Sighenz - Part 4

Sony launches new ultra fast XQD™ S Series memory card

Sony XQD™ S Series memory card — XQD™ S Series memory card from Sony, the fastest-ever memory card with 168MB/s read-write speed (Image: © Sony)

Sports photographers can rejoice this summer as Sony launch their new XQD™ S Series memory card, allowing the best-ever shooting performance so far. Offering a sustained read/write transfer speed of 168MB/s (actual speed), the XQD™ S Series actually outpaces the maximum interface speed limit of Compact Flash cards (167 MB/s), and is ideal for storing large volumes of data-heavy RAW files.

The blazing speed and large capacity, should make the card ideal for sports photographers who doesn’t want to be held back by eventual lag in the storage media, and at the same time might be triggering the camera’s shutter remotely and cannot conveniently change media cards in the middle of the action they are trying to capture.

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Dell announce their intent to acquire Quest Software

Yesterday Dell and Quest Software announced they have entered into an agreement for Dell to acquire Quest Software. Dell recently announced the formation of the Dell Software Group, intended to build upon the company’s existing software expertise, but at the same time add to Dell’s enterprise solutions capability. Adding Quest, an award-winning IT management software provider, might just be the perfect thing to help Dell accehive it’s goal to accelerate strategic growth, and increasing the current solutions portfolio with Dell-owned intellectual property.

Under the terms of the agreement, approved by the board of directors of both companies, Dell will pay $28 per share in cash for each share of Quest for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $2.4 billion, net of Quest’s cash and debt. The transaction is expected to close in Q3, subject to customary conditions and Quest shareholder approval.

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eBay wants to power commerce with clean energy

Bloom Energy fuel cells at eBay (Image Credit: Bloom Energy)

eBay Inc. has this week announced a bold new vision for powering their flagship data center, with renewable energy as its primary power source. In a partnership with Bloom Energy, eBay is building the country’s largest non-utility fuel cell installation. In a typical scenario renewable energy supplements the existing electric grid, but by designing renewable energy into the core of its global commerce platform, and incorporating 30 Bloom Energy servers into the new data center’s energy architecture, eBay plans to use the electric utility grid only as a backup.

“We believe the future of commerce can be greener”, said John Donahoe, President and CEO of eBay Inc. “Technology-led innovation is changing retail and revolutionizing how people shop and pay. We also want to revolutionize how shopping is powered. We are embracing disruptive energy technology and designing it into our core data center energy architecture. Running our data centers primarily on reliable, renewable energy, we intend to shape a future for commerce that is more environmentally sustainable at its core.”

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NEC and Tohoku improve Spintronics Logic Integrated Circuits

Researchers at NEC Corporation and Tohoku University have developed the worlds first technology for improving the reliability of spintronics logic integrated circuits. The intention is to reduce the standby power of electronic devices to zero.

Spintronics logic integrated circuits use two of the properties of electrons, namely negative charge and spin, one of the properties of electrons that makes them behave like tiny magnets. By flipping the polarity of these tiny magnets between “north” and “south” according to the direction of an electric current, it is possible to remember the results of a calculation. The behavior of this technology has been verified and proven by using a prototype chip.

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Microsoft just announced the new ‘Microsoft Surface’ Tablet

Microsoft just announced the new Microsoft Surface at their Los Angeles press event. It will come in two versions. One running Windows RT on an ARM processor from Nvidia, and a second using an Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 processor, running Windows 8 Pro. They use Corning Gorilla Glas 2, got dual 2×2 Memo antennas, a 10.6 inch display, front / rear cameras and a built in stand. The edges are beveled, chiseled at a 22-degree angle, so the tablet feels natural in your hand

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Nokia wants to improve your mobile Internet connection

INdT Bulk PMIPv6 Binding Updates — Nokia Institute of Technology (INdT) in Brazil suggest Bulk PMIPv6 Binding Updates to improve the operators networks. (Image: INdT)

A research team at Nokia Institute of Technology (INdT) in Brazil have developed a technology that will allow for a more efficient connection when moving between different cell sites, and also at the same time improving the operators networks. On mobile Internet systems such as 3G and LTE, the users mobility is managed by the use of Proxy Mobile IPv6 (PMIPv6), a protocol standardised by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

To communicate with the outside world, your mobile phone is connected to a particular cell site for both calls and a data connection. At the same time hundreds, thousands or maybe even tens of thousands of people are also attached to that same cell site, at the same time depending on area and population. What the INdT propose is a new way of sending data to the operators cell station, using what they call Bulk PMIPv6 Binding Updates that can greatly reduce the amount of traffic sent to and from the cell station.

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Technology leaders form HSA Foundation to usher innovation

This week, technology leaders AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek and Texas Instruments came together to form the HSA Foundation, a non-profit consortium established to promote the broad and open industry adoption of HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture). The purpose is to define and promote an open standards-based approach to heterogeneous computing. Providing a common hardware specification and broad support ecosystem will make it easier for software developers to create innovative applications that can take greater advantage of today’s modern processors.

The new collaboration was announced at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit (AFDS), and the new independent consortium is open to any and all computing industry professionals with an interest in driving the next era in computing performance and energy efficiency to join. The HSA Foundation plan to deliver robust development solutions for heterogeneous computing, to drive innovative content and applications with developer tools, software developer kits (SDKs), libraries, documentation, training, support and more.

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Intel installs Vietnam’s largest solar facility

Intel's Solar Array in Vietnam — The solar array atop the Vietnam Assembly and Test Factory in Ho Chi Minh City. Image Credit: Intel Free Press

Intel recently installed the largest operating solar power plant in Vietnam at Intel‘s Saigon Hi-Tech Park facility in Ho Chi Minh City. Placed on the roof of the Vietnam Assembly and Test Factory is 1,092 high-efficiency photovoltaic panels, expected to generate about 321,000 kWh per year. The system came online in April and joins a previous installation in Israel as Intel‘s second solar array outside the U.S.

Solar sites converting sunlight to electricity are now located at 15 Intel sites within four states in the U.S., Israel and now also Vietnam. The power of the sun also heats nearly 100 percent of the water used in Intel‘s facilities in Bangalore, India. Intel estimates that the solar installations at it’s facilities generate up to 5.5 million kWh annually, a good thing both for Intel‘s wallet and the environment.

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NASA’s NuSTAR observatory launched this morning

This morning NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) launched over the central Pacific Ocean at 9 a.m. PDT (noon EDT). It’s main objective is to unveil secrets of black holes using a unique set of eyes to see high-energy X-ray light from the cosmos.

“We all eagerly await the launch of this novel X-ray observatory,” said Paul Hertz, NASA’s Astrophysics Division Director. “With its unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution to the previously poorly explored hard X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum, NuSTAR will open a new window on the universe and will provide complementary data to NASA’s larger missions, including Fermi, Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer.”

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Surrey engineers to use Kinect technology to dock satellites

Engineers at the University of Surrey and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) are developing ‘STRaND-2’, a twin-satellite mission, to test a new in-orbit docking system. The system is based on the novel idea of using Microsoft’s XBOX Kinect technology to assist in the alignment during the docking phase. If successful, the new approach has the possibility to change the way space assets are built, maintained and upgraded.

Usually docking control systems are developed for costly missions to the International Space Station, and it has never been employed on the small scale that the researchers now are attempting. They have a vision of using relatively low cost nanosatellites as intelligent “space building blocks”, that could potentially be stacked together and reconfigured to build larger modular spacecrafts, if combined with low cost docking system.

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