Finals, due dates, exams, and deadlines all have one thing in common: they convince us that skipping sleep is a good idea. While that’s certainly not true, sometimes pulling an all-nighter is your only option to get things done. And if you have to go that route, you may as well do it right.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Pull an Effective All-Nighter, If You Have To
Internet sleuths should don their detective caps right about now, to solve the case of the secretive GPU codename that just surfaced within the Ashes of the Singularity database. There are actually two GPUs in this particular listing, both identified as Nashira Summit. Could this be an early look at AMD’s third generation RDNA (RDNA 3) architecture?
Well,
Source: Hot Hardware – Mysterious AMD Radeon Nashira Summit GPU Surfaces With Possible RDNA 3 Roots
You can’t attend Carnival in Rio de Janeiro (or anywhere, really) due to the pandemic, but Nintendo thinks it can bring the celebration to you. It’s releasing an Animal Crossing: New Horizons Festivale update on January 28th that delivers that Brazil…
Source: Engadget – ‘Animal Crossing’ updates send Mario and Hello Kitty to Carnival
There’s a famous story (also proven false) that NASA spent millions of dollars inventing a pressurized pen that could work in the zero gravity of space, while Soviet cosmonauts just used pencils. A new lens filter for cameras with a mirror finish allowing subjects to see themselves feels like the pencil, while cameras…
Source: Gizmodo – This Camera Lens Filter With a Reflective Mirror Finish Should Make Selfies Easier
Enlarge / President Donald Trump listens as Moncef Slaoui, the former head of GlaxoSmithKlines vaccines division, speaks about coronavirus vaccine development in the Rose Garden of the White House on May 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. (credit: Drew Angerer | Getty Images)
Moncef Slaoui, the former head scientist for the Trump Administration’s Operation Warp Speed, is proud of his team’s work in helping to develop and distribute vaccine in an unprecedented timeframe amid the devastating COVID-19 pandemic. But when it comes to immunizing the population, “overall, we’re failing,” he says.
The immunologist and former head of vaccines for GlaxoSmithKline resigned from his role on Warp Speed at the request of the Biden Administration nearly two weeks ago. Though the Administration also quickly scrubbed away the “Warp Speed” name—which was repeatedly criticized for giving the impression that vaccines would be hastily developed without proper testing—Slaoui agreed to stay on into February to help with the transition. With his time in the federal position dwindling, he sat down for an interview with Science magazine to review how things have gone.
Overall, Slaoui is proud of his work, his team, and the monumental tasks they accomplished, he said. “Between May [2020] and now, we’ve moved five vaccines into Phase III trials, two have been authorized, two are completing Phase III—and one of those could be approved imminently… By all standards, this is absolutely exceptional,” he said.
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Source: Ars Technica – “We’re failing”: Ex-Warp Speed leader proud, deflects blame on vaccines
With Mozilla’s release of Firefox 85 on Tuesday, Adobe’s once ubiquitous Flash technology is really gone for good. The software had been widely used to expand gaming, video and animation on the web, though Adobe stopped supporting it at the end of 2020. Firefox was the last major browser to support Flash. From a report: Apple, whose late boss Steve Jobs helped sink Flash by banning it from iPhones and iPads, ditched Flash with Safari 14 in September 2020. Google Chrome, the most widely used browser, completely excised it on Jan. 19 with version 88. Microsoft’s Edge 88 followed suit on Jan. 21. The schedule of removals shows just how hard it is to advance technology foundations as widely used as the web. Browser makers for years wanted to remove Flash, replacing it with more advanced standards built directly into the web. Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash” letter in 2010 solidified the opposition, and Adobe started recognizing the software’s doom by scrapping the Android version of Flash in 2011. It’s taken years of effort to drop Flash completely. Adobe took until 2017 to announce that Flash would be completely unsupported at the end of 2020, and still some are willing to jump through lots of hoops to keep Flash around a little longer.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Firefox 85 Hammers the Final Nail Into the Adobe Flash Coffin
Nvidia released today Nvidia 460.39 as a new production graphics driver for UNIX systems, including GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris, bringing support for newer kernels, new GPUs, and a handful of improvements.
Source: LXer – Nvidia 460.39 Driver Adds Support for Linux 5.10 LTS, GeForce RTX 3000 Series of Laptop GPUs
Following in the footsteps of DC Comics’ fateful decision to let readers decide the fate of Jason Todd—footsteps last 33 years, right?—Marvel has given its X-fans the power to determine the final mutant member of the first X-Men team of the post-House of X “Krakoan Age”! The choices, however… hmm… well, let’s just…
Source: io9 – Marvel Wants You to Choose the Next (Third-String) Member of the X-Men!
Enlarge / Cyber threat from North Korea. North Korean hacker at the computer, on a background of binary code, the colors of the flag of the DPRK. DDoS attack (credit: Dmitry Nogaev | Getty Images)
Google has warned it has uncovered an “ongoing” state-backed hacking campaign run by North Korea targeting cyber security researchers.
The Silicon Valley group said its threat analysis team found that cyber attackers posing as researchers had created numerous fake social media profiles on platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn. To gain credibility, they also had set up a fake blog for which they would get unwitting targets to write guest posts about actual software bugs.
After establishing communication with an actual researcher, the attackers would ask the target to work together on cyber vulnerability research and then share collaboration tools containing malicious code to install malware on the researcher’s systems.
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Source: Ars Technica – North Korea hackers use social media to target security researchers
Coca-Cola With Coffee (Vanilla 4-Pack) | $6 | Walmart
Coca-Cola With Coffee (Dark Blend 4-Pack) | $6 | Walmart
Source: LifeHacker – Now You Can Buy Coca-Cola Preloaded With Coffee So You No Longer Have To Mix It in Yourself
While a good deal of NVIDIA’s success in servers over the last decade has of course come from their proficient GPUs, as a business NVIDIA these days is much more than a fabless GPU designer. With more software engineers than hardware engineers on staff, it’s software and ecosystem plays that have really cemented NVIDIA’s position as the top GPU manufacturer, and created a larger market for their GPUs. At the same time, it’s these ecosystem plays that have allowed NVIDIA to build a profit-printing machine, diversifying beyond just GPU sales and moving into systems, software, support, and other avenues.
To that end, NVIDIA this morning is formally rolling out a new ecosystem play aimed at high-end deep learning servers, which the company is branding as NVIDIA-Certified Systems. Soft-launched back in the fall, today the company is giving the program a more proper introduction, detailing the program and announcing some of the partners. Under NVIDIA’s plan, going forward customers can opt to buy NVIDIA-Certified systems if they want an extra guarantee on system performance and reliability, as well as opt in to buying support contracts to get access to direct, full-stack technical support from NVIDIA.
Conceptually, the certification program is rather straightforward, due in large part to its hardware requirements. Systems first need to be using NVIDIA’s A100 accelerators, along with Mellanox Ethernet adapters and DPUs. Or in other words, the servers already need to be using NVIDIA silicon where available. OEMs can then submit systems meeting these hardware requirements to NVIDIA, who will test the systems across multiple metrics, including multi-GPU and multi-node DL performance, network performance, storage performance, and security (secure boot/root of trust). Systems that pass these tests can then be labeled as NVIDIA-Certified.
Those certified systems, in turn, are eligible for additional full-stack technical support through NVIDIA and the OEM. Customers can opt to buy multi-year support contracts, which entitles them to support through the OEM and NVIDIA. NVIDIA essentially assumes responsibility for all software support above the OS, including their hardware drivers, CUDA, their wide collection of frameworks and libraries, and even major open source libraries like TensorFlow. The latter is what makes NVIDIA’s support proposition particularly valuable, as they’re essentially committing to helping customers with any kind of GPU or deep learning-related software issue.
Of course, that support won’t come for free: this is where NVIDIA will be making their money. While NVIDIA is not charging OEMs for certification (so there’s no additional certification tax baked into the hardware), support contracts are priced based on the number of GPUs. In one example, NVIDIA has stated that a 3 year support contract for a dual-A100 system would be $4,299, or about $715 per-year per-GPU for support. So one can imagine how quickly this ratchets up for larger 4 and 8 way A100 systems, and then again for multiple nodes.
For NVIDIA and its OEM partners, the creation of a certification program is a straightforward way to try to further grow the market for deep learning servers, especially for mid-sized businesses. The market for AI hardware has been booming, and NVIDIA wants to keep it that way by making it easier for potential customers to use their wares. NVIDIA already has the top-end of the market covered in this respect with their direct relationships with the hyperscalers – and by extension their small-cap cloud computing customers – so a hardware certification program fills the middle tier for organizations that are going to run their own servers, but aren’t going to be a massive customer that gets personalized attention.
As for those customers, NVIDIA’s server certification and support programs are designed to eliminate (or at least mitigate) the risks of making significant investments into NVIDIA hardware. That means being able to buy a system where the vendor (in this case the duo of NVIDIA and the OEM) can vouch for the performance of the system, as well as guarantee it will be able to properly run various AI packages, such as NVIDIA’s NGC catalog of GPU-optimized and containerized software.
Altogether, NVIDIA is launching with 14 certified systems, with the promise of more certified systems to come. For the first wave of systems, participating OEMs include Dell, Gigabyte, HPE, Inspur, and Supermicro, all of whom are frequently participants in new NVIDIA server initiatives.
With all that said, NVIDIA’s server certification program is unlikely to significantly change how things work for most of the company’s customers; but it’s a program that seems primed to address a specific niche for NVIDIA and its OEM partners. For companies that are interested in GPU computing but are looking for a greater degree of support and certainty, this would address those needs. Which, to bring things full circle, it’s exactly by addressing those sorts of needs with ecosystem plays like server certification that NVIDIA has been so successful in the server GPU market over the last decade.
Source: NVIDIA
Source: AnandTech – NVIDIA Launches Server Certification Program, Offering Direct Technical Support
You can finally drag-and-drop email attachments from Outlook into Microsoft Teams. Sure, it took nearly five years for the feature to show up, but it’s here.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Transfer Outlook Attachments to Microsoft Teams
Even though 39% of marriages end in divorce, people obviously don’t expect to be divorced when they first get married. And for that reason, many are unaware of the costs—divorce proceedings can set you back anywhere between a few hundred dollars and tens of thousands, depending on the situation. Here’s a look at why…
Source: LifeHacker – How Much Will A Divorce Will Cost You?
Today is a pretty big day for gamers on the go—it marks the launch of GeForce RTX 30 series laptops sporting the company’s latest generation Ampere GPUs, in mobile form. And right on cue, NVIDIA has released a driver update and a bolstered version of its GeForce Experience utility, the latter of which brings support for WhisperMode 2.0.
There
Source: Hot Hardware – GeForce Experience 3.21 Brings AI-Fueled WhisperMode 2.0 And More For RTX 30 Laptops
Stocks: They’re so random 🤪 these days.
Source: Gizmodo – Elon Musk Tweet Sends Etsy Stock on a Roller Coaster Ride
Byte, the spiritual successor to Vine, created by Vine co-founder Dominik Hofmann, has been purchased by Clash, a creator monetization company. Clash, co-founded by former Vine star Brendon McNerney, is itself another wannabe smash-hit video sharing…
Source: Engadget – Byte, the spiritual successor to Vine, has a new owner
Sony has just dropped a bomb on the camera world with the launch of the A1, its new flagship full-frame mirrorless camera with some breakthrough features. Thanks to a new 50-megapixel Exmor RS stacked CMOS sensor and the cutting-edge Bionz XR process…
Source: Engadget – Sony’s A1 is a ,500 50MP camera that shoots 30fps bursts and 8K video
In what’s turning into an Xe sort of day, Intel’s GPU guru and frontman for their GPU division, Raja Koduri, has tweeted that the company is getting ready to begin power on testing for their forthcoming high-end server GPU, the Xe-HPC based Ponte Vecchio. And along with this announcement, Koduri has also posted a somewhat redacted photo of the sizable chip.
Xe HPC ready for power on!
7 advanced silicon technologies in a single package
Silicon engineers dream
Thing of beauty @intel pic.twitter.com/RF8Prsy05f
— Raja Koduri (@Rajaontheedge) January 26, 2021
According to Koduri, Ponte Vecchio incorporates “7 advanced silicon technologies,” likely referring to everything from the four different process nodes used to make the chiplets, to memory stacks, and including the Foveros packaging.
Ponte Vecchio is a keystone project for Intel’s GPU division. Along with being the largest and grandest of their Xe GPUs, the chip will be at the heart of the Aurora supercomputer, Intel’s most recent supercomputer win. So a lot is riding on the chip, and no doubt Intel’s engineers are eager to see a successful power-on test.
Source: AnandTech – Intel Teases Ponte Vecchio Xe-HPC Power On, Posts Photo of Server Chip
Enlarge / CentOS Linux will be sleeping with the fishes in 2022. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Getty Images)
This morning, The Register’s Tim Anderson published excerpts of an interview with the CentOS project’s Brian Exelbierd. Exelbierd is a member of the CentOS board and its official liaison with Red Hat.
Exelbierd spoke to Anderson to give an insider’s perspective on Red Hat’s effective termination of CentOS Linux in December, in which the open source giant announced CentOS Linux was to be deprecated immediately—with security upgrades to CentOS Linux 8 ending later in 2021 rather than the 2029 end of support date CentOS users expected.
“CentOS is a [Red Hat] sponsored project,” Exelbierd told the Register. “We are the funding agent (the entity which receives and disburses grants), and we also happen to be a heavy contributor. We have learned that open source communities do well with independence. We let those governing bodies govern.”
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Source: Ars Technica – Why Red Hat killed CentOS—a CentOS board member speaks
YouTube has paid out more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and media organizations over the last three years, according to a new letter published by CEO Susan Wojcicki. From a report: In Wojcicki’s first letter to creators of 2021, the CEO spent some time addressing YouTube’s growth. The number of new channels that joined the company’s Partner Program, which allows creators to earn advertising revenue, more than doubled in 2020. YouTube also “contributed approximately $16 billion to the U.S. GDP in 2019, supporting the equivalent of 345,000 full time jobs,” according to an Oxford Economics report that Wojcicki highlights. The letter also focuses on the work YouTube’s team still has in front of them. Mainly, transparency, especially where content strikes and advertising dollars are concerned. Wojcicki noted that at the “scale we operate, it’s hard for creators to keep up with changing Community Guidelines.” Wojcicki’s letter states that YouTube wants to be better about communicating changes to avoid channel strikes. After three strikes within a 90-day period, a channel is terminated.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – YouTube Has Paid More Than billion To Creators, Artists, and Others Over the Last Three Years
