Here’s a close look at SpaceX’s historic rocket landing
SpaceX’s much-hyped rocket landing was impressive, but you didn’t exactly get a good look at it if you were watching live. It seemed more like a matchstick putting itself out, really. Not to worry, though: SpaceX has delivered an ample supply of photos and video documenting every step of this milestone in private spaceflight. They help illustrate the challenge involved — SpaceX had to bring a tall, fire-belching Falcon 9 down to Earth relatively quickly while keeping it stable. While this probably won’t be the last time you see reusable rocket technology in action, it’s certainly one of the more dramatic examples. Slideshow-350617
Source: SpaceX (Flickr), (YouTube)
Drone camera almost takes out a skier on live TV
Another day, another UAV causing headaches. This time around, a falling drone camera almost crashed into Marcel Hirscher, a four-time World Cup skiing champion and Winter Olympics medalist, during a slalom race on Tuesday in Italy. The drone, which was carrying broadcast equipment, hit the snow at full speed while Hirscher was in the middle of his run and, luckily, missed making contact with him by a mere couple of feet.
“This is horrible,” he said after the fracas, according to the Associated Press. “This can never happen again. This can be a serious injury.” And people wonder why the FAA wants to keep a close eye on consumer drones.
Source: Associated Press
Ten defining moments in ARM’s history
On November 27th 1990, Advanced RISC Machines was spun out of Acorn Computers with a mission to create a new global microprocessor standard. Over the next 25 years, ARM’s partners shipped some 75 billion chips in devices ranging from sensors to smartphones to servers, establishing the company as the designer of the world’s most prevalent compute architecture.
The name ARM no longer stands for Advanced RISC Machines but the company’s ethos remains the same; to address the growing market for low-cost, low-power, high-performance chips.
As ARM focuses investment and expertise in enabling a new smart and connected future, let’s take a moment to reflect on the past quarter of a century and identify ten milestones that have shaped the company.
1990 – The first press release
A joint announcement with Acorn Computers, Apple and VLSI Technology, heralded the creation of ARM and set out its objective to provide an open processor architecture. At this point in history around 130,000 ARM chips had been shipped. You can read the first press release here.
1993 – ARM introduces ARM7
In 1993 ARM introduced the ARM7 family of cores. One of the ARM7 processors was the ARM7-TDMI, featuring the Thumb instruction set. This technology allowed 16-bit instructions to be decompressed transparently (in real time) to full 32-bit ARM instructions without performance loss. It improved code density by around 35 percent and reduced the memory footprint to a size comparable with 16-bit microcontrollers. This made it perfect for cost-sensitive embedded control applications such as mobile phones.
The ARM7-TDMI was licensed by Texas Instruments for use in the hugely popular Nokia 8110 phone that was featured in the 1999 hit movie The Matrix. Alongside the Nokia 6110 phone, which debuted in 1997, these models drove the early growth in mobile phone sales. By the end of 2014, a total of 30bn ARM7-based chips had been shipped.
1998 – ARM floats in London and New York
On April 17th 1998, ARM Holdings announced its initial public offering (IPO) on the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ, priced at £5.75 per share ($29.17 per American Depositary Share). At launch, ARM’s market capitalization was £264m.
Just over a year and a half later, on December 20th 1999, ARM qualified for the FTSE 100 (a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with the highest market capitalization). ARM’s market capitalization today is around £15bn.
2002 – One billion chips shipped featuring ARM technology
After 12 years of trading, a total of one billion ARM-based chips were shipped by the ARM ecosystem. In 2015, this billion chip mark is reached in a month.
2004 – The Cortex family of processors is announced
The ARM Cortex family of processors enter the market and underline the company’s intention to deliver flexible IP across targeted applications and performance requirements. The Cortex family enables chip manufacturers and OEMs to standardize around a single architecture to provide a range of compute and energy-efficiency from low-end microcontrollers to high-performance applications processors.
The Cortex-M3 was the first of the CPU core family to be released at the annual ARM Developers’ Conference in Santa Clara, California, USA.
2006 – ARM acquires Mali GPU
On June 23rd 2006 ARM acquired Norwegian company Falanx Microsystems AS for £13.4mn. Falanax developed graphics accelerator IP and software, including its Mali GPU, for SoC vendors. The acquisition formed the cornerstone of a new multimedia business unit within ARM.
The ARM Mali GPU family is now the most popular licensable GPU IP in the world with ARM’s silicon partners shipping in excess of 550 million Mali-enabled SoCs in 2014 and an estimated 650 million in 2015.
2008 – Ten billion chips shipped
“ARM partners have now shipped more than one processor for every single person on the planet,” remarked Warren East, ARM’s CEO at the time. In January 2008 ARM announced that its partners had shipped a total of 10 billion chips featuring ARM technology since 1990.
When ARM launched the ARM Cortex-M0, the smallest and lowest power 32-bit processor in the embedded computing market, it became the fastest licensing ARM processor with 15 licensees signed in just nine months as it enabled companies to move away from 8-bit technology.
2009 – ARM launches Cortex-M0
When ARM launched the ARM Cortex-M0, the smallest and lowest power 32-bit processor in the embedded computing market, it became the fastest licensing ARM processor with 15 licensees signed in just nine months as it enabled companies to move away from 8-bit technology.
2011 – ARMv8 architecture and big.LITTLE announced
The 64-bit capable ARMv8 architecture is introduced in the same year that ARM launched its big.LITTLE processor configuration to enable optimized energy-efficiency for ARM-based System on Chips (SoCs).
2014 – ARM named as fifth most innovative company in the world by Forbes
ARM was named by Forbes magazine as the world’s fifth most innovative company as it introduced a new platform standard for ARMv8-A based (64-bit) servers for the enterprise market. ARM also launched a new Internet of Things business unit to help accelerate smart connected technologies globally.
25th anniversary
To celebrate ARM’s 25th anniversary the company has created a series of 25 short films that look at the people and innovations that have shaped modern technology. The series is called ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants and features exhibits from the UK’s Science Museum in London. Click the image below to go to the playlist:
If you want to know more about ARM, its microcontrollers, its Cortex-A processors, and its diverse eco-system then be sure to checkout ARM’s Connect Community at https://community.arm.com/welcome.
Republished with permission from ARM – Read the original post on ARM’s Connected Community.
Google may be building a bot-heavy messaging service
For those of you who still hold fond memories of chatting it up with SmarterChild on AOL Instant Messenger, Google looks like it has a project in the works that may catch your eye. The sultan of search is rumored to be developing a new messaging service to compete with Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp, and one of its primary features is an army of bots that will let you get in on the chatting action even if you don’t have any friends.
In addition to alleviating the crushing weight of your inescapable isolation (if only in a transient and illusory way), these bots will hunt and fetch information for you. Google says the goal is to make finding content more conversational and natural. The Alphabet-owned company is relying on their impressive artificial intelligence research to make these bots dynamic and adaptive. For instance, you might ask one for a dinner recommendation. It may suggest a steakhouse near you, but if you decline on the basis that you’re a vegetarian, the bot will remember this and avoid referring you to meat-heavy establishments.
See also: Facebook M is a digital assistant within Messenger, can buy things and more
The idea is to have a variety of chat bots that can fulfill different needs of different users. The bots will even recommend other bots to you based on your interests and questions. Oh, and you can talk to real people too if you get bored.
In terms of real people communication, Google has been struggling to compete with Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as WeChat, which is China’s largest messaging app. The challenge Google faces is that more and more people are getting their search information from each other, rather than from a search bar. Naturally, Google wants a piece of that pie, and they believe the best way to do it is to let you talk with your fleshy friends alongside a slew of artificial pals who know how to find things better than your mortal compatriots.
“All users care about is a convenient way to find what they are looking for and if Google isn’t in front of the consumer that is a problem for them,” said Scott Stanford, co-founder of venture-capital firm Sherpa Capital. “Messaging is a subset of the Internet where Google is not strong. They have to win and be the dominant player in messaging.”
There’s no timeline for when we can start to see betas of this project. In fact, the new messaging app hasn’t even been officially confirmed by Google yet. However, ever since Hangouts failed to net the same userbase as Messenger, we’ve been waiting for the company to follow up with a new instant messaging app. Pulling from their box of AI toys seems like a pretty logical move, so we’d be surprised if this project or something very similar to it fails to crest the horizon in the near future.
What do you think of the idea of combining chatbots with normal messaging user interface? Recipe for disaster or a natural fit? Let us know in the comments!
Razer brings Ouya gaming content to its Forge TV set-top box
After quietly acquiring Ouya earlier this year, Razer’s now folding some of those assets into its own gaming platform. Enter the Cortex Game Store, a digital shop for the Forge TV that has more than 240 titles available for purchase, with many of these being ported over from Ouya’s defunct marketplace. In June, when we found out Razer had purchased Ouya, it wasn’t clear what the company planned to do with the failed, Kickstarter-hit-wonder startup, but this is a starting point.
As part of its promise to double down on Forge TV, Razer says it wants developers to create content for it using the original Ouya publishing tools, noting it’s an easy way to get their games on multiple Android TV streaming devices all at once.
Via: Android Central
Source: Razer
Google is reportedly making an AI-powered chat assistant
Hey, Facebook: you might not be the only tech giant with an artificially intelligent chat assistant. The Wall Street Journal‘s sources understand that Google is building an AI-based messaging service that would search the web to answer your questions. From the description, it sounds like a more elaborate, more conversational Google Now. Third parties may even build their own bots to give you site-specific answers.
Google isn’t commenting on the apparent leak, and there’s no word on when and where AI messaging would show up. Hangouts sounds like a good candidate, but it’s not guaranteed. However, it wouldn’t be shocking if this robotic helper shows up soon. Facebook’s ‘M’ is, in some ways, a direct assault on Google’s home turf: why search on the web when there’s an AI companion willing to lend a hand? In theory, this software would keep you in Google’s world even if you spend all your phone time in chats with friends.
[Image credit: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images]
Source: Wall Street Journal
Boston Dynamics wishes you a terrifyingly happy holiday
Whether you think holiday greeting cards are touching or annoying, Boston Dynamics is celebrating the season just a little differently with this new video. Its robots have shown they are capable of navigating almost any environment with surprising speed and agility, so now a few Spot units have been pressed into service as sleigh-pulling reindeer. As usual, I’m torn between wishing one of those was waiting under my Christmas tree, or treating this as an early warning sign of a holiday-themed Judgement Day robot takeover.
Source: Boston Dynamics (YouTube)
Up to 90% off these games, movies and music and more in the Play Store
To spread some more holiday cheer, Google has a massive Play Store sale going on with their “Games Year-End Deals”, exclusive massive savings on Minecraft, books discounts and an offer for 75% off any one movie rental. Basically, if you were on the edge about making a purchase on Google Play, now is the time to make that executive decision. Check out the deals being offered below:
Great Books up to 80% off
A great number of books are on sale as well, some of which are included below. Play Store Books Sale
Subscribe: 3 Months for $3
Google also has deals on magazine subscriptions, which includes 3 Months for $3
Movies to Own From $5.99
Also included in the vast array of sales are recent movies, which include the titles below from $5.99
Game Year-End Deals
$0.99
Happy Holidays!
The post Up to 90% off these games, movies and music and more in the Play Store appeared first on AndroidGuys.
How seismographs can track battlefield bombings
A team of researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, led by Ghassan Aleqabi, recently stumbled upon a treasure trove of seismic data from a most unexpected source: an array of earthquake monitors installed in Iraq and originally used to keep tabs on Iran’s nuclear tests. They also allow allow Iraqi universities to study small scale ‘quakes. The 10 seismic monitoring stations were initially installed by the US, with Aleqabi’s assistance, in 2005.
The researchers quickly realized that many of the readings these monitoring stations picked up were man-made. Specifically, the team found that the seismographs were recording IED blasts, mortar impacts, airstrikes — essentially a decade’s worth of explosive military mayhem. The team was even able to correlate individual seismological spikes to news reports of bomb blasts. “If you can hear it and feel it, we can describe it,” study co-author Michael Wysession told BuzzFeed News. “What used to be clandestine and confused in warfare, seismology can start to pinpoint.”
Wysession also reportedly suspects that the US Department of Defense may also be using this data for its own purposes, though he admitted he had no direct evidence that they actually do. A DoD spokesman did tell Buzzfeed that the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency has investigated the seismology of small explosions but stopped short of confirming that the agency employ this specific data set.
Via: Buzzfeed News
The playable poetry of ‘That Dragon, Cancer’ lands in January
Joel Green loved pancakes. He was, and continues to be, the inspiration behind That Dragon, Cancer, a low-poly adventure game created by his father, Ryan Green, as Joel battled cancer over four years. Joel Green died in March 2014 at the age of 5.
On January 12th, That Dragon, Cancer will land on PC and Mac via Steam, plus Ouya — and Ryan Green wants everyone to have a pancake party in celebration. Breakfast-food fans and adventure-game lovers can pre-order That Dragon, Cancer and sign up to host a January 12th pancake party on the game’s official site.
That Dragon, Cancer isn’t a dissection of everything that happened to Joel’s family during his illness. Instead, it’s an introduction to Joel, as Ryan Green told us in November 2014. That Dragon, Cancer is an emotional, playful, heartbreaking adventure game, and it’s littered with gorgeous lines of prose. You could call it interactive poetry.
“Writing poetry has been an outlet for me from the very beginning of Joel’s illness and throughout this journey, even before the start of designing this game,” Green says. “To me poetry creates a feeling first, and then a deeper understanding once you dig under the surface a bit. The game is designed the same way. I hope that people receive what we’re doing as poetry and take the time to find our heart in the middle of all of this, along with the feelings of joy that loving Joel brought to us.”
The game took shape over the course of years, as a collaboration among Ryan Green and his wife, Amy Green, plus Josh Larson and other contributors. That Dragon, Cancer hit major milestones along the way: In 2013, it secured a spot at IndieCade’s E3 booth. In December 2014, the project successfully raised $104,000 on Kickstarter (plus $50,000 from Indie Fund). A documentary about the game’s development, Thank You for Playing, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in April and has since been screened around the world.
That Dragon, Cancer‘s story is inherently heartbreaking. This makes marketing the game tricky, but not impossible. Remember those pancakes? They’re a slice of joy, sharing space with sadness.
“Grief is often something that either someone wants to lean into or put as much distance between them and it as possible,” Green says. “Our hope is that people would find value in the facing loss with us because life is a mix of so much more than just sadness and longing. There is joy and hope even in the darkest, most trying moments of our lives, and all of those experiences form us into the people we are.”
AIVAnet 