NVIDIA joins Linux Foundation, doesn't mention driver development

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/08/nvidia-linux-foundation/

It's a big day for open source fans now that NVIDIA, the last member of the "big three" chip makers with AMD and Intel, has signed on with the Linux foundation. The company has previously kept the system at arms length, with users relying on reverse-engineering to get things working nicely with Linus' baby. It's joining Fluenco, Lineo and Mocana, three companies who also became signatories to the foundation at the same time. Whilst there's no commitment to provide drivers for its chipsets, at least there's a glimmer of hope that the company will contribute -- especially given the growing popularity of its mobile platforms.

Continue reading NVIDIA joins Linux Foundation, doesn't mention driver development

NVIDIA joins Linux Foundation, doesn't mention driver development originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lytro camera review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/08/lytro-camera-review/

Lytro camera hands-on (video)

Lytro open to partnering with smartphone makers, executive suggests

Lytro's light field camera captures 'unprecedented' images, lets you choose focus later

Don't let that cute design fool you. Lytro, the world's first commercial light field camera, is the culmination of nearly twenty years of research -- a project that once occupied an entire wall facade, and has since been miniaturized into something that fits in the palm of your hand. An impressive feat, sure, but not as arresting as the end result: the ability to refocus pictures, even after you've taken them.

To achieve such magical endeavors the Lytro camera uses heaps of custom software (armed with a custom .lfp file format) coupled with some serious silicon to measure not just color or the intensity of light, but its direction, too. The latter is achieved with an eleven "megaray" sensor, which is bolted to an f/2.0 8x optical zoom lens, all encased within that sleek body. Seeking to save us from unfocused mishaps, the technological tour de force also un! locks so me considerable creative potential. So, is the $399 shooter going to revolutionize photography as we know it? Or does the Lytro's first foray into consumer electronics fall prey to the shortcomings of 1.0 product? By know you should know the drill: rendezvous with us past the break to find out.

Continue reading Lytro camera review

Lytro camera review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Mar 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pause for Later Saves Your Location in Web Videos So You Can Resume Where You Left Off [Video]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5891235/pause-for-later-saves-your-location-in-web-videos-so-you-can-resume-where-you-left-off

Sneaking in an episode of 30 Rock on Hulu in the middle of the day at work is great, but when your boss walks in and you have to quickly close the browser window you end up losing your place in the video. Pause for Later is webapp that stores the exact location of the video so you can resume watching it later.

Pause for Later supports video on YouTube, Hulu, and Vimeo. Once you download the Chrome extension you can click the pause button in the toolbar and the video's location is stored on the webapp. When you want to watch the video, head over to Pause for Later and you can resume playing the video right where you left off.

Pause for Later | via Addictive Tips

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Chrome Finally Breached in Google's $1 Million Hackathon [Security]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5891508/chrome-finally-breached-in-googles-1-million-hackathon

Google recently offered up prizes totaling $1 million for those capable of exploiting its browser Chrome. Now, at Google's own competition called Pwnium, a student has walked away with one of the top prizes, earning $60,000 by hacking a PC running Chrome.

Chrome has featured in Pwn2Own—a security competition run by HP—for the last four years, but while the likes of Safari and Internet Explorer have crumbled, Google's browser has remained resolute.

Now, at Google's breakaway event Pwnium, Sergey Glazunov, a Russian university student, successfully hacked a PC running Google's Chrome browser to claim a $60,000 prize. ZDNet reports that he used a previously undiscovered exploit specific to chrome to bypass its "sandbox"—a restriction designed to stop hackers accessing the rest of a user's computer even if they do compromise the browser. Google security team member Justin Schuh has confirmed the hack on Twitter.

Simultaneously, at HP's Pwn2Own event, a security firm also hacked Chrome in five minutes. While all this means that Google can no longer tout Chrome's record of withstanding hacks, it does mean that the browser will get better. As part of the prize-giving system, all hackers have to disclose full details of their hack—so Google are definitely set to learn something. [ZDNet; Image: Pedro Miguel Sousa / Shutterstock]

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IBMâs Holey Optochip Pumps 1 Trillion Bits per Second [Guts]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5891515/ibms-holey-optochip-pumps-1-trillion-bits-per-second

IBM Researchers have built an optical chip that can transfer more data per second than pretty much anything else on the planet.

They call this transceiver the Holey Optochip - holey because they've taken a chip wafer and fired 48 holes in it so that laser light can be blasted in and out of the chip, moving data at one trillion bits per second. That's eight times faster than the fastest comparable optical components on the market today, and about 10,000 times faster than the 100 Mb/second Ethernet that's still common on corporate networks.

It doesn't use much power either - just under five watts. That's a big issue in today's data centers and supercomputer installations.

IBM doesn't plan to turn the Holey Optochip into a product, but they would like it if someone in the transceiver business licensed their technology to build super-fast networking technology for high-performance computers.

The chip is built out of commodity components - the chip's hole-riddled design is the breakthrough here, not any individual component - so this is something that could happen within the next few years, says Clint Schow a group manager at IBM Research. "This is basically just a higher bandwidth version of those links today that are used in high-performance computers," he says. "The trick is we package it very well so we can deliver on the bandwidth and power simultaneously."

Networking bottlenecks are becoming a real problem as computer-makers cram more and more powerful processors into massive supercomputing system. It's becoming tricky to get all these chips talking to one-another in an efficient way, so they're not spending too much of their time just waiting for an answer from some other part of the machine. As supercomputers become used for more and more types of programming, predicting how the network will be used becomes even harder.

Seeing these problems ahead, Schow and his team set off to find a way to get to this one trillion bits per second (a terabit) networking about five years ago. "The network's becoming the real problem that's limiting everything," Schow says.

IBM researchers will discuss the Holey Optochip Thursday at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference in Los Angeles.

Image: IBM

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