journal – Page 187 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

A Co-processor No More, Intel’s Xeon Phi Will Be Its Own CPU As Well

An anonymous reader writes “The Xeon Phi co-processor requires a Xeon CPU to operate… for now. The next generation of Xeon Phi, codenamed Knights Landing and due in 2015, will be its own CPU and accelerator. This will free up a lot of space in the server but more important, it eliminates the buses between CPU memory and co-processor memory, which will translate to much faster performance even before we get to chip improvements. ITworld has a look.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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A Co-processor No More, Intel’s Xeon Phi Will Be Its Own CPU As Well

NYT: Healthcare.gov Project Chaos Due Partly To Unorthodox Database Choice

First time accepted submitter conoviator writes “The NY Times has just published a piece providing more background on the healthcare.gov software project. One interesting aspect: ‘Another sore point was the Medicare agency’s decision to use database software, from a company called MarkLogic, that managed the data differently from systems by companies like IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. CGI officials argued that it would slow work because it was too unfamiliar. Government officials disagreed, and its configuration remains a serious problem.'” The story does not say that MarkLogic’s software is bad in itself, only that the choice meant increased complexity on the project. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel’s 128MB L4 Cache May Be Coming To Broadwell and Other Future CPUs

MojoKid writes “When Intel debuted Haswell this year, it launched its first mobile processor with a massive 128MB L4 cache. Dubbed “Crystal Well, ” this on-package (not on-die) pool of memory wasn’t just a graphics frame buffer, but a giant pool of RAM for the entire core to utilize. The performance impact from doing so is significant, though the Haswell processors that utilize the L4 cache don’t appear to account for very much of Intel’s total CPU volume. Right now, the L4 cache pool is only available on mobile parts, but that could change next year. Apparently Broadwell-K will change that. The 14nm desktop chips aren’t due until the tail end of next year but we should see a desktop refresh in the spring with a second-generation Haswell part. Still, it’s a sign that Intel intends to integrate the large L4 as standard on a wider range of parts. Using EDRAM instead of SRAM allows Intel’s architecture to dedicate just one transistor per cell instead of the 6T configurations commonly used for L1 or L2 cache. That means the memory isn’t quite as fast but it saves an enormous amount of die space. At 1.6GHz, L4 latencies are 50-60ns which is significantly higher than the L3 but just half the speed of main memory.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Intel’s 128MB L4 Cache May Be Coming To Broadwell and Other Future CPUs

Online Car Retailer Launching Nation’s First Car "Vending Machine"

cartechboy writes “Last year’s Gallup poll showed that car salespeople are the least trusted professionals in America, ranking even below members of Congress. Enter, Carvana, an online dealership operating in Atlanta, Georgia. They allow customers to shop for cars online, secure loans online, and pay for cars online. Now they have gone one step farther and are claiming to remove the despised car salesperson from test drives and even post-purchase pickup by creating, yes, a giant auto vending machine. The facility, which will open at the end of November, will be a fully digital, 24-7 interactive ‘vehicle-delivery center’ designed to offer customers pick-up options after purchasing a vehicle online. They’ll have floor-to-ceiling windows, custom LED lighting, flat screen TV’s plus interactive keypads that identify customers based on unique buyer credentials. There will be three car pickup bays to allow for simultaneous pickups. One thing they won’t have: car sales people (Note: there will be customer service reps there to answer questions). Carvana plans to expand on the idea, presumably if this Atlanta facility works.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Online Car Retailer Launching Nation’s First Car "Vending Machine"

Linux 3.13 Kernel To Bring Major Feature Improvements

An anonymous reader writes “There’s many improvements due in the Linux 3.13 kernel that just entered development. On the matter of new hardware support, there’s open-source driver support for Intel Broadwell and AMD Radeon R9 290 ‘Hawaii’ graphics. NFTables will eventually replace IPTables; the multi-queue block layer is supposed to make disk access much faster on Linux; HDMI audio has improved; Stereo/3D HDMI support is found for Intel hardware; file-system improvements are on the way, along with support for limiting the power consumption of individual PC components.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Linux 3.13 Kernel To Bring Major Feature Improvements

U.S. 5X Battery Research Sets Three Paths For Replacing Lithium

dcblogs writes “One year ago this month, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $120 million plan to develop a technology capable of radically extending battery life. ‘We want to change the game, basically, ‘ said George Crabtree, a senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and a physics professor who is leading the effort. The goal is to develop a battery that can deliver five times the performance, measured in energy density, that’s also five times cheaper, and do it in five years. They are looking at three research areas. Researchers are considering replacing the lithium with magnesium that has two charges, or aluminum, which has three charges. Another approach investigates replacing the intercalation step with a true chemical reaction. A third approach is the use of liquids to replace crystalline anodes and cathodes, which opens up more space for working ions.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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U.S. 5X Battery Research Sets Three Paths For Replacing Lithium

The Second Operating System Hiding In Every Mobile Phone

Jah-Wren Ryel writes “Every smartphone or other device with mobile communications capability (e.g. 3G or LTE) actually runs not one, but two operating systems. Aside from the operating system that we as end-users see (Android, iOS, PalmOS), it also runs a small operating system that manages everything related to radio. So, we have a complete operating system, running on an ARM processor, without any exploit mitigation (or only very little of it), which automatically trusts every instruction, piece of code, or data it receives from the base station you’re connected to. What could possibly go wrong?” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chinese Bitcoin Exchange Vanishes, Taking £2.5m of Coins With It

An anonymous reader writes “A Chinese Bitcoin exchange has vanished without trace, taking more than $4 million of the virtual currency with it and leaving profit-hungry investors out of pocket. GBL, the Chinese Bitcoin exchange was launched in May 2013 and putatively based in Hong Kong, despite its servers being registered in Beijing. However GBL’s Hong Kong offices do not exist. GBL mysteriously disappeared in early November taking an estimated $4.1m (£2.6m) of Bitcoins with it.” (Beware the auto-playing ads, with sound.) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Chinese Bitcoin Exchange Vanishes, Taking £2.5m of Coins With It

Music Industry Issues Take Down Notices to 50 Major Lyrics Sites

alphadogg writes “A music industry group is warning some 50 website that post song lyrics that they need to be licensed or face the music, possibly in the form of a lawsuit. The National Music Publishers Association said Monday that it sent take-down notices to what it claims are 50 websites that post lyrics to songs and generate ad revenue but may not be licensed to do so. The allegedly infringing sites were identified based on a complicated algorithm developed by a researcher at the University of Georgia.” The “complicated algorithm” (basis statistics using Excel and Google) is described in the NMPA’s “Undesirable Lyric Website List.” Anyone remember lyrics.ch? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Music Industry Issues Take Down Notices to 50 Major Lyrics Sites

"War Room" Notes Describe IT Chaos At Healthcare.gov

dcblogs writes “U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has released 175 pages of “War Room” notes — a collection of notes by federal officials dealing with the problems at Healthcare.gov. They start Oct. 1, the launch day. The War Room notes catalog IT problems — dashboards weren’t showing data, servers didn’t have the right production data, third party systems weren’t connecting to verify data, a key contractor had trouble logging on, and there wasn’t enough server capacity to handle the traffic, or enough people on the help desks to answer calls. To top it off, some personnel needed for the effort were furloughed because of the shutdown. Volunteers were needed to work weekends, but there were bureaucratic complications.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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"War Room" Notes Describe IT Chaos At Healthcare.gov