Tag: Android

Intel® Threading Challenge 2011 Software Contest

Logo of Intel, Jul 1968 - Dec 2005
Image via Wikipedia

One more software contests for you, but in the sub million dollar prize range

http://software.intel.com/en-us/contests/intel-threading-challenge-2011/contests.php

Intel® Threading Challenge 2011 – Win a Trip to Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco

Intel® Threading Challenge 2011 is going BIG this year! After three exciting threading competitions, our fourth Threading Challenge is stepping up the excitement with a BIG Grand Prize, a trip to the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco (September 13-15, 2011).

Since 2008, the Intel® Threading Challenge has attracted developers of varying experience from around the world. The active participation from the community has made the Threading Challenge not only a great programming competition, but a great way for community members to engage with each other, trade threading tips, and discover new parallel programming resources.

Last year’s format of two competition levels, Master and Apprentice, generated great excitement and opened the Threading Challenge to a new group of participants. So, we are going to continue the competition with a Master level and Apprentice level, each competing for the Grand Prize for their level, as well as individual problem awards. We know you love a great challenge and great prizes, so our Threading Challenge Team is putting together some exciting threading problems for you.

Monday, April 18, 2011 – Threading Challenge 2011 (Phase 1) Launches (both levels) at 12:00 PM (noon PDT)– The competition for 2011 is very similar to last year’s, but read on whether you’re a previous participant or new to the Threading Challenge, so you will be aware of all elements of the competition and how to compete. Then, you can start threading your way to prizes today!

Choose the right level for you!

 

Threading Challenge 2011:

• Two levels available for entry: Apprentice & Master
• Phase 1: 3 problems in each level
• Phase 2: Stay tuned for details, coming in Autumn 2011
• We will award 1st, 2nd & 3rd place prizes for each problem in each level
• No overlap of problems and each level’s problems will be offered consecutively
• Participants have the option to use the Intel® Manycore Testing Lab (MTL), consisting of 40 cores, 80 threads
• To enter the Threading Challenge 2011, please read the Official Rules and register for the competition with link in the “To Enter” Section.

The Threading Challenge will be implemented in two phases, with the 1st Phase consisting of 3 problems in each level. The details of the 2nd Phase will be announced in September 2011. For Phase 1, a new problem in each level will be launched on the days listed below at 12:00 noon (PDT) and will be open for entry for 22 days (inclusive of the problem starting day), until closing on the final problem day at 12:00 noon (PDT).

Problem Start and Closing Dates (both Master and Apprentice levels):

Problem 1:
Starts: Monday, April 18, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)
Ends. Monday, May 9, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)

Problem 2:
Starts: Monday, May 9, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)
Ends: Monday, May 30, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)

Problem 3: (Due to U.S. Memorial Day Holiday, Problem 2 will start on Tuesday, May 31, 2011)
Starts: Tuesday, May 31, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)
Ends: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 12:00pm (PDT)

*All problems start and end at 12:00 noon (Pacific Daylight Time)

Contestants will have 22 days to complete their entry submission (solution only for Apprentice OR solution and write-up for Master) for each problem. You may enter ONLY 1 problem at a time and will need to choose which level (Apprentice or Master) you wish to participate in during each problem cycle. You will be awarded points based on your solution submitted. Be sure to take advantage of our threading resources and tools, and you may validate your solution (optional) using the Intel® Manycore Testing Lab to solve your problems and get involved in the dedicated forums to earn extra points.

Each problems winners will be announced on the site after the problem is closed, and Prizes will be awarded to those problem winners (see official rules for prize distribution information). The Grand Prize, a Trip to Intel® Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, will be awarded for each level to the participant that has the highest total points earned for the three problems in each level (i.e., highest total points for Master level problems and Apprentice level problems).

The Intel® Threading Challenge attracts some of the most talented developers in the world to solve parallelism code challenges. Now is your chance to take multithreading to the next level and possibly win great prizes. Demonstrate your threading expertise today!

More Details:

Intel® Threading Challenge 2011 is organized so any level of developer can have the opportunity to participate. Two levels of participation are available. The Apprentice level gives those just getting started in multithreading development a chance to try out and improve their threading skills. The Master level will be executed similarly to previous threading challenges, providing those with more experience a chance to test their skills and compete against other experienced developers.

Intel® Manycore Testing Lab – Available as Option for Threading Challenge 2011 Participants

This year competitors will have the optional opportunity to develop and validate their code using the Intel® Manycore Testing Lab. This 40-core, 80-thread development environment has the latest hardware and software available and will be used by this year’s judges to test the winning entries in Threading Challenge 2011 Phase 1.

The Intel® Manycore Testing Lab (MTL) will be made available to Threading Challenge 2011 contestants. Use of the MTL will give participants the opportunity to write and test their code on systems exactly configured to what the judges will be using to score submitted entries. No more guessing about if your code will build or how it will run. (There is no requirement to use the MTL for any part of the contest. It is strictly an optional alternative being made available to those that wish to use it.)

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iTunes finally gets some competition ?- Amazon Cloud Player

 

An interesting development is Amazon’s Cloud Player (though Cannonical may be credited for thinking of the idea first for Ubuntu One). Since Ubuntu One is dependent on the OS (and not the browser) this makes Amazon \s version more of a  mobile Cloud Player (as it seems to be an Android app and not an app that is independent of any platform, os or browser.

Since Android and Ubuntu are both Linux flavors, I am not sure if Cannonical has an exiting mobile app for Ubuntu One. Apple’s cloud plans also seems kind of ambiguous compared to Microsoft (Azure et al)

I guess we will have to wait for a true Cloud player.

 

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=tsm_1_tw_s_dm_liujd5?node=2658409011&tag=cloudplayer-20

How to Get Started with Cloud Drive and Cloud Player

 

Step 1. Add music to Cloud Drive

Purchase a song or album from the Amazon MP3 Store and click the Save to Amazon Cloud Drive button when your purchase is complete. Your purchase will be saved for free.

 

Step 2. Play your music in Cloud Player for Web

Click the Launch Amazon Cloud Player button to start listening to your purchase. Add more music from your library by clicking theUpload to Cloud Drive button from the Cloud Player screen. Start with 5 GB of free Cloud Drive storage. Upgrade to 20 GB with an MP3 album purchase (see details). Use Cloud Player to browse and search your library, create playlists, and download to your computer.

 

Step 3. Enjoy your music on the go with Cloud Player for Android

Install the Amazon MP3 for Android app to use Cloud Player on your Android device. Shop the full Amazon MP3 store, save your purchases to Cloud Drive, stream your Cloud Player library, and download to your device right from your Android phone or tablet.

compare this with

https://one.ubuntu.com/music/

A cloud-enabled music store

The Ubuntu One Music Store is integrated with the Ubuntu One service making it a cloud-enabled digital music store. All purchases are transferred to your Ubuntu One personal cloud for safe storage and then conveniently downloaded to your synchronizing computers. And don’t worry aboutgoing over your storage quota with music purchases. You won’t need to pay more for personal cloud storage of music purchased from the Ubuntu One Music Store.

An Ubuntu One subscription is required to purchase music from the Ubuntu One Music Store. Choose from either the free 2 GB option or the 50 GB plan for $10 (USD) per month to synchronize more of your digital life.

5 regional stores and more in the works

  • The Ubuntu One Music requires Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and offers digital music through five regional stores.
  • The US, UK, and Germany stores offer music from all major and independent labels.
  • The EU store serves most of the EU member countries (2) and offers music from fewer major label artists.
  • The World store offers only independent label music and serves the countries not covered by the other regional stores.

 

 

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What to do if you see a possible GPL violation

GNU Lesser General Public License
Image via Wikipedia

Well I have played with software (mostly but not exclusively) analytical, and I admire the zeal and energy of both open source and closed source practioners- all having relatively decent people executing strategies their investors or owners tell them to do (closed source) or motivated by their own self sense of cool-change the world-openness (open source)

What I dont get is people stealing open source code- repackaging without adding major contributions- claiming patent pending stuff- and basically making money by creating CLOSED source from the open source software-(as open source is yet to break the enterprise glass cieling)

you are either open source or you arent.

bi- sexuality is okay. bi-codability is not.

Next time you see someone stealing some community’s open source code- refer to this excellent link.

 

But, we cannot act on our own if we do not hold copyright. Thus, be sure to find out who the copyright holders of the software are before reporting a violation.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-violation.html

Violations of the GNU Licenses

If you think you see a violation of the GNU GPL, LGPL, AGPL, or FDL, the first thing you should do is double-check the facts:

  • Does the distribution contain a copy of the License?
  • Does it clearly state which software is covered by the License? Does it say anything misleading, perhaps giving the impression that something is covered by the License when in fact it is not?
  • Is source code included in the distribution?
  • Is a written offer for source code included with a distribution of just binaries?
  • Is the available source code complete, or is it designed for linking in other non-free modules?

If there seems to be a real violation, the next thing you need to do is record the details carefully:

  • the precise name of the product
  • the name of the person or organization distributing it
  • email addresses, postal addresses and phone numbers for how to contact the distributor(s)
  • the exact name of the package whose license is violated
  • how the license was violated:
    • Is the copyright notice of the copyright holder included?
    • Is the source code completely missing?
    • Is there a written offer for source that’s incomplete in some way? This could happen if it provides a contact address or network URL that’s somehow incorrect.
    • Is there a copy of the license included in the distribution?
    • Is some of the source available, but not all? If so, what parts are missing?

The more of these details that you have, the easier it is for the copyright holder to pursue the matter.

Once you have collected the details, you should send a precise report to the copyright holder of the packages that are being misused. The copyright holder is the one who is legally authorized to take action to enforce the license.

If the copyright holder is the Free Software Foundation, please send the report to <license-violation@gnu.org>. It’s important that we be able to write back to you to get more information about the violation or product. So, if you use an anonymous remailer, please provide a return path of some sort. If you’d like to encrypt your correspondence, just send a brief mail saying so, and we’ll make appropriate arrangements.

Note that the GPL, and other copyleft licenses, are copyright licenses. This means that only the copyright holders are empowered to act against violations. The FSF acts on all GPL violations reported on FSF copyrighted code, and we offer assistance to any other copyright holder who wishes to do the same.

But, we cannot act on our own if we do not hold copyright. Thus, be sure to find out who the copyright holders of the software are before reporting a violation.

 

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Google Raise What

Google recently did the following-

1 Raised salaries by 1000 $ across board, and gave a 10% increase at lower levels to reportedly 30% increase at higher levels.

The surprise 1000$ cash bonus , was a simple application of expectation management, people love a surprise 1000$ raise, but hate if told they would be getting a 90$ raise in their monthly salary from next quarter.

Ex Googlers or GoogleX as the groups is called have helped create a lot of not so evil value at Facebook, and at Twitter. Even the rest of the World made more money on Map Reduce than Google itself did

And Google refuses to do simple things like sell Android )s at 10 bucks a pop, or Google Maps at 0.99 cents a pop. Not even a paid content search by integrating syndicating sources like Factiva, Bloomberg etc

The book scanning project would be out soon , hey when, but they could better get some health record scanning contracts to help cut digital costs

And the A/B experiment to move to pay per conversion rather than pay per click will hurt spamboy advertisers in Facebook or Bing more than Google.

and will someone remove the 100$ limit in Adsense minimum revenue-the internet long tail doesnt end at the round number

But Google ‘s rumors of firing the guy who leaked the raise rumor is totally deception –

seems they are just plugging the leaks for hot new features to counter Gmail killers (where did we heard this phrase before) by

Mark “Still dont have a diploma from Harvard”

speaking of which if Facebook has 500 million unique customers logging and clicking ads (right)- how many unique customers search and click ads on Google. A histogram using a Monte Carlo would be nice- 🙂

 

 

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Image using png package courtesy Romain Francois at http://romainfrancois.blog.free.fr/

Ubuntu one goes musical

Heavenly choirs singing? Not quite, but music streaming on a cloudy platform seems like a pretty cool thing.-

readhttp://voices.canonical.com/ubuntuone/?p=617

:

Ubuntu One Basic – available now
This is the same as the current free 2 GB option but with a new name. Users can continue to sync files, contacts, bookmarks and notes for free as part of our basic service and access the integrated Ubuntu One Music Store. We are also extending our platform support to include a Windows client, which will be available in Beta very soon.

Ubuntu One Mobile – available October 7th
Ubuntu One Mobile is our first example of a service that helps you do more with the content stored in your personal cloud. With Ubuntu One Mobile’s main feature – mobile music streaming – users can listen to any MP3 songs in their personal cloud (any owned MP3s, not just those purchased from the Ubuntu One Music Store) using our custom developed apps for iPhone and Android (coming soon to their respective marketplaces). These will be open source and available from Launchpad. Ubuntu One Mobile will also include the mobile contacts sync feature that was launched in Beta for the 10.04 release.

Ubuntu One Mobile is available for $3.99 (USD) per month or $39.99 (USD) per year. Users interested in this add-on can try the service free for 30 days. Ubuntu One Mobile will be the perfect companion to your morning exercise, daily commute, and weekend at the beach – we’re really excited to bring you this service!

Ubuntu One 20-Packs – available now
A 20-Pack is 20 GB of storage for files, contacts, notes, and bookmarks. Users will be able to add multiple 20-Packs at $2.99 (USD) per month or $29.99 (USD) per year each. If you start with Ubuntu One Basic (2 GB) and add 1 20-Pack (20 GB), you will have 22 GB of storage.

All add-ons are available for purchase in multiple currencies – USD, EUR and, recently added, GBP.

Users currently paying for the old 50 GB plan (including mobile contacts sync) can either keep their existing service or switch to the new plans structure to get more value from Ubuntu One at a lower price.

Microsoft Online Games

No, this is not about the X Box kind of games. It is about Microsoft ‘s tactical shift in the online space from going it alone, and building stuff itself, –to partnering, and sometimes investing and exiting business.

In Blogs- It recently announced a migration of MS Live Spaces to WordPress.com – It gives Automattic 30 million more users- no small change consider there were 26 million existing WP users.

Microsoft Messenger, which is the oldest online app in the suite, now provides instant messaging services to about 350 million users, and from now on Windows Live Writer works specifically with the WordPress.com blog service by default. Hopefully Skype, and Google Voice will show MS the way to monitize that business app yet.

Google buying blogger-blogspot seems to have done little, but given Biz Stone room to create another content disruption-Twitter.

With the round of lawsuits by proxy, in Android -Motorola, or for acquisitions – MS is just doing what Marc Anderseen (who’s apparently a better VC than Paul Allen was), Sun and co did to it in the nineties.

Google seems to be regretting putting a spade in the Yahoo acquisition- that would have tied up a big chunk of Idle MS cash- leaving it little room for niche investments (like the 250 mill that helped Facebook ramp up in time).

The real surprise here could be Apple- it has shown little interest in cloud computing- and it seems to be testing the waters with Ping. But Apple sure smells competition- and Android is doing to Iphone what Windows did to the Mac in the early 1990’s.

Google lacks presence in online gaming (despite it’s own Zynga investment)- and needs to start monetizing properties like Android OS (say 10$ for every phone license ??), Google Maps (as an app for GPS) and Google Voice. Indeed it may be time for the big G to start thinking of spinning off atleast some products- earning better returns, while retaining control (dual stock splits) and killing those anti trust lawyer fees forever.

As the Ancient Chinese said, May you live in interesting times. Fun to watch the online games people play.

 

 

Google AppInventor in Action

A GUI based SDK for making Apps for Mobiles (Android)- that you can then put in the Android Marketplace.

Watch a 60 sec video on that!