Intel Plans Chip to Boost Computer Performance
Washington Post (08/04/08) P. A6; Whoriskey, Peter
Intel's new Larrabee processor, which features more than 10 processor
cores, will boost computer performance by adding more cores instead of
increasing the chip's operating frequency. By 2015, the strategy of
running chips at increasingly higher frequencies could create products that
generate as much heat as a nuclear reactor, according to engineers, so
multi-core processing is largely considered the future of computing.
"There is a fundamental physics issue we can no longer get around," says
Intel's Anwar Ghuloum. "If we kept going as we had been, the heat density
on a chip would have equaled the surface of the sun." The first products
based on the Larrabee chip are expected to be released in 2009 or 2010.
The problem with the multi-core approach is that it will require an equally
dramatic shift in software. To utilize the processing power contained in a
multi-core chip, software will need to be divided into chucks of
instructions that can run in parallel on multiple processors. Once chips
with 10 cores are available in consumer products, much of today's existing
software may have to be rewritten to take advantage of the extra processing
capabilities. New programming languages are being developed and technology
leaders are encouraging university computer science departments to
strengthen their parallel processing coursework.
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ALIFE Conference to Reveal Bio-Inspired Spam
Detection
University of Southampton (ECS) (08/04/08) Lewis, Joyce
Winchester, England, will be the site of the first European conference on
Artificial Life (ALIFE). About 250 participants will gather this week at
the University of Winchester for ALIFE XI, which will offer a record number
of paper presentations. One notable paper, Adaptive Spam Detection
Inspired by the Immune System, will discuss how the vertebrate adaptive
immune system, which learns to differentiate between harmless and harmful
substances, can serve as a model for detecting spam. Alaa Abi-Haidar and
Luis Rocha from the Department of Informatics at Indiana University and the
Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia in Portugal have developed a bio-inspired
spam detection algorithm that is based on the cross-regulation model of
T-cell dynamics. They will present the paper on Aug. 7, 2008. The new
Science and Engineering of Natural Systems (SENSe) group at the University
of Southampton's School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) is the
host of ALIFE XI. "This is a critical time for artificial life," says ECS'
Seth Bullock. "The field is on the verge of synthesizing living cells, a
feat that the artificial life community could only dream of when it started
out in the late 80s."
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Passion for Virtual Tale Gets Team Noticed
Evening Gazette (UK) (07/31/08) Dent, Karen
University of Teesside researchers have developed a virtual reality game
in which players can immerse themselves in the plot of Gustave Flaubert's
novel "Madame Bovary" and change the outcome using artificial intelligence
(AI) and interactive storytelling. "This work has been well received in
the scientific community and presented at major international conferences,
such as ACM Multimedia," says professor Marc Cavazza with the university's
Intelligent Virtual Environment Group. Players assume the identities of
characters in the novel, and they play the game in a three-walled virtual
reality environment called the Cave, which can support up to five
characters at one time. Users don stereoscopic goggles to give the other
characters projected on the walls and floor a three-dimensional appearance,
while the game's software utilizes the latest AI advances to plan ahead and
consider the consequences of the actions it produces. "Perhaps the biggest
breakthrough of the concept is the virtual characters' ability to interact
with humans," says game co-developer Fred Charles. "It will be able to
able to push the limits of virtual humans, to act having differing types of
interaction with humans and virtual humans." Charles adds that specific
kinds of virtual environments can be generated, which could help flesh out
the concept of virtual holidays. Additional applications include training
and industrial work, with the virtual reality element being particularly
helpful in the automotive sector, where different parts of the design
process are frequently split up among multiple locations.
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Could Evolutionary Computation Cut Billions of Years in
Solving Problems?
Hampshire College (07/30/08) Thomas, Elaine
Researchers from Hampshire College in Massachusetts and the State
University of New York have used evolutionary computation techniques to
solve a century-old algebra problem faster and more efficiently than
previous efforts. Evolutionary computing is an increasingly popular
sub-field of computer science in which evolutionary processes are built
into computer software. The user selects the elements that will be used
and how the desirability of particular designs can be measured. The system
then creates and tests random combinations of the chosen elements, with
better combinations being allowed to create offspring. After many
generations, this evolutionary process often produces novel and useful
designs and inventions. The researchers used a Beowulf-style computer
cluster to simulate the Darwinian processes to look for discriminator
terms, majority terms, and Mal'cev terms for finite algebras. Success
required finding a formula of manageable size produced in a reasonable
amount of time. Two methods for solving the problem had previously been
developed, but neither one met both requirements. Evolutionary computation
was able to produce useful formulas of fewer than 300 characters in just a
few hours.
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Instant-Messagers Really Are About Six Degrees From Kevin
Bacon
Washington Post (08/02/08) P. A1; Whoriskey, Peter
Studying the records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180
million people from around the world, Microsoft researchers have concluded
that any two people, on average, could be linked by a string of seven or
fewer acquaintances. The study examined a database that covered all of
Microsoft Messenger's instant-messaging network in June 2006, which
accounted for roughly half of the world's instant-messaging traffic at the
time. "What we're seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity
constant for humanity," says Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz, who
conducted the study with colleague Jure Leskovec. The Microsoft research
focused on the popular concept that has inspired the "Six Degrees of Kevin
Bacon" game and the well-known play "Six Degrees of Separation" by John
Guare. The first effort to research the theory that everyone is separated
by no more than six connections was done in the late 1960s by Stanley
Milgram and Jeffrey Travers, who found that the figure was 6.2. The
Microsoft researchers say their study is the first time a planetary-scale
social network has been available to validate theory. In the Microsoft
study, two people were considered acquaintances if they sent one another a
text message. The researchers looked at the minimum chain lengths it would
take to connect 180 billion different pairs of users in the database. The
researchers found that the average length was 6.6 steps and that 78 percent
of the pairs could be connected in seven steps or less.
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Putting a Virtual Doctor in the Ambulance
ICT Results (07/29/08)
The European Union-funded WEIRD project has developed a new communications
system that uses WiMax to relay data from a moving ambulance to a hospital,
helping medical teams collect vital data and detailed information about the
patient's condition to advise the ambulance team as they drive to the
hospital. WEIRD researcher Enrico Angori says it is very important to
maintain data integrity when transmitting it in high quality, and WiMax can
deliver the best quality of service in addition to being the cheapest
channel available. The WEIRD project worked to extend the resilience and
flexibility of WiMax technology, and created software that hides the
complexity of the configuration of the end-to-end communication channel, no
matter what equipment or different versions of WiMax is used. The software
will allow a paramedic in an ambulance to quickly establish an end-to-end
communication path without specialist training, allowing the crew to
concentrate on the patient. One of the most important features of the
ambulance communication system is its ability to create end-to-end links
between two points by seamlessly integrating the WiMax signal with other
wireless communication technologies, such as mobile telephony.
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Europe's Science Gathering Draws Crowds and Long-Term
Funds
Science (07/25/08) Vol. 321, P. 475; Enserink, Martin
The EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF), started just four years ago, is
becoming a key meeting point for scientists, policymakers, and reporters
from across Europe. The meeting enables the integration of dozens of
national research cultures into a more European effort, says Hungarian
Academy of Sciences' Norbert Kroo. ESOF features a broad scientific
program that covers everything from nanotechnology to cosmology, and
includes numerous public outreach events. ESOF's policy sessions deal
primarily with European trends and concerns, such as international mobility
and the difficulties in turning research into economic growth. ESOF is
held in a different city every other year, and is largely organized by a
local committee and people recruited from across Europe. Consequently,
each hosting country has encountered some of the same problems each time,
which is why five private foundations have formed a Supporters Club that
will donate 1.6 million Euros over the next four years to establish an ESOF
secretariat. The secretariat will take care of fundraising at the European
level and serve as an institutional memory. Cities must also compete over
the privilege to host ESOF. Torino, Italy, won the 2010 event because it
promised a very ambitious Web presence. Torino computer scientist Angelo
Raffaele Meo plans to Webcast every session live, enabling remote viewers
to interact by emailing questions to speakers.
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The Future of Tech in One Word: Plastics
Christian Science Monitor (07/31/08) P. 13; Velasquez-Manoff, Moises
Plastics-based electronics can be cheaper and less energy intensive to
manufacture than their silicon counterparts while also being bendable and
potentially more energy efficient. Organic light-emitting diodes (OLED)
can be used for displays that require no backlight and are flexible, and
major technical issues such as uneven wear and durability have been
addressed. Experts say price is currently the biggest obstacle to the
launch of a mass market OLED display. High-definition televisions that can
be rolled up after use is one OLED application that is envisioned to happen
after the technology breaks into the mainstream. Electronics for plastic
displays can be "printed" roll to roll like a newspaper rather than be
constructed piece by piece, and NanoMarkets analyst Lawrence Gasman says
this feature will probably lower the cost of fabricating OLEDs to a
significant degree. Universal Display has a two-year, approximately $2
million contract with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop thin OLED
lighting panels that can either be printed or mounted onto numerous
surfaces. Another breakthrough in plastics electronics is electronic
paper. Co-op America estimates that electronic magazine delivery through
e-paper could spare 35 million trees from getting converted into paper
yearly. The emergence of affordable solar panels could also be accelerated
by plastic electronics through the efforts of companies that are working on
organic solar panels.
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NSF Announces Partnership With Industry, Academia to
Further Explore Data-Intensive Computing
National Science Foundation (07/30/08)
The National Science Foundation's (NSF's) Computer and Information Science
and Engineering (CISE) Directorate has awarded a grant to the University of
Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to help establish an experimental
computing cluster to further research in data-intensive computing. The
UIUC grant will expand the NSF's Cluster Exploratory (CluE) initiative by
providing researchers with access to an additional cluster for
data-intensive computing research. The wide availability of data, combined
with the increased capabilities and decreased cost of both storage and
computing technologies, has led to a rethinking of how problems that were
once considered impractical to solve are handled. "The new cluster at
Illinois is a key ingredient in our efforts to make available massively
scaled, highly distributed, data-centered computing resources to the U.S.
academic research and education community," says NSF's Jeannette Wing.
UIUC professor Michael Heath says the new cluster will be used to explore
new and better ways to provide system-level support for data-intensive
computing. "With previous efforts focused on networking or user-level
applications, the gaping need to process and respond to large amounts of
data has been inadequately addressed," Heath says. The new center at UIUC
will also be part of the Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Yahoo Cloud Computing Test
Bed, one of six centers of excellence the companies are creating to help
foster research in data-intensive computing.
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Artificial Tongue Mimics Human Speech
New Scientist (07/29/08) Robson, David
Anton, a mechanical tongue and jaw that has successfully mimicked the
muscular activity involved in producing certain vowel sounds will be
presented at this year's International Society of Artificial Life
conference. Robin Hofe of the University of Sheffield in the United
Kingdom says Anton has the potential to help improve speech recognition
software. Existing systems are working with larger databases of recorded
speech, but their performance has not significantly improved because the
way people talk is not steady and uniform. Speech can be affected by where
people are and what they are doing. The researchers believe Anton will be
a key to learning more about how the mouth produces sounds, since obtaining
data from inside the human mouth might not be the best approach. The
researchers also want to embed artificial muscles in Anton to make it more
realistic, and eventually have it produce sound. The previous test
involved MRI scans to compare the movements of Anton with those of real
mouths.
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First Paper-Based Transistors
ZDNet (07/22/08) Piquepaille, Roland
Portuguese researchers have created the first field-effect transistors
(FET) with a paper interstrate layer. The researchers say the new
transistors provide the same level of performance as state-of-the-art
oxide-based thin-film transistors (TFTs) produced on glass or crystalline
silicon substrates. These paper-based transistors could be used for new
disposable electronic devices, such as paper displays, smart labels,
bio-applications, or RFID tags. The transistors were developed at the
Center of Materials Research at the Faculdade de Ciencias e Tecnologia of
the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. The researchers say there is an
increased interest in the use of biopolymers for low-cost electronic
applications, and because Earth's major biopolymer is cellulose, several
international teams have reported using paper as the substrate of
electronic devices. However, this new paper-based transistor is the first
time paper has been used as an interstrate component of a FET. To build a
transistor using paper, the researchers fabricated the devices on both
sides of a paper sheet, allowing the paper to act simultaneously as the
electric insulator and as the substrate. Paper FETs outperformed amorphous
silicon TFTs during testing, and rivaled TFTs.
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Perl Vision Gets Sharper
Government Computer News (07/25/08) Jackson, Joab
Perl creator Larry Wall proclaimed during his yearly "State of the Onion"
speech at the recent O'Reilly Open Source Conference that version 6 of Perl
will constitute the world's first truly extensible programming language,
enabling power users to enhance Perl with instructions, syntax,
expressions, operators, and other features to fulfill their own
requirements. "Perl 6 has no core, no keywords, no built-in operators,"
Wall said. "Everything that looks like an operator is actually defined by
some grammatical rule or by a macro or by something that is added in."
Perl 6's customization ability will be largely concealed from those using
the language to perform basic functions, while more traditional
enhancements will be offered in the standard edition to make programming
less difficult. Wall and Perl developer Damian Conway presented some late
additions to the language's feature set, including a naming scheme of new
modules that will offer a placeholder to specify the module's version
number, which will facilitate the concurrent operation of multiple module
versions. Future versions of Perl 6 will be backward-compatible, at least
to version 6, while the generation of regular expression statements has
been streamlined through additional shortcuts. A friendlier set of error
messages and a method for dividing work into parallel so they may be
performed at the same time by multicore processors were also
highlighted.
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Virginia Tech Building Supercomputer Out of 324 Mac
Pros
Ars Technica (07/24/08) Foresman, Chris
Virginia Tech's Center for High-End Computing System (CHECS) is building a
new supercomputer cluster from 324 Mac Pro towers, giving the new cluster a
theoretical computing capacity of 29 teraflops. CHECS director Dr.
Srinidhi Varadarajan says the new system is intended to be a purely
computer science research station that will be used to study two areas:
Power-aware software systems capable of adjusting performance automatically
to maximize efficiency, and distributed shared memory systems that can run
existing threaded code on high-performance clusters. Varadarajan and his
team chose Mac Pros because they have numerous power and temperature
sensors, which are necessary for the power/performance research and tuning,
and an additional full-height PCI Express 2.0 slot for use in other
research projects. The Mac Pros are also quite price competitive, even
against building a white box off the cheapest prices, Varadarajan says. He
expects it will be several weeks before the new system comes online, when
tuning and benchmarking will begin. Once tangible numbers on the system's
performance is established, the researchers will have a better idea on how
Mac Pros fare in cluster-type systems.
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An Interdisciplinary Vision of Computer Science
Chronicle of Higher Education (08/01/08) Vol. 54, No. 47, P. A8; Foster,
Andrea L.
Georgia Institute of Technology's College of Computing will continue to
focus on establishing schools in biomedical informatics and information
science, says Richard A. DeMillo in an interview. DeMillo, who is stepping
down as dean, helped increase research funds by 60 percent and faculty
members by 40 percent, while leading the College of Computing over the past
six years. The former Hewlett-Packard CTO plans to write a book on how
technology has revolutionized business, and is considering a textbook about
Web science. He also wants to return to teaching, focusing on the impact
of technology innovation on management, as well as on areas such as Web
science. DeMillo says Georgia Tech helped attract more students to
computer science. "We started redefining what computer science meant when
the dot-com bust was hitting academic computer-science departments," he
says. "One of our real accomplishments was to get the Computing Research
Association to form a subcommittee on computing education."
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NCSA Plays Key Role in Digital Archiving Project
NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) (07/08)
The University of Illinois is one of the lead institutions for the
National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program
(NDIPP), a massive Library of Congress effort to save at-risk digital
materials. At the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
at the University of Illinois, the Digital Library Technologies group is
working on the semantic archiving aspect of NDIPP by working with a team
from the library with the objective of building a proof-of-concept semantic
archive to demonstrate how semantic inference capability could help
next-generation archives head off long-term preservation risks. To
meaningfully preserve digital content over time, it is necessary to infer
meaning or semantics from structures that change over time, but given the
incredible and increasing volume of digital data being created, automated
tools are a necessity for such a task. Information science research
associate Dave Dubin has created BECHAMEL, software that flags possible
points of information loss or confusion to reduce long-term preservation
risks. BECHAMEL is the result of a joint research effort by the University
of Illinois, the University of Bergen, and the World Wide Web Consortium to
develop a research platform for the interpretation of structured digital
documents.
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