Big Bang Meets Big Data: SA Joins ASTRON and IBM to Build the Foundation for a New Era of Computing (i.e. DOME)

IBM has entered into a four year collaboration with ASTRON to research extremely fast, but low-power exascale computer systems (collectively known as DOME) targeted for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). The goal of the 10 countries involved is to decipher radio waves from deep space to solve the riddles of the universe and the nature of matter.

Introducing DOME

On March 7, 2012 the Square Kilometre Array South Africa (SKA SA) announced it anticipates working with IBM with the goal of developing a next generation big data analytics platform (titled DOME) with self-tuning and self-learning capabilities to better analyze large volumes of radio astronomy data. SKA SA is building MeerKAT, the largest and most sensitive radio telescope of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

MeerKAT is one of several new radio telescopes being built as precursors to the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), an international project that should reach its full capacity in the early part of the next decade.

On April 2, 2012 ASTRON, The Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced a five-year collaboration to research extremely fast, but low-power exascale computer systems targeted for the international Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The collaboration is called DOME, named for the protective cover on telescopes and the famous Swiss mountain.

As part of the global effort to solve this unprecedented challenge ASTRON and IBM launched a public private partnership called DOME, to develop a fundamental IT roadmap for the SKA. The collaboration includes a user platform where organizations from around the world can jointly investigate emerging technologies in green computing, nanophotonics and data streaming. Through its SKA South Africa unit, the National Research Foundation is now a user platform partner in DOME.

Scientists from SKA SA will focus on the following research themes:

• Visualising the challenge: fundamental research will be conducted into signal processing and advanced computing algorithms for the capture, processing and analysis of the SKA data so clear images can be produced for astronomers to study.
• Desert-proof technology: the DOME team is researching and prototyping microserver architectures based on liquid-cooled 3D stacked chips. The team in South Africa will extend this research to make the microsevers rugged or “desert proof” to handle the extreme environmental conditions where the SKA will be located.
• Software analytics: the 64 dishes of the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa will be used for the testing and development of a sophisticated software program that will aid in the design of the entire computing system holistically and optimally—taking into account all of the cost and performance trade-offs for the eventual 3 000 SKA dishes.

I will be following the progress of DOME over the next few months and have access to information regarding any new discoveries made by the system. If you would like to keep updated yourself, consider subscribing to Email Updates or the RSS feed up top.

APPLE TECH: The Leap Motion Sensor coming soon...

There's something very satisfying about touchscreen technology. I suppose it's that you are the input as oppose to a keyboard or keypad. Using natural hand movements and gestures in just intuitive. If you are used to using a phone with a touchscreen, try playing on one that is not 'touch' and see how frustrating it is.

Desktop PCs are starting to take the leap forward toward becoming fully touchable too. Techsperts at Apple have developed the Leap Motion Sensor, which takes things even further than touch. Rather, the Leap makes your Apple fully responsive to nature hand motions and gestures without the need the leave grubby fingerprints on your screen.

Introducing the Leap Motion Sensor

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d6KuiuteIA[/youtube]

Here's the Leap Motion Sensor splurb off YouTube:

"Leap represents an entirely new way to interact with your computers. It's more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen. For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements."

The Leap Motion Sensor is scheduled to be released next year for just $70 and can be pre-ordered at Leap Motion.

TECHNO TALK: Hair today, gone tomorrow

SINCE I was a child I’ve had this fantasy of dressing up in a medieval suit of armour and having an all-out sword fight with someone also clad in medieval metal. The only problem is that people were a lot shorter 1 000 years ago.

The human race has evolved to be a lot taller than our flail-wielding ancestors. Squeezing oneself into a genuine suit of knight’s armour would be near impossible now — especially if you’re a beer drinker. This may make one wonder if we are still evolving today.

Most evolutionary biologists would argue that if we haven’t stopped evolving, our evolution has at least slowed down to a glacial pace. The main argument is that we have created and adapted our urban environments to best suit our current shape and form.

We have taken to sitting down a lot — whether behind a desk, on a sofa or in a car seat. When it’s too cold we take comfort behind our walls and cover ourselves with blankets. And now that things are heating up, we may blast air conditioners to keep comfortable. Human evolution doesn’t stand a chance.

Fortunately, evolution is technology’s best trait. Air conditioners have become more efficient and eco-friendly and can now be used to heat and cool a building thanks to a variety called a heat pump. Heat pumps are typically used to pull heat from the air or ground into a building to raise the temperature, but can also be put into reverse to cool a building.

How heat pumps work

Liquid refrigerant is pumped through the outside coils of an air-source heat pump. A fan pulls outside air over the coils, which absorbs the heat in the air and expands it into hot vapour. The vapour enters a compressor, which increases the temperature and pressure of the gas. The vapour then flows to indoor coils. The refrigerant condenses the vapour back into a liquid as it cools and flows outside to gather more heat. Meanwhile, the heat is pumped through the air ducts of your home and distributed throughout. This process can be reversed to cool the air inside your home. (Diagram: howstuffworks.com)

Heat pumps operate in a very similar manner to standard heating and air-conditioning units but without the need to install separate systems. They are also far more efficient than their ancestors as they do not burn fuel to condition the air but rather transfer it from one place to another. Heat pumps can also be used to heat swimming pools and can even fire up a hot tub.

I’m proud to inform that heat pumps are widely available in South Africa. A couple of good places to start perusing these are www.itssolar.co.za and www.heatpumpssouthafrica.co.za By providing your name, contact details­ and nearest city, a heat pump specialist will contact you within 24 hours. Prices for domestic heat pumps range from R10 000 to R15 000.

Heat pumps should of course be used in conjunction with other energy-saving techniques. Using fluorescent light bulbs and turning appliances off when not in use are the obvious ones, but it is also a great time to utilise the spring sunshine. Phantom loads are the less obvious energy drainers. When something like a cellphone charger is plugged into a live socket, but not into a cellphone, this actually drains more energy than would be used if a phone was charging.

So let’s all do our bit this sunny season to help the planet fend off global warming by being energy savvy and by using green devices such as heat pumps. I really don’t want to have hairy grandchildren.

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ALAN TURING: Inventor of the world's first digital computer

THE modern world as we know it is run on computers. Your world and mine would be very different without them. It’s interesting to know that just 70 years ago computers didn’t exist. What’s more interesting is to consider that some of humankind’s most significant and most innovative inventions, such as the computer, emerged from the horrors of warfare. They say that necessity is the mother of all invention. This couldn’t have been truer at the time of Second World War.

Alan Turing (1912-1954) was the founder of computer science, a brilliant mathematician, a philosopher, code-breaker, strange visionary and a gay man before his time, whose unique contribution helped turn the tide of war. Turing was also known as the “brain” man and was the genius of Britain’s wartime code-breaking headquarters in Bletchley Park — the most secret place in Britain during WW2. Here, Turing created a code-breaking machine which formed the basis of all computer technology.

Alan Turing lived a short but significant life. At public school he fell in love with a boy who sadly died of tuberculosis, leaving Alan distraught, but contemplative. It was at this moment in his life that Alan Turing began to think about the relationship between the body and mind — between mind and matter. He wondered if the mind of the boy he had loved could have somehow survived his death. He became obsessed with the nature of thought and how the mind worked and became fascinated with the idea of building a thinking machine.

Whilst going for a run outside of Cambridge, Turing had one of the greatest mathematical insights of all time. He began to contemplate how an imaginary machine, operating with a very simple set of rules or instructions, but with an infinite amount of time, could solve any and all conceivable, mathematical problems. This was the first logical concept of the programmable computer, which became known as the Turing Machine. But then war broke out.

Turing was known for his code-breaking and mathematical skills and was soon assigned a post at Bletchley Park. Turing and his colleagues were tasked with cracking the Enigma — the sophisticated German coding device that was used to encode messages during the war. The Enigma was believed to be unbreakable and nearly all German u-boat missions used it. If it hadn’t been cracked by the code-breakers, it would have certainly changed the outcome of the war.

Thousands had been tasked with cracking the Enigma system, but it was Turing’s genius that allowed them to figure it out. It was also Turing’s chance to finally implement his idea of building a mechanical brain.

The Enigma device used a simple rotary system but was able to encode messages in literally millions of different ways. Not only that, but messages were encoded differently each day, and to crack it required more than thousands of human eyeballs.

Alan Turing and his colleagues constructed a mechanical machine called The Bombe, which was able to churn out thousands of possible answers to the encoded German messages. It involved a lot of guesswork, but without Turing and his code-breaking machine, Britain may very well have not survived the battle of the Atlantic.

The Bombe was not the world’s first computer, but after the war Alan Turing and his colleagues went on to build Colossus. This mechanical, “thinking” machine was labeled as the word’s very first digital computer and is what all modern computer technology is based on.

Alan Turing died young under mysterious circumstances. He was found dead in his room by his housekeeper and it was reported that he died of cyanide poising. There is a bit of a conspiracy theory here as some believe that Turing’s death was by accident, others thought it was suicide and another group believe that he was assassinated. The assassination theory certainly has something going for it, as Turing was not only a homosexual at a time when it was illegal, but he also held some of the most important secrets of WW2 and may have been considered as a security risk.

However his life ended, Alan Turing will certainly be remembered and appreciated for the rest of mine.

• Footnote: A personal statement of apology was given by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on September 10, 2009, for Alan Turing’s inhumane treatment.

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GOOGLE: A critical look at Google behind the screen

A wise man once said: "We should always be cautious of that which is powerful." No doubt Google has become an extremely powerful entity in our modern lives. It can be argued that it is fast becoming the gatekeeper of all of the world’s information — the new Great Library of Alexandria. Yet to be cautious of this requires reason to be so, and what better place to start than to understand how Google works.

HOW GOOGLE WORKS

Google can basically be separated into three parts – search, database and interface. To take account of all the new information and web pages that appear on the web on a daily basis, Google sends out digital robots (also called bots, spiders or crawlers). These bits of software crawl the Internet and scan new content and web pages. They assess what words, and more specifically, what keywords, are used on each page and send these to a database.

The physical part of the Internet can basically be thought of as huge, underground databases. Envision underground computers with powerful processors and lots of storage space. All the information gathered by the Google bots is brought back to these databases where it is stored. Importantly, information is only gathered from the web pages which Google sends out bots for. This excludes web pages that are not indexed by Google, are hidden from Google or require a password or some kind of authority to access.

And then we have the interface. This is essentially the Google search bar, which we are all familiar with and often take completely for granted. When we type in keywords or search phrases into the Google search bar, the Google bots search the database and bring up web pages that contain a high number of those keywords.

HOW GOOGLE BEGAN AND GREW

Google began with a small group of engineers in 1999, who became overnight billionaires after Google went public in 2004. The company now employs the keenest minds from around the world and is still growing. At one point Google devised a mathematical equation which was advertised on large billboards worldwide. Solving the equation and typing the result into the Google search bar took one to the Google jobs page.

It has to be said that Google employees with cushy jobs have it good. At the corporate Google Headquarters (Googleplex) in California, employees are allowed 20% of their working time to pursue whatever they are passionate about. There are also several stress-relieving facilities available such as gyms to volley ball courts. Employees may even get a professional massage during their lunch breaks.

The Google goldmine is in advertising. Generally the first three web pages that appear as a result of a search are sponsored links. These are usually highlighted in some way. The links that appear along the right-hand column are also sponsored links. Companies bid against one another for these spots, which has proven to be an effective and profitable system.

GOOGLE’S GOALS

Google's initial aim was to create the world’s best search engine. Its stated goal now is to host all of the world’s information. Google Search has literally expanded into space, with offerings such as Google Books, Google Maps and Google Mars just to name a few. However, there is also the phenomenon of Internet users constantly pouring in new content. The goal on Google’s part here is to organise all this information.

The Internet is now flooded with large amounts of opinion pieces as more and more people throw in their two cents. But how can a search engine be objective and rank opinion? At one point in time, a search for “the holocaust” fetched articles with titles such as “Did the Holocaust really happen?” A search for “the truth behind 9/11 ” fetched a host of conspiracy theories arguing that 9/11 was a governmental orchestrated undertaking.

With such an influx of good and bad information, it’s fair to say that Google employees have their work cut out for them. To keep things democratic, Google has started giving preference to web pages that update more frequently and are more interactive in terms of user participation and commentary. The relevance of any piece of information on the web is also largely determined by how many external web pages link or point to that information.

ISSUES OF PRIVACY

The fact that Google stores user information is not something it tries to cover up. It openly states that this information is used to help improve Google services. However, even if Google doesn’t misuse this information, there is very little preventing others from doing so. Information regarding user behaviour, such as your search habits and history for example, can and have been sold to third-party advertisers arming their spam cannons.

Whether we consider Google as a profit driven company acting under a façade or not, the question begged for, really, is whether Google (and ergo the Internet in general) will ultimately become a public enterprise or a public enterprise.

A further point of concern is the idea of Google having a monopoly over all of the world’s information. While anyone is free to create a search engine, your chances of competing with Google and being taken seriously are less than slim.

As difficult as it may be, laws of media diversity will have to find a firmer place online if we are to prevent a situation of having one world view or ideology at the expense of critical thought.

Why Google is called Google
The name “Google” originated from a misspelling of “googol”, which refers to 10100 (the number represented by a one followed by 100 zeros). Having found its way into everyday language, the verb “google” was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, and means “to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet.” — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google

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DTV: The dawning of a new viewing era

WE are entering a new era of television­. With a boom in the sale of 3DTVs predicted for this year, and the switching from analogue­ to digital television now postponed until 2013, surely this signals that things can only get better. But what does it mean for the end user?

Some feel that before we had the chance to upgrade our sets to HD-ready TVs, out came 3D-ready ones. They may feel that they now need to purchase digital­-ready TVs.

Fortunately this isn’t quite the case. The analogue signal (which is transmitted in a similar manner to radio­) will eventually be phased out; but before that happens, TV viewers with analogue TVs will still be able to pick up digital broadcasts after installing a Set-Top-Box (STB). These convert digital signals into analogue signals so that they may be viewed on older, analogue­ TV sets.

The Digital TV Transition

“But what’s so great about going digital?” I hear you shout. The format and efficiency of digital broadcasts over analogue­ ones not only offer better picture and sound quality, but also frees up space on the broadcasting spectrum — allowing broadcasters to offer far more channels than before.

“DTV (digital television) also offers multiple programming choices, called multicasting, and interactive capabilities. Also, some of the spectrum can now be auctioned to companies that will be able to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services (such as wireless broadband).” — www.dtv.gov

So in a nutshell, more channel choices­ with better quality broadcasts and even more interactive shows will be on offer with DTV. It has also been mentioned that the number of local SABC channels will increase from three to more than 10.

So while we may not need to upgrade our boxes in order to view digital broadcasts, if we wish to enjoy the full benefits of digital TV, including improved picture and sound quality, we will need to by entirely new TV sets. The same applies if we wish to enjoy HD, Blue-Ray or 3D broadcasts. We may be able to view them, but not at the quality in which they were intended.

The 3DTV Transition

So what of 3DTV? Being the new kid on the box, 3DTV broadcasts are still expensive to make and therefore expensive to view properly. Largely as a result of this, 3DTV has been separated into two categories — active and passive TV technology.

In both cases, 3D glasses are required to view 3DTV. However, with passive TV technology, one has to sit in a particular position without much leeway to move around in order to view the picture in 3D. The cheaper glasses essentially divide­ the image into two. A single frame is filtered for each eye. So essentially you are seeing the image at half its original resolution.

With active TV technology one wears independently powered 3D glasses. 3D images can be viewed from any angle and send out full frames on each eye sequentially, providing original picture quality at the full 100% resolution. It’s a no-brainer which TV technology is the more expensive one.

It’s difficult to say when would be a good time to upgrade one’s TV set given the circumstances. Like personal computers, televisions are becoming as quickly replaced by new technologies. The only advice I can give is start saving now.

THE difference between analog TV and digital TV has its roots in the way the TV signal is transmitted or transferred from the source to the TV, which, in turn, dictates the type of TV the consumer needs to use to receive the signal. This also applies to the way a DTV converter box has to transfer a signal to an analog TV, which is important for those consumers who use DTV converters to receive TV programming on an analog TV set. – About.com

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QUANTUM PHYSICS: An introduction ...

I RECENTLY began a love affair with quantum physics. The field is at the cutting edge of science; the height of evolutionary thought, and is truly fascinating to wrap your head around. It has also become clear to me that people’s desire to answer the bigger questions in life (where do we come from? Why are we here? etc.) stems from understanding the smaller things, specifically the sub-atomic world.

It’s an astonishing thought that 99.9% of what an atom is, is nothing. In other words, one of the smallest units that collectively make up solid matter is almost entirely a vacuum or empty space. Ergo, we are mostly nothing, and the universe is mostly nothing. If all this empty space were to be removed from a person, they would be the size of a grain of salt (which would still weigh the same as the person did before being deflated). This radical realisation leads physicists to thinking of atoms as tendencies rather than as things.

To illustrate, if we were to liken the dense nucleus of an atom to a pin-head, the electrons that orbit the nucleus would be roughly a kilometer away. Another comparison is that of a fly buzzing in an empty cathedral.

What’s more is that the electrons and nuclei of atoms seem to pop in and out of existence all the time. This gives credence to the idea that thoughts can have some sort of physical effect on the world, that reality is not necessarily what we perceive it to be, and that ideas of alternative universes or spiritual plains are highly possible.

Reality and the Observer

More exciting from a quantum physics perspective is the realisation that will live in a universe of infinite possibilities. Every conscious being is one of those instances and possess the power to make desirable possibilities a reality. In other words, human beings especially, have the power to change their external world from within.

What’s frustrating is that the tendency is to believe that the world already exists “out there” – independent of our experience. According to quantum physics, this is not the case at all. Rather, everything is a possibility of consciousness that requires our input to manifest into experience. In other words, the observer, or rather consciousness itself, must play a significant part in creating reality.

The most esteemed quantum physicists readily admit that they know what an observer does, but have no idea what it is. Yet we all have a shared experience of being an observer. Scientists have scrupulously searched all regions of the brain for something they can confidently call an observer, and have found nothing. As a result the observer is often referred to as “the ghost in the machine”.

The story of Columbus' ships and collective meditation

What I find most appealing about theories of quantum physics is how they spill over into other fields of thought and practice. Biology, psychology, history, chemistry and even several self-help ideas are all integrated. A good example to illustrate this is the idea that we are only able to see what we believe in, or what we believe is possible.

For example, it is believed that when Columbus first reached the Caribbean islands the native peoples were unable to see his ships on the horizon. The tribal chief was only able to see ripples on the water and assumed that something must be causing them. After days of observation the ships eventually took form in the minds-eye of the chief, who was then able to describe them to others also once blind to the ships’ presence. Urban legend or not, we are all subject to the same limitations, which may suggest why we are unable to see UFOs if they appear in a form unfamiliar to us.

In 1993 an experiment which may also be hard to believe, was undertaken in Washington DC to reduce violent crime. Four thousand people from a hundred different countries were brought together to collectively meditate for extended periods of time to prove the theory that thoughts have substance and effect. Several prior studies had already been undertaken on smaller scales, but it is reported that this particular exercise yielded a drop in crime (as defined by the FBI) of 25%.

There is a further fascinating experiment which shows the effects that thoughts or blessings can have on water molecules, but that will have to wait until next time…

• If this has spurred an interest into quantum physics a great introductory documentary that explains all the above is What the Bleep do we Know? The short film is also where you’ll find the references to the Washington experiment and the Columbus story. Another great BBC series I would recommend is The Atom.

Main Theories of Quantum Physics

At the moment there is about one new interpretation of quantum physics every three months, but most of them fit into one of the following categories (taken from www.higgo.com):

• Your consciousness affects the behaviour of subatomic particles
• The universe is interconnected with faster-than-light transfers of information
• Particles move backwards as well as forwards in time and appear in all possible places at once
• The universe is splitting, every Planck-time (10 E-43 seconds) into billions of parallel universes
• Beef or chicken

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