Hardware 26 - Clouds of Gigaflops

Hardware 26 - Clouds of Gigaflops

Posted on 7th Aug 2011 at 14:27 by Podcast with 3 comments

Aaaand we're back for another enthralling hardware podcast. This week we've got Antony, Paul, Clive and Harry talking everything from fact to complete and utter fiction.

We start with a chat about PCI Express 3, whether we need it and why motherboard manufacturers are bringing PCI-E 3 motherboards to market already. If you're looking at a motherboard upgrade any time soon, should a PCI-E 3 compliant board be a priority?

We also have talk about AMD's forthcoming Bulldozer processors, with Antony telling us how he got on testing a number of Bulldozer-compatible Socket AM3+ boards earlier this month.

Also thrown in for good measure is a mention of Asus' soon to be released headset, and a discussion about whether the Antec Kuhler H2O 920 shows that closed-loop liquid cooling has come of age.

As always, we've also set up our weekly competition, the lucky winner of which will walk away with, errr, some random stuff from our labs (we're between prizes at the moment).

Hardware 26 - Clouds of Gigaflops Hardware 26 -


As ever, the bit-tech hardware podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.

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LG and Sony withdraw patent suits under cross-licensing deal

LG and Sony have agreed to settle an ongoing patent dispute involving much of the companies' electronics portfolios. The lawsuits began last December when Sony filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission and a federal court, claiming that LG's mobile phones wrongfully used Sony's intellectual property.

Sony asked the ITC to block sales of the offending handsets. Unwilling to be bullied, LG retaliated with its own filings in February, suggesting its Japanese rival infringed on no less than eight patents.

LG claimed that Sony's PlayStation 3 and Bravia televisions infringed on four Blu-ray disc patents, demanding an injunction against such products in the US. LG filed a separate suit in the Southern District of California covering non-PS3 devices, such as computers and digital cameras.

LG was unsuccessful in having the PS3 prohibited in the US, but the console was temporarily banned in the Netherlands. Fortunately for Sony, a Dutch court quickly scrapped the initial ruling and ordered LG to pay $180,000 in legal fees.

In all, the embittered duo filed a series of 24 patent suits -- all of which have been withdrawn under the settlement. Both parties declined to share the exact terms of the arrangement, but LG says the deal will let the companies use each other's intellectual property without paying royalties.

Although some baseline terms have been set, the companies will determine the range of technologies to be included in the cross-licensing deal later this year. "We know that reconciliation is better than fighting, even though we would gain much from a lawsuit. We've tried to settle the cases and now we have reached an agreement," said an LG representative.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/45053-lg-and-sony-withdraw-patent-suits-under-cross-licensing-deal.html

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SeatGeek launches a brand new design and a smart, self-serve ad platform

One of New York City?s darling startups, SeatGeek, a live events search engine, just completely redesigned its site, making Ticketmaster look like MySpace. In February, the hip ticketing site grabbed an undisclosed investment from actor turned tech geek Ashton Kutcher, as well as Guy Oseary through A Grade Investments. SeatGeek operates like a comparison shop, aggregating millions of tickets to 60,000+ events from over 60 sites like StubHub, TicketsNow and Ticketnetwork.

We built SeatGeek as sports, music, and theater fans who were frustrated with the form and functionality of ticketing sites online with interfaces that feel like they are stuck five years in the past. Our goal was to build the opposite; a ticketing interface that is beautiful and eminently usable, and this redesign is our biggest step yet towards that goal.

It?s also unleashed a new self-serve platform that allows advertisers to use very granular controls to target the right markets. For its launch, SeatGeek has partnered with TicketsNow, Hipmunk, ToughMudder and The Lion King, one of Broadway?s biggest shows.

SeatGeek?s event pages now have more depth and texture, so they feel more app-like. When you browse SeatGeek you?ll see color-coded listings that factor in viewing angles, the distance of the seat to the main stage, and the number of seats being bought along with historical pricing data to create what?s called a Deal Score metric. Its interactive maps and this proprietary Deal Score feature help fans pinpoint the best seats in the house at the best price.

In SeatGeek?s research, it found that travel sites like Kayak make over 50% of their revenue in advertising and sponsorships. With SeatGeek?s sponsorship platform, advertisers can better target users based on a variety of behaviors and search inputs. For example, a user located in NYC that is browsing San Francisco events may later book a flight, hotel through Hipmunk and dining in SF. According to SeatGeek, the ad platform is smart enough so that a travel or hospitality company sees that search, they can automatically deploy an advertisement showing San Francisco deals when the user has his or her wallet in hand. It?s also key for competitive advertising because now The Lion King will know when a user is browsing for Wicked or Book of Mormon tickets.

The new super-smart ad platform has already boosted SeatGeek?s revenue, with about 25% of its revenue coming from sponsorships as of today. It plans on exponentially increasing this number throughout the year.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/08/11/seatgeek-launches-a-brand-new-design-and-a-self-serve-ad-platform-with-hipmunk/

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Stick-On Electronic Tattoos

Researchers have made stretchable, ultrathin electronics that cling to skin like a temporary tattoo and can measure electrical activity from the body. These electronic tattoos could allow doctors to diagnose and monitor conditions like heart arrhythmia or sleep disorders noninvasively.

John A. Rogers, a professor of materials science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has developed a prototype that can replicate the monitoring abilities of bulky electrocardiograms and other medical devices that are normally restricted to a clinical or laboratory setting. This work was presented today in Science.

To achieve flexible, stretchable electronics, Rogers employed a principle he had already used to achieve flexibility in substrates. He made the components?all composed of traditional, high-performance materials like silicon?not only incredibly thin, but also "structured into a serpentine shape" that allows them to deform without breaking. The result, says Rogers, is that "the whole system takes on this kind of spiderweb layout."

In the past, says Rogers, he was able to create devices that were either flexible but not stretchable, or stretchable but not flexible. In particular, his previous work was limited by the fact that the electronics portions of his designs couldn't flex and stretch as much as the substrate they were mounted on.

The electronic tattoo achieves the mechanical properties of skin, which can stand up to twisting, poking, and pulling without breaking. Rogers's tattoo can also conform to the topography of the skin as well as stretch and shift with it. It can be worn for extended periods without producing the irritation that often results from adhesive tapes and rigid electronics. Although Rogers's preliminary tests involved a custom-made substrate, he also demonstrated that the electronics could be mounted onto a commercially available temporary tattoo.

The prototype was equipped with electrodes to measure electric signals produced by muscle and brain activity. This could be useful for noninvasive diagnosis of sleep apnea or monitoring of premature babies' heart activity. It also might be possible, Rogers says, to use the tattoos to stimulate the muscles of physical rehabilitation patients, although this use wasn't demonstrated in the paper.

To demonstrate the device's potential as a human-computer interface, Rogers mounted one of the tattoos on a person's throat and used measurements of the electrical activity in the throat muscles to control a computer game. The signal from the device contained enough information for software to distinguish among the spoken words "left," "right," "up," and "down" to control a cursor on the screen.

The device included sensors for temperature, strain, and electric signals from the body. It also housed LEDs to provide visual feedback; photodetectors to measure light exposure; and tiny radio transmitters and receivers. The device is small enough that it requires only minuscule amounts of power, which it can harvest via tiny solar cells and via a wireless coil that receives energy from a nearby transmitter. Rogers hopes to build in some sort of energy-storage ability, like a tiny battery, in the near future. The researchers are also working on making the device wireless.

Ultimately, Rogers says, "we want to have a much more intimate integration" with the body, beyond simply mounting something very closely to the skin. He hopes that his devices will eventually be able to use chemical information from the skin in addition to electrical information.

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=3eac092065e80b298be952fee882e975

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Venture Capitalists Back Away from Clean Energy

As governments around the world are scaling back support for renewable energy, venture capitalists are shifting their clean technology investment strategy. They're focusing less on high-risk technologies and more on ideas that could have a faster payoff but a smaller impact, such as technologies for improving energy efficiency. The shift is raising concerns about how innovative energy technologies will  be commercialized.

Venture capitalists have traditionally focused on companies with low capital requirements that can quickly get bought up or go public. Many Internet startups fall into this category. But in recent years, many venture capitalists have been enticed to risk longer-term, high-capital energy investments in clean energy, thanks to generous government subsidies in renewable energy markets. In particular, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on solar-cell startups that need to build expensive equipment and factories to prove their technologies, and can take many years to generate a return on investment.

Now many venture-capital firms are going back to their roots. Dozens recently stopped making initial investments in clean technology companies, according to Dow Jones Venture Source. Many that continue to invest in clean technology are shifting to areas such as energy efficiency, which includes low-capital projects such as software for monitoring and reducing energy consumption, according to an analysis by the Cleantech Group.

The money that still goes to the solar industry is now directed to companies with small capital requirements. Rooftop solar panel installers are one example. (In June, Solar City got $280 million from Google to fund solar installations.) There's still some funding for solar-cell companies, such as for 1366 Technologies and Alta Devices, that are developing technology that the companies say can compete with fossil fuels. But "it's a harder place to raise funds for new ventures," says Sheeraz Haji, CEO of Cleantech Group.

The shift has been propelled by a number of factors. There are fewer good companies available. Many of the most promising companies?those based on technology developed over decades in labs?have already been funded. Large investments in conventional technologies, such as silicon solar cells, are also driving down prices and making it more difficult for new companies to enter the market.

And now government support is being cut, and some analysts doubt that the fast growth of the clean energy markets can be sustained. Germany, Italy, and Spain are cutting back subsidies for renewable energy. In the United States, funding for clean energy from the 2009 stimulus legislation  is running out. Next month is the deadline for projects to get funding from a loan-guarantee program worth tens of billions of dollars. The program is important for companies that want to build large-scale projects using technology that private investors would normally consider too risky. Budget cuts in the United States could also hurt funding for R&D and new energy technologies.

Globally, nearly seven-eighths of clean-energy funding?including financing for wind farms?goes to established  technologies, says David Victor, director of the Laboratory on International Law and Regulation at the University of California, San Diego. "We're on the cusp of a severe challenge for energy innovation,"  he says.

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Blog - Neutrons Become Cubes Inside Neutron Stars

Hardware 26 - Clouds of Gigaflops

Hardware 26 - Clouds of Gigaflops

Posted on 7th Aug 2011 at 14:27 by Podcast with 3 comments

Aaaand we're back for another enthralling hardware podcast. This week we've got Antony, Paul, Clive and Harry talking everything from fact to complete and utter fiction.

We start with a chat about PCI Express 3, whether we need it and why motherboard manufacturers are bringing PCI-E 3 motherboards to market already. If you're looking at a motherboard upgrade any time soon, should a PCI-E 3 compliant board be a priority?

We also have talk about AMD's forthcoming Bulldozer processors, with Antony telling us how he got on testing a number of Bulldozer-compatible Socket AM3+ boards earlier this month.

Also thrown in for good measure is a mention of Asus' soon to be released headset, and a discussion about whether the Antec Kuhler H2O 920 shows that closed-loop liquid cooling has come of age.

As always, we've also set up our weekly competition, the lucky winner of which will walk away with, errr, some random stuff from our labs (we're between prizes at the moment).

Hardware 26 - Clouds of Gigaflops Hardware 26 -


As ever, the bit-tech hardware podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feed | Amazon Plugin | Settlement Statement | WordPress Tutorials

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/blog/~3/7qDwXRlmRck/

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Uniting a World of Employees

With more than 130,000 employees worldwide?in cities including Hong Kong, Zurich, Beijing, Atlanta, and Bangalore, where its world headquarters is located?the Indian IT and outsourcing giant Infosys has a particular need to keep everyone connected.

So Infosys decided, earlier this year, not only to sell but also to internally use a corporate social-networking platform, iEngage. With this, it joins a fast-growing trend toward putting social media to work.

Giving widely scattered employees a new way to collaborate encourages innovation  the incubation of ideas, says Sunil Senan, an associate vice president at Infosys. "We stand to get a lot more out of our employees through these social platforms," he says. "And it's important for companies to demonstrate early that they're listening to their employees."

Infosys is trying to tap the wisdom of former employees, too. With more than 20,000 former employees under the iEngage umbrella, it hopes to gain more perspective on organizational problems from seasoned hands.

Infosys is just the latest in a string of companies seeking to make better use of employees' experience and knowledge. "With hundreds of millions of people using social media to transact with each other and to learn of news, products, and ideas, it is no surprise that this new medium is due to penetrate the enterprise," says Bernardo Huberman, director of Hewlett-Packard's Social Computing Lab and lead researcher on Virtual Watercooler, HP's corporate social technology. And penetrate it has?dozens of companies, including IBM, Jive, and Salesforce, now offer suites of social collaboration tools.

Use is expected to increase sharply. The IT research firm International Data Corporation, or IDC, projects that social-platform revenues will jump from $390 million in 2009  to nearly $2 billion in 2014?and, IDC also reports, 15 percent of Americans who use social media use it for work.

Social business platforms tend to contain many of the same features as public social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Employees can share content, chat with messaging tools, and see what coworkers are up to. But all this can add up to a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts.

The platforms can overcome barriers to communication, such as location and position within the organization. When HP did an internal test run of its Virtual Watercooler, it discovered that not only did employees typically take to it quickly but they felt it gave them "a broader understanding of the company as a whole," in the words of one user.

The platforms can also mine collective intelligence to solve problems efficiently. Sean Poulley, vice president of collaboration solutions at IBM, cites the experience of a translation-services company?the London-based aatranslations?as an example. After integrating IBM's document-sharing social platform into its daily operations, the company, which employs more than 700 freelance translators around the globe, sped up its document review process from an average of 24 hours to about five minutes, he says.

While some organizations "are understandably concerned about the abuses that the new medium could bring, I believe that the benefits will eventually trump the potential drawbacks," says HP's Huberman.

Of course, technology can't do it alone. Social business platforms will be most beneficial if the organizational culture fosters a collaborative mindset, says Tom Malone, director of the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT's Sloan School of Management. He's optimistic: "I think we're in the early stages of an increase in human freedom in the workplace, where employees have the ability to make more decisions and take part in the organization."

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=c34a4f0964b45e35f05f617fbcde4827

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Uniting a World of Employees

With more than 130,000 employees worldwide?in cities including Hong Kong, Zurich, Beijing, Atlanta, and Bangalore, where its world headquarters is located?the Indian IT and outsourcing giant Infosys has a particular need to keep everyone connected.

So Infosys decided, earlier this year, not only to sell but also to internally use a corporate social-networking platform, iEngage. With this, it joins a fast-growing trend toward putting social media to work.

Giving widely scattered employees a new way to collaborate encourages innovation  the incubation of ideas, says Sunil Senan, an associate vice president at Infosys. "We stand to get a lot more out of our employees through these social platforms," he says. "And it's important for companies to demonstrate early that they're listening to their employees."

Infosys is trying to tap the wisdom of former employees, too. With more than 20,000 former employees under the iEngage umbrella, it hopes to gain more perspective on organizational problems from seasoned hands.

Infosys is just the latest in a string of companies seeking to make better use of employees' experience and knowledge. "With hundreds of millions of people using social media to transact with each other and to learn of news, products, and ideas, it is no surprise that this new medium is due to penetrate the enterprise," says Bernardo Huberman, director of Hewlett-Packard's Social Computing Lab and lead researcher on Virtual Watercooler, HP's corporate social technology. And penetrate it has?dozens of companies, including IBM, Jive, and Salesforce, now offer suites of social collaboration tools.

Use is expected to increase sharply. The IT research firm International Data Corporation, or IDC, projects that social-platform revenues will jump from $390 million in 2009  to nearly $2 billion in 2014?and, IDC also reports, 15 percent of Americans who use social media use it for work.

Social business platforms tend to contain many of the same features as public social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Employees can share content, chat with messaging tools, and see what coworkers are up to. But all this can add up to a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts.

The platforms can overcome barriers to communication, such as location and position within the organization. When HP did an internal test run of its Virtual Watercooler, it discovered that not only did employees typically take to it quickly but they felt it gave them "a broader understanding of the company as a whole," in the words of one user.

The platforms can also mine collective intelligence to solve problems efficiently. Sean Poulley, vice president of collaboration solutions at IBM, cites the experience of a translation-services company?the London-based aatranslations?as an example. After integrating IBM's document-sharing social platform into its daily operations, the company, which employs more than 700 freelance translators around the globe, sped up its document review process from an average of 24 hours to about five minutes, he says.

While some organizations "are understandably concerned about the abuses that the new medium could bring, I believe that the benefits will eventually trump the potential drawbacks," says HP's Huberman.

Of course, technology can't do it alone. Social business platforms will be most beneficial if the organizational culture fosters a collaborative mindset, says Tom Malone, director of the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT's Sloan School of Management. He's optimistic: "I think we're in the early stages of an increase in human freedom in the workplace, where employees have the ability to make more decisions and take part in the organization."

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=c34a4f0964b45e35f05f617fbcde4827

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Synology DiskStation DS2411 Review: Up to 36TB Storage

It's been a little over four years since I reviewed my first Synology product, the humble CubeStation CS407e, which supported 2TB of network storage using four 500GB hard drives at a cost of around $120 per drive. Back then I concluded that the CS407e was the best four-bay NAS device available. Over the last few years, we've also examined the DiskStation DS409+ and the budget-minded DS410j, both of which ranked favorably among the competition.

Synology's portfolio has since grown to include hefty 5 to 12-bay devices, which we find intriguing having only reviewed one NAS beyond 4 bays, the 8-bay QNAP TS-809 Pro Turbo. At $1,700, the TS-809 Pro Turbo was, and still is the most expensive product QNAP makes with the exception of rack mount hardware. Considering we tested the TS-809 Pro Turbo over a year and a half ago, Synology has been slow to respond with a device that meets or exceeds the TS-809's storage capacity.

Adhering to a "better late than never" outlook, Synology finally countered last June by unleashing its XS Series 12-bay DiskStation DS3611xs and 10-bay RackStation RS3411xs/RS3411RPxs for large scale businesses. The DiskStation DS3611xs supports a dozen hard drives, four Gigabit Ethernet ports and can be scaled up to support 100GB of storage. But as imposing as that sounds, we don't think the DiskStation DS3611xs will be embraced by home users considering its steep $2,500 price tag.

Consumers typically require something more affordable, and that's where the Synology DiskStation DS2411+ comes into scene. Although the DS2411+ is still considered a business-class NAS device suitable for SMB users, the $1,700 asking price makes it a little more feasible when compared to the DS3611xs. The price reduction means that a few network controllers have aborted ship, while the DDR2 memory capacity has been halved and a slower processor is being used.

Those familiar with Synology's products will find that the DS2411+ is a larger version of the DS1511+, which was essentially a larger version of the DS411+II. Given that the 4-bay DS411+II costs $700, the new 12-bay DS2411+ seems like decent value, even at $1,700 -- and that doesn't include the storage drives. That's well beyond the grasp of the average user, but we're confident those who require such radical storage solutions will find a lot to appreciate in the DS2411+, so let's move on

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/review/426-synology-diskstation-ds2411-plus/

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