#CHIPS: "Xeon Phi to Win Global HPC Contest"

One of the worst kept secrets of the high-performance computing (HPC) world was that Intel's Xeon Phi is powering the MilkyWay-2 which won the Top500 contest: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Further Reading

#CHIPS: Cray Unveils Budget Supercomputer"

Cray is hoping to bring supercomputing into the ordinary business place with its Xeon-powered budget supercomputer, the XC30-AC (for air-cooled): R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Further Reading

#CHPS: "Implants kill pain sans drugs"

Taiwan micro-electronic innovations in medicine aim to outperforms drugs with implants that direclty inject pain-killing signals into the nervous system--using a handheld device to activate then on-demand: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


A pain-relieving medical implant uses a system-on-chip (SoC) to deliver pain killing signals directly to the nervous system to stop pain without drugs.Further Reading

#CHIPS: "Mid-east Aims to Craft its Own Micro-chips"

The Semiconductor Research Corp. has just started its first off-shore Center of Excellence, funded by Abu Dhabi, which is aiming to design its own Internet of Things (IoT) chips within three years.


Microchips developed Abu Dhabi aime to bootstrap the mid-eastern countruy into the 21st century before oil revenue starts drawing down.Further Reading

#ALGORITHMS: "Windows Goes Parallel"

Intel has released tools for Windows that for the first time allows parallel programs for its 60-core Xeon Phi supercomputer on-a-chip to skip Linux in favor of Microsoft's OS: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Further Reading

#CHIPS: "Taiwan innovations solving environmental issues"

Taiwan wants to prove to the worlds that it tiny island nation can solve worldwide environmental problems with their own home-grown microelectronics, such as solving the mystery of disappearing honey bees with handheld bee-tracking radar: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Honey bees are unimpaired by the millimeter sized radar transponder which is allowing Taiwanese scientists to track down the source of the plague on their dwindling numbers.
Further Reading

#ALGORITHMS: "Embedded Converges with Parallel Processing"

Intel's embedded systems efforts are converging with its parallel processing efforts, the result being its new Systems Studio which makes the parallel tools designed for supercomputers available to embedded systems developers: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Further Reading

#MARKETS: "Taiwan brain drain in remission"

For decades a "brain drain" has plagued Taiwan as its most talented engineers stayed in the U.S. after being awarded their doctorates, but the trend appears to be reversing as their best-and-brightest are returning to nix the manufacturing advantage on the mainland by opening innovation labs in Taiwan: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Making playlists was never easier--thanks to a Taiwanese innovation. Just draw a line in the two-dimention space from "calm to excited" (arousal) and "harsh to pleasant" (valence) and a list of songs that match that "mood" are automatically compiled. Further Reading

#ALGORITHMS: "Taiwanese Smartphone/Tablet Apps Excel"

Everybody who has used a smartphone of a tablet knows the routine--yes its fun to use, but frustrating when it does not do what you expect. In Taiwan think tanks they are changing all that by designing apps and add-on hardware that do all the things you wanted you smartphone or tablet to do, but it wouldn't: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Magnetic field detector add-on for iPad allows near-field sensing of styluses and tokens without interference from the users hands.Further Reading

#MARKETS: "Taiwan Moving from Manufacturing to Innovation"

Taiwan already manufactures most of the world's laptops, flat-panel monitors and datacenter servers, but only for other company's designs. In a reversal of trends, however, Taiwanese smarts is being applied to creating their own innovations in hopes of vitalizing its homeland: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Taiwan's university campuses and government-funded research facilities take up more than one percent of the island nation's land area.Further Reading

#CHIPS: "3-D Harnessed by TSMC in Super-Chips"

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) leads the semiconductor foundry world, but now it is aiming to leapfrog ahead with home-grown super-chips that combine SoCs, memory, sensors and all the other chips you need to make a system into a single "super-chip": R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Vice president of R&D and cheif technology officer (CTO) Jack Sun reveals Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) master plan to conquer the semiconductor world with super-chips.
Further Reading

#DISPLAYS: "Epson One Step Ahead of Google Glass"

While Google Glass struggles to enter its first generation, Epson's Augmented Reality glasses are already entering its second generation--finding applications in industry that Google can only google over today: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Epson's Moverio augmented reality (AR) glasses are entering their second generation, where they will aim for professionla applicaitons, such as obsoleting the service manual by directing personnel in how-to with overlays added right on top of the device being serviced. SOURCE: EpsonFurther Reading

IBM is aiming to cure cancer with supercomputer analytics that pinpoints cancer cells for eradication by advanced proton beam thereapy: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


IBM's analytics running on a Power 730 cluster computer maps out the proton beam path that can kill cancer in just 15 minutes of therapy. SOURCE: IBMFurther Reading

#NANOTECH: "NIST and SRC Plan Post-Silicon Era"

The Nanotechnology Research Initiative (NRI) got a $25 million boost to develop post-silicon era microelectronics starting circa 2020: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


Graphene transistor fabricated at the National Nanotechology Initiative (NNI) sponsored Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC) at Columbia University aims for post-silicon era.
Further Reading

#ALGORITHMS: "Microsoft's Big Data Taming Energy Waste"

Instead of spending $60 billion to rip-and-replace the scourge of incompatible heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems on its sprawling campus, Microsoft decided to practice-what-it-preaches by using Big Data running on its Windows Servers to cut energy wastes: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog

Microsoft's  campus in Redmond, Washington uses Big Data to cut energy waste from its diverse set of heat ventilation air conditioning (HVAC) systems from different vendors.
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#ALGORITHM: "Nanoscience Transforms into Nanotech "

The National Nanotechnology Initiative has spend billions of dollars over the last decade preparing the scientific basis for the move to molecular-sized electronics. Now the National Science Foundation and the Semiconductor Research Corp. have entered the final phase--creating libraries of nano-scale electronic devices for use with standard SPICE simulators. Once done, manufacturing nanoscale electronics will become as easy as drag-and-drop: R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


NSF and SRC will enable electronics designers to choose nanoscale devices like this Band-to-Band-Tunneling transistor that is only eight nanometers thick.Further Reading