China wins supercomputer crown for eighth time

November 16, 2016

Beijing, Nov 16: For the eight consecutive year, China has retained the top spot in the list of the world's fastest supercomputers for its 'Sunway TaihuLight' which can perform 93 million billion calculations per second, media report said today.

chinaTaihuLight, the massive supercomputer, built entirely using processors designed and made in China has been crowned as the world's fastest, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the latest edition of the semiannual Top500 list of supercomputers released on Monday.

TaihuLight made its appearance in June, replacing the former champion, Tianhe-2, also a Chinese system but built based on Intel chips. TaihuLight is capable of performing 93 million billion calculations per second (petaflop/s).

That is almost three times as fast as Tianhe-2, which had claimed No 1 spot in the Top500 list for the past three years.

That means a Chinese supercomputer has topped the rankings for eight times in a row, indicating the rise of China in the high performance computing (HPC) field, the report said.

In the previous list released in June, China overtook the US in the number of total supercomputers installed. That was the first time that the US has not dominated this category since the list was started 23 years ago.

This time, the number of systems installed in China increased to 171 from 168 on the last list.

"The 48th edition of the Top500 list saw China and the US pacing each other for supercomputing supremacy," Top500 editors said in a statement released at an HPC conference in Salt Lake City.

In addition, China and the US are "neck-and-neck in the performance category" with the latter holding 33.9 per cent of the overall installed performance while the former is second with 33.3 per cent of the overall installed performance, said the statement.

In the latest rankings, Titan and Sequoia, two systems from the US, remained No 3 and No 4 positions. The Cori supercomputer, a new system installed at the US Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, slipped into the fifth slot with a performance of 14.0 petaflop/s, the report said.

When it comes to companies making these systems, the America-based Hewlett-Packard Enterprise has the lead with 112 supercomputers, which is followed by China's Lenovo with 92 systems.

There are three other Chinese companies in the vendor list: Sugon (No 4 with 47 systems), Inspur (No 8 with 18 systems) and Huawei (No 9 with 16 systems). The Top500 list is considered one of the most authoritative rankings of the world's supercomputers.

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News Network
March 18,2020

San Francisco, Mar 18: Facebook said a bug in its anti-spam system temporarily blocked the publication of links to news stories about the coronavirus. Guy Rosen, Facebook's vice president of integrity, said on Twitter Tuesday that the company was working on a fix for the problem.

Users complained that links to news stories about school closings and other information related to the virus outbreak were blocked by the company's automated system.

Later on Tuesday, Rosen tweeted that Facebook had restored all the incorrectly deleted posts, which also covered topics beyond the coronavirus.

Rosen said the problems were unrelated to any changes in Facebook's content-moderator workforce. The company reportedly sent its human moderators home this week because of the coronavirus outbreak.

A representative for Facebook did not immediately respond to questions on the status of Facebook's content moderators, many of whom do not work directly for the company and are not always able to work from home.

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Agencies
June 17,2020

In a bid to help tackle rise in domestic violence during the social distancing times in India, Twitter on Wednesday launched a dedicated search prompt to serve information and updates from authoritative sources around domestic violence.

Twitter has partnered with the Ministry of Women and Child Development the National Commission for Women in India to expand its efforts towards women.

The search prompt will be available on iOS, Android and on mobile.twitter.com in India, in both English and Hindi languages, the company said in a statement.

Data shows that since the outbreak of Covid-19, violence against women and girls has intensified in India and across the globe.

"We recognise collaboration with the public, government and NGOs is key to combating the complex issue of domestic violence. Accessing reliable information through this search prompt could be a survivor's first step towards seeking help against abuse and violence," said Mahima Kaul, Director, Public Policy, India and South Asia, Twitter.

Every time someone searches for certain keywords associated with the issue of domestic violence, a prompt will direct them to the relevant information and sources of help available on Twitter.

This is an expansion of Twitter's #ThereIsHelp prompt, which was specifically put in place for the public to find clear, credible information on critical issues.

The feature will be reviewed at regular intervals by the Twitter team to ensure that all related keywords generate the proactive search prompt, said the company.

Violence against women and girls across Asia Pacific is pervasive but at the same time widely under reported.

"In fact, in many countries in our region, the number is even greater, with as many as 2 out of 3 women in some countries reporting experiences of violence," added Melissa Alvarado, UN Women Asia Pacific Regional Manager on Ending Violence against Women.

Rekha Sharma, Chairperson, the NCW, said: "With social distancing norms in place, several women are unable to contact their regular support systems. This initiative by Twitter will provide big support to the survivors, who would otherwise be easily isolated without access to relevant information and help".

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Agencies
January 4,2020

Washington D.C: One of the greatest spectacles of modern art is still thriving in the Australian outback as confirmed by satellite imagery of NASA. The Marree Man is a massive geoglyph depicting an aboriginal hunter, that spans over 2.6 miles in the Southern Australian region.

Discovered by a pilot in 1998, its origin still remains a mystery even to this date.

The Marree Man was given a new lease of life in 2016 when a group of people from the neighboring town of Marree plowed its lines to avert its fading due to erosion.

After NASA shared the image of the art-work that was taken in June, the efforts of the good samaritans turned out to be a total success, reported CNN Travel.

The restoration team believes that the refurbished Marree Man would last longer than its original version.

According to NASA, "They [the team] created wind grooves, designed to trap water and encourage the growth of vegetation. They hope that eventually, the man will turn green."

In a previous article, CNN reported that an entrepreneur by the name of Dick Smith took upon himself to unravel the geoglyph's mystery in 2016. His team combed through all the available evidence but couldn't find anything conclusive.

In 2018 he even offered a 5,000 Australian dollar reward for anyone who knows the identity of its creator.

Nobody turned up with an answer but it was speculated that unknown artist lives in Alice Springs or even might be an American.

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