BenchmarkXPRT Development Community Blog

Seeing the future

on July 7, 2016

Back in April we wrote about how Bill’s trip to IDF16 in Shenzhen got us thinking about future benchmarks. Technologies like virtual reality, the Internet of things, and computer vision are going to open up lots of new applications.

Yesterday I saw an amazing article that talked about an automatic computer vision system that is able to detect early-stage esophageal cancer from endoscopy images. These lesions can be difficult for physicians to detect, and the system did very well when compared to four experts who participated in the test. The article contains a link to the original study, for those of you who want more detail.

To me, this is the stuff of science fiction. It’s a very impressive accomplishment. Clearly, new technologies are going to lead to many new and exciting applications.

While this type of application is more specialized than the typical XPRT, things like this get us really excited about the possibilities for the future. Have you seen an application that impressed you recently? Let us know!

Eric

Posted in Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, computer vision, Future of performance evaluation, IDF, Internet of things, IoT, Virtual reality, What makes a good benchmark? |

Introducing “Women Coding for Change”

By Sarah Van Name

on June 30, 2016

If you’ve been following this blog, you probably know that we co-hosted the XPRT Women Code-a-thon with ChickTech in March. The event ran smoothly, we got some great ideas for future XPRT workloads, and Jennie gave a recap in “Women develop new perspectives for the XPRTs.”

What you might not have known—until last week—is that the XPRT team brought a video crew with us to Seattle. We’ve spent the last few months building an eight-part video series that tells some of the stories we saw unfold at the XPRT Women Code-a-thon. In “Women Coding for Change,” you’ll meet the code-a-thon’s winners and see their work; learn about the gender gap in tech; and hear stories of mentorship, community, and more.

Today, you can see the series trailer and “The Problem,” which explores the numbers behind the gender disparity and what they mean for all of us. Just go to the YouTube playlist here, and keep an eye out for new videos coming soon.

Sarah

Posted in ChickTech Seattle, Women Coding for Change, XPRT Women Code-a-Thon |

I couldn’t wait!

By Eric Hale

on June 24, 2016

We’ve created a series of videos about the XPRT Women Code-a-Thon. We’ll be talking more about the series, and an exciting new channel, “Women Coding for Change,” in next Thursday’s blog post. However, we posted the first video today, and I wanted to let you know so you can check it out right away!

Eric

Posted in Collaborative benchmark development, Women Coding for Change, XPRT Women Code-a-Thon |

Watching students become masters

By Eric Hale

on June 23, 2016

As you know, last year, PT sponsored a senior project at the Senior Design Center of North Carolina State University (NCSU). The students created Nebula Wolf, a mini game that might evolve into a future benchmark test. It was a valuable collaboration for us and a very educational experience for the students involved.

I’ve talked before about the emerging technologies we’re considering for new benchmarks. Today, I met with the folks at the NCSU Senior Design Center to discuss a possible future project. We’re hoping to harness the immense energy of these students by having them explore one of these new technologies, and then build on what they discover. Nothing is set yet, but we will, as always, keep you informed as things develop.

We’ll be sharing some exciting news about the XPRT Women Code-a-Thon tomorrow. Check back to find out more! Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy as much as we did the University of Washington Tacoma article on student Viveret, the first place winner of the XPRT Women Code-a-Thon.

Eric

Posted in Benchmarking, BenchmarkXPRT development community, Collaborative benchmark development, Future of performance evaluation, Nebula Wolf, North Carolina State University, What makes a good benchmark?, XPRT Women Code-a-Thon |

They’re coming!

By Eric Hale

on June 16, 2016

We’ve been hearing for a while about Google’s plan to bring Android apps to Chrome. They recently published a video on the Google Developers channel that gives us some idea of what running Android apps on a Chromebook would look like.

Because I’m very interested in performance, the claim “Android apps can run full speed, with no overhead and no performance penalties” got my attention. You can bet we’ll be using the XPRTs to check that out! We’re using a Google developer tool called ARC Welder to do some experiments. However, it’s not fair or valid to print performance results based on a developer tool, so we’ll have to wait until the official release to see what the performance is really like.

Obviously, the use cases for Chrome will be changing. The demos in the video are for workloads we associate with PCs. MobileXPRT-type workloads might be more appropriate, or, assuming the scripting tools are available, perhaps HDXPRT-type workloads. We’ll be watching these developments closely to see how they will affect our future cross-platform benchmark.

Eric

Posted in Android, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, Google Chrome, HDXPRT, MobileXPRT, PCs |

Ready for your closeup?

By Eric Hale

on June 9, 2016

On January 6, we announced the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight. We spotlighted the first device, a Google Pixel C, on February 8. Since then, we’ve spotlighted around 20 devices, and the list keeps growing with phones, tablets, Chromebooks, and laptops. The XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight has been a big success and is one of our most visited pages.

From the beginning, we’ve offered to spotlight your device for free, though we will need to keep the device to allow for retesting with future versions of the OS and benchmarks. Any device you contribute jumps to the head of the queue, and will be in the Spotlight the following week. We have a page for vendors with all the details.

As we continue to spotlight new devices, we are thinking about ways to allow you to compare their specs and XPRT results. We would love to hear your thoughts on what capabilities would be useful to you in those comparisons.

Looking forward to seeing your device in the spotlight soon!

Eric

Posted in Chromebooks, Laptops, Phones, Tablets, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight |

Seeing the future

Introducing “Women Coding for Change”

I couldn’t wait!

Watching students become masters

They’re coming!

Ready for your closeup?

Check out the other XPRTs: