mrcgran - Slashdot User

Submission + - Researchers Simulate Rat's Brain (guardian.co.uk) 3

Submitted by slick_shoes on Sunday December 23, 2007 @10:42AM

slick_shoes writes: Researchers working on the 'Blue Brain' project have developed a computer simulation of the neocortical column — the basic building block of the neocortex, the higher functioning part of our brains — of a two-week-old rat, and it behaves exactly like its biological counterpart. The machine that simulates this column is an IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer. Project director Henry Markram believes that with the state of technology today, it is possible to build an entire rat's neocortex. From there, it's cats, then monkeys and finally, a human brain.

Submission + - Dell release Ubuntu 7.10-powered PCs (desktoplinux.com) 1

Submitted by

sjvn

on Tuesday December 18, 2007 @07:05PM

sjvn writes: "The official word will be out any minute now, but in the meantime DesktopLinux has learned that Dell will be releasing Ubuntu 7.10 (http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7924076658.html) on a laptop and desktop with immediate availability. And, as an extra added bonus, they're tossing in legal DVD-playback capability. In a word: "Neat!""

Submission + - What every programmer should know about memory (lwn.net)

Submitted by

mrcgran

on Saturday November 24, 2007 @08:43PM

mrcgran writes: "LWN.NET has just finished publishing an excellent series about memory, by Ulrich Drepper:"What every programmer should know about memory". Wonder the difference between PC100 and PC1600? Challeges of NUMA systems, access optimizations for L1 and L2 caches? Want to write code which performs well in several memory contexts? Then this series is probably what you should read first. There is also a PDF version available from Ulrich's home page. While at it, why not do a combo grabbing a copy of Goldberg's classical paper "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point Arithmetic"?."

Submission + - Former CEO of Linspire moves to Ubuntu (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

mrcgran

on Monday October 22, 2007 @06:51PM

mrcgran writes: "Kevin Carmony, the former CEO of Linspire, changes side and goes to Ubuntu: ``Now that I'm no longer the CEO of Linspire, or under any obligation to use that particular distribution, I thought I should take some time and look around at all the distributions and decide which one was right for me and my PC. In addition to already being quite familiar with Linspire and Freespire, I also looked at Novell/Suse, Red Hat/Fedora, PC Linux, Ubuntu, and Kubuntu. Well, after all my research, I have to tell you, it was an easy choice. Ubuntu!'' From his blog: ``For Linspire, when it came to Ubuntu, the last three years were the classic "ignore, endure, embrace." We "ignored" Warty Warthog, because technically, it was far behind Linspire. However, in just one short year, we were trying to "endure" Ubuntu's success with things like the DCC Alliance and our own "free" distribution, Freespire. And then, one more short year later, we were "embracing" Ubuntu, forming a partnership with them, and basing both Linspire and Freespire on Ubuntu's core technology. ... I have to say that today, however, those Linspire advantages are now, for the most part, gone. Ubuntu 7.10 is without doubt, the best desktop Linux distribution yet.''"

Submission + - Ubuntu - My New Home (ubuntuforums.org)

Submitted by

mrcgran

on Monday October 22, 2007 @11:13AM

mrcgran writes: "Kevin Carmony, the former CEO of Linspire, provides some of his thoughts in a post to the Ubuntu Forums, with lots of interesting answers: "Now that I'm no longer the CEO of Linspire, or under any obligation to use that particular distribution, I thought I should take some time and look around at all the distributions and decide which one was right for me and my PC. In addition to already being quite familiar with Linspire and Freespire, I also looked at Novell/Suse, Red Hat/Fedora, PC Linux, Ubuntu, and Kubuntu. Well, after all my research, I have to tell you, it was an easy choice. Ubuntu! I'm excited for the new release in a few days, which I will use to replace the many Linux desktop and laptop PCs I own (five). Canonical and Ubuntu have done so many things right. I was very proud of many of the things I was able to accomplish at Linspire, but it's no longer the distro for me. I look forward to not only using Ubuntu on all my PCs, but also becoming an active member of your community here. Some of my good friends and quality employees have also left Linspire and joined Canonical, and I get a sense from them of the excitement, commitment and expectations the Ubuntu team has to really make open source desktop Linux a reality. This is truly where it is at!" This note was shortly followed up with a blog post about his recent operating system `canoni(cali)zation': Ubuntu 7.10."

Submission + - Four months of Ubuntu on Dell (lxer.com)

Submitted by

mrcgran

on Monday October 15, 2007 @07:24PM

mrcgran writes: "LXer has an interview with John Hull, a manager of the Linux Engineering team at Dell, where he reports on how the Ubuntu machines have been working out for them so far. "Embracing Ubuntu Linux on our desktops and laptops seems to have really raised Dell's visibility within the Linux community. We have been supporting, testing, developing for, and selling Linux for 8+ years here at Dell, but before the Ubuntu announcement, a lot of people didn't know that we did any of that. (...) Previous to our Ubuntu product announcement, it was much more difficult to extend this model to consumer desktop and laptop technologies. We would have a conversations with vendors about pushing Linux support for their hardware, but without a Linux product offering from Dell for that hardware, it was very difficult to convince them to release Linux drivers. That has certainly changed now that we offer Ubuntu Linux, and we are making much more progress in our vendor discussions. (...) The original sales estimates for Ubuntu computers was around 1% of the total sales, or about 20,000 systems annually. The program so far is meeting expectations. Customers are certainly showing their interest and buying systems preloaded with Ubuntu, but it certainly won't overtake Microsoft Windows anytime soon.""

Submission + - BBC partners with Adobe to add iPlayer streaming (last100.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 15, 2007 @07:15PM

An anonymous reader writes: The BBC's iPlayer will roll out a streaming option later this year, in a move that will finally make the UK-only TV catchup service available to Mac and Linux users, in addition to those using a Windows-based PC. Described as a "strategic partnership", by Erik Huggers, BBC future media and technology group controller, the new version of iPlayer will use Flash video technology from Adobe, and is said to compliment the existing Windows-only download version of the service, which utilizes Microsoft's Windows Media DRM software.

Submission + - Dell: Microsoft warnings haven't hurt Linux uptake (zdnet.co.uk)

Submitted by

mrcgran

on Friday October 12, 2007 @07:47PM

mrcgran writes: "ZDNet is reporting that, according to Michael Dell, claims made by Microsoft that Linux violates its software patent have not affected sales of Linux-based hardware. "On the server side Linux continues to grow nicely, a bit faster than Windows," said Dell. "We're seeing a move to Linux in critical applications, and Linux migration has not slowed down." And Dell's chief marketing officer provides a glimpse of Dell's expectation regarding its new line of Linux desktops and laptops: "Are they [Linux PCs] going to sell a lot? Absolutely not. But on the server side we've seen continued growth.""

Submission + - Japan Moon Probe Snaps First Photos (space.com)

Submitted by

mrcgran

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @08:47PM

mrcgran writes: "Space.com reports: "Almost one month after Japan's successful launch of the Kaguya lunar probe, the unmanned observatory has begun its first major activities in orbit around the moon. In addition to snapping its first lunar images, the probe jettisoned one of two 110-pound (50-kilogram) "baby" satellites that will help create a detailed gravity map of the moon." The major objectives of the "KAGUYA" mission are to obtain scientific data of the lunar origin and evolution and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration. "KAGUYA" consists of a main orbiting satellite at about 100km altitude and two small satellites (Relay Satellite and VRAD Satellite) in polar orbit."

Vigile

on Thursday September 20, 2007 @09:06PM

Vigile writes: "Real-time raytracing has often been called the pinnacle for computer rendering for games but only recently has it been getting traction in the field. A German student, and now Intel employee, has been working on raytraced versions of the Quake 3 and Quake 4 game engines for years and is now using the power of Intel's development teams to push the technology further. With antialiasing implemented and anisotropic filtering close behind, they speculate that within two years the hardware will exist on the desktop to make "game quality" raytracing graphics a reality."

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