BenchmarkXPRT Blog banner

Month: June 2016

Introducing “Women Coding for Change”

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

I couldn’t wait!

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

Watching students become masters

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

They’re coming!

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

Ready for your closeup?

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.

XPRT Spotlight 1

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.

XPRT Spotlight 2

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

Principled Technologies releases first video series, “Women Coding for Change”

DURHAM, NC–(Marketwired – July 07, 2016) – Principled Technologies (PT), which administers the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, is releasing its first video series, “Women Coding for Change.” The series tells the stories of the XPRT Women Code-a-thon, which the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community co-hosted with ChickTech Seattle in March 2016. These videos shed light on the gender disparity in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and the growing problems that disparity is causing.

Though women hold the majority of professional jobs in the United States, they represent less than a quarter of software developers. Women are underrepresented in STEM fields from high school through college and into the professional world.

As the second Women Coding for Change video explains, the problem is enormous. By 2020, more than 1.4 million computing-related jobs will be open, and at current graduation rates, the U.S. will not be able to fill them. Training and hiring more women in STEM fields would help bridge that gap.

“The inequalities are staggering, not just in tech,” Jennie Faries said. “It’s getting better, but it is very slow.” Faries, a developer and designer, has had a career in technology for over twenty years and acted as a judge at the XPRT Women Code-a-thon. Faries works for PT, which administers the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community.

For PT, a technology company in the Research Triangle Park region, the issue is close to home.

“We need to recognize that this is a problem for us all: for men, for women, for technology companies, for the economy at large,” said Mark Van Name, co-founder of Principled Technologies. “When a more diverse group of people teams up to build or test products, the products will be better. If we don’t fix this problem, all of us lose.”

The series contains eight videos, which PT will release individually throughout the summer. The first — “Women Coding for Change: Trailer” — offers a sneak peek at the series, while “Women Coding for Change: The Problem” demonstrates the extent of the gender gap.

See the videos on YouTube: facts.pt/coding-for-change-series.

About Principled Technologies, Inc.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is the leading provider of technology marketing and learning & development services.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is located in Durham, North Carolina, USA. For more information, please visit PrincipledTechnologies.com.

Check out the other XPRTs:

Forgot your password?