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OCAU News |
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 24-July-2015 14:31:10 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Australia will have a new largest supercomputer soon, thanks mpot. The Bureau of Meteorology has chosen Cray to build the agency's new US$59m (AU$77m) supercomputer in what will become Australia's largest. The weather bureau first went to market for a replacement of its existing Oracle/ Sun-based high-performance computational (HPC) system in 2013, with an aim to improve its weather modelling capabilities.
We also have some unusual champions. First, the Rubik's Cube World Champion. Australian Feliks Zemdegs took the Rubik's Cube world title for the second time at the 2015 World Championship finals in Brazil. Most people have fiddled with a rubik's cube, few have probably ever been able to complete it even without removing the coloured stickers. But it took 19-year-old Feliks Zemdegs less than six seconds to win his second world title in Sao Paulo.
Also, a Brisbane man has won the first US Drone Racing Championships. Chad Nowak of Brisbane, won all three events at the competition. He won the individual time trial, was on the winning team time trial squad, and won the freestyle trick event. The sport of first-person view (FPV) drone racing is still in its infancy. It involves small, custom-built drones with cameras attached to them that broadcast video feeds back to specially-designed goggles that allow pilots to see what the drones see. The drones are fast and nimble, and can hit speeds nearing 70 mph. I.. want to do this.
TheSSDReview have done some HDD RAID analysis for a change. Doesn’t The SSD Review just test SSDs? Those are good questions. Our answer to them is simple. We were given the opportunity and we couldn’t resist. If someone offered to a test drive in their new Lamborghini, would you say no? We didn’t think so! So, today we will be reviewing the HGST Ultrastar He8, but we won’t be testing just one drive. Today we will be testing eight of them in multiple RAID configurations as well! That is right, 64TB worth of the latest and greatest enterprise storage! Go big or go home right?
U2 meanwhile tour with an all-flash array to handle their visual effects, thanks Sniper. Both the VNXe 3200, which can store up to 450 terabytes of data, and the Data Domain, are in 2U form factors that fit standard racks; Desmedt is using two of the flash arrays. The Data Domain 2500 can store up to 6.6 petabytes, and has maximum throughput of 13.4 terabytes per hour, so the nightly backup can be accomplished before the team packs up for the next stop on the road.
Non-surprise of the week is that North Korea's Linux has spyware. ERNW security analyst Florian Grunow says North Korea's Red Star Linux operating system is tracking users by tagging content with unique hidden tags. The operating system, developed from 2002 as a replacement for Windows XP, was relaunched with a Mac-like interface in 2013's version three. The newest version emerged in January 2015. Grunow says files including Microsoft Word documents and JPEG images connected to but not necessarily executed in Red Star will have a tag introduced into its code that includes a number based on hardware serial numbers. More info here.
At first I thought this was another Turing Test article but it seems to be a different kind of test, for robot self-awareness. A humanoid robot in New York solved a classic puzzle that researchers say requires self-awareness. This is the first time a robot has passed such a test. Selmer Bringsjord, who ran the test, said that after passing many tests of this kind over time, robots will amass a repertoire of human-like abilities that eventually become useful when combined.
Wired have an article on remote car hacking. As the two hackers remotely toyed with the air-conditioning, radio, and windshield wipers, I mentally congratulated myself on my courage under pressure. That’s when they cut the transmission. Immediately my accelerator stopped working. As I frantically pressed the pedal and watched the RPMs climb, the Jeep lost half its speed, then slowed to a crawl. Discussion here.
Volvo meanwhile say they will be the first to have driverless cars on Australian roads. I thought Google already tested here? Maybe not. Combined with road research agency ARRB Group, Volvo will demonstrate driverless vehicle technology on South Australian roads. Volvo’s soon to be launched XC90 SUV will have its existing autonomous features specially programmed for the trial to be able to be operated hands free, within a controlled environment. The programming will take advantage of adaptive cruise control and pilot assist functions which keeps the car in between lanes and stops them from running into cars in front.
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All original content copyright James Rolfe.
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