From Autoblog: Hyundai, Broadcom to equip vehicles with built-in ethernet

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Hyundai is the second manufacturer after BMW – having put its Flexray ethernet system into the X5 – to pledge to install Ethernet technology in its cars. This isn’t a ploy to give you yet another place to work on those regional sales spreadsheets, it’s about reducing vehicle complexity while making the cars and their systems more efficient. The Korean manufacturer will be doing so in conjunction with Broadcom, the U.S. firm having created the “one pair Ethernet” (OPEN) special interest group that now counts 81 members.

Various in-vehicle electronics use a variety of protocols, primary among them being control area network (CAN), local area network (LAN) and low voltage differential signaling (LVDS). Broadcom wants to integrate those incompatible and highly specialized systems into one Ethernet system – the same plug-and-play one your computer can use all over the world – and in doing so make Ethernet “the backbone of the car.”

Developed with BMW and Hyundai, Broadcom’s BroadR-Reach standard uses two unshielded cables instead of four, which allows for light and inexpensive wiring that can be fit through a bodyshell’s tight spots. Achieving the kind of consolidation ultimately envisioned would bring numerous and wide-ranging advantages like lowering the cost and complexity of electronics, at the same time allowing for greater electronics capabilities inside the car like 360-degree car camera security systems, using the same IP standard familiar around the world, allowing for speeds from 100 Mbps to 1 GBbps for faster and better communication between systems, just for starters. Lighter wiring – and there’s a lot of it in a car – also means lighter cars.

That futuristic world is still in the future, though. Automakers are naturally keen to develop Ethernet applications in phases, such as focusing just on infotainment, to make sure it can stand up to the rigors of an automobile’s daily life. Hyundai hasn’t said which of its products will be the first in line or when that vehicle reach showrooms, but has cited infotainment, lane departure warning, park assist and telematics as the features likely to benefit. Read more in the press release below.

Continue reading Hyundai, Broadcom to equip vehicles with built-in ethernet

from Autoblog

From Discover Magazine: Drug Companies Cherry-Pick Data to Get Approval for Useless Drugs | 80beats

pills

It goes without saying that the drugs you take for a headache, or high blood pressure, or even depression should work better than a Tic-Tac. That’s what drug trials are for: researchers give a group of subjects either the drug under investigation or a placebo to check that the medicine is significantly more effective than a sugar pill. Plus, the trials can reveal any potentially harmful side effects. In theory, this is a great way to weed out useless or actively harmful drugs. But it fails when drug manufacturers cherry-pick their data, publishing papers on the positive trials and sweeping the unsuccessful ones under the rug. And this behavior is completely legal.

Science writer and medical doctor Ben Goldacre wrote a book, with a long excerpt published at the Guardian, about how this process leads to approval for drugs that don’t actually work. And as he explains, when widely used drugs—such as the diabetes medication rosiglitazone—have harmful side effects, they sometimes remain in common use.

In 2003 the Uppsala drug monitoring group of the World Health Organisation contacted [pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline] about an unusually large number of spontaneous reports associating rosiglitazone with heart problems. GSK conducted …

 

from Discover Magazine

From Ars Technica: $99 Raspberry Pi-sized “supercomputer” touted in Kickstarter project

Raspberry Pi-sized board called Parallella puts supercomputing power into a $99 package.

Chipmaker Adapteva wants to make parallel computing available to everyone, but there’s a good chance you’ve never even heard the company’s name. Founded in 2008, Adapteva focuses on building low-power RISC chips, which it sells to board manufacturers, and is trying to license its intellectual property to mobile processor vendors for use in smartphones.

“We’re way down the food chain,” Adapteva CEO and founder Andreas Olofsson told Ars. But Adapteva wants to bring its technology directly to the people who would actually use it, with a Kickstarter project to raise at least $750,000, and a stretch goal of $3 million.

Adapteva calls it “Parallella: A Supercomputer For Everyone,” a 16-core board hitting 13GHz and 26 gigaflops performance, costing $99 each. If the $3 million goal is hit, Adapteva will make a $199 64-core board hitting 45GHz and 90 gigaflops. (Adapteva seems to be counting GHz on a cumulative basis, adding up all the cores.) Both include a dual-core ARM A9-based system-on-chip, with the 16- and 64-core RISC chips acting as coprocessors to speed up tasks. The Adapteva architecture hits performance of 70 gigaflops per watt, and 25GHz per watt, the company says.

from Ars Technica

From Geeks are Sexy Technology News: HOLY BAT-BIKE! San Jose State Students Build Omnidirectional Motorcycle

San Jose State University students have built a prototype chassis for an omnidirectional motorcycle — which will eventually allow them to not only move sideways and have the bike balance itself, but do total 360′s while driving!

The students hope to have their prototype complete and fully operational by the end of the year. You can follow their progress and concepts here.

[Via Geekologie]

from Geeks are Sexy Technology News

From Wired Top Stories: Quantum Computer Not Working? Grab Some Scotch Tape

The world’s researchers have yet to build a quantum computer of any significant size. But maybe they just need a little Scotch tape.

Researchers at the University of Toronto recently used some two-sided Scotch poster tape — yes, two-sided Scotch poster tape — to transfer superconducting properties to a semiconducting material. That semiconductor is similar …

from Wired Top Stories