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Microsoft Cuts Azure Pricing
Good news for businesses using Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform: their infrastructure bills may get somewhat smaller next month.
Microsoft announced that it will be permanently reducing the prices for its Dv2 compute instances by up to 17 percent next month, depending on the type of instance and what it’s being used for. Users will see the greatest savings if they’re running higher performance Linux instances — up to 17 percent lower prices than they’ve been paying previously. Windows instance discounts top out at a 13 percent reduction compared to current prices.
Right now, the exact details of the discount are a little bit vague, but Microsoft says that it will publish full pricing details in February when they go into effect. Dv2 instances are designed for applications that require more compute power and temporary disk performance than Microsoft’s A series instances.
They’re the successor to Azure’s D-series VMs, and come with processors that are 35 percent faster than their predecessors. Greater speed also corresponds to a higher price, but these discounts will make Dv2-series instances more price competitive with their predecessors. That’s good news for price-conscious users, who may be more inclined to reach for the higher-performance instances now that they’ll be cheaper.
The price changes come after Amazon earlier this week introduced scheduled compute instances, which let users pick out a particular time for their workloads to run on a regular basis, and get discounts based on when they decide to use the system. It’s a system that’s designed to help businesses that need computing power for routine tasks at non-peak times get a discount.
Microsoft’s announcement builds on the company’s longstanding history of reducing prices for Azure in keeping with Amazon’s price cuts in order to remain competitive.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/microsoft-to-cut-azure-pricing.html
Can IBM Beat Moore’s Law?
Big Blue Researchers have discovered a way to replace silicon semiconductors with carbon nanotube transistors and think that the development will push the industry past Moore’s law limits.
IBM said its researchers successfully shrunk transistor contacts in a way that didn’t limit the power of carbon nanotube devices. The chips could be smaller and faster and significantly surpass what’s possible with today’s silicon semiconductors.
The chips are made from carbon nanotubes consist of single atomic sheets of carbon in rolled-up tubes. This means that high-performance computers may well be capable of analysing big data faster, and battery life and the power of mobile and connected devices will be better. The advance may enable cloud-based data centres to provide more efficient services, IBM claims.
Moore’s law, which has for years governed the ability of the semiconductor industry to double the processing power of chips every 24 months is starting to reach the limits of physics when it comes to doubling the power of silicon chips. This could mean a slowing of significant computing performance boosts unless someone comes up with something fast.
IBM researchers claim to have proved that carbon nanotube transistors can work as switches at widths of 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, and less than half the size of the most advanced silicon technology.
The latest research has overcome “the other major hurdle in incorporating carbon nanotubes into semiconductor devices which could result in smaller chips with greater performance and lower power consumption,” IBM said.
Electrons found in carbon transistors move more efficiently than those that are silicon-based, even as the extremely thin bodies of carbon nanotubes offer more advantages at the atomic scale, IBM says.
The new research is jump-starting the move to a post-silicon future, and paying off on $3 billion in chip research and development investment IBM announced in 2014.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/can-ibm-beat-moores-law.html
U.S. LTE Speeds Drop
October 5, 2015 by admin
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The U.S. has dropped to No. 55 in LTE performance as speeds rise rapidly in countries that have lept ahead some early adopters of the popular cellular system.
The average download speed on U.S. 4G networks inched up to 10Mbps (bits per second) in the June-August quarter, according to research company OpenSignal. That was an improvement from 9Mbps in the previous quarter, but the country’s global ranking fell from 43rd as users in other countries made much larger gains.
The U.S. was one of the first countries with commercial LTE service when Verizon Wireless launched its network in late 2010. But other countries that adopted the system later started with better technology, and some have secured more frequencies or rolled out enhancements that U.S. carriers haven’t embraced as much, OpenSignal said.
New Zealand scored the highest average speed in the quarter with 36Mbps, coming up from nowhere in the rankings. But perennial standouts like South Korea and Singapore kept getting faster, too. The average LTE speed in Korea is now 29Mbps (up by 4Mbps), and in Singapore it’s 33Mbps, up by 5Mbps.
OpenSignal collects data on cellular performance through a free app that mobile subscribers can use to measure the speed they’re getting and find faster networks. The results announced Wednesday are based on readings from more than 300,000 users worldwide, the company said.
Countries like Hungary, the Dominican Republic and Morocco beat the U.S. in average LTE speed, but they aren’t necessarily smartphone paradises. Mobile users in America can use LTE more of the time, for example, because their carrier’s networks are built out. Subscribers in the U.S. are on LTE 78 percent of the time, on average, making the country No. 10 for what OpenSignal calls “time coverage.” Moroccan LTE may be fast, but 49 percent of the time, users there don’t get it, for example.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/u-s-falls-to-55th-place-worldwide-for-lte-speeds.html
China Keeps Supercomputing Title
A supercomputer developed by China’s National Defense University still is the fastest publically known computer in the world, while the U.S. is close to an historic low in the latest edition of the closely followed Top 500 supercomputer ranking, which was just published.
The Tianhe-2 computer, based at the National Super Computer Center in Guangzhou, has been on the top of the list for more than two years and its maximum achieved performance of 33,863 teraflops per second is almost double that of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Cray Titan supercomputer, which is at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.
The IBM Sequoia computer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California is the third fastest machine, and fourth on the list is the Fujitsu K computer at Japan’s Advanced Institute for Computational Science. The only new machine to enter the top 10 is the Shaheen II computer of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, which is ranked seventh.
The Top 500 list, published twice a year to coincide with supercomputer conferences, is closely watched as an indicator of the status of development and investment in high-performance computing around the world. It also provides insights into what technologies are popular among organizations building these machines, but participation is voluntary. It’s quite possible a number of secret supercomputers exist that are not counted in the list.
With 231 machines in the Top 500 list, the U.S. remains the top country in terms of the number of supercomputers, but that’s close to the all-time low of 226 hit in mid-2002. That was right about the time that China began appearing on the list. It rose to claim 76 machines this time last year, but the latest count has China at 37 computers.
The Top 500 list is compiled by supercomputing experts at the University of Mannheim, Germany; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
IBM Debuts New Mainframe
IBM has started shipping its all-new first z13 mainframe computer.
IBM has high hopes the upgraded model will generate solid sales based not only on usual customer patterns but its design focus aimed at helping them cope with expanding mobile usage, analysis of data, upgrading security and doing more “cloud” remote computing.
Mainframes are still a major part of the Systems and Technology Group at IBM, which overall contributed 10.8 percent of IBM’s total 2014 revenues of $92.8 billion. But the z Systems and their predecessors also generate revenue from software, leasing and maintenance and thus have a greater financial impact on IBM’s overall picture.
The new mainframe’s claim to fame is to use simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) to execute two instruction streams (or threads) on a processor core which delivers more throughput for Linux on z Systems and IBM z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) eligible workloads.
There is also a single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD), a vector processing model providing instruction level parallelism, to speed workloads such as analytics and mathematical modeling. All this means COBOL 5.2 and PL/I 4.5 exploit SIMD and improved floating point enhancements to deliver improved performance over and above that provided by the faster processor.
Its on chip cryptographic and compression coprocessors receive a performance boost improving both general processors and Integrated Facility for Linux (IFL) cryptographic performance and allowing compression of more data, helping tosave disk space and reducing data transfer time.
There is also a redesigned cache architecture, using eDRAM technology to provide twice as much second level cache and substantially more third and fourth level caches compared to the zEC12. Bigger and faster caches help to avoid untimely swaps and memory waits while maximisng the throughput of concurrent workload Tom McPherson, vice president of z System development, said that the new model was not just about microprocessors, though this model has many eight-core chips in it. Since everything has to be cooled by a combination of water and air, semiconductor scaling is slowing down, so “you have to get the value by optimizing.
The first real numbers on how the z13 is selling won’t be public until comments are made in IBM’s first-quarter report, due out in mid-April, when a little more than three weeks’ worth of billings will flow into it.
The company’s fiscal fortunes have sagged, with mixed reviews from both analysts and the blogosphere. Much of that revolves around IBM’s lag in cloud services. IBM is positioning the mainframe as a prime cloud server, one of the systems that is actually what cloud computing goes to and runs on.
Is Qualcomm Overheating?
South Korean smartphone maker LG Electronics Inc said on Thursday that it has not experienced any overheating problems with Qualcomm Inc’s new Snapdragon processor that is powering a curved-screen device going on sale later this month.
“I am very much aware of the various concerns in the market about the (Snapdragon) 810, but the chip’s performance is quite satisfactory,” Woo Ram-chan, LG vice president for mobile product planning, told reporters at a press event for the company’s G Flex2 smartphone.
The comment came after Bloomberg reported a day earlier that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the world’s top smartphone maker, decided not to use the new Qualcomm processor for the next flagship Galaxy S smartphone after the chip overheated during testing. Samsung and Qualcomm have declined to comment on the report, which cited unidentified sources.
Samsung is widely expected to unveil the new Galaxy S smartphone in early March, and Bloomberg reported that the Korean firm will use its own processors instead.
But LG’s Woo said on Thursday that internal tests for the G Flex2, powered by the new Qualcomm processor, show that the new product emits less heat than other existing devices. The new phone is scheduled to start selling in South Korea on Jan. 30.
“I don’t understand why there is a issue over heat,” he said.
Intel Opens Up Core M
Intel has extended its Core M range of fanless mobile chips by adding four models to the three initial Core M processors launched at the IFA trade show in September.
Like those first fanless models, Intel’s new Core M processors are dual-core chips that support Hyperthreading in up to four threads and have thermal design power (TDP) ratings of 4.5W.
They’re faster than the initial Core M chips, with base clock speeds ranging from 800MHz to 1.2GHz and Turbo Boost speeds from 2GHz to 2.9GHz.
The firm’s initial Core M chips were also rated at 4.5W TDP but topped out at 1.1GHz and 2.6GHz under Turbo Boost.
These additional fanless mobile chips are configurable by system designers, in that OEMs can scale the chip speeds and power consumption up or down depending on the purpose and configuration of the device.
A compact tablet or notebook can conserve power by limiting processor speed, while a larger device can offer higher speed at the cost of higher power draw and heat.
Thus, these new Core M chips can be configured from 600MHz base clock speed and 3.5W TDP to 1.4GHz base clock speed and 6W TDP in the fastest model.
Intel has also boosted the integrated graphics processors in these latest Core M chips, offering GPU base clock speeds ranging from 300MHz to 900MHz, whereas the initial models supported 100MHz to 850MHz.
The detailed specifications of all of Intel’s Core M mobile processors are available on the firm’s website.
Intel said that these new fanless Core M processors will start hitting the market early next year.
Amazon Tops Apple
November 13, 2014 by admin
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A mere five months after Apple snatched J.D. Power’s tablet satisfaction award away from Samsung, it has lost it to up-and-coming Amazon.
Apple’s iPad finished in second place in the latest satisfaction survey conducted by J.D. Power and Associates, with a score of 824 out of a possible 1,000. For the first time, Amazon took first place, scoring 827.
Samsung came in at 821 for third, while Asus and Acer filled out the first five, but those stragglers’ scores were under the category average.
J.D. Power’s satisfaction score included five separate measurements for performance, ease of operation, features, styling and design, and cost, with each accounting for different percentages of the final number. Performance, for example, counted as 28% of the total; cost for 11%.
Apple received high scores in performance and styling and design, while Amazon performed best in ease of operation and cost, said Kirk Parsons, senior director of telecommunications services at J.D. Power.
“Within the tablet segment, there’s a balance of cost and value, and for this period, Amazon was at the equilibrium,” said Parsons. “For the money, [Amazon tablets] do what buyers need them to do. And the Mayday feature really helped them in ease of operation.”
Mayday is a feature on Amazon’s higher-end tablets that lets customers video chat with support representatives using the device.
Parsons called out Amazon’s Fire HDX, which launched in October 2013 in a 7-in. size and a month later in an 8.9-in. format, for driving the brand’s scores. Amazon now sells the 7-in. Fire HDX for $179; the 8.9-in. model starts at $379. “The new Fire HDX did really, really well” in the survey, Parsons noted.
J.D. Power polled nearly 2,700 U.S. tablet owners who had had their current devices for less than a year. The survey period ran from March to August.
The last time J.D. Power published tablet customer satisfaction scores, Amazon placed fourth. Its jump to first was a small surprise, said Parsons. “I figured [Amazon’s] scores would improve, but I didn’t think they’d take the top spot,” he admitted.
Price is increasingly important to satisfaction, said Parson, as costs fall and capabilities climb across the board, making it more difficult for premium-priced tablets like Apple’s iPad, to retain their polled positions. On average, tablet customers now spend $345 on their tablets, $48 less than in April 2013, a decline of 12%.
Will Verizon Throttle Users?
October 15, 2014 by admin
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Verizon Wireless backed away from a widely criticized plan to slow down the connections of heavy data users with unlimited LTE plans.
The carrier had announced in July it would extend a practice it calls network optimization to unlimited LTE subscribers starting in October. Network optimization targets the top 5 percent of data users on the network when a cell site is under the heaviest demand, and slows down those users’ network performance. Verizon had already applied the practice to the top users of its 3G network.
“We’ve greatly valued the ongoing dialogue over the past several months concerning network optimization and we’ve decided not to move forward with the planned implementation of network optimization for 4G LTE customers on unlimited plans,” the carrier said in a statement on Wednesday. “Exceptional network service will always be our priority and we remain committed to working closely with industry stakeholders to manage broadband issues so that American consumers get the world-class mobile service they expect and value.”
U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler attacked the plan in a letter to Verizon, suggesting it was a ploy to get customers to switch from their unlimited plans to ones with a cap on monthly data usage. Verizon no longer sells new unlimited plans but allows subscribers with those plans to keep them.
“I know of no past Commission statement that would treat as ‘reasonable network management’ a decision to slow traffic to a user who has paid, after all, for ‘unlimited’ service,” Wheeler wrote in the late July letter to Verizon Wireless President and CEO Dan Mead.
Digital rights group Public Knowledge also attacked so-called data throttling, as well as practices by AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile USA.
The showdown demonstrated the tension over increasing demand for mobile data, which carriers say puts a strain on their networks. Among other things, that demand has led operators to seek ever more spectrum and apply network management techniques they say are necessary to keep serving all subscribers well. Though LTE makes much more efficient use of the airwaves than 3G does, LTE networks are serving a rapidly growing number of subscribers.
Intel Debuts A Slew Of Core M Chips
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Intel’s new Core M chips — which bring PC-like performance to slim design tablets — will initially be in many Windows 8.1 tablets, but no Android devices are yet on the radar.
The chips will be in five to seven detachable tablets and hybrids by year end, and the number of devices could balloon to 20 next year, said Andy Cummins, mobile platform marketing manager at Intel.
Core M chips, announced at the IFA trade show in Berlin on Friday, are the first based on the new Broadwell architecture. The processors will pave the way for a new class of thin, large-screen tablets with long battery life, and also crank up performance to run full PC applications, Intel executives said in interviews.
“It’s about getting PC-type performance in this small design,” Cummins said. “[Core M] is much more optimized for thin, fanless systems.”
Tablets with Core M could be priced as low as US$699, but the initial batch of detachable tablets introduced at IFA are priced much higher. Lenovo’s 11.6-inch ThinkPad Helix 2 starts at $999, Dell’s 13.3-inch Latitude 13 7000 starts at $1,199, and Hewlett-Packard’s 13.3-inch Envy X2 starts at $1,049.99. The products are expected to ship in September or October.
Core M was also shown in paper-thin prototype tablets running Windows and Android at the Computex trade show in June. PC makers have not expressed interest in building Android tablets with Core M, but the OS can be adapted for the chips, Cummins said.
The dual-core chips draw as little as 4.5 watts, making it the lowest-power Core processor ever made by Intel. The clock speeds start at 800MHz when running in tablet mode, and scales up to 2.6GHz when running PC applications.
The power and performance characteristics make Core M relevant primarily for tablets. The chips are not designed for use in full-fledged PCs, Cummins said.
“If you are interested in the highest-performing parts, Core M probably isn’t the exact right choice. But if you are interested in that mix of tablet form factor, detachable/superthin form factor, this is where the Core M comes into play,” Cummins said.
For full-fledged laptops, users could opt for the upcoming fifth-generation Core processor, also based on Broadwell, Cummins said. Those chips are faster and will draw 15 watts of power or more, and be in laptops and desktops early next year.
New features in Core M curbed power consumption, and Intel is claiming performance gains compared to chips based on the older Haswell architecture. Tablets could offer around two more hours of battery life with Core M.