Monday, November 30, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Brain-Like Chip May Solve Computers' Big Problem: Energy
Discover magazine has an excellent article, for which I have included a link, that addresses the issue of energy efficiency in computing. As technology proliferates into developing regions of the world, energy consumption is a major issue. A researcher at Stanford University, Kwabena Boahen, has developed a "silicon wafer that provides the basis for a new neural supercomputer, called Neurogrid".
Below is an excerpt that introduces the fundamental shift in design philosophy.
"Traditional digital computers depend on millions of transistors opening and closing with near perfection, making an error less than once per 1 trillion times. It is impressive that our computers are so accurate—but that accuracy is a house of cards. A single transistor accidentally flipping can crash a computer or shift a decimal point in your bank account. Engineers ensure that the millions of transistors on a chip behave reliably by slamming them with high voltages—essentially, pumping up the difference between a 1 and a 0 so that random variations in voltage are less likely to make one look like the other. That is a big reason why computers are such power hogs."
"Scientists have found that the brain’s 100 billion neurons are surprisingly unreliable. Their synapses fail to fire 30 percent to 90 percent of the time. Yet somehow the brain works. Some scientists even see neural noise as the key to human creativity. Boahen and a small group of scientists around the world hope to copy the brain’s noisy calculations and spawn a new era of energy-efficient, intelligent computing. Neurogrid is the test to see if this approach can succeed."
If Neurogrid is successful, System Integration will be taken in a radically different direction, as new applications, and implementations, are introduced. No longer will energy availability be a limitation, and the integration of technology to new markets will fuel innovation.
http://discovermagazine.com/2009/oct/06-brain-like-chip-may-solve-computers-big-problem-energy
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
e2Campus integrates the Shibboleth platform
I saw this news article from Reuters newservice, and wanted to pass it along...
DENVER, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- From the show floor of EDUCAUSE 2009, Omnilert®
LLC today announced the release of e2Campus® version 3.1, the leading unified
emergency notification system for education. Most notably, the latest release
of the service integrates the Shibboleth® single sign-on platform. This
technology, combined with Omnilert's participation in the InCommon®
Federation, means that existing Shibboleth-enabled organizations will
immediately benefit from e2Campus' enhanced user management and single sign-on
convenience without additional integration.
Single sign-on capabilities enable users to leverage their home institution's
login credentials to jump from one secure online application to another
without having to set up and then remember multiple passwords for each
resource they use.
InCommon is a trust federation in which members like Omnilert agree to use a
standards-based authentication protocol (like that provided by Shibboleth) for
their interactions. InCommon participants agree on a set of shared policies,
processes, and technology standards. This greatly streamlines collaboration
among multiple organizations because federation members agree on shared
policies and processes once, rather than each time they sign a contract with a
new partner.
By the end of June, 2009, Penn State University and University of Maryland
Baltimore County (UMBC) finished collaborating with e2Campus on the initial
development of the InCommon interface. Today, UMBC, University of Maryland
Baltimore, and Lafayette College are among the first to take advantage of this
convenient single sign-on integration for use with the e2Campus service.
"We are extremely pleased with the Shibboleth implementation in e2Campus which
allows us much greater flexibility in the way we provide our critical
emergency notifications to our faculty, students and staff through the
InCommon Federation," said Mike Carlin, assistant vice president of
infrastructure and support at UMBC.
"For instance, we are now able to set up dynamic groups based on student
attributes enabling us to better target our emergency alerts to affected
groups on campus. As an example, if a certain dormitory is impacted by an
emergency event, we now have the ability to alert just the impacted students
and staff in that residence or other specific groups as is appropriate to the
issue."
Carlin added, "We are most excited about the dynamic real-time updates to stay
on top of user churn. When students, faculty or staff leave the university, we
can automatically remove them from e2Campus. In addition, we can focus
internal marketing to the select people that still need to opt-in to e2Campus,
without bothering those that have already subscribed."
Kevin Morooney, the incoming chair of the InCommon Steering Committee and
chief information officer and vice provost for information technology at Penn
State University, explained, "One of the primary goals of federations like
InCommon is to allow universities to provide access to a wide range of
off-campus resources while still protecting the security and privacy of their
students, faculty, and staff. We who are involved with InCommon are pleased
that this new release of e2Campus takes advantage of the benefits of the
federation."
Nick Gustavsson, Omnilert's chief technology officer, said, "We are very proud
to be part of InCommon Federation. With more and more schools upgrading to
e2Campus, Shibboleth integration is a major decision point for new customers.
There is no easier way to integrate your existing school data with any ENS
system than with Shibboleth and e2Campus."
Additional upgrades in e2Campus 3.1 include many new administration functions
such as: enhanced user management to include adding single users and viewing
user details; enhanced session timeout functionality; and the ability to
configure password strength for admin accounts.
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS191815+05-Nov-2009+PRN20091105
The Story of the Shibboleth
Following the presentation, I was curious about this strange term. Listed below is what I learn from my web search. This is from Dr. Suzanne Kemmer of Rice University.
A shibboleth is a kind of linguistic password: A way of speaking (a pronunciation, or the use of a particular expression) that identifies one as a member, or a non-member, of a particular group. The group has some kind of social power to set the standards for who belongs to the group: who is "in" and who is "out".
The purpose of a shibboleth is exclusionary as much as inclusionary: A person whose way of speaking violates a shibboleth is identified as an outsider and thereby excluded by the group. (This phenomenon is part of the "Judge a book by its cover" tendency apparently embedded in human cognition, and the use of language to distinguish social groups. The idea here is that some superficial characteristic is taken as a signal for how to view the person who has it--usually, "good" if the person is in the group, "bad" if the person is judged to be outside the group.)
The story behind the word is recorded in the biblical Book of Judges. The word shibboleth in ancient Hebrew dialects meant 'ear of grain' (or, some say, 'stream'). Some groups pronounced it with a sh sound, but speakers of related dialects pronounced it with an s.
In the story, two Semitic tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites, have a great battle. The Gileadites defeat the Ephraimites, and set up a blockade to catch the fleeing Ephraimites. The sentries asked each person to say the word shibboleth. The Ephraimites, who had no sh sound in their language, pronounced the word with an s and were thereby unmasked as the enemy and slaughtered.
Here is the relevant excerpt from the Book of Judges. The full account is in Chapter 12, verses 1-15.
12, 4 Then Jephthah gathered together all the men of Gilead, and fought with Ephraim: and the men of Gilead smote Ephraim, because they said, Ye Gileadites are fugitives of Ephraim among the Ephraimites, and among the Manassites.
5 And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, art thou an Ephraimite? If he say Nay;
6 Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words/shibboleth.html
Monday, November 2, 2009
Exciting News!
As part of a three person team for my friend's company, I will be happily attending
Microsoft BizSpark Incubation Week for Windows Azure @ Atlanta 09Nov09
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