The Efficiency Performance motherboard, built with the Intel® Xeon® E5-2600 processor, was originally code-named the Sandy Bridge-EP motherboard.
White spaces and happy faces: TV stations drop lawsuit against “super WiFi”
Now the remaining obstacles to widespread adoption of white spaces technology are mostly technical. Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge told us that supporters of the technology are working on building the databases needed to track which television channels are available for use at any particular time and location. He said the databases are being set up on a “market-by-market basis. When they hit a critical mass of markets, or can accommodate multiple markets, this technology will take off much more strongly.
via White spaces and happy faces: TV stations drop lawsuit against “super WiFi”.
Apple hoards tablet share while market falls off a cliff for first quarter
The first quarter of the calendar year usually results in a decline in unit sales from the previous quarter due to the holiday season rush to buy gadgets. Apple wasn’t completely immune to this market force—IDC says the company shipped 11.8 million iPads during the first quarter of the year, down from 15.4 million units over the holiday season. Despite this drop, Apple’s share of the tablet market was able to shoot up more than 14 percentage points between quarters, largely because of the precipitous decline in tablet sales from the likes of Amazon. According to IDC, Amazon’s share of the tablet market with the Kindle Fire was 16.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, but fell to just 4 percent in the first quarter of 2012.
via Apple hoards tablet share while market falls off a cliff for first quarter.
Mobile Patent Suits
bl.ocks.org – 1153292 – Mobile Patent Suits.
Created 8/2011.
1Gbps wireless network made with red and green laser pointers
Now, I think for the first time ever, researchers at the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan have transmitted data using lasers — not high-powered, laboratory-dwelling lasers; handheld, AAA-battery laser pointers. The setup is rather simple: The engineers took a red and green laser pointer, wired in a 500Mbps data stream into each, and simply pointed them at photodiode receptors. On the receiving end, the signals are amplified and then multiplexed to create a 1Gbps data stream. The complete setup, according to New Scientist, cost just $600.
via 1Gbps wireless network made with red and green laser pointers | ExtremeTech.
Will laser-based VLC actually find its way to market, then? There’s no getting around the fact that laser links are highly directional (even more so than the shoddy IrDA networks of yore), and atmospheric conditions will play a big part in the BER, and thus the actual data rate. With WiGig making its way to market, laser pointer VLC will probably never be seen by consumers. Still, for quick bursts of data between mobile devices, or wireless communications in hospitals, or simply as a fun hobby for amateur radio (?) operators, cheap, laser pointer VLC could be very useful indeed.
Open Compute Project
We started a project at Facebook a little over a year ago with a pretty big goal: to build one of the most efficient computing infrastructures at the lowest possible cost. We decided to honor our hacker roots and challenge convention by custom designing and building our software, servers and data centers from the ground up – and then share these technologies as they evolve.
via Open Compute Project – Hacking Conventional Computing Infrastructure.
Open Compute Wants to Overhaul Data Center Racks
The Open Rack design, which was unveiled today at the Open Compute Summit in San Antonio, also offers an innovative approach to power management. The design features busbars supplying 12-volt power to servers, eliminating the need for individual power supplies for each server. Open Rack also offers standard interfaces for mechanical and electrical components.
via Open Compute Wants to Overhaul Data Center Racks » Data Center Knowledge.
Can Fibre Channel survive Ethernet’s assault?
Computerworld – Fibre Channel, the high-speed data transport protocol for storage area networks (SAN), is under increasing pressure as data centers move toward Ethernet for all data network traffic and SAS for hardware interconnects.
By no means is Fibre Channel down and out. In fact, recent figures indicate it’s still showing low single-digit, year-over-year growth. The protocol is currently used in $50 billion worth of equipment around the world, according to research firm Gartner.
via Protocol wars: Can Fibre Channel survive Ethernet’s assault? – Computerworld.
Apple blocks Dropbox-based apps
Apple is blocking apps that take advantage of the new Dropbox SDK because they inadvertently allow users to buy extra online storage without Apple taking a cut.
via Apple blocks Dropbox-based apps | Enterprise | News | PC Pro.
OONI
OONI is the Open Observatory for Network Interference and its aim is to collect high quality data using open methodologies, using Free and Open Source Software (FL/OSS) to share observations and data about the kind, methods and amount of surveillance and censorship in the world
via – OONI.