Tag: facebook

End of Moore’s Law Forcing Radical Innovation

dcblogs writes “The technology industry has been coasting along on steady, predictable performance gains, as laid out by Moore’s law. But stability and predictability are also the ingredients of complacency and inertia. At this stage, Moore’s Law may be more analogous to golden handcuffs than to innovation. With its end in sight, systems makers and governments are being challenged to come up with new materials and architectures. The European Commission has written of a need for ‘radical innovation in many computing technologies.’ The U.S. National Science Foundation, in a recent budget request, said technologies such as carbon nanotube digital circuits will likely be needed, or perhaps molecular-based approaches, including biologically inspired systems. The slowdown in Moore’s Law has already hit high-performance computing. Marc Snir, director of the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at the Argonne National Laboratory, outlined in a series of slides the problem of going below 7nm on chips, and the lack of alternative technologies.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Continued here:
End of Moore’s Law Forcing Radical Innovation

Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Pass 10% Market Share, Windows XP Falls Below 30%

An anonymous reader writes “With the release of Windows 8.1 to the world in October, Microsoft ended 2013 with two full months of availability for its latest operating system version. While Windows 8.1 is certainly growing quickly and eating into Windows 8s share, the duo has only now been able to pass 10 percent market share, while Windows 7 seems to be plowing forward unaffected. The latest market share data from Net Applications shows that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 made steady progression in December 2013, gaining a combined 1.19 percentage points (from 9.30 percent to 10.49 percent). More specifically, Windows 8 gained 0.23 percentage points (from 6.66 percent to 6.89 percent), while Windows 8.1 jumped 0.96 percentage points (from 2.64 percent to 3.60 percent).” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Follow this link:
Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Pass 10% Market Share, Windows XP Falls Below 30%

Researchers Confirm Exoplanet Has Clouds Using Hubble Telescope

Discovered in 2009 by the MEarth project, researchers now have strong evidence that GJ 1214 b has an atmosphere “But now a team of astronomers led by UChicago’s Laura Kreidberg and Jacob Bean have detected clear evidence of clouds in the atmosphere of GJ 1214b from data collected with the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble observations used 96 hours of telescope time spread over 11 months. This was the largest Hubble program ever devoted to studying a single exoplanet. … The first spectra, which were obtained by Bean in 2010 using a ground-based telescope, suggested that the planet’s atmosphere either was predominantly water vapor or hydrogen-dominated with high-altitude clouds. … More precise Hubble observations made in 2012 and 2013 allowed the team to distinguish between these two scenarios. … The best explanation for the new data is that there are high-altitude clouds in the atmosphere of the planet, though their composition is unknown. Models of super-Earth atmospheres predict clouds could be made out of potassium chloride or zinc sulfide at the scorching temperatures of 450 degrees Fahrenheit found on GJ 1214b.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Excerpt from:
Researchers Confirm Exoplanet Has Clouds Using Hubble Telescope

Nokia Closes Out 2013 With 92% Of The Windows Phone Market

The fine folks at AdDuplex have provided Paul Thurrott with an early look at their final Windows Phone market data for 2013 , giving us in the public a final look at the key statistics of Microsoft’s smartphone platform’s OEM and device makeup. The figures are much as they have been all year, only more so. Nokia continues to control the lion’s share of Windows Phone hardware, ending the month up a few points at 92.1 percent (this is a calculation of usage share, tracked through AdDuplex’s network). And the Lumia 520 handset continues to dominate its brethren, with a new high of 39.3 percent share. And that Windows Phone 8 grew against the now-fading Windows 7.x system, with record relative market share of 78.3 percent. Windows Phone’s 2013, if you had to put it into basic trends, would be that Nokia cleaned up, and its Lumia 520 was the weapon of choice. Thurrott well describes the current low-ending of Windows Phone (bolding original): Almost no high-end phones are popular . Worldwide, only the Lumia 920 makes the top 10 list for usage among all Windows Phone handsets, and if you look just at Windows Phone 8 handsets, only two high-end devices make the list: The Lumia 920 and the 925. In the US, there are three: The Lumia 920, 928, and 1020. All the rest are new low-end devices or old devices. The Lumia 1520 phablet doesn’t appear anywhere in this report. What this means is that the sales momentum that Windows Phone has comes at the cost of per-unit revenue. Margin pressure increases at lower price points. The list of sacrifices that had to be made to produce the Lumia 520 is not small . So, as we tally what could be the final month in which Nokia rules Windows Phone, it’s important to note that rising unit volume has come at a cost. The Lumia 1020 is a hit among a subset of the technology elite, but perhaps few else. Can you build a mobile empire on predominantly low-end phones? Apple managed the opposite, so perhaps this, too, is possible.

More:
Nokia Closes Out 2013 With 92% Of The Windows Phone Market

PC Plus Packs Windows and Android Into Same Machine

jones_supa writes “At the mammoth Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in early January, it is expected that multiple computer makers will unveil systems that simultaneously run two different operating systems, both Windows and Android, two different analysts said recently. The new devices will introduce a new marketing buzzword called PC Plus, explained Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies. ‘A PC Plus machine will run Windows 8.1 but will also run Android apps as well’, Bajarin wrote recently for Time. ‘They are doing this through software emulation. I’m not sure what kind of performance you can expect, but this is their way to try and bring more touch-based apps to the Windows ecosystem.’ Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, suggests that PC Plus could get millions of consumers more comfortable with Android on PCs. ‘Just imagine for a second what happens when Android gets an improved large-screen experience. This should scare the heck out of Microsoft.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Visit link:
PC Plus Packs Windows and Android Into Same Machine

How the Dark Lord of the Internet Made His Fortunes

theodp writes “Over at The Atlantic, Taylor Clark’s epic Jesse Willms, the Dark Lord of the Internet tells the tale of how one of the most notorious alleged hustlers in the history of e-commerce made a fortune on the Web. ‘Accusing Willms of being a scammer, ‘ Clark writes, ‘does him a disservice; what he accomplished elicits something close to awe, even among his critics.’ The classic themes Willms’ company employed in ‘sponsored’ links for products that included colon cleansers, teeth whiteners, and acai supplements, Clark reports, included dubious scientific claims and fake articles (‘farticles’); implied endorsements from celebrities and TV networks; incredible ‘testimonials”; manipulative plays on insecurities (‘You wouldn’t have to worry about being the ‘fat bridesmaid’ at your sister’s wedding!’); and ‘iron-clad’ guarantees that ‘free trials’ of the products were absolutely ‘risk free.’ But beneath his promises of a ‘free trial, ‘ the FTC alleged, Willms buried an assortment of charges in the fine print of his terms and conditions. After the 14-day trial period for each product, customers automatically became enrolled in monthly subscription plans, for up to $80 a month. ‘The product was never the point, ‘ explained an FTC attorney. ‘The point was to get as many hits on each credit card as you could.’ Despite a publicized $359 million settlement with the FTC, Jesse Willms is doing just fine financially-and he has a new yellow Lamborghini to prove it. After settling his tax debts, Willms surrendered his assets of just $991, 000 to get the financial judgment suspended. Willms has left diet products behind and pivoted into information services. ‘As of November, ‘ Clark notes, ‘if you searched vehicle history on Google, Yahoo, or Bing, ads for Willms’s sites were among the first things you would see.'” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See the article here:
How the Dark Lord of the Internet Made His Fortunes

CSI Style Zoom Sees Faces Reflected In Subjects’ Eyes

mikejuk writes “A recent paper by Dr Rob Jenkins of the Department of Psychology at York University (UK) has managed to prove that you can get useful images of faces from the reflections in eyes. It really is as simple as zooming in. The catch is that the experiments were done with a 39 mega pixel camera — even so the actual final images were low resolution. In the experiment a number of people were photographed with a ‘bystander’ in a position so that a reflection of their face would be captured in the eye. The resulting extracted image of the reflection in the eye was only 27×36 and then rescaled using bicubic interpolation to 400×240 or bigger and enhanced using standard PhotoShop operations to normalize the contrast and brightness. Test subjects were able to match faces using the low resolution images but the important result was that if the subject knew the person in the photo then recognition went up to 90% with false positives down at 10%. So the next time you appear in a photo consider the fact that a simple procedure might reveal who you are with.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Link:
CSI Style Zoom Sees Faces Reflected In Subjects’ Eyes

Neural Net Learns Breakout By Watching It On Screen, Then Beats Humans

KentuckyFC writes “A curious thing about video games is that computers have never been very good at playing them like humans by simply looking at a monitor and judging actions accordingly. Sure, they’re pretty good if they have direct access to the program itself, but ‘hand-to-eye-co-ordination’ has never been their thing. Now our superiority in this area is coming to an end. A team of AI specialists in London have created a neural network that learns to play games simply by looking at the RGB output from the console. They’ve tested it successfully on a number of games from the legendary Atari 2600 system from the 1980s. The method is relatively straightforward. To simplify the visual part of the problem, the system down-samples the Atari’s 128-colour, 210×160 pixel image to create an 84×84 grayscale version. Then it simply practices repeatedly to learn what to do. That’s time-consuming, but fairly simple since at any instant in time during a game, a player can choose from a finite set actions that the game allows: move to the left, move to the right, fire and so on. So the task for any player — human or otherwise — is to choose an action at each point in the game that maximizes the eventual score. The researchers say that after learning Atari classics such as Breakout and Pong, the neural net can then thrash expert human players. However, the neural net still struggles to match average human performance in games such as Seaquest, Q*bert and, most importantly, Space Invaders. So there’s hope for us yet… just not for very much longer.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

See more here:
Neural Net Learns Breakout By Watching It On Screen, Then Beats Humans

First 3D Printed Liver Expected In 2014

Lucas123 writes “After 3D printing has produced ears, skin grafts and even retina cells that could be built up and eventually used to replace defective eye tissue, researchers expect to be able to produce the first functioning organ next year. The organ, a liver, would not be for the purpose of human implant — that will take years to complete clinical trials and pass FDA review. Instead, the liver would initially be for development and testing of pharmaceuticals. The field of 3D printing known as organs on a chip, will greatly increase the accuracy and speed of drug development and testing, researchers say. The company producing the liver, Organovo, has overcome a major stumbling block that faces the creation of any organ: printing the vascular system needed to provide it with life-sustaining oxygen and nutrients. Typically, 3D printed tissue dies in the petri dish before it can even be used because of that. ‘We have achieved thicknesses of greater than 500 microns, and have maintained liver tissue in a fully functional state with native phenotypic behavior for at least 40 days, ‘ said Mike Renard, Organovo’s executive vice president of commercial operations.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post:
First 3D Printed Liver Expected In 2014

Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes “USA Today reports that Ford’s next F-150 pickup truck will be made mostly of aluminum, instead of steel, in a bid to save weight. It will likely either be hailed as a breakthrough product to buyers who’ve made F-150 the bedrock of its business or one that draws comparisons to a ‘rolling beer can.’ The automaker has asked Alcoa, which makes aluminum blast shields for battlefield-bound vehicles, to lend some of its military-grade metal for the automaker’s display, according to people familiar with Ford’s plans. Ford’s sales job will be considerable: The company is eager to demonstrate the toughness of aluminum, which is lighter than steel, to pickup buyers at next month’s Detroit auto show. ‘This is already the most significant debut at the auto show, ‘ says Joe Langley. ‘Everybody’s going to be dissecting that thing for a long time, especially since Ford will be taking such a big gamble.’ As a transformative product with a potentially troublesome introduction, the new F-150 has drawn comparisons with Boeing Co.’s 787 Dreamliner — an aircraft developed under the company’s commercial airplane chief at the time, Alan Mulally, who in 2006 became Ford’s chief executive officer. Because of the complicated switch to aluminum from steel in the F-150’s body, IHS Automotive estimates Ford will need to take about six weeks of downtime at each of its two U.S. truck plants to retool and swap out robots and machinery. Ford is apparently trying to squeeze more than 700 pounds out of its next generation of pickup trucks. Using aluminum to cut weight would help meet rising fuel economy standards in the United States, which is requiring a fleetwide average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More:
Ford Rolls the Dice With Breakthrough F-150 Aluminum Pickup Truck