Computers & the Internet News and Discussions

[wjfox]

[weatheriscool]

High-speed laser writing method could pack 500 terabytes of data into CD-sized glass disc

by The Optical Society
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-high-spee ... sized.html

Researchers have developed a fast and energy-efficient laser-writing method for producing high-density nanostructures in silica glass. These tiny structures can be used for long-term five-dimensional (5D) optical data storage that is more than 10,000 times denser than Blue-Ray optical disc storage technology.

"Individuals and organizations are generating ever-larger datasets, creating the desperate need for more efficient forms of data storage with a high capacity, low energy consumption and long lifetime," said doctoral researcher Yuhao Lei from the University of Southampton in the UK. "While cloud-based systems are designed more for temporary data, we believe that 5D data storage in glass could be useful for longer-term data storage for national archives, museums, libraries or private organizations."

In Optica, Optica Publishing Group's journal, Lei and colleagues describe their new method for writing data that encompasses two optical dimensions plus three spatial dimensions. The new approach can write at speeds of 1,000,000 voxels per second, which is equivalent to recording about 230 kilobytes of data (more than 100 pages of text) per second.

"The physical mechanism we use is generic," said Lei. "Thus, we anticipate that this energy-efficient writing method could also be used for fast nanostructuring in transparent materials for applications in 3D integrated optics and microfluidics."

[raklian]

Seoul will be the first city government to join the metaverse

https://qz.com/2086353/seoul-is-develop ... -platform/

Seoul says it will be the first major city government to enter the metaverse. On Nov. 3, the South Korean capital announced a plan to make a variety of public services and cultural events available in the metaverse, an immersive internet that relies on virtual reality. If the plan is successful, Seoul residents can visit a virtual city hall to do everything from touring a historic site to filing a civil complaint by donning virtual reality goggles.

The 3.9 billion won ($3.3 million) investment is part of mayor Oh Se-hoon’s 10-year plan for the city, which aims to improve social mobility among citizens and raising the city’s global competitiveness. It also taps into South Korea’s Digital New Deal, a nationwide plan to embrace digital and AI tools to improve healthcare, central infrastructure, and the economy in its recovery from the economic crisis caused by covid-19.

[Yuli Ban]

Samsung announces its next-gen RAM for phones and ‘the metaverse’

Samsung has announced its next-generation RAM tech made for mobile devices, which it says can be used in future smartphones but also in servers, cars, and “the metaverse.” While Samsung’s press release doesn’t mention how its new LPDDR5X RAM chips could help people enter the “digital reality,” the tech should help make devices run faster and last longer.

Putting the buzzwords like metaverse, AI, and 5G aside, Samsung is promising some real improvements to speed and power usage: it says its next-gen RAM will have 1.3-times faster processing speeds versus the previous-gen LPDDR5, will be capable of higher densities (up to 64GB per chip), and will use 20 percent less power than the last generation. Some of these improvements, according to Samsung, can be chalked up to the new 14nm process it’s using to create the chips. Also, for all the ribbing about the metaverse, lower-power draw and better performance could actually help with AR and VR headsets with onboard processors or phones that are driving those devices.

[wjfox]

Qualcomm’s next-gen CPU for PCs will take on Apple’s M-series chips in 2023

Nov 16, 2021

Qualcomm is looking to seriously beef up its PC processors, with the company announcing plans for a next-generation Arm-based SoC “designed to set the performance benchmark for Windows PCs” that would be able to go head to head with Apple’s M-series processors.

Dr. James Thompson, Qualcomm’s chief technology officer, announced the plans for the new chips at the company’s 2021 investor day event, with the goal of getting samples to hardware customers in about nine months ahead of product launches with the new chip in 2023.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/16/227 ... titor-2023

[weatheriscool]

Closer to a simple and efficient method of quantum encryption
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-closer-si ... antum.html
by Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Banks and government departments are already investing heavily in quantum encryption that relies on laser beams. However, laser beams often release several photons at once or none at all. A team at Hebrew University developed a system that uses fluorescent crystals. A laser beam shone at these quantum dots causes them to fluoresce and emit a stream of single photons.

Quantum computers will revolutionize our computing lives. For some critical tasks they will be mind-bogglingly faster and use much less electricity than today's computers. However, and here's the bad news, these computers will be able to crack most of the encryption codes currently used to protect our data, leaving our bank and security information vulnerable to attacks. Currently, most computer security relies on mathematical manipulations that, at present, ensure a very high level of security—it would take a regular computer billions of years to break one of those codes. However, in our quantum future, new methods of encryption that rely on the laws of physics, rather than mathematical equations, will need to be developed.

[weatheriscool]

Serious security vulnerabilities in DRAM memory devices
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-11-vul ... vices.html
by Oliver Morsch, ETH Zurich

Researchers at ETH Zurich have discovered major vulnerabilities in DRAM memory devices, which are widely used in computers, tablets and smartphones. The vulnerabilities have now been published together with the National Cyber Security Centre, which for the first time has assigned an identification number for it.

When browsing the internet on a laptop computer or writing messages on a smartphone, we all like to think that we are reasonably safe from hacker attacks as long as we have installed the latest software updates and anti-virus software. But what if the problem lies not with the software, but with the hardware? A team of researchers led by Kaveh Razavi at ETH Zurich, together with colleagues at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Qualcomm Technologies, have recently discovered fundamental vulnerabilities affecting the memory component called DRAM at the heart of all modern computer systems.

The results of their research have now been accepted for publication at a flagship IT security conference, and the Swiss National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has issued a Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) number. This is the first time that a CVE identification has been issued by the NCSC in Switzerland (see box below). On a scale of 0 to 10, the severity of the vulnerability has been rated as 9.

[caltrek]

Partnerships are Key to Commitments from Biden's Summit for Democracy
by Vera Zakem
December 5, 2021

https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/05/partn ... democracy/

Introduction:

(TechCrunch) This week, President Biden will gather leaders from over 100 countries to attend his long-promised virtual Summit for Democracy. After a year of consultation, coordination and action, these leaders will come together once more for a second summit to report on progress on the initial set of commitments to protect human rights, counter authoritarianism and corruption.

Having been born in the former Soviet Union, I cannot help but feel a deep sense of optimism about the summit. Even as a very young child, I felt the chill that came from living in a place that restricted freedom of expression and speech and where information and just about every aspect of life were greatly controlled by the state or a select few in power. My personal experiences make me grateful to be an American citizen. But having lived under an authoritarian regime, I’m acutely sensitive to the reasons this summit is taking place: the democratic recession taking place around the world.

No area is as critical in this democratic competition as technology. If leaders hope to make progress on the three core tenets of the summit, they will have to ensure that technology serves democracy and human rights. This includes facilitating investments in open internet and critical infrastructure as a way to counter digital authoritarianism, countering disinformation, strengthening societal resilience and making greater investments in emerging technologies and tech entrepreneurship that are consistent with democratic values and diversity.

Reporting indicates that we are likely to see commitments made on strengthening the internet, increasing funds for media literacy and civic education and enforcing export controls for dual-use technologies, among other initiatives. These are all useful steps. But if they are to last beyond the summit, they will require public-private-civic partnerships to truly implement and scale. Here are three areas that merit our collective attention: (see article linked above quote box).

[weatheriscool]

Amazon Web Services are down, taking huge parts of internet offline
Source: The Hill

Amazon Web Services (AWS) were down Tuesday morning, leaving large parts of the internet reliant on the tech giant's services offline.

On its health service dashboard, AWS posted a message at 11:22 a.m. that the company is "investigating increased error rates for the AWS Management Console."

"We are experiencing API and console issues in the US-EAST-1 Region. We have identified root cause and we are actively working towards recovery," AWS said in the message.

The message did not detail what the cause was. A spokesperson for the company declined to detail the identified cause and told The Hill that the message will be updated on the health service dashboard "as it's ready."

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... ar-AARzhJb

[wjfox]

Interesting that we don't have 2TB SD cards yet. It's been almost three years since the first 1TB SD. Any ideas when they'll release higher capacity SDs?

[weatheriscool]

Magnetic 'hedgehogs' could store big data in a small space

by Laura Arenschield, The Ohio State University
https://phys.org/news/2021-12-magnetic- ... space.html

Atomic-scale magnetic patterns resembling a hedgehog's spikes could result in hard disks with massively larger capacities than today's devices, a new study suggests. The finding could help data centers keep up with the exponentially increasing demand for video and cloud data storage.

In a study published today in the journal Science, researchers at The Ohio State University used a magnetic microscope to visualize the patterns, formed in thin films of an unusual magnetic material, manganese germanide. Unlike familiar magnets such as iron, the magnetism in this material follows helices, similar to the structure of DNA. This leads to a new zoo of magnetic patterns with names such as hedgehogs, anti-hedgehogs, skyrmions and merons that can be much smaller than today's magnetic bits.

"These new magnetic patterns could be used for next-generation data storage," said Jay Gupta, senior author of the study and a professor of physics at Ohio State. "The density of storage in hard disks is approaching its limits, related to how small you can make the magnetic bits that allow for that storage. And that's motivated us to look for new materials, where we might be able to make the magnetic bits much smaller."

To visualize the magnetic patterns, Gupta and his team used a scanning tunneling microscope in his lab, modified with special tips. This microscope provides pictures of the magnetic patterns with atomic resolution. Their images revealed that in certain parts of the sample, the magnetism at the surface was twisted into a pattern resembling the spikes of a hedgehog. However, in this case the "body" of the hedgehog is only 10 nanometers wide, which is much smaller than today's magnetic bits (about 50 nanometers), and nearly impossible to visualize. By comparison, a single human hair is about 80,000 nanometers thick.

[caltrek]

Staying a Step Ahead of Invasive Insect Species with Computer Simulations
December 18, 2021

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/937974

Introduction:

(EurekAlert) Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have developed a simulation predicting the spread of an invasive beetle species harming local flora. They tried models based on road lengths, river lengths and recorded cherry tree numbers in square “cells” over Saitama Prefecture. They found that a simple model based on river lengths gave results which compared favorably with real world data. Good predictions could help authorities channel limited resources to where they are most needed.

Invasive insect species are a direct threat to local wildlife. The damage they inflict not only affect local ecosystems, but economies as well. Some estimates put the total annual cost of biological invasions around the world at well over 100 billion US dollars. The plum longhorn beetle or Aromia bungii is no exception. Though common in eastern Asia, it was only first found in Japan in 2012. In the decade since, it has had a devastating impact on peach orchards and cherry trees, particularly the Somei Yoshino variety which adorns the beautiful Japanese spring landscape. Not only has the invasion hit agriculture, it threatens the spring tourism industry for areas known for their abundant cherry trees.

One of the key aspects of managing such pests is knowing where they will spread to each year. Despite a range of technological innovations over the years like special traps, there are always limited resources that can be deployed: local authorities need to know where to focus on. That’s why a team led by Associate Professor Takeshi Osawa have been working on computer simulations to predict where beetles will go. They looked at Saitama Prefecture, where these beetles have become a major problem in recent years.

The cellular automata simulation they used splits the landscape up into squares, with rules dictating how likely it is that beetles spread from cell to cell in different directions. The team knew how much the beetles tended to crop up in areas with cherry trees. Thus, they decided to set the rules based on three different variables; the number of cherry trees on record in each square, the total length of rivers, and the total length of roads, since both rivers and roads tend to have cherry trees along them. They then ran the simulations…

[caltrek]

YouTube TV loses ESPN, other Disney Networks After Failing to Reach New Deal
by Catie Keck
December 18, 2021

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/18/228 ... nnels-deal

Introduction:

(The Verge) YouTube TV has failed to reach an eleventh-hour deal with Disney to keep more than a dozen Disney-owned channels on the live TV streaming service. As of December 18th, popular networks including ESPN and ABC have been removed from the service. As promised, YouTube TV has dropped its subscription to $50 per month as a direct result of the lost programming.

Disney said in a statement late Friday that after ongoing negotiations with YouTube TV, “they have declined to reach a fair deal with us based on market terms and conditions.”

“As a result, their subscribers have lost access to our unrivaled portfolio of networks including live sports and news plus kids, family and general entertainment programming from ABC, the ESPN networks, the Disney channels, Freeform, the FX networks and the National Geographic channels,” the company added. “We stand ready to reach an equitable agreement with Google as quickly as possible in order to minimize the inconvenience to YouTube TV viewers by restoring our networks. We hope Google will join us in that effort.”

In a blog post, YouTube TV said it would “continue conversations with Disney to advocate on your behalf in hopes of restoring their content on YouTube TV.”

“We’ve held good faith negotiations with Disney for several months,” YouTube TV said. “Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we’ve been unable to reach an equitable agreement before our existing one expired, and their channels are no longer available on YouTube TV.”

[caltrek]

An Exclusive Poll by Axios and the Illinois Institute of Technology Shows That the Public Wants Government Action on Tech
by Ashley Gold
December 22, 2021

https://www.axios.com/regulate-big-tech ... 83e69.html

Conclusion:

• 53% of respondents said the government should be responsible for ensuring competition and more choices in online services.

Privacy: Most poll respondents (78%) said they feel they are targeted in online ads based on their web activity. And 50% said they think they're targeted for online ads based on their offline conversations.

• Eighty-one percent think the government should be doing more to protect online privacy.

…What they're saying: "We’re in a situation in which we already depend so deeply on technology for all of these aspects of our day-to-day lives, but at the same time, we have a deep distrust of this same tech," said Christine Himes, dean of Lewis College of Science and Letters at Illinois Tech.

• "[The results] may be indicative of increasing distrust for all institutions, whether they are secular, religious, governmental, private or public," said George M. Langlois, executive director of the Center for Research and Service at Illinois Tech. "It does seem the public wants more control and is open to support changes that reflect that.”

What we're watching: Government agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission want to make rules for online advertising, the use of algorithms and AI and the size of tech companies.

• But to achieve those goals they'll likely need a sluggish Congress to grant them new powers.

[weatheriscool]

Micron confirms DDR5 Memory Shortages
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/3 ... -shortages
By Josh Norem on December 28, 2021 at 11:01 am

If you were considering upgrading your gaming rig to Intel’s new Alder Lake platform, and dropping in some DDR5 memory modules, memory manufacturer Micron has some bad news for you. The company confirmed in an earnings call recently that production of the next-gen memory modules is quite difficult at this time due to a shortage of required components, and the situation isn’t going to improve until the middle of next year, probably.

For the uninitiated, Alder Lake is the first PC platform that supports DDR5 memory, which will eventually replace the DDR4 memory that we all use now. Compared to its predecessor, DDR5 is better in almost every way, offering more memory bandwidth, increased memory density per module, and higher clock speeds. We say “almost” because you can actually buy DDR4 RAM right now, whereas DDR5 sticks are only being sold at scalper prices currently.

[wjfox]

[caltrek]

SpaceX Just Launched a Much-needed Boost for Internet Service

by Mike Brown
January 7, 2021

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/star ... aunch-2022

Introduction:

(Inverse) SPACEX’S FIRST LAUNCH of 2022 brings a welcome boost to Starlink.

On Thursday, at 4:49 p.m. Eastern time, a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 49 Starlink satellites launched from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Following the launch, CEO Elon Musk confirmed on Twitter that the new satellites would feature laser links used for faster communication between satellites.

The mission, the first of 2022 and the 134th successful Falcon 9 flight, comes at a time of growth for Starlink. The service promises high speed and low latency internet access to anywhere with a view of the sky, thanks to a lower orbit than competing satellite services and a larger overall number of satellites.

But while fans initially reported speeds of over 200 megabits per second, evidence suggests these speeds have declined as more people join the service. Data from Speedtest released late last year found that Starlink’s median download speed dropped from 97 megabits per second in the second quarter of 2021 to 87 megabits per second in the subsequent quarter.

Speedtest suggested this decline in speed was due to an increase in users. The latest launch, the 35th Starlink mission, should help by adding additional capacity for the service.

caltrek's comment: I wouldn't go so far as to say that I am opposed to this SpaceX project, but it does raise some concerns in my mind.

• First, is the possible connection between this and the so-called Kesler syndrome problem. Questions arise in my mind as to whether all of these additional satellites in space increase the probability of a massive failure due to Kesler syndrome type of event.
  
  For those who may not recall what the Kessler syndrome is all about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

• Related to that is a security concern about the West becoming too dependent upon satellites to keep the internet functioning. A scenario keeps running through my head suggested by the headlines regarding the Ukraine. In these Ukraine related news stories, there is talk about a whole new level of punishing sanctions to be levied upon Russia should it decide to launch a full-scale invasion of the Ukraine. What, I wonder, might this form of economic warfare lead to regarding a Putin response?
  
  Might he not be tempted to retaliate by destruction of satellites in order to more or less deliberately trigger a Kessler syndrome event?
  
  A key precaution, it would seem to me, would be to make sure that the internet can function at a certain basic level relying, more or less exclusively, upon landline capabilities. Not that every single remote location that may be served by Starlink should have a landline redundancy feature built into it, but rather that the major urban population and financial centers of the globe should be able to rely upon a back-up system in place and at least on standby.

I am not an expert on the internet or on how the internet functions, so I pose these points more as a question than as a final conclusion or conclusions. I am more than willing to read alternate viewpoints that argue that I have overlooked something and that my fears are thus unrealistic.

Just asking.

[wjfox]

Samsung Demonstrates the World’s First MRAM Based In-Memory Computing

January 13, 2022

Samsung Electronics, a world leader in advanced semiconductor technology, today announced its demonstration of the world’s first in-memory computing based on MRAM (Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory). The paper on this innovation was published online by Nature on January 12 (GMT), and is set to be published in the upcoming print edition of Nature. Titled ‘A crossbar array of magnetoresistive memory devices for in-memory computing’, this paper showcases Samsung’s leadership in memory technology and its effort to merge memory and system semiconductors for next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

The research was led by Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) in close collaboration with Samsung Electronics Foundry Business and Semiconductor R&D Center. The first author of the paper, Dr. Seungchul Jung, Staff Researcher at SAIT, and the co-corresponding authors Dr. Donhee Ham, Fellow of SAIT and Professor of Harvard University and Dr. Sang Joon Kim, Vice President of Technology at SAIT, spearheaded the research.

In the standard computer architecture, data is stored in memory chips and data computing is executed in separate processor chips.

In contrast, in-memory computing is a new computing paradigm that seeks to perform both data storage and data computing in a memory network. Since this scheme can process a large amount of data stored within the memory network itself without having to move the data, and also because the data processing in the memory network is executed in a highly parallel manner, power consumption is substantially reduced. In-memory computing has thus emerged as one of the promising technologies to realize next-generation low-power AI semiconductor chips.

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung ... -computing

[weatheriscool]

[Yuli Ban]