May 2017
May Headline: the pack is closing in on Java and C
https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Taste the Redmond: Fujitsu offers Storage Spaces-based hyper-converged boxes
Microsoft virty server, storage software + Fujitsu hardware
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/08/fujitsus_storage_spacesbased_hyperconverged_boxes/
Fujitsu has introduced a Microsoft software-flavoured hyper-converged infrastructure appliance product. PRIMEFLEX for Storage Spaces Direct uses Microsoft virtualised infrastructure software, including Storage Spaces, and comes in pre-configured and pre-tested systems based on Fujitsu’s PRIMERGY x86 servers, all-flash storage, and networking.
The Storage Spaces Direct technology – virtual SAN-like – comes from Windows Server 2016. Fujitsu says these systems provide highly available and scalable, software-defined storage at a fraction of the cost of traditional SAN or NAS arrays, but it did not provide comparative prices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why the Largest Companies in the World Count on Linux Servers
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/why-largest-companies-world-count-linux-servers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+linuxjournalcom+%28Linux+Journal+-+The+Original+Magazine+of+the+Linux+Community%29
Tomi Engdahl says:
“Windows XP still insanely popular”
Windows XP remains the third most popular desktop operating system in the world after Windows 7 and Windows 10, and by the looks of things, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to disappear anytime soon.
Instead, Windows XP appears to be here to stay, with its market share shrinking at an insanely slow pace, despite the fact that it hasn’t received a single security update in the last 3 years.
This means that systems still running it can become vulnerable to attacks should hackers develop exploits aimed at unpatched vulnerabilities, and with the recent leaks, finding such security flaws isn’t rocket science.
Everyone on Windows XP is obviously recommended to upgrade as soon as possible, though in some cases the transition is a lot more expensive given that hardware upgrades are also necessary.
Source: http://news.softpedia.com/news/police-dept-switches-to-windows-10-tired-of-buying-windows-xp-pc-parts-off-ebay-515464.shtml
Tomi Engdahl says:
The MariaDB database received large EU funding
The European Investment Bank (EIB) grants EUR 25 million to Finnish MariaDB, which develops the fastest growing open source database in the world. This is the largest growth hedge granted by the EIB to any company in the Nordic countries.
The funding is intended to promote the product development work of MariaDB in order to enable the company to serve its growing international large corporate customer base. It also enhances the company’s sales and marketing activities in Europe, America and Asia.
In Europe, MariaDB has a clear need for recruitment especially in Finland where the company intends to hire developers specializing in databases in the near future.
There is a big change in the database market, where new players such as MariaDB are revolutionizing the industry’s traditional operating models with modern, open-source solutions and challenging bigger competitors. Open source databases are constantly being introduced across the globe: for example, large companies such as Telefónica, DBS Bank and Teleplan are seeking savings and modernizing their business by designing their IT infrastructure again.
Market research company IDC has estimated in its global forecast * the database market to exceed $ 50 billion in 2017. In 2015, the market value was $ 40 billion. Gartner estimates that over 70 percent of new business-to-business applications will be developed over open source databases and half of existing commercial databases will be replaced by open source by 2018.
MariaDB is a relational database based on MySQL. Its main developer is from Monty Widenius from MySQL. In February, the MariaDB database was run on 13,649 servers.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php/13-news/6275-mariadb-tietokanta-sai-ison-eu-rahoituksen
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Is Basically Killing Apple’s iPad
Stats show tablets are collapsing, including the iPad
http://news.softpedia.com/news/microsoft-is-basically-killing-apple-s-ipad-515495.shtml
Back in 2012, Microsoft invented a concept that Apple originally laughed at, but which the Cupertino-based iPhone maker then reconsidered and even embraced for its own products.
The 2-in-1 form factor, which debuted with the Surface RT approximately 5 years ago, is the category that’s growing in sales every single quarter, while the traditional tablet keeps declining, with substantial drops recorded by every single OEM. Including Apple, that is, which has more or less been the pioneer of tablets with the original iPad.
IDC reveals that Apple is one of the biggest names whose sales are declining, revealing that shipments in the first quarter of 2017 dropped to 8.9 million from 10.3 million the same period of the previous year. The market share also declined from 26.9 percent to 24.6 percent, with IDC estimating a year-over-year drop of 13 percent.
“Continued collapse”
The research shows that this is no less than the 13th consecutive quarter of drop for Apple, even though it remains the market leader in Q1 2017. Apple has indeed tried to slow down the collapse generated by 2-in-1 devices with its own iPad Pro, but Microsoft’s Surface and the other Windows 10 devices with detachable keyboards seem to be the big winners at this point.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Open source database developer MariaDB gets $27M investment from European Investment Bank, structured as a long term loan with some equity — As open source database architecture continues to grow in popularity, one of the bigger developers in the area has picked up some funding to target the opportunity.
Open Source database developer MariaDB picks up $27M from the EIB
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/08/open-source-database-developer-mariadb-picks-up-27m-from-the-eib/
Tomi Engdahl says:
MapD Open Sources GPU-Powered Database
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14291321
Most traditional SQL databases are I/O-bound, meaning that the cost of pulling index pages from disk into memory overwhelms everything else, and adding more CPU doesn’t do much good. Even for in-memory databases the cost of pulling a page into GPU memory is likely to be high. The calculations you do are pretty simple — you mostly traverse arrays of pointers and do intersections and accumulations. No floating point, just increment and compare integers.
GPUs really shine when you can parallelize operations on blocks of data that are already in GPU memory.
https://www.mapd.com/blog/2017/05/08/mapd-open-sources-gpu-powered-database/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia Takes Deep Learning to School
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331714
Deep learning is “transforming computing” is the message that Nvidia hopes to hammer home at its GPU Tech conference On that theme, Nvidia has styled itself as a firebrand, catalyst and deep learning enabler and — in the long run — a deep profiteer.
Among the telltale signs that Nvidia is betting its future on this branch of artificial intelligence (AI) is the recent launch of its “Deep Learning Institute,” with plans increase the number of developers to 100,000 this year. Nvidia trained 10,000 developers in deep learning in 2016.
Nvidia wants to be known as the first resort for developers creating apps that use AI as a key component, said Estes.
“Deep learning” is in the computer science curriculum at many schools, but few universities offer a degree specifically in AI.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Who’s Hiring? (Software Companies) Who’s Firing? (Hardware)
http://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/whos-hiring-software-companies-whos-firing-hardware
A sampling of 2017’s hiring and firing announcements show that the year, so far, is a generally good one for software engineers, not so good for their hardware counterparts. And while headline news is incomplete and anecdotal at best, more comprehensive statistics suggest that it represents a trend: software up, hardware down
Tomi Engdahl says:
Robert Hof / SiliconANGLE:
Nvidia beats with Q1 revenue of $1.94B, up 48% YoY, net income of $507M, up 144%, gaming revenue up 49% to $1.03B, thanks to Switch; stock up 14%+ after hours — Artificial intelligence and gaming once again boosted the fortunes of Nvidia Corp. as the maker of graphics chips reported better …
Nvidia’s shares jump as AI and gaming drive graphics chip demand
https://siliconangle.com/blog/2017/05/09/nvidia-shares-jump-ai-gaming-drive-graphics-chip-demand/
Artificial intelligence and gaming once again boosted the fortunes of Nvidia Corp. as the maker of graphics chips reported better-than-expected results for the eighth quarter in a row.
In its first fiscal quarter reported today, the company earned a profit of $507 million, or $533 million before certain expenses such as stock compensation, equaling 85 cents a share. That’s more than double a year ago. Revenue jumped 48 percent, to $1.94 billion.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Docs show Microsoft’s plan to turn Windows 10 PCs into Echo rivals with HomeHub feature, which includes an “always on” welcome screen for lists, notes, more — Microsoft has been working on a new HomeHub feature for Windows 10 to better compete with devices like Amazon’s Echo.
Microsoft is planning to turn Windows 10 PCs into Amazon Echo competitors
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/9/15596488/microsoft-windows-10-homehub-feature-screenshots
Microsoft has been working on a new HomeHub feature for Windows 10 to better compete with devices like Amazon’s Echo. HomeHub is designed to create a family environment for a PC with shared access to calendars, apps, and even a new welcome screen. Microsoft is even planning to support smart home devices like Philips’ Hue lights, to enable Windows 10 to act as a hub to control and manage smart home hardware. While we’ve heard about HomeHub before, The Verge has obtained internal concepts of exactly how Microsoft is imagining HomeHub will work.
The major addition is a new welcome screen that includes an “always on” digital corkboard to let families use to-do lists, calendars, and notes. The welcome screen is really designed for kitchen PCs and new smaller hardware with screens that will support Cortana voice commands from across the room. Microsoft appears to be readying Windows 10 for future devices that are similar to Amazon’s new Echo Show hardware
Microsoft is tentatively planning to support Hue, Nest, Insteon, Wink, and SmartThings devices with its connected home app. Cortana will be used to send commands to devices, just like Amazon’s Echo. Microsoft has been working with PC makers including HP and Lenovo to create new hardware or refresh existing PCs with a focus on this new home effort.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Thinks USB-C Isn’t Ready For the Mainstream
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/05/09/2117256/microsoft-thinks-usb-c-isnt-ready-for-the-mainstream
When Microsoft unveiled the Surface Laptop last week, it left many customers and members of the press scratching their heads over its lack of a USB Type-C port. According to general manager of Surface Engineering, Pete Kyriacou, Microsoft seems to think that the technology isn’t ready for the mainstream.
Microsoft does not want customers to deal with the various Type-C cables, underwhelming chargers, all the adapters, and the third-party Type-C docks. That is why the Surface Laptop features only one USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A port, one headphone jack, one Mini DisplayPort connector, and the Surface Connect port. Simplicity. That latter connection is how customers can “safely” expand their Surface device experience
Microsoft expands on its stance to not to use a USB Type-C port
https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-talks-no-usb-type-c-usage/
Microsoft’s continued stance against using USB Type-C ports is a good example of the confusion from the multiple uses of this technology.
As we mentioned last week, USB Type-C has nothing to do with speed — it defines the port size and type of connector. The typical USB 3.1 port uses a large, rectangular “Type-A” interface relying on a single-sided this-side-up connector. But with the combined introduction of USB 3.1 Gen2, Thunderbolt 3, and Type-C, there is a lot of misconception that they are all one in the same.
But that is not the case at all. Even more, there are specific cables required for the technology residing behind the Type-C port and they all generally look the same. Adding to the confusion, Type-C ports are sometimes used to charge their host devices. Customers could essentially grab the wrong Type-C charger and quickly run out of battery juice because the charger was not up for the task. Users would then turn to the device maker with their complaints, not the charger manufacturer.
Microsoft does not want that. Microsoft does not want customers to deal with the various Type-C cables, underwhelming chargers, all the adapters, and the third-party Type-C docks. That is why the Surface Laptop features only one USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A port, one headphone jack, one Mini DisplayPort connector, and the Surface Connect port. Simplicity.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft Is Planning To Turn Windows 10 PCs Into Amazon Echo Competitors (
https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/17/05/09/1839225/microsoft-is-planning-to-turn-windows-10-pcs-into-amazon-echo-competitors
peaking of Amazon’s Echo devices, it appears Microsoft also wants a slice of this nascent market. The Verge’s Tom Warren claims that Microsoft has been working on a feature for Windows 10 that would allow it “to better compete with devices like Amazon’s Echo.” Dubbed HomeHub, the feature is designed to create “a family environment for a PC with shared access to calendars, apps, and even a new welcome screen.”
Microsoft is planning to turn Windows 10 PCs into Amazon Echo competitors
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/9/15596488/microsoft-windows-10-homehub-feature-screenshots
Microsoft has been working on a new HomeHub feature for Windows 10 to better compete with devices like Amazon’s Echo. HomeHub is designed to create a family environment for a PC with shared access to calendars, apps, and even a new welcome screen.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft says 500M devices are now running Windows 10, up from 400M in September 2016 — Microsoft is announcing today that 500 million active machines are now running Windows 10. The latest statistic comes almost 8 months after the company revealed 400 million devices were running Windows 10.
500 million machines are now running Windows 10
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/10/15604374/microsoft-windows-10-500-million-devices
Tomi Engdahl says:
Samanth Subramanian / Bloomberg:
Profile of Margrethe Vestager, EU Competition Commissioner since 2014, who’s challenged major US tech firms including Apple, Google, Amazon during her tenure
The Eurocrat Who Makes Corporate America Tremble
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-05-10/the-eurocrat-who-makes-corporate-america-tremble
Apple. Google. Amazon. EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has challenged them all.
Vestager’s entire tenure has been laced with an instinctive mistrust of big corporations. She’s driven investigations of Amazon.com, Fiat, Gazprom, Google, McDonald’s, and Starbucks—and she still has two and a half years remaining in her term. Rulings on McDonald’s and Amazon, both under scrutiny for their tax deals with Luxembourg, are imminent. If Vestager levies a multibillion-dollar fine against Google—a distinct possibility because the company is fighting three separate European antitrust cases—she will truly set headlines aflame. Google came under review for allegedly forcing Android phone manufacturers to pre-install its suite of apps, favoring its own comparison-shopping services in its search results, and preventing third-party websites from sourcing ads from its competitors. As with Apple and Amazon, these cases were bequeathed to Vestager by her predecessor, but she’s accelerated them to their finish lines.
Large American multinationals aren’t used to being stymied overseas, and Vestager’s consistent readiness to face off against them has provoked a startled fury.
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Mannes / TechCrunch:
Open source database firm Cockroach Labs raises $27M Series B led by Redpoint, and announces an enterprise version
Cockroach Labs announces $27M Series B and enterprise tier for its reliable database
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/10/cockroach-labs-announces-27m-series-b-and-enterprise-tier-for-its-reliable-database/
“A database that replicates itself and is meant to survive” — that was the connection that Cockroach Labs CEO Spencer Kimball made between the startup’s memorable name and its value proposition. Despite entering a crowded market, Cockroach has been able to gain the favor of some of the best known VCs in tech. Today’s $27 million Series B is being led by Redpoint with participation from Benchmark, GV, Index Ventures and FirstMark.
At its core, CockroachDB is an open-source database service optimized to reduce downtime. Every time you visit a website, every time you check your bank account and every time you log into your favorite social networking app, you’re dependent on databases to be ready and able to feed you necessary information.
CockroachDB quite literally replicates itself like an insect and distributes information so it doesn’t become a sitting duck, or die if we’re keeping with the metaphor. The company calls this feature multi-active availability.
Originally started as a GitHub project, Cockroach will be monetizing around a paid enterprise tier. This premium version will include distributed backup and restore functionality in addition to enterprise support— things that are not optional for serious users managing large amounts of data.
Chinese tech conglomerate Baidu is one of Cockroach’s earliest customers. The company has been testing Cockroach, processing two billion inserts a day while simulating nightmare scenarios to check for resiliency.
Cockroach differentiates itself from Google CloudSpanner by being open source, but geo-partitioning can only help the company further differentiate.
Google launches Cloud Spanner, its new globally distributed relational database service
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/14/google-launches-cloud-spanner-a-new-globally-distributed-database-service/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Thunderbird’s new home is.. The Mozilla Foundation
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/05/09/thunderbirds-new-home-is-the-mozilla-foundation/
What’s going to happen to the Thunderbird email client? This was one question that most users of the desktop program asked themselves when it was revealed that Mozilla wanted to drop the program.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Red Hat Summit panel: ARM servers are a reality, driving innovation & choice
https://community.arm.com/processors/b/blog/posts/red-hat-summit-arm-servers-are-a-reality-driving-innovation-choice
The data center is being re-architected to automate and accelerate the delivery of services while accommodating the massive influx of data, to achieve this IT modernization hardware underpinnings are being abstracted away from programmers who are reaping immense productivity gains because of it.
“I think the data center is primed for re-architecture, and that includes the adoption of heterogeneous computing,” said Elsie Wahlig, director of product management, Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies. ARM “servers are a reality.”
Larry Wikelius, vice president of Software Ecosystem & Solutions Group, Cavium, noted there are a certain number of critical applications and data center workloads that can benefit from a new approach. “You can improve performance and cost at the silicon level, cost of operations,” he said. “That’s what you’re seeing come out of this architecture.”
The ARM based server model is enabling differentiation in the data center, in terms of total cost of ownership, hardware acceleration, security, network offload. This innovation can happen at a silicon level, so long as it is effortless for the user to exploit, he said. “That starts to spur innovation and capability further up the stack that you can’t do today with the volume server” Wikelius said.
Zachary Smith, CEO and co-founder of single-tenant bare-metal server company Packet, said his company has focused on a completely uniform user experience whether it’s for x86 or ARM. “It is identical,” he said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Chrome Banned on Windows 10 S Even If Google Creates Universal App
Ported version of desktop browser not allowed on Windows 10
http://news.softpedia.com/news/google-chrome-banned-on-windows-10-s-even-if-google-creates-universal-app-515582.shtml
Microsoft’s recently-unveiled Windows 10 S is limited to apps published in the Windows Store and the company has confirmed that users won’t be able to change the default browser and search engine, meaning they’ll be stuck with Microsoft Edge and Bing on their devices.
Tomi Engdahl says:
US To Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights From Europe
https://news.slashdot.org/story/17/05/10/1957206/us-to-ban-laptops-in-all-cabins-of-flights-from-europe
The Department of Homeland Security will ban laptops in the cabins of all flights from Europe to the United States, European security officials told The Daily Beast. An official announcement is expected Thursday. Initially a ban on laptops and tablets was applied only to U.S.-bound flights from 10 airports in North Africa and the Middle East. The ban was based on U.S. fears that terrorists have found a way to convert laptops into bombs capable of bringing down an airplane. It is unclear if the European ban will also apply to tablets.
U.S. to Ban Laptops in All Cabins of Flights From Europe, Officials Say
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/10/u-s-to-ban-laptops-in-all-cabins-of-flights-from-europe
Acting on fears that terrorists can build bombs into laptops, Homeland Security has decided to expand the ban it imposed on Middle Eastern flights. Computers will now be checked as baggage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia Takes Deep Learning to School
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1331714
Deep learning is “transforming computing” is the message that Nvidia hopes to hammer home at its GPU Tech conference. On that theme, Nvidia has styled itself as a firebrand, catalyst and deep learning enabler and — in the long run — a deep profiteer.
Among the telltale signs that Nvidia is betting its future on this branch of artificial intelligence (AI) is the recent launch of its “Deep Learning Institute,” with plans increase the number of developers to 100,000 this year. Nvidia trained 10,000 developers in deep learning in 2016.
Over the last few years, AI has made inroads into “all parts of science,” said Greg Estes, Nvidia’s vice president responsible for developer programs. AI is becoming an integral component of “all applications ranging from cancer research, robotics, manufacturing to financial services, fraud detection and intelligent video analysis,” he noted.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia Tesla V100: First Volta GPU is one of the largest silicon chips ever
21-billion-transistor Volta GPU has new architecture, 12nm process, crazy performance.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/nvidia-tesla-v100-gpu-details/
Nvidia has unveiled the Tesla V100, its first GPU based on the new Volta architecture. Like the Pascal-based P100 before it, the V100 is designed for high-performance computing rather than consumer use, but it still provides a tantalising glimpse at what the future might hold for Nvidia’s consumer graphics cards.
The V100 chip is made on TSMC’s 12nm Fin-FET manufacturing process and packs a whopping 21.1 billion transistors on a 815mm² die. By contrast, the P100 manages just 15.3 billion transistors on a 610mm² die, and the latest Titan Xp sports a mere 12 billion transistors on 471 mm².
Suffice it to say, V100 is a giant GPU and one of the largest silicon chips ever produced, period.
The combination of die size and process shrink has enabled Nvidia to push the number of streaming multiprocessors (SMs) to 84. Each SM features 64 CUDA cores for a total of 5,376—much more than any of its predecessors. That said, V100 isn’t a fully enabled part, with only 80 SMs enabled (most likely for yield reasons) resulting in 5,120 CUDA cores.
In addition, V100 also features 672 tensor cores (TCs), a new type of core explicitly designed for machine learning operations.
NVIDIA Tesla V100
The Most Advanced Data Center GPU Ever Built.
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/tesla-v100/
NVIDIA® Tesla® V100 is the world’s most advanced data center GPU ever built to accelerate AI, HPC, and graphics. Powered by NVIDIA Volta™, the latest GPU architecture, Tesla V100 offers the performance of 100 CPUs in a single GPU—enabling data scientists, researchers, and engineers to tackle challenges that were once impossible.
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Robinson / Stack Overflow Blog:
Stack Overflow launches Trends to track interest in programming languages and technologies over time, based on volume of questions asked per month
Introducing Stack Overflow Trends
https://stackoverflow.blog/2017/05/09/introducing-stack-overflow-trends/
Tomi Engdahl says:
John Mannes / TechCrunch:
Cisco acquires conversational AI startup MindMeld for $125M to enhance its collaboration suite
Cisco acquires conversational AI startup MindMeld for $125 million
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/11/cisco-acquires-conversational-ai-startup-mindmeld-for-125-million/
This morning Cisco announced that it is buying MindMeld for $125 million. Founded in 2011, MindMeld helps businesses to build conversational interfaces with cloud-based services.
MindMeld, originally called Expect Labs, was launched on the stage of TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2012. At that time the startup wanted to build an iPad app that could listen in on your conversations and provide relevant contextual information. Since then the company has expanded its offerings to include a suite of APIs for parsing, reasoning about and generating language.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Efficiency Problem
Limitations for convolutional neural nets on DSP processors.
http://semiengineering.com/the-efficiency-problem/
Part 2: Solving Power Limitations for CNNs on DSP Processors
http://semiengineering.com/the-efficiency-problem-2/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Neural Nets Need Some Translation
http://www.eetimes.com/author.asp?section_id=36&doc_id=1331731&
Data scientists and engineers are invited to provide feedback on an emerging standard that aims to bring unity to the fragmentation in machine learning formats.
Machine learning with deep neural networks has become a hot topic as these techniques surpass human performance in numerous areas. The enthusiasm already has spawned several approaches to handle the training and inference stages of deploying a neural network.
Training and cloud inference typically make use of similar hardware, mostly GPUs although there are cloud based inference-only engines such as Google’s TPU. By contrast, inference on edge devices depends on highly optimized hardware accelerators, mostly DSP based, that share very little in common and present unique optimization challenges.