Java Guru Quits Oracle
Oracle’s Java EE evangelist has quit having lost faith in the way Oracle is dealing with Java developers.
Reza Rahman joined Oracle as a Java evangelist back in 2012, despite having concerns about whether Oracle could be a responsible steward for Java.
On his official Oracle Java EE/GlassFish blog, he gives his reason for leaving as wanting to find the best way to keep Java moving forward, saying:
“I have no doubt whatsoever that this was one of the top five hardest decisions of my life. I am also at this stage equally certain that this is the way I personally can best help continue to advance the Java and Java EE communities. I will be rejoining the purely community driven Java EE efforts I have been part of for the better part of a decade in complete good faith as soon as possible post-Oracle.”
http://www.i-programmer.info/news/80-java/9522-java-guru-quits-oracle.html
Apple stores iCloud data with Google
Apple had previously acknowledged using Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure’s rival cloud computing platforms in addition to its own data centres.
The deal is a coup for Google, which lags behind Amazon and Microsoft in the market for powering third-parties’ online services.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35837692
Robot delivery looms for NZ pizza lovers
Domino’s says it’s working with the Government on a plan to permit robot pizza delivery to hungry New Zealanders.
The government and Domino’s Pizza are working to explore and test driverless pizza delivery options with a four-wheeled unit named DRU (Domino’s Robotic Unit).
Minister of Transport Simon Bridges said the use of the robot is an exciting opportunity for New Zealand, which is one of the first countries in the world being considered for testing autonomous pizza delivery.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11607795
PIN analysis
There are 10,000 possible combinations that the digits 0-9 can be arranged to form a 4-digit pin code. Out of these ten thousand codes, which is the least commonly used?
Which of these pin codes is the least predictable?
Which of these pin codes is the most predictable?
If you were given the task of trying to crack a random credit card by repeatedly trying PIN codes, what order should you try guessing to maximize your chances of selecting the correct number in the shortest time?
I was able to find almost 3.4 million four digit passwords. Every single one of the of the 10,000 combinations of digits from 0000 through to 9999 were represented in the dataset.
The most popular password is 1234 …
… it’s staggering how popular this password appears to be. Utterly staggering at the lack of imagination …
… nearly 11% of the 3.4 million passwords are 1234 !!!
The next most popular 4-digit PIN in use is 1111 with over 6% of passwords being this.
In third place is 0000 with almost 2%.
A table of the top 20 found passwords in shown at the right. A staggering 26.83% of all passwords could be guessed by attempting these 20 combinations!
http://datagenetics.com/blog/september32012/index.html
Engineers achieve Wi-Fi at 10,000 times lower power
Now, a team of University of Washington computer scientists and electrical engineers has demonstrated that it’s possible to generate Wi-Fi transmissions using 10,000 times less power than conventional methods.
The new Passive Wi-Fi system also consumes 1,000 times less power than existing energy-efficient wireless communication platforms, such as Bluetooth Low Energy and Zigbee. A paper describing those results will be presented in March at the 13th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation.
The technology has also been named one of the 10 breakthrough technologies of 2016 by MIT Technology Review.
http://phys.org/news/2016-02-wi-fi-power.html#jCp
Intel reportedly eyes AR headset development
Intel may be set to explore an AR headset. Citing the source of the information as “people briefed on the company’s plans,” The Wall Street Journal had the story, saying “the chip giant is developing a wearable headset to deliver augmented-reality experiences.”
Intel launched its RealSense system at CES in 2014. With RealSense, three cameras behave as one, a 1080p HD, infrared and infrared laser projector. They were engineered to function as the human eye does for sensing depth and tracking motion. Currently, RealSense products are featured in all in ones, laptops, tablets and 2-in-1 devices, said Intel.
http://techxplore.com/news/2016-03-intel-reportedly-eyes-ar-headset.html
Scientists gear up to drill into ‘ground zero’ of the impact that killed the dinosaurs
This month, a drilling platform will rise in the Gulf of Mexico, but it won’t be aiming for oil. Scientists will try to sink a diamond-tipped bit into the heart of Chicxulub crater—the buried remnant of the asteroid impact 66 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs, along with most other life on the planet. They hope that the retrieved rock cores will contain clues to how life came back in the wake of the cataclysm, and whether the crater itself could have been a home for novel microbial life. And by drilling into a circular ridge inside the 180-kilometer-wide crater rim, scientists hope to settle ideas about how such “peak rings,” hallmarks of the largest impact craters, take shape.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/scientists-gear-drill-ground-zero-impact-killed-dinosaurs
And the winner of the $1 Million Little Box Challenge is…CE+T Power’s Red Electrical Devils
In July 2014, Google and the IEEE launched the $1 Million Little Box Challenge, an open competition to design and build a small kW-scale inverter with a power density greater than 50 Watts per cubic inch while meeting a number of other specifications related to efficiency, electrical noise and thermal performance. Over 2,000 teams from across the world registered for the competition and more than 80 proposals qualified for review by IEEE Power Electronics Society and Google. In October 2015, 18 finalists were selected to bring their inverters to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) for testing.
Impressively, the winning team exceeded the power density goal for the competition by a factor of 3, which is more than 10 times more compact than commercially available inverters! When we initially brainstormed technical targets for the Little Box Challenge, some of us at Google didn’t think such audacious goals could be achieved. Three teams from around the world proved decisively that it could be done.
http://googleresearch.blogspot.co.nz/2016/02/and-winner-of-1-million-little-box.html
Microsoft brings SQL Server to Linux
The new Microsoft has placed an increased importance on the cloud, and with other companies following suit, reliance on server solutions has increased. Today the company announces that it is bringing SQL Server to Linux.
Both cloud and on-premises versions will be available, and the news has been welcomed by the likes of Red Hat and Canonical. Although the Linux port of SQL Server is not due to make an appearance until the middle of next year, a private preview version is being made available to testers from today.
Microsoft’s increasing embrace of Linux sees the company expanding to a wider audience than ever. Al Gillen, group vice president, enterprise infrastructure, at IDC says that it shows Microsoft’s “commitment to being a cross platform solution provider”.
