SanDisk announces open source commitment with Ceph contributions

SANDISK HAS ANNOUNCED a series of open source projects for the Ceph platform based around its flash products.

The company plans to make a series of optimisations to Ceph's software-defined storage, allowing object, block and file storage to be presented as a single distributed computer cluster.

The news follows the company's announcement of the Ceph-powered scale-out flash array InfiniFlash last week as a half terabyte 1U flash array designed with cold-to-tepid storage use in mind, managed through RESTful API, Swift and S3 API.

The INQUIRER'sanalysis of InfiniFlash pointed out its green advantages as an upcycled, low energy, low footprint product.

Nithya Ruff, director of the SanDisk Open Source Strategy Office, said: "Open source software is a critical building block for many of the key markets in which we operate, from mobile and embedded, to enterprise, hyperscale and cloud.

"Since joining the Linux Foundation, SanDisk has built a sizeable development team to enhance and optimise open source platforms to be 'flash-intelligent,' resulting in better performance, efficiencies, capacities and overall total cost of ownership for customers.

"SanDisk is one of the largest contributors to the Ceph software platform and will continue to work on further OSS innovations in partnership with the community.

SanDisk has been working with Ceph on its aims to be distributed without a single failure point, with exabyte scalability and high availability. So far, SanDisk's efforts have resulted in a 10x improvement for block reads and a 2x improvement in object read flows when Ceph is used in a flash environment.

This is the latest addition to SanDisk's open source contribution portfolio which includes flash optimisations for Android stack, Linux Kernel, Android Real Path Storage, SCST and enterprise applications including Cassandra, MySQL and Hadoop.

All these contributions are aimed at improving the usability of flash storage in the respective environments.

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SanDisk announces open source commitment with Ceph contributions

Jar of government peanut butter sells for $761 … for good reason

The National Institute of Standards and Technology may be the most important government agency youve never heard of.

The NIST is in charge of the atomic clock, standards for cryptography, and something known as the Standard Reference Materials program.

Thats where the pricey peanut butter comes in.

Gizmodo notes the product known as "standard reference material 2387," along with more than a thousand other samples, are used to calibrate sensitive scientific equipment around the world.

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It works like this: A lab somewhere in the globe wants to make sure their instruments are working properly. They buy a reference material, like the peanut butter, and break it down. The readings of those devices are measured against the standards set by NIST.

The agency constantly checks for the products they provide. 2387 is popular because fatty foods are highly tested.

Some of the other products in stock includecrude oil from the Deepwater Horizon well, and whale blubber.

Gizmodo writes: The strangest part of the SRM catalog may be the array of human products: hair, urine, lung powder, liver powder, and a whole lot of serum. The products are also sorted by what they contain: THC, vitamin D, arsenic, etc.

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Jar of government peanut butter sells for $761 … for good reason

Assange And Sweden Agree: He’ll Be Questioned In London

Julian Assange (left) is happy with a new offer from Sweden, his lawyers say. He's seen here with American linguist and writer Noam Chomsky on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder sought refuge to avoid extradition. Yui Mok/PA Photos /Landov hide caption

Julian Assange (left) is happy with a new offer from Sweden, his lawyers say. He's seen here with American linguist and writer Noam Chomsky on the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder sought refuge to avoid extradition.

Julian Assange's lawyers say the WikiLeaks founder is happy with a plan to have Swedish prosecutors question him in London, after Sweden softened its insistence that he be extradited to answer sexual assault allegations.

Assange has been living in Ecuador's London embassy for nearly three years.

"He is willing to co-operate fully now in conducting this interrogation," Assange's lawyer, Per Samuelson, tells the BBC World Service. "This is a great victory for him."

From London, NPR's Ari Shapiro reports for our Newscast unit:

"Since 2010, prosecutors had insisted on questioning Assange in Sweden. Now they say they will question him and administer a DNA test in London.

"That's because the charges against Assange will expire in August, under Sweden's statute of limitations. Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny said in a statement, 'Time is of the essence.'

"Assange's lawyer Per Samuelson welcomed the move, telling the AP, 'This is something we've demanded for over four years.'

"The sexual assault charges are separate from accusations that Assange broke the law by publishing thousands of secret documents about American and British surveillance programs."

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Assange And Sweden Agree: He'll Be Questioned In London

Sweden bends in Julian Assange case, asks for interview in London

Swedish prosecutors have offered to fly to Britain to question Julian Assange over sexual assault accusations, a move that could end years of political and diplomatic deadlock.

A formal request was made Friday by Marianne Ny, who leads the team investigating the allegations against Assange, to interview the WikiLeaks founder in London and take a DNA sample.

Prosecutors previously insisted any meeting must take place on Swedish soil.

Assange has been holed up inside the Ecuadorean Embassy since June 2012 as he fights extradition to Sweden to face accusations by two women of rape and sexual molestation.

He vehemently denies the allegations and says he fears that if he travels to Sweden he would be extradited to the United States to face prosecution on espionage charges related to WikiLeaks release of hundreds of thousands of classified government documents.

Assanges lawyers have repeatedly offered to let him be interviewed by Swedish prosecutors at the Ecuadorean Embassy, which has granted him political asylum, but those offers were rejected.

However in August the statute of limitations will run out on some of the lesser crimes he is accused of, which has seemingly forced the issue back to the fore.

My attitude has been that the forms for a hearing with him at the embassy in London are such that the quality of the interrogation would be inadequate and that he needs to be present in Sweden at a trial. That assessment remains, Ny said in a statement.

Now time is running out and I therefore believe that I have to accept a loss of quality in the investigation and take the risk that the hearing will not take the investigation forward, because no other option is available as long as Assange does not make himself available in Sweden.

Another factor leading to the change of tack is a decision handed down by Swedens Court of Appeal in November. The judge rejected Assanges attempt to have the warrant for his arrest quashed but strongly criticized prosecutors for failing to move the case forward.

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Sweden bends in Julian Assange case, asks for interview in London

WikiLeaks’ Assange Faces DNA Test at Embassy Hideaway

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange could be questioned in London and have a DNA sample taken over longstanding sex assault and rape allegations, Swedish prosecutors said Friday.

The Australian has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden.

Assange denies the sex claims, which date back almost five years, and fears that if he is sent to Sweden he could be further extradited to the U.S. over one of the largest information leaks in history.

Prosecutors in Stockholm had previously refused to travel to London to question him, but said Friday they are willing to compromise because some of his alleged crimes reach their statute of limitations in August.

"My view has always been that to perform an interview with him at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London would lower the quality of the interview, and that he would need to be present in Sweden in any case should there be a trial in the future," Sweden's Director of Public Prosecutions Marianne Ny said in a statement. "This assessment remains unchanged. Now that time is of the essence, I have viewed it therefore necessary to accept such deficiencies to the investigation."

If a visit occurred, a DNA sample would be taken from Assange at the embassy, the statement said.

"We welcome and see it also as a big victory ... for Julian Assange that what we have demanded is finally going to happen," Assange's lawyer, Per Samuelson, told Reuters.

However, he warned that the process "could take time."

Assange is accused by two women of sexual misconduct and rape while on a visit to Sweden in 2010.

He denies the allegations and sought asylum from Ecuador in order to avoid a 2012 extradition order. He has been stuck inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London since June 19, 2012.

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WikiLeaks' Assange Faces DNA Test at Embassy Hideaway

Swedish prosecutors offer to question Wikileaks’ Assange in London over sex assault case

JUNE 28, 2012: British authorities have demanded Julian Assange report to station in order to begin his extradition process to Sweden.(AP)

ARE, Sweden Swedish prosecutors on Friday offered to question WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in London, potentially unlocking a stalemate in an almost five-year-old investigation into alleged sex crimes.

Prosecutors had previously refused to travel to London, where Assange has taken refuge at the Ecuadorean embassy. Lead prosecutor Marianne Ny explained the change in position by saying some of the crimes Assange is accused of will reach their statute of limitations in August.

"My view has always been that to perform an interview with him at the Ecuadorean embassy in London would lower the quality of the interview, and that he would need to be present in Sweden in any case should there be a trial in the future," Ny said in a statement.

"Now that time is of the essence, I have viewed it therefore necessary to accept such deficiencies in the investigation and likewise take the risk that the interview does not move the case forward," Ny said.

She said she had made a request to Assange's legal team on Friday to interview him in London and to have a sample of his DNA taken with a swab.

One of Assange's defense lawyers, Per Samuelson, welcomed the move and said Assange would likely accept the offer after reviewing it in detail. He said he had spoken to Assange early Friday.

"This is something we've demanded for over four years," Samuelson told The Associated Press. "Julian Assange wants to be interviewed so he can be exonerated. So of course we welcome this."

Assange has not been formally indicted in Sweden, but he is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct and rape involving two women he met during a visit to the Scandinavian country in 2010. He denies the allegations.

Assange has been in the Ecuadorean embassy since June 19, 2012.

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Swedish prosecutors offer to question Wikileaks' Assange in London over sex assault case