Items tagged with CTO
If you had any concerns that Facebook would begin to rest on its laurels after becoming a public company, let those concerns be put to rest. The company has just announced the hiring of a new Chief Technology Officer -- obviously an extraordinarily important role in a tech-driven outfit. Mike Schroepfer is the man taking the role, but the interesting twist is where he's coming from. He's actually an ex-Mozilla employee, so he knows a thing or two about coding, the Web, the cloud, and how people interact on the Internet. Facebook is actually replacing two interim CTOs (Cory Ondrejka and Mike Vernal), but it's unclear what roles those two will fall into. Photo: Joi Ito/Flickr Prior to this position,...
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Just weeks after Aneesh Chopra resigned as the U.S.’s first federal Chief Technology Officer after a three-year stint, a new man has stepped into the role. Todd Park, who has most recently served as the CTO of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is our new federal CTO. In a White House blog post announcing Park’s arrival, John P. Holdren mentions his past achievements as U.S. DoH CTO: He led the successful execution of an array of breakthrough initiatives, including the creation of HealthCare.gov, the first website to provide consumers with a comprehensive inventory of public and private health insurance plans available across the Nation by zip code in a single, easy-to-use...
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Back in 2009, President Obama appointed the country’s first federal Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, in an effort by the administration to push the government past old technology and into the 21st century. Chopra is now stepping down from his post, and the move was announced (appropriately) in a blog post on the official White House website. Chopra was sworn in on May 22 of that year, and in the nearly three years since, he has, according to the post, been busy: Aneesh helped design the President’s National Wireless Initiative, including the development of a nationwide public safety broadband network, establish a set of Internet Policy Principles including the call for a Consumer...
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NVIDIA has just announced the addition of CTO Steve Scott to the company’s Tesla Business unit. Steve Scott was the chief architect of the Cray X1 and was involved in the design of the Cray XT, Cray XE and "Cascade" systems as well. According to his bio, Steve Scott holds 27 U.S. patents in the areas of interconnection networks, cache coherence, synchronization mechanisms and scalable parallel architectures and has also served on numerous program committees and as an associate editor for the IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems. He served 19 years at Cray, the last six as a senior vice president and CTO, responsible for defining Cray's technology and system architecture...
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Talk from the Tech Industry: Letter from Intel to the Incoming Obama CTO Thank you to the thousands of men and women who participated in Intel’s survey last week at CES. As I blogged about earlier, the survey looked to stimulate broad support for Intel policies, asking you what the top priorities should be for the incoming Obama administration’s chief technology officer (CTO) in four areas where technology plays a key role: education, environment, health and Internet broadband.As President-Elect Obama gets sworn in tomorrow and he appoints the country’s first CTO, we look forward to the active role that we - the tech industry at large - can play in working with the new administration to advance...
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Two perpetually, almost fad-like and recurring themes for computing technology in 2008 are low power, environmentally friendly products as well as tiny, small form-factor or ultra-portable machines. Power consumption and size -- it has become undeniably hip and cool to offer products that cater to the new carbon footprint and mechanical footprint-minded consumer. If you didn't know better, it almost seems like the introduction of Asus' Eee PC started the craze back in Q4 of '07 but clearly, at least small form-factor system have been around for many years. Some of you will remember Shuttle's line of wildly popular barebones XPCs which became an underground hit with many in the DYI crowd looking...
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Two perpetually, almost fad-like and recurring themes for computing technology in 2008 are low power, environmentally friendly products as well as tiny, small form-factor or ultra-portable machines. Power consumption and size -- it has become undeniably hip and cool to offer products that cater to the new carbon footprint and mechanical footprint-minded consumer. If you didn't know better, it almost seems like the introduction of Asus' Eee PC started the craze back in Q4 of '07 but clearly, at least small form-factor system have been around for many years. Some of you will remember Shuttle's line of wildly popular barebones XPCs which...
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There's nothing better than a good rumor, especially when it comes to new Apple gear. It seems like the hype machines spool up a little earlier for the Apple crowd. And why not, Apple certainly has been executing as of late. Of course, we always love a good OS marketing war (it took you long enough, MS...) but that's a whole different can of worms we won't open here. Still, we can't help but chuckle, since like many of you who are "in the know", we also see the striking similarities between Macs and PCs these days. After all, the hardware inside is now what we all can agree are "PC" components. Over the weekend, rumors surfaced that a possible October 14th Apple release would...
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Microsoft has created a blog dedicated to Windows 7, the upcoming (in 2010, according to Microsoft) successor to Windows Vista. The first post in the blog, Microsoft said that first in-depth technical details will come at the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC), both scheduled for October.We have two significant events for developers and the overall ecosystem around Windows this fall. The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on October 27 and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) the following week both represent the first venues where we will provide in-depth technical information about Windows 7. This blog will...
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The potential throttling by ISPs of certain types of Internet traffic has been in the news quite a bit lately. In fact, this last Friday, the FCC issued a ruling (PDF) against Comcast, stating that "Comcast's network management practices discriminate among applications rather than treating all equally and are inconsistent with the concept of an open and accessible Internet." Whether the FCC actually has the authority to take action against Comcast in this matter is still under debate, but the core of the FCC's argument is that Comcast engaged in "discriminatory network management practices" by monitoring and selectively blocking users' access to peer-to-peer (P2P) connections. The FCC's position...
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Demetrios Leontaris knows more about your iPod than Steve Jobs ever will. He cruises around New York City, using his car as his mobile office/workshop, and fixes whatever ails your little Apple wonders, generally right on the spot for a flat $70 fee. He's not alone either; Fortune identifies at least half a dozen iPod repair services in NYC alone. There are 150 million iPods out there, and Apple really isn't all that interested in fixing them -- they want to sell you another one. Apple does some repairs under its warranty program - but not if the damage is the customer's fault. "If you are Apple," says Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director for Jupiter Research, "your ideal...
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Update: The news story below was originally posted on Friday, June 13. It is a brief summary of a longer news article written by Cade Metz of The Register. After our article posted we were contacted by Technology Consultant George Ou, who was briefly referenced in our news story. Ou felt that Metz's coverage--and therefore our coverage as well--did not accurately represent his statements or some of the arguments for network prioritization. For the sake of balanced news coverage, we are adding a link to Ou's blog here, where he provides another perspective on this story.Google has been very vocal on its stance for net neutrality. Now, Richard Whitt--Senior Policy Director for Google--announces...
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If you've been wondering if Intel's 80+ percent market share of the microprocessor market amounted to a monopoly worth investigating, wonder no more. The Federal Trade Commision has started a formal review of Intel's business practices to see if they run afoul of any anti-competitive laws. They're sending out subpoenas to AMD and some of the many computer manufacturers that use Intel's chips in their units as well. A.M.D. has waged a global legal and public relations campaign against Intel hoping to persuade American and foreign regulators that Intel’s pricing practices violate antitrust laws. The fight between the two — over a market that generates revenue of more than $225 billion a year —...
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One of the more curious items spied at this week's Computex trade show in Taipei, is an Asus laptop prototype with a built-in mini projector. There is still not too much known about the unlabeled notebook, other than that the laptop has a large space above the display's bezel, in which a working, pivoting mini projector is housed. Mini projectors are just now starting to hit the market. Earth Trek recently just released its 90-805R mini projector, and Samsung showed off its P400 Pocket Projector prototype in May. Both Texas Instruments and 3M have developed micro-projector technologies, which will be driving many of these new mini projectors. In fact, Foxconn was displaying a micro...
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Earth Trek has released what it claims is the world's smallest projector: "Earth Trek, a Hong-Kong based company, recently released the world's smallest handy projector, the 90-805R mini projector. Our little device features a card slot (SD/T-flash card), built-in lithium battery (1-2 hours), built-in speaker, MP4 player, and provides a 22" diagonal projection. It measures 105x58x25mm and weighs 160g."Details such as price, native resolution, and the projection technology were not available at the time of this post. However, with only a maximum 22-inch projection space and no computer display-specific input, the 90-805R will have limited functionality. Images and video will be projected either...
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MSI has just announced a brand new ultra small form factor PC, dubbed the Titan 700. The tiny machine features a 2.0GHz VIA C7 processor, a mini-ITX motherboard, and a compact case with a volume of only 3.1L. The motherboard's CN700 norhtbridge sports a VIA Graphics (S3) UniChrome Pro IGP, and other features include a slim optical drive, and AC'97 audio. The unit's 60W PSU hints at the Titan 700's miniscule power requirements. The full press release with pics and complete specifications are available below... The perfect combination of Size and Performance Energy Saving compact 3.1L Mini-ITX Full System Taipei, Taiwan – MSI, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of motherboards,...
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It's no secrect that AMD is struggling as of late due to problems executing and to intense competition from Intel and NVIDIA. In the last few months a number of high ranking executives has resigned, the latest of which appears to be Phil Hester, the company's CTO."(AP) - The chief technology officer and vice president of chip maker Advanced Micro Devices is resigning, the company said Friday.Phil Hester, 52, joined the company in 2005 after working for IBM Corp. for more than 20 years.His resignation comes as AMD struggles amid intense competition from Intel Corp.'s and delays in the role out of key products.AMD shares fell 5 cents to $6.22 in afternoon trading."This is going...
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Soft errors, they sound a little less ominous than hard errors, don't they? Actually, both are not a lot of fun for the average computer processor or memory chip. A soft error, relative to semiconductor technology, is corruption inside of the memory structure of a device where bits are flipped inadvertently. Soft errors have become much more of a concern than ever before, as chip technologies shrink smaller and smaller. And the chip manufacturer with the most skin in the game right now is of course, Intel. Bleeding-edge 45nm process technology allows for more powerful, complex chip designs but also brings with it, higher risk of soft errors...
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Well, Jack Bauer would like us to believe that nuclear terror is just around the corner, and with this system, we could just possibly prove it.Researchers at Purdue University are working with the state of Indiana to develop a system that would use a network of cell phones to detect and track radiation to help prevent terrorist attacks with radiological "dirty bombs" and nuclear weapons.Such a system could blanket the nation with millions of cell phones equipped with radiation sensors able to detect even light residues of radioactive material. Because cell phones already contain global positioning locators, the network of phones would serve as a tracking system, said physics professor Ephraim...
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There are very few body parts we wouldn't trade to be able to play Crysis on HECToR, the newest super computer in the U.K.“It can make 63 million calculations each second, allowing scientists to conduct research into everything from climate change to new medicines.The purpose-built machine is housed in 60 wardrobe-sized cabinets in the University of Edinburgh's advanced computing centre near the Scottish capital.After years of development, Chancellor Alistair Darling is due to attend the official launch ceremony for the 113 million pound machine.”There is no word just yet about memory, storage capacity, or how well this would fold, but we're willing to be those details would be impressive. ...
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Eyebrows were raised last week when reports came in saying that AMD CEO Hector Ruiz received a 7.4% raise last week, despite the problems the semiconductor company is having. We can all rest easy knowing it's just a misunderstanding.It turns out that a senior member of AMD's public relations staff erred when confirming Thursday afternoon--prior to publishing this report--that Hector was given a raise this week. The raise in question actually came last year, and the $1,046,358 in the proxy statement reflected that Hector spent part of 2006 making $950,000, and part of 2006 making $1,124,000. Hector's annual salary rate has changed slightly since then, but by just $24,000 or so to reflect...
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The recent RIAA victory in Capitol v. Thomas garnered a lot of media attention, and HotHardware was certainly no exception. The end result of the case was that Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 in damages. After announcing she wouldn't appeal the ruling, she promptly reconsidered and filed for an appeal which has just been shot down:“In its reply to Thomas' motion, the RIAA argued that statutory damages need not have any relationship to actual damages. Furthermore, the group said that she had no basis to challenge the constitutionality of the damages since she had not objected to the jury instructions.The Department of Justice agrees. "This Court may find that defendant has...
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