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Cloud

Submission + - Microsoft researchers advocate 'job-based' cloud model (cio.com.au)

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "A group of Microsoft Researchers believe that the current model of cloud computing, where a tenant purchases computing resources, could be replaced with a "job-based" model. The idea is that instead of deciding what resources they want, customers could specify a job and completion time, adding an extra layer of abstraction to the cloud model. The benefits include making life easier for cloud customers and letting cloud providers more efficiently allocate resources. In their simulations using test MapReduce jobs the provider was able to accept 3-14% more requests because of efficiency gains, as well as more resource-intensive requests, increasing the data centre's goodput by 7-87%."
Politics

Submission + - International observers could face criminal charges in Texas (texastribune.org)

Submitted by mescobal
mescobal writes: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott warned international election observers not to come closer than 100 feet from a pollng place; otherwise, they could be subject to criminal prosecution.
The warning was addressed to a group of international observers who intend to monitor polls.
The OCSE (http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections) an UN affiliated organization of observers was concerned about voter ID issues among other things.
NASA

Submission + - DoE spending $500M to destroy U-233 stockpile needed by NASA (youtube.com) 3

Submitted by
gordm
gordm writes: "The Department of Energy is in the process of destroying America's supply of Uranium 233, an extremely rare isotope of Uranium not found in nature. This U-233 cost American taxpayers $4.5 Billion (today's dollars) to create. And now, $500 Million dollars are being spent to downblend & vitrify it.

Pu-238 can be created from this U-233. The natural decay of Pu-238 releases energy, which is needed by NASA for any space probe traveling beyond the asteroid belt.

Other radioactive isotopes are needed for medical diagnosis, some for finding fossil fuels and some even offer the promise of exciting new cancer treatment.

Today, these isotopes are created in special research reactors. Many of these (old) reactors are about to be shut down.

U-233 can be used to create these isotopes while simultaneously generating energy. It can be done using a reactor both safer, cheaper, and capable of producing far less tranuranic nuclear waste than today's reactors. (In fact, it can even consume some of our spent fuel rods as fuel.)

This machine is the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR), sometimes referred to (by a specific sub-category of design) as the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR).

The MSR can outperform today's reactors because there are no fuel rods, the U-233 and Thorium are dissolved in liquid salts. Homogenous liquid fuel can be consumed far more efficiently than today's heterogeneous fuel rods. In fact, such a departure from today's reactor design is necessary to achieve truly efficient nuclear power.

The one critical advantage America has over any other nation developing MSR is its Uranium-233 stockpile. No one else on the planet has such a resource. You do not absolutely need U-233 to run a Molten Salt Reactor, but it is the cleanest way to do so. (Fewer undesirable transuranics are produced.)

Private industry is actively developing MSR (as are other nations), but DoE destruction of U-233 puts the viability of this reactor design at risk."
Australia

Submission + - Australians urged to spoof IP addresses for better prices (computerworld.com.au) 1

Submitted by
angry tapir
angry tapir writes: "Choice, a prominent Australian consumer advocacy group, has urged Australians to obfuscate their IP address to avoid geo-blocking and use US forwarding addresses to beat high IT prices. Australia is currently in the middle of parliamentary inquiry into the country's disproportionately high prices for technology. Choice also suggested setting up US iTunes accounts and using surrogate US addresses for forwarding packages from American stores. Choice has noted previously that Australians pay 52 per cent more for digital music downloads on iTunes compared to US users."
Cloud

Submission + - Does OpenStack need a Linus Torvalds? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
BButlerNWW
BButlerNWW writes: "OpenStack has been dubbed by some enthusiasts as the Linux of the cloud — an open source operating system for public or private clouds. But there's one stark difference between the two projects: OpenStack doesn't have a Linus Torvalds, the eccentric, outspoken, never-afraid-to-say-what-he-thinks leader of the Linux world.

Torvalds personifies Linux in many ways. OpenStack doesn't have that one central figure right now. The question is: Does OpenStack need it?

Some would argue yes. Torvalds, because of the weight he holds in the project, calls the shots about how Linux is run, what goes in, what stays out of the code, and he's not afraid to express his opinions. He provides not only internal guidance for the project, but also an exterior cheerleading role.

Others would say OpenStack does not need a Torvalds of its own. The project is meant to be an open source meritocracy, where members are judged based on their code contributions to the project. OpenStack has been fighting an image that the project is just full of corporate interests, which is part of the reason Rackspace ceded official control of the project to the OpenStack Foundation recently."

Comment Re:I'm disappointed (Score 0) 288

by Smartcowboy (#41744281) Attached to: Apple To Stream a Product Launch Live For the First Time

I'm replying to myself because I forgot to explain why I can be disappointed with a new model if my current computer is good enough.

Actually, the screen of my imac is too small. So I would like to get a bigger one but I have one more reason to dislike the new imac: These 16:9 display are bad. I would be better with a used 16:10 screen from kijiji and a previous-generation macmini, one with integrated dvd. Or, as I said earlier, a beige linux box.

Apple jumped shark.

Comment I'm disappointed (Score 1) 288

by Smartcowboy (#41744141) Attached to: Apple To Stream a Product Launch Live For the First Time

I don't care about the ipad mini. I don't have a use for that kind of gadget. But I say thumb down for this new imac. Yeah it's more powerful, wich is good, but my ssd-upgraded five years old imac is already powerful enough. Yeah it's slimmer but why? When i'm at my desk, I see the imac in 2d anyway. When i'm not at my desk, I don't see it at all. I don't understand why I should care about the width of the thing. I dislike the external DVD drive. It's one more clutter on my workspace that's already swamped by books, papers, dried coffee cups and rotting lunches. They should have kept the current imac's mesurements and use the available space to make it extensible. Oh.... I remember I'm talking about Apple. Do as if I did not say anything. My next computer will be a beige Linux box anyway: most of the softwares I use are FLOSS already so it will not be a big change for me.
Biotech

Submission + - DNA-swapping process could be crucial for innovative new biotech (patexia.com)

Submitted by
ericjones12398
ericjones12398 writes: "A new announcement last month from Monsanto Company could have tremendous impact in both agriculture and patent allocation for genetic modification of seeds for crop growth. In an unprecedented move, Monsanto will provide royalty-free research licenses to academic, public and non-profit institutions (including large-scale farmers) for its 1983 patent on Agrobacterium transformation process, recently released by the US."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Launches FX-8350 Vishera 8-Core Dekstop CPU, Still Trails Intel's Quad-Core (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "AMD is finally refreshing its higher-end desktop CPU line-up today, which hasn’t seen a new product launch for just over a year. The new AMD FX series of desktop processors featuring the company's Piledriver microarchitecture was previously codenamed “Vishera." Vishera shares the same high-level architecture as AMD's previous gen Bulldozer core, but with a number of major enhancements. The same shared fetch, decode, floating point and L2 cache resources per pair of integer units exists in Vishera, however, AMD's Piledriver core in the chip has improved branch prediction, L2 efficiency and improved hardware prefetch. Piledriver cores also have a larger L1 TLB or Translation Look-aside Buffer. All told, AMD is claiming a combined performance increase of ~14% on the desktop versus their previous Bulldozer architecture. However, factor in higher Turbo Core 3.0 speed boosts up to 4.2GHz and a higher 4GHz base clock and AMD is claiming larger aggregate performance gains. These claims do shake out in the benchmarks but its still not enough to catch even Intel's midrange quad-cores."
Technology

Submission + - Cassette tapes are the future of big data storage (newscientist.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: THE cassette tape is about to make a comeback, in a big way. From the updates posted by Facebook's 1 billion users to the medical images shared by healthcare organisations worldwide and the rise of high-definition video streaming, the need for something to store huge tranches of data is greater than ever. And while hard drives have traditionally been the workhorse of large storage operations, a new wave of ultra-dense tape drives that pack in information at much higher densities, while using less energy, is set to replace them.

Researchers at Fuji Film in Japan and IBM in Zurich, Switzerland, have already built prototypes that can store 35 terabytes of data — or about 35 million books' worth of information — on a cartridge that measures just 10 centimetres by 10 cm by 2 cm. This is achieved using magnetic tape coated in particles of barium ferrite.
Music

Submission + - BPI Attempts To Have More File Sharing Websites Blocked By UK ISPs (pctechtalk.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) have asked six major UK ISPs to block three file-sharing websites which they say are illegally distributing music: Fenopy; H33t and Kickass Torrents.

  The BPI sent a letter to UKs biggest internet service providers BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk in an attempt to have the sites blocked before Christmas.

The ISPs have indicated that they will only comply with the demand if they are required to do so by court order.

A previous court order issued in April led to the blocking of The Pirate Bay in the UK. Web monitoring company, Nielsen, state that The Pirate Bay lost three quarters of their visitors since this ruling occurred. Nielsen also state that during September over a million UK visitors have been to the websites that BPI now hope to see blocked.

Copyright specialist, Adam Rendle, believes that the process to bring about the blocking of these sites may be quicker because of the precedent set by The Pirate Bay case.

Open Right Group campaigner Jim Killock believes that web blocking is an extreme response and the rights of users legitimately using the sites are not being taking into account.

Those against blocking websites believe it is an ineffective method. After The Pirate Bay was blocked alternative avenues to access the site were set up with one major ISP stating that traffic levels returned to normala few weeks after the block was put in place.

Submission + - Greek strikes force ArmA3 developers behind bars untill November 10 (helpivanmartin.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: It’s roughly 40 days since the first detainment of Martin Pezlar and Ivan Buchta — developers of the upcoming game ArmA3, for the last 40 days they have been detained without a trial due to greek strikes. On saturday 20 october it was decided that the strike will continue untill november 10. According to the parents, the jail conditions are poor. The Czech television made a trip to greece with the fathers of the detainees, which we have translated here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwvOK2nte4U

Despite the uncertain future, and poor coditions, ArmA3's Lead developer Ivan Buchta has not lost his sense of humor in jail : "The place is crowded but calm, nothing pleasant but bearable. Thanks to the contact with the outside world, we are able to “hang in there”. The food is surprisingly good, which sort of sinks my good intention to loose few kilos."

Show your support and write a letter to a EU representative, or send the detainees a postcard!

Thanks — the helpivanmartin.org team.

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