Russia building 10-petaflop supercomputer
T-Platforms, a Moscow-based tech company that has built some of that nation's largest systems, is developing a 10-petaflop supercomputer for M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, the company said this week.
This large system puts it in the ballpark of similarly announced systems being developed in the major supercomputing countries, and may signal Russia's intent to become a major participant in the race to exascale.
Russia is playing catch-up in a rapidly developing race among China, Japan, the U.S. and Europe to build an exascale system in this decade. These are systems which would have 1,000 petaflops of computing power. (A petaflop is a quadrillion floating-point operations per second.)
Building an exascale system will require new approaches in microprocessors, interconnects, memory and storage. If breakthroughs happen outside the U.S., it could seed development of companies that could challenge the U.S. dominance in tech. Read more...
After iPhone’s debut, Cook must reposition Apple brand
Apple Inc debuts its fifth generation iPhone this week minus its visionary leader for the first time. But CEO Tim Cook may already be thinking ahead to his greatest challenge: repositioning the company's fabled marketing apparatus to safeguard the brand.
With Google Inc Android phones gaining momentum, Cook is likely sticking to established battle plans at this critical juncture. But longer term, he may be better off moving the company out from under Jobs' gargantuan shadow. The Apple co-founder bequeathed a mystique and cachet to the brand that will be near-impossible to replace, cultivating a community of fans hooked on ease of use and rich content.
It's those perceptions Cook -- who in two months on the job has already shown Wall Street and Silicon Valley glimpses of what an Apple without Steve Jobs might look like --- must focus on preserving rather than the inimitable aura of the co-founder who died last week at the age of 56. Read more...
Memo to kid coders: Enterprise software exists
If you live or spend time in Silicon Valley, it's easy to forget that enterprise software exists, or that it still drives $245 billion in annual revenue, according to Gartner.
Google, Facebook, and a rising generation of consumer-facing startups get the media buzz, to the point that young developers have neither an interest in enterprise software nor an appreciation for the challenges it has long sought to solve – but could this be a good thing?
This generational shift hit home while having lunch with my 20-something developer colleagues this week. I mentioned BEA Systems and got blank looks all around. I persisted, "You know, the app server company???" Vacant expressions. "Java?!? You've heard of that, right!?"
"Is it like JavaScript?" Read more...
GPS group slams LightSquared’s new plan
A group of GPS vendors and users has challenged mobile startup LightSquared's credibility in a response to the company's new plan for a hybrid satellite and LTE mobile network.
LightSquared either knew or should have known about apparent interference between its proposed LTE (Long-Term Evolution) network and receivers for GPS (Global Positioning System) before it requested a waiver from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to operate the network, the Coalition to Save Our GPS said in a paper released late Friday. After LightSquared received a conditional waiver in January, a mandatory series of tests revealed serious interference. Read more...
Intel teaches machines to build own device drivers
Intel Labs is working to automate the tedious and error-prone process of writing device drivers and porting them to different operating systems.
Explaining the need for a tool that could synthesize device drivers, Intel Labs software engineer Arun Raghunath told The Reg: "A bunch of studies have shown that the prime cause of crashes in operating systems are device drivers. They're notoriously hard to get right."
Raghunath discussed the challenges of writing device drivers at the company's Research@Intel 2011 event at Mountain View, California's Computer History Museum this Tuesday, and explained what Intel Labs is helping to do to automate the process. Read more...
Android vs. iPhone and iPad by the numbers
It looks increasingly like Android will be the major challenger to both Apple's iPhone and iPad.
In the tablet market, Apple's iOS has a commanding lead, while Android is the only other OS that registers a market share in double digits. In the smartphone arena, there are other significant competitors, such as BlackBerry and Windows. However, BlackBerry market share is dropping, according to comScore's latest survey -- in fact, Apple surpassed RIM in comScore's April report -- while Microsoft has yet to make much of a dent.
How do Apple's iOS and Google's Android stack up head to head? We look at the numbers. Read more...