Ever wonder how data from a server in Beijing can reach a computer in San Diego? As deceptively simple as it sounds, that data goes through a cable. Cables spanning various distances, numerous speeds, and controlled by an incredible variety of owners, run through the ocean to connect these different sides of the world. Google, in a partnership with Facebook and China Soft Power Technology, is looking to take the next leap in the quality and speed of these vital methods of data transfer. That leap comes in the form of a few 8,000 mile cables, and it’s called the Pacific Light Cable Network.
The Pacific Light Cable Network, or the PLCN, will transmit 120 terabits of data per second between Los Angeles and Hong Kong and is expected to be functional by 2018. According to Google’s submarine networking infrastructure director, this will decrease latency in certain cases and will provide a much faster and more reliable experience when communicating between the two regions.
SanDisk is well known for its memory and and with the price of flash memory steadily dropping, the SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable 240GB SSD is as affordable as it is fast.
Less than half the size of your smarthpone, it can deliver up to 4x the speed of a portable hard drive with write speeds up to 200MB/s and read speeds up to double that. In seconds, you can transfer big videos and photo libraries and its durable design is a great way to ensure the safety of your data. Solid state technology offers reliable, responsive, high-performance storage for any user who cares about big media files.
Additional features include access to SanDisk’s SecureAccess software for 128-bit encryption to keep private files from prying eyes. A bonus in the nature of an SSD as opposed to hard drive memory, this drive has no moving parts therefore generates significantly less heat than the standard drive even on the busiest of days. If you’re looking for a place to store your operating system or just to hold on to memorable videos, this device will make sure it’s all accessible, safe, and fast.
For those wanting an upgrade to their tablet, laptop, or desktop without having to purchase a completely new machine, the USB 3.0 Docking Station from Accell is the boost to functionality and speed that all users can appreciate. Significant increases to ports, data transfer speeds, and even charging, this dock will maximize the value of your existing device.
Everyone with a phone or mobile device will need charging and most people with a mobile device will of course be mobile! Since you’re charging your phone while you drive, why not also use it as a locator so you know where your car is after you get out? The combination of these ideas has led to the smart charger Zus.
The Zus works as any normal USB charger but the real difference is in its built-in Bluetooth transmitter and simple mobile app. Working with one another, the product turns into a honing device for finding your car. Without having to worry about your phone running out of juice or scouring a parking structure looking for your car, the Zus enables a new level of freedom while maintaining the benefits of a mobile device.
It’s understandable for most users to need a bit of extra space on their machines and it’s always a great idea to grab some solid-state memory for frequently used items such as your operating system. Samsung however, has taken that combination to an entirely new level with the PM1633a SSD clocking in at a massive 15.36 terabytes. Expanded out a bit, that’s 15,360,000,000,000 bytes which is also known as “more storage than a single user will ever need in life”.
Not only is this 15.36 TB behemoth the largest SSD ever made, but the largest single hard drive, going above and beyond the 10 TB cap most spinning disk drives are limited to. Such power comes at a price though, with preorders for the drive hovering at over $10,000.
Another day, another awesome implementation of AI from Google. To combat the notorious energy consumption of data centers worldwide, Google has been using an AI system built by DeepMind to control certain parts of its data centers for increased environmental friendliness. For those who haven’t seen our article about AlphaGo, another DeepMind project by Google, here is a quick link to check it out. Although DeepMind is famous for developing AI technology and was able to beat the world’s best Go player, it hasn’t turned a profit for Google. Yet.
The DeepMind AI system has been used to reduce the energy consumption of cooling units in Google data centers. These coolers are vital as they prevent overheating and so far DeepMind has reduced their energy costs by up to 40 percent. How? By training DeepMind’s self-learning algorithms to predict hourly heat patterns. The coolers were then able to run at the most efficient intensities to keep the servers sufficiently cool. It’s as simple of a concept as a weatherman telling you whether you’ll need a jacket or a T-shirt to prevent temperature discomfort but for a machine to regulate this in perfect sync with thousands of other machines is an absolute marvel. Using a system of neural networks that analyze different operating scenarios, DeepMind makes a more efficient framework to understand data center dynamics.
 If you haven’t noticed the hordes of people across a variety of age groups walking around and bumping into each other while on their phones, then downloading Pokemon Go might be what you need in order to go out more. The game has been out for less than a week and is already shattering records for active users. This includes trumping other mobile games like Candy Crush, and even online platforms such as Twitter. That’s right, more people play Pokemon Go each day than use Twitter so it’s safe to say, it’s pretty big. But why? Awesome combat systems? The interactive Augmented Reality (AR)? To find out, let’s look at some of Go’s finer points and soon-to-come features.
 Capitalizing on the nostalgia of millions, Pokemon Go utilizes some of Nintendo’s most valuable intellectual property on a platform everyone is guaranteed to have access to. It captures the hearts of collectors and competitors alike and most of all it builds a community. For many who have spent their lives enthralled by video games, social interaction hasn’t been the most plentiful resource but with Pokemon Go, hangouts, meetups, and organic interaction occurs at each and every Pokestop.
Whether you’re formatting an internal drive, external drive, or USB flash drive, Windows makes it possible to choose between NTFS and exFAT formats. In this guide, we’ll go over the simple steps to formatting a USB drive and which format is best for certain situations.
exFAT is a file system optimized specifically for flash drives. Introduced in 2006, it’s designed to be a lightweight file system like FAT32 without the extra features of NTFS and without the FAT32 limitations. exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits so files larger than 4GB a piece can be stored on a flash drive formatted with exFAT. It makes very few unnecessary writes, and stores files throughout the drive in order to maximize the lifespan and speed up transfers.
Even considering the growth rate of recent technology, iPads and tablets are an impressive feat of functionality and compact usability. As a business tool, a substitute for your computer, or another way to binge-watch netflix, an iPad has countless uses and new apps are being created every day to increase its usability. Companies such as Moe Bull corporation however, have taken a more physical approach to usability instead of virtual and the newest Moe Bull iPad stand for bed is the perfect buy for any extended use of an iPad device.
Made of solid wood without any moving parts that similar and less stable products pride themselves on, the patent pending Moe Bull Stand is a unique and simple product which enables tablet use in a whole new range of locations. The tip resistant design leans the device towards the viewer when laying down on a bed or couch. This makes watching videos or reading an ebook an incredibly comfortable experience.
When designing print for screens, visual inspiration can strike at any moment. Colors, font sizes, and typefaces come in infinite combinations and varieties but rarely can a single person view one such sample and know what they’re looking at – much less save it for later use. This is exactly what the working prototypes of Spector are tackling and it’s looking to become one the most useful tools for online design.
Spector captures typefaces and colors in the real world and then transfers them directly to your computer. Described by Fiona O’Leary, Spector’s creator, as “an eyedropper for the physical world”, many think of it as Shazam for colors and fonts. To use it, place Spector over a piece of media and depress the button on top. A camera inside will photograph the sample and an algorithm translates the image into information about the shapes and color values of the typeface. Spector beams that information to a database which IDs the sample and if your computer is nearby, a custom plugin will port the information to InDesign.
At the forefront of robotic innovations, Boston dynamics has revealed their newest design and it’s looking like a very futuristic representation of your family pet. The best part? SpotMini looks like it can replace your housecleaner as well.
Weighing in at 55 pounds, SpotMini has done away with hydraulics and pumps to rely exclusively on electric motors for movement. On a full charge, an estimated 90 minutes of activity can be expected. With a full suite of sensors, the robot can both navigate and manipulate its environment. This includes fetching a paper, opening doors, and walking down stairs and functionality testing is getting increasingly complex every day. To augment this, SpotMini can be taught or guided by its human companions to perform countless tasks for even more uses which will vary from household to household.
Installed this week at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, Sunway TaihuLight easily breaks its way into the top 10 of the international Top500 list for computing systems. More impressive however, is the margin by which it beats the #2 spot(also in China) to be the most powerful computing system in the world. With over 10.5 million locally-made processing cores and 40,960 nodes Sunway TaihuLight is capable of 93 petaflops which is a term most people do not and should not ever need in their lives. Counting up trillions upon trillions is required to put that figure into perspective and it means 93 quadrillion floating-point operations per second (FLOPS). In other words… lots.
Main applications for the system for now include advanced manufacturing, weather forecasting, and big data analytics but we’ve seen computers less powerful being applied to genome mapping and heavily extensive theoretical physics equations. Software for a computer with multiple cores can be difficult to write but software to take advantage of 10 million would be almost as much effort as building the system itself depending on the goal functionality. For the nerdy out there, the Sunway TaihuLight is an extremely high-spec Grand Prix racing car. Fantastic for races in a circuit, but not something any one person would ever need in order to drive to work.
