CLARIFICATION - Hagel reviewing appeal change to UCMJ

 From:  Air Force Times

CLARIFICATION:  In response to a recent query, the article below in no way related to Allan Craig Franklin, AKA Craig Franklin of Green Hills Software, Inc.  The gentleman mentioned in the article below is Lt. Gen. Craig A. Franklin, now serving in the Military as Third Air Force commander.  There is no known connection between the two men.

The Craig Franklin for whom this site is named is, himself, a sexual predator, and has never served in the U. S. Military.  Neither of his two brothers, Lawrence Craig Franklin and Sterling Craig Franklin, served in the military either.  The three brothers, children of Dr. Carl Franklin, now deceased, received scholarships to Stanford and there 'served' in the marching band.  Craig's two younger brothers went on to careers as attorneys. 

We will work to ensure no further mistake in identity takes place and apologize for any distress Lt. General Franklin might have experienced.  

 

 Allan Craig Franklin of Green Hills Software

                                                                                

                                                                                                   Lt. General Craig A. Franklin

Queried Article below:

By Kristin Davis - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Mar 31, 2013 8:27:10 EDT

Third Air Force commander Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin’s Feb. 26 decision to overturn a sexual assault conviction at Aviano Air Base, Italy, incited furor among lawmakers and victim advocates — and have some calling for a change in the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Franklin was exercising an authority granted to him in Article 60 of the UCMJ, and his decision is final. But it came at a time when the military is already under fire for how it handles sexual assault. It also coincided with an ongoing sexual misconduct scandal at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, where allegations have surfaced against more than 30 military training instructors.

In an answer to lawmakers, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the case raised “a significant question” over whether such power is necessary, given today’s “robust appellate process.” He has directed DoD acting general counsel Robert Taylor to review Article 60.

Here are five things you need to know about Article 60:

• It’s the first avenue of appeal. After a court-martial conviction, a military member can ask the convening authority to reconsider part or all of the findings. The convening authority — the commander who first decided to pursue charges — may uphold or set aside the verdict, find the convicted guilty of a lesser included offense, reduce the sentence or order a new trial. The next avenue: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Services.

• It dates to 1775. The authority was first granted to commanders in this country by the Continental Congress, the governing body during the American Revolution. It was adopted as part of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in 1950. In 1775, there was no other way for service members to appeal a court-martial conviction.

• Many allies do it differently. The U.S. military justice system was actually based on the British system. But in 1996, the United Kingdom removed what the European Court of Human Rights ruled was too much commander influence in courts-martial. New Zealand, Canada and Israel have also made similar changes.

• Top JAGs say authority is still vital. The Air Force’s leading legal authority, Lt. Gen. Richard Harding, as well as top judge advocates general for the Army, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 13 that a commander’s power to uphold or overturn a conviction is essential to military order. “A convening authority’s ability to exercise some accountability on every aspect of an [airman’s] … behavior is incredibly important, creating a responsive, disciplined force,” Harding said. MORE

Green Hills Software, Bombing Babies for the Money, and Proud of it.

Craig Franklin, no longer officially on the GHS site, is still using his GHS email address as of a few days ago.  Since generally when someone is actually 'let go,' the address also goes we can assume Craig was just told to finally find other quarters.  Doubtless, this unrepentant sexual predator is continuing to stalk women and girls with the good will and support of Dan and Company.

One wonders if any of these man actually served their country.  Craig, like all of his brothers, finessed his way through the Vietnam Conflict without serving a moment.  His father's 'service' during WWII was done by persuading women to join the Navy Women's Officer Corp.  Really.  He spent the war traveling around meeting young attractive women.  Tough duty.

Domestic Drones and Their Unique Dangers

From:  Common Dreams

COMMENT:  Paired with the last article the actual intentions of those in power and the culpability of those supplying the technology is clear.  They know, the profits trump all considerations of ethics and the Constitution.  

Published on Friday, March 29, 2013 by The Guardian

Dismissive claims that drones do nothing more than helicopters and satellites already do are wildly misinformed

by Glenn Greenwald

 

The use of drones by domestic US law enforcement agencies is growing rapidly, both in terms of numbers and types of usage. As a result, civil liberties and privacy groups led by the ACLU - while accepting that domestic drones are inevitable - have been devoting increasing efforts to publicizing their unique dangers and agitating for statutory limits. These efforts are being impeded by those who mock the idea that domestic drones pose unique dangers (often the same people who mock concern over their usage on foreign soil). This dismissive posture is grounded not only in soft authoritarianism (a religious-type faith in the Goodness of US political leaders and state power generally) but also ignorance over current drone capabilities, the ways drones are now being developed and marketed for domestic use, and the activities of the increasingly powerful domestic drone lobby. So it's quite worthwhile to lay out the key under-discussed facts shaping this issue.AR Drone: almost certainly the world's first Wi-Fi enabled iPhone-controllable miniature flying device.

I'm going to focus here most on domestic surveillance drones, but I want to say a few words about weaponized drones. The belief that weaponized drones won't be used on US soil is patently irrational. Of course they will be. It's not just likely but inevitable. Police departments are already speaking openly about how their drones "could be equipped to carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun." The drone industry has already developed and is now aggressively marketing precisely such weaponized drones for domestic law enforcement use. It likely won't be in the form that has received the most media attention: the type of large Predator or Reaper drones that shoot Hellfire missiles which destroy homes and cars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and multiple other countries aimed at Muslims (although US law enforcement agencies already possess Predator drones and have used them over US soil for surveillance).

Instead, as I detailed in a 2012 examination of the drone industry's own promotional materials and reports to their shareholders, domestic weaponized drones will be much smaller and cheaper, as well as more agile - but just as lethal. The nation's leading manufacturer of small "unmanned aircraft systems" (UAS), used both for surveillance and attack purposes, is AeroVironment, Inc. (AV). Its 2011 Annual Report filed with the SEC repeatedly emphasizes that its business strategy depends upon expanding its market from foreign wars to domestic usage including law enforcement:

AV's annual report added: "Initial likely non-military users of small UAS include public safety organizations such as law enforcement agencies. . . ." These domestic marketing efforts are intensifying with the perception that US spending on foreign wars will decrease. As a February, 2013 CBS News report noted, focusing on AV's surveillance drones:

"Now, drones are headed off the battlefield. They're already coming your way.

"AeroVironment, the California company that sells the military something like 85 percent of its fleet, is marketing them now to public safety agencies."

Like many drone manufacturers, AV is now focused on drone products - such as the "Qube" - that are so small that they can be "transported in the trunk of a police vehicle or carried in a backpack" and assembled and deployed within a matter of minutes. One news report AV touts is headlined "Drone technology could be coming to a Police Department near you", which focuses on the Qube.

But another article prominently touted on AV's website describes the tiny UAS product dubbed the "Switchblade", which, says the article, is "the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader, even wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems." The article creepily hails the Switchblade drone as "the ultimate assassin bug". That's because, as I wrote back in 2011, "it is controlled by the operator at the scene, and it worms its way around buildings and into small areas, sending its surveillance imagery to an i-Pad held by the operator, who can then direct the Switchblade to lunge toward and kill the target (hence the name) by exploding in his face." AV's website right now proudly touts a February, 2013 Defense News article describing how much the US Army loves the "Switchblade" and how it is preparing to purchase more. Time Magazine heralded this tiny drone weapon as "one of the best inventions of 2012", gushing: "the Switchblade drone can be carried into battle in a backpack. It's a kamikaze: the person controlling it uses a real-time video feed from the drone to crash it into a precise target - say, a sniper. Its tiny warhead detonates on impact."

What possible reason could someone identify as to why these small, portable weaponized UAS products will not imminently be used by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the US? They're designed to protect their users in dangerous situations and to enable a target to be more easily killed. Police agencies and the increasingly powerful drone industry will tout their utility in capturing and killing dangerous criminals and their ability to keep officers safe, and media reports will do the same. The handful of genuinely positive uses from drones will be endlessly touted to distract attention away from the dangers they pose.

One has to be incredibly naïve to think that these "assassin bugs" and other lethal drone products will not be widely used on US soil by an already para-militarized domestic police force. As Radley Balko's forthcoming book "Rise of the Warrior Cop" details, the primary trend in US law enforcement is what its title describes as "The Militarization of America's Police Forces". The history of domestic law enforcement particularly after 9/11 has been the importation of military techniques and weapons into domestic policing. It would be shocking if these weapons were not imminently used by domestic law enforcement agencies.

In contrast to weaponized drones, even the most naïve among us do not doubt the imminent proliferation of domestic surveillance drones. With little debate, they have already arrived. As the ACLU put it in their recent report: "US law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of domestic drones for surveillance." An LA Times article from last month reported that "federal authorities have stepped up efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in US airspace" and that "the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007, far more than were previously known." Moreover, the agency "has estimated 10,000 drones could be aloft five years later" and "local and state law enforcement agencies are expected to be among the largest customers."

Concerns about the proliferation of domestic surveillance drones are typically dismissed with the claim that they do nothing more than police helicopters and satellites already do. Such claims are completely misinformed. As the ACLU's 2011 comprehensive report on domestic drones explained: "Unmanned aircraft carrying cameras raise the prospect of a significant new avenue for the surveillance of American life."

Multiple attributes of surveillance drones make them uniquely threatening. Because they are so cheap and getting cheaper, huge numbers of them can be deployed to create ubiquitous surveillance in a way that helicopters or satellites never could. How this works can already been seen in Afghanistan, where the US military has dubbed its drone surveillance system "the Gorgon Stare", named after the "mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them". That drone surveillance system is "able to scan an area the size of a small town" and "the most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence that [can] seek out and record certain kinds of suspicious activity". Boasted one US General: "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything."

The NSA already maintains ubiquitous surveillance of electronic communications, but the Surveillance State faces serious limits on its ability to replicate that for physical surveillance. Drones easily overcome those barriers. As the ACLU report put it:

I've spoken previously about why a ubiquitous Surveillance State ushers in unique and deeply harmful effects on human behavior and a nation's political culture and won't repeat that here (here's the video (also embedded below) and the transcript of one speech where I focus on how that works). Suffice to say, as the ACLU explains in its domestic drone report: "routine aerial surveillance would profoundly change the character of public life in America" because only drone technology enables such omnipresent physical surveillance.

Beyond that, the tiny size of surveillance drones enables them to reach places that helicopters obviously cannot, and to do so without detection. They can remain in the sky, hovering over a single place, for up to 20 hours, a duration that is always increasing - obviously far more than manned helicopters can achieve. As AV's own report put it (see page 11), their hovering capability also means they can surveil a single spot for much longer than many military satellites, most of which move with the earth's rotation (the few satellites that remain fixed "operate nearly 25,000 miles from the surface of the earth, therefore limiting the bandwidth they can provide and requiring relatively larger, higher power ground stations"). In sum, surveillance drones enable a pervasive, stealth and constantly hovering Surveillance State that is now well beyond the technological and financial abilities of law enforcement agencies.

One significant reason why this proliferation of domestic drones has become so likely is the emergence of a powerful drone lobby. I detailed some of how that lobby is functioning here, so will simply note this passage from a recent report from the ACLU of Iowa on its attempts to persuade legislators to enact statutory limits on the use of domestic drones:

"Drones have their own trade group, the Association for Unmanned Aerial Systems International, which includes some of the nation's leading aerospace companies. And Congress now has 'drone caucuses' in both the Senate and House."

Howie Klein has been one of the few people focusing on the massive amounts of money from the drone industry now flowing into the coffers of key Congressional members from both parties in this "drone caucus". Suffice to say, there is an enormous profit to be made from exploiting the domestic drone market, and as usual, that factor is thus far driving the (basically nonexistent) political response to these threats.

What is most often ignored by drone proponents, or those who scoff at anti-drone activism, are the unique features of drones: the way they enable more warfare, more aggression, and more surveillance. Drones make war more likely precisely because they entail so little risk to the war-making country. Similarly, while the propensity of drones to kill innocent people receives the bulk of media attention, the way in which drones psychologically terrorize the population - simply by constantly hovering over them: unseen but heard - is usually ignored, because it's not happening in the US, so few people care (see this AP report from yesterday on how the increasing use of drone attacks in Afghanistan is truly terrorizing local villagers). It remains to be seen how Americans will react to drones constantly hovering over their homes and their childrens' schools, though by that point, their presence will be so institutionalized that it will be likely be too late to stop.  MORE

Risk and reward at the dawn of civilian drone age

From:  MYWAY

COMMENT:  Attempt on the part of drone PR agents to stem the tide of protest against the use of drones by law enforcement.  The focus of protests has been the use of drones in ways which contradict the Constitution within the U.S.  The covert nature of the relationship between war contracts and government and lack of accountability for these corporations is not addressed, naturally. 

By JOAN LOWY

(AP) This photo taken March 26, 2013, shows an Insitu ScanEagle unmanned aircraft launched at the... Full Image

WASHINGTON (AP) - The dawn of the age of aerial civilian drones is rich with possibilities for people far from the war zones where they made their devastating mark as a weapon of choice against terrorists.
The unmanned, generally small aircraft can steer water and pesticides to crops with precision, saving farmers money while reducing environmental risk. They can inspect distant bridges, pipelines and power lines, and find hurricane victims stranded on rooftops.
Drones - some as tiny as a hummingbird - promise everyday benefits as broad as the sky is wide. But the drone industry and those eager to tap its potential are running headlong into fears the peeping-eye, go-anywhere technology will be misused.
Since January, drone-related legislation has been introduced in more than 30 states, largely in response to privacy concerns. Many of the bills would prevent police from using drones for broad public surveillance or to watch individuals without sufficient grounds to believe they were involved in crimes.

(AP) This photo taken March 26, 2013, shows Insitu unmanned aircraft system flight test operator Hannah... Full Image

Stephen Ingley, executive director of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, says resistance to the technology is frustrating. Drones "clearly have so much potential for saving lives, and it's a darn shame we're having to go through this right now," he said. But privacy advocates say now is the time to debate the proper use of civilian drones and set rules, before they become ubiquitous. Sentiment for curbing domestic drone use has brought the left and right together perhaps more than any other recent issue.
"The thought of government drones buzzing overhead and constantly monitoring the activities of law-abiding citizens runs contrary to the notion of what it means to live in a free society," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said at a recent hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
With military budgets shrinking, drone makers have been counting on the civilian market to spur the industry's growth. Some companies that make drones or supply support equipment and services say the uncertainty has caused them to put U.S. expansion plans on hold, and they are looking overseas for new markets.
"Our lack of success in educating the public about unmanned aircraft is coming back to bite us," said Robert Fitzgerald, CEO of the BOSH Group of Newport News, Va., which provides support services to drone users.

(AP) This photo taken March 26, 2013, show an Insitu ScanEagle unmanned aircraft flying over the airport... Full Image

"The U.S. has been at the lead of this technology a long time," he said. "If our government holds back this technology, there's the freedom to move elsewhere ... and all of a sudden these things will be flying everywhere else and competing with us." Law enforcement is expected to be one of the bigger initial markets for civilian drones. Last month, the FBI used drones to maintain continuous surveillance of a bunker in Alabama where a 5-year-old boy was being held hostage.
In Virginia, the state General Assembly passed a bill that would place a two-year moratorium on the use of drones by state and local law enforcement. The measure is supported by groups as varied as the American Civil Liberties Union on the left and the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Federation on the right.
Gov. Bob McDonnell is proposing amendments that would retain the broad ban on spy drones but allow specific exemptions when lives are in danger, such as for search-and rescue operations. The legislature reconvenes on April 3 to consider the matter.
Seattle abandoned its drone program after community protests in February. The city's police department had purchased two drones through a federal grant without consulting the city council.

(AP) This photo taken Mwrch 26, 2013 shows flight test pilot Alex Gustafson dismantling an Insitu... Full Image

In Congress, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., co-chairman of the House's privacy caucus, has introduced a bill that prohibits the Federal Aviation Administration from issuing drone licenses unless the applicant provides a statement explaining who will operate the drone, where it will be flown, what kind of data will be collected, how the data will be used, whether the information will be sold to third parties and the period for which the information will be retained. Privacy advocates acknowledge the many benign uses of drones. In Mesa County, Colo., for example, an annual landfill survey using manned aircraft cost about $10,000. The county recently performed the same survey using a drone for about $200.
Drones can help police departments find missing people, reconstruct traffic accidents and act as lookouts for SWAT teams. Real estate agents can have them film videos of properties and surrounding neighborhoods, offering clients a better-than-bird's-eye view though one that neighbors may not wish to have shared.
"Any legislation that restricts the use of this kind of capability to serve the public is putting the public at risk," said Steve Gitlin, vice president of AeroVironment, a leading maker of smaller drones.
Yet the virtues of drones can also make them dangerous, privacy advocates say. The low cost and ease of use may encourage police and others to conduct the kind of continuous or intrusive surveillance that might otherwise be impractical.

(AP) This photo taken March 26, 2013, shows flight test pilot Alex Gustafson dismantling a Insitu... Full Image

Drones can be equipped with high-powered cameras and listening devices, and infrared cameras that can see people in the dark. "High-rise buildings, security fences or even the walls of a building are not barriers to increasingly common drone technology," Amie Stepanovich, director of the Electronic Privacy Information Council's surveillance project, told the Senate panel.
Civilian drone use is limited to government agencies and public universities that have received a few hundred permits from the FAA. A law passed by Congress last year requires the FAA to open U.S. skies to widespread drone flights by 2015, but the agency is behind schedule and it's doubtful it will meet that deadline. Lawmakers and industry officials have complained for years about the FAA's slow progress.  MORE

Innovating long-term solutions with AMD

From:  DigiTimes

COMMENT:  Many legitimate companies have business relations with war contractors, who by definition are guilty of crimes against humanity.  The sponsored content below illustrates how war contractors and multinational corporations, insinuate themselves into business with those who are unaware of their values and ethics. 

Increasing the understanding of the strategies carried out by drone contractors, and other merchants of death, will begin.  

Sponsored content [Friday 29 March 2013]

American Micro Devices (AMD) has launched a full range of OpenCL-compatible heterogeneous parallel processing products, including traditional x86 CPU, GPU and integrated APU chips, as well as embedded GPU chips/MXM modules and add-on cards, etc.

Not only has AMD won acclaim with its AMD Turbo CORE, AMD Eyefinity, and AMD Dual Graphics technologies, AMD is also committed to establishing a comprehensive heterogeneous multi-core industrial alliance and ecosystem with the midstream and downstream hardware and software industry sectors to bring embedded systems into the new realm of heterogeneous parallel processing.

Careful observation of the embedded market and continued R&D investments

Arun Iyengar, corporate vice president and general manager of the AMD Embedded Solutions Group, indicated that the scope of applications for the embedded market is very broad. The sales cycle for the entire product line is considerably longer than in other markets. During the early stages of the cycle, suppliers would have 3 months to send samples and selections to customers. After the design is adopted (design win) the SI certification stage is approximately 12 to 18 months. Finally, moving a product from engineering prototype to mass production for the customers would stretch for another 36 to 60 months. This entire process could take up to a decade for defense military institutions.

The embedded market is more focused on the optimal heat dissipation rate by adopting low power consumption, no cooling fan, higher functionality integration, and more compact designs to create the smallest sized products with optimal energy efficiency in order to lower the total cost of ownership (TCO). The customers hope suppliers can fully understand its product strengths and weaknesses, provide solutions, and tailor the various solutions to respond to the specific needs of the market.

Iyengar indicated that AMD is carefully observing the development of the entire embedded market and continues to invest in its R&D. Since June of 2012, AMD's Embedded Solutions Division has been organized into an independent group. In October of 2012, CEO Rory Read indicated that the embedded market has become the group's rapid-growing emerging business; and 2013 is regarded as the first year for AMD embedded solutions.

AMD, a pioneer in the embedded market for many years

Iyengar stressed that AMD has been a pioneer in the embedded market for numerous years. From the Am386 and Am486 processors in 1991, the Am5x86 in 1995; the Elan SC520 in 1999; the acquisition of Alchemy Semiconductor and National Semiconductor (NS) by the AMD Geode processor business group between 2002 and 2003; the addition of the 64-bit AMD Opteron, AMD Athlon, AMD Turion, and Mobile AMD Sempron processors into the embedded market; and the ATI Radeon E2400 GPU launched in 2008, and only reached EOL this July. In 2009, AMD launched the ATI Radeon E4690 GPU with 2D and 3D multimedia graphics performance and multi-screen output capacity that is suitable for a wide variety of embedded applications in gaming consoles, consumer electronic products, digital billboards, and industrial control boards, as well as for applications in the medical, defense, and aerospace fields. AMD also introduced the BGA flip chip packaging that is suitable for small size ASB1 processor systems.

AMD released the Embedded G-Series APU platform in 2011, and launched the Embedded R-Series APU platform that focuses on high-end graphic performance in 2012. In 2013, AMD will launch embedded applications that are integrated with high-performance graphics and computing performances as well as the SoC silicon chip program that can connect a wide range of I/O peripherals together as one.

AMD will continue to provide product supply, open-source operating system support, drivers, software libraries, development platforms, and technical support for its embedded market products for 5 to 7 years. AMD will also provide diverse product selection from the initial silicon circuit design stage to the engineering sample stage, and will eventually link and intimately collaborate with the existing industrial ecosystem.

Market is at a heterogeneous multicore emerging stage

Iyengar used a three-stage CPU evolution schematic diagram to illustrate his point. The single-core CPU has long since reached its development bottleneck. The homogenous system would also reach the power, parallel oriented software, and performance bottlenecks as the number of cores has increased to a number that cannot continue to be sustained. The heterogeneous system is at a burgeoning stage. The data parallel mechanism enabled by energy efficient GPUs can ensure the continued improvement of performance, although in extending performance, the traditional programming models must be subverted and changed.

Iyengar also mentioned the developmental history from the early single-core microprocessors to the homogenous multi-core systems, and the advent of the heterogeneous multi-core system. The AMD APU combines the serial data processing of the traditional CPU with the parallel data processing of the traditional AMD Radeon GPU into one. Products like the AMD Embedded G-Series APU (G-T16R APU) have the average power consumption rate of only 2.3W and an I/O controller chip that consumes less than 1W; it is suitable for extremely small and convenient-to-carry embedded mobile devices without a cooling fan. The AMD Embedded R-series APU comprises the quad-core x86 core and the AMD Radeon 7000 GPU core with 384 parallel arithmetic units, which provide high performance that can rival independent GPU graphics performance with DirectX 11 hardware acceleration specifications and can use the OpenCL and DirectCompute software to provide program solutions to enhance the performance of embedded platform computing to another level.

Embedded product line and key technologies of AMD

The AMD embedded product line is divided into different series. The R-Series APU provides appropriate performance, energy efficiency, and above high definition (HD) visual experiences. The G-Series APU emphasizes low power consumption as well as unprecedented GPU integration, and is suitable for mini and fanless system designs. In addition, the AMD Radeon GPU provides amplified 3D and multimedia performance specifically for embedded systems, and its product delivery cycle is ensured for up to five years.

Iyengar introduced the first key technology of the AMD APU, the AMD Turbo Core. Taking the AMD R-464L as an example, the x86 core clocks at 2,300 MHz and its GPU clocks at 496MHz. Under the general load balanced state of the x86 core and its GPU, each clock remains unchanged. When the system enters the multi-threaded parallel processing state, the clock of the x86 core would dynamically increase by a maximum of 39% (up to 3,200 MHz), but the clock of the GPU remained unchanged. When implementing programs that emphasize 3D graphic processing, the clock of the x86 core remained at 2,300MHz, but the clock of its GPU would dynamically increase by a maximum of 38% (685MHz). Depending on the needs of the load, the APU can provide bidirectional and dynamic clock adjustments for the GPU and the x86 core.

The other key technology is the AMD Eyefinity technology. The AMD R-series APU can provide external connections and has parallel display ports for four monitors. When connected to an external PCIe add-on graphics card with six DisplayPort (DP) v1.2 interfaces, the system can expand its access capacityto up to ten monitors. The general embedded systems designs based on the Intel CPU can only enable either the internal GPU or the external Radeon GPU chip even with the additional add-on standalone GPU chip. However, the AMD APU is equipped with AMD Dual Graphics technology that enables the internal Radeon7000 GPU core to operate in parallel with the external Radeon E6460/E6760 GPU chip to further compact and enhance the 3D and multimedia graphics computing performance.

Iyengar indicated that the AMD G- and R-series APUs can be applied to digital billboards, casino gaming machines, IP-TVs, x86 set-top boxes, medical applications, POS terminals and phone booth kiosks/automatic ticketing systems, thin clients, video conferencing, human machine interfaces (HMI), and industrial control applications, as well as communications machines/infrastructures.

Unifying the industry to form the heterogeneous system architecture (HSA) foundation for the promotion of the parallel processing technology

Iyengar stated that parallel computing can be applied to video and image processing such as machine recognition, medical imaging, intelligent billboards, and video surveillance; digital signal processing such as telecommunications and national defense; network traffic packet processing; and green high performance computer (HPC) applications. AMD offers a full series of OpenCL-compatible heterogeneous parallel processing application products ranging from the low power consumption G-Series APU that is designed to consume only 4.5W to 18W of power with 80GFLOPs of maximum parallel computing performance to the high-performance R-Series designed to consume 17W to 35W of power and provide 500GFLOPs of parallel computing performance.

The AMD Radeon GPU series, including the AMD Radeon E6460 GPU, adopts a BGA package and the MXM module or the PCIe add-on card format, and is designed with a power consumption rate of 20W in conjunction with the 25GB/s bandwidth GDDR5 memory in order to deliver its 192GFLOPs floating-point performance. The E6760 GPU adopts a BGA package, the MXM module, or the PCIe add-on card formats; and is designed with the power consumption rate of 35W in conjunction with the 51GB/s bandwidth GDDR5 memory in order to deliver its 576GFLOPs floating-point performance. The E6970GPU adopts the MXM module, and is designed with a power consumption rate of 95W in conjunction with the 115GB/s bandwidth GDDR5 memory in order to deliver its 1.3 TFLOPs floating-point performance.

In June 2012, AMD brought together ARM, Imagination, MediaTek, Texas Instruments (TI), Samsung, and Qualcomm to form the nonprofit HSA Foundation in order to establish a complete industrial chain from the Silicon Intellectual Property (Silicon IP) to the software developers and to promote the standardization of the heterogeneous system architecture.

AMD has unified many of its industry partners such as Sage Electronic Engineering, LLC.; ALT Software; CORELIS; Core Avionics & Industrial, LLC.; Express Logic; ELTAN; Green Hills Software; Texas Multicore Technologies, Inc. (TMT); Fluendo; Viosoft; etc.; to cooperate in finding a solution that can ensure prompt R&D and system integration for the OEM manufacturers. For example, Gizmo, the AMD Embedded G-Series APU based small development platform, has the circuit board area of only 4x4 inches and provides I/O peripheral interfaces such as USB ports, 5.1 channel connectors, VGA ports, PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, and SATA ports. The Gizmo development platform was originally developed under collaboration by AMD, Sage, Viosoft, and Texas Multicore; provides Windows, Linux, and RTOS operating system and associated drivers; and its back-end software and technical support is provided by the nonprofit technology community GizmoSphere.  MORE

Silex Technology Selects TREW Marketing for Branding and Marketing Strategy Following Co-Marketing Campaign with Freescale

From:  Sacramento Bee  

COMMENT:  Many legitimate companies have business relations with war contractors, who by definition are guilty of crimes against humanity.  The release below illustrates how war contractors and multinational corporations, insinuate themselves into business with those who are unaware of their values and ethics. 

Increasing the understanding of the strategies carried out by drone contractors, and other merchants of death, will begin.  

New Portal of B2B Marketing Resources Provides Other Case Studies, Free Guides to Assist Science, Engineering, and Technology Companies in Integrated Marketing

By TREW Marketing

Published: Tuesday, Mar. 26, 2013 - 6:14 am

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/26/5293287/silex-technology-selects-trew.html#storylink=cpy

AUSTIN, Texas, March 26, 2013 -- /PRNewswire/ -- Silex Technology America, Inc., a leading embedded technology company specializing in network and wireless technology, today announced it selected TREW Marketing as its marketing partner for brand positioning, messaging and marketing communications activity planning. Silex Technology provides hardware, software, embedded modules, and turnkey connectivity products to device manufacturers and partners with leading suppliers including Green Hills Software, Freescale, QNX, and Qualcomm Atheros. The company chose TREW Marketing because of the agency's distinct experience in marketing to engineers and proven success leading a co-marketing campaign that drove a 320 percent increase in new leads for Silex Technology.

Building on Proven Results

TREW Marketing led the efforts for Silex Technology's 2012 co-marketing campaign with Freescale, promoting Silex Technology as the exclusive provider of Wi-Fi connectivity technology for Freescale's i.MX 6 platform. Through this launch, Silex Technology sought to:

• Build awareness of its Wi-Fi solutions among i.MX 6 customers
• Drive traffic to the website
• Generate leads and create new opportunities for its embedded Wi-Fi sales team

To achieve these goals, TREW Marketing developed a product launch and co-marketing plan centered on web and content marketing. A new campaign on the Silex Technology website educated design engineers about the company's wireless connectivity solutions for Freescale's i.MX 6 platform. TREW Marketing led the creation of product collateral, a news release, videos, and an online co-marketing event that all drove traffic to this dedicated web portal. A white paper download and multi-touch e-mail campaign also engaged visitors to learn more. And, Freescale featured the Wi-Fi solutions in its Design News customer e-newsletter and Product News sales e-newsletter to build awareness with design engineers and the Freescale sales force.

In the first two months of the launch, web traffic grew by 30 percent, and monthly leads grew by 320 percent with a nearly 50 percent lead-conversion rate. This in turn created new opportunities for the Silex Technology embedded Wi-Fi dedicated sales team.

"TREW Marketing's integrated approach and diligent execution of the co-marketing campaign with Freescale delivered record results for Silex Technology," said Keith Sugawara, vice president of business development at Silex Technology America. "The agency's further insight on our company positioning and marketing activity planning will set us up for even more success as a leading network technology company."

TREW Marketing Resources: Free B2B Marketing Guides for Scientists and Engineers

TREW Marketing also released TREW Marketing Resources, a portal of B2B marketing resources that can help science, engineering, and technology companies begin to see success like Silex Technology realized with an integrated marketing approach.

The new portal houses a compilation of free case studies, videos, and marketing guides that contain best practices, industry data, and practical how-to's on a variety of topics specifically for marketing to technical audiences. TREW Marketing Resources includes guides like Smart Marketing for Engineers, an e-book that helps technical business leaders build and execute an efficient and effective marketing program.

About Silex Technology America

Silex Technology America, Inc. is a subsidiary of Silex Technology Inc., a 35-year developer and leading network technology company specializing in network and wireless technology, providing hardware, software, embedded modules and turnkey connectivity products. Silex Technology has regional offices for sales, marketing and development in Japan, United States and Germany. Silex Technology is integrated vertically to support customers from design to production, maintaining the highest quality standards. For more information, please visit www.silexamerica.com.

About TREW Marketing

TREW Marketing, headquartered in Austin, Texas, is a full-service marketing firm uniquely serving leading companies and organizations in the engineering and science markets. TREW Marketing uses decades of specialized technical marketing experience to create strategies and plans, and execute services such as research, positioning and messaging, product launch planning, media outreach, website strategy and design, and search marketing for clients. To learn more about TREW Marketing, readers can visit http://trewmarketing.com.

Contact: Morgan Norris, TREW Marketing, morgan@trewmarketing.com, 832-477-6316

SOURCE TREW Marketing

• Read more articles by TREW Marketing

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/03/26/5293287/silex-technology-selects-trew.html#storylink=cpy

NEW FEATURE - A Dan and Craig Moment

Craig can be annoying.  Probably even now that he is living down South, nearly in San Diego, Dan twitches when thinking about those loose lips which sink ships.  

Dan Boy loves drones, they, and other WarTech have made him rich, rich, rich!  But all is not well in Drone Boy Land.  Craig just can't shut up.  

Imagine for a moment a Drone Boy fantasy....."Craig, we're doing a special job for the military and we need you.  You can bring your guitar and people around the world will be listening without turning down the sound as you play.  I've even arranged for you to be on C-Span - Live, for awhile, anyway. "

"Wow!  Sounds great, Dan, a real performance?  People will listen without the glue on the seats?"  

"Yes, they will Craig.  And it will blow your mind and I'll be watching, too.  You are going to be an embedded system."

Craig tears up a little.  Dan has never come to any of his performances.  He didn't even come to the Reason Dinner or to his Roast, which Craig paid for himself.

"Aw, Dan....I don't know how to thank you."  

Dan smiles. 

"I've been planning this for you and I want you to know it is Green Hills Software's finest moment - except for some of those in Afghanistan."  

Stay tuned for more adventures with Dan, Amy Craig and other folks from Green Hills! 

All's fair in war, and with the highly disordered.  And in Drone Boy Land there are NO non-combatants. 

A Partnership is Announced for Green Hills and LieberLieber Software

From: LieberLieber

February 26, 2013

Partner of Green Hills Software

Today Green Hills Software and LieberLieber Software disclosed their new partnership for an End-to-end Model-driven Approach for Embedded Systems. The aim of the partnership is to develop a new generation of Model-driven development through integration of MULTI IDE and AMUSE. Driven by the demand of their customers to support an end-to-end model-driven approach for embedded systems, Green Hills Software’s MULTI^® integrated development environment (IDE) and LieberLieber’s AMUSE (Advanced Modeling Using Simulation and Execution) will be fully integrated to provide an enhanced toolchain with new debugging and testing capabilities at the modeling level directly connected to the embedded target.

Read the full text here: http://www.lieberlieber.com/en/news/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=118&cHash=7d8bef80a723dbad566b319d6b302ec6

Dan and Amy's Political Donations - Federal

Open Secrets  Center for Responsive Politics

As you can see, Dan and Amy are cheap. Why should they donate much when they already have a lock on the drone brains?  It was probably hard to pry Amy's fingers off the money.  Now, we will start checking out the committees on which these folks serve.  

Green Hills Software Contributions to Federal Candidates 2012

House
Total to Democrats: $1,000
Total to Republicans: $1,000

Recipient	Total
Bartlett, Roscoe G (R-MD)	$1,000
Capps, Lois (D-CA)	$1,000

Based on data released by the FEC on February 18, 2013.
Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics. For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center.

Green Hills Software Contributions to Federal Candidates 2010

House
Total to Democrats: $5,000
Total to Republicans: $4,300

Recipient	Total
Bilirakis, Gus (R-FL)	$3,800
Capps, Lois (D-CA)	$1,000
Langevin, Jim (D-RI)	$4,000
Young, C W Bill (R-FL)	$500

Based on data released by the FEC on July 13, 2009.

Green Hills Software Contributions to Federal Candidates 2008

House
Total to Democrats: $5,000
Total to Republicans: $4,300

Recipient	Total
Bilirakis, Gus (R-FL)	$3,800
Capps, Lois (D-CA)	$1,000
Langevin, Jim (D-RI)	$4,000
Young, C W Bill (R-FL)	$500

Based on data released by the FEC on July 13, 2009.

Green Hills Software Contributors

Select a Cycle:

Individual donors gave 1 large ($200+) contributions to this PAC in 2011-2012.View Top Organizations

Contrib	Occupation	Date	Amount
O'DOWD, DANIEL SANTA BARBARA, CA 93101	GREEN HILLS SOFTWARE	03/04/11	$5,000

METHODOLOGY: The numbers on this page are based on contributions from individuals giving $200 or more, as reported to the Federal Election Commission. NOTE: All the numbers on this page are for the 2012 election cycle and based on Federal Election Commission data .
Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics. For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center.

Support Our Troops - 2008

 

August 17, 2008

 

Dear Folks at Green Hills Software

I came across your website, Fallen Heroes Last Wish Foundation and was very much moved. It is great to see a corporation taking action for those who put it on the line for us.

Seeing that I knew you would want to hear about an opportunity to let those serving our country know that we here at home remember them. The sad fact is that personal items like these provided in the USO Care Package are nearly impossible to buy over there. Lip balm, deodorant, shampoo, skin cream, bath gel; those little things we take for granted. Every service person receiving the package will be grateful to know they are remembered and that you at Green Hills understand what their day to day lives are like. Many service personnel never receive a letter or mail of any kind. We are making this available to ensure that no one is forgotten.

Each package you send will tell the recipient that the folks at Green Hills care about them, and will include a note that can be personalized from the employee sponsoring the gift, even if, as is most usual, you decide to do this as a company and write off the cost.

Avon is a brand that each of them will have heard of, a little touch from home. Green Hills can bridge the gap here, bringing home to the barracks. Each bottle is easily carried with them into the field for use when needed. They will remember when lips crack and hands chafe.

The cost is small. You can simply order one for each employee, have them send us their contact information using the order form, and we will be in touch to get their note by email or phone. Send the order forms along with the check, $10.00 plus $.75 processing fee each. We take care of the rest. Sometimes it is simple to say, hey, we remember you and appreciate what you are doing over there for us here.

It is the little things that connect us. Get connected.

Sincerely,

Paula 



Paula, a friend of mine who is an Avon dealer, called and was told to contact Amy, who, the receptionist said, was in charge of the Lost Heroes Foundation.  Paula was supplied with their home number and talked to Amy who, told her the company was not interested.