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Supermicro Exhibits Battery Backup Power for Mission Critical Embedded Applications …

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Enterprise-Class Embedded Building Block Solutions Cover Wide Range of Applications from Compact Appliances to Power Saving, High Performance Server Solutions

SAN JOSE, Calif. Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI), a global leader in high-performance, high-efficiency server, storage technology and green computing is exhibiting its latest embedded building block solutions at EE|Live!, Embedded Systems Conference (ESC) 2014 in San Jose, California this week. Supermicro will highlight Battery Backup Power (BBP) solutions for mission critical embedded applications alongside compact, low-power Intel Atom based general purpose server, network security and communications embedded appliances. Compact 1U rack and BoxPC appliances for light workload server and mobile solutions and a range of compact, cost effective single and high-performance, feature rich dual processor motherboards will be on display. AMD Opteron 3300 (AM+) and 4300 (C32) based servers for communications and security applications will also be exhibited at ESC.

"Supermicro brings Enterprise-class stability, performance and energy efficiency to our Embedded Solutions product lines," said Charles Liang, President and CEO of Supermicro. "Our new BBP solutions for mission critical embedded applications offer a graceful shutdown period for maximum protection against data loss in unexpected power outage events. With the industry's widest selection of embedded server building blocks, customers in engineering, manufacturing, infrastructure and security have more choice to design in solutions that meet the most demanding requirements while delivering maximum flexibility and reliability."

Supermicro ESC 2014 Exhibits Include:

Battery Backup Power (BBP) Solutions

- 1U Resource Optimized, 200W BBP, SC119XTQ-BR700WB - (1PSU + 1BBP) - 1U High-Performance, Compact, 200W BBP, SC113MTQ-R400CB - (1PSU + 1BBP) - 1U High-Performance, Short Depth, 200W BBP, SC813MTQ-B406CB - (1PSU + 1BBP) - 2U 12x Hot-Swap HDD/SSD, 1000W BBP, SC826B - (1PSU + 1BBP) - 3U 8x Hot-Swap HDD/SSD, 1000W BBP, SC835B - (2PSU + 1BBP) or (1PSU + 2BBP) - 4U 5x Hot-Swap HDD/SSD, 2x 200W BBP, SC842MTQ-BR606B - (2PSU + 2BBP) coming soon

Embedded Motherboards

- A1 Series Intel Atom based embedded serverboards (Intel "Silvermont" microarchitecture) feature 2.4GHz 64-bit, 22nm 3D Tri-gate System on Chip (SOC) process to offer high performance per watt and greater power efficiency. Ideal for SMB low-power server/storage, web hosting, networks security appliance (Rangeley w/QuickAssist) - A1SAi-2750F (Mini-ITX) - Low-Power 8-Core (20W) - A1SRi-2758F (Mini-ITX) - Embedded Communications 8-Core (20W), Intel QuickAssist Technology, 7 year support - A1SAM-2750F (microATX) - High-Performance Turbo Boost Technology enabled 8-Core (20W) - A1SRM-2758F (microATX) - Embedded Communications 8-Core (20W) Intel QuickAssist Technology, 7 year - X10SLV / -Q (Mini-ITX) -Triple display & 7 year support, Intel 4th Generation Core i3/i5/i7 - X10SLQ (microATX) - Next generation Intel Graphics Controller with HDMI/DP/VGA/DVI, 3x independent displays Remote management with Intel vPro AMT 9.0 - X10SLH-F (microATX), X10SAE (ATX) - High-performance Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3 and 4th Gen Core i3 - X10SBA (Mini-ITX) - Compact, low-power (10W) Intel Celeron J1900 (Bay Trail D), 7 year support - X9SKV-1125 (Flex ATX) - Communication, Intel Xeon E3-1125C (40W) and Intel Communication chipset 8903, 7 year support - X9SCAA, X9SBAA, X9SPV-M4-3UE / -F-3217UE (Mini-ITX) - Low power, small footprint uni-processor (UP) MBs supporting Intel Atom and Core processors - C7H61 (ATX), C7B75 (microATX), X9SCM-iiF (microATX), X9SAE-V (ATX), X9SRH-7F (ATX) - High-performance UP MBs supporting Intel Core or Xeon processor E3-1200 and E5-2600/1600 product families - High-performance dual-processor (DP) MBs supporting Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product families - X9DRW-CF31 (WIO 12.3"x13") 8x 12Gb/s SAS3 ports via add-on-module (AOM-S3108-H8) - X9DRL-EF (ATX) Low-cost optimized for embedded server applications - X9DRD-EF / -7LNF4 (E-ATX) Optimized for free-air cooling, 6 (x8) PCI-E 3.0 - X9DR7-TF+ (E-ATX) 24x DIMMs supporting up to 1.5TB ECC DDR3, dual 10Gbase-T LAN - X9DRX+-F (15.2"x13.2") Industry's only 11x PCI-E slot solution

Embedded Server Systems

- SYS-5017K-N6 - New communication appliance featuring Intel Pentium B915C processor (15W, 1.5GHz. 3M, Gladden) and Intel Communication Chipset 8903 - SYS-5018A-MHN4 - 1U (4x 3.5" hot-swap and 2x 2.5" internal HDD/SSD bays, short-depth rackmount Networking and Security Server Appliance, (20W) 8-Core Intel Atom (Rangeley), 7 year support, Intel QuickAssist Technology - SYS-5018A-MLTN4 - 1U compact, 2x 3.5" or 4x 2.5" internal HDD/SSDs, low-power (14W) 4-Core Intel Atom (Avoton) C2550, up to 64GB 1600MHz DDR3 ECC or non ECC UDIMM, quad 1GbE LAN ports - SYS-5018A-FTN4 - 1U ultra-compact, Front I/O quad 1GbE LAN ports, 2x 3.5" or 4x 2.5" internal HDD/SSDs, (20W) 8-Core Intel Atom (Rangeley), 7 year support, Intel QuickAssist Technology - Low Power, Compact Mini ITX System Solutions CSE-504-203B chassis and X10SLV-Q. Rear I/O, 1U compact, short depth 9.8" rackmount. 2x 3.5" or optional 4x 2.5" internal SATA2 HDD/SSD bays. - Box PC built on CSE-101i chassis and X10SLV. Supports Mini-ITX (6.75" x 6.75"), front accessible USB 2.0 and audio ports, 1x internal 2.5" HDD/SSD bay, VESA Mount compatible, optional 60W or 80W power adapters.

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Supermicro Exhibits Battery Backup Power for Mission Critical Embedded Applications ...

Server System supports dual Intel Xeon processor.

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SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI), a global leader in high-performance, high-efficiency server, storage technology and green computing debuts the first server of its new Ultra Architecture SuperServer series, the 2U 2-Node UltraTwin(TM). This new 2U SuperServer features two hot-swappable 1U nodes each supporting dual Intel Xeon E7-2880 v2 processors, up to 1TB in 32x DIMM slots, 2x 2.5" NMVe SSDs, 8x 12Gb/s SAS 3.0 2.5" HDD/SSDs, PCI-E 3.0 expansion in 2x full height, half length and 1x MicroLP cards and onboard support for 2x 10GBase-T ports. UltraTwin supports redundant 1280W (1+1) Platinum Level High-Efficiency (95%) Digital Switching power supplies powering new proprietary serverboards designed to maximize compute/memory density and eliminate CPU pre-heat. High core counts, memory capacity and accelerated storage technologies combined with wide I/O bandwidth make this new system perfectly suited for virtualization applications and high memory bandwidth in Data Centers, Cloud Computing and HPC clusters.

"Supermicro's new 2U UltraTwin features two DP nodes each supporting up to 1TB in 32 DIMMs for data intensive in-memory applications and dual Intel Xeon E7-2880 v2 15 core processors for maximum performance per node," said Charles Liang, President and CEO of Supermicro. "This new server is part of our innovative Ultra Architecture featuring high-density, performance and cooling optimized serverboards supporting Intel's highest core-count processors, massive memory footprints and the latest high-performance storage, expansion and network technologies. UltraTwin is the first in a line of upcoming servers to take full advantage of this groundbreaking architecture and expands our MP solution range with support for Intel Xeon E7 v2 series processors and peripheral technologies."

"The Intel Xeon processor E7 v2 family offers up to double the performance, triple the memory capacity, and quadruple the I/O bandwidth over preceding generation processors," said Shannon Poulin, vice president of Enterprise IT for Intel's Data Center Group, "By using our top-of-the-line server processors, Supermicro is able to build highly-optimized, enterprise-class computing solutions with their new 2U 2-node UltraTwin and future MP server platforms. Together, we are delivering the performance, scalability and reliability necessary for businesses to handle increasingly complex data intensive workloads in mission critical, highly virtualized environments."

2U 2-Node UltraTwin(TM) (SYS-2028UT-BTTNR / -BC1TNR)

Chassis Features -- 2x hot-swappable 1U nodes -- 20x hot-swappable HDD/SSD bays -- Redundant 1280W (1+1) Platinum Level High-Efficiency (95%) Digital Switching power supplies -- 4x 8cm Energy-Efficiency PWM fans

Each Node Features -- Dual Intel Xeon Processor E7-8800/4800/2800 v2 -- Up to 1TB of DDR3 RDIMM/LRDIMM memory in 32 DIMM slots -- Dual set of 2x PCI-E 3.0 x16 FH/HL slots (SYS-2028UT-BTTNR); 1x PCI-E 3.0 x8 for MicroLP card -- Dual set of Intel C602 controller for 8x SATA3 (6Gbps) ports; RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 (-BTTNR) -- Dual set of LSI 3108 SAS3 (12Gbps); RAID 0,1,5,6,10,50 (-BC1TNR) -- Dual 10GBase-T ports with Intel X540 controller -- 2x NVMe 2.5" SSD bays and 8x 2.5" SAS3/SATA3 HDD/SSD bays

For more information on Supermicro's new UltraTwin(TM) SuperServer visit http://www.supermicro.com/UltraTwin.

Follow Supermicro on Facebook and Twitter to receive their latest news and announcements.

About Super Micro Computer, Inc. Supermicro (NASDAQ: SMCI), the leading innovator in high-performance, high-efficiency server technology is a premier provider of advanced server Building Block Solutions for Data Center, Cloud Computing, Enterprise IT, Hadoop/Big Data, HPC and Embedded Systems worldwide. Supermicro is committed to protecting the environment through its "We Keep IT Green" initiative and provides customers with the most energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly solutions available on the market.

Supermicro, UltraTwin, SuperServer and We Keep IT Green are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Super Micro Computer, Inc.

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Server System supports dual Intel Xeon processor.

Super system expensive, says Treasury

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The system is too focused on supporting saving through the accumulation phase, and not focused enough on how it will manage payouts.

Australia's superannuation system is one of the world's least efficient and most expensive and financial disclosure laws aren't working, the Treasury says in its submission to the Murray financial system inquiry.

Of the 15 OECD nations whose pension operating expenses it graphs, Australia's are exceeded only by those of Spain, Hungary, Mexico and the Czech Republic.

In an apparent reference to overcharging, it says principal-agent theory suggests that the separation of the ownership of funds from those who manage them ''opens up the risk that managers rationally maximise their own interests at the expense of fund members''.

Other reasons why Australia's superannuation sector has high costs are its reliance on manual and paper-based back-office systems and the maintenance of legacy computer systems.

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The super system is too focused on supporting saving through the accumulation phase, and not focused enough on how it will manage payouts to growing number of Australians who will be drawing down on their accounts. ''Neither it nor the insurance sector has sufficiently developed a broad range of products for individuals to manage their financial affairs through retirement,'' the Treasury says.

Also, account-based pensions as presently structured do not protect against longevity risks.

''Australia is the only country which relies predominantly on a mandatory privately administered defined-contribution structure for retirement income not to have incentives or mandates in place for longevity insurance.''

Treasury said Australia's financial disclosure laws have reached their limit, being both expensive to administer and of limited use to customers.

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Super system expensive, says Treasury

Super system expensive and inefficient, says Treasury

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The system is too focused on supporting saving through the accumulation phase, and not focused enough on how it will manage payouts.

Australia's superannuation system is one of the world's least efficient and most expensive and financial disclosure laws aren't working, the Treasury says in its submission to the Murray financial system inquiry.

Of the 15 OECD nations whose pension operating expenses it graphs, Australia's are exceeded only by those of Spain, Hungary, Mexico and the Czech Republic.

In an apparent reference to overcharging, it says principal-agent theory suggests that the separation of the ownership of funds from those who manage them ''opens up the risk that managers rationally maximise their own interests at the expense of fund members''.

Other reasons why Australia's superannuation sector has high costs are its reliance on manual and paper-based back-office systems and the maintenance of legacy computer systems.

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The super system is too focused on supporting saving through the accumulation phase, and not focused enough on how it will manage payouts to growing number of Australians who will be drawing down on their accounts. ''Neither it nor the insurance sector has sufficiently developed a broad range of products for individuals to manage their financial affairs through retirement,'' the Treasury says.

Also, account-based pensions as presently structured do not protect against longevity risks.

''Australia is the only country which relies predominantly on a mandatory privately administered defined-contribution structure for retirement income not to have incentives or mandates in place for longevity insurance.''

Treasury said Australia's financial disclosure laws have reached their limit, being both expensive to administer and of limited use to customers.

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Super system expensive and inefficient, says Treasury

TZM Global Radio/Podcast Ep 142, April 1st 2014 [ The Zeitgeist Movement ] – Video

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TZM Global Radio/Podcast Ep 142, April 1st 2014 [ The Zeitgeist Movement ]
In this critically important episode, Matt and Ben realize the error of their ways and how TZM must now recognize the true power of Praxeology. Peter Joseph ...

By: TZMOfficialChannel

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TZM Global Radio/Podcast Ep 142, April 1st 2014 [ The Zeitgeist Movement ] - Video

UI builds super computer Memory of the Big-STEM computer gives researchers advantage

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The Big-STEM computer is one of the most powerful computers in the nation. It gives University of Idaho researchers an advantage to further their research, said Jim Alves-Foss, director of the Center for Secure and Dependable Systems, and who manages the Big-STEM project.

A view of the back of the universitys new super computer. This super computer is made up of several computers that share a workload and is securely housed in the Buchanan Engineering Lab. It is one of the nations most powerful computers.

It allows our faculty to experiment with much more interesting problems, Alves-Foss said.

The project began in fall 2011 when a group of junior faculty tried to conduct complicated research, but continued to run into computing problems, he said. Every machine they tried to use at UI and even at the Idaho National Lab couldnt give them the computing power they needed.

After discussing a way to solve their problems, the faculty went to Alves-Foss asking him and others to help find a way to have a bigger computer where they could all share and solve their problems, he said.

The Big-STEM project team wrote a proposal and received the first half of funding from the National Science Foundation for $300,000 last summer, Alves-Foss said. However, the team waited until fall to start buying the equipment, because they needed more funding and were waiting for technology updates.

The real power of the Big-STEM computer is the four terabytes of memory, Alves-Foss said. UI received $240,000 of funding from the Murdock Charitable Trust to double the memory. Therefore, when the machine goes online this summer, it will have eight terabytes of memory 4,000 times the memory of an average computer.

The Big-STEM computer consists of multiple motherboards with the processors in a single chassis about the size of a microwave, he said. Each one of the processors holds one-eighth of the memory with a high speed data connection between the motherboards, allowing them to share memory in a way that has never been done before, Alves-Foss said. Memory of this size gives researchers a chance for more accurate studies, he said.

When you are doing a simulation of a complex structure where you have a lot of data points and a lot of interactions if you dont have enough memory the simulation program will try to store the data on the hard drive and then swap it back and forth, which will either crash the program or make it tremendously slower, Alves-Foss said.

Marty Ytreberg, associate professor of physics, studies intrinsically disordered proteins found in the human body that change shape and are very flexible. The use of the Big-STEM computer helps to identify similarities within the proteins.

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UI builds super computer Memory of the Big-STEM computer gives researchers advantage

New Super-Accurate Atomic Clock Tells Time Like No Other

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A U.S. government agency has introduced a new atomic clock to serve as an improved standard for civilian timekeeping, and officials say its three times as accurate as its predecessor.

The U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology announced the new clock, called NIST-F2, on Thursday at NIST headquarters in Boulder, Colo.

An atomic clock is designed to measure time according to vibrations within atoms.

Like the NIST-F1, which has served as the U.S. civilian time standard since 1999, NIST-2 uses a "fountain" of cesium atoms to determine the exact length of a second.

NIST physicists Steve Jefferts (foreground) and Tom Heavner with the NIST-F2 cesium fountain atomic clock, a new civilian time standard for the United States.

NIST-F2 is now an official source of time for the United States it has an accuracy that's equivalent to about one second in 300 million years, said Thomas O'Brian, chief of NIST's time and frequency division.

That makes NIST-F2 about three times as accurate as NIST-F1.

But why should we care about such minute detail?

OBrian noted that much of the technology we use everyday from electric power grids to computer networks to GPS systems in planes, cars and smartphones rely on the exquisite precision of atomic clocks.

Added NIST physicist Steven Jefferts, lead designer of NIST-F2, in a press release: If we've learned anything in the last 60 years of building atomic clocks, we've learned that every time we build a better clock, somebody comes up with a use for it that you couldn't have foreseen."

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New Super-Accurate Atomic Clock Tells Time Like No Other

Chapman University to Host Intertwingled: A Celebration of the Work and Influence of Computer Iconoclast Ted Nelson

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Orange, CA (PRWEB) April 03, 2014

Internet computing iconoclast Theodor Ted Nelson, Ph.D., will have his lifes work honored at Chapman University on April 24, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the publication of his book Computer Lib. In a conference called Intertwingled, Nelsons more than 50 years of influence in the world of personal and academic computing will be celebrated in talks by a dozen of todays leaders in technology and creativity. The event is open to the public.

It is not well known that Nelson invented movie editing by computer and realistic computer graphics, for which he filed early patent applications. Among Nelsons more notorious contributions throughout the advancement of the computer age are coining the terms hypertext and hypermedia among others, authoring several books such as Computer Lib, Literary Machines, Geeks Bearing Gifts and Possiplex, and he has spent more than 50 years working on his vision of a connected document world called Xanadu. Nelson was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Chapman University during fall 2013, when he taught an Honors course entitled Cinema of the Mind.

Ted is a very unique individualhe formulated his ideas before the world was ready to understand them, but that has not deterred him from continuing to believe in a different future for the world of computing, said Daniele Struppa, Chancellor, Chapman University. Irreverent, and yet tender, he is the modern/high tech version of Don Quixote, and I say this with the greatest admiration for the immortal creation of Cervantes, continued Struppa.

Participants in the conference include notables in the tech world, including Turing Award winner (equivalent to a Nobel Prize in Computer Science) Alan Kay, creator of the Smalltalk programming language - the inspiration for todays windowing based systems; and who is best known for coining the phrase, "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." Also participating is Dame Wendy Hall, former president of the Association for Computing Machinery and one of the first computer scientists to undertake serious research in multimedia, hypermedia and digital libraries.

The book being celebrated, Computer Lib, made the outrageous claim in 1974 that personal computing, computer graphics, interaction and hypertext would fuse into an oncoming wave that would revolutionize the worldabsurd, most people thought, said Nelson. After 40 years of Computer Lib being very right, here we are in a soup of resulting super-problems. Now theyre listening to me again, Nelson continued.

The son of show business parents his mother was an Oscar winning actress and his father an Emmy winning director Nelson initially was a filmmaker, actor, and author of a rock musical and numerous plays and periodicals. As early as 1960, he envisioned a world in which all mediadocuments, films, etc.would be connected and interacting with one another on a vast system of computers. Nelson coined the term intertwingled to express the philosophical complexity of the world and the difficulty of representing it.

Dr. Ted Nelsons book Computer Lib had a considerable influence on the personal computing world in its infancy. Nelsons effect on the development of hypertext systems has led the Association for Computing Machinerys Hypertext Conference to awarding the Ted Nelson Newcomer Award annually. More about Ted Nelsons work can be found at http://hyperland.com.

Other speakers at Intertwingled include: Jaron Lanier Christine Borgman Ken Knowlton Frode Hegland Kazuhiko Nishi Dan Rosenberg Brewster Kahle Andrew Pam Dick Heiser Rob Akscyn Belinda Barnet Noah Wardrip-Fruin

Intertwingled takes place April 24, at Chapman University, in Argyros Forum. More information can be found at http://www.chapman.edu/intertwingled.

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Chapman University to Host Intertwingled: A Celebration of the Work and Influence of Computer Iconoclast Ted Nelson

Minnesota's initial bid for Super Bowl 52 is in

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By JON KRAWCZYNSKI AP Sports Writer

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Minnesota organizers submitted a preliminary bid Tuesday to host the 2018 Super Bowl, laying out a plan to host one of the biggest events in professional sports while also making thousands of visitors feel warm and welcome in what will almost certainly be a frigid February.

Minnesota is competing with New Orleans and Indianapolis for the game, hoping that the new indoor stadium that is due to be completed in 2016 will help put the bid over the top.

The Vikings revealed some details, including potential venues throughout Minneapolis, St. Paul and the suburb of Bloomington for various activities. The NFL Experience, a football theme park set up at the Super Bowl site each year, would likely be held at the Minneapolis Convention Center, while more than 180 hotels and 19,000 hotel rooms will be available for the flood of visitors.

"Today, we put Minnesota's best foot forward, and we feel extremely good about our bid," said Richard Davis, the Super Bowl bid committee co-chair and U.S. Bank CEO.

The committee will meet with NFL staff in New York later this month to get feedback on the bid and make any final changes or clarifications before turning in the final version on May 7. A formal presentation will be made to team owners in Atlanta two weeks later.

Gov. Mark Dayton and several state Republican and Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter of support for the bid, which covered everything from practice sites for the two teams to 48 different venue options for events surrounding the game.

"The effort from the bid committee, as well as from Minnesota's business and community leadership, has been nothing short of outstanding," Vikings owner and team President Mark Wilf. "NFL owners will greatly enjoy this community's hospitality, venues and energy. Minnesota will deliver an outstanding Super Bowl in 2018."

One thing the bid does not contain, at least yet, is assurances of tax breaks that other cities have granted the NFL in years past, including players' salaries and tickets. State lawmakers are discussing the matter, with some expressing concerns that too many tax breaks will reduce the positive economic impact of bringing a Super Bowl to Minnesota. Chances that any of those tax breaks pass during this year's legislative session appear to be remote.

"This new stadium is being built to attract and host major events, some that will bring more than 100,000 visitors to fill our hotels and restaurants and to shop in our stores," said Michele Kelm-Helgen, Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority chair. "Events like the Super Bowl provide national and international exposure to Minnesota as a place to live, work and do business. We hope this will be just one example of the many economic benefits the stadium will provide our great state."

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Minnesota's initial bid for Super Bowl 52 is in

Brain games: Science makes remarkable discovery about the human mind

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For years now, physicists and engineers have been building computer simulations of physics in order to understand the behavior of objects in the world. Want to see if a bridge would be stable during an earthquake? Enter it into the simulation, apply earthquake dynamics, and see what happens.

Recently, the prestigiousProceedings of the National Academy of Sciencespublished workby MIT psychologists (and my labmates)Peter Battaglia,Jessica Hamrick, andJoshua Tenenbaum, arguing that all humans do roughly the same thing when trying to understand or make predictions about the physical world. The primary difference is that we run our simulations in our brains rather than in digital computers, but the basic algorithms are roughly equivalent. The analogy runs deep: To model human reasoning about the physical world, the researchers actually used an open-sourcecomputer game physics engine the software that applies the laws of physics to objects in video games in order to make them interact realistically (think Angry Birds).

Battaglia and colleagues found that their video game-based computer model matches human physical reasoning far better than any previous theory. The authors asked people to make a number of predictions about the physical world: willtower of blocksstand or fall over, what direction would it fall over, and where would the block that landed the farthest away land; which object wouldmost likely fall off of a tableif thetable was bumped; and so on. In each case, human judgments closely matched the prediction of the computer simulation but not necessarily the actual world, which is where it gets interesting.

Whether or not a tower of blocks (or a bridge, etc.) will fall over depends on its exact dimensions and the exact position of each block, potentially down to the millimeter. But a human cant tell the dimensions and position of every block down to the millimeter just by looking. That is why we invented rulers. Instead, we knowapproximatelyhow big each block is and where it is. If the simulation was given the exact coordinates of the blocks, it predicted human judgments reasonably well but far from perfectly. If the simulation was givenapproximatecoordinates, taking into account human uncertainty, it matched the actual world less well but human judgments very well.

In retrospect, it may seem intuitive that when we made predictions about the physical world what will happen to towers during earthquakes or books on shelves we query an internal, virtual simulation of the real world, but it represents a sharp departure from previous scientific thinking. Many scientists thought that we use rules-of-thumb to predict the world around us.

As a theory, the rules-of-thumb account seems to be a failure: Battaglia and colleagues tested a number of plausible rules-of-thumb. For instance, maybe we base our guesses as to whether a block tower will fall based on the towers height or center of mass. None of the rules-of-thumb fared as well as the simulation account. Even worse, rules-of-thumb have to be tailored to the question: The heuristics for the tower of blocks scenario are useless for the table-bump scenario. In contrast, simulations are one-size-fits-all.

But that leaves the question of whether the simulation account is plausible. After all, if we already have a physics simulator in our heads, why did scientists have to discover the laws of physics, and why do we have to learn physics in school (or not at all)? Part of the answer may lie in the distinction between implicit and explicit knowledge. A bird doesnt have to be able to teach a university course on aerodynamics in order to fly, and we dont have to understand biophysics in order to walk or neuroscience in order to think.

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Brain games: Science makes remarkable discovery about the human mind

Tomorrows Super-Soldiers Will Wear Night Vision Contact Lenses

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The ideal crystalline structure of graphene is a hexagonal grid. Image: Wikimedia Commons

As the Pentagon continues to build a lighter, faster and stronger soldier of the future, new technology that could provide night vision without bulky goggles has caught the Armys eye.

Researchers at the University of Michigan, Ted Norris and Zhaohui Zhong, have createda super-thin infrared light sensor using graphene an atom-thin material related to graphite that could be layered onto contact lenses. Grapheneabsorbs infrared rays and translates them into an electrical signal, in a similar fashion to how silicon chips work with visible light in a digital camera.

The team of engineers and computer scientists placed an insulating layer between two graphene layers and then added electric current. When infrared light hits the layered product, its electrical reaction is amplified strongly enough to be converted into a visible image.

If we integrate it with a contact lens or other wearable electronics, it expands your vision, said Zhong. It provides you another way of interacting with your environment.

Night vision contacts are still years away the research needs to produce greater light sensitivity, as well as the ability to work in a broader range of temperatures.

To move the project forward, Norris and Zhong say they need commercial or governmental partners beyond the initial support that came from the National Science Foundation. They say that the technology could have widespread application, including smartphone cameras for photos in the dark and car windshields to enhance nighttime driving.

In 2011, some speculated that cat vision contact lenses were used by the Navy Seals in the Osama bin Laden raid.

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Tomorrows Super-Soldiers Will Wear Night Vision Contact Lenses

That computes: $10 million in state budget for super CSI computer center

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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - State lawmakers secured $10 million for a major computer project for the College of Staten Island (CSI) in this year's $138 billion state budget.

Also included is the promised $14 million for Verrazano-Narrows Bridge toll relief for Island motorists, among other allocations.

State Sen. Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island) and Assemblyman Michael Cusick (D-Mid-Island) announced that the $10 million would go toward CSI's Interdisciplinary High Performance Computer Center, a state-of-the-art research and learning facility to be built on the Willowbrook campus, which is already home to the college's super computer.

"This will make CSI an even bigger attraction," said Lanza.

Said Cusick, "This shows that CSI is the jewel we've always known it to be."

CSI President Dr. William Fritz said that the $10 million should bring the facility through the design phase and to the beginning of the bidding process.

"This will transform our campus," said Fritz, who added that the center will also include lecture halls, classrooms and offices and research space for faculty.

It is the first new academic space to be built at the campus since CSI moved to Willowbrook in 1994.

"That is significant," said Fritz.

Lawmakers said that the total pricetag for the facility would be around $50 million.

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That computes: $10 million in state budget for super CSI computer center

Samsung's 28-inch, 4K monitor to sell for $699.99

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Samsung's 28-inch UD590 4K monitor

Samsung has followed up its many ultra-high-definition TVs with a 4K monitor that may help bring down the average cost of super-high-resolution displays for bleary-eyed computer users.

The UD590, a 28-inch 4K monitor priced at US$699.99, displays images at a resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, which is four times higher than current 1080p high-definition monitors or TVs. Samsung has already released 4K TVs, both straight and curved, and the UD590 monitor is for computer users.

Samsung's new monitor can display 1 billion colors, the company said in a statement. The product will ship on April 18, according to an order page for the UD590 monitor on Amazon.com.

Prices for 4K monitors are falling as more products become available and Samsung, a big player in the display market, could accelerate this trend.

The UD590's price is a bit higher than the lowest-priced 4K monitor, Dell's 28 Ultra HD Monitor P2815Q, which has been selling for $661.99. However, Dell's monitor shows up as "no longer available" when orders are placed for it on Dell's website.

Dell's 28-inch monitor was criticized for its refresh rate of just 30Hz. The refresh rate is an important metric in determining how monitors are able to cope with moving images while reducing flickering. The refresh rate on Samsung's UD590 through an HDMI 1.4 port is 30Hz, and a more desirable 60Hz with a DisplayPort 1.2 port. The monitor has two HDMI ports and a single DisplayPort port.

Samsung has also brought some of its TV features to the monitor. It can convert lower-definition video content to the 4K resolution, and has a picture-in-picture feature to show content from two sources. The monitor has a "Game Mode" button that reduces screen lag, improves color and alters the "screen's contrast to make dark spots darker and light spots lighter" when playing games, according to a UD590 specification page.

Other technical specifications of the monitor include a 1-millisecond response time, 170-degree viewing angle, and the ability to tilt from 1 degree to 15-degrees.

Other 4K monitors are expected to become available this year, but many still remain priced well over $1,000. A 31.5-inch 4K monitor from Asus is selling for $2,899 on Amazon.com, while a 32-inch Sharp 4K monitor is priced at $3,595. Lenovo is due to ship two 4K monitors this year, including a 28-inch monitor that will be priced at $799.99, the company said in January.

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Samsung's 28-inch, 4K monitor to sell for $699.99

Computer Maps 21 Distinct Emotional Expressions–Even "Happily Disgusted"

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Released: 3/26/2014 2:00 PM EDT Embargo expired: 3/31/2014 3:00 PM EDT Source Newsroom: Ohio State University Contact Information

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Newswise COLUMBUS, OhioResearchers at The Ohio State University have found a way for computers to recognize 21 distinct facial expressionseven expressions for complex or seemingly contradictory emotions such as happily disgusted or sadly angry.

In the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they report that they were able to more than triple the number of documented facial expressions that researchers can now use for cognitive analysis.

Weve gone beyond facial expressions for simple emotions like happy or sad. We found a strong consistency in how people move their facial muscles to express 21 categories of emotions, said Aleix Martinez, a cognitive scientist and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Ohio State. That is simply stunning. That tells us that these 21 emotions are expressed in the same way by nearly everyone, at least in our culture.

The resulting computational model will help map emotion in the brain with greater precision than ever before, and perhaps even aid the diagnosis and treatment of mental conditions such as autism and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Since at least the time of Aristotle, scholars have tried to understand how and why our faces betray our feelingsfrom happy to sad, and the whole range of emotions beyond. Today, the question has been taken up by cognitive scientists who want to link facial expressions to emotions in order to track the genes, chemicals, and neural pathways that govern emotion in the brain.

Until now, cognitive scientists have confined their studies to six basic emotionshappy, sad, fearful, angry, surprised and disgustedmostly because the facial expressions for them were thought to be self-evident, Martinez explained.

But deciphering a persons brain functioning with only six categories is like painting a portrait with only primary colors, Martinez said: it can provide an abstracted image of the person, but not a true-to-life one.

What Martinez and his team have done is more than triple the color palettewith a suite of emotional categories that can be measured by the proposed computational model and applied in rigorous scientific study.

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Computer Maps 21 Distinct Emotional Expressions--Even "Happily Disgusted"


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