bmetzler - Slashdot User

Submission + - Why Hyperscalers And Clouds Are Pushing Intel Into FPGAs (theplatform.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30, 2015 @03:50PM

An anonymous reader writes: Intel sees a much larger opportunity than this, and CEO Brian Krzanich said when the deal was announced that up to a third of cloud service providers could be using hybrid CPU-FPGA server nodes for their workloads by 2020. This is an astounding statement, given that Altera itself pegged the FPGA opportunity in the datacenter at something around $1 billion in its own forecasts from late 2014. That’s about three times the current revenue run rate for Nvidia’s Tesla compute engines. Intel showed a prototype Xeon-FPGA chip that put the two devices on the same package back in early 2014, and the plan was to get it out the door by the end of 2016 with a ramp through 2017; the idea was to get a Xeon with FPGA circuits on the die “shortly after that,” as Data Center Group general manager Diane Bryant put it at the time.....

Submission + - Judge rules research chimps are not 'legal persons' (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit on Thursday July 30, 2015 @03:48PM

sciencehabit writes: A state judge in New York has dealt the latest blow to an animal rights group’s attempt to have chimpanzees declared “legal persons.” In a decision handed down this morning, New York Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe ruled that two research chimps at Stony Brook University are not covered by a writ of habeas corpus, which typically allows human prisoners to challenge their detention. The Nonhuman Rights Project, which brought the lawsuit in an attempt to free the primates, has vowed to appeal.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Wireless PC-to-TV solution? 1

Submitted by jez9999 on Thursday July 30, 2015 @03:29PM

jez9999 writes: I have a slightly unusual requirement. I don't want to use some console like an Xbox, Steam Machine, etc. I just have a desktop PC which I use for most of the stuff I do (gaming, video, work, etc.), and it's upstairs. From time to time, I'd like to use it downstairs.

Is there a wireless solution that will let me take control of the PC from downstairs, using the TV (HDMI) as the screen, and the TV's speakers to replace my desktop speakers? Ideally there would be a wireless transmitter in the PC, and a downstairs wireless receiver box into which I could plug the keyboard, mouse, and of course, the TV via an HDMI cable. Obviously Bluetooth wireless peripherals won't do for this as there's no line of sight between downstairs and the upstairs PC, and besides, I prefer wired peripherals anyway which I can actually plug in to something (no battery recharging needed).

A Naysayer's Take On Windows 10: Potential Privacy Mess, and Worse 485

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 30, 2015 @03:23PM from the all-fingers-both-hands dept.

Lauren Weinstein writes: I had originally been considering accepting Microsoft's offer of a free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. After all, reports have suggested that it's a much more usable system than Windows 8/8.1 — but of course in keeping with the 'every other MS release of Windows is a dog' history, that's a pretty low bar. However, it appears that MS has significantly botched their deployment of Windows 10. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, even though hope springs eternal. Since there are so many issues involved, and MS is very aggressively pushing this upgrade, I'm going to run through key points here quickly, and reference other sites' pages that can give you more information right now. But here's my executive summary: You may want to think twice, or three times, or many more times, about whether or not you wish to accept the Windows 10 free upgrade on your existing Windows 7 or 8/8.1 system. Now that we're into the first week of widespread availability for the new version, if you're a Windows user and upgrader, has your experience been good, horrible, or someplace between?

Submission + - Critical BIND denial-of-service flaw could disrupt large portions of Internet (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg on Thursday July 30, 2015 @03:16PM

alphadogg writes: Attackers could exploit a new vulnerability in BIND, the most popular Domain Name System (DNS) server software, to disrupt the Internet for many users. The vulnerability affects all versions of BIND 9, from BIND 9.1.0 to BIND 9.10.2-P2, and can be exploited to crash DNS servers that are powered by the software. The vulnerability announced and patched by the Internet Systems Consortium https://www.isc.org/blogs/cve-... is critical because it can be used to crash both authoritative and recursive DNS servers with a single packet.

Submission + - Germany won't prosecute NSA, but bloggers (netzpolitik.org)

Submitted by tmk on Thursday July 30, 2015 @03:08PM

tmk writes: After countless evidence the on German top government officials German Federal Prosecutor General Harald Range has declined to investigate any wrongdoings of the secret services of allied nations like NSA or the British GCHQ. But after plans of the German secret service "Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz" to gain some cyper spy capabilities like the NSA were revealed by the blog netzpolitik.org, Hange started an official investigation against the bloggers and their sources. The charge: treason.

The Biohacking Movement and Open Source Insulin 66

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 30, 2015 @02:42PM from the raw-milk-and-handcrafted-biologicals dept.

szczys writes: Since early last century, insulin has been produced from the pancreas of animals. In the late 1970s we figured out how to synthesize insulin using bacteria or yeast. As the biohacking movement has grown, insulin production has been a common target, but for some reason we're not there yet. Dan Maloney looked into the backstory (including the amazing story of the Saxl family who produced life-saving insulin during WWII) and a new startup that is trying to get Biohackers working on the problem. Update: 07/30 21:56 GMT by T : That's WWII above, not WWI; mea culpa.

Submission + - The Biohacking Movement and Open Source Insulin

Submitted by szczys on Thursday July 30, 2015 @02:24PM

szczys writes: Since early last century insulin has been produced from the pancreas of animals. In the late 1970's we figured out how to synthesize insulin using bacteria or yeast. As the biohacking movement has grown insulin production has been a common target, but for some reason we're not there yet. Dan Maloney looked into the backstory (including the amazing story of the Saxl family who produced life-saving insulin during WWI) and a new startup that is trying to get Biohackers working on the problem.

http://hackaday.com/2015/07/30...

Samsung Finds, Fixes Bug In Linux Trim Code 184

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 30, 2015 @02:00PM from the way-it-should-work dept.

New submitter Mokki writes: After many complaints that Samsung SSDs corrupted data when used with Linux, Samsung found out that the bug was in the Linux kernel and submitted a patch to fix it. It turns out that kernels without the final fix can corrupt data if the system is using linux md raid with raid0 or raid10 and issues trim/discard commands (either fstrim or by the filesystem itself). The vendor of the drive did not matter and the previous blacklisting of Samsung drives for broken queued trim support can be most likely lifted after further tests. According to this post the bug has been around for a long time.

Submission + - Why Micron/Intel's New Cross Point Memory Could Virtually Last Forever (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123 on Thursday July 30, 2015 @01:57PM

Lucas123 writes: As they announced their new 3D XPoint memory this week, Micron and Intel talked a lot about its performance being 1,000X that of NAND flash, but what they talked less about was how it also has the potential to have 1,000X the endurance of today's most popular non-volatile memories. NAND flash typically can sustain from 3,000 to 10,000 erase-write cycles — more with wear-leveling and ECC. If Micron and Intel's numbers are to be believed, 3D XPoint could exceed one million write cycles. The reason for that endurance involves the material used to create the XPoint architecture, which neither company will disclose. Unlike NAND flash, cross point resistive memory does not use charge trap technology that wears silicon oxide over time or a typical resistive memory filamentary architecture, which creates a statistical variation in how the filaments form each time you program them; that can slow ReRAM's performance and make it harder to scale. Russ Meyer, Micron's director of process integration, said 3D XPoint's architecture doesn't store electrons or use filaments. "The memory element itself is simply moving between two different resistance states," which means there's virtually no wear.

Comment Re:CPR dates back to the 1700s. (Score 3, Informative) 43

by Qzukk on Thursday July 30, 2015 @01:29PM (#50215819) Attached to: James Jude, MD Co-inventor of CPR, Dies At 87

I'd love to hear how people performed CPR in the 1700s. Did they have a clue what they were doing or were they just beating the Devil out of the man?

Jude was a member of a team of people who worked out compression frequency and breathing and then demonstrated that it worked on humans as an alternative to cutting them open and massaging their heart by hand.

Prior to that, people just blew air into you, then pushed on your chest to push the air out or moved your arms and chest around to get air in and out of your lungs. They didn't even think about trying to get your heart to beat for you, except maybe by accident.

Interviews: Kim Dotcom Answers Your Questions 90

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 30, 2015 @01:05PM from the here-you-go dept.

Kim Dotcom was the founder of Megaupload, its successor Mega, and New Zealand's Internet Party. A while ago you had a chance to ask him about those things as well as the U.S. government charging him with criminal copyright violation and racketeering. Below you'll find his answers to your questions.

Submission + - Cameron tells pornography websites to block access by children or face closure (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30, 2015 @12:40PM

An anonymous reader writes: David Cameron is to give pornography websites one last chance to produce an effective voluntary scheme for age-restricted controls on their sites or he will introduce legislation that could see them shut down.

At the election the then culture secretary, Sajid Javid, said the party would act to ensure under-18s were locked out of adult content and the Conservative election Facebook page in April promised legislation to achieve this.

It followed a Childline poll that found nearly one in 10 12-13-year-olds were worried they were addicted to pornography and 18% had seen shocking or upsetting images.

In a consultation to be launched in the autumn, the government will seek views on how best to introduce measures to further restrict under-18s’ access to pornographic websites.

Oracle To Debut Low-Cost SPARC Chip Next Month 92

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 30, 2015 @12:24PM from the slow-walk-to-the-bottom dept.

jfruh writes: Of the many things Oracle acquired when it absorbed Sun, the SPARC processors have not exactly been making headlines. But that may change next month when the company debuts a new, lower-cost chip that will compete with Intel's Xeon. "Debut," in this case, means only an introduction, though -- not a marketplace debut. From the article: [T]he Sparc M7 will have technologies for encryption acceleration and memory protection built into the chip. It will also include coprocessors to accelerate database performance. "The idea of Sonoma is to take exactly those same technologies and bring them down to very low cost points, so that people can use them in cloud computing and for smaller applications, and even for smaller companies who need a lower entry point," [Oracle head of systems John] Fowler said. ... [Fowler] didn’t talk about prices or say how much cheaper the new Sparc systems will be, and it could potentially be years before Sonoma comes to market—Oracle isn’t yet saying. Its engineers are due to discuss Sonoma at the Hot Chips conference in Silicon Valley at the end of the month, so we might learn more then.

Are We Reaching the Electric Car Tipping Point? 904

Posted by timothy on Thursday July 30, 2015 @11:43AM from the well-for-the-lighter-ones-at-least dept.

HughPickens.com writes: Geoff Ralston has an interesting essay explaining why it is likely that electric car penetration in the U.S. will take off at an exponential rate over the next 5-10 years rendering laughable the paltry predictions of future electric car sales being made today. Present projections assume that electric car sales will slowly increase as the technology gets marginally better, and as more and more customers choose to forsake a better product (the gasoline car) for a worse, yet "greener" version. According to Ralston this view of the future is, simply, wrong. — electric cars will take over our roads because consumers will demand them. "Electric cars will be better than any alternative, including the loud, inconvenient, gas-powered jalopy," says Ralston. "The Tesla Model S has demonstrated that a well made, well designed electric car is far superior to anything else on the road. This has changed everything."

The Tesla Model S has sold so well because, compared to old-fashioned gasoline cars it is more fun to drive, quieter, always "full" every morning, more roomy, and it continuously gets better with automatic updates and software improvements. According to Ralston the tipping point will come when gas stations, not a massively profitable business, start to go out of business as many more electric cars are sold, making gasoline powered vehicles even more inconvenient. When that happens even more gasoline car owners will be convinced to switch. Rapidly a tipping point will be reached, at which point finding a convenient gas station will be nearly impossible and owning a gasoline powered car will positively suck. "Elon Musk has ushered in the age of the electric car, and whether or not it, too, was inevitable, it has certainly begun," concludes Ralston. "The future of automotive transportation is an electric one and you can expect that future to be here soon."

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