Paperspace wants to run your computer in the cloud

 

The idea of connecting a basic computer to a more powerful one over a network isn't new – the first modern computer networks began as dumb terminals that accessed smart mainframes – but improvements in hardware technology, internet speeds and online software are now making the concept genuinely viable for consumers. Enter new startup Paperspace, which wants you to run your computer from the cloud.

This is how it works. At home, you log into Paperspace's servers, and your virtual desktop, applications and webpages are streamed to you from the cloud. There's the option of logging in via a browser on an existing computer, or using a small puck-shaped device supplied by Paperspace (called the Paperweight) that you connect up to any monitor, keyboard and mouse you have lying around.

It might not be an ideal solution for everyone – and if Paperspace goes down, your computer goes down with it – but it's an interesting alternative to the way home computing has worked for the past few decades. Once high-speed, stable internet becomes ubiquitous, more services like Paperspace and the Nvidia Shield console are going to pop up.

Paperspace is now taking US$50 pre-orders for the Paperweight device. The promo video below introduces the system and gives basic cloud service pricing as being around US$10 per month. The service is also available to business users. It's expected to launch officially in September.

 

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IBM brings quantum computing to the masses

 

For the first time, IBM Research has thrown open public access to its new quantum processor via the IBM Cloud. Dubbed IBM Quantum Experience, this will provide users with the ability to experiment with individual quantum bits (qubits), process their own experiments, and run some of their own algorithms directly on IBM's quantum processor.

Though not a full-blown quantum computer (the IBM processor comprises just five superconducting qubits) it does represent the latest advances in IBM's quantum architecture that the company claims may one day scale up to create very much larger, more complex quantum processors and eventually lead to the development of a universal quantum computer. which could solve some of the problems that simply can't be solved using classical computers.

"Quantum computers are very different from today's computers, not only in what they look like and are made of, but more importantly in what they can do," says Arvind Krishna, senior vice president and director, IBM Research. "Quantum computing is becoming a reality and it will extend computation far beyond what is imaginable with today's computers. This moment represents the birth of quantum cloud computing. By giving hands-on access to IBM's experimental quantum systems, the IBM Quantum Experience will make it easier for researchers and the scientific community to accelerate innovations in the quantum field, and help discover new applications for this technology."
Housed in the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York, the processor uses five qubits formed by superconducting metals embedded on a silicon chip. As Gizmag reported last year, IBM researchers showed that breakthroughs in detecting quantum errors were possible by bringing superconducting qubits together in a lattice arrangement, and it is this quantum circuit design that is brought to bear in IBM's cloud-connected processor with advanced parity measurement error correction protocols.



Although universal quantum computers do not yet exist, IBM believes that medium-sized quantum processors of 50-100 qubits will be a reality within the next decade. A quantum computer created with just 50 qubits would already be more powerful than any of the world's top 500 supercomputers.
"It is a beautiful challenge to pursue the path to build the first universal quantum computer, but it requires us to change how we think about the world," says Dario Gil, vice president of science and solutions at IBM Research. "Access to early quantum computing prototypes will be key in imagining and developing future applications. If you want to understand what a true quantum computer will do for you and how it works, this is the place to do it. You won't experience it anywhere else."

 

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NASA probes Namibian clouds to help predict future climate models

NASA has taken two of its research aircraft and a bunch of scientists to the coast of Africa to study minute particles suspended in the atmosphere known as aerosols. The aim of the ORACLES (Observations of Aerosols Above Clouds and their Interactions) project is to provide a better understanding of how aerosols interact with clouds, and how cloud behavior is directly or indirectly changed.

NASA says that Walvis Bay in Namibia is one of three locations in the world with persistent low-level clouds, and the only one of those with a steady flow of aerosol particles into the atmosphere, thanks to smoke from inland fires. The cloud layers are said to thicken away from the coastline like a wedge, gradually mixing with aerosols and offering scientists progressively changing conditions for study.

As such, principal investigator Jens Redemann says that the location is "the perfect natural laboratory to study aerosol-cloud interactions, which are some of the largest uncertainties in the prediction of future climate."

Aerosols rising into the atmosphere can be of natural origin, such as dust and sea salt, or produced as a result of human activity, like soot and smoke from fire and industry.
"Human activities currently are estimated to be responsible for perhaps half of all the aerosol particles in the atmosphere," says cloud scientist Robert Wood. "Smoke particles both reflect sunlight back to space, thus cooling the Earth, and absorb sunlight, which has the opposite effect of warming the Earth. When aerosols encounter clouds, they also change the properties of the clouds they are ingested into."

The two research aircraft that NASA has deployed to the region are its P-3 and ER-2 and, unlike satellites that may only pass overhead once every day, it's expected that they'll be able to study the area throughout the day to build a complete picture of aerosol behavior in clouds.

The P-3 carries five remote sensing instruments and will take measurements from over a dozen probes attached to wings and window inlets as it flies to an altitude of up to 20,000 ft (6,000 m). The ER-2 will fly up to 65,000 ft (19,800 m) and take readings similar to those made by satellites.
NASA says the aim of the ORACLE's flights is to complement and validate satellite observations and to test instruments that may go on to be used by future satellites. It is also hoped that the project will help improve regional and global computer models that predict climate change.

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Pi-powered jacket wraps you in a personal cloud

 

Cloud computing can be a nebulous and worrying concept for some people, with their data flying off into a server somewhere in the world. Now computer engineers from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have developed a prototype that aims to keep the cloud local by wrapping it around the user in the form of a microcomputer-embedded jacket.

Developed by Ragib Hasan and Rasib Khan at UAB, the prototype has 10 Raspberry Pis for its brain, along with three power banks and a remote touchscreen input. The idea, according to its creators, is to better connect all of a user's devices, and outsource the computing power and storage to the cloud jacket, meaning individual devices can be "dumber" and therefore less expensive.

"Currently if you want to have a smart watch, smartphone, an exercise tracker and smart glasses, you have to buy individual expensive devices that aren't working together," Hasan said. "Why not have a computational platform with you that can support many forms of mobile and wearable devices? Then all of these capabilities can become really inexpensive."

The Raspberry Pi-flavored cloud gives the jacket about 10 GB of RAM and a total of 320 GB of storage space, making it much more powerful than any smartphone around today. With that much power under the (possibly literal) hood, the cloud jacket would enable phones, watches, tablets and other smart devices to simply act as input controllers, connected to the jacket via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.
When the wearer opens or uses an app, the cloud jacket does the heavy lifting, then streams the data back to the device. And with their own private, wearable network, most or all of their personal data stays on their person.



"Once you have turned everything else into a 'dumb device,' the wearable cloud becomes the smart one," says Hasan. "The application paradigm becomes much more simple and brings everything together. Instead of individual solutions, now you have everything as a composite solution."
It's not just limited to a jacket, either. The personal portable cloud concept could take as many forms as an actual cloud, embedded into other items of clothing, briefcases, purses, backpacks, or anything else people carry around everyday.

Other applications are being explored, too. Hospital patients could wear a comfortable jacket that syncs to an array of monitors, rather than being physically wired in. Personal clouds could even sync up to form a network for first responders or soldiers to communicate and share data.

"With seven to 10 people wearing such a cloud together, they create what we call a hyper-cloud, a much more powerful engine," says Hasan. "The jacket can also act as a micro or picocell tower. All of its capabilities can be shared on a private network with other devices via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. If a first responder is out in the field and doesn't have complete information to act on a mission, but someone else does, it can be shared and updated through the cloud in real time."

The research paper was published through the SECRET Lab, at UAB's Computer and Information Sciences department and Hasan and Khan presented their concept and a prototype wearable cloud jacket at the 40th Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society International Conference on Computers, Software & Applications (IEEE COMPSAC) in June.

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Cloud records reveal evidence of climate change

By studying cloud records from the past 30 years, climate change model simulations show cloud behavior similar to what is actually happening.(Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)   

 Global cloud patterns have changed since the 1980s, and scientists have found these shifts are consistent with predictions from climate model simulations. By analyzing satellite records over the last 30 years, storm cloud tracks are shown to be moving toward the poles, the height of the highest cloud tops are increasing, and subtropical dry zones are expanding; changes that likely have a further warming effect on the planet.


While weather-monitoring satellites have been recording cloud information for decades, the researchers came up with new analysis techniques to account for erroneous information and get a clearer picture of the data. The techniques helped eliminate inconsistent imaging caused by such issues as changes in satellite orbit and degradation of sensors.

"The authors used a new technique to remove spurious variability in the satellite cloud records due to a multitude of problems, including but not limited to changes in the satellites used to observe Earth's clouds and calibration," Stephen Klein, research scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, told Gizmag. "After the technique is applied, it is more likely that the remaining variability in clouds represents true cloud changes."

As a result, the researchers can then point to computer climate simulations taking into account human influences that show current cloud patterns behaving in a similar manner. It's the first credible evidence that those cloud pattern changes expected to occur in a climate change model are actually happening.

"These changes are those predicted by theory and climate models to be the result of a warming of the planet," said Klein. "These changes can also occur through natural climate variability, but the analysis of the paper shows that natural climate variability cannot produce the same pattern of change as observed. Furthermore, the pattern of cloud changes observed do occur in climate models when they are forced by the increase in greenhouse gases that cause global warming. This suggests that the observed changes are the result of climate change."

Clouds are one of the biggest variables when it comes to climate, cooling the planet by reflecting solar radiation back into space, and also heating it by trapping solar energy. But cloud behavior is complex and the largest area of uncertainty for scientists as they try to understand and predict climate and forecast trends. Current cloud behavior has been found to increase solar radiation absorption, with less thermal radiation able to escape into space.

The researchers took into account natural climate change events, including the planet-wide recovery from the 1982 eruption of El Chichon in Mexico and the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines. Both had a net cooling effect on the planet for several years. Barring any further natural events, the researchers expect cloud trends to continue into the future, with global warming to increase along with greenhouse gas concentrations.

The study was conducted by a consortium of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, Riverside, and Colorado State University.

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