Telex: Custom password for VR/AR, ServiceNow acquired Sweagle in Brussels, Atos increased the HPC function of DKRZ by 16 Pflops

-Password for VR/AR. Researchers at Arizona State University have launched the FMKit project, which allows password identification through augmented or virtual reality systems. A simple system that allows users to connect to an application or service with a simple “broadcast” gesture. In considering the type of writing (writing style, writing speed, spacing, etc.), the technology is a step further than the Leap Motion handheld sensor and the Oculus Quest VR headset. As an identifier, not just a password. FMKit supports two types of input devices-combined with a Leap Motion controller with 110 sweeps per second and a custom inertial measurement glove with 50 sweeps per second-combined with a Python module. As a user identification system, the accuracy of FMKit’s Leap Motion can reach over 93%, and the accuracy of gloves can reach over 96%.

-ServiceNow acquired Brussels-based startup Sweagle. It is also located in Paris, London and New York, and provides SaaS services for managing configuration data (parameters, security information, etc.). Both ITSM and DevOps can manage the entire enterprise’s data from a single control interface, so there is only one reliable source. Sweagle uses machine learning to prevent misconfigurations that can cause crashes and speed up problem resolution. This is the 17th acquisition by the publisher of the SaaS platform serving ITSM and Now. To date, the latest acquisitions include Passage AI in chatbot development, Loom Systems in AIOPs, and Fairchild Resiliency Systems in business continuity management.

-Atos increased the HPC capability of DKRZ to 16 Pflops. The French supercomputer manufacturer has signed a five-year contract with the German Climate Computing Center to deliver HPC systems based on its BullSequana XH2000 technology by mid-2021. Equipped with 3,000 computing nodes based on AMD Epyc chips, 800 TB of main memory and 120 PB of storage capacity, this supercomputer will use the current Mistral du five times the currently available power (3.14 Pflops). DKRZ has been provided by Atos in 2015. The funding for the purchase of HPC was provided by the German research organization Helmholtz, Max Planck and the City of Hamburg. Its value is 32.5 million euros. Last month, Atos was still in Germany and announced in September the installation of the Juwels 70 Pflops supercomputer at the Jülich Laboratory Research Center. The HPC will carry hundreds of BullSequana X215 blade servers connected to the NvLink GPU interconnected by Nvidia A100. It is expected to become the most powerful country in Europe. The annual ranking of the world’s top 500 supercomputers has just been released. This time ranking first is the Japanese Fugaku system, which showed a power of 415.5 Pflop/s (peak 513.8 Pflop/s) before the IBM summit, and now ranks second with 148.6. flip flops.