AMD with quad-core processor -Intel new invention

24hoursnews : Intel is aiming to extend its performance lead over AMD with the introduction of the industry's first quad-core processors designed for multi-processor servers.
The chip giant has rolled out six quad-core Xeon 7300 series processors, which deliver more than twice the overall performance and more than three times the performance per watt of its previous generation of dual-core server chips. The chips are the last to be converted to Intel's Core micro-architecture, a process that has been under way since 2006.
The 7300 series are more energy efficient than previous chips. It comprises chips that run at clock speeds of up to 2.93GHz at 130W, several 80W processors and a 1.8GHz, 50W version that is targeted specifically at four-socket blade servers.
In addition to having twice as many cores, the 7300 chips come with up to four times the memory capacity of the dual-core multi-processor platforms, which Intel maintained will allow businesses to consolidate their server environments to reduce space, power and running costs.
"Intel Xeon-based multi-processor servers are the backbone of the enterprise," said Tom Kilroy, Intel vice president and co-general manager of the digital enterprise group.
"With the Xeon 7300 series, Intel is delivering new levels of performance and performance per watt, and is driving the Intel Core micro-architecture into such innovative systems as four-socket, 16-core blades that use less energy than our older models."
The Xeon 7300 series means IT managers can pool their single, dual- and quad-core Core-based servers into a dynamic virtual server infrastructure that allows for live, virtual machine migration. This should improve situations including failover, load balancing, disaster recovery and server maintenance.
Brian Byun, VMware's vice president of global partners and solutions, said: "VMware and Intel have worked together to optimise VMware ESX Server on the Xeon 7300. Our partners and customers benefit from increased platform choice and performance headroom from the quad-core four-socket server systems."
Intel said that the 7300 series running the VMmark benchmark designed for measuring virtualisation performance, achieved the highest single server result so far. Results from key server manufacturers testing the 7300 series are also proving encouraging.
HP has proclaimed world-record results for a ProLiant DL580 G5 server running the TPC-C benchmark for database performance, while IBM claimed its 7300-based, System x3850 M2 server using the SPECint*_rate_base2006 benchmark for integer throughout, also set a new world record.
Intel claims silicon crown despite AMD Barcelonaa.

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AMD's Barcelona Chip to Get Speed Boost This Year.

On the same day that Advanced Micro Devices Inc. officially released its Barcelona server processor, the company said it would have a faster version of the quad-core Opteron device out by year's end.

Initially, the top clock speed on the quad-core chip is 2 GHz. But Randy Allen, vice president and general manager of AMD's server and workstation division, said at the Barcelona launch event here Monday evening that the company will have a 2.5-GHz version ready for shipment in December.

The confirmation of the planned speed bump may have been the most significant bit of news out of the product launch, which was held at the Letterman Digital Arts Center on the grounds of the Presidio, a former U.S. Army base that now is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The announcement mostly featured a long list of executives from hardware vendors offering support and praise for AMD without taking any shots at its main processor rival, Intel Corp. That was left to AMD officials, but even they rarely if at all mentioned Intel by name.

Hector Ruiz, AMD's chairman and CEO, said the company's initial development in 2003 of an x86-compatible Opteron that could run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications raised the bar "for what an industry should expect from a processor company."

Ruiz claimed that the new Opteron would have "a similarly profound effect on computing," even though Intel turned the tables on AMD and beat it to market with quad-core processors by 10 months. Last week, Intel released a new Xeon 7300 line of quad-core chips with clock speeds of up to 2.93 GHz.

Executives from IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Dell Inc. appeared at AMD's launch event in person or via video to announce plans to add the Barcelona chip to their server product lines, with shipments scheduled to begin as early as next month. Among them was Dell Chairman and CEO Michael Dell, who said his company intends to double its lineup of AMD-based systems by year's end.

Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's president and CEO, said his company is aiming to use the quad-core Opteron to double its AMD-based server business. However, Sun in January announced a deal with Intel to develop a full of line of Xeon-based servers and workstations. That ended a two-year-old strategy under which Sun had exclusively used Opterons in its x86 systems.

Technorati : AMD, quad-core

Authorities suspect Aust bees carrying virus

24hoursnews
The US Agriculture Department has pointed the finger at Australian bees as possible carriers of a virus that they say is causing the collapse of the honey bee industry in the United States and Europe.

The claims are likely to harm the Australian industry and could lead to a ban on the import of Australian bees.

The failure to find what has caused the honey bee crisis is an ongoing headache for the industry, which in the US is worth about $17 billion.

The name for the mysterious problem, Colony Collapse Disorder, sums up its devastating effects for beekeepers.

Daniel Weaver, the president of the American Beekeeping Federation says it is also causing alarm for producers in other industries.

"The farmers and orchardists that produce the fruits and nuts and melons and berries and all the other tasty things for the table that depend upon honey bees for pollination," he said.

He says the latest research on Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) will harm Australian bee exports. Genetic research has found that Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus turned up regularly in hives affected by CCD.

The US Agriculture Department has also pointed the finger at Australian bees as a possible source.

Mr Weaver says Australian bees will not be quite as welcome in America now.

"It's likely that some beekeepers in the US who might have been contemplating using Australian bees might take a second look at that option now, wishing to avoid any excess risk," he said.

"So they may not import Australian bees that they would have otherwise imported without this report."


Questionable circumstances

Warren Taylor ships tens of thousands of Australian bees to Canada each year and he questions the conclusion that Australian bees may be the source of CCD.

"We've been shipping bees to Canada for 15 years," he said.

"There's been no colony collapse in Australian bees."

Mr Taylor, managing director of Australian Queen Bee Exporters, says he has very suspicious about the claims from the US.

"I'm curious as to whether there's some hidden agenda with the local bee producers," he said.

"In Canada, we don't have local bee producers, so we're not competing against anyone, but in the US there's a large number of bee producers and we're obviously competing directly with them."

He says the credibility of the claim is questionable.

"There's a lot of unanswered questions, and the Americans choose not to test colonies that haven't collapsed to see if there's any Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus in that."

There is irony in Australian bees coming under suspicion because beekeepers in the US have relied on honey makers from Australia to keep their hives alive.

The head of the Australian Honey Bee Council, Stephen Ware, says there is no support for the theory that Australian bees are to blame for.

"I'd certainly call it dodgy," he said.

"It's akin to a drowning man throwing off his life preserver and saying, 'the life preserver was why I was drowning'."


Exports in danger

The export in bees has grown to a $5 million industry since 2004 when the US started accepting Australian imports. Mr Ware says there is a risk US authorities may now ban Australian bees.

"Every chance that potentially there could be a ban on exports, and we certainly don't believe that's warranted," he said.

"We hope that cooler heads will take charge and that the analysis will be properly examined, and will be shown to be flawed."

Despite the findings of the US report, Australian bees are being defended by a leader in the US beekeeping industry.

Mr Weaver says the virus found in an Australian bee can not be solely responsible for the crisis.

"There is a strong correlation in the data that they've presented, but I think that much more work remains to be done," he said.

"They need to obtain additional samples of Australian bees. There is in fact only one direct sample of Australian bees that's part of that study, and a sample of one is not persuasive."

CSIRO bee pathologist Dr Denis Anderson says he is highly sceptical about the claims in the US report, and so is the Australian Government.

A statement from federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran says any trade restrictions imposed on the basis of the research would be inconsistent with America's trade obligations, because there is not enough evidence.

The issue is sure to cause a more than a buzz when it is discussed at the World Beekeeping Congress in Melbourne next week.

The online slowdown lowdown

While newspaper publishers boast about how rapidly their online sales are growing, the fact is that new media revenues in the first half of 2007 grew at only two-thirds the pace achieved in each of the prior three years.To be perfectly clear: Online sales climbed at the robust clip of 20.8% in the first six months of this year to an all-time high of slightly more than $1.5 billion. Sales in the

Serious Games Making Maths More Exciting For KS3

Serious Games challenging us to play a better education

Via: Bowland - Maths case studies for Key Stage 3

A new initiative is being developed for KS3 maths, funded by the Bowland Trust with additional support from the DfES. It is aimed at developing thinking, reasoning and problem solving skills in KS3 pupils. It will consist of an initial 23 case study problems each of which pupils would need to address through open questions; each problem will be able to be explored at various depths.

The work is currently in its development stage, with 15 developers working on the 23 case studies. Each case study will include class room materials together with supporting training materials for teachers specific to that case study. The formal launch will be in the spring of 2008, with the case studies available to schools for the 2008/9 school year.

A generic development package for the whole programme is also being developed which will be made available to teachers who would like to avail themselves of it. It is being designed to help teachers develop skills to make maximum use of the concepts behind the case studies.

Caspian Learning Unveils 3D Adventure Games

Caspian Learning, has been awarded a contract by The Bowland Trust and the DfES to develop two case study problems for UK schools designed to make Key Stage 3 maths more engaging.

The games, Exploring and Applying Algebra - The Velletri Scrolls and Murder at Mega Bank - Applying Mathematics and Proportional Reasoning Skills, are for potential use in the 2008/09 academic year.

The following is an overview of the two adventure games:

Murder at Mega Bank

A 3D learning-based game in which students must use proportional reasoning skills, forensic techniques and investigative methods to identify the culprit(s) of a crime - a daring and ambitious robbery and murder at Mega Bank. The case study will be accompanied by an easy to follow teacher's support pack.

Learners will begin with information gathering activities in phase one, where they examine the crime scene, identify the key actors in the scenario, identify key unknowns / eliminate irrelevant information and identify forensic and investigative methods to use to progress and test the unknowns.

In lessons 3 and 4, learners move on to an analysis and interpretation phase, where they test analyse and interpret samples, apply forensic testing, mathematical modelling, explaining and illustrating to assess the evidence and draw conclusions.

The Velletri Scrolls

The Da Vinci Code meets Lara Croft, The Velletri scrolls is a 3D learning-based game where learners need to assemble clues, unravel codes and solve problems to find the fictional riches of the Emperor Augustus.

In phase one, learners must gather evidence and tools to interpret maps, papers and decipher mathematical problems. In phase two, learners use the elements gathered in phase one, as well as analytical thinking and algebraic skills to solve problems that progress the scenario.

The case study supports different levels of difficulty, with the maths problems themselves containing different solutions, with more reward given for more sophisticated solutions. This means that students can follow their own path through, and are not precluded from progressing. The application will record any areas of difficulty and will feedback to the students and teacher.

Initiative Overview

In September 2006, the Bowland Trust issued an open invitation to submit ideas for case studies that would help to develop in pupils the skills of thinking, reasoning, analysing, interpreting and problem solving. Caspian was awarded a contract to develop two case studies for the project, selected alongside 14 other companies out of over 200 proposals.

Caspian's technology is based on proven learning principles. The case studies use 3D learning-based avatar games where different thinking processes will be explicitly embedded within the gameplay and mapped closely to curriculum objectives.

Students will be measured automatically by the applications, giving teachers a precise performance measurement for each learner.

The case studies will use and complement mathematical topics within KS3. It will be for teachers to decide whether they wish to use one or more of the case studies in their teaching, and at what point in the Key Stage. The case studies will act as an extra resource that will stimulate pupils' interest to such an extent that teachers will actively want to use them.

Chris Brannigan, CEO, Caspian Learning comments: "In developing these games we wanted to bring the excitement and glamour of adventure gaming into the world of maths, to reverse the common thought that it's a boring subject."Its vital pupils see maths as a relevant and interesting subject - the UK has relatively few A-level and undergraduate students in maths precisely because they've been turned off the subject at school. Our games will help teachers looking for that extra something to keep a class enthused."

Technorati : Serious Games

Un-banner days for banner ads

Google quietly has taken a major step to further marginalize banner advertising, the molting golden goose that generates a hefty portion of online revenues for mainstream media companies.In a blog item posted on the eve of the Labor Day weekend, the Silicon Valley behemoth announced that it effectively will start diverting traffic away from the sites of the publishers and broadcasters whose

Knock another $1.5B off newspaper sales

Given the accelerating decline in print advertising sales in the first half of this year, newspaper revenues now appear likely to fall by some $3.5 billion in 2007, not the $2 billion forecast here in May.Three months ago, I calculated that publishers would be lucky to break $44.5 billion in print sales this year, which would have made for the worst performance since the economic shock that

YES -True: Cats Cannot Taste Sweets

Sugar and spice and everything nice hold no interest for a cat. Our feline friends are only interested in one thing: meat (except for saving up the energy to catch it by napping, or a round of restorative petting) This is not just because inside every domestic tabby lurks a killer just waiting to catch a bird or torture a mouse, it is also because cats lack the ability to taste sweetness, unlike every other mammal examined to date.
The tongues of most mammals hold taste receptors—proteins on the cellular surface that bind to an incoming substance, activating the cell's internal workings that lead to a signal being sent to the brain. Humans enjoy five kinds of taste buds (possibly six): sour, bitter, salty, umami (or meatiness) and sweet (as well as possibly fat). The sweet receptor is actually made up of two coupled proteins generated by two separate genes: known as Tas1r2 and Tas1r3.
When working properly, the two genes form the coupled protein and when something sweet enters the mouth the news is rushed to the brain, primarily because sweetness is a sign of rich carbohydrates—an important food source for plant-eaters and the nondiscriminating, like humans. But cats are from the noble lineage Carnivora and, unlike some of its lesser members, such as omnivorous bears or, even more appalling, herbivorous pandas, they exclusively eat meat.
Whether as a result of this dietary choice or the cause of it, all cats—lions, tigers and British longhairs, oh my—lack 247 base pairs of the amino acids that make up the DNA of the Tas1r2 gene. As a result, it does not code for the proper protein, it does not merit the name gene (only pseudogene), and it does not permit cats to taste sweets. "They don't taste sweet the way we do," says Joe Brand, biochemist and associate director at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. "They're lucky. Cats really have bad teeth as it is."
Brand and his colleague Xia Li first discovered the pseudogene after decades of anecdotal evidencesuch as cats showing no preference between sweetened and regular water, unlike other animals—testifying to their indifference to the sweet stuff. Of course, there are also plenty of anecdotal accounts pointing in the other direction: cats that eat ice cream, relish cotton candy, chase marshmallows. "Maybe some cats can use their [Tas1r3 receptor] to taste high concentrations of sugar," Brand says. "It's a very rare thing but we don't know yet."
Scientists do know, however, that cats can taste things we cannot, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the compound that supplies the energy in every living cell. "There isn't a lot hanging around in meat, but it's a signal for meat," Brand says. And plenty of other animals have a different array of receptors, Li says, from chickens that also lack the sweet gene to catfish that can detect amino acids in water at nanomolar concentrations. "Their receptor is more sensitive than the background concentration," Brand notes. "The catfish that detects the rotting food first is the one that survives."
So far, cats are alone among mammals in lacking the sweet gene; even close relatives among the meat-eaters like hyenas and mongooses have it. And cats may lack other components of the ability to enjoy (and digest) sugars, such as glucokinase in their livers—a key enzyme that controls the metabolism of carbohydrates and prevents glucose from flooding the animal. Despite this, most major pet food manufacturers use corn or other grains in their meals. "This may be why cats are getting diabetes," Brand offers. "Cat food today has around 20 percent carbohydrates. The cats are not used to that, they can't handle it." What these fearsome predators of suburbia cannot taste may be hurting them. But it also means that most cat lovers don't have to worry about Simon snatching their unattended dessert.