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Moore’s Law Is About to Get Weird - Issue 21: Information
▻http://nautil.us/issue/21/information/moores-law-is-about-to-get-weirdI’ve never seen the computer you’re reading this story on, but I can tell you a lot about it. It runs on electricity. It uses binary logic to carry out programmed instructions. It shuttles information using materials known as semiconductors. Its brains are built on integrated circuit chips packed with tiny switches known as transistors. In the nearly 70 years since the first modern digital computer was built, the above specs have become all but synonymous with computing. But they need not be. A computer is defined not by a particular set of hardware, but by being able to take information as input; to change, or “process,” the information in some controllable way; and to deliver new information as output. This information and the hardware that processes it can take an almost endless (...)
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Amazon Bares Its Computers - NYTimes.com
Quentin Hardy - 15/11/13
▻http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/amazon-bares-its-computersIn a startling talk Thursday evening, a vice president who oversees the internal engineering of Amazon’s global computing system described how Amazon is building its own specialized computers, data storage systems, networking systems, even power substations and optical transmissions systems. In every case, he said, #Amazon_Web_Services [a system on which the company is thought to spend perhaps $1 billion annually] had developed ways to make its computers run cheaper and more efficiently than standard commercial products.
Every significant component, including semiconductors and disk drives, is purchased directly, to keep the price down and to manage a chain of supply, assembly and installation that adds every day the equivalent of all the computing Amazon owned in 2004. “Every day. On the weekend, too,” Mr. Hamilton said.
Où l’on apprend qu’#Amazon a son propre réseau de #fibre_optique, se montre assez #secret sur les technologies utilisées, ne participe pas aux discussions sur les #standards, tout en étant la seule entreprise de cette échelle à améliorer à ce point (en réduisant les coûts) son #infrastructure informatique (sur laquelle est assise son offre de #cloud — #AWS donc).
Avec Alpha House – Amazon se lance aussi dans la série télé
▻http://seriestv.blog.lemonde.fr/2013/11/16/alpha-house-amazon-se-lance-dans-la-serie-tele #tv_showsMême si les choses ne sont pas dites aussi clairement, il apparaît évident que la démarche d’Amazon est de venir directement concurrencer #Netflix, en ne lui laissant pas le champ libre d’une création originale en marge des traditionnels circuits de la diffusion par les chaînes de télévision.
