The body of the phone is made of wood and trimmed with gold, the keyboard used in the manufacture of sapphire crystals. The kit includes the case of walnut wood, created by a Swiss company Reuge.
the price Vertu Boucheron 150 of more than $ 30000.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Elite Vertu Boucheron 150
The company Vertu, despite the economic crisis that continues to produce elite expensive phones. A new model of Vertu Boucheron 150 created for the Paris jewelry house Boucheron its 150 anniversary. From the technical characteristics of known support for third-generation networks.
The body of the phone is made of wood and trimmed with gold, the keyboard used in the manufacture of sapphire crystals. The kit includes the case of walnut wood, created by a Swiss company Reuge.
the price Vertu Boucheron 150 of more than $ 30000.
The body of the phone is made of wood and trimmed with gold, the keyboard used in the manufacture of sapphire crystals. The kit includes the case of walnut wood, created by a Swiss company Reuge.
the price Vertu Boucheron 150 of more than $ 30000.
OpenCL faster computers with the help of GPU
The specifications of the programming environment (API) OpenCL (Open Computing Language) were published today. It is an open standard that allows use free to use any kind of chips for all sorts of calculations.
Hitherto reserved to the processing of graphics, massively parallel architecture of a graphics card is much more suited to some calculations than a central processor (CPU). The encoding of a video or a simulated meteorological phenomenon are calculated for example a much more effective in conjunction with dozens of processors flow of a graphics card that series with a few hearts CPU.
GPGPU technology, which is to delegate to the graphics card some calculations usually borne by the central processor, have emerged from among AMD and Nvidia have respectively launched CUDA and ATI stream. OpenCL is in turn able to benefit from any kind of chips, as chip signal processing (DSP), and not just graphics cards. It has the advantage of being a standard multi-platform open to all developers can access without payment of royalties, while competing technologies CUDA and ATI Stream require a specific development applications.
A collaboration of some thirty players in the computer, including AMD, Intel and Nvidia, developing OpenCL was initiated by Apple before being assigned to Khronos Group, the consortium maintains for years already OpenGL, cousin of dedicated graphics OpenCL. It will be an integral part of Snow Leopard, the next major version of Mac OS X, which has accelerated its development, which took only 6 months. Nvidia followed by the announcement and has already announced that its graphics cards CUDA take as provided natively support OpenCL. AMD has meanwhile made no announcement, but ATI Stream technology is based on OpenCL, ATI Radeon will probably be compatible.
Microsoft finally, who had already ousted OpenGL to its own technology Direct3D, always alone with DirectX should nevertheless expanded in its next version of support compute shaders, which fulfill the same objective as the GPGPU.
Hitherto reserved to the processing of graphics, massively parallel architecture of a graphics card is much more suited to some calculations than a central processor (CPU). The encoding of a video or a simulated meteorological phenomenon are calculated for example a much more effective in conjunction with dozens of processors flow of a graphics card that series with a few hearts CPU.
GPGPU technology, which is to delegate to the graphics card some calculations usually borne by the central processor, have emerged from among AMD and Nvidia have respectively launched CUDA and ATI stream. OpenCL is in turn able to benefit from any kind of chips, as chip signal processing (DSP), and not just graphics cards. It has the advantage of being a standard multi-platform open to all developers can access without payment of royalties, while competing technologies CUDA and ATI Stream require a specific development applications.
A collaboration of some thirty players in the computer, including AMD, Intel and Nvidia, developing OpenCL was initiated by Apple before being assigned to Khronos Group, the consortium maintains for years already OpenGL, cousin of dedicated graphics OpenCL. It will be an integral part of Snow Leopard, the next major version of Mac OS X, which has accelerated its development, which took only 6 months. Nvidia followed by the announcement and has already announced that its graphics cards CUDA take as provided natively support OpenCL. AMD has meanwhile made no announcement, but ATI Stream technology is based on OpenCL, ATI Radeon will probably be compatible.
Microsoft finally, who had already ousted OpenGL to its own technology Direct3D, always alone with DirectX should nevertheless expanded in its next version of support compute shaders, which fulfill the same objective as the GPGPU.
Sony Announces Initiatives to Improve Profitability in its Electronics Businesses
Sony has embarked on a series of measures to strengthen its corporate structure and bolster profitability across the Sony Group, including a significant workforce reduction.
These initiatives are in response to the sudden and rapid changes in the global economic environment.
Particularly within its electronics business, where Sony has been most affected by the acute downturn in the economic climate, the company has already undertaken certain short-term measures, including adjusting production, lowering inventory levels, and reducing operational expenses. Going forward, Sony intends to adjust product pricing to mitigate the impact of the appreciation of the yen, curtail or delay part of its investment plans, and downsize or withdraw from unprofitable or non-core businesses. Furthermore, Sony plans to realign domestic and overseas manufacturing sites, reallocate its workforce and reduce headcount.
Through these measures, Sony will aim to establish a corporate structure capable of delivering estimated total annual cost savings of more than 100 billion yen by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010.
Specifically, within the semiconductor business, Sony intends to cut investment expenditures this fiscal year by outsourcing a portion of its planned increase in manufacturing of CMOS image sensors for use in mobile phones to third parties.
In addition, following the rapid demand slowdown in television markets, Sony has decided to postpone recently considered plans to invest in production expansion at the Nitra plant in Slovakia, which is one of Sony's sites assembling LCD televisions for the European market.
Based on such measures, Sony is planning to reduce investment in the electronics business by approximately 30% in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, compared to its mid-term plan.
By the end of the current fiscal year, Sony plans to cease production at two overseas manufacturing sites, including Sony Dax Technology Center in France, which manufactures tape and other recording media. By further advancing initiatives including rationalizing its manufacturing operations, shifting and aggregating manufacturing to low-cost areas, and utilizing OEM and ODM partners, Sony plans to reduce the total number of manufacturing sites by approximately 10%, from the current total of 57, by March 31, 2010.
Through measures including the realignment of its manufacturing sites, a review of its development and design structure, and the streamlining of its sales and administrative functions, Sony will implement a company-wide (including Headquarters) rationalization. Sony intends to reallocate and optimize its workforce through programs including work reassignments and outplacements.
As a result of these measures, by March 31, 2010, Sony plans to reduce headcount in the electronics business worldwide by approximately 8,000, out of approximately 160,000 as of September 30, 2008. At the same time, Sony plans to reduce headcount in its seasonal and temporary workforces.
Sony plans to outline the anticipated impact of these measures, including anticipated expenses related to their implementation, in Sony's updated forecast of financial results for the current fiscal year to be included in its third quarter earnings announcement, scheduled for January 2009.
These initiatives are in response to the sudden and rapid changes in the global economic environment.
Particularly within its electronics business, where Sony has been most affected by the acute downturn in the economic climate, the company has already undertaken certain short-term measures, including adjusting production, lowering inventory levels, and reducing operational expenses. Going forward, Sony intends to adjust product pricing to mitigate the impact of the appreciation of the yen, curtail or delay part of its investment plans, and downsize or withdraw from unprofitable or non-core businesses. Furthermore, Sony plans to realign domestic and overseas manufacturing sites, reallocate its workforce and reduce headcount.
Through these measures, Sony will aim to establish a corporate structure capable of delivering estimated total annual cost savings of more than 100 billion yen by the end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010.
Specifically, within the semiconductor business, Sony intends to cut investment expenditures this fiscal year by outsourcing a portion of its planned increase in manufacturing of CMOS image sensors for use in mobile phones to third parties.
In addition, following the rapid demand slowdown in television markets, Sony has decided to postpone recently considered plans to invest in production expansion at the Nitra plant in Slovakia, which is one of Sony's sites assembling LCD televisions for the European market.
Based on such measures, Sony is planning to reduce investment in the electronics business by approximately 30% in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2010, compared to its mid-term plan.
By the end of the current fiscal year, Sony plans to cease production at two overseas manufacturing sites, including Sony Dax Technology Center in France, which manufactures tape and other recording media. By further advancing initiatives including rationalizing its manufacturing operations, shifting and aggregating manufacturing to low-cost areas, and utilizing OEM and ODM partners, Sony plans to reduce the total number of manufacturing sites by approximately 10%, from the current total of 57, by March 31, 2010.
Through measures including the realignment of its manufacturing sites, a review of its development and design structure, and the streamlining of its sales and administrative functions, Sony will implement a company-wide (including Headquarters) rationalization. Sony intends to reallocate and optimize its workforce through programs including work reassignments and outplacements.
As a result of these measures, by March 31, 2010, Sony plans to reduce headcount in the electronics business worldwide by approximately 8,000, out of approximately 160,000 as of September 30, 2008. At the same time, Sony plans to reduce headcount in its seasonal and temporary workforces.
Sony plans to outline the anticipated impact of these measures, including anticipated expenses related to their implementation, in Sony's updated forecast of financial results for the current fiscal year to be included in its third quarter earnings announcement, scheduled for January 2009.
Video clerks power new movie recommendation engine
Even as technology threatens the survival of video rental stores, serial entrepreneur Stuart Skorman thinks there's still a place for the movie-matchmaking advice of veteran video store clerks.
To prove his point, Skorman hired more than 20 former video store clerks to pour their collective wisdom into a new Internet search engine, called ClerkDogs, that's being unleashed Tuesday.
Skorman is betting this combination of human intelligence and data crunching will emerge as a more engaging and intuitive alternative to the highly automated movie-recommendation system that has helped fuel the success of online DVD rental leader Netflix Inc.
Netflix spits out recommendations for its 8.7 million subscribers by drawing upon a database of 2 billion ratings that its customers have entered during the past decade. By knowing whether you liked one movie, Netflix suggests others you might enjoy by mining the past preferences and renting patterns of subscribers who watched the same movies.
ClerkDogs also dives into a vast data pool in order to suggest movies, but augments its findings in key ways.
After it asks visitors to enter the name of a movie they liked, ClerkDogs' engine generates a list of suggestions based on a computer-driven analysis of video clerks' insights and written reviews. And for a more personal touch, it lets its users tweak recommendations based on their moods at the time of a request. ClerkDogs users can slide a scale indicating whether they are looking for movies with a little more romance, suspense, humor and other elements contained in the movie they initially selected.
The revisions help ClerkDogs get even closer to a visitor's interests, pulling from the information provided by the video store clerks.
Skorman, a former video store owner, likens the system to having a conversation with a movie buff — something that's not possible on Netflix's recommendation engine because it relies on a strict one- to five-star rating system and doesn't adjust for a renter's changing emotions.
"The reasons people choose certain movies are such a complex thing," Skorman said. "Netflix has done a wonderful job with its system, but it has gone as far as it can go."
Netflix's recommendation engine accounts for about 60 percent of the service's rental requests, a sign that it's doing a pretty good job divining what customers like, Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said.
Even so, in hopes of making its recommendation engine even more effective, Netflix has been offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can develop a software program that improves upon its matching system by at least 10 percent. After more than two years, the leading entrant in Netflix's contest is within 0.44 percentage points of hitting the target.
"That final stretch is going to be like going up the final 300 yards of Mount Everest," Swasey said.
This isn't the first time that Skorman, 60, has tried to build a better mousetrap for movie lovers.
To prove his point, Skorman hired more than 20 former video store clerks to pour their collective wisdom into a new Internet search engine, called ClerkDogs, that's being unleashed Tuesday.
Skorman is betting this combination of human intelligence and data crunching will emerge as a more engaging and intuitive alternative to the highly automated movie-recommendation system that has helped fuel the success of online DVD rental leader Netflix Inc.
Netflix spits out recommendations for its 8.7 million subscribers by drawing upon a database of 2 billion ratings that its customers have entered during the past decade. By knowing whether you liked one movie, Netflix suggests others you might enjoy by mining the past preferences and renting patterns of subscribers who watched the same movies.
ClerkDogs also dives into a vast data pool in order to suggest movies, but augments its findings in key ways.
After it asks visitors to enter the name of a movie they liked, ClerkDogs' engine generates a list of suggestions based on a computer-driven analysis of video clerks' insights and written reviews. And for a more personal touch, it lets its users tweak recommendations based on their moods at the time of a request. ClerkDogs users can slide a scale indicating whether they are looking for movies with a little more romance, suspense, humor and other elements contained in the movie they initially selected.
The revisions help ClerkDogs get even closer to a visitor's interests, pulling from the information provided by the video store clerks.
Skorman, a former video store owner, likens the system to having a conversation with a movie buff — something that's not possible on Netflix's recommendation engine because it relies on a strict one- to five-star rating system and doesn't adjust for a renter's changing emotions.
"The reasons people choose certain movies are such a complex thing," Skorman said. "Netflix has done a wonderful job with its system, but it has gone as far as it can go."
Netflix's recommendation engine accounts for about 60 percent of the service's rental requests, a sign that it's doing a pretty good job divining what customers like, Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said.
Even so, in hopes of making its recommendation engine even more effective, Netflix has been offering a $1 million prize to anyone who can develop a software program that improves upon its matching system by at least 10 percent. After more than two years, the leading entrant in Netflix's contest is within 0.44 percentage points of hitting the target.
"That final stretch is going to be like going up the final 300 yards of Mount Everest," Swasey said.
This isn't the first time that Skorman, 60, has tried to build a better mousetrap for movie lovers.
In the 1980s, he took over a video store in Vermont and expanded it into a successful chain that he sold to Blockbuster Inc. for $3 million during the early 1990s.
A few years later, he moved to the San Francisco area and started Reel.com, an online service specializing in selling movies on videotape and, of course, recommending movies. Hollywood Video bought Reel for $100 million in 1998, generating a $17 million windfall for Skorman.
As much as he liked the money, Skorman had at least one regret. If Reel.com hadn't been sold to a traditional video store chain, he thinks he might have been able to realize his vision of logging DVD rental requests on the Web and then delivering the discs to customers through the U.S. Postal Service.
Netflix embraced the DVD-by-mail concept in 1999, creating the foundation for a company with a market value of $1.5 billion.
While Netflix was revolutionizing the home entertainment industry, Skorman was losing most of the money he made from the Reel.com sale on an Internet education site, Hungry Minds.com, and a holistic drug store, Elephant Pharmacy, that he opened in Berkeley, Calif.
Now Skorman is counting on ClerkDogs to supplement his retirement fund. The San Francisco-based startup hopes to make money by selling advertising and leasing its recommendation system to merchants that rent and sell movies. Services that distribute video through Internet connections and cable boxes are also possible ClerkDogs customers.
"We have been meeting with just about everyone involved in the movie business," Skorman said. "Just about the only one not talking to us is Netflix."
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