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Francesco Biscani

STLport: An Interview with A. Stepanov - 2 views

www.stlport.org/...StepanovUSA.html

computer science

shared by Francesco Biscani on 23 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Generic programming is a programming method that is based in finding the most abstract representations of efficient algorithms.
  • I spent several months programming in Java.
  • for the first time in my life programming in a new language did not bring me new insights
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • it has no intellectual value whatsoever
  • Java is clearly an example of a money oriented programming (MOP).
  • Francesco Biscani on 23 Mar 10
     
    One of the authors of the STL (C++'s Standard Template Library) explains generic programming and slams Java.
  • ...6 more comments...
  • Ma Ru on 24 Mar 10
     
    "Java is clearly an example of a money oriented programming (MOP)." Exactly. And for the industry it's the money that matters. Whatever mathematicians think about it.
  • Joris _ on 24 Mar 10
     
    It is actually a good thing that it is "MOP" (even though I do not agree with this term): that is what makes it inter-operable, light and easy to learn. There is no point in writing fancy codes, if it does not bring anything to the end-user, but only for geeks to discuss incomprehensible things in forums. Anyway, I am pretty sure we can find a Java guy slamming C++ ;)
  • Francesco Biscani on 24 Mar 10
     
    Personally, I never understood what the point of Java is, given that: 1) I do not know of any developer (maybe Marek?) that uses it for intellectual pleasure/curiosity/fun whatever, given the possibility of choice - this to me speaks loudly on the objective qualities of the language more than any industrial-corporate marketing bullshit (for the record, I argue that Python is more interoperable, lighter and easier to learn than Java - which is why, e.g., Google is using it heavily); 2) I have used a software developed in Java maybe a total of 5 times on any computer/laptop I owned over 15 years. I cannot name of one single Java project that I find necessary or even useful; for my usage of computers, Java could disappear overnight without even noticing. Then of course one can argue as much as one wants about the "industry choosing Java", to which I would counterargue with examples of industry doing stupid things and making absurd choices. But I suppose it would be a kind of pointless discussion, so I'll just stop here :)
  • Joris _ on 24 Mar 10
     
    "At Google, python is one of the 3 "official languages" alongside with C++ and Java". Java runs everywhere (the byte code itself) that is I think the only reason it became famous. Python, I guess, is more heavy if it were to run on your web browser! I think every language has its pros and cons, but I agree Java is not the answer to everything... Java is used in MATLAB, some web applications, mobile phones apps, ... I would be a bit in trouble if it were to disappear today :(
  • Dario Izzo on 24 Mar 10
     
    I personally do not believe in interoperability :)
  • Ma Ru on 24 Mar 10
     
    Well, I bet you'd notice an overnight disappearance of java, because half of the internet would vanish... J2EE technologies are just omnipresent there... I'd rather not even *think* about developing a web application/webservice/web-whatever in standard C++... is it actually possible?? Perhaps with some weird Microsoft solutions... I bet your bank online services are written in Java. Certainly not in PHP+MySQL :) Industry has chosen Java not because of industrial-corporate marketing bullshit, but because of economics... it enables you develop robustly, reliably, error-prone, modular, well integrated etc... software. And the costs? Well, using java technologies you can set-up enterprise-quality web application servers, get a fully featured development environment (which is better than ANY C/C++/whatever development environment I've EVER seen) at the cost of exactly 0 (zero!) USD/GBP/EUR... Since many years now, the central issue in software development is not implementing algorithms, it's building applications. And that's where Java outperforms many other technologies. The final remark, because I may be mistakenly taken for an apostle of Java or something... I love the idea of generic programming, C++ is my favourite programming language (and I used to read Stroustroup before sleep), at leisure time I write programs in Python... But if I were to start a software development company, then, apart from some very niche applications like computer games, it most probably would use Java as main technology.
  • Francesco Biscani on 24 Mar 10
     
    "I'd rather not even *think* about developing a web application/webservice/web-whatever in standard C++... is it actually possible?? Perhaps with some weird Microsoft solutions... I bet your bank online services are written in Java. Certainly not in PHP+MySQL :)" Doing in C++ would be awesomely crazy, I agree :) But as I see it there are lots of huge websites that operate on PHP, see for instance Facebook. For the banks and the enterprise market, as a general rule I tend to take with a grain of salt whatever spin comes out from them; in the end behind every corporate IT decision there is a little smurf just trying to survive and have the back covered :) As they used to say in the old times, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM". "Industry has chosen Java not because of industrial-corporate marketing bullshit, but because of economics... it enables you develop robustly, reliably, error-prone, modular, well integrated etc... software. And the costs? Well, using java technologies you can set-up enterprise-quality web application servers, get a fully featured development environment (which is better than ANY C/C++/whatever development environment I've EVER seen) at the cost of exactly 0 (zero!) USD/GBP/EUR... Since many years now, the central issue in software development is not implementing algorithms, it's building applications. And that's where Java outperforms many other technologies." Apart from the IDE considerations (on which I cannot comment, since I'm not a IDE user myself), I do not see how Java beats the competition in this regard (again, Python and the huge software ecosystem surrounding it). My impression is that Java's success is mostly due to Sun pushing it like there is no tomorrow and bundling it with their hardware business.
  • Joris _ on 24 Mar 10
     
    OK, I think there is a bit of everything, wrong and right, but you have to acknowledge that Python is not always the simplest. For info, Facebook uses Java (if you upload picture for instance), and PHP is very limited. So definitely, in company, engineers like you and me select the language, it is not a marketing or political thing. And in the case of fb, they come up with the conclusion that PHP, and Java don't do everything but complement each other. As you say Python as many things around, but it might be too much for simple applications. Otherwise, I would seriously be interested by a study of how to implement a Python-like system on-board spacecrafts and what are the advantages over mixing C, Ada and Java.
Luzi Bergamin

Physics in a Crisis - 3 views

www.rqm.ch/physics_in_a_crisis.htm

phy LHC crackpot fun

shared by Luzi Bergamin on 30 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Luzi Bergamin on 30 Mar 10
     
    Luckily I'm far away from Geneva, but this has to be said today, when the LHC starts! No, not tiny black holes will eat us (what a nonsense!), but the supernovae energy will let LHC explode!!! Pacome, I expect you to debunk this with gratest care!
  • ...2 more comments...
  • pacome delva on 30 Mar 10
     
    wtf is this! As I read this morning in the newspaper (not even a scientific one), 1 TeV is the kinetic energy of a flying mosquito... so be careful ! It seems they already sloved every thing on this website: "At the Institute for Space Quantum Physics ISQP, it was already proved in 1991-1992 that dark matter is in magnetic fields as magnetic space quantum flux." This website is the biggest source of crackpots i have seen in a long time...! (http://www.supernovae-energy.com/)
  • Ma Ru on 30 Mar 10
     
    Come on guys, this website is hilarious! "The HAITI EARTHQUAKE (...) were impossible for the Institute for Space Quantum Physics (ISQP) to compute because on one single planet was on a common line or axis with the Sun: Venus."
  • Luzi Bergamin on 30 Mar 10
     
    Unfortunately, most information I have about the guy (Hans Lehner, a Swiss) is in German, his official homepage is http://www.rqm.ch/ According to EsoWatch he is the Swiss analogue to Dr. Mills and his Blacklight power. Lehner apparently founded a company, which should have produced a "Raum-Quanten-Motor" that -- of course -- produces energy out of nothing. The theory is based on spookey forces mediated by Lehneronen. 11 Million Swiss Franks (about 8 Million Euro) were lost when the company bankrupt. And the guy is selling new stocks on his homepage again... Lehner calls another crackpot named Oliver Crane Zweistein (from Einstein being "Onestone") and himself "Dreistein". Now he is looking for Mister or Misses Vierstein. Perhaps you should apply, good luck!!
  • Nicholas Lan on 30 Mar 10
     
    i like the first line of their supernovae energy technology document "Dear potential investor:"...
pacome delva

Fruit Fly Aerial Maneuver Explained - 1 views

focus.aps.org/st13

bio biomimicry fruit_fly

shared by pacome delva on 12 Apr 10 - Cached
LeopoldS liked it
  • Insects can execute flying feats more impressive than fighter jets, and a team of researchers has now learned the trick behind one of them. They used high speed video cameras and a new 3D reconstruction technique to show how fruit flies execute their acrobatic turns. As they report in the 9 April Physical Review Letters, despite the complex wing motions, a fly can execute quick pirouettes by adjusting just a single parameter that controls the difference between the way its left and right wings oscillate. The results may be relevant for engineers designing flight control strategies for tiny robotic insects for search-and-rescue and surveillance.
Joris _

SPACE.com -- Venus Probe's Problems May Cause Japan to Scale Back - 0 views

www.space.com/...suki-japan-rethink-101217.html

space MAD

shared by Joris _ on 20 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • We have to be more conservative to plan our next planetary mission, so it will never fail in any aspect."
  • the probe's initial failure will have a big impact on how JAXA plans future planetary missions
  • hew to more conservative ideas in the near future
  • Joris _ on 20 Dec 10
     
    what a shame! ambition and innovation have not been fairly rewarded ...
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Ma Ru on 20 Dec 10
     
    Did you try to run your algorithm on their problem as Dario suggested? I'm very curious!
  • Joris _ on 20 Dec 10
     
    I didn't have time yet. But formulating the failure with a MTBF or a FIT, you can easily imagine a more robust solution. Instead of one single burn, you would make several smaller burns - It will take more time and require more fuel though. Another "robust" approach is to consider weak stability boundary capture. Again it takes time, but chances of failure are lessen.
  • LeopoldS on 21 Dec 10
     
    would be a pity indeed!
Guido de Croon

Nano flapping wing MAV by Aerovironment (DARPA-funded) - 6 views

A 7.5 inch, 19 gram flapping wing MAV with camera! It uses active stabilization since it has single wings and no tail. http://www.avinc.com/nano http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hummingbird-...

ai

started by Guido de Croon on 18 Feb 11 no follow-up yet
duncan barker

Vertical Farming is Already Here- Organitech - 2 views

www.treehugger.com/...vertical_farmin_2.php

shared by duncan barker on 24 Feb 11 - Cached
  • duncan barker on 24 Feb 11
     
    "Currently a single containerized unit can crank out several hundred heads of lettuce per day."
  • ...1 more comment...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 24 Feb 11
     
    Great!! The typical Dutch tomato differs from the typical Dutch cucumber only by its color, not by its taste, we all know this. In vertical farming I guess the next step to the UGV (uniform garbage vegetable) will be made. Perhaps now they only differ by its geometrical form, the color is the same for all vegetables, who knows??
  • duncan barker on 24 Feb 11
     
    right ....... ok .......... so whats your point?
  • Luzi Bergamin on 25 Feb 11
     
    Point?? As a professional bullshitter I don't have a point. Just grouch, never critizise (freely translated from the Austrian principle "Nur raunzen, nie kritisieren!") :-) If I have sort of a point: I'd rather not try the vegetable they produce in this "vertical farming", Dutch experience was by far enough.
Luís F. Simões

Shell energy scenarios to 2050 - 6 views

www.shell.com/...shell_energy_scenarios_2050

energy future forecast politics economy climate_change

shared by Luís F. Simões on 09 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Luís F. Simões on 09 Mar 11
     
    just in case you were feeling happy and optimistic
  • ...7 more comments...
  • Francesco Biscani on 09 Mar 11
     
    An energy scenario published by an oil company? Allow me to be sceptical...
  • Joris _ on 10 Mar 11
     
    Indeed, Shell is an energy company, not just oil, for some time now ... The two scenarii are, in their approach, dependant of economic and political situation, which is right now impossible to forecast. Reference to Kyoto is surprising, almost out-dated! But overall, I find it rather optimistic at some stages, and probably the timeline (p37-39) is unlikely with recent events.
  • Luís F. Simões on 10 Mar 11
     
    the report was published in 2008, which explains the reference to Kyoto, as the follow-up to it was much more uncertain at that point. The Blueprint scenario is indeed optimistic, but also quite unlikely I'd say. I don't see humanity suddenly becoming so wise and coordinated. Sadly, I see something closer to the Scramble scenario as much more likely to occur.
  • LeopoldS on 12 Mar 11
     
    not an oil company??? please have a look at the percentage of their revenues coming from oil and gas and then compare this with all their other energy activities together and you will see very quickly that it is only window dressing ... they are an oil and gas company ... and nothing more
  • Joris _ on 14 Mar 11
     
    not JUST oil. From a description: "Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies." Of course revenues coming from oil are the biggest, the investment turnover on other energy sources is small for now. Knowing that most of their revenues is from an expendable source, to guarantee their future, they invest elsewhere. They have invested >1b$ in renewable energy, including biofuels. They had the largest wind power business among so-called "oil" companies. Oil only defines what they do "best". As a comparison, some time ago, Apple were selling only computers and now they sell phones. But I would not say Apple is just a phone company.
  • LeopoldS on 14 Mar 11
     
    window dressing only ... e.g. Net cash from operating activities (pre-tax) in 2008: 70 Billion$ net income in 2008: 26 Billion revenues in 2008: 88 Billion Their investments and revenues in renewables don't even show up in their annual financial reports since probably they are under the heading of "marketing" which is already 1.7 Billion $ ... this is what they report on their investments: Capital investment, portfolio actions and business development Capital investment in 2009 was $24 billion. This represents a 26% decrease from 2008, which included over $8 billion in acquisitions, primarily relating to Duvernay Oil Corp. Capital investment included exploration expenditure of $4.5 billion (2008: $11.0 billion). In Abu Dhabi, Shell signed an agreement with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company to extend the GASCO joint venture for a further 20 years. In Australia, Shell and its partners took the final investment decision (FID) for the Gorgon LNG project (Shell share 25%). Gorgon will supply global gas markets to at least 2050, with a capacity of 15 million tonnes (100% basis) of LNG per year and a major carbon capture and storage scheme. Shell has announced a front-end engineering and design study for a floating LNG (FLNG) project, with the potential to deploy these facilities at the Prelude offshore gas discovery in Australia (Shell share 100%). In Australia, Shell confirmed that it has accepted Woodside Petroleum Ltd.'s entitlement offer of new shares at a total cost of $0.8 billion, maintaining its 34.27% share in the company; $0.4 billion was paid in 2009 with the remainder paid in 2010. In Bolivia and Brazil, Shell sold its share in a gas pipeline and in a thermoelectric power plant and its related assets for a total of around $100 million. In Canada, the Government of Alberta and the national government jointly announced their intent to contribute $0.8 billion of funding towards the Quest carbon capture and sequestration project. Quest, which is at the f
  • Joris _ on 14 Mar 11
     
    thanks for the info :) They still have their 50% share in the wind farm in Noordzee (you can see it from ESTEC on a clear day). Look for Shell International Renewables, other subsidiaries and joint-ventures. I guess, the report is about the oil branch. http://sustainabilityreport.shell.com/2009/servicepages/downloads/files/all_shell_sr09.pdf http://www.noordzeewind.nl/
  • LeopoldS on 16 Mar 11
     
    no - its about Shell globally - all Shell .. these participations are just peanuts please read the intro of the CEO in the pdf you linked to: he does not even mention renewables! their entire sustainability strategy is about oil and gas - just making it (look) nicer and environmentally friendlier
  • Joris _ on 16 Mar 11
     
    Fair enough, for me even peanuts are worthy and I am not able to judge. Not all big-profit companies, like Shell, are evil :( Look in the pdf what is in the upstream and downstream you mentionned above. Non-shell sources for examples and more objectivity: http://www.nuon.com/company/Innovative-projects/noordzeewind.jsp http://www.e-energymarket.com/news/single-news/article/ferrari-tops-bahrain-gp-using-shell-biofuel.html thanks.
Luzi Bergamin

Prof. Markrams Hirnmaschine (Startseite, NZZ Online) - 2 views

www.nzz.ch/...s_hirnmaschine_1.10736223.html

AI neuroscience SciFi

shared by Luzi Bergamin on 29 May 11 - No Cached
  • Luzi Bergamin on 29 May 11
     
    A critical view on Prof. Markram's Blue Brain project (in German).
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 29 May 11
     
    A critical view on Prof. Markram's Blue Brain project (in German).
  • LeopoldS on 30 May 11
     
    so critical that the comment needed to be posted twice :-) ?
  • Luzi Bergamin on 30 May 11
     
    Yes, I know; I still don't know how to deal with this f.... Diigo Toolbar! Shame on me!!!
  • dejanpetkow on 30 May 11
     
    Would be nice to read something about the modelling, but it appears that there is nothing published in detail. Following the article, the main approach is to model each(!) neuron taking into account the spatial structure of the neurons positions. Once achieved they expect intelligent behaviour. And they need a (type of) supercomputer which does not exist yet.
  • Ma Ru on 31 May 11
     
    As far as I know it's sort of like "Let's construct an enormous dynamical system and see what happens"... i.e. a waste of taxpayer's money... Able to heal Alzheimer... Yeah... Actually I was on the conference the author is mentioning (FET 2011) and I have seen the presentations of all 6 flagship proposals. Following that I had a discussion with one of my colleagues about the existence of limits of the amount of bullshit politicians are willing to buy from scientists. Will there be a point at which politicians, despite their total ignorance, will realise that scientists simply don't deliver anything they promise? How long will we (scientists) be stuck in the viscous circle of have-to-promise-more-than-predecessors in order to get money? Will we face a situation when we'll be forced to revert to promises which are realistic? To be honest none of the 6 presentations convinced me of their scientific merit (apart from the one on graphene where I have absolutely no expertise to tell). Apparently a huge amount of money is about to be wasted.
  • Luzi Bergamin on 01 Jun 11
     
    It's not just "Let's construct an enormous dynamical system and see what happens", it's worse! Also the simulation of the cosmological evolution is/was a little bit of this type, still the results are very interesting and useful. Why? Neither the whole cosmos nor the human brain at the level of single neurons can be modelled on a computer, that would last aeons on a "yet-to-be-invented-extra-super-computer". Thus one has to make assumptions and simplifications. In cosmology we have working theories of gravitation, thermodynamics, electrodynamics etc. at hand; starting from these theories we can make reasonable assumptions and (more or less) justified simplifications. The result is valuable since it provides insight into a complex system under given, explicit and understood assumptions. Nothing similar seems to exist in neuroscience. There is no theory of the human brain and apparently nobody has the slightest idea which simplifications can be made without harm. Of course, Mr. Markram remains completely unaffected of ''details'' like this. Finally, Marek, money is not wasted, we ''build networks of excellence'' and ''select the brightest of the brightest'' to make them study and work at our ''elite institutions'' :-). I lively remember the stage of one of these "bestofthebest" from Ivy League at the ACT...
LeopoldS

Human Brain Project - Goals - 3 views

www.humanbrainproject.eu/goals.html

AI bio technology science

shared by LeopoldS on 20 May 11 - No Cached
  • LeopoldS on 20 May 11
     
    can we contribute in any way to this - or alternatively benefit from this research already now?
  • ...4 more comments...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 20 May 11
     
    Watch out!! I read quite a lot about the contribution by EPFL (apparently coordinator) and their boss, Henry Markram. From what I read, this is not really science, but mainly a PR campaign. The main motor in this project is attracting a lot of money and the main aim to do so is promising a lot of stuff that nobody will be able to deliver. Accordingly, Markram is a very controversial person in the business...
  • Luzi Bergamin on 20 May 11
     
    Oups, sorry! Of course I meant, "the main MEAN to do so...", but the aim justifies the means. Well, that's exactly Markram's motto, I guess.
  • LeopoldS on 21 May 11
     
    interesting info indeed ... I though still think that the overall goal of this project, even if too ambitious for the time being is interesting, no?
  • Luzi Bergamin on 22 May 11
     
    It's not about interesting or not, it's about serious science or not. Also the goal of a fortune-teller is interesting, isn't it? Any description of a good science project is too ambitious, that's normal and not necessarily PR. But personally I think there is a certain limit where a science project becomes a bad SciFi thriller. This one here is a dime novel, I think. But the too ambitious is not the only point I became very doubtful. I have seen quite a number of scientists and engineers from different fields; what I read about the character and attitude of this guy just hints towards the worst case scenario. It's presumptive evidence, I know...
  • LeopoldS on 22 May 11
     
    that bad! wow ....
  • Luzi Bergamin on 22 May 11
     
    You know me, I'm the bullshitter... You remember Kurzweil and his Singularity-nonsense. In a way this was very similar. Though I think Kurzweil and Markram are very different characters (The Singularity essentially is a religion, I can't see anything like that in Markram's claims) they seem to share an important point: they are both complete nerds that apparently never spent a single thought on the limits of science (in its English meaning) in general nor of their particular research field in specific. One may find this excusable, I don't. But even then, they make claims that the nerdest nerd must know that they are completely unrealistic and thus I just have to assume that they claim their nonsense on purpose. The reason in Markram's case clearly seems to be money. But all this does not mean that these nerds cannot produce valuable results.
santecarloni

Single-cell biological lasers : Nature Photonics : Nature Publishing Group - 0 views

www.nature.com/...nphoton.2011.99.html

lasers cells bio technology

shared by santecarloni on 17 Jun 11 - No Cached
  • santecarloni on 17 Jun 11
     
    Here, we show that fluorescent proteins4, 5 in cells are a viable gain medium for optical amplification, and report the first successful realization of biological cell lasers based on green fluorescent protein (GFP).
Christos Ampatzis

Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist - 4 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...c-publishers-murdoch-socialist

science

shared by Christos Ampatzis on 02 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • Christos Ampatzis on 02 Sep 11
     
    Who are the most ruthless capitalists in the western world? Whose monopolistic practices make Walmart look like a corner shop and Rupert Murdoch a socialist? You won't guess the answer in a month of Sundays. While there are plenty of candidates, my vote goes not to the banks, the oil companies or the health insurers, but - wait for it - to academic publishers.
  • LeopoldS on 11 Sep 11
     
    fully agree ... "But an analysis by Deutsche Bank reaches different conclusions. "We believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process … if the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40% margins wouldn't be available." Far from assisting the dissemination of research, the big publishers impede it, as their long turnaround times can delay the release of findings by a year or more." very nice also: "Government bodies, with a few exceptions, have failed to confront them. The National Institutes of Health in the US oblige anyone taking their grants to put their papers in an open-access archive. But Research Councils UK, whose statement on public access is a masterpiece of meaningless waffle, relies on "the assumption that publishers will maintain the spirit of their current policies". You bet they will. In the short term, governments should refer the academic publishers to their competition watchdogs, and insist that all papers arising from publicly funded research are placed in a free public database. In the longer term, they should work with researchers to cut out the middleman altogether, creating - along the lines proposed by Björn Brembs of Berlin's Freie Universität - a single global archive of academic literature and data. Peer-review would be overseen by an independent body. It could be funded by the library budgets which are currently being diverted into the hands of privateers. The knowledge monopoly is as unwarranted and anachronistic as the corn laws. Let's throw off these parasitic overlords and liberate the research that belongs to us."
  • Christos Ampatzis on 12 Sep 11
     
    It is a really great article and the first time I read something in this direction. FULLY AGREE as well. Problem is I have not much encouraging to report from the Brussels region...
LeopoldS

Tilera Corporation - 2 views

tilera.com/...press_release_091026.php

INF gadget computing

shared by LeopoldS on 26 Oct 09 - Cached
  • LeopoldS on 26 Oct 09
     
    who wants 100 cores ... future of PAGMO?
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Francesco Biscani on 27 Oct 09
     
    Well nVidia provides 10.000 "cores" in a single rack on thei Teslas...
  • LeopoldS on 27 Oct 09
     
    remember that you were recommending its purchase already some time ago ... still strong reasons to do so?
  • Francesco Biscani on 27 Oct 09
     
    The problem with this flurry of activity today regarding multicore architectures is that it is really unclear which one will be the winner in the long run. Never understimate the power of inertia, especially in the software industry (after all, people are still programming in COBOL and Fortran today). For instance, NVIDIA gives you the Teslas with 10000 cores, but then you have to rewrite extensive parts of your code in order to take advantage of this. Is this an investment worth undertaking? Difficult to say, it would certainly be if the whole software world moves into that direction (which is not happening - yet?). But then you have other approaches coming out, suche as the Cell processor by IBM (the one on the PS3) which has really impressive floating point performance and, of course, a completely different programming model. The nice thing about this Tilera processor seems to be that it is a general-purpose processor, which may not require extensive re-engineering of existing code (but I'm really hypothesizing, since the thechincal details are not very abundant on their website).
  • Ma Ru on 27 Oct 09
     
    Moreover PaGMO computation model is more towards systems with distributed memory, and not with shared memory (i.e. multi-core). In the latter, at certain point the memory access becomes the bottleneck.
Francesco Biscani

Robot Armada Might Scale New Worlds - 1 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...091027195507.htm

ai

shared by Francesco Biscani on 28 Oct 09 - Cached
  • We are departing from traditional approaches of a single robotic spacecraft with no redundancy that is Earth-commanded to one that allows for having multiple, expendable low-cost robots that can command themselves or other robots at various locations at the same time.
Joris _

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Single molecule's stunning image - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8225491.stm

chemistry PHY

shared by Joris _ on 28 Aug 09 - Cached
  • the new method even shows up chemical bonds
ESA ACT

Molecular circuits for associative learning in single-celled organisms - 0 views

journals.royalsociety.org/...81252g53k2310525

paper bio learning cell

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    Unicellular organisms learn. How they do is written in the paper somewhere.
ESA ACT

A solid-state light-matter interface at the single-photon level - 0 views

www.nature.com/...nature07607.html

PHY NAN technology communications

shared by ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09 - Cached
  • ESA ACT on 24 Apr 09
     
    First demostration of coherent and reversible mapping of a light field with less than one photon per pulse onto an ensemble of approx10^7 atoms naturally trapped in a solid.
pacome delva

Molecular Currents - 0 views

focus.aps.org/st17

phy electronics molecules

shared by pacome delva on 09 Nov 09 - Cached
  • European researchers have measured the electrical conductance between a single pair of precisely oriented C60 molecules.
  • For the ultimate in miniaturization, researchers want to learn all they can about using molecules in electronic circuits. They have measured currents between molecules but not with a precise understanding of the configuration and positions of the molecular electrons.
Francesco Biscani

Intel Shows 48-Core x86 Processor - 1 views

hardware.slashdot.org/...el-Shows-48-Core-x86-Processor

INF

shared by Francesco Biscani on 03 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Francesco Biscani on 03 Dec 09
     
    Finally a massively multi-core general-purpose architecture.
  • Ma Ru on 03 Dec 09
     
    Well, nice, but I wonder how much cache per core will be available... With 48 cores a single memory bus becomes nothing more than one big (small? :) ) bottleneck.
  • Francesco Biscani on 03 Dec 09
     
    Apparently they have separated L2 cache per-tile (i.e., every two processors) and a high speed bus connecting the tiles. As usual, whether it will be fast enough will depend from the specific applications (which BTW is also true for other current multi-core architectures). The nice thing is of course that porting software to this architecture will be one order of magnitude less difficult than going to Tesla/Fermi/CELL architectures. Also, this architecture will also be suitable for other tasks than floating point computations (damn engineers polluting computer science :P) and it has the potential to be more future-proof than other solutions.
Joris _

Researchers demonstrate a better way for computers to 'see' (w/ Video) - 1 views

www.physorg.com/news178997486.html

ai bio

shared by Joris _ on 03 Dec 09 - Cached
  • Rather than building a single model and seeing how well it could recognize visual objects, the team constructed thousands of candidate models, and screened for those that performed best on an object recognition task
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