Koomey's Law for Energy Efficiency

An interesting alternative or complement to Moore's Law … Computing power: A deeper law than Moore's?:

a new analysis, by Jonathan Koomey of Stanford University and his colleagues, [sic] seems to have uncovered a deeper law relating to the energy-efficiency of computers, dating back to the era of vacuum tubes. The researchers found that the electrical efficiency of computing has doubled every 1.6 years since the mid-1940s. “That means that for a fixed amount of computational power, the need for battery capacity will fall by half every 1.6 years,” observes Dr Koomey.

Head in the Clouds

From Matthew Yglesias ... Americans Think Cloud Computing is Disrupted By Bad Weather

You've probably heard a fair amount about computing "in the cloud"—the idea that thanks to the Internet, we can store data (Dropbox, iCloud) remotely and even use applications (Siri, Google Docs, Facebook) that exist primarily on remote servers. But an exciting press release I got yesterday from Citrix about a survey conducted by Wakefield Research reveals that most people have no idea what any of this means:

The survey of more than 1,000 American adults was conducted in August 2012 by Wakefield Research and shows that while the cloud is widely used, it is still misunderstood. For example, 51 percent of respondents, including a majority of Millennials, believe stormy weather can interfere with cloud computing. Nearly one third see the cloud as a thing of the future, yet 97 percent are actually using cloud services today via online shopping, banking, social networking and file sharing. Despite this confusion, three in five (59 percent) believe the “workplace of the future” will exist entirely in the cloud, which indicates people feel it’s time to figure out the cloud or risk being left behind in their professional lives.

What's more, 22 percent of respondents "admit that they’ve pretended to know what the cloud is or how it works."What's more, 22 percent of respondents "admit that they’ve pretended to know what the cloud is or how it works."

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Brief History of Computing Platforms

Horace Dediu shares A Brief History of Computing Platforms:

Eventaully, Everything Will be Connected

From Cisco's Dave Evans The Internet of Things [INFOGRAPHIC]:

When we think of being connected to the Internet, our minds immediately shift to our computers, phones, and most recently tablets. This week at Cisco live, I shared that in 2008, the number of devices connected to the Internet exceeded the number of people on Earth.

That’s right. There are more devices tapping into the Internet than people on Earth to use them. How is this possible?

The infographic below provides a visual representation of the increase in “things” connected to the Internet. With this increase, how will you prepare your network for the future?

via gigaom

Troubling Stereotypes

No wonder kids don't want to go into programming. How do we counter these sort of misinformed "studies"?

Most coders have sleep problems, need 'hygiene and care':

A study conducted among software engineers indicates that a high proportion of coders suffer from "severe insomnia" and that a majority have sleep problems of some sort, putting their mental health and "hygiene" at risk.

According to the study authors, the primary reason for the sleeplessness of software engineers is that "job-related stress is considered extremely high". It was concluded that coders "need special attention since they are prone to develop sleep disturbances".

The solution?

"Lifestyle management programmes which include sleep hygiene and care should be incorporated as a policy matter in the IT industry."

Give me a break!

Grace Hopper - the first hacker

If you have daughters or female students interested in IT, Networking or Computer Science, have them learn a bit about Grace Hopper - pretty amazing story!

vintagephoto: Grace Hopper - the first hacker:

Date: Sometime after 1951??

Context: Grace Hopper examining a UNIVAC computer, holding a COBOL manual in her hand. Grace hopper invented the first compiler - the A-0, in 1949. It used symbolic mathematical code to represent binary code combinations. In an interview, she was asked what compelled her to invent the compiler. She was educated to be a mathematician, and messing around with on-off switches to vaccuum tubes was really annoying to her, and thus was born the first compiler. She hoped it would allow mathematicians like her to do real work and stop screwing around with computers. The COBOL language is a distant child of this first compiler, and a language which she also played a large role in developing.

Faster, Bigger Hard Drives

A Step Toward Superfast Carbon Memory

Graphene, a flat sheet of hexagonally arranged carbon atoms, can transport electrons very quickly. This has made it a promising material for high radio-frequency logic circuits, transparent electrodes for flexible flat-panel displays, and high-surface-area electrodes for ultracapacitors.

Now researchers at the National University of Singapore have made computer memory devices using graphene. This is the first step toward memory that could be much denser and faster than the magnetic memory used in today's hard drives.

...

Graphene memory would have significant advantages over today's magnetic memory. Bits could be read 30 times faster because electrons move through graphene quickly. Plus, the memory could be denser. Bit areas on hard disks are currently a few tens of nanometers across. At densities of 1 terabit per square inch, they will be about 25 nanometers across, too small to hold their magnetization direction. With graphene, bits could shrink to 10 nanometers or even smaller.

Women and the Birth of Computing

Great story about the role of these tremedous women at the dawn of the computing age. If you have daughters - this should be required reading! ENIAC Programmers Project

Sixty years ago, six young women programmed the world's first all-electronic computer, the ENIAC. Their ballistics program used hundreds of wires and 3000 switches. Never introduced, they never became a part of history. Forty years later, Kathy Kleiman was told that the women in pictures with ENIAC (1946) were "Refrigerator Ladies," models posed in front of the machine.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The ENIAC Programmers worked tirelessly to make programming easier for all. They created the first sort routine, software application and instruction set, and classes in programming. Their work dramatically altered computing in the 1940s and 1950s. They paved the path to the modern software industry.

And read about Google honoring one of these pioneering women and watch a video of the event. Official Google Blog: Jean Bartik: the untold story of a remarkable ENIAC programmer

For more than 50 years, the women of Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC) were forgotten, and their role in programming the first all-electronic programmable computer and creating the software industry lost. But this fall, old met young, and a great computer pioneer met today's Internet pioneers. It happened in Silicon Valley and it happened at Google.

A little over a month ago, the Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mountain View honored Jean Bartik with its Fellows Award. This lifetime achievement award recognized her work as a programmer of the ENIAC and leader of the team to convert ENIAC to a stored program machine.