Selasa, 09 Oktober 2012

Sleeping Dogs Compilation Video Goes Viral


One can never be sure what is going on in a puppy's head during its sleep. It could be that it is chasing rabbits, digging up bones or chasing kittens. It could be nothing.

Either way, whether they snore, kick or contort their bodies in pleasure or fright, “be sure to grab your camera,” as the uploader says. In the funny description of the video, users are encouraged not to "let sleeping dogs lie."

The compilation features Shiba, the dog that talks in his sleep, Sadie, the sleep barking sensation, Bizkit, the dog that just walks in his sleep, Quentin, the snoring pug, Bonzo, the sleep runner, an unnamed depressed 6-month-old bloodhound, and many others.

This mesh-up of the cutest, most awesome puppy sleeping scenes was posted by user Compilariz, responsible for many other viral pet videos before.

Via: Sleeping Dogs Compilation Video Goes Viral

HP ProLiant Servers Smash Performance Record Thanks to AMD Processors


Advanced Micro Devices wants today to be a special day, and though the Hondo Z-60 APU should well enough offset NVIDIA's release of the GeForce GTX 650 Ti, it never hurts to have another ace up one's sleeve.

As it happens, AMD does, indeed, have one last ace: HP's ProLiant BL465c Gen8 servers, based on the Opteron 6200 processor series.

The system, as the highest volume selling blade in the world, achieved a score of 59.99 at 62 tiles, 40 percent better than the previous record of 42.79 at 36 tiles.

For those who don't know, VMmark is a free software tool that data center administrators can use to measure the performance and scalability of virtualization platforms.

"The new VMware benchmark is a further indication that AMD Opteron processors are ideally suited for virtualization," said Suresh Gopalakrishnan, corporate vice president and general manager of Servers, AMD.

"Servers using high core-count AMD Opteron 6200 series processors provide outstanding performance, reliability, scalability and affordable efficiency for virtualized IT environments and cloud computing."

HP's ProLiant BL465c Gen8 servers have two 16-core AMD Opteron 6278 processors each, leading to 496 VMs (virtual machines) with an average of 31 VMs per blade and, thus a cost of $371 / 285-371 Euro per VM.

That means a 72% increase in the number of virtual machines, something that all workloads, from client to cloud, will benefit from.

Furthermore, the capital expense (capex) is reduced by up to 30 percent versus comparable solutions, thanks to the higher price/performance ratio. Taking into account VMmark 2.1 benchmarks of high-end systems published earlier, the saving can be of $130,000 / 100,100 -130,000 Euro per server rack.

AMD will showcase the virtualization servers at VMworld 2012 until October 12 (Barcelona's Fira Barcelona Gran Via, Spain), alongside the SeaMicro SM15000 server and other things.

Via: HP ProLiant Servers Smash Performance Record Thanks to AMD Processors

Galaxy Note II in the US by Mid-November


Although it went official with plans to have the large Galaxy Note II smartphone available for purchase in the United States, Samsung did not offer a specific release date for the device.

Rumors emerged on a possible launch of the smartphone before the end of this month, yet no official confirmation on the matter has been offered so far.

In fact, Samsung’s website says that the phone will actually be released by mid-November, which could mean that it might have been planned for launch early next month.

“Optimized for the fastest 4G LTE and HSPA+ 42 networks, the Galaxy Note II will be available through AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular by mid-November,” the handset vendor notes.

Packing a 1.6 GHz quad-core processor and a large 5.5-inch touchscreen display, Galaxy Note II will be one of the most powerful and appealing devices in the United States in the coming weeks.

The phone also sports 2GB of RAM, along with 16GB of internal memory, while featuring a microSD memory card slot with support for up to 64GB of additional storage space.

“The Galaxy Note II is the first Samsung smartphone to launch with Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, which brings stunning graphical capabilities and an upgraded Google Now service, including new features such as contextual search,” Samsung also explains.

“It is also a SAFE-designated device, which means it has additional security features to safe-guard sensitive data and communications.”

On the back, the smartphone sports an 8-megapixel photo snapper with support for 1080p video recording, complemented by front camera for making video calls.

Not only does it sport a wide range of features and capabilities courtesy of custom software that Samsung has packed it with (powered by the S Pen technology), the mobile phone also comes with various personalization options, including Flip Covers from the South Korean mobile phone maker.

Via: Galaxy Note II in the US by Mid-November

Porteus 2.0 Beta Kiosk Edition Has Linux Kernel 3.6.1


Porteus, a portable Linux operating system which can be installed on a USB device, CDROM, SD card or hard drive, and based on the Linux Live Scripts, has just reached version 2.0 Beta.

Porteus 2.0 Beta (Kiosk Edition) has been released only for the 32-bit architecture and it's the first distribution in the series based on Slackware-14.0.

Highlights of Porteus 2.0 Beta:

· Linux kernel was updated to version 3.6.1;
· Mozilla Firefox was updated to version 15.0.1;
· The kiosk edition can be booted only from the iso9660 filesystem, which is read-only by design;
· Shell terminals and VT switching have been disabled;
· All personal user data is wiped each time Firefox is restarted;
· copy2ram feature has been disabled.

A complete list of changes can be found in the official announcement.

Download Porteus 2.0 Beta (Kiosk Edition)
right now from Softpedia. Remember that this is a development release and it should NOT be installed on production machines. It is intended to be used for testing purposes only.

Via: Porteus 2.0 Beta Kiosk Edition Has Linux Kernel 3.6.1

Curiosity Spots Shiny "Something" in the Martian Sand


Curiosity is continuing its extended vacation on Mars, but it seems the early signs of ADHD are getting worse. After first getting distracted by some sand and halting its trip to Glenelg, its initial destination, it's now getting distracted again by something it found while scooping up the sand in question.

A shiny object was spotted in the sand, next to the place where Curiosity took its first scoop of sand.

The plan was to take two of these scoops to clean up the system and only analyze the third. But that was put on hold while Curiosity investigates the strange object.

The most likely scenario is that it's a piece of the rover itself, though that's not particularly encouraging. The metallic-looking object is rather tiny and is barely visible in the photo shot on Curiosity's 61st Sol (Martian day) on the planet, October 7th, Earth date.

"The rover team decided to refrain from using the rover's robotic arm on Oct. 8 due to the detection of a bright object on the ground that might be a piece from the rover," NASA wrote.

A close up of the shinny object in the Mars sand
Enlarge picture
"Instead of arm activities during the 62nd Martian day, or sol, of the mission, Curiosity is acquiring additional imaging of the object to aid the team in identifying the object and assessing possible impact, if any, to sampling activities," it said.

In the photo, you can see Curiosity's scoop filled with sand, the scoop is some 7 cm long and 4.5 cm wide (2.8 inches by 1.8 inches).

A video NASA provided shows the sand being vibrated in the scoop. Curiosity does this to get rid of any surplus material but also to see how it behaves.

Curiosity was put on Mars to make interesting discoveries, but NASA probably didn't want the discoveries to be about Curiosity itself and how well or poor it's been put together.



Via: Curiosity Spots Shiny "Something" in the Martian Sand

Halo 4s Flood Mode Gets Full Details


Microsoft and 343 Industries have detailed the special Flood multiplayer mode that’s present in their upcoming Halo 4 first-person shooter, which acts as a spiritual successor to the Infection one seen in Halo 3 and Halo Reach.

Halo games have delighted lots of people with their intense multiplayer modes that supported not just classic experiences, like Deathmatch or Capture the Flag, but also special modes, like Infestation.

The upcoming Halo 4 will respect this tradition and features, besides the standard modes, a special Flood experience. This pits eight players, who control regular marines, against two players who act as Flood-infected creatures that move faster and can only perform melee attacks.

“Flood is the spiritual successor to Infection, a fan-favorite game type from Halo 3 and Reach. Our goal was to recreate it and push the mode to be new and different from previous versions,” the studio revealed.

“As both War Games and Spartan Ops fit within the fiction of the UNSC Infinity, we wanted to use Halo fiction in this mode too, which led to us to create the Flood form in Multiplayer. Flood-converted humans are much faster and focus on melee attacks, so they were a natural fit for Infection’s successor.”

You can check out the whole description of the special multiplayer mode below.

Halo 4’s Flood mode is a round-based, ten-player game. It is a true asymmetric experience with the added twist of dynamic teams; this really changes things up as each game is different, especially in the incredibly intense and high-action final seconds.

At the beginning of each round, two players spawn as Flood forms and eight players spawn as Survivors. Survivors are standard Spartans equipped with shotguns and magnums, while Flood move very quickly and can only use a melee attack. When a Survivor gets killed by a Flood, the Survivor will convert and respawn as a Flood. The round ends if a Survivor makes it to 3:00 or if all players are converted to Flood.


In order to keep the experience balanced, the chances of a player being spawned directly as a Flood creature depend on their performance in previous rounds, according to the studio. The whole mode went through several iterations and lots of balancing, so 343 hopes that players will fall in love with it once Halo 4 is launched next month.

Until then, look forward to learning more about the multiplayer in Halo 4 in the near future.

Via: Halo 4s Flood Mode Gets Full Details

SoundCloud Artists Can Now License Their Music Through Getty Images


SoundCloud, the popular music sharing platform that wants to become the YouTube of audio, is making a move that puts it one step ahead of YouTube, it signed a deal with Getty to enable users to license music or whatever sounds they have uploaded and get paid for it, with SoundCloud getting a cut of course.

The partnership makes it easier for users to set up a deal, everything is provided, and it also makes it easy for advertisers, media creators and anyone interested to license the sounds they want.

"SoundCloud’s partnership with Getty Images Music creates a powerful offering to our community of professional and casual creators," SoundCloud CEO Alexander Ljung said.

"Now through Getty Images Music, songwriters and audio creators can broaden their exposure and potentially monetize sounds they’ve shared on SoundCloud," he added.

Creators will have several types of publishing deals available. They get 35 percent of the licensing fee along with 50 percent of performance royalties. If the music is broadcasted, authors get 100 percent of the writer's royalty and 50 percent of the publishing share, depending on the type of deal they choose.

The simplicity of it all is the important part here, creators only need to set up the deal on their SoundCloud account. Similarly, people interested in licensing the music are only a few clicks away from getting it.

The big news in this case is the fact that it's now feasible for even small and relatively unknown artists to get a publishing deal and make money off the things they create.

"Whether you’re a professional or casual creator, if you have sounds up on SoundCloud, you’ll be able to offer them for licensing to media, advertisers, designers and creatives," SoundCloud explained.

"And you’ll benefit from Getty Images’ global sales and distribution teams: they’ll help you to market your sounds and offer their expertise and experience in digital content rights and clearances," it said.

Via: SoundCloud Artists Can Now License Their Music Through Getty Images