Computers

Everyone's favourite eccentric millionaire wants to help you uninstall McAfee.

Microsoft is taking the RT to schools.

For older companies that want to adapt to shifting markets and consumer demand, legacy IT departments are a huge weakness. Composed of fragile islands coupled together, old IT systems must be handled slowly and gently to prevent a cascade of failures — with the result that their companies struggle to keep up with more nimble competition. According to Jonathan Murray, the EVP and CTO of Warner Music Group, the solution is to replace older systems with what he calls “the composable enterprise” — a structure that’s complex and resilient, in which parts can be torn down and reassembled on the fly in order to meet current business demands. Speaking at GigaOM’s Structure 2013 in San Francisco, Murray explained that cost was a traditional constraint on building IT systems; every piece of compute and memory was expensive, meaning that companies had to carefully plan every tiny allocation and did not have the luxury to experiment. “The design blueprint was based on scarcity. Everything was expensive. CIOs had to squeeze out every ounce of efficiency,” he said. Now, however, Murray says the economics of cloud architecture offer an opportunity for firms to create elaborate new systems and tinker on the fly. In doing so, IT professionals have to overcome a long-ingrained urge to fight complexity and instead develop decoupled eco-systems in which applications don’t depend on platform layers. Murray also said IT departments must stop acting like labor-intensive craft teams and become like highly automated factory floors; this means, for example, ceasing to spend money on legions of employees who take care of legacy Unix systems. The final goal, according to Murray, is for CIOs to stop regarding cost control as the paramount metric — and instead recognize that time to value is the most important unit of IT performance. Check out the rest of our Structure 2013 coverage here, and a video embed of the session follows below: Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.IT spending update, third quarter 2012Public, private or hybrid? How to move to the cloudThe importance of putting the U and I in visualization

Now that the National Security Agency (NSA) and other law enforcement institutions have begun to pull back the veil on surveillance tactics and their newly disclosed relationship in suspected terrorism cases, at least one defense attorney is starting to challenge previously closed cases. Among the cases officials cited where NSA surveillance proved useful in securing a conviction was that of Basaaly Saeed Moalin, a San Diego cab driver. Moalin was convicted in February 2013 on five counts, including conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, Somali terrorist group Al Shabaab. "We're going to evaluate our options as to what to do now to get to the bottom of this," Joshua Dratel, a New York-based defense attorney representing Moalin, told Wired on Tuesday. "We can't learn about it until it's to the government's tactical advantage politically to disclose it. National security is about keeping illegal conduct concealed from the American public until you're forced to justify it because someone ratted you out." Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

There has been a complete transformation of the client side of computing, and because of that the infrastructure on the back end is changing. As part of that change, the new chip architecture inside the servers in the data center will use the ARM architecture, said Andrew Feldman, GM and corporate VP at AMD. In his presentation at GigaOM’s Structure conference on Wednesday, Feldman explained that the data center is not only the cloud, it’s providing the value for most of the phones, tablets and myriad devices we carry every day. “The demand for compute has left the client side and moved into the data center,” said Feldman. “Over a three-year period we went from 3 percent to a third of the U.S. population owning a tablet … We now spend hours and hours a day in the cloud where before, we were on the couch.” This change means we’re not just changing computing, but also networking and storage. He said IT has become software-defined. And the building blocks aren’t the only thing changing, the buildings where we house the compute is changing as well. Even where we put those buildings is changing. “We used to put data centers in urban environments but where do we put them now? In Eastern Washington or along river banks in Oregon to take advantage of lower power,” said Feldman. “The data center now does the compute for the client side. Millions of millions of users each with parallel work. We don’t ask it to do CAD/CAM …. the vast majority of the work we ask it to do is simple parallel work for the client side. And that work is very different.” It’s not about CPU performance, which means that work requires a different type of processor. “And in the future we believe it’s going to be an ARM processor,” Feldman said. So Feldman called for the industry to rethink how it designs servers to make them more efficient. The server world should also embrace open source hardware like what the Open Compute Project wants to offer. He left the audience with the thought that in the 60 year history of computing, smaller, higher-volume parts have always won. That used to be x86-based processors. But in 2012 more than 8 billion ARM CPUs were shipped, more than twenty times the x86 volume. It’s too bad Feldman didn’t spend some time talking about how AMD plans to adapt to the realities of an ARM-based chip world, where dozens of vendors have the ability to design and build ARM-based chips. That’s a big shift from building x86 chips that only two vendors can sell. Check out the rest of our Structure 2013 coverage here, and a video embed of the session follows below: Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.The role of converged infrastructure in the data centerHow tomorrow’s mobile-centric data centers will lookWebscale and cloud are changing the server value chain. Who wins?

Oh man, I don't think I was ready to revisit the events of Hotline Miami, but I didn't get to make that decision this morning. Introducing Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number and its debut teaser trailer. Described as the "brutal conclusion to the gruesome saga" Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number revisits the startling ultraviolence of the original title. Once again the throw ourselves into the abyss, only to find Devolver Digital looking back at us. Hotline Miami's sequel will star several distinct characters whom lead the charge in the factional warfare born of the events of the original game. Each character will have their own executions and motivations, which could imply that we won't be selecting customized masks this time around. Despite the protagonists' motivations, there's no doubt whatever the conflict is... it will end in blood and neon. Let's just hope the dead guys don't talk back to us this time. Even Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number's subtitle makes my head spin and my gut queasy. It's a throwback to the events of the first game, though players who followed the game all the way to its "real end" may have a bit more perspective on the matter. Coming to PC, Mac and Linux in 2013... "maybe." To be honest, its weird seeing Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number advertised and teased in this way, considering just how freaking indie the first game was. Stumbling onto Hotline Miami by accident have having one of best gaming experiences of the year was unbelievable. Just the idea of it being a franchise feels really off kilter to me. Whatever, I'll still play the hell out of it. I'll just feel weird about everything surrounding the game up until its release. Comment on this article (1)

It looks like we aren’t the only ones impressed by the potential in Qualcomm’s powerful new Snapdragon 800 chip. On the very same night that the company let us run a bevy of benchmark tests on that very processor, Bloomberg says that the speedy system-on-a-chip will power “some new versions” of Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet. While the report seems innocuous enough at first glance, the one-line rumor actually intrigues on multiple levels—not the least of which is the allure of the first potential cellular-enabled Surface slate. Even still, beefed-up processors alone won’t cure what ails Windows RT. “Some new versions”? Before we get into that, though, there’s the “some new versions” line, which—if accurate—suggests that Microsoft may release several different models of the Surface RT in the coming months. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google acquiring Waze almost seems redundant. Google is already a recognized leader in mapping services, so why does it need to buy a mapping company? The answer is that maps aren’t just maps anymore, and Waze will help Google move from mapping to social mapping. It might look at first glance like the Waze purchase is a predatory move. Google has deep pockets and it can afford to spend money to buy Waze simply to prevent rivals from doing so. It may not actually use or incorporate Waze, because the goal of buying Waze is purely a strategic move to keep competitors in the rearview mirror. Waze adds real-time data from its social network to help you navigate. That’s not the case, though. Maps aren’t just maps any more. Maps are a search engine in and of themselves—a trove of information that helps people get from Point A to Point B as efficiently as possible, and that helps them make smart choices about where to go and what to do once they arrive. I’m dating myself, but once upon a time we relied on printed maps from AAA called TripTiks to navigate road trips. Then Mapquest came along, and we could just research our own routes and print our own maps. The advent of smartphones, and the rapid advances in mapping, and location-tracking services, however, combined with relevant, real-world information from social networks, has brought the concept of mapping to a whole new level. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

It looks like another non-reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 card has been revealed. This time it is the MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming OC Edition. This card will feature a non-reference PCB and the latest Twin Frozr IV cooling solution which allows for faster clock speeds and more stable overclocking. The card also has the same MSI red gaming color scheme as we have seen on other MSI gaming cards.MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming OC Edition RevealedThe MSI GeForce GTX 760 Gaming OC Edition is based off the GK104-225-A2 Kepler core architecture which as far as we know boasts 1152 cores, 96 TMUs, 32 ROPs with 2 GB of GDDR5 running along a 256-bit wide interface. The GPU has a base clock of 1085 MHz while it can boost all the way up to 1150 MHz. The memory on some overclocked models is clocked at 7 GHz, while others operate at 6 GHz, we are unsure at this time what the memory will be operating at.The Twin Frozr IV cooling solution is the same one that we saw on the MSI’s GeForce GTX 780 and GTX 770 lightening models. It features a large aluminum heatsink fin array that sits on top of the GPU and is cooled off by two large propeller blade fans.Display outputs for the card include Dual-DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. The card is expected to retail in about a week for $299.Source: VideoCardz | News Archive

Social media data provider Gnip announced today that Chris Moody, its Chief Operating Officer and President, has been named the company’s new Chief Executive Officer. With this move, Moody succeeds Jud Valeski, who will be stepping back into the Chief Technology Officer role. Moody had been with Gnip for the past two years and recently spent a lot of time on stage at the company’s second annual Big Boulder data conference. Valeski writes in a blog post: Since joining, Chris has done nothing but illustrate his undying passion, dedication, and expertise in the context of Gnip. I often talk about how “discretionary energy” applies in the context of entrepreneurship, execution, and making a business actually work. The true measure of someone’s commitment to a challenge is whether or not their discretionary energy goes into it. Since even before his start date, I’ve watched Chris put every ounce of his discretionary energy into Gnip. Prior to joining Gnip, Moody held multiple executive roles at marketing and creative talent firm Aquent. Valeski says that Moody’s experience helps to align him with “how the business is growing and scaling.” As for Valeski, he’ll be Gnip’s new CTO. He writes that when he became CEO three years ago, he hoped to accomplish three things. The first was to build a “serious software company that met global needs”. The other two involved building a team that surpassed his experience back at Netscape and to have a business with an intense revenue stream while providing “tremendous value” to its customers. Valeski feels that all three have accomplished so now is the time for him to step back and let someone else steer the ship. It appears the CTO role is a new position as their current executive team shows no other C-level position. Moody’s promotion comes at a time when Gnip is experiencing some aggressive growth and integrations. In May, the company partnered with Foursquare to sell the location service’s check-in data in a manner similar to Twitter’s firehose. A month prior to that, it added Instagram, Reddit, and Bitly to its service giving businesses much more access to social media data. Gnip isn’t the only game in town as it competes against DataSift. Both companies specialize in integrating with data service providers and resell the data to companies interested in using it for their applications or analytics. Photo credit: Thinkstock