Category: Computers, Science & Technology

Wow. Attachmate is buying up Novell. Check it out!

Attachmate agrees to purchase Novell

“November 22, 2010 — Novell is no more. Pending the approval of stockholders and government regulators, the computer networking giant will be sold to Attachmate—best known for systems security and application integration—for US$2.2 billion, or $6.10 per share.

In a statement announcing the purchase, Attachmate said it will operate Novell as two divisions: SUSE Linux, and the rest of Novell, which includes the ZENworks virtualization software and other networking solutions. Further, Novell entered into an agreement to sell some of its intellectual property assets to a Microsoft-organized consortium: CPTN Holdings, which will pay $450 million in cash.

Attachmate has not yet provided a vision for which Novell products would be integrated into Attachmate’s portfolio. The company is owned by private investors Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital and Thoma Bravo.”

Wow! This is pretty amazing! I’ve worked with Novell directly, or indirectly, for years and yet and I even knew that the day was coming when it would be gone… replaced by Microsoft and the Evil Empire. But that day is now here! Amazingly enough, you notice that Microsoft and the consortium they mention in this article is going to get to pick and choose elements of Novell’s technology for their use… so, this is amazing stuff!

Zowie. Now we can start working toward warp drive! The future is coming, and it is Star Trek!

Antimatter Trapped For the First Time

“Get ready for that warp drive spaceship, because we are now one step closer to it. After creating antihydrogen in their antiproton decelerator, scientists at CERN have been able to trap antimatter for the first time in history.

This a big step. First, it gets humanity closer to understanding one of the biggest mysteries of the Universe: What happened to all the antimatter that was created during the Big Bang? In theory, matter and antimatter were created in equal parts during the Big Bang. However, the latter disappeared shortly thereafter. Or at least, we can’t seem to find it. The spokesman for CERN’s ALPHA experiment—Jeffrey Hangst of Aarhus University, Denmark—says that trapping these atoms was a bit of an overwhelming experience:

What’s new about Alpha is that now we’ve managed to hold on to those atoms. We have a magnetic bowl, kind of a bottle, that holds the antihydrogen […] For reasons that no one yet understands, nature ruled out antimatter. It is thus very rewarding, and a bit overwhelming, to look at the ALPHA device and know that it contains stable, neutral atoms of antimatter.

CERN created the first nine atoms of antihydrogen in 1995, and then started to produce atoms in large quantities in 2002, as part of the ATHENA and ATRAP experiments. This is the first time that scientists have been able to trap antihydrogen atoms for a long enough time to study them, keeping them at 9 degrees kelvin (-443.47 degrees Fahrenheit, -264.15 degrees Celsius), suspended in a magnetic field inside this Ghostbusters-style machine.”

Woz is a character… and I am sure Steve must be really grumnpy, but the Woz is jazzed over the Android OS for phones!

Steve Wozniak: Android will be the dominant smartphone platform

“Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, has never been one to mince words. Today’s no different as demonstrated in an interview with the Dutch-language De Telegraaf newspaper in The Netherlands. The first revelation is an admission that Apple had collaborated with a well-known Japanese consumer electronics company in 2004 to develop a phone that was ahead of its time. Woz is quoted as saying that while Apple was content with the quality, it ‘wanted something that could amaze the world.’ Obviously, the phone was shelved followed by Apple’s announcement of the iPhone in January 2007.

Woz then moved on to the topic of Android saying that Android smartphones, not the iPhone, would become dominant, noting that the Google OS is likely to win the race similarly to the way that Windows ultimately dominated the PC world. Woz stressed that the iPhone, “Has very few weak points. There aren’t any real complaints and problems. In terms of quality, the iPhone is leading.” However, he then conceded that, ‘Android phones have more features,’ and offer more choice for more people. Eventually, he thinks that Android quality, consistency, and user satisfaction will match iOS.”

Whoa! Who would have thought this?

China Officially Overtakes U.S. in Supercomputer Performance

“It’s been rumored, but now it’s official. The Chinese Tianhe-1A system at the National Supercomputer Center in Tianjin has achieved a performance level of 2.57 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second). This puts it in the number one spot on the 36th edition of the TOP500’s world’s most powerful supercomputer list, the organization said Sunday.

As a result, the prior winner on the list—the Cray XT5 ‘Jaguar’ system at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility in Tennessee—is now ranked in second place, with a score of 1.75 petaflop/s.

Jaguar was expected to lose the top spot in the latest survey, ever since news first leaked in late October that the Tianhe-1A was testing considerably faster. TOP500 benchmarks each supercomputer with Linpack, the organization’s benchmark application.

The next three spots in the TOP500 are held by Nebulae, a Chinese system in Shenzhen rated at 1.27 petaflop/s; Tsubame 2.0, a system at the Tokyo Institute of Technology that scores 1.19 petaflop/s; and Hopper, a Cray XE6 system at DOE’s National Research Energy Scientific Computing (NERSC) Center in California, which hits 1.05 petaflop/s.

Interestingly, the two Chinese systems and Tsubame 2.0 are all using Nvidia GPUs to accelerate computation. In fact, 28 systems overall on the TOP500 uses GPUs as accelerators; 16 employ the Cell processor, 10 use Nvidia chips, and two use AMD Radeons chips.”

Would you trust Facebook as your email provider? Hummmm… I don’t know that I would… they don’t exactly have a rep for security!

Facebook’s Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday

“Back in February we wrote about Facebook’s secret Project Titan — a web-based email client that we hear is unofficially referred to internally as its ‘Gmail killer.’ Now we’ve heard from sources that this is indeed what’s coming on Monday during Facebook’s special event, alongside personal @facebook.com email addresses for users.

This isn’t a big surprise — the event invites Facebook sent out hinted strongly that the news would have something to do with its Inbox, sparking plenty of speculation that the event could be related to Titan. Our understanding is that this is more than just a UI refresh for Facebook’s existing messaging service with POP access tacked on. Rather, Facebook is building a full-fledged webmail client, and while it may only be in early stages come its launch Monday, there’s a huge amount of potential here.”

So, Facebook has “friended” NC! My home state is jazzed that Facebook will be building a new $450 Million Dollar data center. Dewd! That’s a lot of geekiness!

Facebook ‘Friends’ North Carolina With Data Center

“North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue on Thursday said that Facebook plans to build a $450 million data center near Forest City in Rutherford County, the second data facility that the company will own. Our Judges Selected Some of The Most Groundbreaking Technology at Interop 2008, Including Overall Best of Show ‘We are proud that Facebook chose to make North Carolina a ‘friend,” said Gov. Perdue in a statement. ‘The feeling is certainly mutual. You can’t pick up a newspaper, read a magazine or flip on the television without hearing more great news about our state. The investment and jobs at the data center will be a boon to that region of the state, and will help confirm North Carolina’s distinction as a global business destination.’ The project is expected to take 18 months to build and to create over 250 construction and mechanical jobs, according to the Office of Gov. Perdue. The completed data center is expected to employ between 35 and 45 full-time and contract workers. Future expansion will also be a possibility.”

Will it be “the iPad for business?” Or, will users just say that they want iPads? We’ll see! Though, $500.00 is easier to get approved than $800.00.

RIM Climbs to Highest Since June on Plan for Tablet Under $500

“Research In Motion Ltd. climbed to the highest level since June after saying it will sell the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer for less than $500, suggesting it may try to undercut Apple Inc.’s iPad. ‘The product will be very competitively priced,’ co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie said in an interview in Seoul today, without being more specific than saying it will be ‘under’ $500. RIM, maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, will start selling the PlayBook in North America in the first quarter and expand into global markets in the second quarter, he said. The iPad starts at $499 for a model with 16 gigabytes of storage and Wi-Fi wireless technology. The price rises to $829 for a version with more storage that can connect directly to cellular-phone networks.”

So, another full version number jump! Not those small “dot” releases! The BIG one! Sounds good…. but I will wait a bit for good ol’ CentOS!

Red Hat announces Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

“Red Hat announced today, November 10th, that long anticipated release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.

The announcement itself was anti-climatic. Everyone in Linux circles knew that RHEL 6 was coming. What I did find interesting–as customer after customer and partner after partner said how wonderful RHEL was and Red Hat Red Hat EVP Paul Cormier showed how the server operating system market has become a battle between RHEL and Windows-was how utterly mainstream Linux has become.

Solaris is done. The other versions of Unix now live in niches. The other Linux distributions, such as Novell’s SLES (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) and feisty newcomers such as Ubuntu are fighting it out for second place.

Linux is no longer a revolution. It is no longer the outsider wanting into the business market. Linux, in particular, RHEL, is at business’ heart. As Cormier said, “It’s no longer about who has the newest kernel, our customers are beyond that.”

Exactly. I see Red Hat’s announcement as a graduation ceremony. Yes, the technology is important, but what’s even more important now is Red Hat, the business, Red Hat, the brand.

As for RHEL 6 itself, yes there are many advances. What I see as the big change here is that Red Hat is pushing RHEL not just as the standalone server operating system we’ve known it as for years, but as the business operating system for both virtualization and the cloud.”

And… they claim it is MUCH faster than before… which is a good thing, because as much as I love Firefox, I haqve switched to Chrome because it is so light and fast! Hopefully Firefox will regain some of its mojo!

Mozilla releases beta 7 of Firefox 4, claims 3-5x performance boost

“Mozilla Wednesday released a significant update to the beta of its Firefox 4 browser. The update adds a new JavaScript JIT compiler, going by the name of JägerMonkey, and improves the browser’s support for hardware acceleration, OpenType fonts, and WebGL 3D graphics (the technology used to create an HTML5 version of Quake II back in April.) Additionally, the latest beta includes a stable add-ons API, so developers can finally update their add-ons to Firefox 4. Of course, the first thing Mozilla is touting about this version of the browser is the performance boost it gets from the new JägerMonkey JavaScript compiler.”

OK, I am not sure if I believe this one. If it was April, I am sure I wouldn’t! This claims to be a car that was made by printing it on 3D printers, then gets 200 mpg highway/ 100 mpg city. Ummmm… you guys wouldn’t be pulling the ol’ Doctor’s leg, would ya?

Meet the Urbee Hybrid, The World’s First 3-D Printed Car

“Hybrid cars usually feature snazzy, high-tech designs, but few can compare with the Urbee — the first car to be manufactured entirely by 3-D printing. Developed by Kor Ecologic and Stratasys, the Urbee was created with an additive manufacturing process, whereby engineers add layers of printed material until finally arriving with a finished product — in this case, a whole car. As Fast Company explains, the car’s entire exterior (including the glass) was created from 3-D prints, with the help of Stratasys’s Dimension 3-D printers and a Fortus 3-D Production System.”

Okaaay! Sounds a little TOO wierd!