Items filtered by date: Tuesday, 02 December 2014

July 9, 2016 - When programmers at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory set out to develop the flight software for the Apollo 11 space program in the mid-1960s, the necessary technology did not exist. They had to invent it.

They came up with a new way to store computer programs, called “rope memory,” and created a special version of the assembly programming language. Assembly itself is obscure to many of today’s programmers—it’s very difficult to read, intended to be easily understood by computers, not humans. For the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), MIT programmers wrote thousands of lines of that esoteric code.

Here’s a very 1960s data visualization of just how much code they wrote—this is Margaret Hamilton, director of software engineering for the project, standing next to a stack of paper containing the software:Margaret Hamilton(NASA)

The AGC code has been available to the public for quite a while–it was first uploaded by tech researcher Ron Burkey in 2003, after he’d transcribed it from scanned images of the original hardcopies MIT had put online. That is, he manually typed out each line, one by one.

“It was scanned by a airplane pilot named Gary Neff in Colorado,” Burkey said in an email. “MIT got hold of the scans and put them online in the form of page images, which unfortunately had been mutilated in the process to the point of being unreadable in places.” Burkey reconstructed the unreadable parts, he said, using his engineering skills to fill in the blanks.

“Quite a bit later, I managed to get some replacement scans from Gary Neff for the unreadable parts and fortunately found out that the parts I filled in were 100% correct!” he said.

The effort made the code available to any researcher or hobbyist who wanted to explore it. Burkey himself even used the software to create a simulation of the AGC.

As enormous and successful as Burkey’s project has been, however, the code itself remained somewhat obscure to many of today’s software developers. That was until last Thursday (July 7), when former NASA intern Chris Garry uploaded the software in its entirety to GitHub, the code-sharing site where millions of programmers hang out these days.

Within hours, coders began dissecting the software, particularly looking at the code comments the AGC’s original programmers had written. In programming, comments are plain-English descriptions of what task is being performed at a given point. But as the always-sharp joke detectives in Reddit’s r/ProgrammerHumor section found, many of the comments in the AGC code go beyond boring explanations of the software itself. They’re full of light-hearted jokes and messages, and very 1960s references.

Continue here to read the full article

Source: GitHub

Global Deployment agency Schawk has won a Gold Award at New Zealand’s Pride in Print Awards.

The winning entry, Allen’s Sherbies, was produced for Nestlé and utilised the highly technical HD Flexo print technique.

Working closely with the Christchurch NZ plant Amcor Flexibles Asia Pacific and Brandpack, the Allen’s SKU won the award in the Food and Beverage category. The winning entry was part of the suite of premedia work that Schawk continues to produce globally for Nestlé.

“The award builds on industry recognition of the quality result delivered with HD Flexo printing and colour management for Nestlé. The award demonstrated the alignment of all key stakeholders in the graphics supply chain process to deliver the high quality result. The ability to work closely with Nestlé, Amcor Flexibles and Brandpack was key to the success of the project,” said Ryan Sharratt, Operations Manager for Schawk Australia.

“Further adding to the two awards at last year’s ANZFTA print awards, and this New Zealand award, HD flexo work is delivering high quality results in industry for brand clients such as Nestlé. The new proofing profiles developed for the project were based on precise colour matching of fingerprints. The colour management process was effective in reducing the number of print colours while creating eye catching colour fidelity for standout packaging.”

The judges were impressed by the finished results and recognised the prepress expertise of Schawk, coupled with the print skills of Amcor Flexibles in awarding Gold in the highly contested, Food and Beverage category.

Source: Food & Beverage Industry News, July 8 2016.

Work is now underway on the final project which will complete the upgrades of Auckland’s Northwestern Motorway, Transport Minister Simon Bridges has announced.

Prime Minister John Key and Transport Minister Simon Bridges today turned the sod on the $100 million Lincoln to Westgate project.

The upgrade will widen State Highway 16 from two to three lanes in each direction, creating extra capacity on Auckland’s motorway network to service the needs of the growing population in the west of the city.

“The extra capacity will cater to the increased traffic which will use the Western Ring Route and the Waterview Tunnels when they open early next year,” Mr Bridges says.

“This section is the last piece in the puzzle that will see the Northwestern Motorway widened to at least three lanes all the way from St Lukes near the city to Westgate, when it’s opened to motorists in early 2019.”

Walking and cycling improvements will also form a key part of the improvements project.

“We want to make it easier for people to move around the city via a range of transport modes. The project will build dedicated bus lanes in each direction and extend the Northwestern Cycleway.

“This will ensure transport infrastructure is able to support growth in Auckland’s western suburbs and will provide customers with an efficient additional route to State Highway 1. By building resilience and choice into our transport network, we can provide customers with more predictable travel times.

Mr Bridges says the project is part of the Government’s strong focus on meeting Auckland’s transport needs.

“Reducing congestion in Auckland is a Government priority. That’s why we’re investing more than $1 billion each year in Auckland’s transport, delivering new and improved roading motorways, strengthening public transport services and accelerating the urban cycling network.”

For more information on the Lincoln to Westgate project visit: https://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/the-western-ring-route/sh16-lincoln-to-westgate/

Follows state approval of non-treated timber, leaky house design & pull-back on apprentices

GP MP has had two runs at becoming leader of the Conservatives.

Northport is calling for further discussions on "unbundling" alternatives to the growth issues facing Ports of Auckland although any decisions on more detailed studies into port relocation have been shelved for the incoming Auckland Council.

The council’s Auckland Development Committee this week voted to simply refer the findings of the Port Future Study released last week to the new council elected in October.

The study found that a new location was likely to be needed for the port which is facing growth constraints but in the interim there was a need to allow it to build extra berth space despite public opposition to further extensions into the Waitemata Harbour.

It also said that Northport and Port of Tauranga were unable to handle the extra trade from Ports of Auckland and that divvying up parts of its business to other ports would mean a loss of revenue to the council and the scale necessary to stack up a new location.

Northport said the study took an overly narrow focus and contains miscalculations about the potential for it and the Port of Tauranga to be viable solutions to the Auckland port’s infrastructure challenges.

It wants more work done prior to the election on possibly “unbundling” the port’s total freight task to other ports ahead of investigating billion-dollar relocation sites.

“Auckland will, in all likelihood, always require a port facility,” Northport chairman John Goulter said in a statement. “But there are opportunities for the load to be shared across the upper North Island and these have not yet been explored fully.”

The report overlooked expanding capacity in the next decade at Northport where log exports are expected to decrease significantly as key Northland forests are harvested and its container handling ability is being developed with consented plans more than doubling berth length.

Goulter said the greater Marsden Point area was particularly suited to port expansion with 180 hectares of undeveloped commercial-zoned land adjacent to the port boundary.

While much of the discussion about the Ports of Auckland’s future is about how its neighbours and stakeholders don’t want it to grow any further, the people of Northland would welcome more cargo coming to their region, Goulter said.

He said that fact wasn’t lost on the port study group chairman Rick Boven, who recently said “no-one wants a port in their backyard, except possibly Northport”.

Auckland mayoral candidates Phil Goff and Victoria Crone have said they want the port gone from the waterfront. Goff suggested last month that one way to address Auckland's impending capacity constraints on bulk cargo in the short term would be to move the imported used cars sitting on the wharves to Northport.

Northport commissioned an investigation two years ago that found shipping cars into Northland first, and then on to Auckland, would be cost neutral despite traffic congestion on the city’s roads although industry publication Auto Talk this week quoted John Davies, the head of major vehicle logistics provider Autohub, saying most of the claimed benefits from such a shift didn't exist. He said cars on average only spend 1.5 days in the port, one of the fastest turnarounds in the country, but relocating the point of entry to Northport would mean the trucks having to deliver into Auckland's congested roads.

Port media spokesman Peter Heath said the port had also launched investigations into what other cargo may also be commercially and economically viable to shift from Auckland further north.

Earlier this week Port of Tauranga chairman David Pilkington said its shareholders would take some convincing that building a new “super-port” at the Firth of Thames or Manukau Harbour to serve the upper North Island would be a good move.

The port future study said a super-port was another larger scale consideration because Port of Tauranga’s growth appears to be constrained in the long-term and that the wider transport, land use and upper North Island port strategy implications should be examined when deciding which of the Auckland port locations to develop.

But Pilkington said the report doesn’t take into consideration that the Port of Tauranga’s existing container site at Sulphur Point still has extra capacity and once that is constrained could look to extend operations to its Mt Manganui site. He also questioned the numbers used to assess predicted growth in container volumes.

Source: Scoop

Austria, July 8 2016 - Austrian engineering company Doppelmayr/Garaventa—better known for rigging gondola systems for ski areas in the Swiss Alps—has now completed a record-breaking tramway across Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay.

The Ha Long Queen Cable Car is suspended by a pair massive concrete towers—two of the tallest in the world—with the larger tower rising to 620 feet. But the tram cars themselves are the largest ever constructed. Each double-decker car is larger than some New York apartments—carrying 230 people on each 15-minute trip across the bay.

Ha Long Bay is an Unesco world heritage site renowned the world over for its beautiful 1,600+ limestone islands. The area welcomes roughly 7 million tourists a year.

The more than $282 million tramway was built to connect the Bai Chay district of Ha Long City to one of the world’s largest ferris wheels.

EINNewsDesk, Friday 8 July, 2016 - Earlier in the day it was reported that Tata Steel may “pause” its plans to sell off most of troubled UK units, including the mammoth Port Talbot steelworks in Wales, as Britain’s business minister is set to hold talks with the senior management of the Indian steel giant in Mumbai to achieve a long-term solution.

Highlights* Tata Steel says will now begin process for potential sale of South Yorkshire based speciality steels business and the Hartlepool pipe mills in the UK

* Tata Steel to explore feasability of strategic collaborations through potential joint venture

* Based speciality steels business and the Hartlepool pipe mills in the UK

* Tata Steel says entered into discussions with strategic players in the steel industry including Thyssenkrupp AG

* Tata Steel says received interest from several bidders for speciality steels and pipe mills in each case, formal process will be commencing shortly

Source: Financial Express

Air New Zealand has partnered with the Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori (Maori Language Commission) to develop a tohu (emblem) that recognises fluency in the Māori language.

Today, as the country celebrates Māori Language Week, Air New Zealand is launching the tohu which will be worn as a lapel pin by Air New Zealand employees who are fluent in te reo Māori and choose to wear it.

More than 30 languages are spoken by employees in the airline’s global network and these Air New Zealanders can choose to wear a pin representing the language they speak. Going forward customers will also be able to identify Air New Zealand employees who speak te reo fluently.

The tohu, designed by expert carver Clive Fugill at the globally renowned New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute in Te Puia, is inspired by te reo ō Aotearoa and its distinct form references the waha or the mouth piece in traditional Māori carvings.

The tohu will be rolled out to Air New Zealand cabin crew in the coming months before being introduced to other areas of the business. It is hoped the move will also inspire more employees to learn the language and help preserve Māori culture while showcasing it to visitors onboard.

Air New Zealand Cultural Development Manager Andrew Baker says the tohu is a reminder to all New Zealanders that we must work together to preserve te reo Māori for future generations.

“We’re very proud to see our people wearing the tohu while speaking the Māori language and supporting the culture onboard. As the national carrier we understand we have a significant role to play in protecting Māori heritage and ensuring the future of te reo Māori is a big part of that.”

Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori Chief Executive Ngahiwi Apanui says the intention is for the tohu to be embraced by the wider community over time.

“We are focused on preserving and ensuring a bright future for te reo Māori for all New Zealanders. We would love to see other organisations and community groups embrace the tohu so it becomes synonymous with te reo Māori speakers throughout the country.”

Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori will be the guardian of the tohu which will be awarded to eligible te reo Māori speakers who meet the organisation’s criteria for fluency established by their Whakamātauria Tō Reo Māori (Level Finder Examinations).

Innovative New Zealand based Software as a Service (SaaS) developer, Unleashed Software, has just announced a renewed focus on its integration to enable QuickBooks Online inventory, fresh off the back of a successful $3 million capital raising round.

Recently listed in the prestigious Tech Pioneers Top 50, which lists the most exciting and pioneering startups from Australia and New Zealand, Unleashed Software has announced a new level of cloud based service delivery designed to boost its growth in the US and international markets.

“By being able to add our inventory management capabilities to their QuickBooks Online account, clients can enjoy enterprise-level functionality previously only available with larger ERP systems” Unleashed Software CEO, Gareth Berry stated. The integration enables clients using Unleashed to share customer, supplier, inventory and delivery information with QuickBooks Online to gain real-time insights into their businesses.

To small and medium businesses within the US, the latest offering from the rapidly growing developer will enable them to enjoy cross-platform integration, driven towards achieving enhanced efficiency and accuracy within their operations - from procurement and production to inventory management and sales.

With the most recent capital raising round having brought the total amount raised to $18 million, Unleashed Software is confident that it will meet its expansion goals both here in the US as well as internationally where it enjoys a growing presence in established markets like Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Reflecting on the company’s expansion into offshore markets over the last 12 months, Berry said, “We have been fueling our expansion while growing our product and this latest capital investment will enable us to accelerate those efforts substantially. With increasingly global capabilities, we can now support our customers on an international scale, whether they are in wholesale, manufacturing or distribution.”

Unleashed Software with QuickBooks integration is well positioned to grow its US market presence by helping businesses better leverage the power of cloud based SaaS solutions.