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Supercomputing

Submission + - Cray Unveils 100 Petaflops XC30 Supercomputer (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Cray has unveiled its supercomputing beast – the XC30, which is capable of achieving over 100 petaflops performance thereby putting not only the Titan but, also China’s Tianhe-2 in the shade. Previously codenamed “Cascade” and based on the new Aries interconnect architecture, the XC30 has been developed in conjunction with DARPA. The supercomputer can scale up to a million cores and uses Intel Xeon E5-2600 processors for now. Cray has revealed that it will equip the future version of the XC30 with Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors along with NVIDIA Tesla GPUs.
Biotech

Submission + - Proteins made to order (nature.com)

Submitted by
ananyo
ananyo writes: "Proteins are an enormous molecular achievement: chains of amino acids that fold spontaneously into a precise conformation, time after time, optimized by evolution for their particular function. Yet given the exponential number of contortions possible for any chain of amino acids, dictating a sequence that will fold into a predictable structure has been a daunting task.
Now researchers report that they can do just that. By following a set of rules described in a paper published in Nature (abstract), a husband and wife team from David Baker’s laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle has designed five proteins from scratch that fold reliably into predicted conformations. The work could eventually allow scientists to custom design proteins with specific functions."
Piracy

Submission + - BitTorrent traffic is up 40 percent from six months ago (techpounce.com) 2

Submitted by
damagedbits
damagedbits writes: "BitTorrent traffic is still booming even though legal streaming services like Netflix and YouTube are on the rise. It's far from its all time high of the mid 2000's, but BT traffic is up 40 percent from six months ago. BitTorrent is responsible for about 11 percent of total Internet traffic in the US."

Submission + - Public and remote DNS usage without the web performance cost (networkworld.com)

Submitted by mas939
mas939 writes: Northwestern University researchers have found that public Domain Name System (DNS) services could slow down users' Internet connections, and have developed namehelp, a solution that could speed up Web performance by as much as 40 percent. The Northwestern researchers, led by professor Fabian Bustamante, found that users' Web performance can suffer due to the hidden interaction of DNS with Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), which help performance by offering exact replicas of Web site content in computer servers around the world. The namehelp system runs personalized benchmarks in the background, from within users' computers, to determine their optimal DNS configuration and improve the Web experience by helping sites load faster.
Android

Submission + - Nexus 7 and Android convertibles drive massive ASUS profit (engadget.com)

Submitted by rtfa-troll
rtfa-troll writes: The collapse of the PC market has had much discussion on Slashdot with a common opinion that, now that Apple is the largest personal computer manufacturer, a loss of sales combined with Apple's iPad will completely eliminate most of them. Now Asustek's most recent results show that there may be a way out for those that can move away from their standard markets. Concentrating on Android tablet devices, the Google Nexus 7, with a help from ASUS transformer tablets has driven the company to massive $230 million profits. Asus gross revenue also climbed 9 percent to around $3.8 billion.

We have discussed related issues recently: Where companies like HTC have lost their focus on open Android devices and suffered from devastating collapses, ASUS has managed to differentiate it's tablets by providing the most open tablet experience possible via with Google's Nexus program and branding.
Network

Submission + - Internet hubs running on generator power (computerworld.com)

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: Two monolithic buildings in lower Manhattan that serve as major network hubs for the U.S. are operating on generator power, thanks to Hurricane Sandy. The buildings, known as carrier hotels, are a 2.9 million square foot structure at 111 8th Ave., and a 1.8 million square foot facility at 60 Hudson St. Telecom companies use carrier hotels to interconnect networks to allow data sharing and users of one network to connect with those of another. The two buildings are critical to the nation's infrastructure. In 2002, Richard Clarke, then special advisor to the president for cyberspace security, described their importance in a speech. "Transatlantic fiber lands at about 10 different places in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Long Island and New Jersey that, after having landed, it all goes to one of two facilities — 60 Hudson St. or 111 8th Ave in lower Manhattan. If that's true, that would seem to be a problem." Michael Levy, an analyst at Datacenters Tier1 Research, a division of 451 Research, said that "111 8th Ave. and 60 Hudson are two of the most carrier dense buildings in the world." Google owns 111 8th Ave., but isn't commenting on its storm prep for the building.
Transportation

Submission + - Glow-In-The-Dark Smart Highways Coming To the Netherlands in 2013 (wired.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Netherlands is moving forward with plans to build "smart" highways that can become more easily visible or communicate weather conditions to drivers. Work will begin as early as next year. 'Special paint will also be used to paint markers like snowflakes across the road's surface — when temperatures fall to a certain point, these images will become visible, indicating that the surface will likely be slippery. Roosegaarde says this technology has been around for years, on things like baby food — the studio has just upscaled it. The first few hundred metres of glow in the dark, weather-indicating road will be installed in the province of Brabant in mid-2013, followed by priority induction lanes for electric vehicles, interactive lights that switch on as cars pass and wind-powered lights within the next five years.'
Bug

Submission + - Microsoft Site Loophole Lets Anyone Buy Windows 8 Pro For Just $15

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If you bought a Windows 7 PC after June 2, you’re eligible for a discounted Windows 8 Pro upgrade for just $15. If you lie and tell Microsoft you bought a Windows 7 PC after June 2, you can also get a discounted Windows 8 Pro upgrade for just $15, thanks to a loophole in the official Windows Upgrade Offer site.

Comment First thoughts... (Score 1) 590

by eexaa (#41821909) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Stands In the Way of a Truly Solar-Powered Airliner?

Just first thoughts:

1- energy efficient (which is necessary with low-surface solar-powered stuff) aircrafts are way too slow, much slower than jets. Customers basically don't like spending time sitting in airplane.
2- more people onboard add weight (there should be at least 3 crew people for a commercial flight, plus at least one passenger, sums to twice the largest amount of people I've ever seen on solar-powered plane)
3- more energy needs more surface, which adds both weight and drag.

I hope someone here will be able to apply some kinetics/aerodynamics equations that show those thoughts more accurately.
Technology

Submission + - ARM Announces 64-Bit Cortex-A50 Architecture (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "ARM debuted its new 64-bit microarchitecture today and announced the upcoming launch of a new set of Cortex processors, due in 2014. The two new chip architectures, dubbed the Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57, are the most advanced CPUs the British company has ever built, and are integral to AMD's plans to drive dense server applications beginning in 2014. The new ARMv8 architecture adds 64-bit memory addressing, increases the number of general purpose registers to 30, and increases the size of the vector registers for NEON/SIMD operations. The Cortex-A57 and A-53 are both aimed at the mobile market. Partners that've already signed on to build ARMv8-based hardware include Samsung, AMD, Broadcom, Calxeda, and STMicro."
Programming

Submission + - Closed-Source Team Development at Cost Zero (techgage.com)

Submitted by
Deathspawner
Deathspawner writes: "Many Web services provide open-source teams with an infrastructure for collaborative development, but what if you're a small team with little-to-no funding looking to develop closed-sourced software? Without fully being aware of your options, many believe that closed-source team collaboration is impossible on no budget. That's anything but the truth, however. Techgage explores how it can be done, encompassing server hosting, revision control, bug-tracking and other key development requirements."
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows 8 Sells 4 Million Copies Since Launch (cnet.com) 1

Submitted by arctus
arctus writes: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the initial success of Windows 8 at the BUILD conference on Friday. Ballmer also noted a 670 million Windows 7 install base as another incentive for developers to begin creating Windows 8 applications. On the list of notable developers was ERP giant SAP. Developers at the conference received 100 GB of SkyDrive storage for free and a Microsoft Surface RT system

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