Month: April 2021

Enlarge / A Google Argos VCU. It transcodes video very quickly. (credit: Google)

Google has decided that YouTube is such a huge transcoding workload that it needs to build its own server chips. The company detailed its new "Argos" chips in a YouTube blog post, a CNET interview, and in a paper for ASPLOS, the Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems Conference. Just as there are GPUs for graphics workloads and Google's TPU (Tensor processing unit) for AI workloads, the YouTube infrastructure team says it has created the "VCU" or "Video (trans)Coding Unit," which helps YouTube transcode a single video into over a dozen versions that it needs to provide a smooth, bandwidth-efficient, profitable video site.

Google's Jeff Calow said the Argos chip has brought "up to 20-33x improvements in compute efficiency compared to our previous optimized system, which was running software on traditional servers." The VCU package is a full-length PCI-E card and looks a lot like a graphics card. A board has two Argos ASIC chips buried under a gigantic, passively cooled aluminum heat sink. There's even what looks like an 8-pin power connector on the end, because PCI-E just isn't enough power. Google also provided a lovely chip diagram, listing 10 "encoder cores" on each chip, with Google's white paper adding that "all other elements are off-the-shelf IP blocks." Google says that "each encoder core can encode 2160p in realtime, up to 60 FPS (frames per second) using three reference frames."

The cards are specifically designed to slot into Google's warehouse-scale computing system. Each compute cluster in YouTube's system will have a section of dedicated "VCU machines" loaded with the new cards, saving Google from having to crack open every server and load it with a new card. Google says the cards resemble GPUs because that's what fits in its existing accelerator trays. CNET reports that "thousands of the chips are running in Google data centers right now" and, thanks to the cards, individual video workloads like 4K video "can be available to watch in hours instead of the days it previously took."

Enlarge / The iPhone 12. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Yet another report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has emerged with details of Apple's future product plans. Citing "people with knowledge of the matter," the article broadly describes some of the key upcoming features in iOS 15 for iPhones and iPadOS 15 for iPads.

Apple is likely to reveal iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 at its annual developer conference, WWDC, which kicks off on June 7 in an online-only format this year. Typically, Apple then releases these updates in September or thereabouts—timed closely with the annual release of new flagship iPhones. Something close to that same timeline is likely again this year.

Bloomberg's sources say the upcoming OS updates will allow users to set different notification rules based on their status—"status," in this case, means some predefined buckets like working, sleeping, or driving, as well as custom statuses that users can define themselves.

Enlarge (credit: Sjo / Getty)

Last Saturday, two men died when a Tesla Model S crashed into a tree in a residential neighborhood. Authorities said they found no one in the driver's seat—one man was in the front passenger seat, while the other was in the back. That led to speculation that the car might have been under the control of Tesla's Autopilot driver-assistance system at the time of the crash.

Elon Musk has tweeted that "data logs recovered so far show Autopilot was not enabled." Tesla defenders also insisted that Autopilot couldn't have been active because the technology doesn't operate unless someone is in the driver's seat. Consumer Reports decided to test this latter claim by seeing if it could get Autopilot to activate without anyone in the driver's seat.

It turned out not to be very difficult.

Enlarge / Then-T-Mobile CEO John Legere testifies before the House Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Subcommittee on March 12, 2019 in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Chip Somodevilla )

T-Mobile paid then-CEO John Legere $137.2 million in 2020, a year in which he worked three months and then left on the day he completed T-Mobile's purchase of Sprint.

Legere's 2020 compensation was revealed yesterday in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (see pages 49 and 50). Legere was previously paid $27.8 million in the full year of 2019 and $66.5 million in 2018, mostly in the form of stock awards. His 2020 compensation of $137.2 million did not include any stock awards—instead, it consisted of a $136.55 million severance payment, $600,000 in salary, and $50,000 in reimbursement for legal fees.

Mike Sievert, who replaced Legere as CEO, received $54.9 million in stock awards, salary, bonuses, and incentives in 2020, up from $16.4 million in 2019 and $35.6 million in 2018. He was previously the COO.

Intrepid film crews tracked various species of whales all over the world, capturing their unique hunting strategies, communication skills, and social structures for Secrets of the Whales, a new four-part documentary series from National Geographic, now streaming on Disney+.

The project started with National Geographic Explorer and photographer Brian Skerry, who spent three years traveling around the globe documenting the culture of five different species of whale: orcas, humpbacks (aka "the singing sensation of the ocean"), belugas, narwhals, and sperm whales. The Massachusetts-born Skerry recalls visiting the beaches of New England as a child and being fascinating by nature documentaries about the ocean. "There was something especially awe-inspiring about whales," he told Ars. "There are so many secrets. If I spent the rest of my life just [filming] whales, I would be very happy."

Skerry pitched a one-hour documentary to National Geographic about his project, which turned into four hours when producer, writer, and director Brian Armstrong (Red Rock Films) signed on, along with Oscar-winning director James Cameron as executive producer. "It started off as a photographer profile [of Skerry], but the scope became so big," Armstrong told Ars. "[We realized] it's about the whales and their culture—a big breakthrough topic. It's subtle, but you'll notice when we do introduce human characters, you're usually looking out from the whale's point of view as we get into their world."

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images)

For more than two decades, Window Snyder has built security into products at some of the biggest companies in the world. Now, she’s unveiling her own company that aims to bake security into billions of connected devices made by other companies.

San Francisco-based Thistle Technologies said on Thursday that it received $2.5 million in seed funding from True Ventures. The startup is creating tools that will help manufacturers build security into connected devices from the ground up.

IoT, hackers’ low-hanging fruit

Printers, ATMs, consumer electronics, automobiles, and similar types of Internet-of-things devices have emerged as some of the biggest targets of malware. Manufacturers typically don’t have the security expertise that companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google have developed over the past 20 years.