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Apple asks OLED suppliers to increase output in anticipation of curved 'iPhone 8' in 2017 : "Monday's report suggested it's likely that Samsung will be the chief partner, as other display makers simply cannot provide the amount of inventory needed for a new iPhone launch. Apple is said to be hoping that Sharp, LG Display and Japan Display will be able to ramp up production to take over some of Samsung's share by 2018." Strange bedfellows!

Today in Apple history: The seeds of OS X are sown | Cult of Mac : "It’s the first formal step in a process that ultimately ends in Apple buying NeXT, the creation of OS X, and Steve Jobs returning home to the company he co-founded." Home, sweet home.

Japan plans 130-petaflops China-beating number-crunching supercomputer | Ars Technica : "Like 498 out of the top 500 systems, Japan's 27 supercomputers in the Top 500 list all run Linux, and it is highly likely the new system will do so as well. It is not yet known who will construct the system for the Japanese government—bidding for the project is open until December 8." As it turns out, free software is actually the most useful.

Apple's supply chain corroborates 10.5-inch iPad Pro claims : "Sources in Apple’s supply chain have corroborated claims that the company will launch a 10.5-inch iPad in 2017." Doogie dangah!

Apple axes Wi-Fi router division, apparently signaling the end of AirPort : "Apple has apparently disbanded its internal wireless router development team, assigning engineers to other, more lucrative projects within the company, and bringing to an end the development of Apple-branded routers, a new report has revealed." Looks like the future is sh*tty, hard to configure, leaky security, linux appliances. Can you say Skynet? Can you say BIOS UPGRADE?

Dell EMC cranks Xeon servers into ludicrous mode with Tesla GPUs • The Register : "Dell EMC is adding a Xeon Phi server and Tesla GPU acceleration to its PowerEdge high-performance computing (HPC) server line-up. The new PowerEdge HPC servers look like this: - C6320p with Intel's Xeon Phi processor - C4130 now comes with Nvidia Tesla P100 GPU accelerator - R730 also gets Tesla P100 GPU acceleration" Huzzah.

Packet.net strong-ARMs cloud for $0.005 per core per hour • The Register : "Packet.net, a bare-metal cloud aimed at developers, has flicked the switch on cloud-running servers powered by a pair of Cavium's 48-core ARMv8-A ThunderX processors." Dang.

Facebook is again putting the computer network industry to shame - Business Insider : "In order to create Backpack, Facebook had to work with chip makers and optical materials vendors to do what's never been done before, create special chips and special optical fiber that brings the cost of such switches down." Loud cloud.

New MacBook Pro has already outsold every other notebook in 2016 | Cult of Mac : "The new MacBook Pro isn’t even in our sweaty palms yet, and already it’s not only broken Apple’s previous pro notebook records, but also generated more revenue than any other notebook released in 2016." Yaaaaaassssss!

Microsoft prises open Azure containers, pours in a little Kubernetes • The Register : "Over here at GitHub, Redmond explains the open-sourced ACS Engine can generate Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates for three orchestrators: the Apache Mesos-based DC/OS, Docker Swarm, or – a first for Microsoft – Google's popular Kubernetes." One ring to rule them all!

DRAMA ON MARS: Curiosity bot fires laser at alien metal object • The Register : "NASA is famous for over-engineering its hardware, and the results are sometimes spectacular. The Opportunity rover is still trundling across the Martian surface 12 years after landing, despite an expected lifespan of 90 days, and Curiosity is holding up well." Good thing there are still software engineers around that can build things that run for more than a 12 month product upgrade cycle.

Apple cuts 512GB, 1TB SSD upgrade prices by up to $200 on older Mac models : "It appears Apple's push toward an all-flash storage Mac lineup is driving an amortization of SSD costs for the tech giant, as the company recently cut upgrade pricing for 512GB and 1TB modules on older Mac models. " I remember them announcing flash storage in 1983. Took awhile longer than everyone thought.