Thursday, 5. November 2009, 09:19:43
User Interface, Cloud, voice recognition, UI
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According to Microsoft this week, "voice is the new touch." Never mind that we've been hearing the "voice recognition will change the world" mantra for more than a decade now; this time, it's the real deal! And the company might be right, thanks in part to the peculiar power of the cloud.
With the launch of Windows 7, Microsoft is again talking up its voice recognition efforts, which extend from operating systems to cars to mobile phones. The company has certainly been hammering away at the technology for quite some time; limited versions have been included in Office for years, and a full speech recognition package was built into Vista. Bill Gates has also been predicting the rise of voice communication for a decade.
But Microsoft does have something important: a crack speech-recognition team with access to cloud-based voice recognition servers. It acquired TellMe in 2007, and the Speech at Microsoft group now controls the TellMe voice platform, which manages more than six million calls per month.
Source:
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/10/voice-recognition-gets-cloudy-will-soon-rival-humans.ars
Wednesday, 28. October 2009, 09:21:56
GPU, Cloud, 3D, computing
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At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco recently, NVIDIA announced a GPU-powered 3D Web platform. Called the NVIDIA RealityServer, it consists of Tesla GPUs, rendering software and a Web service environment, all integrated into a platform designed to deliver photorealistic image streams via a cloud computing model. The new offering is yet another example of how the company intends to push its high-end GPUs into CPU territory.
The basic idea behind RealityServer is to do all the heavy computation lifting of image rendering on the server side, such that photorealistic 3D content can be delivered interactively across the Web. That means mass-market devices from smart phones to desktops and everything in between can be used to do high-end imaging.
Applications include architectural design, product design, manufacturing and apparel styling, as well as HPC visual applications in such areas as oil and gas, medical diagnostics, and scientific research. As a result, potential users span the entire population: consumers, artists, product designers, doctors, architects, engineers, and scientists.
Source:
http://www.hpcwire.com/features/NVIDIA-Pitches-GPU-Computing-in-the-Cloud-65217572.html
Thursday, 21. May 2009, 11:40:56
network, Cloud, operating system, Computer
Canonical, the company behind the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, is preparing to launch a new Web service called Ubuntu One, which will bring cloud synchronization and collaboration features to the Linux desktop. The service is under heavy development, but it is expected to be ready for widespread use when Ubuntu 9.10, codenamed Karmic Koala, is released in October.
Canonical began inviting Ubuntu community members to participate in a closed beta test on Monday. Ars took it for a spin to see how it performs, also speaking with Canonical engineer Elliot Murphy and product manager Matt Griffin, who described the technology behind Ubuntu One and provided some insight into Canonical's future plans for the service.
Ubuntu One will support tight desktop integration.
To achieve that goal, the developers are building client software that will make the service a seamless part of the desktop experience. The software is currently available to beta testers in an Ubuntu Personal Package Archive (PPA) hosted on Launchpad. The source code will be released soon under open licenses and is said to be usable on other Linux distributions.
Source:
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/05/hands-on-canonical-aims-for-the-cloud-with-new-ubuntu-one.ars
Friday, 18. April 2008, 07:11:50
Cloud, Web applications, WWW, SOA
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On the road to the elusive Web 3.0 (something to do with semantics, meaning, and context rather than just data, links, and AJAX), core infrastructure is beginning to move from the edge to a center inhabited by companies such as Amazon, Salesforce.com, Joyent, and now Google with its new App Engine.
Call it Web 2.5, where the platform-as-a-service providers allow developers to create Web applications via the cloud and for users to consume them on any Web-connected device, anytime and anywhere. It eliminates what Amazon's Jeff Bezos describes as the "muck," the undifferentiated heavy lifting, such as setting up and maintaining servers, databases, storage, and networks.
Source:
http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9913809-80.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
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