VR-World says that stage one results are finished and where shown off this week at SC15. This included a Heterogeneous Compute Compiler (HCC); a headless Linux driver and HSA runtime infrastructure for cluster-class, High Performance Computing (HPC); and the Heterogeneous-compute Interface for Portability (HIP) tool for porting CUDA-based applications to C++ programming.

AMD hopes the tools will drive application performance from machine learning to molecular dynamics, and from oil and gas to visual effects and computer-generated imaging.

Jim Belak, co-lead of the US Department of Energy’s Exascale Co-design Center in Extreme Materials and senior computational materials scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory said that AMD’s Heterogeneous-compute Interface for Portability enables performance portability for the HPC community.

“The ability to take code that was written for one architecture and transfer it to another architecture without a negative impact on performance is extremely powerful. The work AMD is doing to produce a high-performance compiler that sits below high-level programming models enables researchers to concentrate on solving problems and publishing groundbreaking research rather than worrying about hardware-specific optimizations.”

The new AMD Boltzmann Initiative suite includes an HCC compiler for C++ development, greatly expanding the field of programmers who can leverage HSA.

The new HCC C++ compiler is a key tool in enabling developers to easily and efficiently apply the hardware resources in heterogeneous systems. The compiler offers more simplified development via single source execution, with both the CPU and GPU code in the same file.

The compiler automates the placement code that executes on both processing elements for maximum execution efficiency.

Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/amd-appears-to-be-pushing-its-boltzmann-plan.html

A new report from ChosunBiz said that Samsung originally aimed to house around 10,000 personnel on the site. However the majority of the decreases will be applied to Samsung’s Digital Media & Communication (DMC) and Media Solutions Centre (MSC).

The campus will instead house about 3,500 staff who have master and PhD degrees and specialise in software, design and digital media development.

The move is odd as it is coming at a time when Samsung is really desperate for killer innovation to steal the march on the competition. However reading between the lines it looks like it is reducing work in its content creation side.

We are surprised that it is doing anything with its Media Solutions centre. Originally, it was established to operate as a Korean version of the App Store. But the company announced on December 10 last year that it was dissolves the organisation.

At the time it was admitted that the content business has not been as successful as the hardware business. Moreover, the worsening performance of the smartphone business arising from the increasingly saturated market forced the company to speed up the break-up process.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/samsung-boots-two-thirds-of-its-rd-staff.html

Microsoft promised that its Lumia range would cover the low end, business and enthusiast segments but while the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL and Lumia 650 should cover the low-end segment as well nothing has turned up for business users.

This was odd, given that business users want phones that play nice with their networks, something that Redmond should do much better than Google or Apple.

Microsoft’s CFO Amy Hood told the UBS Global Technology Conference that business versions of the Lumia were coming. She said:

“We launched a Lumia 950 and a 950 XL. They’re premium products, at the premium end of the market, made for Windows fans. And we’ll have a business phone, as well.”

There were no details, but we have been hearing rumours of a Surface phone being sighted on benchmarks. It was thought that his would be a Microsoft flagship, but with the launch of the Lumia 950/950 XL, it is possible that this Surface phone could be aimed at the business user. The word Surface matches nicely with Microsoft’s Surface Pro branding.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/will-microsoft-debut-a-lumia-business-phone-next-year.html

Over the last few months both have been busy with new releases. Nvidia has its GeForce GTX 950 and GTX 980 Ti, while AMD put its first HBM-powered cards in the Radeon R9 Fury X, Fury and the super-small R9 Nano into the shops.

According to JPR, overall GPU shipments are up quarter-over-quarter – with AMD’s overall GPU shipments up 15.8 per cent. But before AMD fanboys get all excited by a surprise return to form from AMD, JPR said that that NVIDIA “had an exceptionally strong quarter”. Nvidia saw an uptick of 21.3 per cent.

The PC market as a whole increased by 7.5 per cent quarter-over-quarter but decreased 9 per cent year-over-year. Nivida’s discrete GPU shipments were up 26.3 per cent according to JPR, while AMD’s discrete GPUs spiked by 33 per cent.

AMD’s mobile GPU shipments for notebooks increased by 17 per cent, while NVIDIA had 14 per cent.

In its third report this year, Quick Heal warns that Apple users in particular better brace themselves for impact as more and more malware writers who’ve earned their stripes targeting Android users turn their attention to iOS.

“As the number of iPhone owners rises across the world, iOS has become a new potential target for Android malware authors and hackers. It is expected that Android malware will soon be altered to attack iOS users as well, and jailbroken iOS devices will be the first wave of targets for these attacks,” explained the firm (PDF).

“Recently, the ‘XcodeGhost’ malware was found on the Apple App Store and this is just the beginning of such attacks.”

In a section on wearables, Quick Heal predicts hackers will increasingly target fitness trackers, something that other security researchers have already warned about.

A lot of space in the report is reserved for Android-flavoured threats, and users are offered advice on protecting themselves such as if there is an option to use a password over a touch sign-in, then you ought to take it.

“A group of researchers have discovered a serious security flaw in the Android Lollipop version running on devices right now. This flaw allows attackers to bypass the lockscreen of an Android smartphone by using a massive password and thereby exposing the homescreen,” it explains.

“The attack essentially works by opening the in-built camera application and afflicts people using a password to protect their Android device and lock their screen.”

The most significant Android threat is a rascal called Android.Airpush.G, which claims 30 percent of the bug pool and is the kind of adware thing that makes you want to take a hammer to your phone screen. The second most prominent issue is Android.Reaper.A, which can haul in a large data harvest when in place.

Quick Heal is not the only security company in town, and a post on the Symantec website also seems set to put the fear into the Apple user community. That post, read it here – if you dare, says that the Mabouia ransomware is capable of causing a problem for Mac and PC users alike.

Fortunately, Mabouia is a proof-of-concept attack that a researcher shared with both Apple and Symantec. Symantec says that the PoC effort achieves at least one first.

“Mabouia is the first case of file-based crypto ransomware for OS X, albeit a proof-of-concept. Macs have nevertheless already been targeted by ransomware in the form of browser-based threats,” it explained.

“For example, in 2013, researchers at Malwarebytes discovered browser-based ransomware that targeted Safari for Mac users through a malicious website. The website directed Windows users to a drive-by download, while Mac users were served JavaScript that caused Safari to display persistent pop-ups informing the user their browser had been “locked” by the FBI for viewing illegal content.”

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/will-the-xcodeghost-malware-wreak-havoc-on-ios-devices.html

Ericsson, whose like-for-like sales are down 7 percent so far this year and were roughly flat over the previous three years, said the partnership means new areas of revenue as it will boost its addressable market, mainly in professional services, software and the resale of Cisco products.

“We are the wireless No. 1 in the world,” Ericsson Chief Executive Hans Vestberg told Reuters.

“Cisco is by far the No. 1 in the world when it comes to IP routers. Together we can create innovative solutions.”

The companies said in a statement they would together offer routing, data center, networking, cloud, mobility, management and control, and global services capabilities.

“The strategic partnership will be a key driver of growth and value for the next decade, with each company benefiting from incremental revenue in calendar year 2016 and expected to ramp (up) to $1 billion or more for each by 2018,” they said.

Ericsson expects full-year cost synergies of 1 billion Swedish crowns ($115 million) in 2018 due to the partnership and said it would continue to explore further joint business opportunities with Cisco.

Source http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/ericsson-and-cisco-join-forces-in-network-partnership.html

The Sparc M7 chip was originally unveiled at last year’s Openworld show in San Francisco, and was touted at the time as a Heartbleed-prevention tool.

A year on, and Oracle announced the Oracle SuperCluster M7, along with Sparc T7 and M7 servers, at the show. The servers are all based on the 32-core, 256-thread M7 microprocessor, which offers Security in Silicon for better intrusion protection and encryption, and SQL in Silicon for improved database efficiency.

Along with built-in security, the SuperCluster M7 packs compute, networking and storage hardware with virtualisation, operating system and management software into one giant cloud infrastructure box.

Oracle CTO Larry Ellison was on hand at Openworld on Tuesday to explain why the notion of building security into the silicon is so important.

“We are not winning a lot of these cyber battles. We haven’t lost the war but we’re losing a lot of the battles. We have to rethink how we deliver technology especially as we deliver vast amounts of data to the cloud,” he told delegates.

Ellison said that Oracle’s approach to this cyber war is to take security as low down in the stack as possible.

“Database security is better than application security. You should always push security as low in the stack as possible. At the bottom of the stack is silicon. If all of your data in the database is encrypted, that’s better than having an application code that encrypts your data. If it’s in the database, every application that uses that database inherits that security,” he explained.

“Silicon security is better than OS security. Then every operating system that runs on that silicon inherits that security. And the last time I checked, even the best hackers have not figured out a way to download changes to your microprocessor. You can’t alter the silicon, that’s really tricky.”

Ellison’s big idea is to take software security features out of operating systems, VMs and even databases in some cases – because software can be changed – and instead push them into the silicon, which can’t be. He is also urging for security to be switched on as default, without an option to turn it back off again.

“The security features should always be on. We provide encryption in our databases but it can be switched off. That is a bad idea. There should be no way to turn off encryption. The idea of being able to turn on and off security features makes no sense,” he said.

Ellison referred back to a debate that took place at Oracle when it first came up with its backup system – should the firm have only encrypted backups. “We did a customer survey and customers said no, we don’t want to pay the performance penalty in some cases,” he recalled. “In that case customer choice is a bad idea. Maybe someone will forget to turn on encryption when it should have been turned on and you lose 10 million credit cards.”

The Sparc M7 is basically Oracle’s answer to this dire security situation. Ellison said that while the M7 has lots of software features built into the silicon, the most “charismatic” of these is Silicon Secured Memory, which is “deceptively simple” in how it works.

“Every time a computer program asks for memory, say you ask for 8MB of memory, we compute a key and assign this large number to that 8MB of memory,” he explained. “We take those bits and we lock that memory. We also assign that same number to the program. Every time the program accesses memory, we check that number to make sure it’s the memory you allocated earlier. That compare is done by the hardware.”

If a program tries to access memory belonging to another program, the hardware detects a mismatch and raises a signal, flagging up a possible breach or bug.

“We put always-on memory intrusion detection into the silicon. We’re always looking for Heartbleed and Venom-like violations. You cannot turn it off,” the CTO warned.

“We’ve also speeded up encryption and decompression, which is kind of related to encryption. It runs at memory speed there’s zero cost in doing that. We turn it on, you can’t turn it off, it’s on all the time. It’s all built into the M7.”

Ellison claimed that running M7-based systems will stop threats like Heartbleed and Venom in their tracks.

“The way Venom worked, the floppy disc driver concealed this code. It’s the worst kind of situation, you’re writing into memory you’re not supposed to. You’re writing computer instructions into the memory and you’ve just taken over the whole computer,” he explained. “You can steal and change data. M7 – the second we tried to write that code into memory that didn’t belong to that program, where the keys didn’t match, that would have been detected real-time and that access would have been foiled.

All well and good, except for the fact that nearly every current computer system doesn’t run off the M7 processor. Ellison claimed that even if only three or four percent of servers in the cloud an organisation is using have this feature, they will be protected as they’ll get the early warning to then deal with the issue across non-M7 systems.

“You don’t have to replace every micro processor, you just have to replace a few so you get the information real-time,” he added.

“You’ll see us making more chips based on security, to secure our cloud and to sell to people who want to secure their clouds or who want to have secure computers in their datacentre. Pushing security down into silicon is a very effective way to do that and get ahead of bad guys.”

SuperCluster M7 and Sparc M7 servers are available now. Pricing has not been disclosed but based on normal Oracle hardware costs, expect to dig deep to afford one.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/oracles-new-m7-processor-has-security-on-silicon.html