2014年5月31日 星期六

Lex專欄:誰為谷歌汽車買單? Google 德州廠1年關閉


   Lex專欄:誰為谷歌汽車買單?  Google 德州廠1年關閉
NEWS


ZDNet
Google's Motorola Mobility to Close Factory in Texas
Motorola, which Google plans to sell, opened the factory in May 2013. A few months later, Dennis Woodside, the handset unit's chief executive at the ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



Latin Post
Google admits it's got work to do to achieve a diverse workforce
Computerworld - Google executives say they're not satisfied that the company's workforce is largely made up of white males. "We've always been ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant


Google Will Be Able To Watch You In Your Home With Its Next Purchase
It comes after tech blog The Information broke the story that Google Google is eyeing up the purchase of Dropcam, a cloud-based WiFi video ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



The West Australian
Google takes steps to comply with EU's 'right to be forgotten' ruling
(Reuters) - Google Inc has launched a service through which European citizens can request that links to what they deem as objectionable material be ...

2014年05月30日 06:19 AM

Lex專欄:誰為谷歌汽車買單?
 
馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg),一個對自己的“世界主宰”計劃很認真的小夥子,曾將Twitter形容為那輛跌入金礦的瘋狂小醜車(一款游戲的主角——譯者 註)。Twitter看起來總是馬上要改變世界的樣子,但直到最近,它一直沒有好好擴張所需的基礎設施。
谷歌(Google)的股東們,你們有好消息了。你們的錢現在資助著一輛無人駕駛汽車的樣車。它看起來真的很像一輛小醜車。它也真的將主宰世界。不 需要方向盤、踏板,事實上甚至不需要任何駕乘人員的汽車,有望解放數十億個小時的生產力。它們甚至可能推動產生有史以來全球最偉大的物流公司。然而,不管 怎樣,谷歌都需要一定規模的基礎設施。
這意味著資金。股東向谷歌提供資金而無權決定其如何使用。這在一家汽車公司是不會持續很久的。
首先是資本支出。谷歌建造新的數據中心(或購買地產以建造更多數據中心)的賬單,去年已達74億美元,是2012年這一數字的兩倍多。谷歌是否應當 將它對製造業的投資盡可能都轉移到汽車生產上去?當然。在這個行業進行轉型擴張的代價不菲。看看特斯拉汽車(Tesla Motors)的50億美元電池工廠Gigafactory,或者捷豹路虎(Jaguar Land Rover)嘗試在短短幾年內將產能擴大一倍的代價:每年50億美元的投資。
但 谷歌可能無論如何都得花上幾十億美元,僅僅是建造一個無人駕駛導航系統。例如,坐谷歌汽車到倫敦市中心一游,而路上其它車仍由焦躁不安的酒囊飯袋們開著, 這將需要處理海量的傳感器數據。由此帶來的基礎設施賬單將是巨額的。游說賬單也是。美國只有三個州允許進行無人駕駛汽車的測試。而且事故的賠償責任可能落 到谷歌(而不是車主)頭上。為了改變世界值得冒這個險?是,沒錯。但首先,股東們需要看到並且有權決定資本配置。

2014年5月29日 星期四

Google Using Machine Learning to Boost Data Center Efficiency

谷歌將小批量生產無人駕駛汽車原型車谷歌將生產100輛無人駕駛汽車的原型車,這些原型車將不設方向盤和踏板
你願乘坐谷歌汽車嗎?
谷歌收購無人機製造商泰坦航空


NEWS


New York Times
Google's Next Phase in Driverless Cars: No Brakes or Steering Wheel
Humans might be the one problem Google can't solve. For the past four years, Google has been working on self-driving cars with a mechanism to ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



New York Times
Google owns up to lack of diversity
FORTUNE -- Google (GOOG) has released its own workplace diversity statistics for the first time, and the results aren't pretty. In a Wednesday blog ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



Firstpost
Google self-driving car: Why it's here, how it works and what's it like
The Google self-driving car is for real, and the prototype is here. The cute Tata Nano lookalike works on sensors and software, and one can reach their ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant


Google Car For Sale: Slightly Underequipped
The Google Car prototype sure is cute. And as Megan Garber already explained on these pages, it's cute because it hopes to convey familiarity and ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant
Google is using machine learning tools to improve the efficiency of its cooling systems, fine-tuning the temperature of water flowing through these giant pipes in its cooling plant in Oregon. (Image: Google)
Google is using machine learning tools to improve the efficiency of its cooling systems, fine-tuning the temperature of water flowing through these giant pipes in its cooling plant in Oregon. (Image: Google)

Google Using Machine Learning to Boost Data Center Efficiency

Google is using machine learning and artificial intelligence to wring even more efficiency out of its mighty data centers.
In a presentation today at Data Centers Europe 2014, Google’s Joe Kava said the company has begun using a neural network to analyze the oceans of data it collects about its server farms and to recommend ways to improve them. Kava is the Internet giant’s vice president of data centers.
In effect, Google has built a computer that knows more about its data centers than even the company’s engineers. The humans remain in charge, but Kava said the use of neural networks will allow Google to reach new frontiers in efficiency in its server farms, moving beyond what its engineers can see and analyze.
Google already operates some of the most efficient data centers on earth. Using artificial intelligence will allow Google to peer into the future and model how its data centers will perform in thousands of scenarios.
In early usage, the neural network has been able to predict Google’s Power Usage Effectiveness with 99.6 percent accuracy. Its recommendations have led to efficiency gains that appear small, but can lead to major cost savings when applied across a data center housing tens of thousands of servers.
Why turn to machine learning and neural networks? The primary reason is the growing complexity of data centers, a challenge for Google, which uses sensors to collect hundreds of millions of data points about its infrastructure and its energy use.
“In a dynamic environment like a data center, it can be difficult for humans to see how all of the variables interact with each other,” said Kava. “We’ve been at this (data center optimization) for a long time. All of the obvious best practices have already been implemented, and you really have to look beyond that.”

Enter Google’s ‘Boy Genius’

Google’s neural network was created by Jim Gao, an engineer whose colleagues have given him the nickname “Boy Genius” for his prowess analyzing large datasets. Gao had been doing cooling analysis using computational fluid dynamics, which uses monitoring data to create a 3D model of airflow within a server room.
Gao thought it was possible to create a model that tracks a broader set of variables, including IT load, weather conditions, and the operations of the cooling towers, water pumps and heat exchangers that keep Google’s servers cool.
“One thing computers are good at is seeing the underlying story in the data, so Jim took the information we gather in the course of our daily operations and ran it through a model to help make sense of complex interactions that his team – being mere mortals – may not otherwise have noticed,” Kava said in a blog post. “After some trial and error, Jim’s models are now 99.6 percent accurate in predicting PUE. This means he can use the models to come up with new ways to squeeze more efficiency out of our operations. ”
Accuracy-PUE-predictions-47
A graph showing how the projections by Google’s neural network tool aligned with actual PUE readings. Click for larger image.

How it Works

Gao began working on the machine learning initiative as a “20 percent project,” a Google tradition of allowing employees to spend a chunk of their work time exploring innovations beyond their specific work duties. Gao wasn’t yet an expert in artificial intelligence. To learn the fine points of machine learning, he took a course from Stanford University Professor Andrew Ng.
Neural networks mimic how the human brain works, allowing computers to adapt and “learn” tasks without being explicitly programmed for them. Google’s search engine is often cited as an example of this type of machine learning, which is also a key research focus at the company.
“The model is nothing more than series of differential calculus equations,” Kava explained. “But you need to understand the math. The model begins to learn about the interactions between these variables.”
Gao’s first task was crunching the numbers to identify the factors that had the largest impact on energy efficiency of Google’s data centers, as measured by PUE. He narrowed the list down to 19 variables and then designed the neural network, a machine learning system that can analyze large datasets to recognize patterns.
Pages: 1 2

About the Author

Rich Miller is the founder and editor-in-chief of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.



GigaOM
Google Using Machine Learning to Boost Data Center Efficiency
Google is using machine learning and artificial intelligence to wring even more efficiency out of its mighty data centers. In a presentation today at Data ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



eWeek
Google Advising Web Developers on JavaScript Page Indexing Issues
Web developers should double-check to ensure that JavaScript code in their Web pages isn't negatively affecting page rankings in Google Search ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



The Mac Observer
Google's Purchase of Nest May Have Been a Defensive Move
Here's what reporter Tim Bradshaw wrote in his excellent FT piece, "Apple plans to take on rivals Google and Samsung and make a 'big play' in the ...

2014年5月28日 星期三

Google's New Car Doesn't Have a Steering Wheel

Google's New Car Doesn't Have a Steering Wheel

Google has unveiled a two-seat prototype for its much anticipated driverless car following years of extensively testing autonomous vehicles—and it's missing things like brakes, pedals and a steering wheel. The tech giant plans to run a pilot program in California within the next two years if these prototypes perform well 




TechGeek
Google hands TV control powers to your phone with Chromecast TV adaptor
AUSTRALIANS will be able to queue movies to their TVs using their smartphones after Google today launches its Chromecast TV adaptor locally.
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



Telegraph.co.uk
Google Play Creates UK's First Ad Break To Feature A Live Music Performance
Google is staging a live performance across a full three-and-a-half minute ad break to promote Google Play, its music store and streaming service.
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



New York Daily News
Model Fights Google Over Porn Site Images
An Argentine model recently took a lawsuit against Google and Yahoo all the way to the country's high court to contest search results that link old ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



TechnologyTell
Avoiding Squirrels and Other Things Google's Robot Car Can't Do
Google's self-driving car is still at least five years away from commercialization, but the team behind the project has made remarkable progress since ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



Phys.Org
Google Glass adaptation opens the universe to deaf students
A group of deaf university students developed a system to provide ASL narration to planetarium shows using Google Glass. Credit: Jaren Wilkey/BYU.
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant


Google Offers CoreOS On Compute Engine Cloud
CRN
Google's decision to offer the lightweight and open source CoreOS operating system will further differentiate the company's cloud platform by ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



The Independent
Tech Five: Google, Apple entering smart home market?
Prepare to hear home automation often over the next few weeks, as two tech giants reportedly plan a leap into the smart home business. Here are the ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant


Can You Spot Google's Hilariously Imperceptible Logo Redesign?
You see the Google logo a lot. So you'd think that a fundamental change to how the letters are placed would be noticeable to a big swath of Internet ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



eWeek
Google Fiber Fights Buffering Issues for Users
Google says it is working more closely with content providers to make service as efficient as possible, including allowing content providers to install ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant



The Horn
Google Ads Heading to the Home
Google ads may soon be coming to your home's smart devices. Android Authority reports that a letter from the search giant to the FCC explained that ...
Google Plus Facebook Twitter Flag as irrelevant

網誌存檔