China made the world’s fastest supercomputer using its own chips

There’s a new computing champion… and unlike past years, this one doesn’t depend on any Western tech to crunch numbers. Top500 has declared that China’s Sunway TaihuLight, a 40,960-node system powered entirely by Chinese processors (the 260-core ShenWei 26010), is the world’s fastest supercomputer. And it’s leading by a wide margin, too. At 93 petaflops of processing power, it’s nearly three times more powerful than the previous record-setter, the 33.85-petaflop Tianhe-2.

The new system uses a custom interconnect format to link its nodes, and there’s a custom Linux variant that serves as its software foundation. The technology isn’t especially exotic (the interconnect is based on PCI Express), but it doesn’t need to be to achieve a breakneck pace. It’s even more power-efficient than Tianhe-2 at a relatively modest 15.3 megawatts of energy consumption.

The irony? As Top500 says, a 2015 US embargo may have helped TaihuLight’s chances of claiming the top spot. Many expected Tianhe-2 to get an upgrade to Intel’s Xeon Phi processors and push 100 petaflops, but the trade restriction prevented that from happening. The embargo also persuaded China to step up its processor development, so any successors to TaihuLight might be that much faster. Having said this, TaihuLight may solve engineering and science problems for everyone — we’re not going to knock a supercomputing breakthrough if it’s useful well beyond its native soil.

Via: Popular Mechanics

Source: Top500

What’s on your HDTV: ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Mighty No. 9’

As usual, the season’s penultimate Game of Thrones episode was explosive, leaving us to wonder what’s left for the season finale this week, along with the season finale of Silicon Valley. Before we get there however, we’ve got the series finale of Person of Interest, and a special episode tonight laying out Mr. Robot before season two of that show kicks off on USA. Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune’s crowdfunded project Mighty No. 9 is finally ready to roll on several systems, while Midnight Special is coming home on Blu-ray. Fans of Bill Simmons can check out his HBO show on Wednesday night, while fans of Weeds, Breaking Bad and Narcos may want to check out Queen of the South. Look after the break to check out each day’s highlights, including trailers and let us know what you think (or what we missed).

Blu-ray & Games & Streaming

• My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
• Midnight Special
• The Crush
• The Wave
• Rollercoaster
• The Brothers Grimsby (4K)
• Mighty No. 9 (PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox One)
• Fallout 4: Contraptions Workshop DLC (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
• Star Wars Battlefront: Bespin DLC (PC, PS4, Xbox One)
• Grand Kingdom (PS4)
• Umbrella Corps (PC, PS4)
• Lumo (Xbox One)
• N.E.R.O. (PS4)
• Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE (Wii U)

Monday

• So You Think You Can Dance, Fox, 8PM
• WWE Raw, USA, 8PM
• Reign (season finale), CW, 8PM
• American Ninja Warrior, NBC, 8PM
• The Fosters (season premiere), Freeform, 8PM
• American Dad, TBS, 8:30PM
• Suited, HBO, 9PM
• Guilt, Freeform, 9PM
• Rizzoli & Isles, TNT, 9PM
• Angie Tribeca, TBS, 9PM
• Top Gear, BBC America, 9PM
• 12 Monkeys, Syfy, 9PM
• Triptank (season premiere), Comedy Central, 10PM
• Major Crimes, TNT, 10PM
• Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge, NBC, 10PM
• Mistresses, ABC, 10PM
• Turn, AMC, 10PM
• Extra Gear, BBC America, 10:30PM
• Mr. Robot Decoded (special), USA, 11PM
• Scream, MTV, 11PM
• Hunters, Syfy, 12AM
• After the Thrones, HBO, 1:15AM

Tuesday

• Powers, PSN, 3AM
• The Mindy Project, Hulu, 3AM
• Casual, Hulu, 3AM
• America’s Got Talent, NBC, 8PM
• The BET Life Of: Ciara, BET, 8PM
• The Greeks (series premiere), PBS, 9PM
• Animal Kingdom, TNT, 9PM
• Uncle Buck, ABC, ABC, 9PM
• Inside the Label: Slip-n-Slide, BET, 9PM
• Coupled, Fox, 9PM
• 60 Minutes Sports, Showtime, 9PM
• Containment, CW, 9PM
• Deadliest Catch, Discovery, 9PM
• Inside the Label: Terror Squad (season finale), BET, 10PM
• Feed the Beast, AMC, 10PM
• Maya & Marty, NBC, 10PM
• Person of Interest (series finale), CBS, 10PM
• Tosh.0, Comedy Central, 10PM
• Wrecked, TBS, 10PM
• Not Safe with Nikki Glaser, Comedy Central, 10:30PM

Wednesday

• Chelsea, Netflix 3AM
• Big Brother (season premiere), NBC, 8PM
• Unsung: E-40, TV One, 8PM
• Serena, Epix, 8PM
• Young & Hungry, Freeform, 8PM
• In A Perfect World, Showtime, 8PM
• Baby Daddy, Freeform, 8:30PM
• Dual Survival, Discovery, 9PM
• Kingdom, DirecTV, 9PM
• Maron, IFC, 9PM
• Wayward Pines, Fox, 9PM
• Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons (series premiere), HBO, 10PM
• Another Period, Comedy Central, 10PM
• Royal Pains, USA, 10PM
• The Night Shift, NBC, 10PM
• The Real World/Road Rules Challenge, MTV, 10PM
• The Ultimate Fighter, Fox Sports 1, 10PM
• Cleverman, Sundance, 10PM

Thursday

• Chelsea, Netflix, 3AM
• Battlebots (season premiere), ABC, 8PM
• Bones, Fox, 8PM
• WWE SmackDown, USA, 8PM
• Big Brother, CBS, 9PM
• Beauty and the Beast, CW, 9PM
• Aquarius, NBC, 9PM
• Home Free, Fox, 9PM
• Streets of Compton, A&E, 9PM
• Beauty and the Beast, CW, 9PM
• Live from Daryl’s House (season finale), MTV Live, 9PM
• Spartan: Ultimate Team Challenge, NBC, 9PM
• Red Nose Day, NBC, 9PM
• Alone, History, 9PM
• Queen of the South (series premiere), USA, 10PM
• Aquarius, NBC, 10PM
• Lip Sync Battle (season finale), Spike TV, 10PM
• Thirteen (series premiere), BBC America, 10PM
• Ladylike, MTV, 11PM

Friday

• Annedroids (S3), Amazon Prime, 3AM
• Dreamworks Dragons (S4), Netflix, 3AM
• The Fundamentals of Caring, Netflix, 3AM
• Justin Time Go! (S1), Netflix, 3AM
• Chelsea, Netflix, 3AM
• Kimbo Slice, Spike TV, 7PM
• The Ranch: Home of an American Sports Dynasty, NBC, 8PM
• Masters of Illusion, CW, 8PM
• Outcast, Cinemax, 10PM
• ELeague, TBS, 10PM
• Wynonna Earp (season finale), Syfy, 10PM
• Comedy! Bang! Bang!, IFC, 11PM
• Vice, HBO, 11PM

Saturday

• Center Stage: On Pointe, Lifetime, 8PM
• US Olympic Trials: Diving, NBC, 8PM
• People’s List, ABC, 8PM
• Showtime Boxing on CBS: Porter vs. Thurman, CBS, 9PM
• US Olympic Trials: Men’s Gymnastics, NBC, 9PM
• Hell on Wheels, AMC, 9PM
• In An Instant, ABC, 9PM
• Outlander, Starz, 9PM
• American West, AMC, 10PM
• Being, Centric, 10PM
• Deon Cole: Cole-Blooded Seminar, Comedy Central, 11:59PM

Sunday

• Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life, Fox, 7PM
• 2016 BET Awards, BET, 8PM
• Shark Week: Tiger Beach, Discovery, 8PM
• US Olympic Trials: Swimming, NBC, 8PM
• Big Brother, CBS, 8PM
• The Girlfriend Experience, Starz, 8PM
• Vicious, PBS, 8PM
• US Gymnastics Championships: Women’s, NBC, 9PM
• The $100,000 Pyramid (series premiere), ABC, 9PM
• Ray Donovan (season premiere), Showtime, 9PM
• Shark Week: Return of the Monster Mako, Discovery, 9PM
• Endeavour, PBS, 9PM
• Preacher, AMC, 9PM
• Game of Thrones (season finale), HBO, 9PM
• The Last Ship, TNT, 9PM
• Match Game (series premiere), ABC, 10PM
• Motive (season finale), USA, 10PM
• Roadies (series premiere), Showtime, 10PM
• Shark Week: Isle of Jaws, Discovery, 10PM
• Ride with Norman Reedus, AMC, 10PM
• Feed the Beast, AMC, 10PM
• Silicon Valley (season finale), HBO,10PM
• Declassified, CNN, 10PM
• Murder in the First (season premiere), TNT, 10PM
• Tunnel, PBS, 10:30PM
• Veep (season finale), HBO, 10:30PM
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO, 11PM

(All times listed are ET)

BitTorrent to launch peer-to-peer streaming news network

BitTorrent is looking to expand its live streaming offerings by launching a TV news network in time for the November election, Variety reports today. The news network would be an expansion of the OTT News app the company released for Apple TV, iOS and Android earlier this year, as well as its BitTorrent Live offerings. According to Variety, the San Francisco-based peer-to-peer company’s in-house network will be called “BitTorrent News” and the company is currently hiring a news director and a team of journalists to round out the offering.

Whereas OTT News was “a test case” for live streaming, BitTorrent News looks to be a legitimate grassroots competitor to cable news, albeit without the nonstop, 24/7 coverage of CNN or MSNBC. According to the job listing, the network will stay focused on breaking news events like “political campaigns, sporting events, tech and cultural events.” Overall, BitTorrent has been shifting focus from file sharing into a media company, starting with music and movie releases. Earlier this month, Variety also reported BitTorrent would be spinning off its enterprise file sharing software Sync into a separate company dubbed Resilio, led by BitTorrent’s own former CEO Eric Klinker.

Tumblr is getting into the crowded live video space this week

Tumblr thinks it can take on Facebook Live, Twitter-owned Periscope, Amazon-owned Twitch, and others. It’s getting into live video.

The company quietly posted a promotional webpage over the weekend to announce it will launch a live-streaming video feature on 21 June. The page also appears to offer a programming schedule for live video events (such as: “A Harlem Globetrotter will teach you how to basketball” on 21 June at 4:45 pm EST, and “We will broadcast live from the surface of Mars” on 21 June at 4 pm EST).

Tumblr launched in 2007 and was acquired by Yahoo about six years later. It currently has about 555 million monthly visitors and hosts more than 300 million blogs. You can use it to post GIFs, create standalone sites, and soon, apparently, broadcast. Tumblr hasn’t yet shared any details on how it will uniquely offer live-streaming capabilities in a space that has become increasingly crowded.

That said, it seems to be developing a content strategy for launch day, at least. It’s unclear if Tumblr will consistently offer a live programming schedule but such a strategy could help it to stand out from the competition. Facebook, for instance, green-lighted its Live video feature last spring – when Periscope turned a year old and announced its users had created more than 200 million broadcasts.

It’ll therefore be interesting to see whether Tumblr Live Video is able to capture that sort of interest and growth from the get-go.

‘Game of Thrones’ composer on making truly epic scores

Ramin Djawadi’s theme for Game of Thrones has inspired covers upon covers. The Iranian-German composer’s music has helped shape the magic, power and terror on every episode of HBO’s most watched series. While the show’s haunting score is his most celebrated offering to date, his recent work on Warcraft: The Beginning also made its mark. Despite the abysmal reviews of the videogame-turned-movie, the soundtrack has held its own with its larger-than-life orchestral elements.

Djawadi’s recent scores for fantastical worlds have been the most prominent, but his repertoire dates back almost two decades. He started his career at legendary composer Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions after graduating from Berklee College of Music in 1998. A few years later he went on to score Blade: Trinity and in 2005 he composed for the popular TV series Prison Break, which got him an Emmy nomination. Four years later he won an ASCAP Award for his guitar-heavy Iron Man score and was nominated for a Grammy for best soundtrack.

Over the years, Djawadi’s eclectic scores garnered recognition and a solid fan following. But its his ability to build massive melodic themes that has made him one of the most coveted names on the composers circuit. I recently talked to him about his iconic scores and the ways in which technology impacts his compositions for the mythical creatures that he helps bring to life.

How would you describe your sensibility as a composer? What are you instinctively drawn to?

I always have a hard time describing myself. But I would say I’m drawn to melody. My task is to tell a story with the music. I always like to have themes, in terms of characters or plots, and things that can tell a story always interest me the most.

Tell me about Warcraft. What was that process like and what was the sound you were going for?

I really enjoyed working with [director] Duncan Jones, he had great ideas and the collaboration was great. He had a clear vision for what he wanted with the score. I’m very happy with how the score came out -– it’s a thematic and melodic score.

The two big things were: you have two sides — the humans and the orcs. We wanted to make sure we distinguished them soundwise. With humans we kind of stuck with the orchestral elements and for the orcs we went in the opposite direction –- a much more tribal feel. I used a lot of percussion and flutes. Their voices are really low so I thought about what I could use. We used a low choir and voices and I used a contrabass that can give a low range. We really wanted to distinguish the two musically.

Music composer Ramin Djawadi. Photo credit: Matt Sayles

From Pacific Rim to Game of Thrones and now Warcraft –- how do you navigate those worlds stylistically but still manage to leave your stamp on every score?

I like to jump around quite a bit. That’s the nice thing about being a film composer. In Warcraft, for example, there was a lot of action and it required bombastic music. For Iron Man we decided to go for a more rock and roll approach; we used electric guitars. In Game of Thrones, the cello is a very prominent instrument and there’s small music because it’s dialogue heavy. That’s what I love about [being a composer], every project requires something different and has its own challenges.

What does it take to compose music for fantastical worlds?

I actually enjoy the fantasy world quite a bit. You have no boundaries. you can decide to give the character either a fantasy feel or more organic feel. You can play around quite a bit with instrumentation. Game of Thrones is a good example of that. It’s set in medieval times but at the same time it’s a completely fantasy world so you don’t know what time period you’re in. We can play around with it but the focus is on not making the music sound medieval.

In Game of Thrones there are themes for individual characters but the soundtrack overall is so cohesive. How do you keep those distinct themes tied in together?

Before I even started writing the music, it was the most important thing we discussed. The fact is that it’s a highly complicated show. There are a million characters and plot lines going on. I sat down [with showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss] and said how can we support this with the score without making it more confusing? So we approached it in a way where sometimes we went with a theme for the plot or the house and sometimes we said this character deserves his own theme. Then we developed them over the seasons. I always give the example of Theon. In season one, he didn’t have a theme. In season two his character developed, he stepped out a lot and we decided it was time to have a theme for him. So it kind of expands with the narration.

“The computer is limited in expression. It can’t do what the human player can do.”

Everything in the show is constantly changing. The characters and their respective sounds continue to evolve and take on a power of their own. How do you keep up with that?

The nice thing is that there are a lot of different locations to work with. With the White Walkers, for example, I went for the icy feel. With Daenerys, we’re in the desert a lot with the Dothraki so then I go for a different sound there. I get inspired by the visuals and the story a lot. It helps me pick my instruments and be creative. We always laugh because every season I come up with one new instrument and say: “Oh the tuba! We haven’t really featured it yet.” It’s a challenge [to keep up] but it’s a lot of fun too.

In what ways would you say technology impacts your work as a composer?

Most of the time, the people you work with, the directors or producers, aren’t musically schooled. If you play them the theme on the piano and then say: “once we go to the recording stage and a full orchestra plays it, it’s going to sound great, trust me!” It’s very hard to imagine. It’s like looking at a green screen and then somebody telling you the special effects are going to look perfect when done. But what’s been great is that with technology, with samples and sequencing, I create these very accurate demos that I present to my producers. Then we can discuss in detail what we should change or not. They can hear the percussion and the orchestra, it’s a full arrangement on the computer. Then there are no surprises when you actually have many people sitting in front of you, the clock is ticking and you’re recording and everything has to go fast and they go: “oh wait that’s what it sounds like? I didn’t hear that before.” The goal is to have the most accurate demo and the computer can help you with that. When you record with live players, it goes up another level but there shouldn’t be any surprises.

What are the limitations? At what point do you know a computer won’t cut it?

The computer is limited in expression. It can’t do what the human player can do. What’s dangerous is that you fall for writing for the computer and what sounds good on it instead of writing something that actually sounds good when a player performs it. It’s dangerous when you go down that road. For example in [GoT], I use a lot of choir for the big Daenerys scenes and use Valyrian-inspired lyrics. I can’t demo that so I have some kind of shady choir just kind of speaking something but then I have to tell the [producers] to imagine it with lyrics — they’ll speak and it’s going to be bigger. Sometimes you have to let it go and tell them to trust you on it.