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15 August, 2017Google’s Deeplearn.js brings machine learning to the browser
The open source GPU-accelerated library supports TypeScript and JavaScript, allowing you to train neural networks or run pre-trained models. Google is offering an open source, hardware-accelerated library for machine learning that runs in a browser. The library is currently supported only in the desktop version of Google Chrome, but the project is working to support more devices.
The Deeplearn.js library enables training of neural networks within a browser, requiring no software installation or back end. “A client-side ML library can be a platform for interactive explanations, for rapid prototyping and visualization, and even for offline computation,” Google researchers said. “And if nothing else, the browser is one of the world’s most popular programming platforms.” Using the WebGL JavaScript API for 2D and 3D graphics, Deeplearn.js can conduct computations on the GPU. This offers significant performance, thus getting past the speed limits of JavaScript, the researchers said.
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14 August, 2017Microsoft's still trying to figure out Windows 10 support.
The company faces an inherent contradiction it has yet to resolve: It says Windows 10 is the last Windows ever, but has also set time limits on support. Microsoft has backed off a possible confrontation with customers who had been told their two-to-four-year-old PCs were unfit for Windows 10, a sign, said one analyst, that the company remains unsure of its support strategy for the OS. Earlier this year, Microsoft blocked a class of low-end personal computers - those equipped with Intel's Atom system-on-a-chip (SoC) processors, dubbed "Clover Trail," part of the "Cloverview" architecture - from receiving the Windows 10 Creators Update. Also known as 1703 in Microsoft's year/month parlance, Creators was the first feature upgrade of the year, and the third since the operating system's launch.
Those Clover Trail-powered devices were made and sold between 2012 and 2015 - the latter the same year Windows 10 debuted - and many if not most were eligible for the free upgrade to 10 that Microsoft offered. But the company balked at serving those machines 1703, telling users in April that because Intel dropped support for four models of the Clover Trail SoC, the PCs "may be incapable of moving to the Windows 10 Creators Update without a potential performance impact". (Intel calls this state, "End of interactive support (EOIS), which means it no longer offers phone-, chat- or email-based support. Microsoft cited a lack of "necessary drive support" on Intel's part as well, hinting that the issue was largely due to the SoCs' integrated graphics.)
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11 August, 2017Microsoft details how to install Office with Intune
IT can remotely, automatically deploy Office 365 ProPlus apps on systems running Windows 10 1703 with the company's cloud-based enterprise mobility management service. IT professionals can now use Intune, Microsoft's cloud-based enterprise mobility management service, to remotely install Office applications onto company devices running Windows 10 version 1703 or later. The functionality was added to Intune in June, but on Thursday the Redmond, Wash. company implied it's an important feature of Microsoft 365, the subscription announced last month that will go on sale by the end of this year. Microsoft 365, which comes in both Business and Enterprise SKUs (stock-keeping units), is an amalgamation of Windows 10, Office 365 and a slew of cloud services, including Intune and Azure Active Directory (AAD).
Caveats abound: For example, only applications from the Office 2016 suite -- for Office 365 subscribers, the bundle is known as "ProPlus" -- may be installed. And the destination systems must be running Windows 10 1703, the upgrade Microsoft released in April that was dubbed "Creators Update." Also, an Intune-managed deployment cannot be conducted on PCs that already have a version of Office. (In other words, no upgrades). Microsoft recommended that IT uninstall Office from systems prior to Intune enrollment.