IBM scientists create smallest magnetic memory bit with 12 atoms
In IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California Andreas Heinrich gets to explore. His quest: Demonstrate that very few atoms are needed to store information. Why would anyone care? Because size matters.
Today, to store a single bit — the most basic piece of information a computer understands – a disk drive needs one million atoms. Heinrich and his team have successfully shown that data can be stored in as few as 12 magnetic atoms. That’s 12 versus 1 million and it means a hundred times more information can be stored in the same space.
The way it works it? By using a different magnetic structure called antiferromagnetism, Heinrich explains. Instead of atoms pointing (or spinning) in the same direction, Heinrich and his team arranged atoms so they alternately point in different directions.
The result is that “they don’t talk to each other as much…they can be parked closer together”‘ Heinrich said.
In physics parlance that would be: “Taking advantage of their inherent alternating magnetic spin directions, they demonstrated the ability to pack adjacent magnetic bits much closer together than was previously possible.”
Heinrich, a German who received his Ph.D. from University of Goettingen, showed that this can be done at low temperature and by that we’re talking about 10 Kelvin which translates into about -260 degrees Celsius.
Micron enlists IBM to speed up memory chips
Micron has enlisted IBM to help build smart memory chips that could drastically speed up the high-performance computers and networking systems that make up the Internet.
Engineers in recent years have run into a “memory wall” as the increasing efficiency of computer processors outpaces the speed that memory chips can deliver, limiting the overall performance improvemement of high-end computers.
And one key bottleneck keeping memory chips from being more efficient has been the pathway they use to move data to computers’ processors and back again.
Micron’s new Hybrid Memory Cube architecture connects controllers to stacks of up to eight memory chips, making the movement of data across that pathway more efficient and making the memory chips 15 times faster than current widely-used technology allows, according to Micron technology strategist Mike Black.
IBM, using its 32 nanometer logic technology, is making the controller chips, which are then intricately connected to a stack of Micron’s memory chips.
It is only a matter of time before the same technology concepts are used to stack processors of all forms – which could be the first step to creating a super computer in a tablet or possibly a cell phone. Imagine that!
IBM knows a thing or two about shoes. Retailers, take note.
By Nicola Leske In the fickle world of fashion, the skill to predict what will be en vogue next is invaluable to retailers around the world. While some will argue that it takes style and expertise to predict what customers will want to wear even before they know it, IBM begs to differ. It comes down to science, specifically IBM’s analytics software. Take shoes for example, in particular the height of heels. “We used IBM software to identify those who are the influencers online by searching the web for blogs about shoes,” said John Buscemi. “We found tens of thousands and narrowed it down to those who were linked to a lot and who in turn linked to a lot of other people…if you had a map they would sit at the center of the social network,” Buscemi said. According to that analysis, heels are coming down. “Key trend-watching bloggers between 2008 and 2009 wrote consistently about heels from five to eight inches, but by mid 2011 they were writing about the return of the kitten heel and the perfect flat from Jimmy Choo and Louboutin,” said Trevor Davis, a consumer expert with IBM’s Global Business Services. IBM said the data could be used by shoe manufacturers and retailers looking for insight into the kind of shoes to manufacture and sell in the coming season — and could potentially put fashion consultants out of business. By the way, high heels have traditionally been linked to a falling economy — think high heel pumps during the Great Depression and stilettos following the dot-com bust a decade ago. But this time the decline of the heel may not be a sign of an economic upturn but a grudging acceptance of a long road ahead best to be taken on more modest shoes. “Usually, in an economic downturn, heels go up and stay up – as consumers turn to more flamboyant fashions as a means of fantasy and escape,” Davis said. “This time, something different is happening — perhaps a mood of long-term austerity is evolving among consumers sparking a desire to reduce ostentation in everyday settings.”
Tech wrap: Apple’s “Siri” spurs iPhone 4S sales
Apple said it sold 4 million iPhone 4S devices in the new smartphone’s first three days on the market, setting up a strong December quarter for the world’s largest technology company. Helped by availability in more countries and on more telecommunications carrier networks, the iPhone 4S, which went on sale last Friday, managed to outshine the iPhone 4, which sold 1.7 million over its first three days. Unveiled just a day before Steve Jobs died, it was initially dubbed a disappointment, partly because it looked identical to its predecessor. But anticipation of its “Siri” voice software helped it set an online record in pre-orders on October 7.
Shares of RIM dropped 6.55 percent in the U.S., closing at $22.40, after the company sought to appease disgruntled BlackBerry customers by offering free apps and technical support to make up for last week’s global smartphone outage. RIM said it will offer premium apps worth more than $100 to customers and a month of technical support for businesses free of charge, hoping to stem fresh defections from the BlackBerry, whose market share was already shrinking before the incident. RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie declined to estimate how much the offer would cost RIM and said he was unable to say whether RIM might have to revise its earnings forecast for the current quarter, which ends in late November.
IBM’s third-quarter revenue met expectations as corporate spending on information technology held up in the face of economic worries, and the company bumped up its 2011 earnings outlook. Revenue rose 8 percent from a year earlier to $26.2 billion, in line with the average forecast of $26.26 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Samsung said that it had filed for sales bans on Apple’s iPhone 4S in Australia and Japan, escalating a legal battle with its arch-rival and biggest client. The move came after Samsung filed preliminary injunction motions against the latest iPhone in France and Italy less than a day after the device was unveiled, claiming the product infringed its patents. Samsung’s latest salvo came after the South Korean electronics giant suffered a series of setbacks in its ongoing legal battles with Apple.
The flash sales business has lost some of its flash, forcing online luxury clothing merchants to radically change their business models. Businesses such as Gilt Groupe, Ideeli and Rue La La burst onto the fashion scene during the recession to try to move a mountain of unsold clothes. Now there is less luxury inventory and flash sales sites are bigger. That has forced companies to pay more or find other ways to get their products. “Bad evoloution” in the flash sales business is also to blame for the gloomy outlook, said Mike Steib, CEO of vente-privee USA, a joint venture between Vente Privee and American Express, which is launching a flash sales site in the U.S.. “People are worried about the luxury buyer going down market.”
Amazon.com will publish 122 books and e-books this fall in an array of genres, bypassing the traditional publisher and making deals with authors, The New York Times’s David Streitfeld wrote. The acceleration of the retailer’s fledging publishing program will place Amazon squarely in competition with the New York houses that are also its most prominent suppliers, Streitfeld added.
Nvidia chips in with world’s most powerful computer
Nvidia, which got its start making processors for computer game enthusiasts, has won another victory for parrallel computing with the inclusion of its graphics chips in what is expected to be the world’s fastest supercomputer.
The Titan computer being built for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn should boast a record 20 petaflops of peak performance — that’s about 20 million billion math operations per second.
By the time it is complete in 2013, the computer will be driven by 18,000 Nvidia graphic processor units, or GPUs, along with an equivalent number of central processors made by rival Advanced Micro Devices.
Keenly aware of explosive growth in tablets, smartphones and cloud computings, Nvidia is looking beyond its core business of designing chips that make games and videos look better on PCs.
As well as making sleek chips for smartphones, Nvidia is promoting its graphics technology to be used for for new purposes, including supercomputers running simulations in astrophysics and other math-heavy tasks.
While traditional central processors found in computers are designed to make huge calculations very quickly, one after another, graphics processors, or GPUs, excel at carrying out several small calculations at the same time, which makes them handy for specific kinds of tasks.
As microchips being built with more and more transistors consume growing amounts of electricity, engineers are turning to GPUs, which are giving them more bang for their buck, Steve Scott, Chief Technology Officer of Nvidia’s Tesla business, told Reuters.
Tech wrap: Apple taps Eddy Cue to boost iAd, iCloud
Apple promoted veteran exec Eddy Cue to oversee Apple’s advertising service called iAd and iCloud, according to a leaked memo published by 9to5Mac. Cue played a major role in creating the Apple online store in 1998, the iTunes Music Store in 2003 and the App Store in 2008, new CEO Tim Cook said in the email to employees.
An Apple employee once again appeared to have lost an unreleased iPhone in a bar, CNET reported. Last year, a misplaced iPhone 4 pre-production model was bought by Gizmodo. Today, two men pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor theft charges relating to that 2010 incident. The latest missing iPhone prototype, which disappeared in San Francisco in late July of this year, sparked a scramble by Apple security to recover the device over the next few days, CNET wrote, citing a source familiar with the investigation.
A U.S. judge rejected a jury award of $1.3 billion to Oracle in a copyright infringement lawsuit against SAP, paving the way for a possible new trial in a years-long legal dispute. In a ruling released on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton found that Oracle had proven actual damages of only $272 million. She called for a new trial unless Oracle agreed to accept that amount.
An Ohio judge dismissed antitrust claims in a case against Google, handing the company a victory as it faces a separate federal investigation into its search results. MyTriggers.com, an Ohio-based shopping comparison search website, accused Google of giving preferential treatment in its search results to Google’s own services. It also accused Google of making unfair agreements with other sites to exert control over search advertising.
IBM is buying Toronto-based risk analytics software firm Algorithmics for $387 million in cash to enhance its financial services capabilities. IBM said the deal, expected to close before the end of October, expands its business analytics capabilities by helping clients manage financial risk.
GPS maker TomTom will expand its offerings to include a satnav application for Apple’s iPad, hoping to balance the fast shrinking of its key personal navigation device (PND) market. TomTom’s launch, at the IFA consumer electronics fair in Berlin, follows smaller rival Navigon, bought by Garmin last month, which already sells a navigation service for iPad. TomTom has forecast that the global PND market will contract nearly 20 percent this year as economic worries hurt demand and consumers turn to free or cheap navigation on cellphones.
Tech wrap: Sony takes a $3.2 billion beating
Sony will post its third straight annual net loss for the year that ended in March after writing off tax credits in the wake of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami, the latest in a string of grim headlines on the consumer electronics giant. The firm, which previously forecast a net profit of 70 billion yen for 2010/11, surprised markets on Monday by declaring the need to update investors with revised estimates ahead of its official earnings report on Thursday. Sony said it now expected to post a net loss of 260 billion yen ($3.2 billion). The annual net loss would be Sony’s second-largest ever.
IBM surged past old rival Microsoft in market value for the first time since April 1996, marking the latest twist in the fluctuating fortunes of two of the world’s most storied tech companies. Microsoft’s stock has been stagnant since the tech bubble burst in 2000, as investors doubt its ability to move beyond its Windows operating system and Office suite of software. In the meantime, “Big Blue” has refashioned itself as a specialist in business software, servers and consulting, jettisoning its PC business along the way.
Shares of Apple regrouped after Wall Street brushed off the impact of an explosion last week that shut a Foxconn factory in China producing its iPad.
Apple will adopt a curved cover glass for its next generation iPhone, according to industry sources, DigiTimes reported. There was no timetable for the production of the iPhone 5 because Apple is still working with suppliers, including those involved in cover glass, glass cutting, lamination and touch sensors to improve yield rates, DigiTimes added.
LinkedIn’s professional networking website has security flaws that makes users’ accounts vulnerable to attack by hackers who could break in without ever needing passwords, according to a security researcher who identified the problem. News of the vulnerability surfaced over the weekend, only days after LinkedIn went public last week with a trading debut that saw the value of its shares more than double.
Tech wrap: Q1 earnings beat expectations, RIM’s PlayBook – not so much
Intel forecast quarterly revenues well above Wall Street’s estimates despite a hiccup in sales of its Sandy Bridge processors after the discovery of a chipset design flaw and defying fears the world’s top chip maker is struggling to find its footing as personal computer sales growth wanes.
IBM raised its profit forecast as the tech giant released quarterly earnings ahead of Wall Street projections, citing strong sales of its mainframe computers and brisk business in emerging markets.
Yahoo posted quarterly earnings that topped Wall Street targets amid threats to the No. 1 provider of online display ads in the U.S. from Facebook and continuing pressure from search leader Google.
RIM’s PlayBook tablet launched in almost empty stores, in a far cry from the frenzy that accompanies the debut of anything from rival Apple. AT&T said it will not support the BlackBerry Bridge function that lets the PlayBook mirror a BlackBerry smartphone. But analysts say RIM should stay in the hunt with the PlayBook despite a likely slow start, as it overhauls its creaky platform with the QNX operating system it acquired last year. RIM expects large businesses to buy PlayBooks in “the tens of thousands.”
The global tablet market will grow to a $49-billion business by 2015, research firm Strategy Analytics said. The tablet market will become the third largest consumer electronics sector, after televisions and personal computers, the research firm said, forecasting 149 million units will be sold in 2015, growing eightfold from 2010.
Seagate acquired Samsung’s loss-making hard disk drive business for $1.4 billion, pitting it head-to-head with Western Digital in an industry that has been dogged by price wars and facing longer-term threat from wireless tablet devices such as Apple’s iPad that use more power-efficient solid state drives.
With all eyes on Hurd, plenty of praise for new employer
It may have been the most anticipated tech earnings conference call of the year.
It’s a good bet many many folks in Silicon Valley, and tech investors in general, were dialed in to Oracle’s presentation on Thursday, eager to hear the first public utterances of new president Mark Hurd, the recently exiled CEO of technology giant Hewlett-Packard.
And it may have been a bit painful for Hurd’s former colleagues at HP to hear him quickly lavish praise on his new employer:
“I don’t believe there is any other company in the industry better positioned than Oracle,” Hurd said in one of his first public statements as president of the world’s No. 3 software maker.
“Over the last 25 years, I’ve competed against and partnered with Oracle and I can tell you that Oracle has amassed the most enviable portfolio of technology in the industry,” he said.
(Incidentally, Hurd had not been quite so effusive about HP in his final months at the company. On an earnings conference call in May, Hurd merely said HP had “more work to do to transform ourselves to reach our potential”, was “uniquely positioned to win,” and “well-positioned to capitalize.”)
Hurd was ousted from HP in early August in a controversial fashion, accused of filing inaccurate expense reports related to a female contractor who worked for his office. He landed at Oracle a month later, lured by pal and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. But a clearly irked HP quickly sued to block him from joining the company, which both partners and competes with HP.
Do US Open organizers really think the iPad is dangerous?
The organizers of the US Open pride themselves on using technology to help tennis fans enjoy the sport more both inside and outside the stadium. But, as far as iPad is concerned the tournament’s tech love affair only goes so far, as the grand slam organizers appear to have banned the device from the stadium itself. Some visitors to Arthur Ashe Stadium learned about this the hard way; by being turned away from the gates when security guards found them carrying the offending gadgets. Given that the event organizers take space on their website to boast about their iPhone app, it was not immediately clear why its bigger cousin the iPad should be forbidden. One security worker explained to a disappointed fan of both tennis and the iPad that the ban was due to concerns about terrorists. “They’re using iPads to detonate things.” Really? A US open official was not immediately available on Wednesday to verify this was the tournament’s official stance.
Hidden in the security section of the visitor’s guide to the US Open website is a list of items prohibited from the event including computers and laptops as well as video recorders.
But the irony was not lost on tech reporters and executives attending the game on Tuesday night because US Tennis Association has been reasonably forward looking when it comes to technology. The event’s tech boasts include an augmented reality iPhone app that IBM developed for the USTA. That app promises to warn you about the quickest bathroom lines or off what’s happening in other courts if you point your phone in the right direction. You could also enjoy the action of simultaneous matches by flicking between video streams on devices such as iPad.
Yet even Joe Ambeault, a product development executive for Verizon, explained how he was held up on his way to Verizon’s suite at the stadium because his bag included an array of gadgets such as an iPad, a laptop and some smartphones. Then Ambeault went on to discuss how devices like iPads could be used to expand the use of Verizon’s FiOS video and internet service and improve enjoyment of sporting events, or at least those events where they are allowed.
(Reuters Photo: Venus Williams celebrating a win that gives her a spot in the US Open semi-final)
The difference between the number of atoms required for a bit and the packing density of the memory is that in order to read the individual bits, they need to be spaced out, and that space is more significant when there are fewer atoms used per bit.
While atoms are in fact made of subatomic particles, the “most basic component” of manufacturing is the atom. For example, you can’t build a house out of neutrons and discard the protons and electrons.