IBM Labs claims to have broken a speed record for Big Data, which the company says could help boost internet speeds to 200 to 400Gbps using “extremely low power”.
The scientists achieved the speed record using a prototype device presented at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) this week in San Francisco.
Apparently the device, which employs analogue-to-digital conversion (ADC) technology, could be used to improve the transfer speed of Big Data between clouds and data centres to four times faster than existing technology.
IBM said its device is fast enough that 160GB – the equivalent of a two-hour 4K ultra-high definition (UHD) movie or 40,000 music tracks – could be downloaded in a few seconds.
The IBM researchers have been developing the technology in collaboration with Swiss research institution Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) to tackle the growing demands of global data traffic.
“As Big Data and internet traffic continues to grow exponentially, future networking standards have to support higher data rates,” the IBM researchers explained, comparing data transfer per day in 1992 of 100GB to today’s two Exabytes per day, a 20 million-fold increase.
“To support the increase in traffic, ultra-fast and energy efficient analogue-to-digital converter (ADC) technology [will] enable complex digital equalisation across long-distance fibre channels.”
An ADC device converts analogue signals to digital, estimating the right combination of zeros and ones to digitally represent the data so it can be stored on computers and analysed for patterns and predictive outcomes.
“For example, scientists will use hundreds of thousands of ADCs to convert the analogue radio signals that originate from the Big Bang 13 billion years ago to digital,” IBM said.
The ADC technology has been developed as part of an international project called Dome, a collaboration between the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON), DOME-South Africa and IBM to build the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), which will be the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope when it’s completed.
“The radio data that the SKA collects from deep space is expected to produce 10 times the global internet traffic and the prototype ADC would be an ideal candidate to transport the signals fast and at very low power – a critical requirement considering the thousands of antennas which will be spread over 1,900 miles,” IBM expalined.
IBM Research Systems department manager Dr Martin Schmatz said, “Our ADC supports Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards for data communication and brings together speed and energy efficiency at 32 nanometers, enabling us to start tackling the largest Big Data applications.”
He said that IBM is developing the technology for its own family of products, ranging from optical and wireline communications to advanced radar systems.
“We are bringing our previous generation of the ADC to market less than 12 months since it was first developed and tested,” Schmatz added, noting that the firm will develop the technology in communications systems such as 400Gbps opticals and advanced radars.
February 27, 2014 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
The Securities and Exchange Commission said that its making plans to conduct a roundtable next month to discuss cybersecurity, after massive retailer breaches refocused the attention of the business community and policymakers on the area.
The SEC said that it would hold the event on March 26 to talk about the challenges cyber threats pose for market participants and public companies.
Recent breaches at Target Corp and Neiman Marcus have sparked concern from lawmakers and revived a long-running spat among retailers and banks over who should bear the cost of consumer losses and technology investments to improve security.
Last Thursday, trade groups for the two industries announced they are forming a partnership to work through the disputes.
U.S. lawmakers have also considered weighing in on how consumers should be notified of data theft. But progress on legislation is not guaranteed in a busy election year.
The SEC in 2011 drafted informal staff-level guidance for public companies to use when considering whether to disclose cyber attacks and their impact on a company’s financial condition.
SEC Chair Mary Jo White last year told Congress that her agency was reviewing whether a more robust disclosure process is needed. But she told reporters last fall she felt the guidance appeared to be working well and that she didn’t see an immediate need to create a rule that mandates public reporting on cyber attacks.
Ubuntu will not offer cross-platform apps as soon as it had hoped.
Canonical had raised hopes that its plan for Ubuntu to span PCs and mobile devices would be realised with the upcoming Ubuntu 14.04 release, providing a write-once, run-on-many template similar to that planned by Google for its Chrome OS and Android app convergence.
This is already possible on paper and the infrastructure is in place on smartphone and tablet versions of Ubuntu through its new Unity 8 user interface.
However, Canonical has decided to postpone the rollout of Unity 8 for desktop machines, citing security concerns, and it will now not appear along with the Mir display server this coming autumn.
This will apply only to apps in the Ubuntu store, and in the true spirit of open source, anyone choosing to step outside that ecosystem will be able to test the converged Ubuntu before then.
Ubuntu community manager Jono Bacon told Ars Technica, “We don’t plan on shipping apps in the new converged store on the desktop until Unity 8 and Mir lands.
“The reason is that we use app insulation to (a) run apps securely and (b) not require manual reviews (so we can speed up the time to get apps in the store). With our plan to move to Mir, our app insulation doesn’t currently insulate against X apps sniffing events in other X apps. As such, while Ubuntu SDK apps in click packages will run on today’s Unity 7 desktop, we don’t want to make them readily available to users until we ship Mir and have this final security consideration in place.
“Now, if a core-dev or motu wants to manually review an Ubuntu SDK app and ship it in the normal main/universe archives, the security concern is then taken care of with a manual review, but we are not recommending this workflow due to the strain of manual reviews.”
As well as the aforementioned security issues, there are still concerns that cross-platform apps don’t look quite as good on the desktop as native desktop versions and the intervening six months will be used to polish the user experience.
Getting the holistic experience right is essential for Ubuntu in order to attract OEMs to the converged operating system. Attempts to crowdfund its own Ubuntu handset fell short of its ambitious $20m target, despite raising $10.2 million, the single largest crowdfunding total to date.
February 25, 2014 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
Toyota is recalling nearly 1.9 million Prius hybrid automobiles globally in order to fix a software glitch that could damage transistors and cause a loss of power.
Some 700,000 of the Priuses are in the U.S., according to a statement. Another 997,000 are in Japan, 130,000 in Europe and the remainder in other places around the world, according to media reports. Toyota didn’t immediately respond to a request for confirmation of those details on.
Toyota plans to tweak software in the Priuses for the motor/generator ECU (engine control unit) and the hybrid control ECU. The current settings “could result in higher thermal stress in certain transistors, potentially causing them to become damaged,” Toyota said. “If this happens, various warning lights will illuminate and the vehicle can enter a failsafe mode. In rare circumstances, the hybrid system might shut down while the vehicle is being driven, resulting in the loss of power and the vehicle coming to a stop.”
Toyota is also recalling about 260,000 2012 RAV4 compact sport utility vehicles, 2012-2013 Tacoma trucks and 2012-2013 Lexus RX 350 SUVs in the U.S., the company said Wednesday.
Toyota will apply an update to skid control ECU software on cars in this recall to fix an “electronic circuit condition” that could cause the vehicles stability control, anti-lock braking systems and traction control function to shut down intermittently, Toyota said. However, in the event of such a failure the standard brakes will still work, according to the company.
No accidents or injuries have been reported in connection with the software problems, Toyota said. The software update will be applied free of charge at local dealers.
Samsung has joined Google, Mellanox, Nvidia and other tech companies as part of IBM’s OpenPower Consortium. The OpenPower Consortium is working toward giving developers access to an expanded and open set of server technologies to improve data centre hardware using chip designs based on the IBM Power architecture.
Last summer, IBM announced the formation of the consortium, following its decision to license the Power architecture. The OpenPower Foundation, the actual entity behind the consortium, opened up the Power architecture technology, including specs, firmware and software under a license. Firmware is offered as open source. Originally, OpenPower was the brand of a range of System p servers from IBM that utilized the Power5 CPU. Samsung’s products currently utilize both x86 and ARM-based processors.
The intention of the consortium is to develop advanced servers, networking, storage and GPU-acceleration technology for new products. The four priority technical areas for development are system software, application software, open server development platform and hardware architecture. Along with its announcement of Samsung’s membership, the organization said that Gordon MacKean, Google’s engineering director of the platforms group, will now become chairman of the group. Nvidia has said it will use its graphics processors on Power-based hardware, and Tyan will be releasing a Power-based server, the first one outside IBM.
Intel has decided that some of its budget Bay Trail parts have been out evolved and flung them into a tar pit. According to CPU World the parts first appeared in September. Intel released budget Bay Trail systems on a chip for mobile and desktop markets, under Celeron and Pentium brands.
They were manufactured on 22nm technology, and featured such enhancements as greater number of CPU cores, higher clock speeds, beefed up graphics unit, not to mention an out-of-order microarchitecture, that improved per-clock CPU performance by up to 30 per cent faster compared to their predecessors. With this performance goodness it is a little surprising the Intel has decided that all the all Bay Trail SoCs will be discontinued in a matter of a few months. Details of the planned discontinuation were published this week by Intel in several Product Change Notification documents.
The Desktop Pentium J2850, along with mobile Celeron N2810 and Pentium N3510 are already End of Lifed and its last orders will be in two weeks, on February 11. The chips will ship until April 25, 2014. Also retired are mobile Celeron N2806, N2815, N2820, N2920, and Pentium N3520. Their EOL date is April 11, 2014, and they will ship until May 30, 2014. On August 22, 2014, Intel is going to discontinue Celeron J1750, J1850, N2805 and N2910. The “J” models are desktop processors, and the “N” are mobile ones. There is no word on Z-series Bay Trail-T parts, none appear to be EOL’d at this time.
Furthermore, on the same date Intel will retire Core i7-3940XM Extreme Edition, and boxed and tray versions of Core i7-3840QM and i7-3740QM CPUs. The last shipment date for the Celerons and Core i7s is February 6, 2015.
IBM has detailed plans to apply its Watson supercomputer the critical development issues facing Africa.
The machine is capable of holding more intelligent conversations than most Big Brother contestants, and in 2011 it beat human contestants on the US TV game show Jeopardy.
However, in Africa it will be used to help solve the pressing problems facing the continent such as agricultural patterns and famine relief.
The initiative, named Project Lucy after the earliest human remains discovered on the continent, will take 10 years and is expected to cost $100m.
“I believe it will spur a whole era of innovation for entrepreneurs here,” IBM CEO Ginni Rometty told delegates at a conference on Wednesday.
“Data… needs to be refined. It will determine undisputed winners and losers across every industry.”
The technology will be used to find ways to enable the developing world to leapfrog over stages of development that have hitherto been too expensive.
One example cited was Nigeria, where two companies have already committed to use Project Lucy to analyse the poorly maintained road system and determine project priorities for repair.
IBM recently announced that it will invest $1bn to spin off Watson into a separate business unit, however this could be quite a gamble as Reuters reported that although Watson has proved to be a quantum leap, it has yet to make any significant money for the company, netting less than $100m in the past three years.
Sony will unload its struggling PC business to a Japanese investment firm, the company said Thursday, raising the possibility that the “Vaio” brand could all but disappear from markets outside Japan.
Tokyo-based investment fund Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will operate the Vaio PC brand under a newly established firm and initially sell PCs in Japan only.
In another reform aimed at bolstering its restructuring efforts, Sony also said it would turn its beleaguered TV business into a subsidiary.
The moves come as Sony said it now expects a net loss of $1.1 billion for the year to the end of March, a reversal of its October profit forecast.
Vaio, which Sony introduced in 1996, looks set to vanish from most markets, at least for short term, as the new company will initially concentrate on selling consumer and corporate PCs in Japan. Whether or not Sony will continue to produce products under the Vaio brand remains to be seen, Sony said.
Although Sony is selling its PC business, it will continue to produce tablet computers, part of its renewed focus on mobile devices including smartphones.
Sony did not put a price on the sale. Sony will take a 5% stake in the new firm, it said.
Sony will stop making and selling PCs after its 2014 Spring lineup launch, but about 250 to 300 Sony staff, including some from a subsidiary that produces TV sets, cameras and computers at factories in Japan, will be hired by the new company, which is to be based at the hub of Sony’s current PC business in Japan’s Nagano Prefecture.
Meanwhile, Sony said it will turn its TV business, which has faced a decade of losses, into a wholly owned subsidiary by July 2014.
February 18, 2014 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
Google Inc introduced a videoconferencing system for businesses on Thursday, the Internet search company’s latest attempt to generate revenue from corporate customers.
Google said it was partnering with Asus, Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell to offer a specialized version of its Chromebox PC that comes with videoconferencing gear, including a video camera and speakers.
The first Chromebox for meetings to be available is made by Asus and goes on sale in the U.S. on Thursday for $999, Google said. Customers can also pay a $250 annual service and management fee, though the first year is included in the product’s sales price.
The product uses Google’s free Hangouts video chat technology to connect up to 15 separate video streams from users in different locations.
The product will put Google in competition against Cisco Systems Inc and Polycom Inc, which make the video conferencing systems used by many corporations.
The world’s largest Internet search engine, Google makes the vast majority of its revenue from advertising. But Google also sells services to corporate customers, including special versions of its online apps such as email and word processing, as well as Chromebook laptops aimed at business users.
February 17, 2014 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
Did a British Spy agency linked to GCHQ attacked hacktivists of the Anonymous and Lulzsec collectives, according to leaked US National Security Agency (NSA) documents?
NBC published documents obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden showing that the group codenamed the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) proactively attempted to shut down and spread misinformation throughout the Anonymous collective.
The leaked document allege that the unit attempted to phish Anonymous members and launched attacks designed to disrupt and infiltrate its networks as part of an operation called Rolling Thunder.
The documents show the spies mounted a sophisticated espionage campaign that enabled intelligence officers to phish a number of Anonymous members to extract key bits of information.
The documents include conversations between intelligence officers and Anonymous members G-Zero, Topiary and pOke in 2011.
One log shows that a GCHQ spy duped the hacker pOke into clicking on a malicious link dressed up to look like a news article about Anonymous. The link used an unspecified method to extract data from the virtual private network (VPN) being used by pOke.
The documents allege pOke was not arrested, but that the information acquired during the phishing attack was used in the arrest of Jake Davis, who was known as Topiary, in July 2011.
Davis’ arrest was taken as a key victory for law enforcement. British citizen Davis was believed to have acted as a spokesman for many Anonymous cells and is credited as having written several of its statements.
A GCHQ spokesman declined The INQUIRER’s request for comment on NBC’s report, but reiterated the agency’s previous insistence that all of its operations are carried out within the letter of the law.
“It is a longstanding policy that we do not comment on intelligence matters. Furthermore, all of GCHQ’s work is carried out in accordance with a strict legal and policy framework,” read the statement.
Experts in the security community have questioned the GCHQ’s argument. Corero Network Security COO Andrew Miller said that the secret unit’s use of blackhat tactics was at the very least morally questionable.
“We have to remember that cyber-spooks within GCHQ are equally if not more skilled than many black hat hackers, and the tools and techniques they are going to use to fight cybercrime are surely going to be similar to that of the bad guys,” he said.
“Legally, we enter a very grey area here, where members of Lulzsec were arrested and incarcerated for carrying out DDoS attacks, but it seems that JTRIG are taking the same approach with impunity.”
The campaign against Anonymous is one of many revelations from the leaked Snowden files.
The files initially were leaked to the press in 2013 and detailed several intelligence operations carried out by the UK GCHQ and US NSA. Documents emerged in January alleging that GCHQ and NSA used mobile apps such as Angry Birds to spy on citizens.
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