UK

Why the iPad hasn't killed the netbook

intel@monumentpr.com — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:06:01 GMT

There's a really interesting article over at the Irish Times on the iPad's impact on the netbook. In summary, it says netbook manufacturers are still reporting strong demand for netbooks despite the prediction that the iPad would kill of this sector of the market.

And that's because, the article says, people want to do more on a netbook than they can on an iPad. The lack of Flash, USB ports, a webcam and multitasking means the iPad doesn't offer the kind of mobile experience people want from a device.

Back in January there was an interesting article in Cnet on 10 things netbooks still do better than an iPad. Much of that still stands but since then the biggest development and one that will put further ground between the iPad and netbooks has been the introduction of dual core Atom processors from Intel.

Cnet, again, has a series of pieces on new devices powered by Intel's dual-core N550 processor.

There's also been an important development in consumer understanding of the role of netbooks, coupled with, dare I say it, smarter salesmanship from retailers.

The fact is netbooks were never designed to be a desktop replacement, nor even to replace the high end laptops that make crunching HD as easy as opening a web page.

I think there has been element of mis-selling in some quarters. Consumers buying a netbook are getting told it's a cheap laptop. It's not - it's a device which performs many of the features of a laptop - but it's designed for greater convenience and mobility.

UK Offering £5m to Capitalize on Genomics

robert.j.maskell@intel.com — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:55:27 GMT

Following hot on the heels of the recent announcements that the genomes of the Golden Delicious apple and Wheat have been sequenced, a new UK initiative will invest up to £5 million in grants to businesses conducting research that use high-throughput sequencing and other genomics technologies.

The TSB (Technology Strategy Board) is a business-led public entity that was established by the government to fund research that seeks to develop and exploit technologies and innovations that can boost economic growth and improve life.

The competition, which will start in October, will seek to fund work by consortia that use high-throughput sequencing for genome analysis and other genomics technologies to enable development of new products and processes.

Smart e-mail - we all want it

intel@monumentpr.com — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:32:42 GMT

E-mail - we all use it. We all hate it. Try as I might I can't seem to control my e-mail inbox. My work Outlook inbox currently stands at 2,978 items. My personal Gmail has about 3,452 emails.

Okay, webmail is different and there's less pressure to delete everything and get that number down to the magical single digits marker but my mail is out of control in my work and personal life.

Part of the problem is that e-mail requires effort from us as users to really master it - and with the greatest will in the world we all have better things to do, and more pressing things to do, than sort our emails into neat folders. And even if we do find time, the trickle, flow or torrent of new e-mails overwhelms us.

Google launched a new feature earlier this week to try and ease the burden - priority inbox. It sorts your email between your normal chronological e-mails, the items you have "starred" as important and those Google has determined as priority. So how does it ascertain this?

The Telegraph writes: Google said that its email algorithms analysed a variety of factors, including a user’s most frequently emailed contacts, and the number of other people copied in to the same message.

The search company also said that the content of the email was also analysed to ascertain its importance.

I've been using Google Priority Inbox for about a week and I think it's too early to say if it's making my life easier. For a start, many of the emails it flags as a priority are patently not. You can tell Gmail if this is the case - and vice versa, so it can learn. But of course this means more effort and I'm looking for an effort-free solution.

So I've compiled five of my favourte e-mail tips and tricks across a range of e-mail programs I use in my daily life. (Actually, this is part of the problem. I use Outlook at work, Gmail on my mobile and laptop, and Apple Mail on my desktop)

1. In Google Mail create labels for different topics by using filters. Filters can let you collate email on a topic, from a certain person or if the messages have a particular keyword.

2. In Outlook install Xobni, or Xobni plus. It's a third-party add-on that makes searching your e-mails in Outlook an absolute joy - and it's blazingly fast.

3. Upgrade to Outlook 2010. It's a big leap forward on previous versions and includes Outlook Social Connector. This tool lets you connect to your e-mail contacts across social networks such as Linked In and Facebook.

4. Apple Mail recognised dates or plans in e-mails, such as Pizza tomorrow at 6pm, and let's you click on it and create an immediate calendar entry. Neat.

5. My favoutie tip is courtesy of Kevin Rose. He advises to create a ruil in your mail programme which auto-responds to unopened mail after a predetermined period and then tells the recipient that the mail has been archived and if a response is sitill needed then to re-send a mail.

Who tops the Greenpeace Cool IT leaderboard?

intel@monumentpr.com — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:34:16 GMT

Most IT companies I admire take their green credentials very seriously, and most of them know there is still a long way to go.

I've been following the work of The Green Grid, a group of IT firms in the data centre/server space working to make them more efficient, and I'll be following up with the group in the near future.

But Greenpeace this week has decided to single out arguably the world's biggest web company, Facebook. Obviously, Facebook has a quite extraordinary number of servers. It must do in order to serve its mind boggling 500 million users.

In a press release, the campaign group said: "Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo today sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking him to commit his company to a plan to phase out the use of dirty coal-fired electricity. The letter further calls on Zuckerberg to use his companies considerable influence to become a champion for action on climate change."

It added: "We were alarmed in January by the company's announcement that it would build a coal-powered data center in Prineville, Oregon. Then, we were further dismayed by Facebook's second announcement about its data center: it plans to double its size! That means twice the energy use, twice the coal, and twice the global warming pollution."

Obviously Greenpeace has been very effective over the years at putting pressure on individuals, governments and companies. And they've picked a high profile target designed to give their campaign exposure.

And their campaign, called Cool IT, is very interesting. It's a leaderboard, which in the words of Greenpeace, "evaluates global IT companies on their leadership in the fight to stop climate change".

Greenpeace says: "The IT sector possesses the innovative spirit, technological know-how, and political influence to bring about a rapid clean energy revolution."

You can view the leaderboard here.

In summary, Cisco leads the IT field, along with Ericsson, HP and Intel. At the foot of the table are Sharp, Sony and Panasonic.

Intel is in the lower half. And here's what Greenpeace says:

"Intel has taken management of its carbon footprint seriously. As the operator of a significant number of data centers, it has made some direct investments in renewable electricity generation, and has been the largest purchaser of renewable electricity in the U.S. for the past two years.

"Unfortunately, this same commitment has not been seen in its engagement approach to climate and energy policy development. This is quite surprising from a company that has built its brand identify around an ability to drive innovation. Strong domestic climate and energy policy is what is needed to spur innovation and drive demand for IT energy solutions in the U.S."

Now there's one sentence there that really leaps out at me, and I suspect you too: Intel is the largest supplier of renewable electricity in the US.

Despite this, Intel has not been engaged enough in policy direction, according to Greenpeace. It's a strong accusation and one I'll be asking Intel about directly in the coming days.

So what marks Cisco out as the leader?

It is on the "basis of its thoroughness in documenting the impact of its solutions offerings, which reduce energy consumption in areas such as building design and energy management, telecommuting, and smart grid deployment."

"Cisco is also one of the most active companies in demonstrating leadership on climate and energy policy advocacy — particularly in the EU," says Greenpeace.

These leaderboards are always good for generating headlines. But Greenpeace has gone to some lengths to explain why firms are placed where they are in the chart. So there's food for thought for all firms mentioned. And I'll be following up with Intel soon.

Intel and McAfee: Putting security at the heart of IT

intel@monumentpr.com — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 08:21:22 GMT

It would seem that Intel's purchase of security company McAfee for more than $7bn caught a few people buy surprise and has a few people scratching their heads.

"Intel’s purchase of McAfee is a lot like a horseless-carriage vendor buying a leading supplier of buggy-whips," said Forrester analyst Andrew Jaquith.
There's even a joke doing the rounds on Twitter which goes like this:

Intel CEO: "We need antivirus, can someone buy me McAfee?" Few hours later: "Done." "Great, which version?" "Version ... ?"

So why the surprise? I guess because most people see Intel as purely a hardware firm, forgetting that the company has a long track record of working with software developers and to provide services that take advantage of the tech inside the silicon.

In fact, one of the longest running services to do just that is security. Intel has even worked with McAfee on its Active Management Technology, as well as other vendors, to help firms protect their tech assets, such as laptops, with features like remote tracking and disabling.

To my mind it makes perfect sense for the world's most powerful chip company to want to enhance the security of the computers that underpin our lives. To not do that would be strange indeed.

Cnet has a very good q&a with Renee J. James, senior vice president and general manager of the Software and Services Group at Intel.

She said: "When you think about things like power efficiency or performance or Internet connectivity as major technology areas where you have multiple investments, multiple products--security is like that. Security is applicable to our products in the data center, laptops, desktops, and any Atom-based devices--whether they're embedded, TVs, automotive, or phones and tablets. Security is a major purchase criteria and a concern. So, it spreads across the whole product line."

The Forrester analyst is negative because he feels Intel doesn't get software - which is odd when you think of all the software applications that take advantage of Intel's silicon precisely because the company does get software.

The BBC teases what I think is the key rationale:

Business editor Tim Weber writes: "Intel has recognised that online security is not just about a few hacked bank accounts, stolen company secrets or a lone PC kept virus-free.

"These days the internet reaches nearly everywhere: from smartphones to the power grid, your television to the transport system. Online threats now pose a systemic risk."

I agree 100%. Security is now so vital to technology that we can't afford to separate the software and hardware layers. We must integrate.

Power and data - the long embrace

intel@monumentpr.com — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:50:10 GMT

Power and data centres: two issues forever locked in an embrace.

As our need for data increases, so too does our need for storage. Data centres have been the solution to our cloud based world for many years. But the way we power those centres, arguably, hasn't kept pace.

So how data rich are we today?

Well, Google's Eric Schmidt said recently that every two days we now create as much information as we did from the dawn of civilization up until 2003 .

That’s something like five exabytes of data, he said.

Five exabytes? That equates to 250,000 years of DVD-quality video every 48 hours.

With companies like Google providing the tools for this content explosion and Intel creating the hardware that powers those tools we need solutions to our power needs.

And it will only get more pressing. The amount of data we are creating is growing exponentially. Intel is forging ahead into the world of embeddable microprocessors. Soon we will be harvesting, creating and consuming data at an almost inconceivable rate.

It's all got to be stored somewhere. The cloud sounds so nebulous and so intangible but everywhere data is stored 'out there' you can bet there is a very real data centre storing and serving that data with lots of storage and lots of computing power.

And they need power. Intel has aided the battle to create ever more efficient data centres thanks to Moore's Law. Each generation of its microprocessors are more efficient than the previous. In short, you can do more with less.

But what about a firm like Google for whom information management is the key to their success. How are they dealing with the power conundrum?

Interestingly, they are pledging to use ever greater amounts of wind power.

The basic points of their plan in their own words:

We will purchasing 114MW of wind power for twenty years; other than that we cannot disclose specific terms of the deal.
We think this is a structure that makes long term financial sense for Google. Through the long term purchase of renewable energy at a predetermined price, we’re partially protecting ourselves against future increases in power prices. This is a case where buying green is simply the right business decision.
We’re buying 114MW of wind power over 20 years. NextEra will be able to debt finance the project based upon our commitment to take on power for such a long term, presumably at much more favorable terms than otherwise given that they have a credit-worthy offtaker committed for 20 years.

So what does this mean? Well, 114MW is enough to power 'several' data centres according to Google. In context, 114MW is about a third of the power generated by the 33 onshore wind farms in Wales. It's a small start but an important one, I would argue.

In statistical terms all data centres are aiming for a low PUE rating.

PUE puts a focus on maximizing the power devoted to the equipment running applications and minimizing the power consumed by support functions like cooling and power distribution

For example, a PUE of 2.0 indicates that for every watt of IT power, an additional watt is consumed to cool and distribute power to the IT equipment.

So in those terms this is the kinds of rating data centres are aiming for:

Scenario PUE

Current Trends 1.9

Improved Operations 1.7

Best Practices 1.3

State-of-the-Art 1.2

To get to below 1.2 PUE firms are having to rethink their energy needs and how they build and operate data centres. HP has announced a new modular data centre construction system (pictured above) which reduces the PUE to 1.12. Google says its data centres are hitting 1.12 also

Leading IT firms have come together to form The Green Grid. With the aim of improving data centre efficiency and understanding the power needs and issues.

There's a long way to go but with our appetite for data not about to diminish, it's essential work.

A drive of the future?

steve.bell@catalysis.co.uk — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:45:23 GMT

I had a little epiphany the other day following a conversation with James McMahon from services company Atos Origin. The company tested Intel Solid State Drives (SSD) to establish whether they offered a viable alternative to traditional spinning hard drives. And they did - in a striking way.

McMahon said a three month pilot revealed that each year the company could save 540 unproductive user and engineering hours, disk crashes could be reduced by factor of three and 2,000 unproductive hours could be saved from fewer disk crashes simply by replacing hard drives in laptops with SSDs.

For me the realisation was that we're so used to to many computing components we rarely question their validity - even when new technologies may supersede them. It seems to be a case of conventional wisdom always being accepted, rather than sometimes questioned.

But progress across all areas of human endeavour is characterised by a willingness to ask questions and roll back accepted boundaries. Its not widely known but Intel is a leader in developing SSD drives and the development of memory products is a little known aspect of Intel's history, for instance the Schottky bipolar random access memory (RAM) back in 1969.

We've come a long way since then - and long may progress continue.

Faster than the speed of sound - a lot faster

steve.bell@catalysis.co.uk — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:18:59 GMT

Ever fancied strapping yourself in front of three engines, two of them from jet aeroplanes, hitting a go button and hurtling along at a speed designed to propel you beyond 1,000 miles per hour? Me neither. I tend to like my life these days.

But seriously this is what the folks at the BLOODHOUND project are planning. And of course, its safe, because they're seasoned veterans at this sort of thing. Headed up by Richard Noble OBE, this team have already set up a land-speed record that broke the speed of sound.

And they've also got wider ambitions. Ute Gorjzewski, from the Intel side, explained to me that the project aims to also inspire children to become the scientists, engineers and mathematicians of the future because just being a racing car driver would not be enough to make projects like this happen.

Using the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series in a HPC cluster it was a piece of cake to develop the car's body shape down to the last nanometre. And this is a fine science indeed. Minute inaccuracies in the body shape's aerodynamics could potentially send it spiralling into orbit... or it could become the world's fastest plough. So getting it wrong isn't an option.

Lots of schools have hooked into the project and are basing educational activities around the project, and Intel is sponsoring it.

It's exciting, compelling and inspiring indeed.

New Business PC Portal Launched

jeff.hewlett@intel.com — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:36:17 GMT

Intel have launched a new business PC portal which brings together lots of information that will make an IT decision maker's life just a little bit easier.

This portal is for OEMs, resellers and end users; small businesses large businesses and government organisations. Very simple layout and easy to select your company size, type of project and local language.

Whatever your question;

•How can I get the best ROI?
•What is Intel vPro Technology?
•Where can I find a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) estimator?
•Looking for White Papers and Case Studies?

All the answers can be found right here http://intelbusinesspctools.com

Very interested to hear your comments, feedback on using the tools, are they helpful?

Team Led by Professor Stephen Hawking Chooses an Intel Xeon 7500 based Cluster for Computational Cosmology

robert.j.maskell@intel.com — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:49:28 GMT

“Recent progress towards a complete understanding of the universe has been impressive, but many puzzles remain,” said Professor Stephen Hawking, principal investigator, COSMOS. “Cosmology is now a precise science, and we need supercomputers to calculate what our theories of the early universe predict and test them against observations of the present universe.”

Intel continues to underpin the infrastructure required to deliver new discoveries in the field of Cosmology. Clearly customers value the scalability, memory capacity and efficiency of the Intel Xeon 7500 processors.

You can read the full SGI Press Release at: http://www.sgi.com/company_info/newsroom/press_releases/2010/august/cosmos.html

8,000 Core Nhm-EP Cluster @ Southampton University featured on the BBC

robert.j.maskell@intel.com — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:15:46 GMT

Southampton University's 8,000 Core Intel Nhm-EP Cluster made its second appearance on the BBC in an online feature at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10859175 and was the 2nd highest watched video of the day.

Delivered by OCF and based on IBM iDataplex technology, this is now one of the fastest Supercomputers in the UK.

Would You Give Your Laptop a Poison Pill?

jeff.hewlett@intel.com — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:30:23 GMT

What a stupid question, why would anyone want to give their own laptop a ‘Poison Pill’?

Consider this, about 2 million laptops disappear every year and the number is growing. Almost all of them are never seen again.
It’s bad enough losing a personal laptop as it can contain critical personal information. Imagine how much more serious it would be if you run a small business and your laptop disappears one day. Think of the consequences, what data do you have on your laptop hard drive;

Company accounting
Employees pay details, bank accounts
Employee personal data
Customer names and addresses
Customer banking/credit card information

No telling what would happen if this gets into the wrong hands and it most likely will at some point. Plus you have also got to replace an expensive company asset.

I have seen plenty of small business surveys where respondents cite security as a top priority but often this only extends to antivirus, antispyware and firewall etc. Antitheft technology is relatively new but deployment is growing rapidly and it’s not just for the NHS and MoD.

How does Antitheft technology work? Quite simple really, if your laptop goes missing or gets stolen a timer or internet-activated ‘poison pill’ permanently disables the laptop rendering the data secure and the laptop unusable. Click here to see more information and a great short video Antitheft Homepage

A disabled laptop can display a customizable recovery message with contact information to help return the laptop to its rightful owner.

For those of you old enough to be car drivers in the late 80’s and early 90’s you will remember the pandemic outbreak of car radio thefts. Car radio theft on this scale was dramatically reduced by adding security features; PIN codes that had to be re-entered when the radio was disconnected from the vehicle. Can Antitheft technology for laptops have the same effect?

A holiday with IT and children

intel@monumentpr.com — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:40:59 GMT

Time was, a holiday meant escaping the trappings of the modern world. Perhaps under canvas, or on the beach with just a towel and the sun cream.

Communication with the outside world was a one-way postcard with a few scribbles, or finding the random English newspaper a few days out of date and spending five times the face value for it.

But then came the mobile phone. For a while the exorbitant cost of calls and texts made for only a few snatched moments down the line.

But then came the smartphone and the laptop - and crucially wi-fi. Wi-fi is probably one of Intel's greatest successes - and yes, I'm well aware Intel didn't create the technology or the standard. One of the most important driving forces of wi-fi adoption was the inclusion of wi-fi adaptors on the chipset of Intel powered machines. It gave wi-fi a huge boost.

I'm heading off for holiday soon, but I won't be taking a break from my technology. And less and less are, it would seem.

I was struck with the truth of that when I saw BBC journalist Rory Cellan Jones' Twitter feed last week. He's been on holiday in California - but that didn't mean he left the technology behind. First off, he was asking about putting DVDs on his iPad.

And then when in the mountains of Yosemite national park he found time to use his phone to record an audioboo - an audio snapshot diary.

Listen!

It made me realise how technology is now a part of our lives 24/7.

And with me on my trip will be my smartphone - essential for checking e-mails, Twitter, and spontaneous surfing. I'm also taking my iPad - mainly as an e-reader as I've loaded it up with books. I'm also taking my (Intel powered) Macbook Pro. Some people may find it strange that I'm taking both iPad and laptop but the reason is quite simple: I need to do some work and the iPad just doesn't have the flexibility I need. While I away I will need to edit some audio, some photos and write some documents.

And for that I need the laptop with me.

Luckily, the house I'll be staying in comes with wi-fi so I won't have to worry about those data charges!

The essential IT bloggers and tweeters to follow

intel@monumentpr.com — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:58:58 GMT

My RSS feed groans under the weight of feeds everytime I do a refresh and I know I really should prune the 438 different feeds I have.

So I've been thinking about the essential IT bloggers and tweeters I follow and thought I'd pass on my recommendations - as long as you pass on yours.

Ed Bott - a great journalist about Windows, with a great strength in debunking myths and half truths around Windows products.

I recommend his Microsoft Report column highly. His Twitter is here.

Jack Schofield is a veteran of the UK computer industry and a top notch journalist. He has been writing Ask Jack, his IT advice column, at the Guardian for many years.

John Gruber has been writing acerbic blog posts about Apple for sometime. He is not to everyone's taste, but he really gets the Apple developer community, and really understands the Cupertino's aims and goals.

Mary Jo Foley is another Microsoft-focused blogger at Zdnet. And like Bott she is essential reading for understanding what's going on at Redmond.

Robert Scoble used to work for Microsoft as an evangelist, but is now a blogger, Tweeter and social media legend who spends most of his time meeting new tech firms. If you want the inside track of whats coming down the track, he's the man.

John Toigo is THE man when it comes to storage and data management. He blogs at Drunken Data.

And for the web, can I recommend Jeremy Owyang.

Dell, HP to resell Oracle's operating systems - our take on the news

sukhjit.k.dhillon@intel.com — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:50:53 GMT

By now, most of you will have heard about this, i.e. Oracle's recent announcement that HP and Dell are to certify and resell the Oracle Solaris, Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM operating systems, on x86-based servers.

I recently spoke to a couple of Intel experts, Richard George & Alan Priestley about their thoughts on the annoucement and what it meant for our customers:

Their take on this was that the announcement is good news for customers in that it provides a route for customers looking to move from proprietary RISC solutions on to standard Intel Architecture-based platforms whilst still retaining a Solaris based operating system environment. Furthermore, they said that it also provides IT organisations that have already deployed Solaris on x86 servers the opportunity to continue to utilise this environment on the latest generations of Intel Architecture servers.

They added that, given the recent speculation around Oracle's support for Solaris on 3rd party x86 platforms IT organisations should continue to have vigorous discussions with Oracle as part of the deployment planning process so as to ensure they get the long term support (both technical and pricing) necessary to justify staying with the Solaris environment rather than considering moving to either Linux or Windows based solutions.

What do you think about the development?