Qualcomm Centriq 2400 processor, based on the Qualcomm Falkor CPU, QDT’s own Armv8-based custom CPU core design, delivers leading-edge aggregate performance, the world’s first and only 10nm server processor. The Qualcomm Centriq 2400 processor delivers a phenomenal performance-per-dollar. With a list price of $1,995, the 48-core Qualcomm Centriq 2460 processor delivers 4X better performance-per-dollar versus Intel’s highest-performance Skylake processor, the Intel Xeon Platinum 8180. With a list price of $1373, the 46-core Qualcomm Centriq 2452 processor offers 3X better performance-per-dollar versus Intel Xeon Gold 6152. And, with a list price of $888, the 40-core Qualcomm Centriq 2434 processor offers 2X better performance-per-dollar versus Intel Xeon Silver 41166. Qualcomm Centriq 2400 delivers 2.5x better performance per watt than competing x86 server processor running the same SPECint_rate2006 benchmark.
Qualcomm Centriq 2400 Arm Server presentation at the Supercomputing SC17 ARM User Group Meeting
Arm HPC performance results: Bristol/GW4 Isambard (Applications porting and performance)
First public disclosure of Isambard performance results by Prof Simon McIntosh-Smith, University of Bristol, UK
Isambard is a new Tier 2 HPC service from GW4 built using:
Cray “Scout” system – XC50 series
• Aries interconnect
• 10,000+ Armv8 cores
• Cavium ThunderX2 processors
• 2x 32core @ above 2GHz per node
You can also watch my interview with Simon McIntosh-Smith about Isambard at the Cray booth at SC17 here.
Filmed at the Arm HPC User Group at SC17 in Denver.
Sandia (Vanguard / ARM Tri-lab Software Environment)
Maturing the ARM Software Ecosystem for U.S. DOE/ASC Supercomputing
Filmed at the Arm HPC User Group at SC17 in Denver.
Red Hat Support for Arm HPC deployments
OpenHPC and the CentOS Build System
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.4 for ARM provides feature parity at the OS Layer with x86 and enables development of new solutions in existing (Telco, FSI, HPC) and emerging (ML, IoT) segments
Filmed at the Arm HPC User Group at SC17 in Denver.
SUSE Support for Arm HPC deployments
SUSE and the High Performance Computing Ecosystem
SUSE Linux with the HPC Module for Supported HPC packages
Partnerships with HPE, Arm, Cavium, Cray, Intel, Microsoft, Dell, Qualcomm, and others
OpenHPC Community
Half of the Top 100 systems are running SUSE Linux
At 13.8%, SUSE Linux is the leader in paid Linux on the Top 500
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server ARM Roadmap
Offering commercial Linux support for ARM AArch64 since November 2016
Filmed at the Arm HPC User Group at SC17 in Denver.
Arm HPC Ecosystem update, Arm Supercomputing at SC17
Chris Goodyer
Overview of Arm
• HPC engagements
Arm partner information
• Latest deployment information
Arm Software Ecosystem
• Software stack enabling
• Arm’s priorities on libraries and applications,
Filmed at the Arm HPC User Group at SC17 in Denver.
$279 Lenovo 300e Chromebook on MediaTek MT8173C
Lenovo launches their new MediaTek MT8173C ARM dual Cortex-A72 and dual ARM Cortex-A53 with PowerVR GX6250 GPU Powered Chromebook. It’s got a 10-point multi-touch 11.6″ display and a swivel 360-degree hinge to use as 2-in-1 in four different modes, Laptop, Tablet, Tent, or Stand. With Enhanced Touch Technology that they have implemented in their touchscreen firmware, the 300e Chromebook also allows students to use a standard No.2 pencil on the screen instead of a stylus. it is designed with military-grade durability, with rubber bumpers, reinforced ports, a 360-degree hinge that won’t snap under pressure, the 300e Chromebook is compliant with MIL-STD-810G testing for all manner of shock and awe. It’s also drop-resistant up to 29.5 inches (75cm), the height of a school desk.
Filmed at the London BETT 2018 education tech conference.
Shadow Blade cloud PC Xeon/GTX1080 for cloud gaming, cloud 4K60/8K video-editing
French startup Blade presents their awesome Shadow cloud PC service at €30/month that streams a very powerful $2000 (equivalent) desktop PC hosted on their server powered by a high-end 8-threaded Intel Xeon server CPU with an Nvidia GTX1080 GPU, 12GB RAM, 256GB SSD (with harddrive/SSD storage expansion options available) running a full Windows 10 Pro desktop remotely in their server, using low-lag Internet technologies that they have developed, fast codecs (to have at least 15mbit/s Internet bandwidth available is recommended for a good experience), fast tricks that they have developed to make this all possible, to offer cloud gaming or high-end video-editing, 3D graphics rendering, audio processing, or anything else that might be useful to run on advanced PC hardware that you can think of, and you can then run that through client applications either running on their AMD APU based Shadow PC thin client that they offer to their subscribers (for a smooth up to 4K60 or 1080p144hz gaming experience), or you can run clients on a Chromebook, any Android phone, Android TV, Macbooks, any Windows machine, Linux, iPhone, iPad, their service runs on everything. Currently their service works well in France, initially it was just for French users who had Fiber to the home connections, but now it also runs smoothly onto any ADSL, Cable even LTE devices in France, the service is also supported in Belgium and a few other countries nearby France. Because for a good service, the user has to be within as few hops in the global backbone internet network as possible, to experience as little lag times as possible. Advanced professional gamers have tested this system and they have reported that they cannot feel any difference between the Shadow cloud gaming service and a local desktop gaming machine. The lag time are said to depend more on the speed of the PC monitor than of the internet back to their cloud server system. They are about to expand their offering to cover the whole of California as they are setting up a cloud server system right now in the Silicon Valley also. They plan to expand their services globally in the near future according to demand.
BeBop Sensors, Smart Glove sensing with haptics, Drum Pad at CES 2018
BeBop makes fabric sensors that are piezo-resistive, they showed off their latest product the Forte Wireless Glove that can sense finger movements and incorporates haptic feedback. Ideally used in VR applications, this glove can work for 15 hours on a single charge, it is a one size fits all model, very fast response up to 150 frames/second for gaming applications, unique haptic actuators embedded at each finger tip. BeBop also showed pressure sensing foot pads and hand tracking system both using their fabric sensor technology. The company has been shipping its sensors into musical instruments sold by its sister company KMI, one such example was the BopPad a musical drum pad that is in the market already. BeBop is silicon valley based startup, expecting to go into mass production this year.
Visionect Place & Play 13” E Ink with 1-year battery life
This is the 13” Place & Play device by http://visionect.com a non-touch monitor for displaying information in office and industry settings, in colleges and schools to show class schedule and details of the upcoming lecture, in health care showing patient status, in monitoring stations showing status updates and the applications are endless . This display is created to quietly blend in, the device has zero installation costs, no wires and offers up to 12 months of battery autonomy on a single charge, made possible by Visionect’s patented ultra low energy architecture, only 1% of the power used by LCD. They also sell the Joan family of products for conference rooms and have shipped tens of thousands of units into companies such as BMW, KFC, DELL, Cisco, Oxford Univ, Sony, Microsoft, Disney, Panasonic, Seattle Seahawks, Huffington Post, Diamler all over the world. The Joan devices come in 6” and 13” sizes. The Play & Place devices are 13” and 32”.
Battery innovations lithium-air, aluminium-sulphur, magnesium-ion with Dr Elia from TU Berlin
At the IDTechEx Show, IDTechEx Technology Analyst Dr Lorenzo Grande discusses battery innovation with Dr Giuseppe Antonio Elia, senior researcher at the Technical University of Berlin. Dr Elia is an expert in unconventional battery chemistries, like lithium-air, aluminium-sulphur, and magnesium-ion batteries.
Sony Aibo robot dog
Sony shows off their new Aibo robot dog. Though it’s totally sold out and not mass manufactured yet, they only sold 2000 units of it in Japan (sold out within a few seconds on their website). Sony Aibo responds to touch and voice, it has 22 motor actuators enabling to move anywhere in the room on any type of floor. it has round OLED displays for eyes, a camera on its nose to help it recognize family members and search for its Sony Aibone, a camera on its back to help it navigate backwards to its charging station, it has two hours of battery life and takes three hours to charge.
Philips Smart Mirror with Smart Toothbrush, Smart Shaver, Skincare
Philips shows their newest range of Bluetooth smart connected devices that are on the market connecting to their prototype Smart Mirror that helps guide the toothbrushing, shaving and skin care hydration level sensor, as well as a balance weight and blood pressure monitor.
Optoma shows Laser 4K DLP UST Projector
Optoma shows their next generation 4K DLP Laser Ultra Short Throw Projector Prototype, at 8-inches distance it generates over 100″ diagonal sized 4K image on the wall, 2300lumen, 2.000.000:1 contrast ratio, 0.25 throw ratio, HDR compatible. 25-thousand hours life due Laser solid state. It’s using the first generation 0.67″ 4K TI DLP chipset. They plan to release it around the end of Q2 2018 priced around $4000-6000.
Allwinner Alexa Solution Dev Kit for cheaper Voice ARM devices
Allwinner launches their ARM SoC-Only 3-Mic Far-Field Dev Kit for Amazon Voice Service (AVS) with all the acoustic and distance challenged voice processing done fully on the Allwinner R18 Quad-core 64bit ARM Cortex-A53 SoC eliminating the need for a more expensive and more complicated digital signal processor (DSP) to do Alexa Voice Services, reducing complexity and expenses, increasing flexibility for OEMs, ODMs, IDH partners, Allwinner currently supports Amazon AVS with their R18 dev kit running their Allwinner Linux based optimized embedded Tina OS platform, with support for Android Things probably also to come later. Allwinner not only provides the R18 “open source family” SoC, they also provide Wi-Fi, analog-to-digital converters (ADC), PMIC, algorithms (via partner GMEMS) for a Total package for the device developer.
Industry insiders and project creators can contact Allwinner at service@allwinnertech.com and at: http://www.allwinnertech.com/index.php?c=market&a=index&id=59
Onyx Note 10.3″ vs reMarkable 10.3″
I think the most promising Note E-reader form factor, here I compare devices using the same awesome 10.3″ flexible (plastics based) E Ink display at 1872×1404 at 226dpi, in thin and light 320-350gr form factors but with different E Ink implementations yet where the Onyx Note seems smoother in the way it manages note taking, page turning, navigating inside of its Android based UI. While the reMarkable seemed to “blink” more in its (Linux?) based UI and with the note taking also seemingly smoother on the Onyx Note at least based on the current firmware that I was able to test and based on how I was able to use the reMarkable. The Onyx Note is shipping shortly at $549 on Amazon (I think they said it’s to start shipping between now and February) while the reMarkable is available at $599 on their website once the perfect Android apps for smart collaborative and productive work are available especially for the Onyx Note (I am not sure how the reMarkable manages evt collaboration work and productivity?), I believe this market segment could grow rapidly to be a very important new market segment. One where creative people will be able to read and work with ideas, with texts in a much more interesting and productive way.
$999 Lenovo Thinkpad X280 (2018) on Gen8 Intel Kaby Lake
The new 12.5″ Lenovo Thinkpad X280 (2018) is thinner at 1.17cm thickness and lighter at 1.13kg with now an integrated non-removable battery. With two Type-C Thunderbolt 3 ports, two USB Type-A ports, HDMI, up to 16GB RAM, up to 1TB SSD, FHD or 1366×768 matte display with a matte touch on-cell option, compatible with Lenovo’s new 2018 side docking standard, with a native Ethernet dongle, it also has a physical sliding cover to cover the webcam.
$1709 Lenovo Thinkpad Carbon X1 Gen6 (2018) HDR on Gen8 Intel Kaby Lake
Lenovo launches their 6th Generation Thinkpad Carbon X1 with 8th Generation Intel Kaby Lake processor providing a 35% boost in performance, faster LPDDR3 2100Mhz RAM, optional LTE-A card, optional IR camera with Glance by Mirametrix merging face-tracking, eye-tracking, and gaze-tracking technology. Built with the same carbon-fiber reinforced chassis, Windows 10 Pro, dual Thunderbolt 3 over USB Type-C ports (with 65W Type-C RapidCharge and dongles), 14″ FHD or Quad- HD display with a Quad-HD Dolby Vision optimised HDR display as the top 500nit optional display. Intel HD Graphics 620, 720p webcam, Up to 16GB LPDDR3 2133 MHz, Up to 1TB SSD OPAL PCIe TLC, Up to 15 hours battery life, dTPM 2.0 Touch fingerprint reader, 2x Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C ports, 2x USB 3.0, HDMI, Native RJ45 (through dongle), MicroSD, MicroSIM (if WWAN card Qualcomm Snapdragon X7 LTE-A is installed), to be available in Silver and Black. It uses a new type of optional ThinkPad Pro Dock with its USB-C side mechanical docking station that spans a broad offering of 2018 ThinkPad devices with DisplayLink and extra USB ports and more. You can read more at: https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-x/ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-6th-Gen/p/22TP2TXX16G
$2499 Panasonic GH5s interview (filmed with GH5s) better Low Light, better AF, DCI4K60
Available to pre-order for $2499 at Amazon.com, Panasonic has improved their Low Light performance and their Autofocus performance (it looks like to me, after shooting this video, for now, compared with my GH5 videos that I am posting in the playlist here) on the GH5s compared with last year’s Panasonic GH5 micro four thirds camera. They removed the amazing Sensor Image Stabilization feature of the GH5 though in this camera, they say as some professional users are asking for it to be removed, and they say also that is because they used a 10.28 Megapixel Multi Aspect Ratio MOS Sensor in this one. WIth DCI 4K60p support which is the format that I film this interview using the GH5s at. In this video featuring Sean Robinson of Panasonic USA, you can see the low light performance, the autofocus performance and you can see how it looks like without the image stabilization system. To me after shooting this video interview with the GH5s in a low light situation, it looks like the GH5s might have better autofocus performance compared with the GH5 (though I am not sure if this AF performance is good enough for my handheld video-blogging yet, what do you think?), as far as I understand, the better AF performance compared with the GH5 is because the Venus Engine 10 processor in the GH5s is able to focus more on performing better doing the autofocusing as it does not need to spend performance managing the sensor stabilization, noise reduction and downsampling of the 18 megapixel footage that comes with the GH5.
$1499 DLP 4K Projector Optoma UHD50 and UHD51A with Amazon Alexa
World leader in 4K projectors, Optoma presents their lower cost UHD50 to make 4K Projection more accessible to the mass market. This one features 2x HDMI 2.0 ports, HDR10, 50% vertical lens shift, 1.3 zoom. 2400lumen while the UHD60 is 3000lumen, RGBRGB color wheel, 2 inches smaller, 2 pounds lighter. For $200 more, they are also shipping the UHD51A with the same features as the UHD50 but it also comes with Amazon Alexa support, an Ethernet port, it runs Optoma’s implementation of Android (not for installing apps, possibly for Google Assistant support also), USB Host port.
