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From Ars Technica: Holey chip! IBM drills holes into optical chip for terabit-per-second speed


IBM researchers have built a prototype optical chip that can transfer a terabit of data per second, using an innovative design requiring 48 tiny holes drilled into a standard CMOS chip, facilitating the movement of light. Much faster and more power-efficient than today’s optics, the so-called “Holey Optochip” technology could enhance the power of supercomputers.

Optical chips, which move data with light instead of electrons, are commonly used for interconnects in today’s supercomputers and can be found in IBM systems such as Power 775 and Blue Gene. Optical technology is favored over electrical for transmitting high-bandwidth data over longer distances, which is why it’s used for telecommunications networks, said IBM Optical Links Group manager Clint Schow.

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From Ars Technica: Raspberry Pi, activist tool


The tiny, $35, Linux-based Raspberry Pi computer has drawn a lot of attention in the last few months, and though it was originally developed to teach computer programming to young students, Internet activists have taken notice as well. A recent BBC interview with developer Nadim Kobeissi, creator of a web-based secure communications program called Cryptocat, shows off just one potential use of the low-cost hardware and free software system. Kobeissi says he’s looking forward to the arrival of Raspberry Pi as a way to bring extra-secure communication to web chat, especially in places where conversations might be watched.

Kobeissi’s Cryptocat is an open-source program that encrypts chat conversations before they’re sent to a server. For relatively little money, he plans to buy Raspberry Pi computers, set them up as servers running Cryptocat, and send them to areas where free speech is monitored or prohibited. The small, modifiable nature of Raspberry Pi computers make them well-adapted to foster chat privacy.

Considering general privacy concerns and recent NSA surveillance probes, the idea could be intriguing for westerners too. “Big Data continue to amass gigantic amounts of personal information without providing any guarantee of privacy, while encryption remains largely inaccessible,” Cryptocat’s website claims, “Cryptocat aims to bridge the gap for those who need easy, encrypted communication.”

Earlier this week, Raspberry Pi became available for pre-order through two Britain-based manufacturers, and the demand for the little open-source system was so great that both manufacturers sites went down on Tuesday evening. When the Pi becomes more widely available, Kobeissi plans to put the software for turning the Raspberry Pi into a chat server online for anyone to use.

 

 

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From Ars Technica: Two German suits between Apple and Samsung dismissed, at least 10 to go


The Mannheim Regional Court in Germany has thrown out two lawsuits between Apple and Samsung, adding to the pile of discarded lawsuits between the two companies.

One of the two suits dismissed on Friday was filed by Apple against Samsung asserting its slide-to-unlock patents in the iPhone, while the other dismissed lawsuit is the third Samsung 3G patent lawsuit in a row to be dismissed. Unsurprisingly, Samsung was displeased with the decision, telling the BBC that it planned to appeal. “We will continue to assert our intellectual property rights and defend against Apple’s claims to ensure our continued ability to provide innovative mobile products to consumers,” the company said.

Apple did not publicly comment on the decisions but pointed the BBC to a previous statement wherein the company accused Samsung of “blatantly copying” its hardware and UI designs used in the iPhone and iPad. And, as noted by FOSS Patents, this is just the beginning—only four of at least 14 Mannheim court cases between Apple and Samsung have been ruled on so far. (There are at least six left from Apple against Samsung alone.) Is anyone getting patent suit vertigo yet?

 

 

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From Ars Technica: Zemlin praises $25 Linux computer: a Windows license costs more than four Raspberry Pis


In a blog post written this morning, Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin praised the Raspberry Pi foundation’s $35 Linux computer, which met tremendous demand when it launched this week. In his blog post, Zemlin discussed the important role that the Linux platform plays in enabling innovation around low-cost computing.

The Raspberry Pi foundation launched with the aim of building an inexpensive system that could be used to teach computer programming to young students. They developed a pair of bare ARM boards priced at $25 and $35 that include a 700Mhz ARM11 CPU and a 256MB of RAM. The devices are roughly the same size as a deck of playing cards.

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From Ars Technica: Getting ready for the end of growth on Earth


Long Beach, California—Paul Gilding wants to scare us. He wants to scare us into acting before it’s too late. “The Earth is Full. Full of us, full of our stuff. Full of our waste,” he said during his TED talk. In financial terms, we live on the Earth like we are spending 50 percent more than we earn.

Gilding has been agitating for sustainability long before most people became aware of the concept, and he has a bleak message for the prospects of the free market. Our economy is not sustainable, and woefully unprepared for hitting the Earth’s limits. It’s not just a little bit over the limits of sustainability, either—we are way beyond that.

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From Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now: Video: Microsoft IllumiShare Lets You Play Remotely With Physical Objects

Microsoft IllumiShare Microsoft

IllumiShare, from Microsoft Research (also responsible for holodesks), is a system to allow two people to interact with various objects remotely. It gives cooperative activities like taking notes or creating documents a physicality: You’re not typing in Google Docs, you’re actually writing with ink and paper. Or playing cards with real cards, only your partner is on the other side of the world.

The IllumiShare is really just a cool implementation of a combined projector and camera. When two of them are communicating, each one records what it sees while simultaneously beaming that video to the other IllumiShare setup and projecting what it receives from its brother. Since it uses a regular camera, you can use physical objects like a pen and paper, or cards, or dice, as shown in the video below.

The drawback is that compared to a completely digital experience, you can only control the physical objects that are actually in front of you. So no, this doesn’t allow you to reach through a wrinkle in space-time to manipulate your friends’ cards. But it looks pretty seamless and probably wouldn’t even be all that expensive to make. Microsoft hasn’t implied any release date for it, though.

[via The Atlantic]

from Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now