Advances in Computers thread

[Soggy in NOLA]

Question:

I have new Dell XPS with Win 8 and I've learned to navigate it it fine, but I find the new Win 8 Start Screen to be very anoying... people tell me to buy Start8 and use it as it returns Win 8 back to a Win 7 style... anyone familiar with this product?

 

[ScienceRocks]

Smart floor produces a virtual mirror world you can control

Adario Strange

Thursday, January 24, 2013 - 1:28pm

Smart floor produces a virtual mirror world you can control | DVICE

Some of the most important innovations start out as projects that, at first, don't look particularly useful or practical. That might be the thought to keep in mind as you familiarize yourself with GravitySpace, and interactive floor that mirrors the movements and physical dynamics of the people standing on it.

Developed at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany, with support from Microsoft Research in Cambridge, U.K., the pressure-sensitive floor acts as a kind of virtual mirror by displaying computer-generated versions of the people standing on it, and mimicking that person's actions in real-time.

The glass floor uses a high-resolution projector and infrared LEDs to detect footsteps and other objects to produce the effect, which at this stage is still a bit laggy in terms of tracking motion rapidly. The research group envisions the prototype system as a way to control household functions, and as a possible interface for future gaming applications.

 

[ScienceRocks]

2.5 Million Computers Give PetaFLOP/s Power to Einstein@Home, Other Projects


2.5 Million Computers Give PetaFLOP/s Power to Einstein@Home, Other Projects | Singularity Hub

In early 2013, a distributed computing project called Einstein@Home registered a petaFLOP/s (10^15 floating-point operations per second) of computing power for the first time. Considering that Einstein@Home is a volunteer network of personal computers crunching numbers in their downtime—that’s quite a feat. What’s even more remarkable is Einstein@Home isn’t the first to make a petaFLOP/s.

You might be thinking, of course it isn’t. IBM’s Roadrunner supercomputer was the first back in June 2008. And you’d be off by eight months. In fact, the distributed computing network Folding@Home first recorded a petaFLOP/s in September 2007.

As home computers have become near ubiquitous, unused computing power has risen in tandem. Just think how often your laptop is asleep on your desk. So, why let all those idle processors go to waste? Einstein@Home—a web of over 335,000 private personal computers—and other projects like it aim to put lazy machines to work.

 

[Mr. H.]

2.5 Million Computers Give PetaFLOP/s Power to Einstein@Home, Other Projects


2.5 Million Computers Give PetaFLOP/s Power to Einstein@Home, Other Projects | Singularity Hub

In early 2013, a distributed computing project called Einstein@Home registered a petaFLOP/s (10^15 floating-point operations per second) of computing power for the first time. Considering that Einstein@Home is a volunteer network of personal computers crunching numbers in their downtime—that’s quite a feat. What’s even more remarkable is Einstein@Home isn’t the first to make a petaFLOP/s.

You might be thinking, of course it isn’t. IBM’s Roadrunner supercomputer was the first back in June 2008. And you’d be off by eight months. In fact, the distributed computing network Folding@Home first recorded a petaFLOP/s in September 2007.

As home computers have become near ubiquitous, unused computing power has risen in tandem. Just think how often your laptop is asleep on your desk. So, why let all those idle processors go to waste? Einstein@Home—a web of over 335,000 private personal computers—and other projects like it aim to put lazy machines to work.

This reminds me of the SETI distributed computing project. I loaned out my computer's down time about 15 years ago. Gave it up after a few.

Joined up 'cause I had a crush on Jodi Foster.

Yeah she's gay. But she's also hot.

 

[ScienceRocks]

"Scientists at University College London (UCL) ( the univeristy who accepted me for my Phd) have created a self-healing computer, a revolutionary new computer based on the apparent chaos of nature can reprogram itself if it finds a fault. The “systemic” machine, according to a report in the New Scientist, can instantly recover corrupted data. The invention is expected to have far-reaching consequences for physicians and the military. It could allow drones to recover from combat damage in a matter of seconds, or create a more realistic model of the human brain."





http://www.newscient...er-crashes.html

 

[ScienceRocks]

TED 2013: SpaceTop 3D see-through computer revealed
By Jane Wakefield

BBC News - TED 2013: SpaceTop 3D see-through computer revealed

A transparent computer that allows users to reach inside and touch digital content has been unveiled at the TED conference in Los Angeles.

TED fellow Jinha Lee has been working on the SpaceTop 3D desktop in collaboration with Microsoft.

Allowing people to interact with machines in the same way they do with solid objects could make computing much more intuitive, he told the BBC.

He can see the system coming into general use within a decade.

The system consists of a transparent LED display with built-in cameras, which track the user's gestures and eye

 

[ScienceRocks]

Quantum Computing Breakthrough With New Algorithm

0 Comments


Quantum Computing Breakthrough With New Algorithm : Physics : Science World Report

First Posted: Feb 26, 2013 02:09 PM EST

Quantum computing is still in its early infancy, but is evolving quickly. In what could be compared to solving the first simple puzzle by itself, an international research group has demonstrated a quantum algorithm that performs a true calculation for the first time.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Google could unify chat services under a single product called Babble


Google could unify chat services under a single product called Babble - TechSpot

Google has built a number of communications platforms around different services over the years. There’s Google Talk for text, voice and video chats, Hangouts for group video conferencing, Messenger for mobile messaging, Chat for Drive collaboration, and Voice for online voicemail and merging all your phone numbers into one.

They’re mostly based on an open platform called XMPP but they don’t always interact with each other very well -- if at all. According to a report on Geek.com, however, that’s about to change soon.

Google is reportedly working to combine its existing communication platforms into one unified service called Babble. Details are scarce at the moment but the site’s unnamed sources believe the service is likely to be unveiled at Google I/O in mid-May. Not a lot is expected in the way of new features, but rather a consistent experience across platforms and services, and Geek.com says the change will happen in two phases:


Babble continues Google’s trend towards organization by conversation. You can share photos in chat windows just like you would in G+ Messenger, start a Hangout with anyone in your contact list, and the conversations are threaded across all the existing services. Moving forward, the individual services will all be pushed onto the single platform, and you’ll be able to use the same chat window across all of Google’s products with the same features available everywhere

.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Intel's Core i7-4770K 'Haswell' CPU gets benchmarked




By Shawn Knight

If you’re considering upgrading to a Haswell CPU or building an entirely new system built around the chip but have been holding out to see what performance is like compared to existing processors, today is your lucky day. That’s because the first round of benchmarks from Haswell have hit the web courtesy of Tom’s Hardware.

The publication was able to get their hands on a Core i7-4770K which will replace the i7-3770K at the top of the chip maker’s food chain (excluding Sandy Bridge-E). The chip retains the same base / Turbo clock speeds, core count (4/8) and 8MB of L3 cache as the Ivy Bridge counterpart. The only exception is the GPU clock which has been bumped up by 100MHz.

Intel's Core i7-4770K 'Haswell' CPU gets benchmarked - TechSpot

 

[ScienceRocks]

'Hologram-lite' idea for 3D phone displays

Tiny gratings in a visual display could beam images in different directions.
Maggie McKeeForget 4G — the future of mobile technology is 3D. Researchers in California have built a prototype three-dimensional (3D) display using a method that might one day be developed to create videos that dance above a tablet, mobile phone or wrist watch and can be viewed from a range of angles.

'Hologram-lite' idea for 3D phone displays : Nature News & Comment

 

[ScienceRocks]

Hybrid Memory Cube receives its finished spec, promises up to 320GB per second

By Jon Fingas posted Apr 3rd, 2013 at 12:57 AM

The Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium has been almost too patient in developing a standard for for its eponymous technology -- efforts began 17 months ago -- but it at last has more than good intentions to show for its work. Its just-published HMC Specification 1.0 lets companies build platforms and RAM with 2GB, 4GB and 8GB chips incorporating the stacked, power-efficient technology, all without compatibility jitters from other supporters. The completed spec is a scorcher when living up to its full potential, too. With eight links, a memory cube can reach a peak 320GB/s (yes, that's gigabytes) of aggregate bandwidth -- more than a hair faster than the 11GB/s we often get from existing DDR3 memory.

Hybrid Memory Cube receives its finished spec, promises up to 320GB per second

 

[ScienceRocks]

Rumour: AMD to unleash the Centurion - FX at 5GHz

Rumour: AMD to unleash the Centurion - FX at 5GHz - CPU - News - HEXUS.net
by Tarinder Sandhu on 12 April 2013, 10:00

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

AMD's focus for the start of this year has been on explaining the virtues of Accelerated Processing Units (APUs) and driving up gaming interest with the impressive Never Settle bundle, available for most mainstream and high-end Radeon cards.

With attention directed elsewhere, AMD's beleaguered FX processors have, it seems, been consigned to the ash heap of history. These chips do without the baked-in graphics present on APUs and, while perfectly reasonable in their own right, are overshadowed by Intel's third-generation Core 'Ivy Bridge' processors.

So how about this as a rumour for a Friday morning? Though AMD will never go on record and confirm this, we have it on good authority that the chip-maker will soon be releasing a super-FX chip. Based on the same 'Vishera' architecture powering the current FX-8350, which runs at up to 4.2GHz, this new FX, codenamed 'Centurion', is to be made available in very limited quantities.

 

[ScienceRocks]

First silicon-based, long-lasting nuclear spin qubit created by quantum researchers
By Sebastian Anthony on April 19, 2013 at 11:16 am

First silicon-based, long-lasting nuclear spin qubit created by quantum researchers | ExtremeTech

Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia have created the first quantum bit (qubit) based on the nuclear spin of an atom, within a silicon transistor. This breakthrough is significant for two reasons: The qubit produced by the researchers is highly stable — and it’s in silicon, meaning it can be wired up and controlled electronically, just like a conventional computer chip.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Disruptions: Brain Computer Interfaces Inch Closer to Mainstream
Brain Computer Interfaces Inch Closer to Mainstream - NYTimes.com

By NICK BILTON

Muse, a lightweight, wireless headband, can engage with computers, iPads and smartphones.Cadeau CreativeMuse, a lightweight, wireless headband, can engage with computers, iPads and smartphones.


Last week, engineers sniffing around the programming code for Google Glass found hidden examples of ways that people might interact with the wearable computers without having to say a word. Among them, a user could nod to turn the glasses on or off. A single wink might tell the glasses to take a picture.

But don’t expect these gestures to be necessary for long. Soon, we might interact with our smartphones and computers simply by using our minds. In a couple of years, we could be turning on the lights at home just by thinking about it, or sending an e-mail from our smartphone without even pulling the device from our pocket. Farther into the future, your robot assistant will appear by your side with a glass of lemonade simply because it knows you are thirsty.

 

[ScienceRocks]

In first head-to-head speed test with conventional computing, quantum computer wins

21 hours ago by Peter Rooney

(Phys.org) —A computer science professor at Amherst College who recently devised and conducted experiments to test the speed of a quantum computing system against conventional computing methods will soon be presenting a paper with her verdict: quantum computing is, "in some cases, really, really fast."

Read more at: In first head-to-head speed test with conventional computing, quantum computer wins

 

[ScienceRocks]

5G Is Already Ridiculously Fast

5G Is Already Ridiculously Fast - SourceFed - SourceFed

Samsung has already developed 5G speeds for mobile data plans and it’s reportedly hundreds of times faster than current 4G networks.

The company announced the world’s first adaptive array transceiver echnology operating in the millimeter-wave Ka bands for cellular communications. The tech will allegedly be the core component of the 5G mobile communication system.

However, there are no defined set of standards on what comes after 4G even though Samsung plans on commercializing their new tech by 2020. In testing, the transfer speeds for the “5G” network sent data at a staggering 1.056 Gbps to a distance of up to 2 kilometers.

 

[ScienceRocks]

Photonic Quantum Computers: A Brighter Future Than Ever
Photonic quantum computers: A brighter future than ever

May 13, 2013 — Harnessing the unique features of the quantum world promises a dramatic speed-up in information processing as compared to the fastest classical machines. Scientists from the Group of Philip Walther from the Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna succeeded in prototyping a new and highly resource efficient model of a quantum computer -- the boson sampling computer

 

[ScienceRocks]

Facial-Recognition Technology Proves Its Mettle

May 24, 2013 — In a study that evaluated some of the latest in automatic facial recognition technology, researchers at Michigan State University were able to quickly identify one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects from law enforcement video, an experiment that demonstrated the value of such technology.

Facial-recognition technology proves its mettle

 

[ScienceRocks]

Advanced Biological Computer Developed

May 23, 2013 — Using only biomolecules (such as DNA and enzymes), scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have developed and constructed an advanced biological transducer, a computing machine capable of manipulating genetic codes, and using the output as new input for subsequent computations. The breakthrough might someday create new possibilities in biotechnology, including individual gene therapy and cloning.

Advanced biological computer developed

 

[ScienceRocks]

Intel: Haswell will draw 50% less power than Ivy Bridge
By Sebastian Anthony on May 24, 2013 at 1:38 pm
Intel: Haswell will draw 50% less power than Ivy Bridge | ExtremeTech

Presumably in response to a glut of AMD-related news, Intel has preempted its formal Haswell unveil to announce that its chips will draw “50% less power” than Ivy Bridge on “active” workloads, such as playing a game or watching a movie. This is a dramatic turnaround, considering the latest leaks and rumors had suggested that Haswell was struggling to reach its TDP targets.