SMART Table | Virtual Technologies Group | Toledo Technology Company

The SMART Table provides you with increased flexibility, both in terms of content and teaching style. Thanks to the SMART Table Toolkit, a resource that comes with the SMART Table, you can create an almost limitless supply of activities for your interactive learning center. The toolkit helps you customize ready-made activities and create new ones. As students learn, you can refine and redesign activities to keep them challenged and engaged.

Help students collaborate and learn
Today’s tech-savvy students naturally gravitate to the SMART Table, and its horizontal, 360 degree surface makes it easy and fun for them to collaborate on activities. While working on the interactive learning center, students have the opportunity to build cognitive, social and fine motor skills. Even relatively shy children feel comfortable participating, and show leadership skills when completing group work. With its unique and engaging features, the SMART Table is accessible by all students, including those with special needs.

Make toolkit activities your own
The SMART Table comes with the SMART Table Toolkit, a resource that helps you create a limitless supply of activities on your computer. It is easy to customize ready-made activities to suit your needs. For example, take a multiple choice activity on North American animals and change the images to tigers, elephants, lions and gazelles to create an African animal exercise. Visit the SMART Table Features section for a list of applications included in the SMART Table Toolkit.

Download ready-made activities
You can download ready-made SMART Table activities from our educator resources web page. These activities correspond with the SMART-created SMART Notebook lesson activities and SMART Response question sets. They can be modified to meet your specific lesson needs. New activities and applications are added regularly.

For more information, check out the SMART table page on SMARTtech's website.

Virtual Technologies Group......your IT Business Consultants!

Intel Unveils New Server Chip With 32 Cores | Toledo Computer Company | Lima Computer Company

Intel announced a new 32-core server chip based on a new high-performance computing server architecture that mixes general x86 cores with specialized cores for faster processing of highly parallel scientific and commercial applications.

The chip, called Knights Ferry, is Intel's fastest processor ever and delivers more than 500 gigaflops of performance, Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel's data center group said Monday in a speech at the International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany, which was also webcast.

The chip's cores run at 1.2GHz. It is the first in a new family of server chips called Knights, which the company describes as being based on a new "many integrated core" architecture.

The 32-core chip will be available in the second half of 2010, for development purposes.

The first commercial product will include more than 50 cores and be called Knights Corner. An Intel spokesman would not say when that chip will be available. However, the chip will be part of the Sandy Bridge chip architecture, manufactured using the 22-nanometer process, and those processors are due to reach laptops and servers in 2011.

The initial 32-core chip is made using the existing 32-nm process.

Knights Ferry includes 32 main Xeon chip cores in the server CPU socket, with corresponding 512-bit vector processing units in the PCI-Express slot. The chip runs four threads per core and includes 8MB of shared cache, and up to 2GB of fast GDDR5 memory.

The company will merge the CPU cores and vector units into a single unit as chip development continues, Skaugen said.

The Knights architecture is the biggest server architecture shift since Intel launched Xeon chips, Skaugen said. The chip includes elements of the Larrabee chip, was characterized as a highly parallel, multicore x86 processor designed for graphics and high-performance computing. However, Intel last week said it had cancelled Larrabee for the short term, but said elements of the chip would first be used in server processors, and and later in laptops.

The new architecture could also fend off competition from Nvidia's Tesla and Advanced Micro Devices' FireStream graphics processors, which pack hundreds of computing cores to boost application performance. The graphics processors are faster at executing certain specialized applications. The second fastest supercomputer in the world, Nebulae in China, combines CPUs with GPUs to boost application performance.

The chip will accelerate highly parallel applications, Skaugen said. It could also standardize software development platforms around the x86 architecture, making it easier to recompile programs, Skaugen said.

Intel has many new server chips in the pipeline. Earlier this month, the chip maker said it would release a successor to its eight-core Nehalem-EX chips next year, with more cores and faster speeds. The new chips, code-named Westmere-EX, will be for servers with four or more sockets. The company is also developing an experimental 48-core x86 chip with a mesh design, but has not announced plans to sell it.

Intel already has a significant lead in the HPC market, but the new chip and surrounding architecture could extend its presence. According to the Top500 list, 408 supercomputers -- more than 80 percent of the list -- use Intel's chips, giving it a significant lead over other chip companies like Advanced Micro Devices and IBM.

Thank you to Yahoo News for this story!

Virtual Technologies Group......your IT Business Consultants!

May newsletter - All business should use VoIP

Laptop bag

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LRITA event

Join us tomorrow at The Lima Regional IT Alliance.
We are excited about this all day event
with an aggressive AGENDA with
multiple break out sessions
allowing you to learn about the latest technologies.

Check out
http://www.lrita.org/Events/annualmeeting.html
for more information.

Another credit card scam

There is another person out there trying to get your credit card number. The call will come from 1-817-688-7853. And at the other end there will be an Interactive Voice Response script.

Whatever you do, do not answer this call.
Or if you do, be sure to not enter any of your credit card info.

An example of this type of call would sound like this:
You: "Hello?"
Caller: "Hello. For security purposes, your Visa debit card has been deactivated for debit and ATM use"

Your first reaction will be "oh, great. Somewhere, someone got my details"
There is no option to speak to a live person.
It willjust keep playing a short prompt menu over and over again.
You must choose option 1, to "re-activate" your card, suspecting a ruse. On cue, it will ask you for your 16-digit card number, followed by #. It will ask if that was correct. Then it will ask for the expiration date (0000) and CVV code (000) as well. Then, it says:

Caller: "Thank you. Your Visa card has been re-activated. Goodbye."


Calling the number back will get you some boilerplate error message.
Be careful out there, folks. Banks will de-activate your card if they suspect it has been compromised, but they will never give you the option to re-activate it over the phone like this, especially with an automated IVR system. Typically, they issue you a new card, sometimes with the exact same account number and expiration date, but with a different CVV code.

Virtual Technologies Group wants all our current & future customers to be safe. For more tips, visit our website at www.vtgus.com