HPC in the News

 

NSF Extends the Kraken Project: Award Allows Continued Advanced Computing Support of National Research

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded the National Institute for Computational Sciences (NICS) $3 million to continue to provide advanced computing resources for researchers in science and engineering across the country through July 2016. This extension brings the total award for the Kraken project to more than $84.5 million since its inception in 2007. “We are very happy to be able to provide our resources and, most important, expertise to the national NSF community,” said Tony Mezzacappa, director of the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences (JICS), of which NICS is a part. “Since the inception of NICS, our staff have served thousands of projects and users across all fields and have accumulated a wealth of experience that continues to prove invaluable to both seasoned and new computational scientists and engineers.” To read more, please visit https://www.nics.tennessee.edu/kraken-extension.

LLNL Breaks Ground on Supercomputing Facility

 

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory broke ground yesterday on a modular and sustainable supercomputing facility that will provide a flexible infrastructure able to accommodate the Laboratory’s growing demand for high performance computing (HPC). The $9.875 million building, located on the Laboratory’s east side, will ensure computer room space to support the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program’s unclassified HPC systems. ASC is the high-performance simulation effort of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) stockpile stewardship program to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear deterrent without testing. “Unclassified high performance computing is critical to the stockpile stewardship program’s success and the need for this capability will continue to grow,” said Laboratory Director Bill Goldstein. “Modernizing the Lab’s computing infrastructure will enable us to better exploit next-generation supercomputers for NNSA by tapping the talents of top academic and private sector partners.” To read further, please visit https://www.llnl.gov/news/lawrence-livermore-breaks-ground-unclassified-supercomputing-facility.

 

First Round of 2015 ORNL/NCSA Hackathons Gets Underway

 

What good would a supercomputer be without its applications? As supercomputers inevitably scale to newer, more diversified architectures, so too must their applications.

Building on the lauded success of last year’s 2014 inaugural hackathon, organizers from the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), the University of Illinois Coordinated Science Laboratory and National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), NVIDIA, and The Portland Group (PGI) gathered in April at NCSA on the university’s Urbana-Champaign campus for the next round of applications acceleration programming. “The goal of the events is for mentors to help the teams prepare their next-generation applications for the next generation of heterogeneous supercomputers and for the teams to help mentors to gain insights on how to improve their tools and methods,” said Wen-mei Hwu, co-principal investigator for supercomputer. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/first-round-of-2015-hackathons-gets-underway/.

 

Australian Oil & Gas Company to Utilize IBM’s Watson

 

IBM and Woodside today announced they will use IBM Watson as part of the oil and gas company’s next steps in data science. The cognitive computing system will be trained by Woodside engineers, enabling users to surface evidence-weighted insights from large volumes of unstructured and historical data contained in project reports in seconds.

Watson is part of Woodside’s strategy to use predictive data science to leverage more than 30 years of collective knowledge and experience as a leading liquefied natural gas operator, to maintain a strong competitive advantage. Allowing a broad population of employees to leverage this knowledge will enhance Woodside’s collective expertise in designing, fabricating and constructing major oil and gas facilities as well as managing major turnarounds.

Delivered via the cloud, the cognitive advisory service – ‘Lesson Learned’ – scales the knowledge of engineers making insights and information quickly accessible to a wide group, with the potential to lead to faster resolutions, improved process flow and operational outcomes.  Lesson Learned will enable Woodside’s engineering teams to ask complex questions in natural language. To read further, please visit http://www.businesscloudnews.com/2015/05/28/woodside-to-deploy-ibm-watson-to-improve-oil-gas-operations/.

 

PRACE-4IP Project Detailed

 

On February 1, 2015, the PRACE-4IP project began and a kick-off meeting for project participants took place on the VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava campus in Ostrava on April 28-29, 2015. PRACE aisbl and its Members collaborated on the PRACE-4IP project, which is a 27 month project funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. The project is coordinated by Forschungzentrum Jülich (JUELICH) on behalf of PRACE aisbl.

PRACE-4IP is designed to build on and seamlessly continue the successes of the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) and start new innovative and collaborative activities that fit with the main objectives of the PRACE-4IP project:

• Assisting the transition to PRACE 2
• Strengthening the internationally recognised PRACE brand
• Preparing strategies and best practices towards exascale computing
• Coordinating and enhancing the operation of the multi-tier HPC systems and services
• Supporting and educating users to exploit massively parallel systems and novel architectures.

The successful and well-organized meeting was hosted by the local PRACE partner, IT4Innovations. To read further, please visit http://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/prace-4ip-project-detailed/.

 

XSEDE News From Partners and Friends

 

Webinar: Catch the Comet! Introduction to XSEDE's Newest Resource at SDSC
June 3, 2015 – 9AM to 10:30 AM (PT)

The webinar will provide an introduction to Comet, the new XSEDE HPC resource hosted and operated at SDSC. Detailed information will be provided on the Comet system architecture, including compute and GPU nodes, InfiniBand topology, performance storage, and virtualization. During the training, participants will see examples with user information on: Using the compute nodes, including examples on MPI, OpenMP, hybrid (e.g. MPI+ OpenMP), local scratch (SSD/flash memory), and Hadoop jobs; and Using the GPU nodes with examples on using MVAPICH2-GDR (uses GPU Direct), CUDA, and OpenACC programming. An overview of the special features on Comet including high performance virtualization and gateway hosting options will also be provided. For more information, and to watch the webinar, please visit https://www.xsede.org/news/-/news/item/7226.

UT Physicists to Work on Next Generation of ORNL Super Computer

When the next generation of high performance computing comes to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, UT’s physicists will be working on the first projects that put its power to work. Summit, the third in the evolution of ORNL’s supercomputers, is set to come online in 2017. Descended from Jaguar and most recently Titan, it will ramp up the current performance level by at least a factor of five. Late in 2014 the Center for Acceleration Application Readiness (CAAR) program at the national lab invited research teams to submit proposals to make the most effective use of this new system. Plans had to include a three-year readiness phase for coding and porting and culminate in a scientific grand-challenge project when Summit becomes available to users in 2018. This spring CAAR selected 13 initial partnership projects to showcase Summit’s prowess, and among them are ventures into long-standing questions in nuclear physics and astrophysics, both of which involve UT-affiliated faculty. To read more, please visit http://www.phys.utk.edu/news/2015/news-05202015-summit.html.

 

Call for Papers

 

Computational Science & Engineering Software Sustainability and Productivity Challenges (CSESSP Challenges)
October 15-16, 2015 – Washington, D.C.
Submission Deadline – June 12, 2015

Software has emerged as a critical technology in all sectors including defense, health systems, banking, transportation, energy, science and engineering, and manufacturing. However, software lifecycle cost is increasingly becoming the dominant fraction of the total information technology investment. Additionally, software activities have been a major factor in large-scale project delays, failures, cost overruns, and productivity bottlenecks. There is a general consensus that current approaches produce software that is difficult to maintain, upgrade, and scale, especially in the face of rapidly changing machine architecture and new system requirements. The CSESSP Challenges workshop will identify the unique issues around software productivity and sustainability faced by the NITRD computational science and engineering (CSE) communities, bringing together experts from academia, industry, government, and national laboratories. For more information, please visit https://www.nitrd.gov/csessp/.

Call for Abstracts: 31st American Society for Gravitational and Space Research Conference
November 11-14, 2015 - Alexandria, Virginia
Submission Deadline – July 1, 2015

All accepted abstracts from students will be presented as posters or orally in competitions. The student poster competition will be judged by society members, and monetary awards will be given during the banquet scheduled for Nov. 14, 2015. Students must be present at the banquet to receive the monetary award. Student competition winners will be encouraged to submit an extended abstract or a communication article to the ASGSR journal "Gravitational and Space Research." All students should coordinate with their advisors when submitting an abstract for the conference. Student travel assistance of up to $500 is available on a limited basis. Students requesting consideration for travel assistance should check the box on the abstract submittal form. For more information, pleas visit https://www.asgsr.org/index.php/2015-call-for-abstracts. Please direct questions about this opportunity to Ms. Jobi Cook at admin@asgsr.org.

 

Upcoming Conferences, Webinars, and Seminars  

 

Responsible Conduct of Research Workshop at Michigan State Universityb
June 6, 2015 - East Lansing, Michigan

This presentation will cover ethics and responsible conduct and their impact on research and scholarship. The goal is to ensure that students are informed to protect their personal, educational, and career development interests that can easily be harmed through irresponsible acts and to support their effectiveness in collaborating with senior researchers. For more information, please visit http://urca.msu.edu/event.

Unidata Users Workshop
June 22-25, 2015 – Boulder, Colorado

The Unidata Users Committee invites you to join other community members, distinguished presenters from academia and industry, and Unidata staff to raise awareness of important new trends in geoscience technology, including cloud computing, data management, and the place of the Python language in geoscience computing infrastructure. The workshop is a chance for the academic community and share hands-on activities, course materials, and ideas for improving research and education. The workshop, titled Data-Driven Geoscience: Applications, Opportunities, Trends, and Challenges, will feature oral presentations, hands-on demonstrations of Unidata and related technologies, collaborative work sessions, and a poster session for those who wish to share their work with workshop participants. For more information, please visit http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/blogs/news/entry/unidata_users_workshop_registration_extended.

CODE @ TACC Session II (Girls Only)
July 13-24, 2015 – Austin, Texas

CODE @ TACC is an innovative and exciting summer program that incorporates a project based learning approach to expose students to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) careers. Students will foster their talent and creativity by being introduced to the principles of high performance computing, life sciences, networking, robotics, and electronics. All students are welcome to apply. We encourage the participation of underrepresented students in the experience, especially those with limited access to technology. We believe that everyone has an opportunity to contribute to the technological economy because we all bring unique perspectives and abilities to the table. To see if you qualify, and to apply, please visit https://www.tacc.utexas.edu/education/stem-programs/code-at-tacc.

SDSC Summer Institute 2015: HPC for the Long Tail of Science
August 10-14, 2015 – San Diego, California

The SDSC Summer Institute (SI) 2015: HPC for the Long Tail of Science will provide a week long education and training in High Performance and Data Intensive Computing. The Summer Institute will deploy a flexible format designed to help attendees get the most out of their week. The first half of the Summer Institute will consist of plenary sessions covering essential skills including data management, running jobs on SDSC resources, reproducibility, database systems, characteristics of big data, and techniques for turning data into knowledge, software version control and making effective use of hardware. This will be followed by a series of parallel sessions that allow attendees to dive deeper into specialized material that is relevant to their research projects and covering topics in Spark, Parallel Computing, Performance Optimization, Predictive Analytics, Scalable Data Management, Visualization, Workflow Management, GPU/CUDA and Python for Scientific Computing. For more information, please visit https://www.eiseverywhere.com//ehome/125694. 

 

Research News From Around the World

 

The Complex Process of Developing Intelligence in Robots

Though language learning comes naturally to a child, encoding this complex process into a computer system is difficult; it lacks the physical and emotional connections to sounds and objects that are vital to the process of interpreting, conceptualizing, and understanding language. During language learning, children will make mistakes, learn from experiences, change their behavior, and continually listen to and practice the language. Eventually their brains will make the correct associations between sounds, objects, actions, or ideas—and the language is learned. Today’s computer systems lack neurons and empathy, two ingredients vital for human language learning. But Onyeama Osuagwu, a Ph.D. student in electrical and computer engineering, is working to build a system that can think and learn, and hopefully one day comprehend, through his research in three areas: how systems compute, how systems become intelligent, and brain-machine interfaces with these systems. To read more, please visit http://beckman.illinois.edu/news/2015/05/intelligence-in-robots.

Ohio Supercomputer Center Researchers Prove Magnetism Can Control Heat, Sound

Phonons—the elemental particles that transmit both heat and sound—have magnetic properties, according to a landmark study supported by Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) services and recently published by a researcher group from The Ohio State University. In a recent issue of the journal Nature Materials, the researchers describe how a magnetic field, roughly the size of a medical MRI, reduced the amount of heat flowing through a semiconductor by 12 percent. Simulations performed at OSC then identified the reason for it—the magnetic field induces a diamagnetic response in vibrating atoms known as phonons, which changes how they transport heat. People might be surprised enough to learn that heat and sound have anything to do with each other, much less that either can be controlled by magnets, Heremans acknowledged. To read more, please visit https://www.osc.edu/press/osu_researchers_prove_magnetism_can_control_heat_sound.

NICS Research into Nanoparticles Reveals Potential First Step in Impeding HIV

Since the time the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) first swept into America’s social consciousness in 1982, HIV has been misunderstood. But research conducted with the support of supercomputer allocations from the eXtreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) and grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) reveals a potential breakthrough in the way scientists pursue treatment—it’s all about the nanoparticles. A nanoparticle is microscopic and so small it exhibits size-related qualities. Most definitions specify that, to be considered nano, the particle must measure between 1 nanometer and 100 nanometers (for reference: a human hair is about 60,000 nanometers wide). Scientists are particularly interested in the properties and function of carbon-based nanoparticles called fullerenes, and researcher Jerzy Leszcznski and colleagues at Jackson State University through their XSEDE–NSF project titled “Multiscale Research in Nanotoxicity” have discovered that fullerenes block a key function of HIV. To read more, please visit https://www.nics.tennessee.edu/leszcznski-fullerenes.

University of Wisconsin Mapping App Turns Art Into a Sharable Walking Route

University of Washington (UW) researchers have developed Trace, an app that turns a digital sketch the user draws on a smartphone screen, such as a boat or a leaf, into a walking route that can be sent to another user. The recipient tells the app how far they want to walk and the app produces step-by-step directions that eventually reveal the hidden shape on a map. The sender also can include audio recordings, images, or other messages that appear at specified locations along the route. The app was designed to explore how geographical-information system mapping technology shapes how people experience the act of walking. "For some people, it was a delight to find that slowing down allowed them to meet new people or see familiar sites in their neighborhood in new ways, but at the same time giving up that control was a stress for other folks who had a routine," says UW professor Daniela Rosner. Trace forces walkers to give up control and just go where the app directs them, sometimes leading them into unfamiliar parts of a city. Unlike other walking apps, Trace enables a user to start walking the route from any point in the city. The walker also can make the shape bigger or smaller by specifying how long the walk should last. To read more, please visit  http://www.washington.edu/news/2015/05/06/uw-mapping-app-turns-art-into-a-sharable-walking-route/.  http://www.washington.edu/news/2015/05/06/uw-mapping-app-turns-art-into-a-sharable-walking-route/.

 

Educator News, Conferences, and Opportunities

 

U.S. Department of Education 'First in the World' Grant Competition
Application Deadline - June 30, 2015.

The U.S. Department of Education is accepting proposals for the “First in the World” grant competition. The goal of this highly competitive program is to build evidence for what works in postsecondary education by testing the effectiveness of innovative strategies to improve student persistence and completion outcomes. The department will award grants in development and validation tiers. For proposal specifications and submission requirements, please visit http://www2.ed.gov/programs/fitw/index.html. Questions about the “First in the World” program should be directed to OPEFirstintheWorld@ed.gov.

Summer Camps With a Mission : To Create Cybersecurity Experts 

Summer camps across the U.S. will focus on technology and computing this year as part of an expanding program called GenCyber funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Security Agency (NSA). The agencies want to teach children about threats that can be found online, defense basics, and not misusing the information they collect.  "In order to be really cyber-aware...a student, high school, college, or new grad entering the workforce really needs to be fundamentally strong in those principles and programming," says Dakota State University professor Josh Pauli.  He will oversee a summer camp involving 200 students who will learn about programming.  In 2014, NSA and NSF collaborated on a pilot program comprising six summer camps for both children and teachers. The goal for this summer was 30, but demand was so great that 43 camps were created, according to NSF's Steven LaFountain. LaFountain says his original goal was to get to 200 camps by 2020, but demand is so great it could occur sooner. To find out more, please visit http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2015/05/02/summer-camps-across-country-seek-to-build-next-generation-cybersecurity-experts/.

Ali Partovi: Why Learning to Code Is Imperative In Public Education

 

“Education is about preparing kids for life, and public education is about helping people have equal opportunity, helping those who don’t have as much money have a more level playing field,” said Ali Partovi, co-founder of Code.org, in an interview at the Big Ideas Fest a few months ago. Partovi has an ambitious goal: To get public high schools to offer computer programming classes — not just as an elective, but as a science requirement. “It’s absolutely relevant for public education to embrace computer science,” he said.  “I can’t think of any other science that would better prepare you for life in the 21st century.” Partovi’s goal is being realized in pockets around the country. Through efforts like Hour of Code, a viral online campaign to promote coding, more than 20,000 teachers have started adding programming lessons, which Code.org for which offers free classes. What’s more, “30 school districts, including New York City and Chicago, have agreed to add coding classes in the fall, mainly in high schools but in lower grades, too. And policy makers in nine states have begun awarding the same credits for computer science classes that they do for basic math and science courses, rather than treating them as electives,”  according to the New York Times. To read further, please visit http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/13/ali-partovi-why-learning-to-code-is-imperative-in-public-education/.

 

 

Wearable Technology Finds Its Place on Campus

Several universities are experimenting with wearable technologies as a way to improve classroom instruction. Last year, University of California, Berkeley researchers and Intel launched the Make It Wearable Challenge, a competition to encourage entrepreneurs to develop wearable devices. The challenge involved instructors from Berkeley's Lester Center guiding the startup teams through an accelerator program. The competition's winning project was a wrist-mounted camera drone called Nixie. A low-cost robotic hand took second prize, while a production tools called Proglove, which helps industrial workers track data and information on the job, came in third. Meanwhile, New York University (NYU) researchers are using wearable devices to teach incoming students about project management and teamwork. As part of orientation for its full-time and part-time MBA students, the administration has put students to work on short projects that integrate Google Glass and a clip-on camera called Narrative Clip. To read further, please visit http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/6043098e-f340-11e4-a979-00144feab7de.html#axzz3bjYFKUbz.

Google Embeds Engineers as Professors at HBCUs

In an effort to diversify Silicon Valley's technology sector, Google is placing engineers at a handful of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), where they teach, mentor, and advise on curriculum. Although 35 percent of African Americans receiving computer science degrees currently come from those schools, they do not end up at Silicon Valley's top technology companies, as only about 1 percent of those firms' technical staffers are black. In response to this shortage, Google sent a handful of software engineers to teach at Howard University, Hampton University, Fisk University, Spelman College, and Morehouse College. This summer, 30 students who took computer science classes at those HBCUs will complete internships with Google. "Change is slow, this is going to take time, but I think what's interesting about this program is that it's a different way of attacking the problem of lack of diversity in tech," says Google software engineer Sabrina Williams, who took a semester away from her Mountain View campus this year to mentor and teach at Howard. Williams notes she was the only female African American computer science major at Stanford University when she was the school 15 years To read further, please visit http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Google-Embeds-Engineers-as-Professors-302356421.html.

 

Student Engagement and Opportunities

 

Girls Just Want to Code. The Trick Is Making Sure They Don't Stop
CNet  

Getting women interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects in their early years and sustaining that interest through college is key to addressing an endemic gender imbalance in the technology sector. Programs such as Qualcomm's Qcamp coding camp, which offers instruction in coding, app design, and robotics, seek to nurture STEM interest in young girls. Girls Who Code reports 74 percent of middle school girls say they are interested in STEM, yet only 0.3 percent of high school girls elect computer science as a college major. Experts say intimidation by a classroom where males are a majority is one factor discouraging girls' pursuit of STEM degrees. Harvey Mudd College president Maria Klawe cites this trend as a clear argument for changing how schools teach computer science. Her school is attempting to reform education to attract more women, for example by including more women in brochures, and amending introductory courses to stress programming as an outlet for creative problem-solving. Carnegie Mellon University is engaged in a similar pursuit by eliminating coding experience as an admissions requirement and setting up mentorship programs for women. To read further, please visit http://www.cnet.com/news/girls-just-want-to-code-solving-for-xx/.

SC15 Student Volunteers Deadline Approaching
Submission Deadline – June 1, 2015

The SC15 Student Volunteers program is accepting applications until June 1. Student Volunteers play a key role in supporting the conference, and this year the program is expanding both in the number of volunteer participants and the quality of the student programs in which the volunteers will have access. Undergraduate and graduate student volunteers will help with the administration of the conference, participate in student-oriented activities, attend technical talks by famous researchers and industry leaders, explore the exhibits and develop lasting peer connections. For more information, please visit https://submissions.supercomputing.org/.

HPC Intel Graduate Internship Opportunity for EE and CSE Students
Application Deadline – August 18, 2015

Intel Data Product Solution team is looking for the next talent star performer to demystify some complicated puzzles. This role has a specific focus on the performance analysis and benchmarking on the world leading parallel storage solution and influential commercial applications in vertical markets, e.g. life science, CAE, Financial services. The ideal candidate should exhibit the following behavioral traits:
-Strong passion on technologies.
-Understand the generic computer system architecture -Write up technical paper analytically.
-Interested to pursue a career in the storage industry.
For complete information, please visit https://intel.taleo.net/careersection/10000/jobdetail.ftl?job=762412.

 

Faculty Opportunities

NSF/IEEE-TCPP Curriculum Initiative on Parallel and Distributed Computing – Core Topics for Undergraduates - Call for Proposals
Submission Deadlines:
Abstract Due - July 8, 2015
Proposal Due - July 15, 2015
Notification: July 31, 2015

The incorporation of parallel and distributed computing (PDC) technology into the daily lives of users via their wireless networks, smartphones, social networking sites, cloud, etc., has made it imperative to impart a broad-based skill set in PDC technology at various levels in the educational fabric. However, rapid advances in computing technology and services challenges educators’ abilities to know what to teach in any given course. Other stakeholders in the push to cope with fast-changing PDC technology, including employers, face similar challenges in identifying basic expertise. The curricular guidelines developed by the NSF/TCPP working group seek to address this challenge in a manner that is flexible and broad, with allowance for variations in emphasis in response to different curricular cultures.  For complete information, please visit http://www.cs.gsu.edu/~tcpp/curriculum/?q=home.

 

Computational Science News of Interest

 

Microsoft Links Windows 10 to Android, iOS Phones
eweek

Microsoft's ever-expanding embrace of competitors' mobile operating system platforms continues with a new app for the company's upcoming Windows 10 operating system. Included with the company's new flagship OS when it launches this summer is the Phone Companion app, which helps extend select Windows 10 functionality to iPhones, Android and, of course, Windows smartphones. "Regardless of the operating systems you choose across your devices—everything important to you should roam across the products you already own—including your phone," blogged Joe Belfiore, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Operating Systems Group. When the app is launched on a Windows 10 PC, it prompts users to select the type of phone they own. Hinting at Microsoft's unified Windows software ecosystem, Belfiore revealed that Windows smartphones will work seamlessly with Phone Companion while iPhone and Android users will "need to follow a few easy steps to get the right apps on your phone to make it work great in conjunction with your Windows 10 PC." To read more, please visit http://www.eweek.com/enterprise-apps/microsoft-links-windows-10-to-android-ios-phones.html.

The Bendy TV So Thin and Light You Can Hang It on the Wall Using Magnets: Screen Is Less Than 1mm Thick and Weighs As Much As a Laptop

At a press event in Korea on Tuesday, it showed off the system. It uses a magnetic mat that sits behind it on the wall. The TV can then be stuck to a wall using the pad. To remove the display from the wall, you peel the screen off the mat. The firm hopes OLED TVs are set to explode in popularity. They mean TVs that are much slimmer since the screen emits light itself without a backlight unit, unlike the liquid crystal display (LCD). The head of LG Display's OLED business unit, Sang-Deog Yeo, said 'OLED represents a groundbreaking technology' not only for the company, but also for the industry.' The unveiling was part of a broader announcement by LG Display to showcase its plans for the future. The company said its display strategy will center on OLED technology - even though manufacturers have struggled to mass produce the more complex sets. LG vowed to ramp up OLED production from the third quarter of this year to a substantial level that can meet clients’ demand, according to the Korea Times. LG Display will keep its focus on large screens, with a plan to introduce an OLED panel as big as 99 inches within this year, the executive said. To read more, please visit http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3088702/The-wallpaper-TV-light-hang-wall-using-MAGNETS.html.

 

Social Media

 

Facebook Adds "Call Now" Click-to-Call Feature to Newsfeed Ads
SocialMediaToday

Local advertisers now have a new tool for converting social network users to leads and sales, thanks to Facebook's new 'Call Now' button for News Feed ads. Mobile users who tap the button call the business immediately. "Call Now" is the second call-to-action button released as part of Facebook's "Local Awareness" objective, designed to help local businesses build their online profile and better engage consumers. The first, "Get Directions," launched in October 2014. It guides people directly to a business location after they click the button in an ad. Of course, Google has also been heavy on the mobile-local charge and has offered click-to-call on mobile search ads since 2011. Their research in 2014 showed that 70% of all mobile searchers use click-to-call within organic and paid search results. To read more, please visit http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/larrykim/2015-05-28/facebook-adds-call-now-click-call-feature-newsfeed-ads.

Is Your Daily Social Media Usage Higher Than Average?          
The Telegraph

Social media swallows more than a quarter of time spent online and a third of all internet usage is now happening via mobile, a new global report has found. The average person has five social media accounts and spends around 1 hour and 40 minutes browsing these networks every day, accounting for 28pc of the total time spent on the internet. However, Britons are slightly less digitally obsessed, spending 1 hour and 20 minutes each day managing an average of four social networks, according to the latest quarterly report from GWI. Despite being the only major social network to see a decline in active users over the last year, Facebook remains the largest online community, as 82pc of the world’s population, excluding China, have a Facebook account and four in 10 people use the platform regularly. However, YouTube is the most popular social network, with a visitation rate eight percentage points higher than Facebook. To read more, please visit http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/11610959/Is-your-daily-social-media-usage-higher-than-average.html.