Jon Peddie Back Pages - It's all about the pixels

The Wintel hegemony in the PC industry may be ebbing

Posted by Jon Peddie on July 11th 2011 | Discuss
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With announcement at CES by Microsoft that Windows 8 will run on ARM, thereby enabling another processor to run Microsoft applications, the world shifted. That was the promise with Windows NT back in 1993 when Microsoft declared it would run on the popular processors of the time which were Alpha, AMD64, IBM, Intel MIPS, and Motorola. That didn’t quite happen. Now Microsoft seeing the extraordinary growth of ARM-based mobile phones, and having tried three times to get into that market, has declared that Windows 8 and associate applications (like the Office suite) will run on ARM, and x86. So far MIPS…

We are in thrall and enslaved by the carriers ... So what are we going to do about it?

Posted by Jon Peddie on June 30th 2011 | Discuss
Tags: apple mobile windows microsoft computers

I recently got a new phone, a Motorola Droid X2 to be precise. I have a few other phones, a Nokia N95, an iPhone, and a Sony Ericsson Xperia Play. Because of tariffs and roaming charges I maintain a US phone (that was the iPhone’s job) and a European phone (the N95). The N95 has a SIM and a SD slot, and a removable battery. But it’s older technology, and the N95 has the lame Symbian OS—time to move on. So the Xperia Play has become my international phone. That took nothing more than moving the SIM from the N95 to…

Faster than a speeding bullet or Moore’s law

Posted by Jon Peddie on June 15th 2011 | Discuss
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Ever since the GPU up-ended the FLOPS curve and pointed it skyward we’ve been measuring ourselves by how we’re moving erlative to Moore’s law GPU technology is moving faster than the development of process technology that fuels the products that accelerate us ahead. But what’s accelerating faster than semiconductor technology? Social networks and bandwidth (notice I did not mention software development, which can’t seem to keep up with Moore’s law). What’s running almost at the speed-of-light is information and even faster than that, the speed of thought. You can find several metrics for it—the number of emails, the number of SMS…

Looking into things

Posted by Jon Peddie on June 3rd 2011 | Discuss
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As I was registering at the Dimension3 stereovision conference in Paris last week I did a double take when I looked at a large (42-inch) display next to the counter that was showing a black and white image of a woman and table behind her and man in a chair behind the table. It was a beautiful image with at least 1024-shades of grey and looked like a window into a room—the depth was incredible. It was an Alioscopy multi-view display and it was captivating. I know the Alioscopy people and what they make and so I had to move back…

Psst buddy, wanna free story?

Posted by Kathleen Maher on May 24th 2011 | Discuss
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As we were putting this issue together The Burson-Marsteller FaceGate scandal was just breaking. At the time it seemed like a very big deal, but as of print time, the stench is already evaporating. I’m not quite ready to give it up though. To recap: Apparently Facebook hired marketing firm Burson-Marstellers to place negative stories about Google’s So- cial Networking technology. When the news broke, Burson-Marstellers were so appalled at themselves that they said they’d never do a thing like this, except this time, and they haven’t the faint- est idea what possessed them to do it (outside a bunch of…

Tablet sale; the benefits of being a late adopter

Posted by Jon Peddie on May 18th 2011 | Discuss
Tags: market tablets amazon

Last week’s announcements about new tablets, were hardly news. There are announcements every week now about new tablets. The latest announcement from Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos saying his company will release a tablet based on Google’s Android platform just seemed to ratchet up the silliness quotient. In an interview with Consumer Reports, Bezos said to “stay tuned” on the company’s plans for a multipurpose tablet product. He suggested that such a device would supplement but not replace the popular Kindle. Bring ‘em on. As the number of suppliers proliferate in a mad rush for market share, prices will plummet as feature…

The death of dead

Posted by Jon Peddie on May 3rd 2011 | Discuss
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We're only a third of the way into 2011 and already it's been marked with tremendous and sometimes horrendous events; earthquakes, tornados, civilian uprisings, killings by terrorists and the killing of a terrorist, and changes in consumer attitudes and buying patterns. And yet in the midst of all this turmoil AMD, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and others have managed to report record quarters and helped lift the DJIA past 12,800 while slowly adding jobs. Still with all the good news, and there's plenty even in face of national disasters and man's cruelty to man, there are those who see their role in…

HPUs will transform the world

Posted by Jon Peddie on April 21st 2011 | Discuss
Tags: gpu cpu hpu

Just got back from COFES in sunny warm Scottsdale Arizona. Ensconced in the conference at a resort, and venturing out only at night to nearby restaurants, we were immune to the tremendous political stress this old west state is suffering through. Battling on multiple fronts with immigration pressure and unconstitutional remedies, minimal gun laws, tea parties, budget cuts, birther bills, an infamous country sheriff who's being sued by the feds, collapsed real estate values and tax base, it's amazing how cheerful everyone we met seems to be. Either they're living in some kind of a denial dome, or it's true what…

Calling all gamers ...  Come here, I want to count you

Posted by Jon Peddie on April 12th 2011 | Discuss
Tags: gaming report software games pc computers

At least once a week someone asks us how many gamers are there? We then have to go into a long series of questions to qualify the answer so we can try to quantify it: PC, console, handheld, or mobile phone? "PC," answer the person. So then we ask: Extreme enthusiast, enthusiast, mainstream, or casual? That usually gets an "Ahhhh… - what's the difference?" Then we know we're in trouble and the answer is not going to be satisfying. But we go for it anyway, that's just how we are. Extreme enthusiasts play intense first person shooters and flight sim (on-line…

What would we do without Moore’s Law?

Posted by Jon Peddie on March 25th 2011 | Discuss
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And all the other phrases and acronyms we live with Have you ever wondered how you would explain the technological developments of the past ten years, or the forecast for new technology without using the phrase, Moore's law? I supposed you could, but it'd be wordy, probably awkward, and you'd never say it quite the same way each time. Thank you Carver Mead. Carver Mead? In April 1965, in Electronics Magazine, Gordon Moore published a story titled, "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits." In that paper he stated that transistor counts had doubled every year. But it wasn't until 1970 when…