Nvidia achieves massive increase in AI computing power with Volta and Tesla V100

Why it matters to you

Artificial intelligence and machine learning promise to make your life easier and more productive, but only if there’s enough computing power.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are incredibly important technological developments that require massive amounts of computing power. Microsoft is currently holding its Build 2017 developers conference, and there isn’t a product or service being highlighted that doesn’t integrate AI or machine learning in one way or another.

One of the best ways to architect the right kind of high-speed computing infrastructure is by using GPUs, which can be more efficient than general-purpose CPUs. Nvidia has been at the forefront of using GPUs for AI and machine learning applications, and it has just announced the Volta GPU computing architecture and the Tesla V100 data center GPU.

Nvidia calls Volta the “world’s most powerful,” and it is built with 21 billion transistors providing deep learning performance equivalent to 100 CPUs. That equates to five times the performance of its Pascal architecture in terms of peak teraflops, and 15 times the performance of its previous Maxwell architecture. According to Nvidia, Volta performance quadruples the improvement that Moore’s law would have predicted.

According to Jensen Huang, Nvidia founder and CEO, “Deep learning, a groundbreaking AI approach that creates computer software that learns, has insatiable demand for processing power. Thousands of Nvidia engineers spent over three years crafting Volta to help meet this need, enabling the industry to realize AI’s life-changing potential.”

Nvidia

In addition to the Volta architecture, Nvidia also unveiled the Tesla V100 data center GPU, which incorporates a number of new technologies. They include the following, taken from Nvidia’s announcement:

• Tensor Cores designed to speed AI workloads. Equipped with 640 Tensor Cores, V100 delivers 120 teraflops of deep learning performance, equivalent to the performance of 100 CPUs.
• New GPU architecture with over 21 billion transistors. It pairs CUDA cores and Tensor Cores within a unified architecture, providing the performance of an AI supercomputer in a single GPU.
• NVLink provides the next generation of high-speed interconnect linking GPUs, and GPUs to CPUs, with up to 2x the throughput of the prior generation NVLink.
• 900 GB/sec HBM2 DRAM, developed in collaboration with Samsung, achieves 50 percent more memory bandwidth than previous generation GPUs, essential to support the extraordinary computing throughput of Volta.
• Volta-optimized software, including CUDA, cuDNN and TensorRT software, which leading frameworks and applications can easily tap into to accelerate AI and research.

A number of organizations are planning to utilize Volta in their applications, including Amazon Web Services, Baidu, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. As AI and machine learning are integrated more closely into the technology we use every day, it’s likely to be solutions like Volta and Tesla V100 GPUs that are powering them.

Amazon’s Great Indian Sale is back — here are the best deals!

Amazon is back once again with its four-day sales extravaganza.

Amazon’s Great Indian Sale is back, offering enticing discounts on hundreds of products. You’ll be able to shave ₹1,000 off of the price of a Moto G4 Plus and finally be able to get your hands on the Redmi 4A, but the sale really shines when it comes to audio products, TVs, storage devices, and accessories. Here’s a roundup of the best deals from the first day of the Great Indian Sale:

Mobiles

• Moto G4 Plus (2GB RAM, 16GB storage) – ₹11,499 – down from ₹12,499
• Samsung Galaxy C7 Pro – ₹25,990 – down from ₹27,990
• Coolpad Note 5 (4GB RAM, 32GB storage) – ₹9,999 – down from ₹10,999
• Xiaomi Redmi 4A (2GB RAM, 16GB storage) – ₹5,999 – you can actually buy it now

Headphones and home audio

• Logitech Z-623 2.1 THX-Certified Multimedia Speaker – ₹7,999 – down from ₹8,832
• Logitech Z506 Surround Sound 5.1 Multimedia Speakers – ₹3,999 – down from ₹6,017
• Philips SPA7000B 5.1 Multimedia Speaker System – ₹5,549 – down from ₹6,000
• Philips SPA8000B/94 5.1 Multimedia Speaker System – ₹7,999 – down from ₹8,430
• Philips HTL2163B/12 Bluetooth Soundbar – ₹9,999 – down from ₹10,449
• F&D F-203G 2.1 Speaker System – ₹1,149 – down from ₹1,270
• Logitech X50 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker – ₹1,149 – down from ₹1,524
• JBL GO Portable Wireless Bluetooth Speaker – ₹1,799 – down from ₹1,999
• AmazonBasics In-Ear Headphones with universal mic – ₹329 – down from ₹499
• Sennheiser CX 275 S In-Ear Headphone with mic – ₹1,599 – down from ₹1,669
• Sony MDR-XB250 On-Ear Headphones (Extra Bass) – ₹899 – down from ₹1,099
• boAt Stone 600 Water Proof and Shock Proof Wireless Speaker – ₹1,699 – down from ₹1,899
• boAt BassHeads 225 Special Edition In-Ear Headphones with mic – ₹449 – down from ₹499
• Beats by Dr. Dre Powerbeats3 Wireless Earphones – ₹12,999 – down from ₹14,533

TVs

• Sanyo 43-inch XT-43S7100F Full HD LED IPS TV – ₹24,490 – down from ₹27,990
• Sanyo 49-inch XT-49S7100F Full HD LED IPS TV – ₹30,990 – down from ₹34,990
• TCL 55-inch L55P1US 4K Ultra HD Smart LED TV – ₹45,990 – down from ₹48,990
• LG 43-inch 43LH576T Full HD Smart LED IPS TV – ₹36,990 – down from ₹38,999
• Sony 40-inch BRAVIA KLV-40R352D Full HD LED TV – ₹41,990 – down from ₹44,990

Everything else

• Canon EOS 1300D 18MP DSLR with 18-55 and 55-250mm IS II Lens and 16GB SD card – ₹26,495 – down from ₹29,199
• Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB External Hard Drive – ₹4,099 – down from ₹4,299
• Logitech K480 Bluetooth Multi-Device Keyboard – ₹1,799 – down from ₹1,999
• AmazonBasics High-Speed HDMI Cable, 6 Feet – ₹325 – down from ₹399
• Blue Microphones Yeti USB Microphone – ₹9,599 – down from ₹11,514
• Blue Microphones Snowball iCE Condenser Microphone – ₹4,299 – down from ₹4,417

To take a look at all the products on sale, head to Amazon from the link below. What’s everyone buying?

See at Amazon India

Google buys the VR studio behind ‘Job Simulator’

A month after Owlchemy Studios gifted the world with its Rick and Morty VR mini-experience, the developer revealed its own good news: It’s been acquired by Google. Neither party hinted at what lies in store for Owlchemy going forward, but it’s good news for a studio that’s been releasing VR games for years.

Owlchemy is best known for Job Simulator, a delightful “recreation” of modern-day work life by clueless futuristic robots. The title garnered acclaim and has come out for every VR platform as a sort of proof-of-concept that developers can pull off humorous, entertaining gameplay while the medium works out its nausea-inducing kinks.

Amusingly, the studio’s first foray into VR was adapting Dejobaan Games’ skydiving simulator for the Oculus Rift, releasing AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome (full title) in 2013. Owlchemy had cut its teeth on iOS games like Super Ramen Bros. and Smuggle Truck as well as its Kickstarter-funded desert island survival game Dyscourse. It was while testing Valve’s then-secret VR headset project with HTC, the Vive, that the Owlchemy team developed the idea for their hit Job Simulator. The studio is keeping mum about its next project under the Google umbrella, but let’s hope they keep their signature bizarre humor.

Source: Owlchemy Labs

‘The Sims’ find a new home on iOS and Android

It’s been 17 years since The Sims was first released on PC but finally (finally) the venerable social simulator is going mobile. EA announced on Wednesday that it is bringing its truest port of the game to date to Android and iOS.

Players will be able to create their Sim, customize their looks, build them homes, cajole them into interacting with other players and ultimately achieve their digital dreams. What’s more, you’ll be able to follow you Sim’s family through generations, unlocking valuable heirlooms and other stat boosters as you go. But to do that, your Sim is going to have to kill it at their job — those heirlooms only become available after your Sim reaches their career goals and retires.

This isn’t the first time that EA has taken the Sims off the desktop. The company previously released The Sims Freeplay on mobile and The Sims Social on Facebook, though neither of those offered nearly the same depth of gameplay that this one is advertising. There’s no word yet on when The Sims will be released or how much it will cost when it is.

Via: CNet

Source: EA

Move over, Alexa: More Cortana devices and skills are on the way

Harman Kardon isn’t the only company making a Cortana device.

Smart speakers are everywhere. Amazon now offers – count them – five different Alexa-powered speakers, while Google has the Assistant-powered Google Home, and even Apple is expected to launch its own Siri-powered smart speaker at WWDC 2017 next month. Microsoft and Harman Kardon also recently introduced Invoke, the first Cortana-powered speaker. But it looks like Microsoft isn’t stopping there.

In an effort to trump Amazon and other rivals, the company announced while at its Build 2017 developer conference that it has signed partnerships with HP and Intel to bring more Cortana-powered devices to market. Microsoft explained that HP is planning to integrate Cortana into devices, while Intel will focus on reference platforms. Either way, expect Microsoft’s assistant to become much more ubiquitous.

Keep in mind this follows the news that Microsoft launched a Cortana Skills Kit in public preview. The company basically gave developers the ability to create skills – or even port existing Amazon Alexa skills – over to Microsoft’s platform. This should drastically improve Cortana and make any upcoming Cortana hardware more useful. Let’s also not forget Microsoft’s recently leaked HomeHub feature.

• Microsoft unveils the Surface Laptop, a Windows 10 S device
• Microsoft will now release major Windows 10 updates twice a year
• Windows 10 S is a streamlined version of Windows for education

Microsoft appears to be planning a smart home control feature, or at least the first stages of it, which will become part of Windows 10, possibly in the next update due in September. HomeHub is being designed and developed to become the central control hub for families, and of course, being a Microsoft system, you will be able to control everything with your voice via Cortana.

Microsoft Build 2017: All the announcements that matter

The biggest tech companies hold annual developer conferences, and Microsoft’s has just kicked off.

Every year Microsoft spends a few days trying to bring developers and software engineers into its fold with a developer conference called Build. While at the conference, the company typically also announces updates for its services and platforms – whether that be Windows 10, Office 365, or the Azure cloud computing platform. Here all the major updates Microsoft announced at Build 2017.

• Microsoft unveils the Surface Laptop, a Windows 10 S device
• Microsoft will now release major Windows 10 updates twice a year
• Windows 10 S is a streamlined version of Windows for education

What is Build 2017?

Build is Microsoft’s annual developer conference. This year’s conference – known as Build 2017 – started off a little different. The company used its main keynote to focus entirely on developers. In past years, it was all about consumer technology and updates to consumer products like Windows 10 and Surface devices. Microsoft likely got all that out of the way with its education event earlier this month.

So, discussions during the Build 2017 main keynote primarily ranged from Microsoft’s artificial intelligence efforts to talk about its growing Windows 10 user base. Thrilling stuff, right? 

Can you watch Build 2017 online?

You can livestream Microsoft’s entire conference from the Build 2017 site.

What was announced at Build 2017?

Windows 10 users

Microsoft announced that Windows 10 is now running on 500 million “monthly active devices.” That metric includes not only Windows 10 installed on PCs, tablets, and phones, but also on Xbox One consoles, HoloLens, and Surface Hub devices. Remember, though: at the Build 2015, Windows boss Terry Myerson claimed Windows 10 would be installed on one billion devices within three years (so by summer 2018).

One year later, however, after Microsoft sold its Nokia subsidiary, Myerson admitted that getting to one billion Windows 10 devices would take longer. And by judging by this announcement, we’re guessing it still won’t meet that original 2018 deadline. Still, Windows 10 did get a boost in adoption – likely due to the year-long free upgrade offer that began with the operating system’s launch in July 2015.

ZDNet noted the 500-million milestone is the first numbers-related announcement in more than seven months, and that Windows 10’s growth pace has slowed significantly in the last couple years, though historical comparisons of such milestones are difficult.

Office 365 and Microsoft Graph

Speaking of usage numbers, Microsoft also announced that commercial Office 365 is running on 100 million monthly active devices, whereas as of October last year, there were 85 million commercial users, meaning 15 million have since then. While talking about Office 365, Microsoft mentioned it is adding new functionality to Microsoft Graph, an API that gives developers access to tools and data from Office 365 services.

Microsoft Graph is the basis of many applications built on top of Office’s services. It helps those apps understand more about the data we have in our systems. Previously, Graph could only provide user and activity data, but now, developers can leverage device data as well. Microsoft has also added a series of new core capabilities into Graph, including Delta queries and ‘custom data’.

New Insights APIs are coming too. They’ll be available in preview form and will allow developers to collect more data, for instance, on the most widely shared documents on OneDrive.

Developers can leverage Microsoft Graph to create systems of intelligence that fundamentally change the future & culture of work. #MSBuild pic.twitter.com/IopvjF7qza

— Windows Developer (@windowsdev) May 10, 2017

More Cortana devices and skills

• Move over, Alexa: More Cortana devices and skills are on the way

In an effort to trump rivals, Microsoft announced it has signed partnerships with HP and Intel to bring more Cortana-powered devices to market. Microsoft explained that HP is planning to integrate Cortana into devices, while Intel will focus on reference platforms. Either way, expect Microsoft’s assistant to become much more ubiquitous. Microsoft also launched a Cortana Skills Kit in public preview.

The company basically gave developers the ability to create skills – or even port existing Amazon Alexa skills – over to Microsoft’s platform. This should drastically improve Cortana and make any upcoming Cortana hardware more useful. Microsoft revealed Cortana is being used across 141 million monthly active devices. While discussing Cortana, the company said it wants to bring artificial intelligence to all its products. That includes Xbox, Windows, Bing, and Office.

Ready for Cortana? 140 million monthly Cortana users are ready for you. #MSBuild pic.twitter.com/xO7WLD3MhK

— Windows Developer (@windowsdev) May 10, 2017

Visual Studio

Microsoft has launched its Visual Studio coding platform for the Mac.

It allows developers to code apps using Microsoft’s development environment on Apple’s MacOS platform. They can sync across both Windows and Mac devices and build native mobile apps for iOS, macOS, Android, and the web. Microsoft said it enables MacOS and iOS developers “to use Microsoft’s development tools, since they will no longer need a Windows computer or virtual machine to do so.”

There are actually three different versions of Visual Studio for Mac available at launch: Visual Studio Community, Visual Studio Professional, and Visual Studio Enterprise. All three have been designed natively for macOS, and developers can manage their code hosted by any provider, including GitHub and Visual Studio Team Services. As for programming languages, the C# and F# languages are supported.

Just announced @ #MSBuild. #VisualStudio for #Mac. Build apps for mobile, web, & cloud w/ #dotNET & games w/ #Unity. https://t.co/lDDccK9IBO pic.twitter.com/l3sLXLGeDC

— Visual Studio (@VisualStudio) May 10, 2017

Want to know more?

Stay tuned to Pocket-lint’s Microsoft hub for what’s next at Build 2017. Microsoft also has some information avaialble about its Build 2017 announcements on its news hub.

‘Pro Evolution Soccer 17’ is coming to your phone this month

The eternal struggle between fans of EA’s fast-paced, good-looking FIFA series and Konami’s deeper, more realistic Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) video game titles rages across console and mobile versions. If you’re a fan of the latter, you’ll be happy to hear that Konami will bring Pro Evolution Soccer 2017 to iOS and Android later this month after a soft launch in Australia last December.

The new mobile, free-to-play football title will feature officially licensed teams, players and stadiums, including club and national teams as well as a UEFA Champions League license. Konami says that the game, while optimized for mobile, was made with the console title’s graphics engine, which could make for a slick, highly-realistic soccer experience on the go.

Soccer is a global phenomenon, and PES 2017 honors that tradition with an interface localized in 10 different languages and play-by-play commentary in nine: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese. Plus? For a limited time, pre-registering will net you some “deluxe” players to add to your team roster as you take on all comers.

This isn’t Konami’s first foray into the mobile soccer arena, of course. There have been many PES games on mobile since 2010, as well as a more strategic football manager app for the league. FIFA has been on mobile for a similar amount of time.

Source: Konami

New York joins the growing list of self-driving car testbeds

The Empire State and its bustling metropolis are ready to get in on the autonomous vehicle party. According to an announcement from Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York Department of Motor Vehicles is now taking applications from companies that wish to test self-driving tech on the state’s public roads.

New York joins California, Nevada and Arizona (not to mention the city of Portland) in welcoming driverless cars to its roads, but state authorities will be regulating the vehicles fairly strictly. The test period, which was approved last month as part of the state budget, is currently set to expire in less than a year on April 1st, 2018. Aside from meeting the usual set of DMV inspections and safety standards, companies like Waymo, Uber and GM will also need to cover each autonomous vehicle with a $5 million insurance policy, keep a driver behind the wheel at all times and reimburse state police for costs associated with overseeing the tests. As an extra level of precaution, the vehicles will also be barred from navigating near school and construction zones.

“The State Police applaud any new and advanced technology that will improve safety on our roadways and reduce accidents, injuries and fatalities,” New York State Police Superintendent George P. Beach II said in a statement. “Any new technology, no matter how innovative, needs to be tested and evaluated appropriately and the State Police will perform its due diligence to oversee this process and ensure its effectiveness.”

Before the end of the test period, companies will also be required to submit a report on their test findings to the state’s Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. Given the relatively short timeframe, autonomous vehicle makers won’t have a whole lot of time to gather data in the state, but New York does present a variety of traffic conditions not seen in other test sites — specifically harsher winters and extremely dense urban environments that you just don’t get in San Francisco or Phoenix.

Via: Verge

Source: New York State Governor’s Office

Tesla’s stylish new solar roof expects to cost less than a traditional roof

Anyone who has had to replace a roof can attest that it is no small expense. Well, homeowners may have a better solution on the horizon that not only costs less upfront, but also saves them money over time, according to Bloomberg. Late last year, Tesla acquired SolarCity, with about 85 percent of shareholders voting to go through with the deal that made them the undisputed kings of sun-to-vehicle energy.

Shortly after the deal was finalized, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the company’s new solar roofing would cost less to create and install than traditional roofing materials. He claimed all this savings would come before the savings on your electric bill. According to Musk, “Electricity is just a bonus.”

While the initial amount consumers could save by switching to a solar roof was unclear, Musk said customers who purchased a roof would save “considerable” amounts of money over a traditional roof. But just how much does that mean? We’re finally starting to find out. 

Beginning Wednesday, you can start pre-ordering your solar roof. To do so, you’ll need to put down a $1,000 deposit, though you can get a full refund should you decide against it before you sign the final contract. As for the final price, Tesla Solar has created a cost calculator (powered by Google’s Project Sunroof) that will give you a ballpark estimate specific to your needs. Simply enter your address, and you’ll get an estimate unique to your home, complete with the value of energy your roof will generate, the cost of the roof, the cost of the Powerwall battery (or batteries, if your home needs more), and the amount of the tax credit. You can also make adjustments to your estimate, like specifying the exact roof square footage or the amount of your current monthly electric bill.

If you’re happy with what you see, you can continue down the ordering pipeline by placing an order and awaiting a response from an engineer, who will pay you an on-site visit and determine precisely what your roof needs. Not all the tiles in your new roof have to be solar tiles because not all parts of your roof will get the same amount of sun).

Tesla’s high-end roofing materials include mimicked fancy terracotta and slate roofing tiles, which are made of textured glass. There are four designs to choose from, with styles to match every home. The tiles gather and store the energy from light for you to use in your home or electric vehicle. It’s estimated that the glass solar panels will be available for installation this year, while other slate panels won’t be around until 2018, or according to Musk, in “about 6 months.”

Article originally published in November 2016. Updated on 05-102-17 by Lulu Chang: Added news of pricing calculator availability for Tesla solar roof cost estimates. 

Asus ZenFone 3 Zoom’s high-end cameras are fueled by a beastly battery

Why it matters to you

The Asus ZenFone Zoom 2 was a stunner of a midrange smartphone. Asus will follow it up with the ZenFone Zoom 3, a smartphone with a top-of-the-line camera, massive battery, and shooting modes out the wazoo.

The Asus ZenFone Zoom 2 was a stunner of a midrange smartphone. It featured 3x optical zoom, great low-light camera performance, and an excellent battery life to boot. The latest addition to the Taipei, Taiwan-based company’s Zoom series continues in the original’s tradition. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, Asus took the wraps off the ZenFone 3 Zoom, a smartphone with a top-of-the-line camera, massive battery, and shooting modes out the wazoo. Unfortunately, it’s now being delayed until the second quarter of 2017.

Impressive cameras

The ZenFone 3 Zoom, true to its namesake, features a dual-camera system capable of high degrees of optical zoom. It comprises a 12-megapixel camera with a f/1.7 aperture, a 25mm wide-angle lens, and a secondary 12-megapixel, 56mm camera that handles macro shots as close as 3.94 inches. The rig’s capable of up to 2.3x optical zoom, Asus says, and offers a new shooting mode called Portrait that is similar to the iPhone 7s’s “bokeh” mode: backgrounds of photos are softly blurred as subjects are brought to the fore.

A manual shooting mode exposes most of ZenFone’s toggles to intrepid photographers. Settings like white balance, exposure values, focus, ISO, and shutter speed are adjustable. And a Full Manual mode allows the user to override the phone’s automatic camera selection and chose from either the 25mm, f/1.7 lens of the main camera or the 56mm lens of the zoom camera.

Autofocus is drastically improved on the ZenFone 3 Zoom too, thanks to a new solution that Asus calls TriTech+. Two phase-detection sensors on the ZenFone 3 Zoom’s camera pixels analyze the variations in light rays hitting the sensors and, in tandem with the other 12 million pixels on the ZenFone 3 Zoom’s sensor, focus continuously on subjects. The trifecta’s final bit, a second-generation laser focus technology with three times the range of comparable implementations on the market, helps the ZenFone 3 Zoom achieve a focus time of just 0.03 seconds.

The ZenFone 3 Zoom’s other photographic innovation is what Asus calls the SuperPixel, a technology that increases light sensitivity “dramatically” compared to the average smartphone. A 1.4-micron pixel size augments the camera’s dim-environment performance and reduces graininess, and a Sony IMX362 image sensor lets in more light.

The ZenFone 3 Zoom’s other camera touches are no less impressive. Four-axis optical image stabilization and three-axis electronic image stabilization minimizes shake and blur. A color-correction sensor automatically adjusts the photo pallets to look “natural” and “accurate.” And the phones’s front camera, not to be outdone by the dual-camera tech, sports a 13-megapixel lens and “screenflash,” a mode that uses the ZenFone’s display as a flash.

Finally, the ZenFone 3 Zoom’s shooters feature three new modes: Super Resolution, 3MP Enhanced Low Light, and HDR. Super Resolution stitches four 12-megapixel photos to create a single image. Low Light mode combines four adjacent pixels to work as a single pixel that shoots better in low-light conditions and prevents blurring. And HDR mode layers an overexposed image atop an underexposed image to enhance details.

Hardware and Specs

The ZenFone 3 Zoom’s innovations don’t end with high-tech cameras. The handset boasts a sandblasted aluminum-alloy body that measures 0.31-inches thin and 0.37 lbs in weight, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor and 5.5-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) display shielded by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5. It also features 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, and runs Android 7.0 Nougat.

If there’s an undisputed hardware highlight, though, it’s the ZenFone 3 Zoom’s battery. The 5,000mAh cell has “one of the highest capacities of any smartphone,” Asus contends, and the largest in a smartphone of the Zoom’s thinness and lightness. And it features a unique reverse-charging capability that automatically juices plugged-in devices.

Pricing and Availability

After an initial delay (the handset was supposed to be made available in February 2017), the ZenFone 3 Zoom has been made available. It starts at $329 (about $80 less than the initial projected price of $400), and you can grab the handset from major U.S. retailers including Best Buy and Amazon, and of course, the Asus website.

Updated on 02-24-2017 by Lulu Chang: Added news of ZenFone 3 Zoom’s release date and price.