Prototype of HP’s Machine due next year
Hewlett-Packard will have a prototype of its futuristic Machine computer ready for partners to develop software on by next year, though the finished product is still half a decade away. The single-rack prototype will have 2,500 CPU cores and an impressive 320TB of main memory. It will use current DRAM memory chips, not the advanced memristor technology that HP is still developing—one of the big reasons The Machine remains several years away.
Samsung Pay coming to U.S., South Korea, then China and Europe
Samsung’s mobile payment service will move into China and Europe after first being offered in September in the U.S. and Samsung’s home market of South Korea, Reuters reports. That’s around when the next flagship smartphone drops from the company. South America and Australia are also on the plans for future rollouts of Samsung Pay.
AWS customers want info on its renewable energy plans
As cloud service providers’ data centers emerge as some of the biggest energy users on the planet, customers are putting pressure on Amazon Web Services to disclose more information about its sustainability practices. Nineteen companies signed a letter asking Amazon to disclose more about its current carbon and energy footprint and its progress towards renewable energy goals.
HP’s Project Synergy promises Amazon-type provisioning for bare metal servers
In other news out of its Discover conference Wednesday, HP kicked off a multi-year effort called Project Synergy that aims to turn existing hardware into pools of compute, storage and networking that can be assembled in software according to the needs of an application or workload. New capabilities for its OneView systems management software should allow for automated provisioning of applications across pools of servers and storage.
Disney makes laid-off IT staff train H-1B replacements
In a revelation that is sure to add fuel to the growing fire over U.S. IT workers being replaced with cut-rate foreign staff supplied by outsourcers, Disney has joined the ranks of large employers using the tactic. The New York Times reports that the theme park operator laid off 250 IT workers, but made them train replacements brought in by Indian outsourcer HCL under the H-1B visa program. While the visas are meant to let companies hire workers from abroad when Americans with the necessary skills cannot be found, companies are exploiting loopholes in the program, and some politicians are demanding an investigation.
NASA and Verizon plan to track drones from cell towers
Verizon and NASA are developing technology to use cell towers to track drones, the Guardian reports. An air traffic control system for drones is apparently planned for testing by NASA this summer, while Verizon is supposed to flesh out ideas for “using cell coverage for data, navigation, surveillance and tracking of drones by 2017,” the Guardian says.
FBI wants a wiretap law covering social media
The FBI says that encrypted social networking tools are hindering its ability to track terrorists and recruiters who are appealing to young people in the U.S. It wants Congress to pass a new wiretap law that requires social media websites and operators of other Internet communication tools to share customers’ communications with law enforcement agencies the same way that telecom carriers do.
Microsoft to open the source-code kimono for governments in Europe
European governments will be able to review the source code of Microsoft products to confirm they don’t contain security backdoors at a transparency center the company opened in Brussels on Wednesday. The move should address worries that the U.S. government can sneak into and spy on systems running the company’s software.
Watch now
Florence Ion gets her hands on the Huawei P8 Lite smartphone and finds that the unlocked, mid-range Android phone looks like a good deal for $250.
One last thing
The Apple Watch and other wearables still face big hurdles to being widely adopted, says Computerworld’s Matt Hamblen; here are the top three obstacles.