Category: Collaborative benchmark development

The XPRT Women Code-a-Thon

on January 28, 2016

As Justin explained last week, we’ve resolved the issue we found with the TouchXPRT CP. I’m happy to say that the testing went well and that we released CP3 this week.

It’s been only three weeks since we announced the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, and we already have another big announcement! Principled Technologies has joined with ChickTech Seattle to host the first ever XPRT Women Code-a-Thon! In this two-day event, participants will compete to create the best new candidate workload for WebXPRT or MobileXPRT. The workloads can’t duplicate existing workloads, so we are looking forward to seeing the new ideas.

Judges will study all the workloads and award prizes to the top three: $2,500 for first place, $1,500 for second place, and $1,000 for third place. Anyone interested can register here.

PT and the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community are committed to promoting the advancement of women in STEM, but we also win by doing good. As with the NCSU senior project, the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community will get some fresh perspectives and some new experimental test tools. Everyone wins!

So much has happened in 2016 and January isn’t even over yet. The year is off to a great start!

Eric

Posted in Benchmark metrics, BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, MobileXPRT, Performance benchmarking, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, WebXPRT, What makes a good benchmark?, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, XPRT Women Code-a-Thon |

TouchXPRT 2016 Community Preview 3 is available

By Eric Hale

on January 28, 2016

Today we are releasing TouchXPRT 2016 Community Preview 3 (CP 3). As we discussed in the blog, CP 3 resolves an issue reported on some systems, where the Create Slideshow test would take longer than expected to complete due to the output video not rendering correctly.

As with all community previews, TouchXPRT 2016 CP 3 is available only to community members. Members may download the preview from the TouchXPRT tab in the Members’ Area.

For more details about TouchXPRT 2016, please consult the release notes for further details (login required).

After you try out CP 3, please send us your comments. Either post them to the forum or mail them to BenchmarkXPRTsupport@principledtechnologies.com. If you send us information that’s relevant to the entire community, we may post an anonymous version of your comments to the forum.

Thanks for your participation!

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Community Preview, Performance benchmarking, TouchXPRT, TouchXPRT 2016, TouchXPRT development process, TouchXPRT release cycle, Windows 10 |

In the spotlight

By Eric Hale

on January 14, 2016

I’m happy to be back in North Carolina, but I had a really great time at CES. I talked to over a dozen companies about the XPRTs and the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, and had some good conversations. Hopefully, some of these companies’ devices will be among the first ones we showcase when the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight goes live next month.

Of course, I saw some really great tech at CES! Amazing TVs and cars, magic mirrors, all kinds of drones, and the list goes on. Before the show, the Internet of Things was predicted to be big this year, and boy, was it! Smart refrigerators, door locks, and thermostats were just the beginning. Some of my favorite examples were the chopsticks and footbath—both Bluetooth enabled—and “the world’s first remote controlled game shoe.”

Clearly IoT is the Wild West of technology right now. We’re had some conversations about how the XPRTs might be able to help consumers navigate the chaos. However, with a class of products this diverse, there are a lot of issues to consider. If you have any thoughts about this, let us know!

Eric

Posted in CES, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, Internet of things, IoT, What makes a good benchmark?, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight |

CES day 1

By Eric Hale

on January 7, 2016

It’s Wednesday night as I’m writing this. CES started in earnest today, and I had a really great day. I saw a lot of cool technology. I really liked the TVs. As I tweeted earlier today, I’m not sure that real life looks that good! That being said, the Ferrari was probably my favorite.

I’m not yet convinced about having the family calendar on a tablet embedded in the refrigerator. However, several earnest people made a very good case for it.

This morning PT announced a new program called the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight. This is a new way for device vendors and manufacturers to share verified results with buyers around the world. I was happy to talk with a number of different vendors about it and about the XPRTs.

I’ve also met with some community members while I’ve been here. It’s always great to hear from the community, but there’s nothing like being able to sit and talk. The conversations raised some interesting issues, and I’ll be writing about them in future blog posts.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the show!

Eric

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, CES, Collaborative benchmark development, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight |

Another great year

By Eric Hale

on December 31, 2015

A lot of great stuff happened this year! In addition to releasing new versions of the benchmarks, videos, infographics, and white papers, we released our first-ever German UI and sponsored our first student partnership at North Carolina State University. We visited three continents to promote the XPRTs and saw XPRT results published in six of them (we’re still working on Antarctica).

Perhaps most exciting, we reached our fifth anniversary. Users have downloaded or run the XPRTs over 100,000 times.

As great as the year has been, we are sprinting into 2016. Though I can’t talk about them yet, there are some big pieces of news coming soon. Even sooner, I will be at CES next week. If you would like to talk about the XPRTs or the future of benchmarking, let me know and we’ll find a time to meet.

Whatever your holiday traditions are, I hope you are having a great holiday season. Here’s wishing you all the best in 2016!

Eric

Posted in Benchmarking, Benchmarks in general, BenchmarkXPRT development community, CES, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, German, History of benchmarking |

Auf Deutsche

By Eric Hale

on December 17, 2015

Early next week, we will update WebXPRT by adding a German UI. This brings the number of available languages to three. WebXPRT has had a Simplified Chinese UI for a while, but you had to click a link on the WebXPRT page to get it. The new version removes that limitation, and lets you select Simplified Chinese, English, or German from the UI.

We’re working on getting WebXPRT to automatically detect the language of your device, but for now, the UI defaults to English.

We would like to expand the range of languages the XPRTs support over time. This is an area where you can help. If you’d like to see your language represented and are willing to help with translation, please let us know.

I know it’s the holiday season, but remember that CES will be here before we know it. I’m really looking forward to seeing the show, and I may have some big news to talk about while I’m there! If you’re planning to be at CES, send a message and let’s find a time to meet!

We will not have a blog post next week. Happy holidays!

Eric

Last week in the XPRTs
We published the December 2015 BenchmarkXPRT Development Community newsletter.
We added one new BatteryXPRT ’14 result.
We added nine new MobileXPRT ’13 results.
We added one new MobileXPRT ’15 result.
We added four new WebXPRT ’15 results.

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT development community, CES, Collaborative benchmark development, German, Simplified Chinese, WebXPRT, WebXPRT 2015, What makes a good benchmark? |

Category: Collaborative benchmark development

The XPRT Women Code-a-Thon

TouchXPRT 2016 Community Preview 3 is available

In the spotlight

CES day 1

Another great year

Auf Deutsche

Check out the other XPRTs: