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AMD lets slip that its Threadripper 32-core CPU is over 50% faster than Intel’s Core i9-7980XE

AMD has leaked a performance benchmark for its imminent monster 32-core Ryzen Threadripper 2990WX processor, which shows it blazing past Intel’s Core i9-7980XE flagship chip.

According to details which were apparently accidentally posted on the AMD France web page, as spotted by Wccftech.com, it’s billed as the ‘most powerful desktop processor in the world’, and in the Cinebench R15 CPU benchmark it hit 5,099 on average.

That compares to a score of 3,335 for the Intel Core i9-7980XE (which is an 18-core processor), and it means that the AMD chip is 53% faster than its rival flagship. Of course, while the 7980XE might be the beefiest chip in the Core series right now, its core count is considerably less than the Threadripper 2990WX.

While Intel does have a 28-core beast on the horizon – capable of running at a gobsmacking 5GHz – that particular processor is going to cost a fortune, and won’t be destined for consumer PCs (but rather enterprise outfits with deep pockets).

It’s [...]  read more

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Quantum Computing Will Create Jobs. But Which Ones?

Chris Monroe’s vision for quantum computers is simple: He wants people to use them. Monroe, a physicist and co-founder of the quantum computing startup IonQ, wants the machines to be as sleek as the iPhone. He wants people to code on them without needing to understand complicated quantum physics. Basically, he wants the devices to be so intuitive that, on a lonely evening in 2050, a high schooler will log on to invent the cultural equivalent of Snapchat—but quantum.

The industry has a ways to go. They have a timeline, sort of, give or take a few decades. And at the moment, their roadmap has at least one glaring pothole: a lack of trained people. “Quantum computer scientists are in high demand right now,” says Monroe. “I would know. IonQ has a lot of trouble hiring people.”

This dilution refrigerator keeps Intel’s quantum computing chip cooled within a degree of absolute zero.

Intel

And hiring will only get harder, as companies like IonQ, Intel, D-Wave, and Google [...]  read more

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Gill Harris

Gill Harris has 20 years' experience of travel writing and journalism. … Enter your email address to get the free weekly France Today newsletter sent …
social experiment by Livio Acerbo #greengroundit #travel #tours

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Facebook removes Alex Jones and InfoWars pages

“Since then, more content from the same pages has been reported to us — upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence … and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are transgender, Muslims and and immigrants, which violates our hate speech policies,” Facebook said.

Facebook emphasized that it hasn’t technically removed the pages but simply unpublished them, which leaves the door open for an appeal by Jones. “If they don’t appeal or their appeal fails, we remove the page,” it said.

The banning of the pages follows a similar move by Apple, which removed InfoWars and Alex Jones’ news shows from all its podcasting platforms, also citing hate speech. Last month, YouTube pulled down multiple videos by Jones for the same violations, but has yet to ban him.

Upon review, we have taken it down for glorifying violence, which violates our graphic violence policy, and using dehumanizing language to describe people who are [...]  read more

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Airbnb for Work now accounts for 15 percent of bookings

Business travelers have become an increasingly important part of the Airbnb business, according to a new blog post. The company says that Airbnb for Work, which launched in 2014, has seen bookings triple from 2015 to 2016, and triple again from 2016 to 2017. In fact, Airbnb says that almost 700,000 companies have signed up for and booked with Airbnb for Work.

Interestingly, the breakdown of companies working with Airbnb for traveler lodging are pretty diverse — employees from large enterprise companies (5,000+ employees) and employees from startups and SMBs (one to 250 employees) take a 40-40 split, with the final 20 percent of Airbnb for Work bookings going to mid-sized companies.

In July of 2017, Airbnb started making its listings available via SAP Concur, a tool used by a large number of business travelers. Airbnb says that this integration has been a huge help to growing Airbnb for Work, with Concur seeing a 42 percent increase in employees expensing Airbnb stays from 2016 to 2017. [...]  read more

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Windows 10 tablet sales bounce back, but Apple remains king of the slates

Windows 10 tablets have seen an increase in sales, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. Microsoft’s own tablets, including the Surface Pro and the 2-in-1 Surface Book 2, performed better than expected, and Windows 10 tablet sales grew 1% compared to the last quarter.

That might not seem like a huge amount, but compared to most of the other tablet market, which is having a tough old time at the moment and fell by 6% earlier this year, any growth should be considered a good thing.

It looks like Microsoft’s devices are helping drive the growth for Windows tablets, with Microsoft’s devices being embraced by students and enterprise customers.

In response to the results, Eric Smith, Director of Connected Computing for Strategy Analytics noted that “After several quarters of softness in the Windows Detachable 2-in-1 segment, we are seeing a bounce back due to enterprise demand and a good product refresh cycle.”

He went on to suggest that Microsoft’s new affordable Surface [...]  read more

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China’s Didi pumps $1B into its rebranded driver services business

Didi Chuxing is going pedal to the metal for its automobile services business after it announced it will invest $1 billion into the division, which is also getting a rebrand.

The Chinese ride-hailing firm had been tipped to spin out the business and raise $1.5 billion from investors ahead of an IPO, according to a recent Reuters report. The business itself hasn’t spun out, however, but it has been renamed to Xiaoju Automobile Solutions and given more autonomy with the introduction of its own general manager.

The division handles services for registered Didi drivers, such as leasing and purchase financing, insurance, repairs, refueling, car-sharing and more. Essentially, with its huge army of drivers, Didi can get preferential rates from service providers, which means better deals for its drivers. That, in turn, is helpful for recruiting new drivers and growing the business. (Didi claims to support 30 million drivers, but that covers food delivery as well as more basic point-to-point [...]  read more

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Apple removes InfoWars podcasts from its platforms

As a result of the termination, iTunes users will no longer be able to search for InfoWars podcasts in the directory. The only podcast still available is The Real News with David Knight.

In January, Spotify censored several InfoWars podcasts in response to community criticism, and confirmed to Engadget that the podcasts were in breach of its hate speech policy. Online radio service Stitcher took similar measures, scrapping InfoWars podcasts from its platform following a review which determined Jones had “harassed or allowed harassment of private individuals and organisations”.

The bans also extend to YouTube, where last month multiple videos from The Alex Jones Channel were taken down due to community guidelines violations. Facebook initially adopted a more defensive [...]  read more

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Robots Are Renting Airbnbs to Get a Better Grip

Maybe you like your Airbnb to come with a nice big living room, or lots of light, or his-and-her sinks. If you’re a robot, though, you just want a little variety. A carpet here, a hardwood floor there. Because you’re a pioneer, not just a tourist.

At least, if you’re a very special robot from a team at Carnegie Mellon University. To train their machines to manipulate objects in the real world, they needed access to lots of houses—their own homes, and their friends’ homes, until they ran out of homes. So when their robot was all trained up, they put it to the test in the unfamiliar world of Airbnbs.

Video by Abhinav Gupta/Adithya Murali/Dhiraj Gandhi/Lerrel Pinto/CMU

Before you ask: Yes, the homeowners knew who their robotic renters were. And yes, the robots—which look a lot like a Roomba with an arm attached—were very lovely guests. (They stayed for around a day and a half, accompanied by a few scientists testing them.) “I remember they were really excited and wanted to see how the robot does at different parts of the [...]  read more