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AI

Google Worked With Intel on a custom AI Chip For Its Pixel Phones (cnbc.com) 73

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
A special-purpose chip for artificial intelligence and other tasks in Google's new Pixel smartphones draws on Intel technology. From a report: In addition to a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip, the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL both feature a new custom Pixel Visual Core co-processor, which is meant to improve speed and battery life when shooting photos with Google's HDR+ technology, and better handle AI workloads in apps, Google has said. But the company didn't disclose details about its partners on the chip. Then, last week, device repair website iFixit published a teardown of the Pixel 2 XL that showed what the Pixel Visual Core chip actually looks like. The serial number on the chip in a photograph begins with "SR3," like some Intel chips. Google confirmed the connection. "Google built Pixel Visual Core with Intel," the Google spokesperson wrote in an email to CNBC. "Pixel Visual Core is a custom designed processor from Google, built to serve specific computational photography requirements that could not be met by existing chips."
Google

Google Paid $7.2 Billion Last Year To Partners, Including Apple, To Prominently Showcase Its Search Engine and Apps on Smartphones (bloomberg.com) 57

Posted by msmash from the cost-of-dominance dept.
A reader shares a Bloomberg report: There's a $19 billion black box inside Google. That's the yearly amount Google pays to companies that help generate its advertising sales, from the websites lined with Google-served ads to Apple and others that plant Google's search box or apps in prominent spots. Investors are obsessed with this money, called traffic acquisition costs, and they're particularly worried about the growing slice of those payments going to Apple and Google's Android allies. That chunk of fees now amounts to 11 percent of revenue for Google's internet properties. The figure was 7 percent in 2012. These Google traffic fees are the result of contractual arrangements parent company Alphabet makes to ensure its dominance. The company pays Apple to make Google the built-in option for web searches on Apple's Safari browsers for Mac computers, iPhones and other places. Google also pays companies that make Android smartphones and the phone companies that sell those phones to make sure its search box is front and center and to ensure its apps such as YouTube and Chrome are included in smartphones. In the last year, Google has paid these partners $7.2 billion, more than three times the comparable cost in 2012.
Education

Computer Generates Largest Math Proof Ever At 200TB of Data (phys.org) 143

Posted by BeauHD from the red-pill-and-blue-pill dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A trio of researchers has solved a single math problem by using a supercomputer to grind through over a trillion color combination possibilities, and in the process has generated the largest math proof ever -- the text of it is 200 terabytes in size. The math problem has been named the boolean Pythagorean Triples problem and was first proposed back in the 1980's by mathematician Ronald Graham. In looking at the Pythagorean formula: a^2 + b^2 = c^2, he asked, was it possible to label each a non-negative integer, either blue or red, such that no set of integers a, b and c were all the same color. To solve this problem the researchers applied the Cube-and-Conquer paradigm, which is a hybrid of the SAT method for hard problems. It uses both look-ahead techniques and CDCL solvers. They also did some of the math on their own ahead of giving it over to the computer, by using several techniques to pare down the number of choices the supercomputer would have to check, down to just one trillion (from 10^2,300). Still the 800 processor supercomputer ran for two days to crunch its way through to a solution. After all its work, and spitting out the huge data file, the computer proof showed that yes, it was possible to color the integers in multiple allowable ways -- but only up to 7,824 -- after that point, the answer became no. Is the proof really a proof if it does not answer why there is a cut-off point at 7,825, or even why the first stretch is possible? Does it really exist?
Australia

Australia Engineers Set New Solar Energy World Record With 34.5% Sunlight To Energy Efficiency (unsw.edu.au) 110

Posted by msmash from the affinity-for-solar-energy dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Australian engineers have edged closer to the theoretical limits of sunlight-to-electricity conversion by photovoltaic cells with a device that sets a new world efficiency record. A new solar cell configuration developed by engineers at the University of New South Wales has pushed sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiency to 34.5% -- establishing a new world record for unfocused sunlight and nudging closer to the theoretical limits for such a device. The record was set using a 28-cm2 four-junction mini-module -- embedded in a prism -- that extracts the maximum energy from sunlight. It does this by splitting the incoming rays into four bands, using a hybrid four-junction receiver to squeeze even more electricity from each beam of sunlight.
Crime

Pre-Crime in the UK: Businesses Crowdsource a Watch List (arstechnica.com) 162

Posted by Soulskill from the better-hope-you-don't-look-suspicious dept.
Press2ToContinue writes: In the film Minority Report, people are rounded up by the Precrime police agency before they actually commit the crime. In the movie, this pre-crime information is provided by 'pre-cognition' savants floating in a goopy nutrient bath who can apparently see the future. Replace those gibbering pre-cog mutants with Facewatch. It's a system that lets retailers, publicans, and restaurateurs share private video footage with the police and each other. It is integrated with real-time face recognition systems, such as NEC's NeoFace. Where previously a member of staff had to keep an eye out for people, on the crowdsourced Facewatch watch list, now the system can automatically tell you if someone on the watch list has just entered the premises. A member of staff can then keep an eye on that person, or ask them politely (or not) to leave.
Microsoft

Microsoft Reportedly Working On Its Own Smartphone 215

Posted by Soulskill from the seeing-what-sticks dept.
According to a (paywalled) report in the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is experimenting with its own smartphone design. "Officials at some of Microsoft's parts suppliers, who declined to be named, said the Redmond, Wash.-based company is testing a smartphone design but isn't sure if a product will go into mass production." The article continues: "If Microsoft pushes ahead with its mobile phone, it would underscore how far Microsoft has moved away from its long-standing practice of making software and leaving decisions about design, features and marketing of the computing hardware to partners such as Hewlett-Packard or Samsung Electronics. ... As it does so, Microsoft pulls from a modified playbook of Apple—whose hardware-plus-software approach Microsoft officials long have scorned. ... Smartphones running Microsoft's two-year-old Windows Phone operating software for cellphones haven't sold well, and Microsoft may want to leave itself an option to test whether its own phone would spur sales."

Comment Hand Trucks (Score 1) 331

by ovoskeuiks (#40355289) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Evacuate a Network
Build all your workstations and servers onto racks made from hand trucks, you know the ones with 2 rubber wheels that you use to move fridges and the like. You can build little shelves etc onto them with places to hook all the various cables then when you need to move you simply unplug the cables and wheel them out the door. It's cheap and effective you don't need people tripping over themselves trying to carry heavy bit of a gear onto a truck. If the gear already has wheels on it it's much easier to move safely.

Comment Next Window (Score 1) 138

by ovoskeuiks (#36090338) Attached to: Creating a "Force Field" Invisible Touch Interface
Plenty of touch overlays for larger screens used this technology, I have a stack of overlays for 32" panels that use IR like this. A much better options would be something like Next Window Overlays http://www.nextwindow.com/ They use a pair of 1 dimesional ir cameras and a bar of ir lights to triangulate objects in their field of view so by placing the cameras in the top two corners of the screen and the ir leds between them you can have a simple bar rather than a square frame like this thing. Mount a bunch of them on the ceiling next to each other and you'd have instant 3D multitouch

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