yan zi sun blog
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Japanese Ministry of Self-Defense shows off a flying sphere robot (w video)
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
iPad makes it to Brazil, at eye-watering prices
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Apple's iPad went on sale in Brazil from Friday, with customers lining up at stores to get their hands on the tablet computer whose entry into Latin America's biggest market faced pricing and other challenges.
Brazilians were being asked to fork over between 970 dollars for the cheapest version (a 16GB Wi-Fi model) up to 1,530 dollars for the top-of-the-line 34GB WiFi-plus-3G model.
Those prices were nearly twice the amount US customers were paying, due to Brazil's 100-percent tariffs on imported electronics imposed to protect the domestic industry.
The trendy computing device also ran into a problem with its name.
The word "Brazil to denote a South Korean-made defibrillator that has been used to restart patients' hearts in Brazilian hospitals for the past three years.
A brewing legal tussle between that medical unit's maker, CU Medical Systems Inc., appeared to have been settled to allow Apple's tablet to finally hit Brazilian shelves.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Graphics processing installation to boost Argonne's Blue Gene P visualization capabilities
(PhysOrg.com) -- The IBM Blue Gene/P Intrepid at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), located at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, will soon have the data analytics and visualization capability to complement its distinction as the fastest computer in the world for open science and the third fastest overall computer in the world.
Argonne awarded GraphStream, Inc., Belmont , Calif. , a contract that will help to make data analytics and visualization at this scale possible through the world's largest installation of NVIDIA Quadro Plex S4 external graphics processing units (GPU). This new supercomputer installation, nicknamed Eureka , will allow researchers to explore and visualize the data they produce with Intrepid. The powerful installation will offer 104 dual quad core servers with 208 Quadro FX5600 GPUs in the S4s.
"During a massive computation on Intrepid, torrents of data can be unleashed onto the multi-petabyte parallel file system," ALCF acting director Pete Beckman said. "For example, in just a little over a minute, Intrepid can produce the equivalent of 1,000 DVDs of file data. Eureka will be used to peer ever deeper into scientist's data, from simulations of the electrical signals of the human heart to exploding supernova. Aided by Eureka , scientists will plow through the tidal wave of data produced by Intrepid faster than ever before, searching for new insights."
Most applications that run on large-scale systems like Intrepid generate huge volumes of data that represent the results of the calculations. An essential tool for understanding those results after the run has completed is to be able to explore rapidly the output data and convert it to a visual representation. To do so at the scale required by Intrepid applications requires a system with Eureka's power.
GraphStream, a supplier of scalable computer systems, will use the NVIDIA Quadro Plex (S4) visual computing system as the base graphics building block.
"With the addition of Eureka, the GraphStream/NVIDIA collaboration to provide the world's most advanced scalable visual computing systems now extends to the sites of the three most powerful supercomputers in the world," said Craig Dunwoody, CEO of GraphStream. "Using the NVIDIA Quadro Plex S4 visual computing system as the base graphics building block, Eureka will deliver a quantum leap in visual compute density, enabling breakthrough levels of productivity and capability in visualization and data analysis."
"Argonne National Laboratory's adoption of NVIDIA Quadro Plex visual computing solutions for their groundbreaking IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer speaks volumes to the importance placed today on the role of visualization in scientific research and analytics," said Jeff Brown, general manager of the professional solutions business at NVIDIA. "The close partnership between NVIDIA and the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility has been key to this landmark installation. We are extremely excited to see the impact that GPU technologies will have on the quality and pace of the scientific research carried out there."
The cost-effective approach being used takes four very high-end graphics cards and places them in a 1U "pizza box." A very dense configuration, this solution handles all the power and cooling issues associated with the graphics cards. An alternative configuration using 4U servers with two cards each would take 10.5 racks to match the same number of graphics cards that the proposed approach provides in just four racks.
"This addition to the ALCF's high-end computing platform will provide a vital link between simulation and analysis by allowing scientists to probe and interrogate their data in an interactive manner," said Paul Fischer, a computational scientist at Argonne , who conducts reactor core hydrodynamics research on the Blue Gene/P.
The ALCF's Blue Gene/P Intrepid provides resources for the DOE's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program), which supports computationally intensive projects from industry, scientific researchers and research organizations.
The ALCF is a leadership-class computing facility that enables the research and development community to make innovative and high-impact science and engineering breakthroughs. Argonne operates the ALCF for the DOE Office of Science as part of the larger DOE Leadership Computing Facility strategy that is organized by the DOE Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research. DOE leads the world in providing the most capable civilian supercomputers for science.
Technical information
The base server building block is the SuperMicro 6015-UR. The S4 attaches to a server on either side of it, forming a “sandwich.” To the servers, it appears as if they have two Quadro FX5600 graphics cards inside of them. While there are small system disks in the server, all of the data comes from the large storage system over the network.
Economical, low-latency modular switches represent the heart of the data-management system. The nine-switch complex supports up to 2,048 connections, each of which simultaneously exchanges data at roughly 1 billion bytes per second. The storage system offers a bank of more than 10,000 disk drives that will send and receive data from the Blue Gene/P's more than 100,000 processors. Altogether, this system can deliver nearly 80 billion bytes per second to and from the disk—the equivalent of transferring the content of 100 full CDs every second.
Provided by Argonne National Laboratory
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
New Lithium Ion Batteries With Industry's Highest Level of Energy Density
Sony Corporation announces the new line-up of lithium ion batteries, with industry's highest level of energy density, responding to the needs for high capacity and large current in secondary batteries for mobile products. Shipment will start from December 2004 onwards.
Accomplishment of higher capacities in secondary batteries continue to be required from the market, due to higher performance and enhanced features in mobile products such as note PCs, digital video cameras and mobile phones. At Sony, commercialization of the world's first high power density, small size, light weight and long life lithium ion battery was announced in 1991 and, in 1999, lithium ion polymer battery with flexibility in shape and enhanced safety was announced, further responding to such needs. As a result, the world-wide market size of lithium ion batteries (including lithium ion polymer batteries) has grown to a market of 1.2 Billion units.
In the cylindrical lithium ion battery and the lithium ion polymer battery announced today, industry's highest level of energy density has been accomplished, enabling long hours of operation in mobile products.
In the cylindrical lithium ion battery,
In the Lithium ion polymer battery, , characteristics such as high freedom in the ease of product design (in which the battery is to be used) and high level of safety from the polymer construction have been maintained and 830mAh (9%increase from Sony's conventional model, with the same size) have been realized, supporting long hours of operation in small portable products such as mobile phones.
In addition, targeting the expansion of business in the mobile phone market as well as expansion of lithium ion battery market, new models, the S Pack and V Cell, VT Cell Series are introduced.
S Pack is a lithium ion polymer battery pack dedicated to mobile phone use, where high efficiency is realized in a limited spacing from the convergence of the two technologies, lithium ion polymer and packaging.
In the V Cell and VT Cell Series, the challenge of large current discharge has been accomplished, enabling use of lithium ion batteries in power tools, cleaners, motor assisted bicycle where lithium ion batteries were not used in the past, leading to market expansion of high-power cylindrical lithium ion batteries.
Sony will continue making progress on technology development of batteries with respect to various aspects, such as safety, reliability in high performance, high capacity and consciousness to the environment, and by introducing new lithium ion battery line-up Sony will target to expand its battery business as well as the market.
• Main Characteristics of industry's maximum capacity Cylindrical Lithium Ion (G8 Series)
From the change to 'Can' and the cathode structure, high level of charging has become possible, leading to 6% increase* in capacity compared to conventional battery. Also, due to the fact that the change is focused on structural changes, the curve of discharge is negligible compared to the conventional cell, enabling usage of the in the same battery pack as the conventional one.
*2550mAH (comparison with conventional cell:2400mAH)
• Main Characteristics of industry's maximum capacity Lithium Ion Polymer (A8 Series)
By slimming of the external structure, 9% increase of the capacity has been accomplished, compared to the conventional battery. As it is of a higher capacity when compared to a same size rectangular lithium ion battery, it is appropriate for new generation mobile phones for multimedia purposes.
*830mAh (comparison with conventional same size battery : 760mAh)
• Main Characteristics of New Concept Battery Pack (S Pack)
Utilizing the characteristics of lithium ion batteries (no leakage, less swelling), the battery pack has been simplified, reducing the number of parts. Also, by using a stronger external film as it is as the exterior pack, maximum space efficiency has been achieved in the final products, which is the battery pack.
• High power Cylindrical Lithium Ion battery (V Cell, VT Cell Series)
By using Nickel/Manganese mixture in the positive electrode, stability in high temperature conditions have been achieved, also achieving safe usage with high level of current, this being the characteristics of V/VT series. By the combination with high-voltage, which is the characteristics of lithium ion batteries, usage in the high-power output application field (such as power tools, cleaners, motor assisted bicycles) will be ideal, where conventionally Nickel-Cadmium, Nickel-Hydrogen batteries were used. In the 18650V cell, maximum output of 10A, and in the 6650VT cell, maximum output of 50A have been achieved.
Sunday, April 14, 2013
DNF - Duken Nukem Forever daté
Son développement démarre en janvier 1997. 3D Realms est alors aux commandes, mais le retard se fait vite sentir et le jeu subit de multiple reports. Après de nombreux problèmes en interne ainsi qu'avec Take2, l'éditeur du jeu, le développement est confié à Gearbox et le transfert est rendu public le 3 septembre 2010. Plus de 10 ans de développement, dans le milieu on appelle ça un Vaporware (un jeu sans cesse retardé).
Heureusement la fin est proche (celle du développement ne vous méprenez pas) et le jeu se voit enfin recevoir une date de sortie que l'éditeur semble déterminé à respecter. Je ne vous fait plus attendre, c'est le 3 mai aux USA et le 6 mai dans le reste du monde (2011 dans les deux cas) que cette suite d'un jeu mythique débarquera sur PC, Xbox 360 et PS3.
Maj :
Pour souligner cet évènement, un excellent trailer est mis à notre disposition. C'est simple, vous DEVEZ le voir.
· Voir le trailer de Duke Nukem Forever
· Forum Duke Nukem Forever
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Cybermind Promos @ IT Show 2005
Special Promo!
Cybermind is giving a special offer on their CORSAIR 512MBDDR400 CL2.5 ValueSelect Memory @ $ 99 w/GST for VR-Zone members! Price @ IT Showis $ 105. Just print this page out and get the memories at this special price.
Friday, March 15, 2013
ECS Releases M.I.B. II Tweaking Tool For Black Series Mobos
Taipei, Taiwan, February 26th, 2009 – Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), the world’s leading motherboard, graphics card, barebone system and notebook manufacturer, today introduces the latest cutting-edge M.I.B. II (Motherboard Intelligent BIOS II) tweaking utility for new-born Black Series motherboards, providing excellent solutions to meet the demands from the market without high price tag. Unleashing the full potential of hardware components that brings great benefits to users, ECS M.I.B. II incorporates plenty of detailed tweaking options especially in voltage control to enhance the overall system performance. In addition, gathering every tweaking option all in a single page is extremely convenient for users that spending precious time in searching merely a BIOS setting is never necessary. Just buy ECS’s Black Series motherboards now and enjoy the tweaking pleasure immediately.
For many users, getting additional benefits is always their concern which makes overclocking considerably popular nowadays. ECS M.I.B. II allows users to get higher system performance simply by several steps in entering certain numbers in BIOS if they’re not familiar with the BIOS settings. Comparing to the previous version of M.I.B. tweaking utility, more options and bigger range of voltage control are added as well for power users to reach the hardware limit. Moreover, it’s extremely convenient that options for system tweaking are gathered all in a single page that power users can focus on pushing the limit without searching required options in various pages.
Targeting at the performance segment, ECS Black Series motherboards stand for excellent solutions with the best price/performance ratio which always features all-solid-capacitor design for better durability, specifically designed cooling solution for faster heat dissipation, 4 or 6 phase power design for power stability, ECS Ultra I/O rear panel for USB peripherals connectivity, ECS Easy Button for easier installation, and ECS exclusive M.I.B. tweaking utility for sure. With great enhancement and advancement, ECS Black Series motherboards such as A780GM-A Ultra, A790GXM-A, X58B-A, and the latest A790GXM-AD3, now phase in the latest M.I.B. II tweaking utility to provide a powerful platform for users.
It is noticeable that ECS Black Series motherboards have become the best solutions in the market with the high quality, rich features and the great reputation. For more information about ECS Black Series motherboards and the latest M.I.B. II tweaking utility, contact your local ECS sales agent today.