More self-service IT for business users

          2019 will be a year of IT innovation designed to build more trust and collaboration between IT and end users. One strategy that several companies tried out in 2018 was the idea of a self-service kiosk filled with IT tools, apps, and resources that users could choose from. Already vetted for proper access, clearances, and security, the self-service IT kiosk would enable users to log on and choose what they want for the apps that they build. Look for more companies to try self-service IT in 2019.

         Self-service BI is a trend with a somewhat vague definition. In the most general sense, self-service BI tasks are those that business users carry out themselves instead of passing them on to IT for fulfilment. The aim is to give the users of BI tools more freedom and responsibility at the same time. At its heart lies the notion of user independence and self-sufficiency when it comes to the use of corporate information, which leads to a decentralization of BI in the organization.

         For example, casual BI users often only need to be able to filter and group data. In the very same environment, power users or business analysts might have to integrate local data from different sources on their own so they can quickly build or enhance existing reports. Therefore, the need for self-service within a BI environment varies according to user requirements.

Japan's tidal energy system makes a splash

         In December 2010, Shinji Hiejima, associate professor of the Graduate School of Environmental and Life Science at Okayama University, Japan, developed a new type of tidal energy system, called the “Hydro-VENUS” or “Hydrokinetic-Vortex Energy Utilization System.” The Hydro-VENUS system will make energy available to coastal communities and communities with coastal neighbours who can potentially transfer the electricity to them. This energy will be environmentally friendly and there will be a constant supply since ocean currents are always moving. 

              The Hydro-VENUS works through a cylinder attached to a rod which is connected to a rotating shaft. The cylinder is held upright through buoyancy since it is hollow. As the ocean currents pass by the cylinder, a vortex is created at the back side of the cylinder, pulling and rotating the shaft. That rotational energy is transferred to a generator, creating electricity. When the cylinder is released from the currents, it becomes upright, returning to its original position, thus starting the cycle over.

                  The tidal system is different from a propeller-based system where the currents have to spin the propeller in order to create energy and requires a lot of force since the propeller is hard to turn. More energy can be created through the Hydro-VENUS system since less force is needed to move the cylinder pendulum.

World's first 7nm GPUs

                 Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has made its 7nm Radeon VII graphics card available in India, as it aims to bolster the demand for high-end GPUs among computer gamers and content creators. The Radeon VII will start shipping from February 7.  Radeon VII was launched earlier this month at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

          The Radeon VII graphics card is based on the second-generation of Vega architecture optimised for TSMC’s 7nm architecture. The company claims the Radeon VII graphics card will provide twice the memory, 2.1 times memory bandwidth, and up to 29 per cent better gaming performance compared to the AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 graphics card, the company’s top-end graphics card.

            The Santa Clara, California-based company has been optimistic about the future of PC gaming in India. “With faster internet speeds, cheaper broadband tariffs and affordable gaming machines, the Indian PC gaming industry is growing rapidly and has evolved from being a fun to a serious business landscape”.  Sasa is of an opinion that PC gaming will always have an edge over smartphones and dedicated consoles due to the superior performance of machines and the ability to display better graphics.

World's fastest camera: 10 trillion frames per second

           Researchers have created a new world’s fastest camera. Called T-CUP, the camera can capture a mind-boggling 10 trillion frames per second.The camera was developed by scientists at the INRS branch of the Université du Québec in Canada, and it doubles the previous record speed. Lund University’s FRAME camera boasted 5 trillion frames per second in 2017, beating out MIT’s one-trillion-frame-per-second camera of 2011.

             At 10 trillion frames per second, T-CUP is able to freeze time in order to see and study things that are traditionally too fast to visualize — things like laser pulses can be seen in slow motion.T-CUP broke new ground in its first shoot by capturing “the temporal focusing of a single femtosecond laser pulse in real time,” INRS says.

       The camera captured 25 frames at an interval of 400 femtoseconds (one femtosecond is 1/1,000,000,000,000,000, or one quadrillionth, of a second), revealing the light pulse’s shape, intensity, and angle of inclination. As the camera is used for more applications at even faster frame rates, it will help reveal more previously-unknowable secrets involving how light and matter interact.

Graphene enables clock rates in the terahertz range

                  Graphene is considered a promising candidate for the nanoelectronics of the future. In theory, it should allow clock rates up to a thousand times faster than today's silicon-based electronics. Scientists have now shown that graphene can actually convert electronic signals with frequencies in the gigahertz range extremely efficiently into signals with several times higher frequency.Today's silicon-based electronic components operate at clock rates of several hundred gigahertz (GHz), that is, they are switching several billion times per second. The electronics industry is currently trying to access the terahertz (THz) range, i.e., up to thousand times faster clock rates.

                A promising material and potential successor to silicon could be graphene, which has a high electrical conductivity and is compatible with all existing electronic technologies. In particular, theory has long predicted that graphene could be a very efficient "nonlinear" electronic material, i.e., a material that can very efficiently convert an applied oscillating electromagnetic field into fields with a much higher frequency. However, all experimental efforts to prove this effect in graphene over the past ten years have not been successful.

          The long-awaited experimental proof of extremely efficient terahertz high harmonics generation in graphene has succeeded with the help of a trick: The researchers used graphene that contains many free electrons, which come from the interaction of graphene with the substrate onto which it is deposited, as well as with the ambient air.

Automation Machines

           Automation Machines are the use of electronics and computer-controlled devices to assume control of processes. The aim of automation is to boost efficiency and reliability. In most cases, however, automation replaces labor. In fact, economists today fear that new technology will eventually push up unemployment rates significantly.

            In many manufacturing plants today, robotic assembly lines are progressively carrying out functions that humans used to do. The term ‘manufacturing’ refers to convertingu raw materials and components into finished goods, usually on a large scale in a factory.

               The automation encompasses many key elements, systems, and job functions in virtually all industries. It is especially prevalent in manufacturing, transportation, facility operations, and utilities. Additionally, national defence systems are becoming increasingly automated. The automation today exists in all functions within industry including integration, installation, procurement, maintenance, and even marketing and sales.

Facial Recognition

           Facial recognition is a category of biometric software that maps an individual's facial features mathematically and stores the data as a face print. The software uses deep learning algorithms to compare a live capture or digital image to the stored face print in order to verify an individual's identity. 

        High-quality cameras in mobile devices have made facial recognition a viable option for authentication as well as identification. Apple’s iPhone X, for example, includes Face ID technology that lets users unlock their phones with a face print mapped by the phone's camera. The phone's software, which is designed with 3-D modeling to resist being spoofed by photos or masks, captures and compares over 30,000 variables.

             The technology, which uses machine learning to detect, match and identify faces, is being used in a wide variety of ways, including entertainment and marketing. Smart advertisements in airports are now able to identify the gender, ethnicity and approximate age of a passers by and target the advertisement to the person's demographic.