Initiative Proposed To Build World’s Fastest Computer

Washington — President Obama has launched an ambitious technology initiative, a moonshot in the world of supercomputing that could help solve some of the world’s most complex problems.

The project, known as the National Strategic Computing Initiative, aims to speed up the development of an “exascale computing system” — a supercomputer that can process a billion billion operations per second. (That’s not a typo; there are two “billions” there.) It’s a system that is hard to fathom, but it could revolutionize the way scientists measure climate change, discover new materials and study the human brain.

“I think somewhere along the lines of a hundred million to a billion modern-day laptops would represent the early stages of exascale computing,” said Thomas Sterling, a professor at the University of Indiana’s School of Informatics and Computing and chief scientist at its Center for Research in Extreme Scale Technologies.

But just what this computer would look like or exactly how long it will take to create is still unclear.

“The truth is that if you go back to the 1960s, the technology for a moonshot was largely known. It was largely an engineering effort, albeit one of tremendous scale,” said J. Steve Binkley, the associate director of the Department of Energy’s office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research. “In the case of exascale, there are a couple of areas where we still need to do active research.”

Binkley said he believes the initiative can hit the exascale target in roughly a decade, but that depends on funding and overcoming some technical challenges.

And the Obama administration is doubling down. “This national response will require a cohesive, strategic effort within the Federal Government and a close collaboration between the public and private sectors,” according to Obama’s executive order, which was signed last week.

The initiative came out of a two-year interagency working group focused on figuring out how high-powered computing could help national security, economic competitiveness and scientific achievement, Binkley said.

The Energy Department, the Defense Department and the National Science Foundation will lead the initiative — designing systems that could be used by even more parts of government, including NASA and the FBI. While America is the land of tech giants, such as Google and IBM, China is currently leading the supercomputing arms race.

The Tianhe-2 supercomputer developed by China’s National University of Defense technology is the most powerful system in the world with a peak performance of around 54.9 petaflops — the level below exascale — according to TOP500, a project that tracks the performance of supercomputers.

“We’ve allowed much of our technology to go overseas and be exported — so now we have to buy back technology we’ve developed,” Sterling said. “If we’re not careful, we will lose further ground.”

Yet the United States is still in the race. The Titan supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is currently the world’s second-most powerful. And earlier this year, the agency struck a deal with Intel and supercomputing company Cray to deliver a system capable of 180 petaflops by 2018.

Supercomputing comes with its own set of challenges, including how efficiently they operate. Some existing supercomputer systems essentially waste the vast majority of their processing power when attempting to complete tasks, Sterling said, and that wasted processing power has real-world energy costs.

“If you scale current technology up to exascale levels, it would be up to the range of a nuclear power plant just to run one computer,” Binkley said. Addressing that problem will be one of the focuses of the initiative, he said.

Original News: http://www.vnews.com/specialpublications/businessxml/17995585-95/initiative-proposed-to-build-worlds-fastest-computer

'St-riike!' Ex-OF Eric Byrnes calls computer balls, strikes

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) — "St-riike! ... And we're talking outside of outside corners."

"Ball!"

"St-riiike! ... Inside of inside corners."

Eric Byrnes sat behind the large monitor some 90 feet from home plate watching the screen as the computer told him exactly what to announce for the intimate crowd watching independent league baseball at Albert Field, a full moon in the distance.

For the second straight night Wednesday, Supermicro computers in a nearby van and overseen in the ballpark by the former major league outfielder called balls and strikes in what is believed to be the first time in professional baseball an umpire didn't handle those duties.

The visiting Vallejo Admirals and San Rafael Pacifics were thrilled to be part of an experiment using the Pitchf/x automated system designed by Fremont-based Sportvision.

The batter's box is broken down into nine tiny squares, and a yellow spot lights up where the pitch goes, then Byrnes serves as the strike zone umpire by relaying the call. Between innings, he obliges regular autograph requests.

"That actually caught more than I thought," Byrnes quipped into the microphone at one point.

Byrnes is a longtime proponent of an automated strike zone, something he insists is "seamless" and barely changes the game.

Three cameras record the velocity, trajectory and location of every pitch to determine how closely each pitcher comes to hitting the catcher's target.

"To know you're getting every single call right, it takes away all the injustices, in my opinion," Byrnes said.

When the Pacifics' Jeremy Williams struck out looking in the third, Byrnes yelled "Strike three!"

The small crowd booed loudly — capacity at the ballpark in the heart of Northern California's affluent Marin County is about 940. The level is comparable to high Class A ball, with some former Double-A and Triple-A players in the mix.

Byrnes stood up and offered: "I'm just the messenger, I mean, yell at this! Blame the computer! Blame the camera!"

Then the public address announcer sought donations for "paper towels and Windex for Eric to use on his TV screen."

In the bottom of the first, the computer retired Pacifics shortstop Danny Gonzalez on a called third strike.

Byrnes stood up and hollered down to the caged-in dugout below with "Gonzo!" curious what the player thought the pitch was. Gonzalez thought it was low.

Later, another close one on the screen.

"Strike, wow. Nicked it. Shocked, looked like a ball to me, too," Byrnes announced.

"You call them as the computer calls them. This isn't rocket science," said Byrnes, who figures he would have been better than a career .258 hitter with this technology. "It promotes action. Hitters have to swing basically from the bottom of the knees to the armpit."

Wayne Acerogiles, Wednesday's plate umpire, likes the idea of a power pack transmitter and ear piece that would give each pitch to the umpires, who could still make the calls.

"Might as well try it," Pacifics catcher Ricky Gingras said. "It seems like it's real good technology. Might as well see how everybody likes it and try to promote it. It's kind of cool."

Byrnes razzed Acerogiles in the second with, "Easy, Wayne, got a little excited right there."

"Tempo was tricky, and tricky for the batters, too," fellow umpire Eric Thompson said of how Day 1 went. "We have fun being on the field. If we get replaced by robots, we're not on the field anymore, so we're not going to have fun. It's fun to argue."

The crew came into the stands afterward to thank Byrnes, shake his hand and offer their support.

Byrnes was joined by his wife and three children, and 3-year-old son Colton won a musical chairs contest between innings before announcing a couple of pitches late in the game. Byrnes is donating $100 for each walk and strikeout to the Pat Tillman Foundation and would have given $10,000 if he ejected a player for arguing balls and strikes.

He raised $2,700 the first night, $1,900 more Wednesday.

The first game drew about 850 people and took 2 hours, 48 minutes, after breezing through the first six innings in roughly 1:30. Wednesday's 8-2 win by San Rafael went 2:44.

Pacifics Tuesday starter Wander Beras noticed on the screen before his outing how big the strike zone was and immediately made a mental adjustment.

Hitters had a lesson, too.

The technology is more likely than the human eye to call a strike on a breaking pitch that touches the outside of the plate before cutting through the plane.

"We have the technology now to do things like this," Vallejo manager Garry Templeton II said. "It was a pretty cool experience to be a part of. You kind of get to see where some of these umpires are not making calls or making calls. The hitters got a real good experience to what a strike zone is really is. There were pitches they were taking that would usually be called strikes and aren't strikes, so they enjoyed that a lot. At the same time there were pitches they don't usually swing at that were called strikes."

Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell was intrigued enough he would have liked to be there Wednesday after playing an afternoon game in San Francisco, but the team was flying home to Wisconsin.

"I think it's fascinating, I really do," Counsell said. "It's very interesting and I'm anxious to see the result. I'd love to be able to watch the game even. Now that the technology is available to do something like that, and I'm sure the accuracy will be brought into question, but the fact that there is technology to be able to at least attempt it, it's fascinating. It's something that kind of makes your head spin, really."

Original News: http://news.yahoo.com/st-riike-ex-eric-byrnes-calls-computer-balls-064325214--spt.html

For the first time, sensors and a computer play umpire in a pro baseball game

SAN RAFAEL, California—It turns out 21st century baseball with a computer calling balls and strikes feels a lot like 20th century baseball (you know, with a human behind the plate). There appears to be two main differences. The first and most obvious is volume. Machines just aren’t good at giving that classic umpire grunt, so you still need a warm body to do it.

The second? Accuracy.

"You face [Hall of Fame pitcher] Greg Maddux and he’d get a foot off the plate," recalls Eric Byrnes, former Oakland A's player and current baseball analyst. "So if we have a chance to get it right, if we have a chance to get a pitch every time, why would we not?"

Byrnes was the man behind Tuesday night's historic technological feat. On a picturesque evening in Marin County just north of San Francisco, the San Rafael Pacifics faced off against the Vallejo Admirals in what was billed as the first professional baseball game to be called by a piece of technology rather than a person. In this minor league showdown, the role of the balls-and-strikes umpire was played by a mounted three-camera tracking setup synced with a computer. (Two of the cameras are mounted at each end of the upper corner of the grandstands behind the plate, the third sits in center field.) Together, the devices comprise a system better known by its commercial moniker: Pitchf/x. It was soon dubbed #RoboUmp on Twitter.

"I’m not looking to eliminate any umpires, not one. If anything, we’re essentially going to add an umpire," Byrnes noted. Accordingly, there were still two standard umpires on the field and another behind the plate. That's the standard setup of the Pacific Association of Professional Baseball Clubs, an independent league in the San Francisco Bay Area (it's considered a Single A equivalent). But rather than his usual duties, the homeplate umpire largely remained silent, only calling foul balls and any potential plays at the plate.

Byrnes, for his part, gave the technology a voice. Mic'd up during the game, he'd grunt "STRIIIIKE" with an umpire's gusto and flatly call "ball" with every outside pitch. And unlike a traditional umpire, Byrnes could occasionally let some personality in. "Just caught the outside corner dude, and I'm talking just nicked it."

Vallejo Admirals Third Baseman Joshua Wong told Ars before the game that he was encouraged by the Pitchf/x tests he saw.

"I feel like it speeds the game up more, it gets the hitters to swing at more pitches," he said. "It’s good for the game. Just being more accurate and having better calls is going to help us more."

Old tech, new experiment

Pitchf/x isn't a new invention. It has been in use behind the scenes for a decade to record both the precise location and trajectory of pitches. It’s already used in all 30 Major League Baseball parks for analytics purposes as well as online and television broadcasts. If you've seen a Sunday Night Baseball game on ESPN, you're familiar with Pitchf/x's work. (A predecessor system by a now-defunct company, whose product was called PitchTrax, debuted as far back as 2002.)

In many ways, Major League Baseball has historically been averse to adding technology. Unlike other sports that have at least embraced computers or cameras for scoring confirmation or play reviews, MLB instant replay only debuted in full during the 2014 season. But when it comes to utilizing a RoboUmp for something as integral to the game as pitcher-hitter interactions, technology must cope with uncertainty. Consider MLB's inherently relative definition of the strike zone:

The STRIKE ZONE is that area over home plate the upper limit of which is a horizontal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants, and the lower level is a line at the hollow beneath the kneecap. The Strike Zone shall be determined from the batter's stance as the batter is prepared to swing at a pitched ball.

In other words, it’s roughly the space over the plate measured from the armpits or letters across a player’s chest to the knees. It literally changes from hitter to hitter. And as any good pitcher knows, it may slightly change with every umpire. Identifying where that space is in a split second, particularly in the lower or higher corners, is more art than science. Catchers also play a role by attempting to frame a pitch by quickly adjusting their gloves after the catch to indicate to the umpire that the ball was, in fact, caught in the zone.

Umpires do their best, but they make mistakes. Heckling and coaches' arguments wouldn’t be part of the game if they were perfect every time. For its part, Pitchf/x’s hardware defines a strike as any ball that touches the strike zone—which likely means that some players won’t like what they saw thrown to them.

"I'm sure many people around baseball will be watching the debut of this new system to see how it goes," Jacob Pomrenke, a producer at the Society for American Baseball Research, e-mailed Ars. "There will always be some kinks to work out and it will be intriguing to see how the players respond (especially to calls they don't like!) The idea of using an automated system to call balls and strikes has been talked about for years. It'll be nice to finally have a real-life example to see how it works at the professional level, but there are still a lot of factors that would have to go into the decision to implement this type of system at the major-league or the affiliated minor-league level. This is a system that is very dependent on precise technology, and even the Pitchf/x system that MLB has used for nearly a decade now continues to have hiccups and glitches that require human intervention."

Pomrenke pointed out that most problems the software has had were relatively minor. Grantlandoutlined a few such errors from this exact setup in 2013, and most had to do with mis-calibration. In order for sensors and software to replace human umps, fans and the MLB would have to be "willing to accept a much smaller amount of inexplicable error in exchange for a larger amount of explicable error," Dan Brooks, founder of Pitchf/x repository and BrooksBaseball.net, told Grantland at the time.

The implementation of RoboUmp on this night is essentially a passion project for Byrnes. If all goes well (the "ump" will work tomorrow's game too), he hopes that future home plate umpires could work in tandem with a Pitchf/x-like system, utilizing something resembling a watch that was in use for the 2014 World Cup to alert refs about goal-line technology.

"I think when you do see this in the major leagues, it will be very clean, it’ll be something where the fans won’t even notice," he added.

As for things in Marin County, this was one time where the umpire truly did steal the show. The game itself moved along briskly but largely without action; San Rafael led 1-0 in the sixth and the two teams combined for less than 10 hits total. Chatter in the stands instead focused on the ump, most of it supportive. No one showered the tech with familiar boos or "You suck, ump!" refrains.

For those involved with the experiment, like Pacifics’ Assistant General Manager Vinnie Longo, they hope such talk is a sign of things to come.

"If the system does well, we're going to have a great storyline to talk about for the next couple of years," he told Ars.

Original News: http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/07/for-the-first-time-sensors-and-a-computer-play-umpire-in-a-pro-baseball-game/

Computer skills scheme brings parents up to speed

Mum-of-five Falaiga Tumoli no longer has to rely on her children to show her basic computing skills.

Tumoli, and friend Julie Ausage recently graduated from the 2020 Communication Trust's Computers In Homes programme.

The Christchurch women were among some 28 families who received computers as part of Computers in Homes, which supports families with children at school to join the online world.

"My kids know more than me and I'm just old school. I wanted to further my computing skills," Tumoli said.

The graduation was the first for a new partnership between Rowley Avenue School, Computers in Homes and Pasifika PowerUp, which is an education programme that supports Pasifika parents and families to champion their children's learning.

Tumoli signed up for the 10-week course to get up to speed with her five children aged six to 15. She said new technology was all unfamiliar territory.

Tumoli and Ausage grew up with typewriters and without the internet.

"I never knew the basics of how. I only learnt because of my kids. I wanted to learn, so I've been watching my kids to see what they're doing," Tumoli said. "When this course came up, I went 'oh bingo'."

"It was the lottery," added Ausage.

They then completed a training session once a week for 10 weeks. There were ten Mums and Dads in their weekly two-hour class.

"It was good because we didn't know a lot of them but during the class we all became close," Tumoli said.

They started with the basics and learnt how to use power point, Microsoft Office and touch typing.

Tumoli ran a children's play group at Rowley Avenue School, with the help of Ausage. The pair were now looking forward to incorporating their new skills into their daily work.

"Being on this course has helped me a lot," Tumoli said.

Where before Ausage had to feed words to Tumoli to type emails or messages on the play groups' Facebook page, to promote events and initiatives, they could now share the computing part.

Graduates received a computer and could now access 12 months of technical support and subsidised internet.

"I got a laptop so I can carry it round, and everyone can see that I know how to use a computer," Tumoli said.

Families paid a total of $50 for the service.

The Computers in Homes programme operated throughout New Zealand and over 1500 families graduated every year.

Tumoli said her children were happy she had been on the course, because she no longer had to ask them for help.

In Christchurch, some 150 families graduated in the last year, with the help of funding by the Ministry of Education.

Senior teacher Mamaitaloa Sagapolutele said Computers in Homes had given an opportunity for Pasifika parents to feel good about new learning, especially for their children.

Original News: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/christchurch-life/70437938/computer-skills-scheme-brings-parents-up-to-speed

Computer Education Eludes Government School Students

SRIKAKULAM:Computer education in govt schools remains a short-lived joy for the poor students. Government has provided computers in govt schools to give students a level-playing field with their counterparts of corporate schools. However, the computer education has of late become a mirage for the students of govt schools due to the abrupt termination of computer teachers.

The state govt had launched Information and communication technology scheme five years ago and implemented it in 5,000 schools in 2008 and extended it to 1,300 more schools in 2009. Thejob was entrusted to private agencies and the computer labs were set up not only in govt schools but also in zilla parishad and municipal schools. Under the scheme, 203 computer labs were set up in govt schools in Srikakulam district to impart computer education to students. With each school provided with 10 computers, the district got a total of 2,260 computers. Schools were also allotted two computer teachers, recruited on contract basis. All the students, both girls and boys, were imparted computer education like in private schools till last year. However, the computer teachers were removed with the excuse that the scheme had lapsed. Govt terminated the services of computer teachers in phases. Initially teachers of 156 schools were terminated in April 2014 and the remaining teachers of 47 schools by July 2015. There is no computer education for the students now and the computer labs also remain locked.

Moreover, there are hours allotted in the timetable for computer education, the other subject teachers are utilising that time for taking classes since there are no specified computer teachers.  Higher officials issued instructions that teachers who have computer knowledge should alone take computer classes but govt is mulling over the idea of entrusting the responsibility to impart computer education on other subject teachers who are reluctant to take up the responsibility thereby leaving the students in the lurch.

In this scenario, the students seemed to have forgotten what they had learnt earlier and are scared that they might be deprived of computer educations this academic year as well. Harita, a Class X student in the Municipal High School of Srikakulam, expressed anguish that computer education was not available in govt schools though the private schools impart it right from Class I. “As we are not from well-to-do families we cannot afford private school education, therefore we are deprived of all the opportunities,” she said.

APTF state vice-president S.Rajasekhar said, “Demanding other subject teachers to impart computer education would be a wrong decision as it requires special skills.”  The aim would be achieved only if trained computer teachers do the job, added Rajasekhar.

DEO Devananda Reddy, responding to the situation, said that measures would be taken to impart computer education in the govt schools. “I have passed orders to head masters of respective schools to take up the responsibility of reopening computer labs. The govt would shortlist computer teachers on the basis of strong subject knowledge and later get them trained by Microsoft. These teachers would then take computer classes for the students,” the DEO clarified.

Original News: http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra_pradesh/Computer-Education-Eludes-Government-School-Students/2015/07/24/article2937398.ece

End of the world is not nigh after all (it's been pushed back till 2100): Scientists use computer model to predict how quickly resources will run out

The end of the world has been put back by at least 50 years by a team of British scientists.

A doom-laden US study in 1972 predicted that the earth would run out of food and resources, becoming uninhabitable by around 2050.

Now scientists at Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute have claimed we have a little more grace – until the end of this century, or the year 2100.

To come to their conclusion, the team updated the 1970s computer model used to predict how finite the Earth’s resources are. 

The researchers four decades ago failed to take into account a number of factors that mean we are safe for a few years yet.

They include the industrial sector creating less pollution and using less energy than expected based on trends in the 1970s. Industry is also doing more to clean up pollution than the earlier forecasts assumed.

They did not foresee a huge rise in the service sector and telecommunications – making the world’s economy more productive .

And innovations in agriculture have allowed more food to be grown on the world’s land.

Aled Jones, co-author of the study in journal Sustainability, said: ‘They made a good attempt in the 1970s but it might have been too pessimistic.

‘The limit is pushed back to the second half of this century.’

He added: ‘Many questions remain on exactly when planetary limits will be reached and what the consequences will be. 

‘When you run the newly-calibrated World3 model forward in time, society still collapses this century based on reasonable guesses of these limits, although there is of course great uncertainty around exactly what these limits are.

‘Growth cannot continue indefinitely if it is based on material consumption, and not grounded in our understanding that the planet has limited land availability and resources.

‘Society has started to address some of the problems outlined in 1972, but we need to learn lessons from what we have already achieved and focus our efforts on avoiding these limits.’  

Original News:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3172840/Scientists-use-computer-model-predict-end-world.html

Weisman: Putting off software updates? Bad idea!

Adobe Flash software is a highly used video software program so it should be of little surprise that it is highly scrutinized for vulnerabilities by hackers who exploit these vulnerabilities to gain access to their targets' computers. Unpatched vulnerabilities in Adobe Flash software were exploited by Russian hackers who in the last year hacked into the White House and State Department computer systems.

Recently, the security firm, FireEye found attempts to attack aerospace, defense, construction, technology and telecom companies by exploiting the flaw in Adobe Flash uncovered by FireEye. FireEye confidentially and promptly notified Adobe which quickly created a patch for the problem. A link to the patch can be found below.

The problem is that hackers are now distributing kits on black market websites that enable other hackers to exploit this vulnerability on computers that have not been updated and all too often government agencies, individuals and companies fail to update their software in a timely fashion.

Already this flaw is being exploited by hackers as a way of getting victims to download Ransomware on to their computers. Ransomware encrypts and locks your computer data. The hacker then threatens to destroy the data unless a ransom is paid immediately.

Mark Twain once said, "Never put off until tomorrow, what you can do the day after tomorrow" and many computer users in government and private industry as well as individual computer users take his advice to heart. Twain, however, never had a computer and if you do have a computer, you cannot put off installing security updates and patches for your computer's software without running the serious risk of becoming the victim of hackers who are always looking to take advantage of those people who fail to protect their computers after a security patch or update is available.

However, if you are one of those procrastinators, you are not alone. According to a 2014 report of the Minority Staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, while IRS officials said that they expected critical patches to be installed within 72 hours of becoming available, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found it took the IRS an average of 55 days to install critical security patches and updates, thereby leaving IRS computers extremely vulnerable to cyberattacks. The same Senate report also found the Department of Homeland Security repeatedly failed to install software updates and security patches.

Once a security update or patch is released, even hackers who may not have been aware of the vulnerabilities now being patched are put on notice of the software flaws and they rush to take advantage of those of us who delay installing the security updates.

Businesses, government agencies and individual computer users must learn to make it a priority to install the latest security patches and updates as soon as they become available.

Although, not a security update, the new Windows 10 operating system is scheduled to start being released on July 29th. If you are a user of Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 you are eligible to receive the new Windows 10 operating system for free. Microsoft is letting these customers reserve the new operating system now. Microsoft is notifying customers through a new icon on your taskbar or a popup message. Clicking on the message will take you to a page where you can sign up by merely providing your email address.

Once Windows 10 is available Microsoft will then download it to your computer. Over the years Microsoft has issued new operating systems after years of patches and updates of the previous operating systems. When it became too cumbersome and difficult to patch the old operating systems, new ones have been released.

Unfortunately, many individuals and companies still use the old operating systems, such as Windows XP although they were warned for years that new security updates would no longer be issued after a specific date. People and companies continuing to use the old operating systems, particularly Windows XP have become easy targets for hackers exploiting the vulnerabilities of the older operating systems.

The upcoming release of Windows 10 will be exploited by scammers and identity thieves. In particular you may receive emails or text messages with links or downloads that purport to be of Windows 10. Don't trust them. Microsoft is not contacting people by emails or text messages regarding Windows 10.

Any email or text message, regardless of how legitimate it may look asking you to download an attachment or click on a link to install your Windows 10 is a scam. If you click on those links or download those attachments all you will succeed in doing is downloading malware that will make you a victim of identity theft.

Steve Weisman is a lawyer, a professor at Bentley University and one of the country's leading experts in scam, cybersecurity and identity theft. He writes the blog www.scamicide.com, and his new book is Identity Theft Alert.

Original News: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/2015/07/13/updating-software-steve-weisman/29979399/

Singapore Computer Society names city’s best tech companies to work for

Among them are video game developer Ubisoft Singapore, communications security provider Treebox Solutions, and Microsoft Singapore.

SINGAPORE: Ubisoft Singapore is one of four tech companies named as the best tech companies to work for by the Singapore Computer Society at its inaugural "Best Tech Company to Work For” Awards presentation on Wednesday (Jul 8).

Ubisoft Singapore won the award in the large company/MNC category.The video game developer's Singapore studio was set up in 2008 and contributed to AAA titles such as the Assassin's Creed franchise.

It said innovation is an important facet of the company's culture. “The landscape is definitely very competitive,” said Ubisoft Singapore’s managing director Olivier de Rotalier. “But I think people now realise that beyond the product, the fun of the product we are doing, we are really very serious about technology and innovation.

"We are pushing innovation in a lot of areas like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, computographics, like network technologies. We are pushing all those areas in the company and I think that more and more people are interested in the industry.”

Communications security provider, TreeBox Solutions, won the award for the Start-up/Small Organisation categories for companies with less than or not exceeding five years of incorporation or less than 50 employees.

For a small enterprise, one big challenge is in competing with large firms for infocommunications technology talent. TreeBox said its corporate culture plays a large role in convincing applicants to come onboard.

Said founder and CEO Chong Chee Wah: "It's actually a very, very significant factor in the whole recruitment process. As I mentioned, these are all talented individuals - they would not have problems getting a well-paid job from large companies. There must be something that we do, or something that we have that can attract them. I think that plays a big part in how we position the interview."

When it comes to the next generation, a company's working culture and development opportunities look set to play a big role in attracting talent.

“The graduates as they come into the workforce, are looking for good experiences. It's not just about traditional thinking of 'Hey look let's find a stable job'. They are looking for great experiences, great working environments. Something they can collectively aspire toward," said Mr Howie Lau, president of the Singapore Computer Society .

"So for these companies to say, 'I not only have a compelling vision but a great culture, I have wonderful environment where we can develop you and give you different opportunities’, I think that makes a difference."

According to the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, employment in the infocomm sector has been growing steadily. Manpower in the sector last year grew 2.4 per cent to 150,200.

Other winners include Microsoft Singapore in the large organisations/MNCs category and JustCommodity Software Solutions in the mid-sized organisations category. 

Original News:http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/singapore-computer/1969846.html

IBM Announces Computer Chips More Powerful Than Any in Existence

IBM said on Thursday that it had made working versions of ultradense computer chips, with roughly four times the capacity of today’s most powerful chips.

The announcement, made on behalf of an international consortium led by IBM, the giant computer company, is part of an effort to manufacture the most advanced computer chips in New York’s Hudson Valley, where IBM is investing $3 billion in a private-public partnership with New York State, GlobalFoundries, Samsung and equipment vendors.

The development lifts a bit of the cloud that has fallen over the semiconductor industry, which has struggled to maintain its legendary pace of doubling transistor density every two years.

Intel, which for decades has been the industry leader, has faced technical challenges in recent years. Moreover, technologists have begun to question whether the longstanding pace of chip improvement, known as Moore’s Law, would continue past the current 14-nanometer generation of chips.

Each generation of chip technology is defined by the minimum size of fundamental components that switch current at nanosecond intervals. Today the industry is making the commercial transition from what the industry generally describes as 14-nanometer manufacturing to 10-nanometer manufacturing.

Michael Liehr of the SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, left, and Bala Haranand of IBM examine a wafer comprised of the new chips. They are not yet ready for commercial manufacturing. CreditDarryl Bautista/IBM         

Each generation brings roughly a 50 percent reduction in the area required by a given amount of circuitry. IBM’s new chips, though still in a research phase, suggest that semiconductor technology will continue to shrink at least through 2018.

The company said on Thursday that it had working samples of chips with seven-nanometer transistors. It made the research advance by using silicon-germanium instead of pure silicon in key regions of the molecular-size switches.

The new material makes possible faster transistor switching and lower power requirements. The tiny size of these transistors suggests that further advances will require new materials and new manufacturing techniques.

As points of comparison to the size of the seven-nanometer transistors, a strand of DNA is about 2.5 nanometers in diameter and a red blood cell is roughly 7,500 nanometers in diameter. IBM said that would make it possible to build microprocessors with more than 20 billion transistors.

“I’m not surprised, because this is exactly what the road map predicted, but this is fantastic,” said Subhashish Mitra, director of the Robust Systems Group in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University.

Even though IBM has shed much of its computer and semiconductor manufacturing capacity, the announcement indicates that the company remains interested in supporting the nation’s high technology manufacturing base.

“This puts IBM in the position of being a gentleman gambler as opposed to being a horse owner,” said Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering, a Seaford, N.Y., consulting firm, referring to the fact that IBM’s chip manufacturing facility was acquired by GlobalFoundries effective last week

IBM's seven-nanometer node transistors. A strand of DNA is about 2.5 nanometers in diameter and a red blood cell is roughly 7,500 nanometers in diameter. CreditIBM Research

“They still want to be in the race,” he added.

IBM now licenses the technology it is developing to a number of manufacturers and GlobalFoundries, owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, to make chips for companies including Broadcom, Qualcomm and Advanced Micro Devices.

The semiconductor industry must now decide if IBM’s bet on silicon-germanium is the best way forward.

It must also grapple with the shift to using extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, light to etch patterns on chips at a resolution that approaches the diameter of individual atoms. In the past, Intel said it could see its way toward seven-nanometer manufacturing. But it has not said when that generation of chip making might arrive.

IBM also declined to speculate on when it might begin commercial manufacturing of this technology generation. This year, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company said that it planned to begin pilot product of seven-nanometer chips in 2017. Unlike IBM, however, it has not demonstrated working chips to meet that goal.

It is uncertain whether the longer exposure times required by the new generation of EUV photolithographic stepper machines would make high-speed manufacturing operations impossible. Even the slightest vibration can undermine the precision of the optics necessary to etch lines of molecular thicknesses, and the semiconductor industry has been forced to build specialized stabilized buildings to try to isolate equipment from vibration.

An IBM official said that the consortium now sees a way to use EUV light in commercial manufacturing operations.

“EUV is another game changer,” said Mukesh Khare, vice president for semiconductor research at IBM. To date, he noted, the demonstration has taken place in a research lab, not in a manufacturing plant. Ultimately the goal is to create circuits that have been reduced in area by another 50 percent over the industry’s 10-nanometer technology generation scheduled to be introduced next year.

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Confluence of computer outages could foreshadow challenges facing tech-dependent world

SAN FRANCISCO –  Modern technology has made it easier for people to do all kinds of things, from banking to shopping to finding a date.

So when technology breaks down, people's lives go haywire, too.

Computer outages at United Airlines, the New York Stock Exchange and The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday delivered a reminder about our growing dependence on interconnected networks to get through each day.

For the most part, technology has worked smoothly while hatching innovations and conveniences that have made our lives easier and our jobs more productive. Computers, though, could bring more frequent headaches as they link together with billions of other electronic devices and household appliances — a phenomenon that has become known as the "Internet of things."

This technological daisy chain will increase the complexity of the systems and raise the risks of massive breakdowns, either through an inadvertent glitch or a malicious attack.

"The problem is humans can't keep up with all the technology they have created," said Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner. "It's becoming unmanageable by the human brain. Our best hope may be that computers eventually will become smart enough to maintain themselves."

Technology already is controlling critical systems such as airline routes, electricity grids, financial markets, military weapons, commuter trains, street traffic lights and our lines of communications.

Now, computers are taking other aspects of our lives as we depend on smartphones to wake us up in the morning before an app turns on the coffee pot in the kitchen for a caffeine fix that can be enjoyed in a the comfort of a home kept at an ideal temperature by an Internet-connected thermostat designed to learn the occupant's preferences.

Within the next few years, we may even be unlocking our doors with high-tech watches after being chauffeured home in robotic cars.

Technology's relentless march demands better security measures to prevent hackers from breaking into system and more rigid programming standards to reduce the chances of crippling outages, said Lillian Ablon, a technology researcher for the Rand Corp.

"Instead of just letting the technology rush ahead of us and then trying to catch up in terms of privacy and security, we should be baking those things into the systems from the start," she said. "We need to be a little smarter on how we are coding things."

The sequence of Wednesday's outages appears to have been a fluke. Sabotage isn't suspected, FBI Director James Comey said during an appearance before Congress.

But a domino effect may have contributed to The Wall Street Journal's outage. Comey believes the newspaper's website buckled after the New York Stock Exchange's problems caused alarmed investors looking for information to swamp the Journal's website.

The length of Wednesday's outages also is disconcerting, Gartner's Litan said.

It took the New York Stock Exchange more than three-and-half hours to resume trading, slowing Wall Street's usually furious pace. A "router issue" at United Airlines grounded its planes for nearly two hours, leading to 800 flight delays and 60 cancellations.

"Everyone needs to assume technology is going to go down sometimes, but you should be resilient enough to quickly recover from the outage within a half hour, if not a few minutes," Litan said.

Wednesday's breakdowns were minor inconveniences compared with what might happen if better security measures aren't imposed to keep out intruders bent on wreaking havoc, said Jeff Williams, chief technology officer for Contrast Security.

Too often, the technology industry's focus is on creating something cool and worrying about security later, Williams said. He said the lackadaisical attitude breeds a mindset like this: "Oh, we'll just put your blender on the Internet, there are no security issues there. And hackers figure out a way to turn on your blender in the middle of the night and set your house on fire."

Computers may get smarter through a combination of better programming, machine learning and more sophisticated chips. If computers can reach the still far-off goal of becoming artificially intelligent, they could be better equipped to prevent problems and fend off unauthorized users. Self-reliant and self-aware computers would still confront humans with a scary question, Litan said: "Are the computers going to be nice to us or are they going to take us out?

Original News:http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/07/09/confluence-computer-outages-could-foreshadow-challenges-facing-tech-dependent/