Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1 Micro Four Thirds

It's no surprise that the mirrorless interchangeable lens camera category is continuing to grow at a rapid pace. These compact, pro-featured ILCs undoubtedly have a strong future, with mass consumer appeal and a widening assortment of price points. We're particularly taken with the technology's compact footprint -- we're focusing our camera reviews on mirrorless models, and even outfitted our entire CES team with Sony's NEX-C3. But long before the likes of Sony and Fujifilm launched their first cameras, Olympus and Panasonic dominated the then-infant mirrorless category, developing the Micro Four Thirds sensor standard, that, for better or worse, has failed to catch on among other manufacturers. Surprisingly, Panasonic's pioneering days were far stronger than those of recent past, with the company's GF1 melting the hearts of compact-seeking professionals. But following that successful first model, Panasonic opted to take the GF series in a different direction, launching a dumbed-down GF2 (and later GF3) in what was likely an attempt to appeal to the much larger amateur category. This left the GF1 faithful without a worthy successor -- until now.

Intel Micron Hybrid Memory Cube

Intel and Micron showed results of their Hybrid Memory Cube [HMC] collaboration last week at IDF 2011. This is the first public showing of the jointly developed high performance memory architecture, a purpose designed memory solution for their exascale computing effort.

Intel-Micron Hybrid Memory Cube in real world

Intel has set the year 2018 as the year in which the company plans to build a supercomputer capable of an exaflop or better execution rate. This is approximately two orders of magnitude faster than those extant as of June 2011. The proposed machine, targeted to consume less than 20 megawatts of power, a reduction of 300 times over today's supercomputers according to Justin Rattner, Intel's Chief Technology Officer.

Question Enterprise & Cloud computing

Last year we ran a little series called Ask the Experts where you all wrote in your virtualization related questions and we got them answered by experts at Intel, VMWare as well as our own expert on all things Enterprise & Cloud Computing - Johan de Gelas.

Below you find the first 2 answers which answer some of the questions posed in our "Ask the experts: Enterprise & Cloud computing" blog post.

Q (" Tarrant64"): With the growing use of the cloud computing, what are ISPs doing to ensure adequate bandwidth for not only the provider but the customers?

A: As a company outsources more and more services to the cloud, it gets increasingly important to make sure that the internet connection is not the single point of failure. Quite a few Cloud vendors understand this and offer dedicated links to their data centers and provide appropriate SLAs for uptime or response time. Of course these SLA are pretty expensive. These kind of "network costs" are often "forgotten" when vendors praise the cost efficiency of "going cloud".

Intel and Micron (IMFT) Announce World's First 128Gb 20nm MLC NAND

Earlier this year, Intel and Micron's joint NAND manufacturing venture (IMFT) announced it had produced 64Gb (8GB) MLC NAND on a 20nm process. Most IMFT NAND that's used in SSDs are built using a 25nm process - the move to 20nm reduces die size and in turn reduces cost over time. A single 8GB 2-bit-per-cell MLC NAND die built on IMFT's 25nm process measures in at 167mm², while the same capacity on IMFT's 20nm process is 118mm². Early on in any new process wafers are more expensive, but over time NAND costs should go down as they are more a function of die size than process technology.

ARM & GlobalFoundries Demo

GlobalFoundries sent over a PR showcasing two significant milestones in its march towards being a major foundry player in the mobile space. The first is the announcement of a dual-core Cortex A9 test chip built on GF's 28nm HPP (High Performance Plus) process. The test chip operates at 2.5GHz although it is apparently capable of higher frequencies according to the ambiguous statement from GF. The chip's operating voltage is a low 0.85V. Both the frequency and voltage targets are good for a Cortex A9 implementation, although again this is only a test chip. 

Don’t Fight the FED

In a world of innovative FPD (Flat Panel Displays), where emerging technologies are involved in sizzling competition to top their rivals, one of the new kids on the block is simply called FED. FED stands for Field Emission Display and is yet another promising challenger for high-definition video looking to make its way to the marketplace. Similar to many of the contemporary ways to project light into the eyes of demanding consumers, FED utilizes some of the dependable methods of cathode ray tubes (CRTs) to stimulate phosphors with electrons which in turn, discharge the deeply rich colors to produce the marvelous clarity that is HDTV (High Definition Television). 

Insights from High Definition Television

A Hollywood sensibility runs through our culture, everyone seems to care more about their appearance these days, and there is an interesting phenomenon at the junction of new high-definition display technology and the on-air personalities presented to the public. Every evening, as more subscribers tune into the HDTV (High Definition Television) programs streaming from satellites and the local airwaves into our homes, it provides a new window into the wide world of our increasingly modernized and digitized planet. Flat panel displays, the kind that cover the walls of the big-box retailers, airport lounges, our homes and sports stadiums elicit more than just gee-whiz reactions from passers-by—the design of the new technologies are changing lives on every side of the camera. 

Car Design Technology

Yellow sports car. Original car design via Shutterstock

Car designs have changed quite bit since their inception, and it’s fair to say that cars went through a lot of designs trends, driven by an endless cycle of innovation of technology, materials and usage model. After more than a century of car innovation, there is no sign that we’ve seen the end of it.

From curious inventions and leisure vehicles in the early days, cars have become objects of mass production and a necessity of modern life. Each technological innovation has introduced new usage models, which in turn induced new technological innovations and materials that spark a new cycle.

Humanization of Tech: It's About What Users Want and How They Work

Everyone's been kvelling over Siri since the iPhone 4GS was released a month ago. But Apple's "virtual personal assistant" is just the natural evolution of technology being built around our needs, wants and desires.

Alcatel-Lucent Unveils CloudBand

“It’s the network, stupid.” In a nutshell, that’s the idea Alcatel-Lucent has with its new cloud initiative called “CloudBand”. It’s no secret that network performance is a huge bottleneck with cloud computing services, and the company believes that CloudBand can address this issue is a meaningful way.

Alcatel-Lucent is touting CloudBand as a so-called “carrier cloud”, which purports to offer communications service providers a way to deliver networking services via the cloud with lower latency, better bandwidth control, and better quality of service guarantees.

Partially, CloudBand would virtualize some of the hardware elements of a network, enabling scalability and test deployments without the high costs of hardware. CloudBand will be available sometime in the first half of next year.

In a press release, Adolfo Hernandez, President, of Alcatel-Lucent’s Software, Services & Solutions Group, put it succintly: “The network makes the cloud, and communications service providers own the networks. That’s a very powerful combination.”

Alcatel-Lucent connects communications networks and the cloud
New CloudBand ‘carrier cloud’ solution brings the reliability, security and high performance of communications networks to the cloud services market

Paris - November 17, 2011 – Today Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is introducing a new solution, called CloudBand, which brings together the computing power and flexibility of the cloud with the high performance, reliability and security of communications networks. CloudBand is the foundation for a new class of ‘carrier cloud’ services that will enable communications service providers to bring the benefits of the cloud to their own networks and business operations, and put them in an ideal position to offer a new range of high-performance cloud services to enterprises and consumers.

Cable TV isn’t Just Cable More!

Cable television has always a certain popularity due to its appropriate value of the home entertainment enjoyed. because of new technologies and evolving hardware, the providers of cable television services to their customers better than ever before. Given the range and use of technology have expanded, so have the services the providers of cable TV can give. The suppliers of cable television began offering up to 80 channels, which buried cable provided.

Long Term Data Storage

I’ve had a few people ask me just recently what method I would recommend when planning a long term backup strategy.  One elderly gentleman in particular was creating a family time capsule that he wanted his children and grandchildren to be able to view many decades from now.

The question isn’t as easy as you may think.  You may imagine that the data could be burnt to CD,locked in a cupboard and that it would last forever however unfortunately this isn’t the case.  There are literally hundreds of suitably stored but physically decayed CD’s from my teenage years which I could use as testament to that.

Therefore I’ve made a list of common formats one would usually consider for archiving a large amount of data so you can pick the most suitable one for your needs:

Windows 7 Hidden Gems –Additional functionality

I’ve been living with Windows 7 for a good few months now and in that time have discovered a couple of little ‘hidden gems’ which I wanted to share with you:

Aero Shake

In Windows 7,when you click on the title bar of any window and shake it every other open window gets minimised straight back in to your taskbar,reducing clutter on your screen.  This allows you to focus on the one window and then when ready shake it again and the other windows will reappear.

Be careful, Possible Is Your Friend On Facebook Bot

Some researchers from the University of British Columbia recently conducted a study of the behavior of the owners is on Facebook. From these studies, they say that the possibility of the owner of the account to be deceived by a bot program is quite high.

In his research, the scientists use a program calledsocialbots, a program that can behave like people who are online. Furthermore, using the software the researchers made no fewer than 102 accounts, 49 male and 53 female. Then the zombie accounts they operate for eight weeks.

During this period, they send more than 8500 random friend requests. The result, more than 3000 people received the request. Furthermore, these zombie accounts can obtain personal information from 3000 Facebook account.

Could 'Earthscraper' Really Turn Architecture on its Head?

A team of Mexican architects have designed a 65-story glass and steel pyramid to sit in the middle of Mexico City's most historic plaza. But, if it ever gets built, you won't see it anywhere on the skyline.

That's because it would be the world's first ever "earthscraper" -- a 300-meter deep office and living space with ambitions to turn the modern high-rise, quite literally, on its head.

Facebook joins the Arctic crowd

(CNNMoney) NEW YORK -- -- The northern Scandinavian landscape is dotted with fjords, lingonberries and, if you believe some locals, elves. But another sight is increasingly common on the Arctic horizon: data centers.

Drawn by the promise of lower electricity costs, a growing number of tech companies are harnessing the region's abundant cold air to cool their servers, cutting expensive air-conditioning out of the equation.

Facebook, the latest tech company to take the polar plunge, announced this week that it will build a data center just south of the Arctic Circle in Lulea, Sweden, where the average low in January is 3 degrees Fahrenheit.

Xilinx integrates dual ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore with 28-nm, low-power programmable logic

The new Xilinx Zynq 7000 family of EPP (extensible-processing-platform) devices target high-end embedded-system applications, such as video surveillance, automotive driver assistance, next-generation wireless, and factory automation. The portfolio comprises four devices, each integrating a complete ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore-processor-based system with 28,000 to 235,000 cells of 28-nm, low-power programmable logic, the equivalent of 430,000 to 3.5 million ASIC gates. 

The Zynq architecture differs from previous marriages of programmable logic and embedded processors by moving from an FPGA-centric platform to a processor-centric model. In a typical FPGA-centric development flow, engineers create their designs in HDLs (hardware-description languages), such as Verilog and VHDL (VHSIC HDL). Zynq supports a software-centric flow, in which developers work almost exclusively in high-level languages, such as C and C++. For software developers, the Zynq-7000 appears the same as a standard, fully featured ARM processor-based SOC (system on chip) that boots immediately at power-up and can run a variety of operating systems independently of the programmable logic. 

Each Zynq-7000 EPP device embeds a dual 800-MHz ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore with a dedicated Neon coprocessor for media and signal processing that adds instructions for audio, video, 3-D graphics, and image and speech processing, along with a double-precision FPU (floating-point unit). The hard-wired processing system includes L1 and L2 caches, memory controllers, and commonly used peripherals. The devices integrate dual 12-bit ADCs that support sampling rates as high as 1M sample/sec on as many as 17 external-input analog channels.The two largest devices in the Zynq family, the Zynq-7030 and Zynq-7040, have built-in multigigabit transceivers that operate as fast as 10.3125 Gbps and dedicated DSP resources that deliver 480 and 912 (billion multiply/accumulate) operations of peak performance, respectively.

How to Write a Good Article – Four Considerations

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