HPC in the News
High School and College Students are Encouraged to Participate in the XSEDE15 Student Program
July 26-30, 2015 - St. Louis, Missouri
XSEDE15, the fourth conference of XSEDE, the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, will showcase the discoveries, innovations, challenges and achievements of those who utilize and support XSEDE resources and services, as well as other digital resources and services, throughout the world. If you are a high school, undergraduate, or graduate student and are interested or engaged in computational research, we encourage you to participate in the XSEDE15 Student Program. For details on the benefits of participating in the Student Program, please see the Call doe Participation: https://conferences.xsede.org/technical-program/student-program.
Blue Waters to Help Researchers Tackle Ebola
NCSA’s Blue Waters supercomputer will be used by three research teams to gain new understanding of the deadly Ebola virus, thanks to allocations provided through the National Science Foundation’s Rapid Response Research program. Klaus Schulten, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will perform molecular dynamics simulations on Blue Waters in an effort to find new antibody-like agents that will signal the presence of Ebola in an infected person. If identified, these agents could then be used to perform rapid, accurate, inexpensive tests to detect Ebola in a person’s saliva, even before they begin to show symptoms. Schulten has previously used Blue Waters to determine the chemical structure of the HIV protein capsid and to improve understanding of other biological structures and systems. He is a professor of physics, a Blue Waters Professor, and leads the Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group at Illinois’ Beckman Institute. To read further, please visit http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/news/story/ebola.
Compilers and More: The Past, Present and Future of Parallel Loops
HPCwire
Let’s talk about parallel loops. In parallel computing, we’ve been designing, describing, implementing and using parallel loops almost since the beginning. The advantage of parallel loops (over almost all other forms of parallelism) is that the parallelism scales up with the data set size or loop trip count (number of iterations). So what exactly is a parallel loop? A sequential loop has a loop body and some kind of loop control: the program typically executes the loop body once, then the control code will determine whether to loop back to the top of the loop body and execute it again, perhaps updating an index or control variable. Similarly, a parallel loop has a loop body and some control. However, if the program executes all the loop iterations in parallel, for instance, there is no loop per se, no jump to the top of the loop. It’s not really a loop at all. However, I can’t change the common nomenclature and a parallel loop often resembles a sequential loop, so parallel loop it is. Let’s define what we mean by the word parallel in parallel loop. I define a parallel loop as a code body surrounded by parallel loop control such that the body of the loop can be or is executed with parallelism. There are many styles or levels of parallelism in current hardware. Writing and executing a parallel loop means expressing and exploiting the parallelism in the with the goal of better performance. Note the two steps. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/2015/04/06/compilers-and-more-the-past-present-and-future-of-parallel-loops/.
U.S. DOE Awards $200M for Supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory
U.S. Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science and Energy Lynn Orr announced two new High Performance Computing (HPC) awards that continue to advance U.S. leadership in developing exascale computing. The announcement was made alongside leaders from Argonne National Laboratory and industry partners at Chicago’s tech start-up hub, 1871. Under the joint Collaboration of Oak Ridge, Argonne, and Lawrence Livermore (CORAL) initiative, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a $200 million investment to deliver a next-generation supercomputer, known as Aurora, to the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF). When commissioned in 2018, this supercomputer will be open to all scientific users – drawing America’s top researchers to Argonne National Laboratory. Additionally, Under Secretary Orr announced $10 million for a high-performance computing R&D program, DesignForward, led by DOE’s Office of Science and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/u-s-doe-awards-200m-for-supercomputer-at-argonne-national-laboratory/.
IBM and Barcelona Supercomputing Center Celebrate a Decade of Collaboration
IBM and Barcelona Supercomputing Center- Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) celebrate a decade of collaboration since the prestigious Center of Supercomputing was established in April 2005. Through this collaboration, IBM has invested more than 10 million Euros in joint research, technology transfer and training programs. IBM’s cooperation with the BSC-CNS dates back to 2000 when the Centro de Paralelismo de Barcelona (CEPBA), precursor of BSC-CNS, signed a four-year agreement with IBM to create the CEPBA-IBM Research Institute (CIRI) which specialized in deep computing. The former Chapel Torre Girona in Barcelona houses the MareNostrum supercomputer at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. This month, IBM and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center celebrate a 10-year partnership of advancing breakthroughs in human genome research, astrophysics, and weather forecasting. The supercomputer currently ranks 57th of most powerful systems on the Supercomputing TOP 500 list. IBM and BSC-CNS activity has resulted in three big projects: Centro Tecnológico de Supercomputación (2013-2015), Research and Development MareIncognito project (2007-2011) and MareNostrum supercomputer (2005-2007). Through this collaboration, both organizations have conducted numerous joint research projects involving IBM labs in the area of high performance computing. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/ibm-and-barcelona-supercomputing-center-celebrate-a-decade-of-collaboration/.
HPC Call for Participation
Call for Papers: HPC Monitoring and Analysis Workshop @ IEEE Cluster
September 8, 2015 – Chicago, Illinois
Submission Deadline – May 11, 2015
Architects, administrators, and users of modern high-performance computing (HPC) systems strive to meet goals of energy, resource, and application efficiency. Optimizing for any or all of these can only be accomplished through analysis of appropriate system and application information. While application performance analysis tools can provide application performance insight, the associated overhead typically decreases application performance while the tools are being employed. Thus they are typically used for application performance tuning but not for production application runs. Likewise traditional system monitoring tools in conjunction with analysis tools can provide insight into run-time system resource utilization. However, due to overhead and impact concerns, such tools are often run with collection periods on order of minutes or only used to solve problems and not during normal HPC system operation. There are currently few, if any, tools that provide continuous, low impact, high fidelity system monitoring, analysis, and feedback that meet the increasingly urgent resource efficiency optimization needs of HPC systems. The goal of this workshop is to provide an opportunity for researchers to exchange new ideas, research, techniques, and tools in the area of HPC monitoring, analysis, and feedback as it relates to increasing efficiency with respect to energy, resource utilization, and application run-time. For more information, please visit https://sites.google.com/site/hpcmaspa2015/.
Upcoming Conferences, Webinars, and Seminars
IP EXPO Manchester 2015
May 20-21, 2015 – Manchester, United Kingdom
IP EXPO Manchester is the new launch event in the IP EXPO event series for 2015. The IT Infrastructure and Cloud event will accompany existing events in the series, including IP EXPO Europe, Data Centre EXPO and Cyber Security EXPO in London. IP EXPO is the UK and Europe’s leading IT Infrastructure and Cloud event series for those looking to find out how the latest IT innovations can drive their business forward. The events showcase brand new exclusive content and senior level insights from across the industry, as well as unveiling the latest developments in IT. The 2015 Manchester event will bring together 60+ exhibitors, 80+ free to attend seminars and 6 theatres all under one roof. With the attendance of headline industry speakers the event is the must attend event of the year for CIOs, heads of IT, technology experts and engineers. For more information, please visit http://www.ipexpomanchester.com/?utm_source=HPCWire&utm_medium=BannerAd&utm_term=MediaPartner&utm_campaign=IPEM15.
ISC 2015
July 12-15, 2015 – Frankfurt, Germany
The steering committee has announced the program for the ISC High Performance conference. This year’s program consists of a whole range of unique topics and hand picked speakers. There is also a selection of research papers, posters, BoF sessions, tutuorials and workshops, which were submitted by the HPC community. In addition, the conference offers a comprehensive industry program for users interested in commercial HPC applications. The ISC High Performance conference is famous for its world-class program, with over 300 academia and industry leaders tackling the most important issues of supercomputing, industry innovation and new technologies. The ISC agenda planner lets you navigate easily through the conference program and provides details on sessions, speakers and presentations, and within a few clicks, you can design your own schedule. For more information, please visit http://www.isc-hpc.com/overview.html.
Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo 2015
April 13-16, 2015 – Santa Clara, California
The Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo is the premier event for the rich and diverse MySQL ecosystem. It is the place to be for the open source community as well as businesses that thrive in the MySQL marketplace. Attendees include DBAs, SysAdmins, developers, architects, CTOs, CEOs, and vendors from around the world. MySQL is the world's most popular open source database, powering massively popular web applications such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. MySQL continues to evolve rapidly with new releases, related software, delivery methods, and uses enabling it to reach more markets and power more applications every day. For more information, please visit http://www.percona.com/live/mysql-conference-2015/.
1st IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft 2015)
April 13-17, 2015 – London, United Kingdom
The 1st IEEE International Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft 2015) will address different expressions of an overall transformation trend, which is deeply impacting Telecom and IT industries. This trend is also transforming several other Industries, in using ”softwarization” to optimize costs and processes and in bringing new values in infrastructures. In particular, SDN, NFV and network programmability are creating the conditions to reinvent network and cloud architectures, accelerate service deployment and facilitate infrastructure management. Accordingly, NetSoft 2015 will present contributions on software-defined and virtualized infrastructures in various ways. NetSoft 2015 is intended to serve as the flagship forum for technical exchange on software-defined infrastructures for Networks, Clouds, IoT and Services. For more information, please visit http://www.ucl.ac.uk/.
SDSC Graph Analytics Boot Camp
April 23, 2015 – San Diego, California
The recent explosion of interest in analyzing and mining “Big Data” across almost all sectors of science and industry has data scientists looking for new ways to model data so as to accurately represent it and facilitate the gleaning of insights and knowledge from the data. Are you a social scientist who would like to find primary influencers over a friendship and message network? Are you an investigator who would like to track suspicious alliances in a network of rogue organizations and individuals? Are you a network biologist who would like to find relationships between genes in a chromosomal region and a family of diseases? Did you know that Cisco estimates 50 billion connected devices by 2020? The one-day Graph Analytics Boot Camp will offer a broad overview of the field as well as a deep insight into specific analytical techniques. It will introduce how to model a problem into a graph database, and perform analytical tasks in a scalable manner. Based on a fully worked-out use case, the course will provide a comprehensive understanding of how to apply graph analytics to the attendee’s applications. For more information, please visit https://www.etouches.com/ehome/120305.
NSDI ’15
May 4-6, 2015 – Oakland, California
The 12th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation provides a high-quality, single-track forum for presenting results and discussing ideas that further the knowledge and understanding of the networked systems community as a whole, continue a significant research dialog, or push the architectural boundaries of network services. This year’s program includes 42 refereed paper presentations on data centers, software-defined networking, wireless, data analytics, protocol design and implementation, virtualization, and much more. Six of these papers will be presented as part of the operational track and describe the design, implementation, analysis, and experience with large-scale, operational systems and networks. For more information, please visit https://www.usenix.org/conference/nsdi15.
Research News From Around the World
UCSD Engineers Develop Methods to Speed Up Simulations in Computational Grand Challenge Problems
University of California, San Diego (UCSD) researchers have developed implicit/explicit (IMEX) time-marching schemes that can speed up time-resolved numerical simulations in computational grand challenge problems. Computational grand challenge problems often arise from the high-resolution approximation of the partial differential equations governing complex flows of fluids or plasmas. The researchers say their breakthrough will enable numerical problems of a given size to run much faster on a given computer. "The remarkable feature of the new family of schemes developed in this work is that they require significantly less memory in the computer for a given size simulation problem than existing high-order methods of the same class, while providing excellent numerical stability, accuracy, and computational efficiency," says UCSD professor Thomas Bewley. To read further, please visit http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/engineers_develop_new_methods_to_speed_up_time_resolved_simulations_in_comp.
The National Academies Forum on Cyber Resilience
The National Academies Forum on Cyber Resilience held its inaugural meeting this week in Washington, DC. The Forum is focused on advancing the national dialogue about our cyber systems and their resilience and plans to address issues including cybersecurity and trustworthiness; stakeholder values; and preparation, response, and recovery in the face of malicious attacks, technological disruptions and natural disasters. It is chaired by Fred B. Schneider, directed by Lynette I. Millett, and made up of a multidisciplinary group of experts, with perspectives spanning research, practice, technology, and policy. The Forum will convene three times annually to plan and execute workshops and supplementary activities. To read further, please visit http://www.cccblog.org/2015/04/09/the-national-academy-of-science-forum-on-cyber-resilience/.
Sun Experiences Seasonal Changes, NCAR Research Finds
The Sun undergoes a type of seasonal variability, with its activity waxing and waning over the course of nearly two years, according to a new study by a team of researchers led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). This behavior affects the peaks and valleys in the approximately 11-year solar cycle, sometimes amplifying and sometimes weakening the solar storms that can buffet Earth’s atmosphere. The quasi-annual variations appear to be driven by changes in the bands of strong magnetic fields in each solar hemisphere. These bands also help shape the approximately 11-year solar cycle that is part of a longer cycle that lasts about 22 years. The overlapping bands are fueled by the rotation of the Sun’s deep interior, according to observations by the research team. As the bands move within the Sun’s northern and southern hemispheres, activity rises to a peak over a period of about 11 months and then begins to wane. To read further, please visit https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/15037/sun-experiences-seasonal-changes-new-research-finds.
The Path Toward Tomorrow's Internet
The New York Times
A conference last week convened participants in the U.S. National Science Foundation's Global Environment for Network Innovations (GENI) and US Ignite projects to highlight initiatives for accelerating the proliferation of next-generation Internet technology to spur scientific discoveries, economic development, education, and public health. Among the themes of the conference was the role of government and public funding in technological advancement, which tends to be downplayed with private money flooding into tech firms and startups. The government role of funding fundamental research at universities that sometimes ends up in the marketplace is symbolized by GENI, which concentrates on ultrahigh-speed networking and customizing networks with software for peak security and performance. Since its inception, GENI has contributed substantially to the software-defined networking market, which is forecast to total $35 billion by 2018. To read further, please visit http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/the-path-toward-tomorrows-internet/?_r=0.
Hoax-Detecting Software Spots Fake Papers
In 2005, three Ph.D. students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed SCIgen, a program to generate nonsense computer science papers as a way of unmasking scientific conferences and journals that were failing to carry out genuine peer review of submissions. Since then, SCIgen, and others like it, have become sources of embarrassment for major academic publishers. Germany-based publisher Springer and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), for example, have had to retract 122 nonsense papers. This month, Springer announced the creation a new tool meant to combat nonsense paper submissions. Called SciDetect, the tool was developed in partnership with Cyril Labbe, a computer scientist at Grenoble's Joseph Fourier University. The tool uses a statistical technique similar to those used by email spam filters to automatically detect papers created with SCIgen and similar programs. To read further, please visit http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/03/hoax-detecting-software-spots-fake-papers.
Educator News, Conferences, and Opportunities
Arkansas Is Leading the Learn to Code Movement
Wired News
The idea that computer science should become a core aspect of K-12 education is gaining significant political currency around the country, but current state-level initiatives have so far been fairly weak. Many initiatives, such as one in Washington state, seek to have computer science count toward math and science graduation requirements. Texas last year mandated computer science education in schools, but has largely failed to fund and enforce the new rule. Meanwhile, Arkansas took the lead in pushing computer science in schools last month when it passed a comprehensive law requiring all public and charter schools in the state to offer computer science courses. The initiative was a key element of Gov. Asa Hutchinson's run for office last fall. Hutchinson says he views the effort as a way of boosting the Arkansas economy. To read further, please visit http://www.wired.com/2015/03/arkansas-computer-science/.
The 5 Biases Pushing Women Out of STEM
Gender bias appears to be a key contributor to the scarcity of U.S. women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), according to new studies. Recent research in conjunction with the Association for Women in Science suggests bias drives women from STEM--and the mechanism of this prejudice can vary according to a woman's race or ethnicity. For example, interviews with and polls of female scientists found 66 percent of respondents had to prove their competence repeatedly, with black women significantly more likely to contend with this type of bias than other women. Another observed bias toward female scientists concerns pressures at work to play a stereotypically feminine role, especially for Asian Americans. Meanwhile, nearly 66 percent of female scientists with children across all races and ethnicities reported coming up against a bias where they were offered fewer opportunities in the workplace. To read further, please visit https://hbr.org/2015/03/the-5-biases-pushing-women-out-of-stem.
Educational Resources for Students
Browse selected educational resources created by UCAR programs below, or search by topic and/or grade level. There are topic such as: the sun, background on weather and climate, digital guide to NSF's lower atmospheric observing facilities, discovering the atmospheric sciences for students, and many more! For more information, please visit http://ucarconnect.ucar.edu/education/resources/students.
2015 Scalable Game Design Summer Institute
June 8-13, 2015 - Boulder, Colorado
The Scalable Game Design Summer Institute is a program that brings technology and content (STEM, Language Arts) teachers from middle, high schools, and upper elementary classrooms together to learn how to use game design for computer science education and how to teach computational/critical thinking and problem solving literacy. Teachers, called Institute Scholars, receive training at 3 levels: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Thanks to research funding from the National Science Foundation and Google CS4HS, the 2015 Summer Institute professional development training is available FREE to Scholars teaching in USA schools and accepted to the Institute (includes daily workshops, lunch/snacks, software, evening program, but does NOT include travel, lodging, or dinner). All Scholars also participate in research data collection and receive a stipend for their contribution. Beginner level Scholars master 2D game design and how to teach the curriculum in classrooms and receive an introduction to STEM applications. For more information, please visit http://sgd.cs.colorado.edu/wiki/Summer_Institute_2015.
Cyber Technologies Academy|
June 22-26, 2015 – Livermore, California
The Cyber Technologies Academy (CTA) is an entry-level program for high school students intrigued by computer science and cybersecurity. Offering fun, interactive lessons and exercises, the CTA can be your first step toward becoming part of the next generation of cybersecurity experts. Plan to participate in our next CTA session. You'll learn from our cybersecurity professionals, meet other students with similar interests, and supplement your college applications with an impressive technical skill set. Learn more about the program and the classes being offered. A second component of the CTA is aimed at teachers interested in supplementing an existing computer science curriculum. Join us for free summer training classes and gain knowledge and resources you can use at home or in the classroom. If you are a teacher or school administrator and want to become involved with the CTA or take our summer training classes, email us at cta@sandia.gov. Please include your name, school, class(es) of interest, and some background information (such as on existing cyber classes at your school). Learn more about the program and the classes being offered. For more information, please visit https://share.sandia.gov/cta/.
Student Engagement and Opportunities
Observations in Atmospheric Research "Next" Practices: Conducting Field Operations in a Changing World
April 21-23, 2015 – New Orleans, Louisiana
Field campaigns entail years of planning and incur substantial cost, especially if they involve operation of major research platforms in remote locations. Deploying and operating those assets even for short periods of time poses challenges that, if not addressed properly, can have significant negative consequences and potentially jeopardize the success of a campaign. Challenges vary from country to country and range from safety, health, and security risks to differences in cultural and social norms. The workshop will focus on sharing information on best practices, lessons learned and country-specific experiences by different groups for the planning and conduct of scientific research campaigns around the globe. The agenda will consist of a mix of short, focused presentations, plenary and small breakout sessions, as well as invited keynote speakers, and will be agile to accommodate specific discussion items that different groups may bring to the table. We strive to get broad participation from groups around the world who operate and deploy airborne and ground-based assets in support of field campaigns in the geosciences. This unique gathering of facility support experts will not only allow for dissemination and sharing of knowledge but also promote collaboration and networking among peers. For more information, please visit https://www.eol.ucar.edu/node/5457.
Hao Colloquium Series Presents Hao Cao (Caltech)
April 22, 2015 – 1:30pm (PDT)
The internal magnetic field is one of the fundamental properties which yields important information on the interior structure and evolution of the host planet. Six out of eight solar system planets currently possess global-scale internal magnetic fields. Different symmetry and symmetry breaking with respect to the spin-axis and the equatorial plane of the host planet can be found for different planetary magnetic fields. Following a brief introduction to planetary magnetism, I will discuss the magnetic fields and interior dynamics of Mercury and Saturn. For Mercury, I will show that top buoyancy forcing such as that of iron snow in its liquid core can naturally lead to equatorial symmetry breaking in the dynamo generated magnetic field as observed by MESSENGER. For Saturn, I will show a numerical exploration of the link between the features in Saturn's magnetic field and dynamics in the semi-conducting region of Saturn. The magneto hydrodynamics (MHD) consequences of equatorial zonal jets and high latitude zonal jets will be addressed. To view the webcast, please visit https://ucarconnect.ucar.edu/live?room=cg12126.
Disney’s Create Tomorrow land – XPRIZE Challenge
Submission Deadline – May 17, 2015
Disney’s Create Tomorrowland – XPRIZE Challenge invites students 8-17 to imagine themselves in the future and report back to the world about one new and amazing invention or innovation, how it works, and its impact on the future via video, image, or story. Submissions can be uploaded starting April 22 and are due by May 17. This contest is an excellent way to challenge students to use communication skills that align to new California learning standards. Career Technical Education teachers may wish to collaborate with English or Science or Art teachers and apply digital multimedia and animation skills in communicating the story of the invention or innovation. For more information, please visit http://xprizechallenge.org/.
2015 Creative Scholarship Recycled Material Competition for College Students
Application Deadline – April 31, 2015
This year’s competition and how to participate: Time to get creative and think outside the box! This competition is to not only to show off your creative side but to also show how you can make a difference by re-using recycled material. Students must take recycled material and re-purpose it to create something completely new that can be re-used again. Students are free to have fun and create whatever they desire, but the object must only be made from 100% recycled material. Students are allowed to use glue or other adhesives to hold together their recycled objects. Once the projects are submitted through the online application form, the 858Graphics Scholarship Committee will be reviewing the projects based on level of creativity and innovation.nThe Committee will then chose the winner of the competition and award the scholarship money that will be used towards tuition and educational expenses. For more information, please visit http://sdsa.org/e-news/2015-creative-scholarship-competition/.
Computational Science News of Interest
IBM's Watson Has Published a Cookbook
CNN
Together with the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE), the Jeopardy! winning computer has created perhaps the world's first-ever cookbook co-created by computer algorithms. "Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson" is set to go on sale April 14th. The collaboration began three years ago when IBM began building an "idea-generating tool" using Watson's artificial intelligence. The teams settled on trying to innovate food because it's something everyone appreciates, according to the book's introduction. As amateur and professional chefs, we already know what ingredients work well together, but given how many flavors and foods there are in the world, there are countless combinations we might never be able to come up with on our own.nAn AI computer system focused on food, Chef Watson's creators thought, could run through those possibilities and help chefs design newfangled recipes. To read further, please visit http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/07/technology/ibm-watson-cookbook/.
Intel, Cray to collaborate on $200M supercomputer deal
Cray has announced it’s entered a massive deal with Intel to build a new machine capable of reaching up to 180 petaflops. Current peak performance of the Tianhe-2, the most powerful supercomputer on the planet as of last November’s Top500 list, is just 54.9 petaflops. The massive new system will be built at the Argonne National Laboratory and are part of a joint collaboration between that facility, Oak Ridge, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The deal in question is actually for a pair of systems. The flagship supercomputer, Aurora, will be based on Cray’s “Shasta” architecture and will integrate Intel’s HPC framework. In practice, this means Xeon processors as CPUs and the successor to Knights Landing, Knights Hill. Little is known about Knights Hill — it isn’t expected until 2017 at the earliest, with a 10nm process, likely a modified Atom core (the upcoming Knights Landing will use a tweaked version of Intel’s 14nm Airmont). The second system, Theta, appears to be more of a testbed and early prototype system, inasmuch as a 6 PFLOP system can be rightly called a testbed. Such performance would still be in the top 10 of supercomputers today. But Cray’s PR calls Theta “an early production system” and notes that Cray will have the option to deliver next-generation parallel storage systems for the supercomputer. This second system will be delivered in 2016. To read further, please visit http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/203134-intel-cray-to-collaborate-on-200m-supercomputer-deal.
Spacex Will Try Landing its Falcon 9 Rocket on a Drone Ship Again
SpaceX is on a quest to get things into orbit and be less wasteful doing it. After a less than successful test a few months ago, Elon Musk’s private space firm is set to test its reusable Falcon 9 first stage on Monday, April 13th as it launches a new International Space Station resupply mission. SpaceX will attempt to land that first stage vertically on its “spaceport drone ship” in the Atlantic Ocean after seeing the Dragon capsule safely to orbit. Most of the launch platforms developed thus far have relied upon at least one or two stages, which decouple from the payload during the assent and drop harmlessly into the ocean. It’s necessary for the launch vehicle to shed this dead weight on its way to orbit, but it would be nice if these stages could be refueled and sent up again rather than being smashed. That’s the goal of SpaceX’s reusable rocket. After the first stage has expended most of its fuel, it will detach from the Dragon capsule and the smaller second stage. The Falcon 9 will perform a flip and begin a retrograde burn to bring its descent trajectory in-line with the drone ship. The rocket will then deploy a series of hypersonic grid fins that can steer the craft during its descent. Another burst from the engines will slow the rocket so the grid fins can do their job. At this point, another burn just above the deck of the ship should allow the rocket to set down vertically. To read further, please visit http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/203209-spacex-will-try-landing-its-falcon-9-rocket-on-a-drone-ship-again-on-monday.
Social Media
Does Your Password Pass Muster?
New research from Concordia University raises concerns about the effectiveness of password strength meters, or the bars that turn red, yellow, or green to rate the strength of new passwords. Professor Mohammad Mannan and Ph.D. student Xavier de Carne de Carnavalet have tested the meters of high-traffic sites such as Google, Yahoo!, Dropbox, and Twitter, as well as some found in password managers. The researchers say the meters can confuse people because what is considered a strong password on one site might be rated weak on another. For example, some meters are very strict, assigning scores only to passwords that contain at least three character sets, while others are fine with the selection of letter-only passphrases. "Dropbox's rather simple checker is quite effective in analyzing passwords and is possibly a step towards the right direction," Mannan says. To read further, please visit http://www.concordia.ca/cunews/main/stories/2015/03/25/does-your-password-pass-muster.html.
