The Undertaker RETIRES and BREAKS character as he hugs wife Michelle McCool after brutal Wrestlemania 33 match

The Undertaker RETIRES and BREAKS character as he hugs wife Michelle McCool after brutal Wrestlemania 33 match

Dominating moves that defeated The Undertaker: WWE Top 10
End of an era

The Phenom debuted for the company 25-years-ago and became one of the most popular superstars in history

WWE fans were left in floods of tears after The Undertaker signalled his retirement from wrestling.

The Phenom was involved in a brutal final match that saw Roman Reigns leave his Wrestlemania record end at 23-2.

WWE

The Undertaker took off his gloves and placed them in the centre of the ring

The Undertaker was hit with multiple Superman Punches, Speared through a table and was pinned to the disappointment of the crowd.

Keep up to date with ALL the latest WWE news, gossip and rumours

After taking a while to get up, the camera panned around the stadium as the fans applauded their hero.

Taker then appeared in his classic long coat and hat and began to wander around the ring in darkness.

He then took off his hat, coat and MMA-style gloves and placed them in the middle of the ring a sign that he has ended his in-ring career.

WWE

The Undertaker left his ring gear in the ring showing he has retiredGRANDADDY OF THEM ALLWWE wrestlemania 33 reaction: the undertaker retires after emotional loss, Brock Lesnar FINALLY beats Goldberg in brutal clash, Hardy Boyz RETURNPerfect tenBrock Lesnar overpowers Goldberg in explosive match at WrestleMania for the Universal belt"Maybe he has a fetish"Cristiano Ronaldo "invited SECOND Miss BumBum model to his house for dinner after chatting her up on WhatsApp"Game overTriple H puts Stephanie McMahon through a table at WrestleMania as Seth Rollins win with a pedigreeRING RUSTY? NO CHANCETim "The Machine" Wiese returns from WWE spell to football and vows to make it to top"time to pull our levers"New Day begin WrestleMania with joking reference about Paige"s leaked s*x tape"turn the lights off!"Fans at WrestleMania raged as they couldn"t see the wrestlers in the ring due to bright lightsShe said yesJohn Cena proposes to Nikki Bella after they end long-running feud with The Miz and MaryseIT"S ON!WWE Wrestlemania 33: The only place anti-Donald Trump protesters might see the President of the USA get beat upMOUR SHAW WARJose blasts Luke Shaw about his attitude AGAIN as Man United star appears to be headed for Old Trafford exitSchool of hard knocksThe Hardy Boyz made a shock return at WrestleMania to become tag team championsRIP UndertakerThe Undertaker retires after WrestleMania defeat to Roman Reigns and the world mourns the loss of The Deadman"his first smile in months"Twitter reacts as a smilling Alexis Sanchez embraces Pep after 2-2 Man City drawAlan ShearerTottenham must win a trophy by next season if they want to hang on to big name stars like Harry Kane and Dele AlliWalc awayStroppy Theo Walcott refuses to shake hands with Arsene Wenger after being subbed off against Manchester CityWrestleMania round upUndertaker retires, Hardy Boyz return, Brock Lesnar avenges defeat, John Cena proposes to Nikki BellaMONEY MASTERSWhat are the latest odds on The Masters 2017? All the favourites and outsiders you need to knowNaughty MoyDavid Moyes forced to apologise to reporter for warning: "You may get a slap even though you"re a woman"under the radarWho is The Undertaker and is there more than one? WWE legend retires at Wrestlemania - all the info

WWE

WWE fans were left shocked after the Undertaker signalled his retirementJohn Cena meets a young disabled fan ahead of WWE WrestlemMania 33

The Undertaker then made his way up the long ramp, raised his arm in the air and disappeared slowly down the trap door he came from earlier.

Other WWE superstars from past and present then took to social media to thank The Undertaker for his 25-year service to the industry.

Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=us&usg=AFQjCNECmjzMbEaTM-EDIfh5qybUwnFyWw&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&cid=52779446359399&ei=v43iWMCaDOO03AGfiIGIDQ&url=https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/3240558/the-undertaker-retirement-wwe-roman-reigns-wrestlemania/

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The future of computing as I would like to see it

The future of computing as I would like to see it

This diagram represents how I see the future of computing.

First we have an online service where we store our data. This would hold our e-mail, pictures, documents, videos, music, etc.

We access our data through web applications. Take Google Docs for example. Currently Google hosts both the application and the data. I would like to see that come to an end. In my model I would log into my Google Docs and set up an account. I would give Google Docs the URL of my web storage server and then Google Docs would give me a unique private key. I would simply highlight this key and copy it into my computers memory. I would then log into my web storage site and select that I want to share my document data. I would paste the private key provided by Google Docs into my storage interface and receive a unique private key from the storage server. I would provide this unique private key back to Google as authorization.

Behind the scenes Google would contact the web storage server, tell them whos account it wants to access, give it both its own private key that is unique to my Google Docs account, and provide the private key that is unique to the storage server. With both of these keys the web storage server can be confident that it is talking to the correct server that I have authorized to access my documents.

With the trust between the two servers setup I could use Google Docs to modify my documents.

I could repeat this process for different online applications. Files would be saved with open standards so that I can be guaranteed that any application on the web can reliably read and write to them.

I could even use two providers for the same service. I could switch back and forth between using Googles picasaweb and Flickr, for example. There is no reason why only one application would need to be tied to a file type.

If down the road Microsoft comes out with a better online application for modifying documents I could go in to my storage service and deny Google access and go through the process of allowing Microsoft. At any point I could ditch Microsoft and go with another service provider.

Likewise, if I want to change my storage provider I should be able to import all my data to a local file and then upload it to a new provider.

Both the web applications and the data should always be synched up to our primary computers. This way if we dont have an internet connection we can still use the application to modify our data, and the next time the computer comes online it will all synch back up. Googles Gears application already allows for application and data synchronization for offline use, and thats exactly how I envision this working.

The benefits to this are:

1. No vendor lock-in.
   We are free to change providers at any time. It is not like currently where one must choose Microsoft Office because it is the only application suite that can reliably open and close the .doc format which is the document format.
2. Access to data from anywhere with an Internet connection.
   You no longer have to carry around a thumb drive or go through any such hassle. Your data is available from almost anywhere.
3. Enhanced data persistence
   Computer crashes will no longer cause you to lose any of your work.
4. Enhanced data security.
   A lot is made of the security problems of data existing on the cloud. I believe that you are better served with your data in the hands of a team of professionals than in yours. The average PC user is simply the largest security hole that exists today. As long as the average user is in charge of their data, the average users data is vulnerable. Google is more likely to keep your data secure than you are.
5. OS independence.
   Whether you are using Windows, Mac, Linux, your cell phone, game console or any other device, all you need is an Internet connection and a browser to get to your content.
6. Cheaper computers.
   Because most of the hard work is being done by the application server, your computer no longer needs a lot of ram and processing to run your applications. You just need enough resources to run your web browser.

This is cloud computing at its best and I believe that we will be seeing technology continue to move in this direction over the coming years. The development of Googles Chrome OS will be the first of many major steps towards this model.

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The External Memory Interface as an Educational Tool

The External Memory Interface as an Educational Tool

In a recent email conversation with an engineer I ended up discussing the advantages of an external memory interface (EMI) over general purpose I/O (GPIO) on a microcontroller for the purposes of education. This short piece comes from that discussion.

The question posed was this:

"What advantages does an external memory interface have over driving a peripheral with GPIO?"

... which immediately brings out the question, what do I mean by an external memory interface and what do I mean by GPIO?

General Purpose Input Output (GPIO)
This typically refers to a pin of the chip which is not necessary for any of the operations of the chip but is available to a system designer using the chip. Put another way if none of the GPIO are used then the chip will function just fine. The pins are under software control and can be turned into either inputs allowing data to be read from the outside world or outputs pushing data to the outside world.

External Memory Interface
In modern digital computer architecture the standard method of connecting a processor core to the outside world is with a memory interface. This is typically formed from an address bus, a data bus (either bi-directional or two uni-directional ones) and some control lines to indicate whether data is being written or read.

Normally this is present inside the chip but forever hidden from the designer inside and only a few designs allow it to be exposed. Those that do allow extra RAM or ROM memory to be added to the fixed amount of a normal microcontroller design.

Engineering Advantages of EMI

Direct memory mapped busses has a couple of advantages over GPIO so, as usual, it depends what you are doing as to whether you care (typical engineers comment!). Here are the two main differences:

1. Native machine code access. Grants speed, reduced code size and I would guess lower power? No extra instructions to drive the GPIO and turn the bus around to slow you down. Simply create pointers and data structures as usual and prod the linker to place them in the external chips. Or use explicit addresses.
2. Code execution from external memory. Related to the above.

1. is only an issue when speed is at stake, really. Code size isnt that big a problem most of the time and the software wrapper around GPIO wont be very large. Certain ADCs and DACs (usually video or software radio) pretend to be SRAM for extremely quick access and would really require this method of access to function effectively.

2. only matters if you have run out of on-chip non-volatile memory and have to move sections of your program off chip.

[Just speculating re. 2. code execution: you could change the compiler to emit instructions to drive a GPIO for data memory accesses in a certain range. However I cant work out how to do a native instruction fetch from the external memory without a little code in internal flash copying it to an area of RAM first. Perhaps a block copy strategy held in flash as a bootloader type thing could minimize the pain of this if it was invoked as appropriate by a compiler or linker? Note that in the world of computers I have discovered that someone has always built an implementation of just about every whacky idea. If you know of a system that uses this paradigm then please let me know. PCs dont count.]

In a final summary if you are accessing a data storage area or a peripheral occasionally and dont care about 1. or 2. then a simple software wrapper around GPIO would do just fine and be relatively efficient. I would guess 3 to 5 times slower?

Educational Advantages of EMI

From an educators point of view when teaching computer architecture and interfacing and EMI is gold in terms of hammering what is happening inside all general purpose computers into the heads of students. I mean simply this basic idea:

"A CPU issues an address onto the bus with control signals and writes or reads data."

This very basic idea is surprisingly poorly understood by many students as it is completely hidden from them inside micros or PCs. In many EE or even CompE courses the students never actually physically observe it in action or build their own peripheral and code software to drive it. As long as it remains a mental exercise a substantial portion of the students will not really understand it and without understanding it their ability to understand computers and software suffers.

Myself and colleagues (past and present) have gone to great lengths to try to give them some practical experience at it - I first encountered a softcore PIC in an FPGA used to expose its pipeline and memory and databusses for the students to observe and extend. We moved to an Atmel part (an ATmega128) with a real external memory interface instead when it became available. Multiplexed address + data but designed so it could drive an 74 series 8 bit latch to generate the full bus. Much improved from our softcore PIC! We would set them the task of mapping an 8k SRAM and an 8 bit input and 8 bit latched output into the memory map of the microcontroller.

I am looking forward to developing similar exercises with a more advanced external memory interface (called the EBI, external bus interface) found on Fujitsu FM3 ARM Cortex M3 based microcontrollers. It has the following neat features, and is really designed to drive FLASH memories transparently which is no mean feat:

• It does have an external wait input which could prove very useful
  for custom peripherals.
• It has a basic SRAM mode with configurable timing for read and write strobes.
• It can transparently split and rebuild data from 32 bit to bus widths 8 bits (or 16)
  on the fly by issuing the correct sequential addresses.
• It can natively drive various types of FLASH memory including NAND block erase and NOR page reads etc. while pretending to be normal memory to the software.

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The online tools used by terrorists should come as no surprise

The online tools used by terrorists should come as no surprise

 

Terrorism has been front and center lately thanks to high profile attacks around the world and the scare tactics being used in the current US election. But how do these people communicate? What is the tool of choice for todays Jihadist � well the ones that dont fire bullets or blow up.
 
Communications and internet are essential to any modern group. Flashpoint Security took a look into what programs are most prevalent, and results are largely unsurprising.
 
The researchers ranked them, but theres no way of knowing if they really are in order. The top item is a secure browser, of which both Tor and Opera seem to be the top choices.
 
This is followed by Virtual Private Networks (VPN). The report states "Jihadists have been leveraging VPNs and proxy services to further enhance online browsing security since long before ISIS developed a public Internet presence. These technologies first appeared within jihadist circles back in 2012, when members of an official Al-Qaida Deep and Dark Web forum discussed the use of CyberGhostVPN. They explained it as, a new technology that uses (SSL/TLS) protocol through the local server you use, which makes your communication through the network create an encrypted and secure tunnel".
 
Others on the list include protected email services such as Hush-mail, mobile security that provides fake GPS locations, encrypted messengers like WhatsApp, and propaganda apps released by the organizations such as Alphabet, released by ISIS and geared towards children.
 
The report concludes "Although technology is not typically associated with jihadists, it is their lifeblood. Jihadists� reliance on technology for survival pushes the jihadist community to constantly learn, adapt, and advance through various technological tools".
 
Photo credit: prudkov / Shutterstock
 
~ Alan Buckingham

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