The Parallella Board

The Parallella computer platform is an open source, energy efficient, high performance, credit card sized computer based on the Epiphany multicore chips from Adapteva. This affordable platform is designed for developing and implementing high performance, parallel processing. Applications developed to take advantage of the on-board Epiphany parallel processor can achieve unprecedented performance at the lowest power in the industry.
The Epiphany 16 or 64 core chips consists of a scalable array of simple RISC processors programmable in C/C++ or a parallel programming framework like OpenCL. The mesh of independent cores are connected together with a fast on chip network within a single shared memory architecture.

The 66-core version of the Parallella board delivers over 90 GFLOPS while consuming only 5 Watts under typical work loads. For certain applications, this would provide more raw performance than a high end server costing thousands of dollars and consuming 400 Watts.

Google Driverless Car

Google’s driverless car comes equipped with eight different types of sensor.
The most noticeable is the rotating roof-top Lidar – a camera that uses an array of 32 or 64 lasers to measure the distance to objects to build up a 3D map at a range of 200m, letting the car "see" hazards.
The car also sports another set of “eyes”, a standard camera that points through the windscreen. This also looks for nearby hazards - such as pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists - and reads road signs and detects traffic lights.
Speaking of other motorists, bumper-mounted radar, which is already used in intelligent cruise control, keeps track of other vehicles in front of and behind the car.
Externally, the car has a rear-mounted aerial that receives geo-location information from GPS satellites and an ultrasonic sensor on one of the rear wheels that monitors the car’s movements.
Internally, the car has altimeters, gyroscopes and a tachometer (a rev-counter) to give even finer measurements on the car’s position, all of which combine to give it the highly accurate data needed to operate safely.

How Google’s driverless cars work

No single sensor is responsible for making Google's self-driving car work. GPS data, for example, is not accurate enough to keep the car on the road, let alone the correct lane. Instead, the driverless cars use data from all eight of their sensors, interpreted by Google's software, to keep you safe and get you from A to B.
The data that Google's software receives is used to accurately identify other road users, their behaviour patterns, and what commonly used highway signals mean.
For example, the self-driving Google car can successfully identify a bike and understand that if the cyclist extends an arm, the person intends to make a manoeuvre. The driverless car then knows to slow down and give the bike enough space to operate safely.

How Google Works

• Googlebot, a web crawler that finds and fetches web pages.
• The indexer that sorts every word on every page and stores the resulting index of words in a huge database.
• The query processor, which compares your search query to the index and recommends the documents that it considers most relevant.

Let’s take a closer look at each part.

1. Googlebot, Google’s Web Crawler

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Googlebot consists of many computers requesting and fetching pages much more quickly than you can with your web browser. In fact, Googlebot can request thousands of different pages simultaneously. To avoid overwhelming web servers, or crowding out requests from human users, Googlebot deliberately makes requests of each individual web server more slowly than it’s capable of doing.

Unfortunately, spammers figured out how to create automated bots that bombarded the add URL form with millions of URLs pointing to commercial propaganda. Google rejects those URLs submitted through its Add URL form that it suspects are trying to deceive users by employing tactics such as including hidden text or links on a page, stuffing a page with irrelevant words, cloaking (aka bait and switch), using sneaky redirects, creating doorways, domains, or sub-domains with substantially similar content, sending automated queries to Google, and linking to bad neighbors. So now the Add URL form also has a test: it displays some squiggly letters designed to fool automated “letter-guessers”; it asks you to enter the letters you see — something like an eye-chart test to stop spambots.

2. Google’s Indexer

Googlebot gives the indexer the full text of the pages it finds. These pages are stored in Google’s index database. This index is sorted alphabetically by search term, with each index entry storing a list of documents in which the term appears and the location within the text where it occurs. This data structure allows rapid access to documents that contain user query terms.
To improve search performance, Google ignores (doesn’t index) common words called stop words (such as the, is, on, or, of, how, why, as well as certain single digits and single letters). Stop words are so common that they do little to narrow a search, and therefore they can safely be discarded. The indexer also ignores some punctuation and multiple spaces, as well as converting all letters to lowercase, to improve Google’s performance.

3. Google’s Query Processor

The query processor has several parts, including the user interface (search box), the “engine” that evaluates queries and matches them to relevant documents, and the results formatter.
PageRank is Google’s system for ranking web pages. A page with a higher PageRank is deemed more important and is more likely to be listed above a page with a lower PageRank.
Google considers over a hundred factors in computing a PageRank and determining which documents are most relevant to a query, including the popularity of the page, the position and size of the search terms within the page, and the proximity of the search terms to one another on the page. A patent application discusses other factors that Google considers when ranking a page. Visit SEOmoz.org’s report for an interpretation of the concepts and the practical applications contained in Google’s patent application.
Google also applies machine-learning techniques to improve its performance automatically by learning relationships and associations within the stored data. For example, the spelling-correcting system uses such techniques to figure out likely alternative spellings. Google closely guards the formulas it uses to calculate relevance; they’re tweaked to improve quality and performance, and to outwit the latest devious techniques used by spammers.
Indexing the full text of the web allows Google to go beyond simply matching single search terms. Google gives more priority to pages that have search terms near each other and in the same order as the query. Google can also match multi-word phrases and sentences. Since Google indexes HTML code in addition to the text on the page, users can restrict searches on the basis of where query words appear, e.g., in the title, in the URL, in the body, and in links to the page, options offered by Google’s Advanced Search Form and Using Search Operators (Advanced Operators).
Let’s see how Google processes a query.

FIRST PROGRAMMER

Ada_Lovelace

Early Years

Ada Lovelace, born as Augusta Ada Byron, was the only legitimate child of the famous poet Lord George Gordon Byron. Lord Byron's marriage to Ada's mother, Lady Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron, was not a happy one. Lady Byron separated from her husband only weeks after their daughter was born. A few months later, Lord Byron left England, and Ada never saw her father again. He died in Greece when Ada was 8 years old.
Ada had an unusual upbringing for an aristocratic girl in the mid-1800s. At her mother's insistence, tutors taught her mathematics and science.

Babbage and the Analytical Engine

Around the age of 17, Ada met Charles Babbage, a mathematician and inventor. The pair became friends, and the much older Babbage served as a mentor to Ada. Through Babbage, Ada began studying advanced mathematics with University of London professor Augustus de Morgan.
Ada was fascinated by Babbage's ideas. Known as the father of the computer, he invented the difference engine, which was meant to perform mathematical calculations. Ada got a chance to look at the machine before it was finished, and was captivated by it. Babbage also created plans for another device known as the analytical engine, designed to handle more complex calculations.
Ada was later asked to translate an article on Babbage's analytical engine that had been written by Italian engineer Luigi Federico Menabrea for a Swiss journal. She not only translated the original French text in English, but also added her own thoughts and ideas on the machine. Her notes ended up being three times longer than the original article. Her work was published in 1843, in an English science journal. Ada used only the initials "A.A.L.," for Augusta Ada Lovelace, in the publication.
In her notes, Ada described how codes could be created for the device to handle letters and symbols along with numbers. She also theorized a method for the engine to repeat a series of instructions, a process known as looping that computer programs use today. Ada also offered up other forward-thinking concepts in the article. For her work, Ada is often considered to be the first computer programmer.
Ada's article attracted little attention when she was alive. In her later years, she tried to develop mathematical schemes for winning at gambling. Unfortunately, her schemes failed and put her in financial peril. Ada died from uterine cancer in London on November 27, 1852. She was buried next to her father, in the graveyard of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Nottingham, England.

Most Powerful Personal Computer

The CoreMC computer can be equipped with up to dual Xeon 8-core processors (16-cores total), 768GB of RAM, 21TB of hard drive storage, video cards and audio interfaces. Based on the Windows 8 (64-bit) operating system, CoreMC is capable of running any Windows compatible software for music production, HD video editing or even gaming.

Each CoreMC is housed in a black brushed aluminum chassis equipped with four oversized 140mm fans providing ample airflow, yet able to rotate at reduced speeds for near silent operation. A front name plate is part of the design and acts as a baffle to further reduce operational noise. Extras include removable dust filters to keep the interior of the system clean, shock mounting for hard drives and optical drives to reduce noise and vibration, and anti-vibration pads for the power supply. For those needing to overclock the system, four coolant hose ports are provided on the rear of the chassis with star grommets.

Rack versions of the CoreMC are available in a compact 4U (15.25" depth) chassis as well as a full size version with redundant power supplies.

Specifications :

Processor Type: Xeon LGA 2011
Processor Options: 6-core (2.0GHz), 8-core (2.0GHz) and 8-core (2.9GHz) (Single Processor or Dual Processor configuration. Both processors must be the same)
Number of RAM Slots: 12 per Processor (24 Total)
Size of RAM: 4GB / 8GB / 16GB / 32GB
Maximum Amount of RAM: 768GB
Drives (2) x 2.5" HD Bay: 128SSD, 256SSD and 512SSD or (5) x 3.5" HD Bay: 1TB(7200RPM), 2TB(7200RPM), 3TB(7200RPM) and 4TB(7200RPM).
Optical Drive: DVD / CD Burner and Blu-ray Burner
Audio Interface Options:
Echo MIA MINI Digital Audio card: (2ins balanced, 2outs balanced, MIDI, S/PDIF, 24bit-96kHz)
RME Hammerfall HDSP 9652: (3 x ADAT digital I/O, 1 x SPDIF digital I/O, S/PDIF, 1 x Word clock I/O (BNC), 1 x ADAT Sync In (9-pin D-type), 2 x MIDI I/O, 32 channels high-speed MIDI, 12 channels 96 kHz/24 bit for record and playback on ADAT optical) IF (in/out), MIDI (in/out) +1 direct keyboard MIDI out, Sample Rate (24bit 96KHz)
RME HDSPe RayDAT: (36 Inputs / 36 Outputs, 4 x ADAT I/O (up to 192 kHz via S/MUX4), 1 x AES/EBU I/O (192 kHz), 1 x SPDIF I/O (192 kHZ), 2 x MIDI I/O, Supported sample frequencies: Internally 32, 44.1, 48, 64, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192 kHz. Externally 28 kHz - 200 kHz)
Video Options:
Included: 1GB High-performance video card.
SLI video card: Up to 3-way SLI GTX 680 video cards.
Video Processing GPU card: Quadro 6000 card.
Music Computing software: SonicSource VSTi (3000+ sounds / 16GB)
Microsoft: Windows 8 Professional (64-bit)
4 USB 2.0 Port (external), 4 USB 2.0 headers (internal)
FireWire: Optional 400 / 800
MIDI: Optional
Ethernet: 1000BASE-T

Light pens

Light pens were an early form of touchscreen technology, but they worked in a completely different way to modern touchscreens. In old-style computer screens, the picture was drawn by an electron beam that scanned back and forth, just like in a cathode-ray tube television. The pen contained a photoelectric cell that detected the electron beam as it passed by, sending a signal to the computer down a cable. Since the computer knew exactly where the electron beam was at any moment, it could figure out where the pen was pointing. Light pens could be used either to select menu items or text from the screen (similar to a mouse) or, as shown in the picture here, to draw computer graphics.

Drawing on a screen with a light pen back in 1973. Although you can't see it from this photo, the light pen is actually connected to the computer by a long electric cable. Photo by courtesy of NASA Ames Research Center (NASA-ARC).

How touchscreens work

Different kinds of touchscreen work in different ways. Some can sense only one finger at a time and get extremely confused if you try to press in two places at once. Others can easily detect and distinguish more than one key press at once. These are some of the main technologies:

Resistive

Resistive touchscreens (currently the most popular technology) work a bit like "transparent keyboards" overlaid on top of the screen. There's a flexible upper layer of conducting polyester plastic bonded to a rigid lower layer of conducting glass and separated by an insulating membrane. When you press on the screen, you force the polyester to touch the glass and complete a circuit—just like pressing the key on a keyboard. A chip inside the screen figures out the coordinates of the place you touched.

When you press a resistive touchscreen, you push two conducting layers together so they make contact, a bit like an ordinary computer keyboard.

Capacitive

These screens are made from multiple layers of glass. The inner layer conducts electricity and so does the outer layer, so effectively the screen behaves like two electrical conductors separated by an insulator—in other words, a capacitor. When you bring your finger up to the screen, you alter the electrical field by a certain amount that varies according to where your hand is. Capacitive screens can be touched in more than one place at once. Unlike most other types of touchscreen, they don't work if you touch them with a plastic stylus (because the plastic is an insulator and stops your hand from affecting the electric field).

In a capacitive touchscreen, the whole screen is like a capacitor. When you bring your finger up close, you affect the electric field that exists between the inner and outer glass.

Infrared

Just like the magic eye beams in an intruder alarm, an infrared touchscreen uses a grid pattern of LEDs and light-detector photocells arranged on opposite sides of the screen. The LEDs shine infrared light in front of the screen—a bit like an invisible spider's web. If you touch the screen at a certain point, you interrupt two or more beams. A microchip inside the screen can calculate where you touched by seeing which beams you interrupted. The touchscreen on Sony Reader ebooks (like the one pictured in our top photo) works this way. Since you're interrupting a beam, infrared screens work just as well whether you use your finger or a stylus.

An infrared touchscreen uses the same magic-eye technology that Tom Cruise had to dodge in the movie Mission Impossible. When your fingers move up close, they break invisible beams that pass over the surface of the screen between LEDs on one side and photocells on the other.

Surface Acoustic Wave

Surprisingly, this touchscreen technology detects your fingers using sound instead of light. Ultrasonic sound waves (too high pitched for humans to hear) are generated at the edges of the screen and reflected back and forth across its surface. When you touch the screen, you interrupt the sound beams and absorb some of their energy. The screen's microchip controller figures out from this where exactly you touched the screen.

A surface-acoustic wave screen is a bit like an infrared screen, but your finger interrupts high-frequency sound beams rippling over the surface instead of invisible light beams.

Near field imaging

Have you noticed how an old-style radio can buzz and whistle if you move your hand toward it? That's because your body affects the electromagnetic field that incoming radio waves create in and around the antenna. The closer you get, the more effect you have. Near field imaging (NFI) touchscreens work a similar way. As you move your finger up close, you change the electric field on the glass screen, which instantly registers your touch. Much more robust than some of the other technologies, NFI screens are suitable for rough-and-tough environments (like military use). Unlike most of the other technologies, they can also detect touches from pens, styluses, or hands wearing gloves.