BenchmarkXPRT Development Community Blog

CrXPRT’s future

on January 19, 2017

This week, we’re continuing our review of the XPRT portfolio by discussing the future of CrXPRT. CrXPRT, designed for use with Chrome OS, is a tool for evaluating the performance and battery life of Chromebooks as they handle everyday tasks. The app’s performance test, which measures Chromebook speed, produces an overall score and individual scores for each workload. The battery life test produces an estimated battery life and a separate performance score. CrXPRT is easy to install and use, and like BatteryXPRT, it evaluates battery life in half a workday.

We developed CrXPRT in response to the growing popularity of Chromebooks, especially in the education sector. The number of OEMs manufacturing Chromebooks has grown dramatically, along with the range of Chromebook price points and form factors. That growth shows no signs of slowing down, so CrXPRT is more relevant than ever as a tool for helping consumers make informed buying decisions.

As Chromebook market share continues to grow, however, it’s clear that significant changes to the Chrome OS environment are on the way. One big change is Google’s decision to bring Android apps, and the Google Play store itself, to Chrome OS. Another change is the plan to “begin the evolution away” from the Chrome apps platform and phase out Chrome app support on other platforms within the next two years.

There are also reports of a hybrid Android-Chrome OS operating system. Codenamed “Andromeda,” it would unite the Android and Chrome OS environments in a manner similar to the way Microsoft Continuum allows Windows 10 to run on a wide variety of device types. Details on Andromeda are few and far between, but it would obviously be a game changer.

The Google Play store rollout to select Chromebooks is already well underway. As for the other changes, it remains to be seen exactly when and how they will be implemented. The Chromium team did state that all types of Chrome apps will remain supported and maintained on Chrome OS for the foreseeable future.

For us, it’s important to maintain the ability to measure both performance and battery life on Chromebooks. The current version of CrXPRT does the job well, so we don’t see a need for a new version until the situation becomes more clear. In the meantime, we’ll be keeping an eye on Chrome-related news.

As always, we’re interested in your feedback. If you have any thoughts on CrXPRT 2015 or the future of Chromebook evaluation, let us know!

Justin

Posted in Android, BatteryXPRT 2014 for Android, Chrome OS, Chromebooks, CrXPRT, Performance benchmarking, Windows 10 |

Reflecting on 2016

By Justin Greene

on January 12, 2017

The beginning of a new year is a good time to look back on the previous 12 months and take stock of everything that happened. Here’s a quick recap of a very busy year:

In 2016, the XPRTs travelled quite a bit. Eric went to CES in Las Vegas, Mark attended MWC in Barcelona, and Bill flew out to IDF16 in Shenzhen.

We also sent a team to Seattle for the first XPRT Women Code-A-Thon, an event we’re very proud to have sponsored and co-hosted along with ChickTech, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in tech-related fields. The Code-a-thon also served as inspiration for an eight-part video series entitled Women Coding for Change. The series explains the motivation behind the Code-a-thon and profiles several of the participants. If you haven’t watched the videos, check them out. They’re well worth the time.

Speaking of videos, we also published one about Nebula Wolf, the mini-game workload produced through our first collaboration with the North Carolina State Senior Design Center. That experience was promising enough for us to partner with another student team this past fall, which resulted in a virtual reality app that we hope to share with the community in the near future.

Of course, we also continued work on our suite of benchmark tools and related resources. We released TouchXPRT 2016 to the public, published the Exploring TouchXPRT 2016 white paper, and released the TouchXPRT 2016 source code to community members.

In 2016, we unveiled the XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, a new way for device vendors and manufacturers to share verified test results with buyers around the world. We put 46 devices in the spotlight throughout the year and published Back-to-School, Black Friday, and Holiday device showcases.

In the last quarter of 2016, we celebrated our most widely-used benchmark, WebXPRT, passing the 100,000-run milestone. WebXPRT is still going strong and is as useful and relevant as ever!

Finally, we ended the year with the exciting news that we’re moving forward with efforts to develop a machine-learning performance evaluation tool. We look forward to engaging with the community in the coming year as we tackle this challenge!

As always, we’re grateful for everyone who’s helped to make the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community a strong, vibrant, and relevant resource for people all around the world. Here’s to a great 2017!

Justin

Posted in CES, ChickTech Seattle, IDF, Machine learning, Mobile World Congress, Nebula Wolf, North Carolina State University, Source code, TouchXPRT 2016, Trade Shows, Video, Virtual reality, White papers, Women Coding for Change, Women in STEM, XPRT Weekly Tech Spotlight, XPRT Women Code-a-Thon |

CES 2017

By Bill Catchings

on January 6, 2017

I’ve attended many tech shows over the years, but this year’s CES has more energy than any I’ve attended in a long time. Part of the energy is the breadth of products. There are amazingly slim TVs that make my TV at home, which I thought was slim, look fat. And, there are beautiful 8K TVs that make my new 4K one feel old.

I’m seeing all manner of smartphones. I’m seeing mobile remote presence devices such as the one from Beam, and after seeing the latest Fenix 5 from Garmin, I think I’ve found my next smartwatch.

There are many differing devices and approaches to VR and AR. There are drones everywhere. And, lots of massage chairs.

There are also plenty of products, let’s call them longshots, that contribute to the Wild West feel of the show. Maybe you’d like the Hydreon FakeTV, a small device to make it seem like a TV is on in your house to keep away burglars? Or Dr. Fuji’s Body Shaper, a vibrating platform to “accelerate your workout”?

Another part of the dynamic feeling is the breadth of vendors. Almost all the big tech vendors are here, except for Apple, of course. The excitement for me, however, is the small vendors displaying things that may well never see the light of day, but give glimpses of the future. For example, while I doubt most of the drone vendors at CES will be around in a few years, I think the trend toward small, inexpensive selfie drones will be.

The main reason for the energy at this year’s CES could be the convergence of multiple big industries. The most obvious example of this phenomenon is the large auto presence. Cars have been at CES before—the first time I drove my current car, a BMW i3, was at CES 2014—but this time around they seem to really want to make a statement. Faraday Future is making a splash by trying to be the next Tesla with its FF91.

Multiple vendors, including VW, Nissan, Toyota, and Mercedes, have concept cars on display—most of them are electric and all of them are heavy on technology. The biggest tech they’re touting is autonomous driving. The auto companies are showing their products while companies like NVIDIA, Intel, and Magic Eye are displaying the tech they have as well.

Regardless of the source of the energy at this CES, I see many opportunities for the existing XPRTs to continue to be important resources. I also see how important emerging technologies like machine learning and VR/AR are going to be and how the XPRTs can be of help there as well.

Exciting times!

Bill

Posted in Augmented reality, CES, Drones, Future of performance evaluation, Trade Shows, Uncategorized, Virtual reality |

Principled Technologies and the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community announce new effort to evaluate machine learning performance

By Bill Catchings

on January 5, 2017

Durham, NC – Principled Technologies (PT) and the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, which PT administers, are pleased to announce an initiative to develop a new tool for evaluating systems’ machine learning performance.

Machine learning is a disruptive technology that has the potential to influence a broad range of industries. While there are many available consumer and commercial applications that utilize machine learning for computer vision, natural language processing, and data analytics, there is currently no comprehensive machine learning or deep learning benchmark that includes home, automotive, industrial, and retail use cases.

“These are still the early days of the technology. A fragmented software and hardware landscape and lack of standardization make it complex and challenging to evaluate performance in machine learning,” said Bill Catchings, Co-Founder and Co-Owner of PT. “We’ve decided to take on that challenge, and we invite all interested parties to participate in the creation, evaluation, and testing of this new tool.”

The new tool will join the rest of the industry-standard benchmarks from the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community: WebXPRT, MobileXPRT, TouchXPRT, CrXPRT, BatteryXPRT, and HDXPRT.

To learn more about and join the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community, go to www.BenchmarkXPRT.com.

About Principled Technologies, Inc.

Principled Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of technology marketing and learning & development services. It administers the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community.

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

Company Contact

Bill Catchings
Principled Technologies, Inc.
1007 Slater Road, Suite #300
Durham, NC 27703
bcatchings@principledtechnologies.com

Posted in Press Releases |

Creating a machine-learning benchmark

By Bill Catchings

on December 22, 2016

Recently, we wrote about one of the most exciting emerging technology areas, machine learning, and the question of what role the XPRTs could play in the field.

Experts expect machine learning to be the analytics backbone of the IoT data explosion. It is a disruptive technology with potential to influence a broad range of industries. Consumer and industrial applications that take advantage of machine-learning advancements in computer vision, natural language processing, and data analytics are already available and many more are on the way.

Currently, there is no comprehensive machine-learning or deep-learning benchmark that includes home, automotive, industrial, and retail use cases. The challenge with developing a benchmark for machine learning is that these are still the early days of the technology. A fragmented software and hardware landscape and lack of standardized implementations makes benchmarking machine learning complex and challenging.

Based on the conversations we’ve had over the last few weeks, we’ve decided to take on that challenge. With the community’s help, of course!

As we outlined in a blog entry last month, we will work with interested folks in the community, key vendors, and academia to pull together what we are internally calling MLXPRT.

While the result may differ substantially from the existing XPRTs, we think the need for something is great. Whether that will turn out to be a packaged tool or just sample code and workloads remains to be seen.

What we need most your help. We need both general input about what you would like to see as well as any expertise you may have. Let us know any questions you may have or ways you can help.

On a related note, I’ll be at CES 2017 in Las Vegas during the first week of January. I’d love to meet and talk more about machine learning, benchmarking, or the XPRTs. If you’re planning to be there and would like to connect, let us know.

We will not have a blog entry next week over the holidays, so we wish all of you a wonderful time with your families and a great start to the new year.

Bill

Posted in BenchmarkXPRT, BenchmarkXPRT development community, CES, Collaborative benchmark development, Machine learning, What makes a good benchmark? |

Exploring virtual reality

By Eric Hale

on December 15, 2016

We’ve talked a lot in recent weeks about new technologies we are evaluating for the XPRTs. You may remember that back in June, we also wrote about sponsoring a second senior project with North Carolina State University. Last week, the project ended with the traditional Posters and Pies event. The team gave a very well thought‑out presentation.

As you can tell from the photo below, the team designed and implemented a nifty virtual reality app. It’s a room escape puzzle, and it looks great!

The app is a playable game with the ability to record the gameplay for doing repeatable tests. It also includes a recording that allows you to test a device without playing the game. Finally, the app lets you launch directly into the prerecorded game without using a viewer, which will be handy for testing multiple devices.

The team built the app using the Google Cardboard API and the Unity game engine, which allowed them to create Android and iOS versions. We’re looking forward to seeing what that may tell us!

After Posters and Pies, the team came to PT to present their work and answer questions. We were all very impressed with their knowledge and with how well thought out the application was.

Many thanks to team members Christian McCurdy, Gregory Manning, Grayson Jones, and Shon Ferguson (not shown).

Thanks also to Dr. Lina Battestilli, the team’s technical advisor, and Margaret Heil, Director of the Senior Design Center.

We are currently evaluating the app, and expect to make it available to the community in early 2017!

Eric

Posted in Android, Benchmarking, Collaborative benchmark development, iOS, North Carolina State University, Virtual reality |

CrXPRT’s future

Reflecting on 2016

CES 2017

Principled Technologies and the BenchmarkXPRT Development Community announce new effort to evaluate machine learning performance

Creating a machine-learning benchmark

Exploring virtual reality

Check out the other XPRTs: