Autor: HCFG

Intel on Monday announced a new brawny HPC processor and a family of network fabric components that incorporates silicon photonics technology. The new chip, the next-generation of the Xeon Phi family, comes with up to 16 gigabytes of high-performance memory and more than 60 computing cores. The fabric lineup, called Omni Scale will include PCIe adapters, switches and software, as well as director switches that replace electrical transceivers with silicon photonics for improved speed and fewer cables. Intel is promising better performance and greater efficiency with the new tech — something it might need considering the introduction of ARM-plus-GPU-based chips into the HPC market that Intel presently dominates.

Americans are buying more gadgets than ever before, but those gadgets are not using more energy collectively. Why not? Well, according to a new report from the research firm Fraunhofer USA and commissioned by the Consumer Electronics Association, more efficient TV technology and a switch from desktop and laptop computers to tablets delivered a sizable drop in the total energy use by gadgets in the U.S. in 2013.

That’s good news for the argument that technology and innovation can help solve some of the world’s most pressing issues, and it also shows that there’s considerable room for energy efficiency upgrades for digital devices. A similar situation was discovered with the increasing energy use of the world’s data centers. The CEA report is also an indicator that the push for energy efficient standards by government groups like Energy Star is working, to some extent.

Broken, tossed TV, courtesy of sinada /…

The Opera browser is available for Linux again, albeit just in the developer stream for now.

The Norwegian browser maker used to have something for Linux until around the time, in early 2013, that it abandoned its own framework and rendering engine in favor of Chromium and WebKit. Pre-revamp version 12.x was the last with Linux support, and there is indeed an open-source project called Otter Browser that aims to recreate that version.

Now, probably to the surprise of some, Opera is back on the free operating system with the upcoming version 24. It’s in the low-stability developer stream and right now it’s only guaranteed to work on Ubuntu Linux 64-bit with the Unity or Gnome shell, but it’s there.

As the Opera team said in a Monday blog post:

Many of us at Opera use Linux as our primary platform. It’s great to be able to try…

We made it out to The Elegance at Hershey 2014 in Hershey, PA where Hershey’s chocolate is made. It is a great event at a wonderful venue, the five star Hershey Hotel. With beautiful gardens and fountains supplementing all of the stunning cars, it is surely a great place for photos.

There were many rare cars this year, everything from a French-market Cadillac built for the Rothschild family to the best-in-show winning Duesenberg “Mormon Meteor” Speedster. Enjoy the highlight gallery of the event and check back for features on some specific cars.