Nokia most ecofriendly electronics maker: Greenpeace

The world's leading mobile phone maker Nokia earned the top spot in Greenpeace's ranking of big electronics manufacturers' eco-friendliness, the environmental organisation said Tuesday.

Nokia scored seven points out of 10 in a report ranking companies on their policies regarding chemicals, waste and energy. Japanese game maker Nintendo came in last with a score of 0.8.

Greenpeace praised among other things Nokia's improved return programme in India, where it has 354 collection points enabling customers to return their old mobile phones to the maker for free.

"Nokia scores very well on toxic chemical issues, launching new models free of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) since the end of 2005 and aiming to have all new models free of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and antimony trioxide (a chemical flame retardant) by the end of 2009," Greenpeace said in its report.

It also noted that 25 percent of the energy used by the Finnish handset maker in 2007 came from renewable sources and that it aims to increase use of renewables to 50 percent by 2010.


"We want manufacturers to eliminate harmful chemicals in their product design. We want to see an end to the stories of unprotected child labourers scavenging mountains of cast-off gadgets," the group said in a statement.

Korea's Samsung came in second position with 5.7 points. It scored well on chemicals and waste criteria and for making energy-efficient products.

Fujitsu Siemens Computers took the third spot with 5.5 points, having set late 2010 as its deadline for eliminating toxic PVC plastic and all BFRs from its products.

Greenpeace slammed Nintendo and US software maker Microsoft for their use of toxic chemicals and poor handling of discarded electronic products. The companies received scores of 0.8 and 2.2 points respectively.

Source : http://www.spacemart.com/

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Swords and Shields: F-35 beats Russians

Russia lags behind the United States in aerospace research and development. It has yet to produce decent competitors to America's two new, fifth-generation fighter jets, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter and the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor.

The main Russian rivals to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightnings are the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-35 (NATO designation Fulcrum F) and the Sukhoi Su-35 (NATO designation Flanker). The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-35 is an upgrade of the MiG-29M/M2 and the MiG-29OVT. Both are fourth-generation jets.

The Russian government has been eagerly selling the Sukhoi fighter jets to its friends, so these aircraft are likely to be found in areas where the potential for conflict is greatest, while financing development of the fifth-generation fighter from these export revenues.

Russian analysts like to note that the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning JSF, with a maximum speed of only 1,200 mph, is slower than both the Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker -- maximum speed 1,680 mph -- and the MiG-35 Fulcrum -- maximum speed 1,587 mph. The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning's range of 1,320 miles is below the Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker's range of 2,260 miles as well.

While these measures make the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter seem inferior, they are actually fully consistent with its projected mission: F-35s are designed to operate in tandem with Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptors, which would clear the way for F-35s in real combat.


Moreover, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning JSF's reported service ceiling of around 57,000 feet is superior to the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-35 Fulcrum's 56,000 feet and the Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker's 55,000 feet. The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning JSF also claims a significant advantage in maneuverability because of its smaller size, advanced materials and lightweight construction.

On the record, Russian defense officials insist their Sukhoi and Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG fighters can stand up to their American rivals. But a Russian Defense Ministry expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Pravda.ru that Russia "patches" its fourth-generation modifications to extend their lifespan, while most of its fifth-generation fighter program has largely remained on paper.

In fact, statistics are only the broadest indicators of an aircraft's performance. Combat performance analysis includes maneuverability, stealth, tactics, training, avionics, situation awareness, weapons, countermeasures, interoperability and supportability as major factors.

Stealth is a major discriminator between a 5G fighter like the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter and "Gen 4 plus plus" competitors like the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-35 Fulcrum and the Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker that are essentially modernizations of their respective progenitors, the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 and the Sukhoi Su-27. No operational Soviet or Russian stealth aircraft has ever been reported to have entered service.

A U.S. analyst who requested anonymity said that while the Russians have some good specific system technologies, their ability to effectively integrate them often lags behind that of the West, and the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter takes integration of off-board intelligence to a step well beyond proven Russian capabilities.

"From the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union until crude oil prices recently rose to $100 per barrel, the ability of Russian aircraft designers to transition their advanced scientific knowledge through RDT&E (research, development, test and evaluation) into production-ready systems has been restricted, with funding available almost solely from sales of its legacy 4th Gen MiG-29 and Su-27 fighters to other countries," the analyst said.

With oil prices collapsing, the challenges of serial production of advanced aerospace weapons systems remains, while the Russian highly skilled military space and aviation industry labor force is pushing 60 -- beyond the life expectancy of an average Russian male.

Sukhoi Su-30 fighters bought by China and India were more advanced than those in Russian air force service, which were procured only in small quantities. Progress in completing the production development of the PAK-FA T-50, Russia's first 5G fighter design, remains dependent on Indian funding.

While notable improvements have been made in the reliability and supportability of Russian aircraft systems, they still fall far short of Western standards. This is particularly true of aircraft engines.

Russia has a long way to go to catch up with the United States in the prestigious new generation fighter competition. Only domestic politics, such as in Europe; declining economic fortunes of potential partners; and high production costs of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter may slow down its triumphant march.

(Ariel Cohen, Ph.D., is a senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian studies and international energy security at the Catherine and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute at The Heritage Foundation).

source : http://www.spacewar.com/

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Israel wants own technology on F-35 stealth fighters

JERUSALEM, Oct. 3 (Xinhua) -- As Israel plans to buy the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) from the United States, the Israeli Defense Ministry is seeking American approval to install Israeli-made technology on the stealth fighter jets it buys.

One reason for Israel to ask for the changes is that the version of Israel Air Force (IAF) will be unique and superior in case the aircraft is also sold to Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries, said a Thursday report by local daily The Jerusalem Post.

"We have unique needs and need to retain our superiority in the region," a senior Israeli defense official was quoted as saying. "To meet these needs, we must be able to install our own systems."

With the Iranian nuclear threat looming, Israel has been looking for further U.S. support on a variety of defense measures, including developing advanced missile defense capabilities, acquiring smart bomb technology and expediting the F-35 sale.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Defense Department notified Congress of plans to sell up to 75 Joint Strike Fighter fifth-generation fighter jets to Israel in a 15.2-billion-U.S. dollar deal for the aircraft, which is expected to be the mainstay of air power in the U.S. and several other nations for decades.

The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said it informed Congress last Friday that Israel has asked to buy 25 of the F-35s,with an option to buy an additional 50 at a later date.



In its statement to Congress, the DSCA said the sale would help Israel "develop and maintain a strong self-defense capability" and that the deal would not upset the balance of military power in the region.

The sale would be the first to a country outside the U.S. and the other eight partner nations that are collaborating on the F-35,which is manufactured by Lockheed Martin, the largest U.S. defense contractor, according to The Jerusalem Post.

The first batch of 25 would be the variant of F-35 designed for conventional takeoff from military airfields, but the later 50 could include a version that can land and take off vertically, similar to a helicopter.

If approved by Congress in the next 30 days, Israel will likelysign an official contract with the U.S. Air Force in the coming months and begin receiving the aircraft in 2014, said the report.

While news of the Pentagon approval was positively received in Israeli Defense Ministry, Israeli officials said it was still too early to celebrate since Israel has yet to receive final Pentagon approval to allow the IAF to install Israeli-made systems in the plane.

Israeli demands include installing an advanced radar and conformal fuel tank design for long-range missions made by Israel Aerospace Industries, as well as other electronic and weapons systems that could require changes to the configuration of the aircraft.

The technology issue was discussed last week between the IAF and a team of U.S. military officers from the Joint Strike Fighter program who were in Israel. It was also at the focus of talks Israeli Defense Ministry Director-General Pinhas Buchris held in Washington earlier this month.

The result of the negotiations will be a determining factor in the number of aircraft Israel decides to purchase.

If Israel exercises the vertical option, it would be the first time that the IAF obtains this capability, needed out of fear that Israeli airfields would be paralyzed by enemy missiles in a future conflict and planes would have difficulty taking off in a conventional fashion, said The Jerusalem Post.

Britain, Turkey and Australia are among the eight countries participating in the Joint Strike Fighter program.

Israel enjoys the status of a Security Cooperation Participant after paying 20 million U.S. dollars in 2003 to obtain access to information accumulated during the development of the jet, which will be priced at somewhere between 50 million to 60 million U.S. dollars.

The jet is still under development and is not yet in service. While the jet is expected to be widely used, the program has suffered delays and escalating costs that have been criticized by government auditors.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/03/content_10146022.htm

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Israel Deploys New Missile Tracker Against Hamas

NEW YORK -- In yet another signal that the war with Hamas may be intensifying, Israeli media are reporting that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have deployed an experimental new rocket tracking tracking system in the port city of Ashkelon, near the Gaza border.

The IAI MC4 is now in place and operational in Ashkelon reports The Jerusalem Post.

The MC4, a new product of Israel Aerospace Industries, is an outgrowth of the Arrow anti-missile system jointly developed by Israel and the Pentagon.

The Arrow, a successor to the Patriot, was designed as part of President Reagan's Star Wars anti-missile defense originally designed to counter Soviet ICBMs.

While both the Patriot and the Arrow were designed to intercept and neutralize incoming ballistic missiles, the MC4 is designed to counter much smaller missiles such as 122mm ammunitions including Russi an made Katyusha's.

The smaller missiles are quickly launched and have a much more restricted range, giving the attacker the ability to rapidly move to new locations and minimize any counter-measures.

Tracking such highly mobile launch sites had been very difficult as Israel experienced in fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006.


As a result of the Lebanese war, IAI began a crash program to counter such mini-missiles which caused havoc in Haifa in 2006 and now in the Ashdod-Ashkelon region.

According to The Post, the MC4 had been deployed for field testing in Ashkelon last week, but now has been activated for full operation.

Built by the Malam Missile and Space Factory of IAI, the MC4 uses state-of-the-art technology including GPS and camera sensors to scan areas where rocket launch sites may be suspected.

Once a launch is detected, the MC4 pinpoints the site and projected flight path. It also has the ability to back track launches already in progress.

According to Israeli sources, the MC4 gives the IDF the ability to hit rocket launch sites in a manner that did not exist during the Lebanese war.

The MC4 is said to have the ability to triangulate the coordinates of launch sites within a minute of a firing, giving the IDF a new opportunity to respond to "hit and run" missile attacks. It can also pinpoint targets hit, giving emergency medical teams quicker response times.

Neither the US nor Russia currently have such systems in their arsenals say military sources.

Source : http://www.newsmax.com/

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Technology Delivers War Propaganda to Gaza, Israeli Citizens

To the suicide vest, the rocket and the battering ram, those longtime staples of conflict in the Middle East, add the cell phone.

Both sides in the Gaza war have employed cell phones as a form of psychological warfare, among other purposes -- part of a trend toward using new media in a century-old conflict.

Hagar Mizrachi, a 25-year-old Israeli, recently received a text message that said rocket attacks on all of Israel's cities were imminent. The message was signed "Hamas" and the sender name was listed as "Qassam.hamm," he said. Qassams are rockets that Hamas militants have been firing from Gaza into southern Israel. "It's unnerving to receive something like that," said Mizrachi, an editor at an online news service. "It feels like they've invaded you."


Effective Tool, Poor Grammar

Yaniv Levyatan, a psychological warfare expert at the University of Haifa, said cell phones are a natural tool because soldiers and militants are generally young and have grown up using them. Israel and Gaza are small, densely populated areas blanketed by wireless service, making the phones' use even more effective, he said.

Levyatan said the messages from Hamas to Israeli cell phones were generally crude and not targeted very well. "The Hebrew was terrible," he said.

Palestinian phone users report receiving calls on both cell phones and land lines, encouraging them to turn in Hamas militants or warning them their home is about to be bombed, said Amman Aker, head of the Palestinian mobile phone company Jawwal, which operates in Gaza.

"We can't do anything about it," Aker said. He said the calls come in from international carriers and cannot be traced or blocked.

Israeli officials say they are doing Palestinians a service by advising them of impending attacks so civilians can get out of a building.

"We have to do what we can to warn civilians," said Maj. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli military spokesperson. Dallal declined to discuss how the Israeli military obtains cell phone numbers in Gaza. Land-line phone numbers here are generally available in phone books.
Leave Them Behind

Jonathan Fighel, a retired Israeli colonel at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, based near Tel Aviv, said it's relatively simple for both sides to use cell phones and land lines to spread their messages. He compared the technology to that used by telemarketers around the world, who obtain lists of phone numbers and then use computers to place automatic calls.

This isn't the first war in which cell phones have been a relevant issue for Israel. During the war in Lebanon in 2006, Israeli soldiers commonly tucked their phones into their cargo pockets when they went onto the battlefield and regularly used them to call home or keep in touch with friends.

The constant phone calls from the field became a security issue since Hezbollah militants had the capacity to listen in on conversations. "We know it was common in Lebanon that the bad guys were eavesdropping on cell phones," said Shlomo Brom, a retired Israeli brigadier general. In Gaza, soldiers have been ordered to leave their phones at their base, Dallal said.

The cell phone battles are part of an aggressive effort by both sides to use technology to shape the world's perception of the Gaza war. Except for occasional news media tours set up by the Israeli military, foreign journalists have been prevented from reporting from the battlefield.
Other Techy Tools

The Israeli Defense Forces started a YouTube channel shortly after the conflict began Dec. 27. It was the brainchild of a couple of soldiers and has attracted millions of viewers, said Maj. Avital Leibovich, a military spokesperson. The Israeli military posts videos of precision airstrikes and ground forces operating in Gaza. "We want the world to see the conflict from our point of view," Leibovich said.

YouTube allows the Israeli military to communicate directly with the audience, without the filter of traditional news media. "We don't have a mediator here," Leibovich said.

Hamas has a Web presence and has continued to operate a television station called Al-Aqsa. Israel's military has occasionally cut into broadcasts of the Hamas channel to urge the population to turn against militants.

On Jan. 3, Israel's Channel 10 News aired a video it said appeared that day on Al-Aqsa, featuring mug shots of Hamas leaders who had been killed and a ticking clock. "Hamas, your time is running out" flashes across the screen.

Israeli military officials have declined to discuss the reports -- or whether they use phone calls for other means, such as deceiving militants.

"All I can say is we call them, especially when we're going to target a building," Dallal said.

Source : http://www.technewsworld.com/

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Voltaire Powers World's Most Powerful Supercomputer For NNSA's Los Alamos

Voltaire has announced that the company's InfiniBand-based switches are powering the world's largest supercomputer for the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The revolutionary new supercomputer, nicknamed Roadrunner, achieved sustained performance of 1,026 trillion calculations per second breaking the petaflop barrier and surpassing the performance of every other supercomputer operating today.

Roadrunner has also claimed the number-one position on the new Top500 list. This deal reflected multimillion dollar revenue for Voltaire across late 2007 and Q1 2008.

Roadrunner is a collaborative effort between Voltaire, NNSA, IBM and Los Alamos National Laboratory that will primarily be used to ensure the safety and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile. It will also be used for research into astrophysics, energy, disease pathways and global climate.

"Architecting and deploying a new scale of supercomputer is a tremendous accomplishment. One of the pleasant surprises was the stability of the system as it scaled up in size," said Andy White, Roadrunner Project Director at Los Alamos National Laboratory. "The incredible amount of compute power harnessed by this machine will further the country's national security initiatives and aid in new scientific discoveries."


The supercomputer is built entirely from industry-standard hardware and based on the Linux operating system. Based on a hybrid, triblade design, each node consists of two IBM BladeCenter QS22 blades that contain four Cell processors and an LS21 blade with two AMD Opteron chips. The supercomputer uses a total of 26 Voltaire Grid Director 2012 288-port 20 Gbps InfiniBand switches for the high performance interconnect

Voltaire switches deliver 20 Gbps bandwidths and latencies of less than one microsecond to accelerate application performance by as much as 300% as compared to using Ethernet.

Moreover, the switches' power-efficient design offers lower power and cooling requirements as compared to 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet offerings. Voltaire switches employ a unique design that supports both fibre and copper cabling and the longest distances for InfiniBand.

"Voltaire is honored to partner with NNSA, Los Alamos and IBM to break new ground with the development of the world's first petaflop supercomputer," said Ronnie Kenneth, CEO and chairman, Voltaire.

"By selecting Voltaire InfiniBand-based switches as the interconnect, Los Alamos will be able to capitalize on the supercomputer's intensity to run complex calculations and simulations faster and more efficiently."

Source : http://www.spacedaily.com/

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NASA Supercomputer Ranks Among World's Fastest

NASA's newest supercomputer at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., has garnered the number three spot on the Top500 list of the world's most powerful computers. The announcement was made Nov. 17, 2008 at the International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC08) in Austin, Texas.

The Pleiades supercomputer is an SGI Altix ICE system with 12,800 Intel Xeon quad-core processors (51,200 cores, 100 racks) running at 487 trillion floating point operations per second (teraflops) on the LINPACK benchmark, the industry standard for measuring a system's floating point computing power.

One of the most powerful general-purpose supercomputers ever built, Pleiades also features the world's largest InfiniBand interconnect network.

The LINPACK run also measured electrical power consumption-an increasingly important consideration in high-end computing. Using a total of 2.09 megawatts, or 233 megaflops per watt, Pleiades is among the most energy-efficient supercomputers in the world.

"Pleiades represents a significant engineering achievement in several ways," said William Thigpen, Pleiades project manager at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames.


In addition to its power and InfiniBand record, "Pleiades can run NASA codes with minimal modifications, and is compatible with standard desktop engineering workstations so our users can migrate codes easily from their desktops. Users from all key mission areas will have an enormous resource to meet their critical milestones," Thigpen added.

Among the scientific and engineering projects accepted for computer time on Pleiades:

- Extensive simulations of large computational problems for future space vehicle design;

- Development of increasingly detailed models of large-scale dark matter halos and galaxy evolution;

- Running coupled atmosphere-ocean models to assess decadal climate prediction skill for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"Over a record-making few weeks, NASA has again deployed one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world," said Eng Lim Goh, chief technology officer at SGI.

"In the race to achieve superior computational power, NASA's knowledge of rapid yet productive deployment is a rare advantage. We are proud to be part of NASA's ongoing journey to show the world what is possible."

"We look forward to seeing the science breakthroughs enabled by Pleiades," said Stephen Wheat, senior director for high performance computing at Intel Corp. "It's rewarding to see that the performance features of the Intel Xeon quad-core processors meet the growing computational challenges of the nation's space program."

The InfiniBand fabric interconnecting Pleiades' 6,400 nodes requires more than 20 miles of double data rate cabling. InfiniBand is also used as the primary local-area network backbone that interconnects computing, storage, and visualization systems, and to facilitate cross-system data file access.

This enables scientific visualization and data analysis to execute concurrently as computer jobs run, producing ultra-high-fidelity results for the enormous datasets used in NASA mission projects.

Pleiades was acquired to augment the space agency's Columbia supercomputer (ranked No. 2 on the Top500 list in November 2004) in supporting NASA's four key mission areas: aeronautics research, exploration systems, science, and space operations.

source : http://www.spacedaily.com/

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NASA, Intel And SGI Team Up To Soup Up The Supercomputer

NASA, Intel Corp., and SGI today announced the signing of an agreement establishing intentions to collaborate on significantly increasing the space agency's supercomputer performance and capacity.

Under the terms of a Space Act Agreement, NASA will work closely with Intel and SGI to increase computational capabilities for modeling and simulation at the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.

"Achieving such a monumental increase in performance will help fulfill NASA's increasing need for additional computing capacity and will enable us to provide the computational performance and capacity needed for future missions," said Ames Director S. Pete Worden. "This additional computational performance is necessary to help us achieve breakthrough scientific discoveries."

NASA Ames, Intel and SGI will work together on a project called Pleiades to develop a computational system with a capacity of one Petaflops peak performance (1,000 trillion operations per second) by 2009 and a system with a peak performance of 10 Petaflops (10,000 trillion operations per second) by 2012.


"Throughout its history, NASA has sought to explore the most compelling questions about mankind, Earth, and the worlds that await our discovery," said Robert "Bo" Ewald, chief executive officer of SGI.

"SGI is proud to be part of this effort. These groundbreaking new systems powered by SGI and fueled by the latest multi-core Intel processors, offer a platform for new discoveries that will help us all achieve the most promising future for the human race. This effort is important to everyone on this planet."

This collaboration builds on the 2004 deployment of Columbia, which generated a tenfold increase in supercomputing capacity for the agency. Meeting NASA's future mission challenges will require additional computational resources to handle increasingly higher fidelity modeling and simulation. In 2009, NASA expects to increase that computing capability 16 times with the Pleiades project, and by an additional tenfold in 2012.

"Intel, working with SGI, is proud to play an important role in helping NASA expand the pursuit of scientific discovery," said Diane M. Bryant, vice president of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group and general manager or Server Platforms Group, Intel Digital Enterprise Group.

"Systems such as Pleiades challenge the imagination, and guide our exploration of Earth, space, and beyond. As we approach performance that was once thought impossible to achieve, our eyes are opened even wider to the vast possibilities enabled by supercomputing."

Source : http://www.spacedaily.com/

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Microsoft, Intel research parallel computing with US universities

Microsoft and Intel said Tuesday they are teaming with US universities to unleash the mighty potential of multi-core computer chips.

Microsoft and Intel will jointly spend 20 million dollars over five years to fund Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

A recent trend is to increase computing power but reduce electricity use and heat production by crafting multiple processors, or computer brains, into each chip.

Designing software and support architecture that best enables such chips to divide tasks equally among the brains, or cores, in ways that let them simultaneously tend to jobs and maximize computing speeds has proved daunting.

"It is important for industry to work in tandem with academia to unleash the immense power of parallel computing," said Microsoft Research vice president Tony Hey.

"Working jointly with industry and academia, we plan to explore the next generation of hardware and software to unlock the promise and the power of parallel computing and enable a change in the way people use technology."

Intel and rival Advanced Micro Devices already market chips with two or four cores and say it is likely the number will rise. Intel researchers have made an 80-core research processor.

"We're quickly moving the computing industry to a many-core world," said Intel Research director Andrew Chien.

"Working with Microsoft and these two prestigious universities will help catalyze the long-term breakthroughs that are needed to enable dramatic new applications for the mainstream user."

Harnessing the power of multi-core chips will let computers "bridge the physical world with the virtual," according to Chien.

He expects "efficient and robust" applications for digital media, data analysis, and Internet-enabled mobile devices.

Predicted research breakthroughs include software enabling people's mobile telephone to recognize faces of approaching acquaintances and whisper their names to users.

Another foreseeable application is described as voice recognition software so accurate it could be used to record witness testimony in courtroom proceedings.

"This is a once-in-a-career opportunity to recast the foundations of information technology and influence the entire IT industry for decades to come," said UC Berkeley professor of computer sciences David Patterson.

The universities will have to provide millions of dollars in funding for the centers in what is said to be an unprecedented parallel computing research alliance.

source : http://www.spacedaily.com/

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Jaguar Upgrade Brings ORNL Closer To Petascale Computing

Upgrades to Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar supercomputer have more than doubled its performance, increasing the system's ability to deliver far-reaching advances in climate studies, energy research, and a wide range of sciences.

The system recently completed acceptance testing, running applications in climate science, quantum chemistry, combustion science, materials science, nanoscience, fusion science, and astrophysics, as well as benchmarking applications that test supercomputing performance.

The Jaguar system, a Cray XT4 located at ORNL's National Center for Computational Sciences, now uses more than 31,000 processing cores to deliver up to 263 trillion calculations a second (or 263 teraflops).

"The Department of Energy's Leadership Computing Facility is putting unprecedented computing power in the hands of leading scientists to enable the next breakthroughs in science and technology," said ORNL Director Thom Mason. "This upgrade is an essential step along that path, bringing us ever closer to the era of petascale computing [systems capable of thousands of trillions of calculations per second]."

Jaguar was among the most powerful computing systems within DOE's Office of Science even before the recent upgrade and has delivered extraordinary results across a broad range of computational sciences.

"The leadership capability at Oak Ridge has been delivering real scientific results," said Michael Strayer, associate director for advanced scientific computing research in the DOE Office of Science.

"Benoit Roux of the University of Chicago used Jaguar to simulate in unprecedented detail the voltage-gated potassium channel, a membrane protein that responds to spikes of electricity by changing shape to allow potassium ions to enter a cell. This work has the potential to help us understand and control certain forms of cardiovascular and neurological disease."

Climate scientists are calculating the potential consequences of greenhouse gas emissions and the potential benefits of limiting these emissions. Combustion scientists are modeling the most efficient designs for engines that use fossil fuels and biofuels.

Fusion researchers are using the system to lead the way toward a clean and plentiful source of electricity. Physicists are exploring the secrets of the universe, illuminating its most elusive mysteries. And materials scientists are searching for the next revolution in technology.

"This is an important advancement," said Thomas Zacharia, ORNL associate laboratory director for computing and computational sciences.

"Leading researchers need many orders of magnitude more computing power and infrastructure than we can yet provide, and they have shown us how they will use these new resources, whether it be to predict the consequences of climate change at the regional level, design new materials with predetermined properties, discover new chemical catalysts, explore more efficient ways to manufacture biofuels, or simulate all important aspects of new reactor designs."

"The U.S. Department of Energy and its Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been making huge strides in providing more and more simulation capabilities to advance some of the world's most important scientific and engineering research-and invaluable partners with Cray to push the leading edge of supercomputing," said Peter Ungaro, president and CEO of Cray.

"This upgrade is another big milestone in leadership computing and we, along with many others around the world, are looking forward to learning about the scientific breakthroughs that are borne as a result of this powerful new computing capability."

With its new power, Jaguar will be able to double its contribution to DOE's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment program, which is revolutionizing key areas of science by facilitating the world's most challenging computer simulations.

The NCCS will host 30 INCITE projects in 2008 from universities, private industry, and government research laboratories, contributing more than 140 million processor hours on Jaguar.

source : http://www.spacedaily.com/

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Physicists closer to quantum computing

A team of U.S. and British physicists reports taking a step toward quantum computing by successfully using a single atomic nucleus as solid-state memory.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Oxford University and Princeton University said they precisely doped exceptionally pure and isotopically controlled crystals of silicon with phosphorus atoms. Quantum information was processed in the phosphorus electrons, transferred to the phosphorus nuclei and then subsequently transferred back to the electrons.

The scientists said that was the first demonstration that a single atomic nucleus can serve as quantum computational memory.

"In this exciting collaboration we have reported on a very important demonstration of coherent information transfer between the electron spin (processing qubit) and the nuclear spin (memory qubit) of phosphorus atoms in isotopically enriched silicon crystals," said study co-author Thomas Schenkel, a physicist in Berkeley Lab's Accelerator and Fusion Research Division.

"The electron spin information was faithfully stored in the nuclear spin for nearly two seconds (thousands of times longer than ever reported previously) and then transferred back to the electron spin with about 90-percent fidelity," Schenkel said.

The experiment is reported in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Nature.

source : http://www.spacedaily.com/

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Increasing Runway Safety with GPS Aircraft Positioning

For pilots, knowing what runway or taxiway they’re on is critical information. That knowledge is especially important at night, in poor weather or when the crew is unfamiliar with the airport layout.

Pilots have traditionally acquired that information by looking out their windshield. Now, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has made it easier for pilots to have an invaluable electronic tool in the cockpit. It provides a moving map display with “own ship position” — that will change and improve runway safety the way GPS has changed the way we safely navigate our cars.

The FAA has aggressively focused on reducing runway incursions for the last several years. After thoroughly reviewing safety data, including human factors research on the safety benefits of own ship position versus the potential safety risks, we changed our certification process to make this technology available while maintaining all appropriate safety standards.

Electronic Flight Bags and Moving Maps

In recent years, paper charts and manuals have increasingly been replaced by the Electronic Flight Bag or EFB: an electronic display system that gives pilots information about a variety of aviation data. These EFBs range from laptop-like devices totally independent of the aircraft that can be used on planes across the existing fleet, to high-end displays permanently installed and fully integrated into the airplane’s cockpit for newer aircraft. The FAA focused our efforts on a third type of device, referred to as a “Class 2 system” that is still portable but takes its power and data directly from aircraft systems.

Most EFBs incorporate a feature called Airport Moving Map, a display that provides a constantly changing view of an airport’s runways, taxiways and structures to help pilots identify and anticipate the airplane’s location on the surface. GPS technology makes it possible for the moving map to show pilots their actual position (own ship) on the airport surface.

The FAA has varying certification levels for Electronic Flight Bags based on the technical complexity of the EFB and the types of data it is intended to display. Devices able to show data both on the ground and in the air, including an Airport Moving Map that identifies the aircraft’s position, are subject to the highest, or “Class C,” standards. These standards were set with particular regard for the strictest in flight requirements.
Same High Standards, Streamlined Certification Process

Since issuing its original guidance for EFB certification in 2003, the FAA has been listening to industry concerns about the complexity and high cost of certifying EFBs to provide the Airport Moving Map/Own Ship Position function for surface movements. The agency also reviewed studies and human factors research on those systems.

Research showed that pilots had far better awareness of their position on the airport’s surface using an own ship position display. Tests also demonstrated that pilots typically glanced at the own ship display, then quickly looked out their windows to verify that information visually, eliminating one of the FAA’s major concerns that pilots would be “heads down” too long for safe operations.

With that data in hand, the FAA decided to streamline the process of certifying the own ship position function of moving map displays to give pilots the safety benefits on the airport surface as soon as possible. FAA certification standards for EFBs remain the same, but we worked with several companies to develop revised certification policies that make this important safety enhancement more cost-effective for operators.

The new policies were finalized and ready for use by the end of April 2007. The first certification was given to Jeppesen in March 2008.

By focusing on the Own Ship Position function and finding innovative ways to simplify certification, the FAA believes the cost of certification for surface operations could drop to as little as $20,000 per unit — about one-tenth the original anticipated cost of EFB certification for ground and air operations. Based on feedback we have received, we believe the aviation industry will have the financial incentive to produce these devices in mass quantities. The result: A higher level of safety at a significantly reduced cost.

http://www.faa.gov/news/

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GPRS Technology Explained

Historically data speeds on mobile phones has been very very slow, in fact when modems were @ 56kbps (dial up) the mobile was still at 9.6kbps and it stayed there for quite some time, in fact if you don't have GPRS or a high speed data service and use wap you'll be using a 9,6k dial up connection.

The arrival of GSM technology gave the chance for a different type of data connection one where data is moved in packets, IP data is already packetised and bytes of info are sent all round the world in this form everyday

GSM networks are made up of a number of transmitters or cells each of these can have a range of a few kilometres or just a few hundred meters depending on their proximity to each other, the range of frequencies used by each transmitter cannot overlap with its neighbour. In the UK 2 main GSM frequency sets are used GSM 900 and 1800 (1900) is used in the USA, a transmitter will work within a 200mhz band and split this up into a number of radio channels or time slots.

The GPRS system may not be allowed to use them all, but dependant on the class of GPRS network the operator is running the mobile device may connect to multiple channels to achieve a greater bandwidth. Also the coding schemes shown below can effect the bandwidth systems will drop to a lower coding system (CS-1) if the radio reception is poor as it includes higher error correction much like an FM radio might switch to mono if the stereo signal get too weak.



GPRS sits on top of this GSM technology and mobile service providers can offer the general packet radio service to its subscribers as an always on connection rather than the traditional dial up data connections.

Cells that have been upgraded to GPRS add a packet control unit that distributes data over one of the radio channels to your device and also GPRS gateways or nodes these bridge the data between the mobiles network and the outside world or internet. The packetsied nature of GPRS data allows networks to dynamically fill the unused voice channels with GPRS data, providers normally allocate a minimum bandwidth to GPRS data but at off peak times you can get much more throughput perhaps 4 times as much. Lets not forget this is a far more efficient way of delivering data from the network providers as they no longer need to use a whole voice channel to deliver data GPRS users effectively buy the left overs from voice users.

So what are the benefits of GPRS to the user?

For a start its always on, the mobile device will gain an IP address from the DHCP pool available at each cell, the network will then allow you to exchange data whenever you need to without having to dial up an authenticate. Practical uses of this allow for swift recovery of email with frequent pop3 checks of your mailbox and messenger style applications can work on GPRS too so having MSN on your mobile is possible, although Symbian messenger and other 3rd party applications are far more common.

Of course there is the much vaunted benefit of speed, while GPRS theoretically could deliver 172.2kbps by using all 8 timeslots without any error correction in practice network configurations will allow up to 40kbps which is a 4 fold increase on the 9.6kbps still offered as a data service.

Then there are the rich media applications which while publicised by 3G providers are equally at home on a 2 or 2.5g GPRS enabled platform, very little content on the 3G networks is streamed it is far more likely to be downloaded to the phone and then viewed.

So despite the higher speeds of 3G the current GPRS services are enabling video to mobile application to operate successfully at least once you get past the fact that each network has differing video standards!

Applications that work well on GPRS are those that fall into the category "I want it now" that can quite easily be email or the latest goal scored by your team, but this can also extend to web browsing on a long train journey or Navigation applications. In fact a real life example is the ability of LP to manage the technical parameters of this site and view live statistics via his GPRS enabled P800.

GPRS technology will continue to evolve, but now it is driven by users rather than a government frequency auction so we should see more and more useable applications and cheaper access packages.

source : http://www.lordpercy.com

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Leica introducing special edition M8.2, D-Lux 4, C-Lux 3 cameras

It's just been a few months since Leica rolled out its standard issue M8.2, D-Lux 4, and C-Lux 3 digital cameras, but it looks like the company is already set to enter the special edition fray, with new, somewhat "limited" versions of each apparently set to roll out over the next few weeks. That includes two special edition versions of the M8.2, one with a Hammertone finish and one with a "green safari" finish, as well as a limited titanium edition of the D-Lux 4 that also comes with a presumably pricey leather case (it'll run $1,400). Slightly less limited is the Zadig & Voltaire-designed C-Lux 3 pictured at right, which is apparently the first of the lot to become available and, at just €670 (or just under $850), one of the cheapest.

source : http://www.engadget.com

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Microsoft ditches Windows 7 beta download limit

It will be available through Jan. 24; company apologizes for Friday foul-up

Microsoft Corp. on Saturday ditched the download limit on Windows 7 beta, saying that users will be able to grab the preview through Jan. 24 -- even if the total exceeds the 2.5 million cap it had set earlier.

The company also apologized for the stalled servers that prevented users from obtaining the operating system preview on Friday, the day the public beta was originally slated to launch.


"I know many of you have had issues with the Windows 7 beta site over the last 24 hours," company spokesman Brandon LeBlanc acknowledged in a posting to Microsoft's Windows 7 blog late Saturday. "We apologize for the inconvenience that it caused some of you."

Rather than cap the number of beta activation keys at 2.5 million -- the original plan to limit the test pool -- Microsoft will instead make Windows 7 available for two weeks, though Jan. 24, said LeBlanc. If fewer than 2.5 million people request and receive activation keys during that time, Microsoft will continue to offer the beta until the limit is reached.

"However, the more likely scenario is that we will surpass 2.5 million downloads, and so the beta downloads will be stopped after the 24th," wrote Kevin Remdes, a Microsoft-employed IT evangelist, on his blog Sunday.

The move came after Microsoft fumbled the Windows 7 public beta launch on Friday. At midday, it postponed the beta, citing "very heavy traffic" and saying it needed to beef up its servers and bandwidth to meet demand. Earlier in the day, Microsoft's main page and other URLs had been brought to their knees by users eager to download the preview. Hours later, when a link to the download was added to a page dedicated to IT professionals, users saw only messages such as "Server is too busy," and, "This site is currently experiencing technical difficulties, please check back in the next business day" when they tried to grab the file.

Microsoft restarted the beta launch Saturday, posting links to the download on its main Windows 7 page.

Computerworld had no difficulty on Monday morning reaching the download page, receiving activation keys or initiating downloads of the 32- and 64-bit versions of the new operating system.

After Jan. 24, users will still probably be able to download the beta because Microsoft rarely removes previews from its servers, instead relying on activation-key limits to restrict the number of testers. People who grab the beta after Microsoft stops delivering keys can install the operating system, then run it under Microsoft's usual 30-day trial policy. By using the same "slmgr -rearm" command that gained notoriety after Windows Vista's debut, they can extend that trial period to a total of 120 days.

Microsoft's decision to put a time limit on Windows 7 beta's availability mimics its practice more than two years ago, when it launched Windows Vista Beta 2. That beta, launched June 7, 2006, was available for just over three weeks, through June 30.

source : http://www.computerworld.com

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Microsoft restarts botched Windows 7 beta downloads

After 24-hour delay, activates download pages and begins handing out keys

Microsoft Corp. on Saturday restarted its rollout of the Windows 7 beta, 24 hours after it aborted the launch because heavy demand had stalled its servers.

As of noon PST, the company said that the primary beta download site, an offshoot of the Windows section of Microsoft.com, was "up and working."

Computerworld confirmed that the Windows 7 beta download page was online and taking download requests. Springboard Series, another public download location targeting IT professionals, was also live.

Also on Saturday, Microsoft was providing beta activation keys, offering them to users just prior to beginning the download. Computerworld was able to obtain an activation key, download the 32-bit version of the beta, and install and activate Windows 7.


Originally slated to start Friday at noon PST, Windows 7's public debut was postponed by Microsoft, which cited "very heavy traffic" across its Web properties. "Due to very heavy traffic we're seeing as a result of interest in the Windows 7 Beta, we are adding some additional infrastructure support to Microsoft.com properties," a spokeswoman said Friday afternoon.

On Wednesday, when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced the Friday launch of the public beta, he urged everyone to grab a copy. "I encourage you all to get out and download it," he said.

Ballmer's comment, as well as the fact that Microsoft said it would cap the number of activation keys for the beta at 2.5 million, may have contributed to the crush of users who attempted to reach the download sites on Friday. Hours before the beta was to be posted, in fact, Microsoft's main page and other URLs were sporadically unavailable.

Later in the day, attempts to reach the download via the Springboard Series page, which for a time touted the beta, were stymied, with users seeing messages such as "Server is too busy," and "This site is currently experiencing technical difficulties, please check back in the next business day."

Users blasted Microsoft for Friday's snafu on the company's own blog. In comments posted to the postponement announcement, some raged at Microsoft's inability to launch the beta as promised. "I'm disappointed, and many others are too," said a user identified as "AA4PC" in a comment Friday evening. "The delay is going to hurt the credibility of Microsoft statements."

"Couldn't you learn anything from [the] last Vista beta distributions?" asked another user, "Seagull."

In June 2006, Microsoft urged users to order a DVD copy of Windows Vista Beta 2 preview rather than download the disk image, claiming that boosting bandwidth even more could cripple the Internet as a whole. "We are literally saying that if we increased our bandwidth any further, there's a possibility of taking down the Internet," an unidentified Microsoft representative told Dutch blogger Steven Bink at the time.

Microsoft also reportedly considered, then rejected, distributing Vista Beta 2 using the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, an idea that several users pitched to the company via blog comments on Friday and Saturday.

"Time to give the torrent some love," argued "Xepol" on the same comment thread. "It isn't like it isn't already on BitTorrent ... Microsoft might as well benefit from it." Over the past two weeks, pirated copies of the 32- and 64-bit Windows 7 beta build leaked to BitTorrent sites.

Users can begin the beta download by heading to this page on the Windows 7 site, then selecting the 32- or 64-bit version, and the desired language.

More details on the download and Windows 7 can be found in the FAQ and recent review of the new operating system posted to Computerworld's site.

Source : http://www.computerworld.com

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Sun Microsystems acquisition of Q-Layer

JAKARTA - Sun Microsystems successfully acquires Q-layer, a cloud computing company that mengotomatisasi implementation and management of cloud computing for the private sector and public.

Q-layer company based in Belgium will be part of the Cloud Computing business unit owned by Sun to develop and integrate technology, architecture and cloud computing services.


Q-layer technology to simplify the management as well as cloud computing allows users to quickly monitor and run the application. This is the main component of the strategy to build Sun cloud computing in the private sector and public. See how the business world is now increasingly dependent on technology to control many important processes, datacenter reliability determine the overall flexibility of the company.

Q-layer software supports the direct supervision of the service server, storage, bandwidth and applications, which in turn allows the user to measure their own environment to meet the specific needs of each.

"The Sun that is open and based on the network, combined with the system, software and services that have been optimized, provide an important foundation to offer cloud computing for the private and public. Technology and expertise Q-layer will increase the quality of bidding Sun, simplifying the cloud and accelerate the launch of applications, "said David Douglas, Senior Vice President of Cloud Computing and Chief Sustainability Officer, Sun Microsystems through description, Wednesday (14/1/2009)

Cloud computing bring computing and data resources to the Web, offer higher efficiency, high scalability and software development faster and easier. Sun is the ideal partner as well as consultants for companies that want to build a cloud computing facilities in their companies, but also for companies and service providers who want to build a cloud computing service open to the public through open technology, expertise and vision to help companies build, run and facilities mendayagunakan cloud their own computing.

Source : www.okezone.com

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Setting Internet Dial Up

Setting Internet used Dial Up to Internet Service Provider
1. Telkomsel Flash – Halo/Simpati/As (time based)
2. Telkomsel GPRS – Halo/Simpati/As (Volume based)
3. Indosat – Matrix – (Volume based)
4. Indosat – Mentari – (Volume based)
5. Indosat – IM3 – (Volume based)
6. Indosat – IM3 – (time based)
7. XL – Xplor/Bebas/Jempol (Volume based)
8. Telkom Flexi – Classy/Trendy (Volume based)
9. Telkom Flexi – Classy/Trendy (time based)
10. Mobile 8 – Fren
11. Starone
12. Esia (time based)


1. Telkomsel Flash – Halo/Simpati/As (Waktu)
Dial Up Number : *99***1#
User Name :
Password :
Access Point : FLASH
Extra Setting : at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,”flash”

2. Telkomsel GPRS – Halo/Simpati/As (Data)
Dial Up Number : *99***1#
User Name : wap
Password : wap123
Access Point : TELKOMSEL
Extra Setting : at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,”internet”

3. Indosat – Matrix – (Data)
Dial Up Number : *99***1#
User Name :
Password :
Access Point : www.satelindogprs.com
Extra Setting : at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,” www.satelindogprs.com”

4. Indosat – Mentari – (Data)
Dial Up Number : *99***1#
User Name : indosat
Password : indosat
Access Point : www.satelindogprs.com
Extra Setting : at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,” www.satelindogprs.com”

5. Indosat – IM3 – (Data)
Dial Up Number : *99***1#
User Name : gprs
Password : im3
Access Point : www.indosat-m3.net
Extra Setting : at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,” www.indosat-m3.net”

6. Indosat – IM3 – (Waktu)
Dial Up Number : *99***1#
User Name : indosat@durasi
Password : indosat@durasi
Access Point : www.indosat-m3.net
Extra Setting : at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,” www.indosat-m3.net”

7. XL – Xplor/Bebas/Jempol (Data)
Dial Up Number : *99***1#
User Name : xlgprs
Password : proxl
Access Point : www.xlgprs.net
Extra Setting : at+cgdcont=1,”IP”,” www.xlgprs.net”

8. Telkom Flexi – Classy/Trendy (Data)
Dial Up Number : #777
User Name : telkomnet@flexi
Password : telkom
Access Point :
Extra Setting : at+crm=1

9. Telkom Flexi – Classy/Trendy (Waktu)
Dial Up Number : 080989999
User Name : telkomnet@instan
Password : telkom
Access Point :
Extra Setting : at+crm=0

10. Mobile 8 – Fren
Dial Up Number : #777
User Name : m8
Password : m8
Access Point :
Extra Setting :

11. Starone
Dial Up Number : #777
User Name : starone
Password : indosat
Access Point :
Extra Setting :

12. Esia (Waktu)
Dial Up Number : #777
User Name : esia
Password : esia
Access Point :
Extra Setting :

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