Linux has generally be a good player, playing tag with Microsoft on power usage. Its to the advantage of both camps that they can tweak power usage at the chip level to reduce wattage. This is healthy competition. But it looks like the new Linux 2.6.38 kernel has stubbed its toe –
There’s now a stream of independent users reporting problems now that they know to look for power consumption issues with Ubuntu 11.04 and the Linux 2.6.38 kernel. To this Launchpad bug report, which is about increased power usage in Natty (11.04), there’s now over a dozen people reporting to be affected by this bug. The bug report itself was started by a Canonical software engineer.
Within the Phoronix Forums and elsewhere are also other reports of the Linux 2.6.38 kernel consuming excessive power compared to the previous releases. This is also not an Ubuntu-specific problem as I laid out with it being in the upstream Linux kernel. As such, to no surprise there’s also been Arch Linux reports of the problem too.
This problem isn’t limited to the mobile spectrum of hardware, but desktop users have begun reporting increased power usage according to their AC power meters. Increased power consumption on servers and workstations is also to be expected. There’s also been desktop Intel Sandy Bridge reports of increased power usage too, so even the newest hardware is impacted. As my earlier tests have shown, even older Pentium M and Atom hardware are affected.
Reports have also come in that due to this regression there’s been increased operating temperatures, and as part of this regression, significantly higher wake-ups per second when using a new kernel.
I have no doubt that the kernel team will fix the issue in short order. But it might take a little longer than say, a security exposure might only because it is not functionally defective. Just misbehaving.
If you are running a server farm you might want to hold off on an upgrade for just a bit. Just till they fix this item. No use running up your electric bill.
When it comes to corporate expansion, the decision is generally guided by a build vs buy cost benefit analysis. For decades, AT&T has been peddling buy vs build as the fastest path to service improvements with regulators. So here we go again. This time the claim is that a T mobile buy will somehow magically improve AT&T’s crappy wireless service:
“AT&T faces network spectrum and capacity constraints more severe than those of any other wireless provider, and this merger provides by far the surest, fastest and most efficient solution to that challenge,” the carrier said. “The network synergies of this transaction will free up new capacity — the functional equivalent of new spectrum — in the many urban, suburban and rural wireless markets where escalating broadband usage is fast consuming existing capacity.” (Yahoo)
Since T mobile does have a quite a few tower leases, that might make sense, if there was no longer the need to serve its customers. That scenario could play out in the end, since a great many of its subscribers are likely to flee when faced with AT&T as provider. That brings us back to build vs buy. AT&T could install a massive number of new towers for what it plans to spend on T mobile, significantly more than it will get by buying its #3 competitor. What about back haul? T mobile owns virtually none. It’s leased. AND… the reality is that back haul is a major problem for both T mobile and AT&T. Without bigger pipes to handle the demand for data, endless numbers of towers will improve nothing. (more…)
The followers of all things Apple produced need to reconsider their choices. Two things have come to light in the past week –
Apple has come bottom of the most comprehensive green league table of technology companies because of its heavy reliance on “dirty data” centres.
The list, which is compiled by Greenpeace and released in San Francisco on Thursday, shows that the company relies heavily on highly polluting coal power at the sites that house its banks of servers.
Greenpeace’s report, How Dirty is Your Data? reveals that the company’s investment in a new North Carolina facility will triple its electricity consumption, equivalent to the electricity demand of 80,000 average US homes. The facility’s power will be supplied by Duke Energy, with a mix of 62% coal and 32% nuclear. On Wednesday, Apple posted a large boost in quarterly earnings, which grew by 95% to $6bn (£3.65bn).
Gary Cook, Greenpeace’s IT policy analyst and lead author of the report, said: “Consumers want to know that when they upload a video or change their Facebook status that they are not contributing to global warming or future Fukushimas.”
And of course this –
Apple’s iOS 4 operating system for the iPhone and iPad 3G logs latitude-longitude coordinates along with the time of the visit, according to Alasdair Allan, a senior research fellow in astronomy at the University of Exeter in England, who co-wrote the study with Pete Warden. The findings were posted on the website owned by O’Reilly Media, a Sebastopol, California-based publisher that organizes technology trade conferences.
The tracking, which is likely based on the location of nearby mobile-phone towers, raises security and privacy questions, Allan and Warden wrote. The information, which can total tens of thousands of data points, isn’t encrypted, according to the authors, who were going to present the results today at the Where 2.0 conference in Santa Clara, California.
Which by the way, if you have recently signed off on the latest iTunes or AppStore user agreement you have signed you life away for Apple to use their tracking of YOU as they please.
We get comments from time to time as to why we are `down` on Apple. Fact is we are down on any company who puts profit before your privacy and rightful use of technology. Folks need to wake up. Apple is not some benevolent father figure that does what it does to protect you. They do things as they wish to shore up their bottom line. That starts from sealing devices so you can’t even replace the battery to having you give away your rights.
Apple is worse than Google folks. Only two things you can say about Apple. 1) They know how to separate you from your money better than anyone else. 2) They have a very canny pulse on what is proper human factors that is reflected in their products.
But is that worth the 20% price difference and electronic intrusion?
Really. That quality is more relevant to film than many give it credit for yet here it is. –
The power of Ayn Rand devotees has impressed some Hollywood distribution executives, who took note of the hefty $5,640 per-theater average scored by “Atlas Shrugged: Part 1” during its opening weekend.
“Shocking,” one executive said about the healthy business the low-budget film has been doing, considering its “awful” marketing plan.
Awful or not, business has been brisk enough for producers Harmon Kaslow and John Aglialoro to expand from 299 theaters to 425 this weekend and to 1,000 by the end of the month. They don’t have enough film prints to fill all the orders.
“Things have turned for us,” Kaslow said. “When we started, exhibitors were not embracing the film like we thought they would. Now, we can pretty much go into as many theaters as we want. It’s just a matter of logistics.”
Atlas is tearing up the box office receipts per theater where ever it is shown. Now granted the release seems timed for what is going on in the background for most Americans. Low growth, few jobs, inflation kicking in and intrusive government everywhere.
But there is more than being topical going on here. I would also note that Hollywood has caged itself. If you look at the genre of films produced they follow a few basics — target 16-30 age bracket, generally action/adventure or fools-errand and have at least one top hip actor or actress in the lead. Genres like musical, adult theme, solid romance and suspense are pretty rare these days. So when a film like an Atlas comes out it has a good chance to be a box office smash. That of course depending on a fair bit of acting and a good plot. But the fact that such film genres are so infrequent just ups the attendance for those of us in the over 30 set looking for something with a bit more meat on it.
Passion of the Christ was a block buster yet Hollywood failed to capitalize on it. I presume for political/social reasons. Atlas maybe another that slips through their fingers. A shame really because there is a market for adult dramatic productions and they should be more prevalent on the silver screen than they are.
HT:Janzam.
Literally. ABC has decided to end two of the longest running shows on television — All My Children and One Life to Live. Yes I know, their soaps, not real shows. If you have ever watched the series Mad Men you understand the nirvana it is for an advertising exec to have a multi-decade relationship with a company. Well Hoover and a firms like P&G and Palmolive are examples. Well Hoover has launched a multipronged attack against ABC –
Unhappy with ABC’s plans to cancel One Life to Live and All My Children in favor of lifestyle programming, longtime advertiser Hoover is sucking all its ad dollars away from the network.
Announcing the decision on its Facebook page, Hoover’s vice president of marketing writes:
To all the loyal ABC soap fans,
I want you to know from me personally that we hear you loud and clear. My wife and mother are both passionate viewers of All My Children and One Life to Live, as are many of my colleagues here at Hoover. We were and are as disappointed with this news as you are.
In fact, we will discontinue our advertising with ABC this Friday, 4/22. We’re making every attempt to pull our spots from these programs sooner.
Now lets consider, soaps are a chunk of American life past and present. That some lay scorn just denies the fact that this art form still has millions of followers around the country. A relative by marriage was hooked on them. Heck even my dad was addicted after being laid up in the hospital for a month.
The Hoover action is just a reflection of what is going on in channel based broadcasting. The art form is not dying but it competes with the likes of Ophrah which many consider more hip. Tho in a sense that too is a soap opera. It just uses real live people instead of actors.
But I think the advertisers like Hoover are missing the boat here. Why not form a LLC with the likes of Lever Brothers, Procter&Gamble, etc. Buy up the shows and the production companies from the those networks willing to sell. Then turn right back around and offer those shows on Hulu and as network syndication with their targeted ads. Guaranteed audience shift and a near exclusive for those in the ‘club’.
Opportunity sometimes masquerades as adversity.
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