Computing | Software and Hardware

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Typhoon
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Computing | Software and Hardware

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Wired |Amazon Builds World’s Fastest Nonexistent Supercomputer
The 42nd fastest supercomputer on earth doesn’t exist.

This fall, Amazon built a virtual supercomputer atop its Elastic Compute Cloud — a web service that spins up virtual servers whenever you want them — and this nonexistent mega-machine outraced all but 41 of the world’s real supercomputers.

Yes, beneath Amazon’s virtual supercomputer, there’s real hardware. When all is said and done, it’s a cluster of machines, like any other supercomputer. But that virtual layer means something. This isn’t a supercomputer that Amazon uses for its own purposes. It’s a supercomputer that can be used by anyone.

Amazon is the poster child for the age of cloud computing. Alongside their massive e-tail business, Jeff Bezos and company have built a worldwide network of data centers that gives anyone instant access to all sorts of computing resources, including not only virtual servers but virtual storage and all sorts of other services that can be accessed from any machine on the net. This global infrastructure is so large, it can run one of the fastest supercomputers on earth — even as it’s running thousands upon thousands of other virtual servers for the world’s businesses and developers.

This not only shows the breadth of Amazon’s service. It shows that in the internet age, just about anyone can run a supercomputer-sized application without actually building a supercomputer. “If you wanted to spin up a ten or twenty thousand [processor] core cluster, you could do it with a single mouse click,” says Jason Stowe, the CEO of Cycle Computing, an outfit that helps researchers and businesses run supercomputing applications atop EC2. “Fluid dynamics simulations. Molecular dynamics simulations. Financial analysis. Risk analysis. DNA sequencing. All of those things can run exceptionally well atop the [Amazon EC2 infrastructure].”
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

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Image
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Demon of Undoing
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

Post by Demon of Undoing »

Oh, man. We are totally not ready for this.

Oh, well. It's here anyway. Deal.
During the past months we’ve been reporting several breakthroughs in the field of quantum computing, and now IBM seems ready to truly pave the way for quantum computers. Researchers announced they are now able to develop a superconducting qubit made from microfabricated silicon that maintains coherence long enough for practical computation. Whoa! That probably sounds like a lot to swallow, so let’s break it down.
BITS AND QUBITS

Information is measured in ‘bits’, and a bit may have two positions (described typically as 0 or 1). Quantum computers however don’t use these bits, and instead they use quantum bits, or ‘qubits’. But while a bit must be a 0 or a 1, a qubit can be both 0, 1, or a superposition of both. This difference might seem small and subtle, but in fact, it is absolutely humongous: a mere hundred qubits can store more classical ‘bit’ information than there are atoms in the Universe.

Three superconducting qubits. Credits: IBM research
Needless to say a computer running on qubits would be game changing, in pretty much the same way microprocessors were in their days. But what makes quantum computing extremely difficult is a problem called ‘decoherence‘. In the quantum world, things don’t happen as they do in the ‘real world’; when a qubit will move from the 0 state to the 1 state or to a superposition, it will decohere to state 0 due to interference from other parts of the computer. Generally speaking, decoherence is the loss order of the phase angles between the components. So in order for quantum computers to be practical and scalable, the system would have to remain coherent for a long enough time to allow error-correction techniques to function properly.
“In 1999, coherence times were about 1 nanosecond,” said IBM scientist Matthias Steffen. “Last year, coherence times were achieved for as long as 1 to 4 microseconds. With these new techniques, we’ve achieved coherence times of 10 to 100 microseconds. We need to improve that by a factor of 10 to 100 before we’re at the threshold we want to be. But considering that in the past ten years we’ve increased coherence times by a factor of 10,000, I’m not scared.”
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

Post by Enki »

That's like a fundamental altering in the way matter stores coherence.
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Demon of Undoing
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

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The effect of this+ genetics can not be overstated. The only appropriate ways to envision this will sound like science fiction. In reality, even fantasy may not have eyes keen enough.
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

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Demon of Undoing wrote:The effect of this+ genetics can not be overstated. The only appropriate ways to envision this will sound like science fiction. In reality, even fantasy may not have eyes keen enough.
Yes, precisely. Most people do not understand this at all.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
AzariLoveIran

Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

Post by AzariLoveIran »

.

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Could someone hack your pacemaker ?

At TEDxMidAtlantic, Avi Rubin explains how hackers are compromising cars, smartphones and medical devices, and warns us about the dangers of an increasingly hack-able world.

Avi Rubin is a professor of computer science and director of Health and Medical Security Lab at Johns Hopkins University. His current research is focused on the security of electronic medical records

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metkEeZvHTg




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Demon of Undoing
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

Post by Demon of Undoing »

The Human Genome, Sequenced: Predicting the Future of DNA Tech

In the past 40 years, there has been roughly a million-fold improvement in semiconductor technology. "We have witnessed essentially the same improvement in DNA sequencing in just ten years," explained Dr. Andreas Sundquist, CEO and co-founder of DNAnexus, in his talk at FutureMed. There has been a 100,000-fold improvement in DNA sequencing throughput in only eight years, and nearly a million-fold reduction in the price of sequencing in ten years. "Today, it costs more to manage and analyze the data than it does to produce the data," he said.

Because the exponentials involved in DNA sequencing are so high, sweeping adoption of DNA sequencing is therefore imminent. "By 2020, every single one of you will have your DNA sequenced," Sundquist said to those in attendance.
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FT | Taste testing the Raspberry Pi
It's proponents say the Raspberry Pi - a new mini-computer costing about £20 - could transform the technology sector and the way a whole generation approaches IT. Seb Morton-Clark gathers a crack team of testers to see whether the Pi satisfies.
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

Post by AzariLoveIran »

Demon of Undoing wrote:.

The Human Genome, Sequenced: Predicting the Future of DNA Tech

In the past 40 years, there has been roughly a million-fold improvement in semiconductor technology. "We have witnessed essentially the same improvement in DNA sequencing in just ten years," explained Dr. Andreas Sundquist, CEO and co-founder of DNAnexus, in his talk at FutureMed. There has been a 100,000-fold improvement in DNA sequencing throughput in only eight years, and nearly a million-fold reduction in the price of sequencing in ten years. "Today, it costs more to manage and analyze the data than it does to produce the data," he said.

Because the exponentials involved in DNA sequencing are so high, sweeping adoption of DNA sequencing is therefore imminent. "By 2020, every single one of you will have your DNA sequenced," Sundquist said to those in attendance.

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All true what you saying Demon, all true

and

all thanks to this man
.
He is an inventor of Pyrosequencing technology . .

.. principal investigator and Senior Research Associate at the Stanford Genome Technology Center at Stanford University ..
.
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer : Illumina, Inc. (ILMN)

well , folks

2004 ILMN was 1 $/share ;) ;) :D :lol: .. now 55 $/share (yahoooooooo :D ) .. Roche offering to buy it

Affymetrix doing same

that is technology .. that is where America excels

Thanx Mostafa (Ronaghi), thanx

.
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Typhoon
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

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May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
AzariLoveIran

Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

Post by AzariLoveIran »

AzariLoveIran wrote:.
Demon of Undoing wrote:.

The Human Genome, Sequenced: Predicting the Future of DNA Tech

In the past 40 years, there has been roughly a million-fold improvement in semiconductor technology. "We have witnessed essentially the same improvement in DNA sequencing in just ten years," explained Dr. Andreas Sundquist, CEO and co-founder of DNAnexus, in his talk at FutureMed. There has been a 100,000-fold improvement in DNA sequencing throughput in only eight years, and nearly a million-fold reduction in the price of sequencing in ten years. "Today, it costs more to manage and analyze the data than it does to produce the data," he said.

Because the exponentials involved in DNA sequencing are so high, sweeping adoption of DNA sequencing is therefore imminent. "By 2020, every single one of you will have your DNA sequenced," Sundquist said to those in attendance.

.

All true what you saying Demon, all true

and

all thanks to this man
.
He is an inventor of Pyrosequencing technology . .

.. principal investigator and Senior Research Associate at the Stanford Genome Technology Center at Stanford University ..
.
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer : Illumina, Inc. (ILMN)

well , folks

2004 ILMN was 1 $/share ;) ;) :D :lol: .. now 55 $/share (yahoooooooo :D ) .. Roche offering to buy it

Affymetrix doing same

that is technology .. that is where America excels

Thanx Mostafa (Ronaghi), thanx

.


Analysts expect higher Roche bid for Illumina

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Roche said the new bid represented an 88% premium . .

Roche added that it preferred to reach a “negotiated transaction” with Illumina rather than pursue a hostile takeover, and urged Illumina’s board to enter into merger talks.

Meanwhile, Illumina’s board, which rejected the previous bid as too low, advised shareholders on Thursday not to act until it had evaluated the latest proposal.

Based in San Diego, Illumina is regarded as a leading marketer of sophisticated genetic-analysis systems for research laboratories.

Analysts on Thursday said they expect Illumina’s board to reject the second offer and for Roche to eventually counter with an even higher offer.

“We still anticipate a higher bid, potentially mid-year, to take advantage of anticipated weakness in the space surrounding 2013 NIH/U.S funding,” said Mizuho analyst Peter Lawson in a note, referring to an anticipated dip in government funding for life-sciences research. Lawson has a $62 a share price target on the stock.
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Go Mostafa (Ronaghi), Gooooooooooooooo



.
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

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tm47qmgffs8
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1KhZKNZO8mQ
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Neil Savage, Graphene’s New Rival

Molybdenum disulfide helps graphene transistors work better—and it makes good nanocircuits on its own, too

http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors ... ew-rival/0
Graphene has become the darling of the postsilicon crowd in the eight years since Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov isolated it by ripping Scotch tape off a chunk of graphite. But there are other two-dimensional nanowonders. Molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), which can be pulled off a block of molybdenite through the same process, could offer new approaches to making high-speed logic circuits—on its own or in combination with graphene.
...
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Tsu-Jae King Liu et al., MEMS Switches for Low-Power Logic

A modern twist on a trusted old technology—the electromechanical relay—could lead to ultralow-power chips

http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors ... er-logic/0
The integrated circuit has made such steady strides over the past 40 years that it’s easy to believe in a sort of “manifest destiny” for electronics. How could a year go by without the introduction of cool new gadgets boasting previously unimagined capabilities at amazingly affordable prices?

But the chip industry is approaching a crisis. After decades of progress, continued improvement in power efficiency has begun to stall. If we want to continue proliferating cheaper, smaller electronics and usher in what many in the chip industry call an Internet of Things—a future full of billions of always-on, always-connected devices and sensors—we will have to look beyond the CMOS transistor to find a less power-hungry technology.

The future may lie in the past: Looking back to the earliest days of electrically driven computing, we’ve found a surprisingly attractive alternative. It’s the electromechanical relay. As a switch, the relay is about as fundamental as you can get—it uses a voltage to physically open and close a circuit. Early relays were far too slow and power hungry to compete with vacuum tubes, let alone transistors. But by using modern CMOS production processes, we think the relay can get a microscopic makeover.

These miniature moving switches—or nanorelays—aren’t as speedy as the solid-state devices on today’s chips. But what the tiny mechanical switches lack in speed they make up for in energy efficiency. Nanorelays don’t leak current when they’re off, and they can change states with just a fraction of the energy that’s needed to turn a transistor on or off. These qualities make the microscopic switches ideal for ultralow-power chips that can run off scavenged energy from acoustic vibrations, light, or ambient radio signals. With some clever engineering, it may even be possible to make nanorelays fast enough to drive the core logic inside cellphones, tablets, and other portable electronic devices....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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OpenStreetMap

Alternative to Google Maps?
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

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ExtremeTech | Just how big are porn sites?
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of a fast internet connection must be in want of some porn.

While it’s difficult domain to penetrate — hard numbers are few and far between — we know for a fact that porn sites are some of the most trafficked parts of the internet. According to Google’s DoubleClick Ad Planner, which tracks users across the web with a cookie, dozens of adult destinations populate the top 500 websites. Xvideos, the largest porn site on the web with 4.4 billion page views per month, is three times the size of CNN or ESPN, and twice the size of Reddit. LiveJasmin isn’t much smaller. YouPorn, Tube8, and Pornhub — they’re all vast, vast sites that dwarf almost everything except the Googles and Facebooks of the internet.

While page views are a fine starting point, they only tell you that X porn site is more popular than Y non-porn site. Four billion page views sure sounds like a lot, but it’s only when you factor in what those porn surfers are actually doing that the size and scale of adult websites truly comes into focus.
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This gives me renewed faith in Humanity.
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WIred | Can an Algorithm Write a Better News Story Than a Human Reporter?
For now consider this: Every 30 seconds or so, the algorithmic bull pen of Narrative Science, a 30-person company occupying a large room on the fringes of the Chicago Loop, extrudes a story whose very byline is a question of philosophical inquiry. The computer-written product could be a pennant-waving second-half update of a Big Ten basketball contest, a sober preview of a corporate earnings statement, or a blithe summary of the presidential horse race drawn from Twitter posts. The articles run on the websites of respected publishers like Forbes, as well as other Internet media powers (many of which are keeping their identities private). Niche news services hire Narrative Science to write updates for their subscribers, be they sports fans, small-cap investors, or fast-food franchise owners.

And the articles don’t read like robots wrote them:

Friona fell 10-8 to Boys Ranch in five innings on Monday at Friona despite racking up seven hits and eight runs. Friona was led by a flawless day at the dish by Hunter Sundre, who went 2-2 against Boys Ranch pitching. Sundre singled in the third inning and tripled in the fourth inning … Friona piled up the steals, swiping eight bags in all …
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

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ultracrepidarian
AzariLoveIran

Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

Post by AzariLoveIran »

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Nature-based super technologies, with tiny bacterial creatures that generate magnetic crystals potentially set to revolutionize medicine, computing and astronomy


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When these bacterial creatures are fed iron, scientists discovered, they generate tiny magnetic crystals. And these crystals can be designed to make the next generation of electronics and surgery aids in medicine

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WSJ | The U.N.'s Internet Power Grab
It's easy to understand why countries like Russia, China and Iran would want to rewire the Internet, cutting off access to their citizens and undermining the idea of a World Wide Web. What's more surprising is that U.S. diplomats are letting authoritarian regimes hijack an obscure U.N. agency to undermine how the Internet works, including for Americans.

The failure by U.S. negotiators to stop attacks on the Internet became known only through documents leaked last week. They concern a U.N. agency known as the International Telecommunications Union. Founded in 1865 to regulate the telegraph, the body (now part of the U.N.) is planning a World Conference on International Telecommunications in December, when the 193 U.N. member countries, each of which has a single vote, could use the International Telecommunications Regulations to take control of the Internet. The U.N. process is mind-numbing, but as Vincent Cerf, one of the founders of the Web, recently told Congress, this U.N. involvement means "the open Internet has never been at a higher risk than it is now."

The process is secret, so it was hard to know what authoritarian governments were plotting or how the U.S. was responding. This column last month detailed some of the proposals, but other commentators doubted that any changes would be material.
Historically the US would have taken the stance of supporting freedom.

However, today

Forbes | U.S. Government Requests For Google Users' Private Data Jump 37% In One Year
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Simple Minded

Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

Post by Simple Minded »

Even the semmingly immortal Gods survive only as long as they are desired by mortal man......

http://www.torontosun.com/2012/06/22/green-drivel

Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change.

The implications were extraordinary.

Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.

Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic.

His inventions have been used by NASA, among many other scientific organizations.

Lovelock’s invention of the electron capture detector in 1957 first enabled scientists to measure CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, leading, in many ways, to the birth of the modern environmental movement.

Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, “the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.” Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshipped his Gaia theory and apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.

Lovelock still believes anthropogenic global warming is occurring and that mankind must lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but says it’s now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore’s) were incorrect.

He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear a loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he’s never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence. Indeed, that’s how science advances.

Among his observations to the Guardian:

(1) A long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has made him unpopular with environmentalists, Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal.

As Lovelock observes, “Gas is almost a give-away in the U.S. at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it … Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.” (Kandeh Yumkella, co-head of a major United Nations program on sustainable energy, made similar arguments last week at a UN environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro, advocating the development of conventional and unconventional natural gas resources as a way to reduce deforestation and save millions of lives in the Third World.)

(2) Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion.

“It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion,” Lovelock observed. “I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use … The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.”

(3) Lovelock mocks the idea modern economies can be powered by wind turbines.

As he puts it, “so-called ‘sustainable development’ … is meaningless drivel … We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can’t stand windmills at any price.”

(4) Finally, about claims “the science is settled” on global warming: “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.”
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Re: Computing: Software and Hardware

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Been busy doing stuff
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