IBM says it has produced the world's first 7nm (nanometer) chip, arriving well ahead of competitors, thanks to advances in its chip technology.Chip makers are now producing 14nm processors, and the next big project for Intel and other chip makers has been the 10nm chip. IBM, in its announcement today, has upended the chip industry's development path.A 7nm chip will hold about four times as many transistors in the same area as a 14nm chip, said Richard Doherty, research director of Envisioneering, a technology assessment and market research firm. In terms of chip development, IBM has "moved the field goal out," he said.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 26 crazy and scary things the TSA has found on travelers
"For IBM to conquer 7nm without stopping at the 10nm that Intel is supposedly tackling, means that IBM has secured the future two steps out," Doherty said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
United Airlines grounded its planes for about an hour on Wednesday, reportedly because of a router failure. That’s a wide path of destruction for one piece of equipment, but it’s the kind of hazard that comes with networking, where each piece is always linked to everything else.The grounding, which started around 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, caused delays across United’s routes and stranded passengers. It came on the same day that a computer-related outage halted trading on the New York Stock Exchange, and just weeks after another technology-related service interruption at United.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
United Airlines grounded its planes for about an hour on Wednesday, reportedly because of a router failure. That’s a wide path of destruction for one piece of equipment, but it’s the kind of hazard that comes with networking, where each piece is always linked to everything else.
The grounding, which started around 8:30 a.m. Eastern time, caused delays across United’s routes and stranded passengers. It came on the same day that a computer-related outage halted trading on the New York Stock Exchange, and just weeks after another technology-related service interruption at United.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The New York Stock Exchange suffered its biggest outage in more than 10 years on Wednesday when an unspecified technical glitch forced a 3.5-hour long suspension of trading.The cause of the problem was not immediately disclosed, but the exchange quickly ruled out a cyberattack.Problems began during the morning and at 11:32am EDT the NYSE halted all trading to prevent the effects of the “internal technical issue” from affecting the overall market.“NYSE has temporarily suspended trading in all symbols,” the market said in a message to traders. “All open orders will be cancelled.”Updates for the public were few and far between during the duration of the outage, although the NYSE was said to be in constant contact with the Treasury Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella just unveiled the latest of the “tough choices” Microsoft is making to streamline its business, and it’s a doozy: the company is significantly cutting back its smartphone ambitions almost two years after announcing it would acquire Nokia’s Devices and Services business in an attempt to play a greater role in this market. In an email to employees, Nadella said that the company was moving away from being a phone manufacturer and towards creating a “vibrant Windows ecosystem” that includes a group of first-party devices. As a result, the company will be dismissing around 7,800 employees, with the majority of job cuts impacting people in Microsoft’s phone hardware business. The restructuring also included another aftershock from the Nokia acquisition: Microsoft will take a massive $7.6 billion write-down on the acquisition itself along with a restructuring charge of between $750 and $850 million.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When it began a year ago, there were 104 teams competing for $4 million in prize money in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)’s ambitious tournament -- known as the Cyber Grand Challenge (CGC) -- to see who can build the best fully automatic network defense system.+More on Network World: NASA’s cool, radical and visionary concepts+This week DARPA said that after a couple dry runs and a significant qualifying event the field of CGC teams is down to seven who will now compete in the final battle slated to take place at DEFCON in Las Vegas in August 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
United Airlines passengers were facing major travel delays on Wednesday after the carrier suspended all U.S. flights due to computer problems.In an emailed statement, United said it had a “network connectivity issue” and is working to resolve the situation. The airline didn’t elaborate on the exact nature of the connectivity issue nor did it provide a timeline for when the problem would be fixed.Separately, the Federal Aviation Administration said United flights were grounded because of ”automation issues.” The FAA didn’t immediately reply to a request for more information on the problem.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft is scaling down its mobile phone activities, writing off the entire value of the former Nokia smartphone business it bought last year and laying off almost one-third of that business’ staff.
The company will no longer try to build a standalone phone business, but instead plans to build a Windows ecosystem that includes its own devices, CEO Satya Nadella told staff in an email announcing the changes.
Up to 7,800 jobs will be cut, most of them in the phone business. The cuts come in addition to 18,000 layoffs announced last year: Those cuts included around half of the 25,000 staff who joined Microsoft from Nokia.
+ A LOOK BACK: Bloodiest tech industry layoffs of 2014, so far +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Phase IIImage by NASANASA this month announced a variety of technology concept program for continued study under Phase II of the space agency's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program. NIAC funds programs NASA says are “visionary ideas that could transform future NASA missions with the creation of breakthroughs - radically better or entirely new aerospace concepts…” The projects include plans for metallic lithium combustion, submarines that explore the oceans of icy moons of the outer planets, and a swarm of tiny satellites that map gravity fields and characterize the properties of small moons and asteroids. Take a look.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft plans a new round of layoffs that could affect its hardware and smartphones businesses, besides other parts of the company, according to a newspaper report.The job cuts will be in addition to the 18,000 staff the company said it would let go about a year ago, The New York Times reported, quoting people briefed on the plans who requested anonymity. The announcement of the cuts could come as early as Wednesday, according to the report, which did not specify the number of staff that will be laid off. Microsoft had over 118,000 employees globally at the end of March, the report said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Oracle has been given a September trial date for its lawsuit against Rimini Street, which sells cut-price maintenance and support services to Oracle software customers.Oracle is seeking US$200 million in damages from the lawsuit, which targets Rimini Street and its CEO, Seth Ravin. A federal court judge in Nevada set the trial date last week, Oracle said Tuesday.The two sides are fighting over whether Rimini Street’s business model is legal, and observers say the case could establish ground rules for companies that provide maintenance services for other vendors’ software.The case is important for Oracle because the company gets a big chunk of its revenue from software maintenance contracts. Rimini Street provides services to customers of both Oracle and SAP for about half the rates they normally charge.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Facebook is building a new data center in Fort Worth, Texas, that will be powered entirely by renewable energy.The company will invest at least US$500 million in the 110-acre site, which is expected to come online late next year.The new location will be the social-networking giant’s fifth such facility, joining existing data centers in Altoona, Iowa; Prineville, Oregon; Forest City, North Carolina; and Luleå, Sweden. It will feature equipment based on the latest in Facebook’s Open Compute Project data-center hardware designs, it said.For sustainability, the Fort Worth data center will be cooled using outdoor air rather than energy-intensive air conditioners, thanks to technology it pioneered in its Oregon location. Those designs are now offered through the Open Compute Project.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google has picked Austin, Texas, as the second location to test its self-driving vehicles, expanding the trials beyond Mountain View, California.One of Google’s self-driving Lexus sport utility vehicles is already on Austin’s streets, the company said Tuesday. The vehicle, which has a driver onboard, is driving around a few square miles north and northeast of downtown Austin.Google didn’t mention if the self-driving car prototype it developed will also be tested in Austin or how many Lexus vehicles will appear on the city’s roads.Until now, public road tests of Google’s self-driving technology took place only around Mountain View, where the search company has its headquarters. Expanding the trial area will allow Google to test its software in a location with different road conditions, traffic patterns and driving situations, the company said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
EMC is selling its Syncplicity file-sharing and collaboration business to private investment company Skyview Capital for an undisclosed sum.EMC bought Syncplicity in May 2012 in response to the growth of mobile computing and bring-your-own-device policies in enterprises. Syncplicity is one of a host of cloud-based file services, including Box, Dropbox and Google Drive, that have emerged in the past few years. It’s available for iOS and Android as well as PC operating systems.In the three years it owned Syncplicity, EMC adapted the system so enterprises could use it for access to data in their own storage systems. The company also added central controls over how specific types of files could be shared and with whom.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google’s self-driving cars were involved in two accidents on the roads of Mountain View, California, during June, but humans driving the other vehicles were at fault in both cases.No injuries were reported in either incident, Google said in its monthly report that lists accidents involving its fleet of autonomous cars. Both collisions involved Google’s Lexus sport utility vehicles that are equipped with autonomous driving technology. Last month, Google also began testing on the streets of Mountain View another one of the self-driving prototype cars it has built.In one accident, a car travelling around 5 miles per hour hit the rear bumper of a Google Lexus that had stopped at a red light. Both cars ended up with small scrapes on their bumpers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A prototype wave energy device advanced with backing from the Energy Department and U.S. Navy has passed its first grid-connected open-sea pilot testing.According to the DOE, the device, called Azura, was recently launched and installed in a 30-meter test berth at the Navy’s Wave Energy Test Site (WETS) in Kaneohe Bay, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.+More on Network World: 16 facts about our slowly mutating energy consumption+This pilot testing is now giving U.S. researchers the opportunity to evaluate the long-term performance of the nation’s first grid-connected 20-kilowatt wave energy converter (WEC) device to be independently tested by a third party—the University of Hawaii—in the open ocean, the DOE said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft is offering academic researchers in the U.S. a chance to get their hands on its HoloLens augmented reality headgear later this year with a new program that will award funding and hardware to a handful of projects that will put the new gear to use.The company put out a request for proposals Monday seeking projects that will help “to better understand the role and possible applications for holographic computing in society.” Microsoft will pick “approximately five” proposals and give the researchers behind them a grant of up to $100,000 and two HoloLens development kits. In particular, Microsoft said it’s interested in seeing its technology used for things like data visualization, new forms of collaboration, interactive art and new teaching tools.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel’s fifth-generation Broadwell CPU has been the default laptop processor of choice since its debut in January, but it’s been difficult to get a real bead on just how much of an improvement it really was over its Haswell predecessor.That’s because unlike desktops, where it’s easy to control the environment they run in, laptops are complete packages. I tried to compare the updated ThinkPad Carbon X1 Carbon with Broadwell to the Haswell ThinkPad Carbon X1, for instance, but it wasn’t quite apples-to-apples. I initially determined that the Broadwell CPU was significantly faster than the Haswell. Something didn’t ring right, though, and ultimately I decided Lenovo’s redesign of the laptop likely contributed to the results and really made it useless to try to draw any conclusion on the CPUs themselves.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.RADIUS-as-a-ServiceKey features: JumpCloud’s RADIUS-as-a-Service (RaaS) provides a secure, cloud-based solution that enables IT admins to better control WiFi and VPN access without having to install separate RADIUS services or appliances. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Uber Technologies is suspending its UberPop service in France, after a bitter fight with taxi drivers who say the service breaks the law.The company plans to remove access to UberPop from its mobile app in France from 8 p.m. local time Friday, it said in a blog post.UberPop allows passengers to hail rides from unlicensed drivers and is similar to the Uber X service offered in the United States and other countries.Uber has been disrupting transportation markets around the world—nowhere more so than in Paris, where taxi drivers recently blocked highways and airport entrances with burning tires in protest at the company’s behavior. The protests also reportedly included attacks on Uber drivers, their vehicles and passengers. The taxi drivers are angry because, they say, UberPop breaches a new law on hiring vehicles with a driver that entered effect on Jan. 1.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here