RealSense is a mix of infrared, laser and optical cameras to measure depth and track motion. It can be used on a drone that can navigate its own way through a city block, but it is also good at detecting changes in facial expressions, and Intel wanted to give RealSense the ability to read human emotions by combining it with an emotion recognition technology developed by Emotient.

Plugging in Emotient allowed RealSense to detect whether people are happy or sad by analyzing movement in their lips, eyes and cheeks. Intel said that it could detect “anger, contempt, disgust, fear,” and other sentiments.

A few months ago the fruity cargo cult Apple acquired Emotient. Intel has removed the Emotient plug-in from the latest version of the RealSense software development kit.

It is not clear at this point if Apple told Intel that it invented the plug in and so it had to sling its hook, or if Intel did not want Jobs’ Mob anywhere near its technology.

The RealSense SDK has features that allow it to recognize some facial expressions, but it’s unclear if they’ll be as effective as the Emotient technology.

Courtesy-Fud

A slide has tipped up showing a screen capture of an installer screen for this operating system supposedly going by the “NLINUX” codename at NVIDIA.

Not much to go on, but it does appear that Nvidia is looking at creating a distribution for gamers similar to that operated by Valve.

It is hard to see what Nvidia would get out of it. Nvidia also has its SHIELD TV that’s powered by Tegra hardware and offers a variety of games over their cloud/streaming “GeForce NOW” service.

So why would Nvidia need a full-blown Linux distribution? The only place it could use one is on the desktop, but that would just mean bringing another Linux distribution into a crowded market with little return for its efforts.

Nvidia already has control of the Linux gaming systems and its cards do better on Linux than AMDs so an “optimized” Linux OS is not going to sell them more graphics cards for Linux gamers. It would have to add something which is better than Steam, or Ubuntu and what could that be?

Courtesy-Fud

The SDK gives developers access to advanced VR features, according to Qualcomm, allowing them to simplify development and attain improved performance and power efficiency with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor, found in Android smartphones such as the Galaxy S7 and tipped to feature in upcoming VR headsets.

In terms of features, the development kit offers tools such as digital signal processing (DSP) sensor fusion, which allows devs to use the “full breadth” of technologies built into the Snapdragon 820 chip to create more responsive and immersive experiences.

It will help developers combine high-frequency inertial data from gyroscopes and accelerometers, and there’s what the company calls “predictive head position processing” based on its Hexagon DSP, while Qualcomm’s Symphony System Manager makes easier access to power and performance management for more stable frame rates in VR applications running on less-powerful devices.

Fast motion to photon will offer single buffer rendering to reduce latency by up to 50 percent, while stereoscopic rendering with lens correction offers support for 3D binocular vision with color correction and barrel distortion for improved visual quality of graphics and video, enhancing the overall VR experience.

Stereoscopic rendering with lens correction supports 3D binocular vision with color correction and barrel distortion for improved visual quality of graphics and video, enhancing the overall VR experience.

Rounding off the features is VR layering, which improves overlays in a virtual world to reduce distortion.

David Durnil, senior director of engineering at Qualcomm, said: “We’re providing advanced tools and technologies to help developers significantly improve the virtual reality experience for applications like games, 360 degree VR videos and a variety of interactive education and entertainment applications.

“VR represents a new paradigm for how we interact with the world, and we’re excited to help mobile VR developers more efficiently deliver compelling and high-quality experiences on upcoming Snapdragon 820 VR-capable Android smartphones and headsets.”

The Snapdragon VR SDK will be available to developers in the second quarter through the Qualcomm Developer Network.

The launch of Qualcomm’s VR SDK comes just moments after AMD also entered the VR arena with the launch of the Sulon Q, a VR-ready wearable Windows 10 PC.

Courtesy-TheInq

The embedded Web server in the Cisco Cable Modem with Digital Voice models DPC2203 and EPC2203 contains a buffer overflow vulnerability that can be exploited remotely without authentication.  Apparently all you need to do is send a crafted HTTP requests to the Web server and you could see some arbitrary code execution.

Cisco said that its customers should contact their service providers to ensure that the software version installed on their devices includes the patch for this issue.

The Web-based administration interfaces of the Cisco DPC3941 Wireless Residential Gateway with Digital Voice and Cisco DPC3939B Wireless Residential Voice Gateway are affected by a vulnerability that could lead to information disclosure. An unauthenticated, remote attacker could exploit the flaw by sending a specially crafted HTTP request to an affected device in order to obtain sensitive information from it.

The Cisco Model DPQ3925 8×4 DOCSIS 3.0 Wireless Residential Gateway with EDVA is affected by a separate vulnerability, also triggered by malicious HTTP requests, that could lead to a denial-of-service attack.

Hackers have been hitting modems, routers and other gateway devices, hard lately – especially those distributed by ISPs to their customers. By compromising such devices, attackers can snoop on, hijack or disrupt network traffic or can attack other devices inside local networks.

Courtesy-Fud

Peter Lee, the corporate vice president of Microsoft Research said that Quantum computing is “stupendously exciting right now.”

Apparently it is Microsoft Research’s largest area of investment and Lee is pretty certain it is on the verge of some major scientific achievements.

“There’s just hope and optimism those scientific achievements will lead to practical outcomes. It’s hard to know when and where,” Lee said.

This is the first we have heard about Redmond’s quantum ambitions for a while. In 2014 the company revealed its “Station Q” group located on the University of California, Santa Barbara, campus, which has focused on quantum computing since its establishment a decade ago.

We sort of assumed that Microsoft would not get much work done on Quantum states because faced with a choice most cats would rather die in a box rather than listen to Steve Ballmer. But we guess with a more cat friendly CEO it is moving ahead.

Lee said that he has explained quantum computing research to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella by comparing it with speech processing. In that field, Microsoft researchers worked “so hard for a decade with no practical improvement,” he said. Then deep learning brought about considerable leaps forward in speech recognition and Microsoft was in on the ground floor.

“With quantum, we’ve made just gigantic advancements making semiconductor interfacing, allowing semiconductor materials to operate as though they were superconducting. What that means is the possibility of semiconductors that can operate at extremely high clock rates with very, very little or no heat dissipation. It’s just really spectacular.”

Courtesy-Fud

The plan is not official yet but appears to have been leaked to the Wall Street Journal. Achin Bhowmik, who oversees RealSense as vice president and general manager of Intel’s perceptual computing group, declined to discuss unannounced development efforts.

But he said Intel has a tradition of creating prototypes for products like laptop computers to help persuade customers to use its components. We have to build the entire experience ourselves before we can convince the ecosystem,” Bhowmik said.

Intel appears to be working on an augmented-reality headset when it teamed up with IonVR to to work on an augmented-reality headset that could work with a variety of operating systems, including Android and iOS. Naturally, it had a front-facing RealSense camera.

RealSense depth camera has been in development for several years and was shown as a viable product technology at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2014. Since then, nothing has happened and Microsoft’s Kinect sensor technology for use with Windows Hello in the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book knocked it aside.

Intel’s biggest issue is that it is talking about making a consumer product which is something that it never got the hang of.

RealSense technology is really good at translating real-world objects into virtual space. In fact a lot better than the HoloLens because it can scan the user’s hands and translate them into virtual objects that can manipulate other virtual objects.

Courtesy-Fud

Groupon has built its business model on the use of IBM’s patents, according to the complaint filed Wednesday in the federal court for the District of Delaware. “Despite IBM’s repeated attempts to negotiate, Groupon refuses to take a license, but continues to use IBM’s property,” according to the computing giant, which is asking the court to order Groupon to halt further infringement and pay damages.

IBM alleges that websites under Groupon’s control and its mobile applications use the technology claimed by the patents-in-suit for online local commerce marketplaces to connect merchants to consumers by offering goods and services at a discount.

About a year ago, IBM filed a similar lawsuit around the same patents against online travel company Priceline and three subsidiaries.

To develop the Prodigy online service that IBM launched with partners in the 1980s, the inventors of U.S. patents 5,796,967 and 7,072,849 developed new methods for presenting applications and advertisements in an interactive service that would take advantage of the computing power of each user’s PC and reduce demand on host servers, such as those used by Prodigy, IBM said in its complaint against Groupon.

“The inventors recognized that if applications were structured to be comprised of ‘objects’ of data and program code capable of being processed by a user’s PC, the Prodigy system would be more efficient than conventional systems,” it added.

Groupon is also accused of infringing U.S. Patent No.5,961,601, which was developed to find a better way of preserving state information in Internet communications, such as between an online merchant and a customer, according to IBM. Online merchants can use the state information to keep track of a client’s product and service selections while the client is shopping and then use that information when the client decides to make a purchase, something that stateless Internet communications protocols like HTTP cannot offer, it added.

Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/ibm-files-patent-infringement-lawsuit-against-groupon.html 

The new Toshiba SG5 SSD series will be available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB and 1TB capacities as well as a couple of different form-factors, standard 2.5-inch and two different M.2 form-factors.

As noted, the Toshiba SG5 SSD series is based on 15nm TLC NAND with yet to be details controller and will offer sequential performance of up to 545MB/s for read and up to 388MB/s for write.

The 2.5-inch version of the Toshiba SG5 SSD series will be available in all aforementioned capacities, the M.2 2280-S2 (single side) form-factor version will be available in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities and the M.2 2280-D2 (double side) version will only come in 1TB capacity.

The rest of the features are pretty standard for a consumer-grade SSD so you are looking at a power consumption 4.5W to 5.6W under load and 0.65W in idle and it includes Toshiba’s QSBC (Quadruple Swing-By Code) error correction technology.

Unfortunately, Toshiba did not unveil any details regarding the actual price of the new SG5 series SSDs but did say that it should be available sometime during this quarter.

Courtesy-Fud

That’s according to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) officials, who run the national labs. A new program aims to connect manufacturers with supercomputers and the expertise to use them.

This program provides $3 million, initially, for 10 industry projects, the DOE has announced. Whether the program extends into future fiscal years may well depend on Congress.

The projects are all designed to improve efficiency, product development and energy use.

For instance, Procter & Gamble will get help to reduce the paper pulp in products by 20%, “which could result in significant cost and energy savings” in this energy- intensive industry, according to the project description.

Another firm, ZoomEssence, which produces “powder ingredients that capture all the key sensory components of a liquid,” will work to optimize the design of a new drying method using HPC simulations, according to the award description.

Some other projects in the initial implementation of what is being called HPC4Mfg (HPC for Manufacturing) includes an effort to help Global Foundriesoptimize transistor design.

In another, the Ohio Supercomputer Center and the Edison Welding Institute will develop a welding simulation tool.

The national labs not only have the hardware; “more importantly the labs have deep expertise in using HPC to help solve complex problems,” said Donna Crawford, the associate director of computation at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in a conference call. They have the applications as well, she said.

HPC can be used to design and prototype products virtually that otherwise might require physical prototypes. These systems can run simulations and visualizations to discover, for instance, new energy-efficient manufacturing methods.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/u-s-wants-to-help-supercomputer-makers.html