Whilst the 2 leading laboratories in the world, CERN in Europe and Fermilabs in the USA, are busy trying to crack open particles to expose the depth of physics, we have been busy  preparing for the release of 2 major computing platforms and systems that will raise user productivity by a few notches.  The first is Sandy Bridge and the second is Quadro Fermi.  Sandy Bridge is the latest innovation from Intel for desktops and servers. It refers to the CPU which is the computing engine of a personal computer.  Conservatively, Sandy Bridge runs faster than the previous generation by 20% for the same price point.  Compucon has released 1 system model based on Sandy Bridge and is releasing 2 more models- one for low cost and one for small business servers.  Quadro Fermi is more for professional engineers and designers.  It is a piece of hardware with computation and visualization capabilities.  Computer Aided Design (CAD) is certainly the most popular application for it.  Other major ones are simulation, digital content creation, visualization, and video production.  Instead of supplying Quadro Fermi as a card, Compucon plans to supply an Engineering & Design Station that is ready to run CAD, for instance, out of the box.  This E & D station is designed to achieve the same performance as top global brands for half of their price. 

Our normal body temperature is 36.8 degree C and it fluctuates within a small range during the day.  The body, as any other object with a temperature, emits a radiation that pertains to its temperature.  These two pieces of information have formed the basis for employing Passive Infrared Sensors (PIR) to detect the presence of human.  Dogs and cats have a slightly higher body temperature at 38.6 and they may be detected by the same sensors for human.  Nevertheless, PIR tuned for human detection will not pick up leaf movements in the wind or the change of illumination level.   Therefore we can add PIR as an extra intelligence to video surveillance cameras.  In an automated process plant or restricted access area, for examples, a PIR camera can record undesirable human presence and trigger alarms.  The same arrangement also improves the quality of footage and the use of recording storage estates significantly.  Furthermore we can connect a bright light source to the trigger and this will further improve the quality of recorded videos even at night time.  We have tested the above ideas and are ready to offer the technique to customers.  Please email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to discuss your requirements if any. 

A picture is worth a thousand words.  What about a video?  See how popular You Tube has been?  Video is indeed the language of the 21st century.  It was not possible previously because the cost of producing, transmitting and consuming video was high.  This has changed due to a few technology progresses made.  One is called compression.  The latest technique can compress a video file by up to 200 times without losing much originality.  Instead of transmitting 20Mbps on the Internet which is either impossible or gravely expensive, we need to transmit 1Mbps only.  Another development is IP for Internet Protocol.  It is an open standard for prescribing how different efforts can be developed separately and yet integrated to produce an end to end solution.  Camera and video handling are coming to the party.  Applications that were not IP based are coming to the party now.  These include physical building access and intrusion protection, internal environmental comfort control (water, temperature) and all processes in manufacturing. The flood gate has opened! 
http://www.cnz.co.nz/content/category/8/13/36/

Cloud computing refers to the clouds as the computing resources as opposed to our internal servers.  Many people have unknowingly joined the clouds and yet they resist the movements of the clouds. Why?  The editor is not a proponent or opponent of cloud computing and is acting as an observer here.  Google mails, Hotmails and Yahoo mails among many others are cloud computing as the email servers that support these mail services are somewhere in the clouds.  Consumers do not pay anything for these email services at the moment but this may change in the future.  Most businesses resist entrusting third parties to handle and store their data rightfully.  This scenario has produced a clear guidance to us all.  Instead of running our complex email servers in-house, we let go of it.  Instead of running an expensive phone exchange system in-house, we let go of it.  They are just tools and depreciating assets.   Data is different.  Data is the reason for having information systems.  Data is private, unique and hugely important for the management of a business.  Data stays in-house.  A white paper for your reading:    http://www.cnz.co.nz/content/view/64/38/