Category: News

Broadwell may be desktop bound after all

Posted on February 23, 2015 by - News

privacy-policy-512760_640Rumours that Intel was going to can its plans to bring its Broadwell chip to the desktop are now looking a little shaky.

The tech publication CHW.net claims  that it has confirmed the release of BDW-S and even BDW-K in a few weeks.

A recent roadmap showed showing BDW-K but no BDW-S in Q2 2015 but CHW found that  ASUS has listed support of 5th generation processors on the main spec sheets of various Z97 motherboards.

This might be a little weak evidence.  The specification of 5th generation support has been there for a long time and axing the chip has been a more recent decision.

The ASUS spec also mentions Broadwell-S too, something which has been dropped from the roadmap for ages.

But it is interesting because if BDW-S actually releases, it would mean that the launch of Skylake-S might be delayed a bit further, to allow Intel to make money on it.

 

AMD’s Zen may borrow Skylake features

Posted on February 23, 2015 by - News

zen_as_a_frogThe dark satanic rumour mill has manufactured a hell on earth yarn that AMD’s  next-generation high-performance micro-architecture code-named “Zen” might have borrowed a few ideas from Intel.

The first central processing units to use “Zen” for client PCs will be the code-named “Summit Ridge” chip that is expected to feature up to eight cores, a DDR4 memory controller, a PCI Express 3.0 controller and up to 95W thermal design power. The chip will use 14nm FinFET process technology by either  GlobalFoundries or Samsung Electronics.

WccfTech claims AMD will return to its traditional practice of introducing server processors powered by the latest microarchitectures first and then follow with chips for client PCs.

Without providing any details, the report claims that the new architecture features certain technologies found in the upcoming Intel “Skylake” processors. We are not sure how AMD could do this without a major court case, but what it could do is implement x86/x87 extensions, enhancements as well as various new instructions introduced by Intel in its central processing units.

Many official and semi-official revelations indicate that Skylight Intel will support AVX 3.2 (512-bit instructions), SHA extensions (SHA-1 and SHA-256, secure hash algorithms), MPX (memory protection extensions), ADX (multi-precision add-carry instruction extensions) and other innovations.

If AMD does run AVX 3.2, it will have to come up with a new floating-point unit (FPU) to run 512-bit instructions. AMD’s FPU currently features two 128-bit FMAC (fused multiply–add capability) pipelines that can be unified into one large 256-bit-wide unit if one of the integer cores dispatches an AVX instruction.

What this means is that if AMD’s “Zen” supports AVX 3.2, will need an all-new FPU that will be different from Bulldozer and will need a fully-fledged 512-bit FPU. Otherwise, execution of 512-bit AVX 3.2 instructions will be slower than an asthmatic ant with a heavy load of shopping.

 

Iran turns blind eye to VPNs

Posted on February 23, 2015 by - News

Nelson at the Battle of CopenhagenAlthough Iran makes a big deal of its censorship policies and is even talking about building its own internet to keep the western riff-raff out, it seems to be ignoring a booming anti-censorship market.

Apparently there is so much money involved that the same government authorities that do the censoring then turn around and allow the sale of censorship-beating software to make a bit of cash.

Anti-censorship technology is illegal in Iran, but many VPNs are sold openly, allowing Iranians to bounce around censorship and seemingly render it ineffective.

According to the Daily Dot nearly 70 percent of young Iranians are using VPNs and a Google search for “buy VPN” in Persian returns two million results.

Ironically Iran’s Cyber Police (FATA) have waged a high-volume open war against the VPNs, but this seems to be for show.

In fact, that you can use Iran’s government-sanctioned payment gateways (Pardakht Net, Sharj Iran, Jahan Pay & Baz Pardakht) to buy the tools that’ll beat the censors.

Independent Iranian media have reported that “elements within the government and the Revolutionary Guard provide support to a number of VPN sellers,” according to a 2014 report from Small Media.

“Reports hypothesise that this is a mutually profitable arrangement; lining the pockets of officials at the same time as it allows VPN sellers to continue in their work without the threat of state interference.”

 

Bohr lays law on Moore

Posted on February 23, 2015 by - News

moores-920x460-mooreIntel is working out a way of using Moore’s law beyond the 10  nanometre (nm) node.

Mark Bohr, senior fellow for logic technology development at Intel, told hacks he will take part in a panel discussion on the move beyond 10nm and the many challenges it poses soon.

Per the existing roadmap, the company expects to move to 10nm in 2016 and to 7nm in 2018.

“I still believe we can do 7nm without EUV [Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography] and deliver improved cost per transistor. I’m not going to say exactly how, because our competitors watch what we do closely,” Bohr said.

Intel has published papers on III-V [three-five] devices and that is one of the new materials that CHipzilla is looking at to move to 7nm.  As always Intel is worried about balancing performance against manufacturability .

However all this flags the fact that EUV, for long considered the best bet to replace current 193-nm lithography and extend Moore’s law beyond 10nm, isn’t ready.  In fact it has been half-backed for nearly a decade.

“Scaling does continue to provide lower cost per transistor, and it is Intel’s view that cost reduction is needed to justify new generations of process technology,” he said.

“Going forward, heterogeneous integration will become increasingly important, but we may not be able to do it all on one chip, so you will see more use of SoC solutions such as 2.5D integration, where two are mounted side by side on a substrate, or full 3D integration, stacking chips on top of each other, each one tuned for a different [manufacturing] process to perform different functions, Bohr said.

Stevenson made a rocket for Intel’s bottom line

Posted on February 23, 2015 by - News

lal303543Digging among the rubble of Intel’s financial results you can’t help be struck by the ability of CIO Kim Stevenson whose department managed to make the company an absolute fortune in 2014.

Stevenson’s global IT budget was just over $1 billion to provide IT for more than 106,000 denizens – which would be expected to be a black hole on Intel’s balance sheet.   However she managed to generate over $351 million in revenue for the semiconductor maker.

What she did was explain to the accounts department, how her department saved the company money by using the technology that it did.  Speaking to CIO Journal she said that it was important to let the company see behind the curtain and understand how value is generated.

Last year, Intel cut IT spending to 2.3% of revenue from 2.5% in 2012. The company also reduced the number of data centres globally down to 61 in 2014 from 87 in 2011.

Stevenson built several analytics projects which were designed to make the company more efficient, for example the first one involved helping salespeople become more efficient in outbound calls to resellers. The IT team got input about what a sales win looked like and created a probability model based on machine learning. It told the salespeople which resellers to call, in which order.

In 2013, Intel moved a few salespeople over to the new system and after the first quarter, they discovered that those people were five times more productive than their peers, she said.

Then her team helped the sales people change the conversation to tailor specific discussions to the reseller’s interest. In 2014, this initiative accounted for $76.2 million in revenue for Intel.

The company also used analytics to help business management teams make critical decisions related to pricing, such as when to raise or lower product prices and when to use rebates. The IT organization worked for two years to create a data model to help the company better manage prices and inventory. Part of that included a recommendation engine that helped salespeople bundle and cross sell products. Intel has set a $1 billion goal over four to five years to increase revenue.

It all paid off. In 2014, the first year, Intel increased revenue by $264 million. “We did a little better than we thought,” said Stevenson.

Superfish site downed after Lenovo debacle

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

lenovo-logoThe company that is behind the technology that powers Superfish has suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

That’s according to Forbes, which said the technology is called Komodio and the site is down, with the company saying the DDoS attack has happened because of media interest.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Lenovo distributed malware with some of its machines, although because of the Chinese New Year, it doesn’t appear able to comment on the debacle.

Forbes talked to the founder of Komodia, a man who formerly worked for Israeli cyber intelligence. He said that he couldn’t comment on the Lenovo debacle because he’s under contract to the Chinese company.

But the Komodia software is included on many other software programs and is pretty easy to hack.

Software include some parental control software and in other web filter programs available worldwide.

Harvard invents flat lens

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

glassesPhysicists at Harvard University claim to have made a breakthrough in optics that will mean perfect colours can be captured with a flat ultra thin lens.

The prototype, made of a glass substrate, includes small light concentrating silicon antennae – when light is shone on the lens it bends immediately but light passes through.

And the effects of the bending can be designed in software and fine tuned for different applications.

Robert Wallace, professor of applied physics at Harvard said: “What this now means is that complicated effects like colour corrections, which in a conventional optical system would require light to pass through several thick lenses in sequence, can be achieved in one extremely thin, miniaturised device.”

Bernard Kress, in charge of Google optics, posed a challenge to work toward the goal of a flat lens. And for him, at least Google Glass is not dead and buried.

He said: “The Google Glass group is relying heavily on state of the art optical technologies to develop products that have higher functionalities, are easier to mass produce, have a smaller footprint, and are lighter, without compromising efficiency.”

The Harvard physicists think the invention will rival equipment used in photography, astronomy and microscopy. It will also likely e used in optical comms devices, compact cameras and imaging devices.

 

IBM opens London studio

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

ibm-officeIn a bid to promote projects based on data, IBM said that it has opened a London studio to be the hub of design in London.

IBM wants to pull in clients from healthcare, financial services and the retail marketplace to cooperate with IBM consultants and researchers to explore integrating mobile, social, analytics and cloud technologies. Obviously it wants to sell its products and services.

IBM Design prototypes data centric products and uses its Design Language as a framework for developing future products and services.

The studio is being endorsed by the Design Council. John Mathers, CEO, said that good quality improves people’s lives. “This is why we work to bring the design and business communities together and help develop the skills which are vitally important to our economy.”

Matt Candy, who runs IBM projects like this in Europe, said: “London is a creative epicentre that now boasts a powerful digital economy. IBM Studio will bring digital experiences to our exceptional digital city, where some of our most forward looking clients reside.”

The studio will be based at IBM’s head office in Southwark.

 

Russia takes aim at Google

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

330ogleGoogle is under attack again by government agencies, but this time its Russia that’s being accused of anti-monopolistic practices.

Search site Yandev asked the anti-competition watchdog to investigate claims whether it was taking advantage of Google’s Android operating system and shutting out competing apps.

Google is denying it behaves in a monopolistic manner and according to Reuters said people have complete control over apps on devices.

The same wire says that the European Commission is also pursuing Google to answer questions about whether its dominance in the mobile operating systems marketplace precludes competition.

And that’s not the end of it – the USA is also putting Google under the magnifying glass, even though Google said it will keep Android as an open system.

British and US spooks stole SIM card keys

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

james_bond_movie_poster_006Spies from the US and the UK hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world and stole encryption keys used to protect the privacy of mobile phones.

According to the latest release from the Edward Snowden cache, the hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ.

It all happened in 2010 when GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s mobiles, including both voice and data.

Gemalto, a multinational firm incorporated in the Netherlands, makes chips used in mobile phones and next-generation credit cards. Among its clients are AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint and some 450 wireless network providers around the world.

It makes two billion SIM cards a year and with the stolen encryption keys, intelligence agencies could monitor mobile communications without seeking or receiving approval from telecom companies and foreign governments.

British spies mined the private communications of unwitting engineers and other company employees in multiple countries.

Apparently, Gemalto did not notice and still cannot work out how it was done.

According to one secret GCHQ slide, the British intelligence agency penetrated Gemalto’s internal networks, planting malware on several computers, giving GCHQ access.

Open saucy Microsoft puts Azure on Ubuntu

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

Every silver has a cloudy liningMicrosoft has released its Azure hosted service so that it can run Linux.

Microsoft showed off a preview of Azure HDInsight running on Ubuntu and the makers of the open saucy gear Canonical claims that it is a recognition that Ubuntu is great for running Big Data solutions.

For those who came in late, Azure HDInsight, is Microsoft’s Apache Hadoop-based service in the Azure cloud. It is designed to make it easy for customers to evaluate petabytes of all types of data with fast, cost-effective scale on demand, as well as programming extensions so developers can use their favourite languages.

The big idea is that people that already use Hadoop on Linux on-premises like on Hortonworks Data Platform, because they can use common Linux tools, documentation, and templates and and now they can extend their deployment to Azure with hybrid cloud connections.

It is not all one way traffic.  Canonical has Juju which  is a Cloud Orchestration tool. This is the result of years of effort to optimize Big Data workloads on Ubuntu. This will mean that Azure will effectively gain access to this.

Apple might troll its way into VR control

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

apple-disney-dreams-snow-white-Favim.com-142405Famous for operating its reality distortion shield, Apple might have taken control of the Virtual Reality market with an ancient patent application.

Apple was granted a patent for a Gear VR-like mobile headset which would use a portable device (like a smartphone) as the primary display. However the patent is similar to Samsung’s Gear VR and a swath of VR smartphone adapters out there like Google Cardboard.

According to patent attorney, Eric Greenbaum the patent could kill off all competition for mobile VR headsets and patent troll the market to oblivion.

In 2008  Apple filed a patent for a “Head-mounted display apparatus for retaining a portable electronic device with display.”

The patent describes a device which sounds an awful lot like Gear VR and other VR smartphone adapters. Eric Greenbaum, told Road to VR  that the Apple patent may have broad ramifications for mobile-device based head mounted displays.” Which I take to mean, Apple could have a case on their hands if they wanted to challenge Gear VR or similar devices in court.

He thinks that Jobs’ Mob may have pressed to get the patent through the system after Gear VR was announced.

Greenbaum  warned that Apple has not yet announced a plan to build any VR products. However their patent filings indicate a strong interest in the field and I would expect them to be planning something.

This Apple HMD patent is significant. I would say it introduces potential litigation risks for companies that have or are planning to release a mobile device HMD.

There is no duty for Apple to make or sell an HMD. They can sit on this patent and use it strategically either by enforcing it against potential infringers, licensing it, or using it in forming strategic partnerships.

In other words, Apple without actually inventing anything could take control of the entire market.  It could cherry pick the best technology out there and then release its own product.

 

New chips put Qualcomm on top for now

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

qualcomm-snapdragonQualcomm has released four Snapdragons 415, 425, 618, and 620 which tighten its grip on the mobile chip maket.

All the SoCs support 64-bit, they all connect to 4G LTE networks—the 425, 618, and 620 and can support super-fast 300 megabit per second networks. The last two chips are based around ARM’s new Cortex A72, instead of a more in-house chip design.

The Snapdragon 618 supports a “next generation Adreno GPU,” an integrated category 7 LTE-Advanced modem (300 Mbps download/100 Mbps upload) and dual image signal processors which support 21 megapixel cameras. It also supports HEVC/H.265 video encode and decode.

The Snapdragon 620 is more of the same but with four Cortex A72 cores instead of two word on the street is that it has a better GPU too.

All the chips should be in the shops in the second half of 2015 where they might rule the mid-range market.

Qualcomm has been snuggling up to ARM lately so that it can focus on the other components of the chip, particularly graphics and the various wireless radios. This has meant that it can churn out chips just as the world wants faster, next generation LTE-Advanced networks.

It is clearly in the lead for now, but that is set to change. Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy S6 will have its own designed and manufactured chip under the bonnet. This is because it said it did not like what Qualcomm was doing. Sony and HTC are also dissatisfied and are flirting with chips from MediaTek.
LG’s already working on its own “NUCLUN” chip and there is mutterings that even Intel might have something better.

 

Intel is open source king

Posted on February 20, 2015 by - News

Intel Q4_14_ResultsThe once famous proprietary chipmaker Intel is set to become the largest contributor to the open sauce Linux.

A report from the Linux Foundation said Intel was the largest corporate sponsor of new contributions to the Linux computer operating system.

This means that Intel has replaced some top notch software companies, having made more than 10,000 more changes to Linux Kernel.

It makes sense, Linux plays a significant role in computers integrated inside communications networks and industrial equipment, which are vital segments for Intel.

Doug Fisher, who heads Intel’s software group, is also on the board of the Linux Foundation he said that Intel wants to explore new markets through its chips by integrating it in wearable computing, connected appliances and mobile technologies. Intel has hired several thousand software developers to assist in developing new features for Linux.

Intel has made $350 million in revenue during 2014 by using a component of the IT infrastructure it supplies, according to the company’s annual IT business review.

The report suggested Intel is exploiting IT services in a better way like data analytics and collaboration tools for “optimized business workflows and [to] unlock new insights” to generate millions of dollars of new revenue.

ITC intros high speed analytics

Posted on February 19, 2015 by - News

Pic Mike MageeITC Infotech said that it has introduced an enterprise analytics system that lets users more easily access high speed data analytics.

The product, called ZEAS (Z Enterprise Analytics Solution) uses a graphical user interface to analyse big data with the minimum of coding.

The product supports Hadoop open source technology and ITC claims that it will let enterprises analyse big data five times faster than its’ competitors’ offerings.

It also claimed that data analysis projects that would have taken months for experienced Hadoop developers to implement can now be done in weeks.

ZEAS also includes a data operation centre that gives enterprise grade access controls, monitoring and alerting mechanisms for data management.

The company introduced the offering at the Strata+Hadoop World conference held in San Jose this week.

ITC Infotech is a subsidiary of $7 billion company ITC that provides services to global customers. It targets the banking, financial services and insurance sectors.