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

Technology wins out over all

Posted by Jon Peddie on May 8th 2013 | Discuss
Tags: intel atom tsmc gloflow

Intel, GloFo, and TSMC battle for position as the market moves to mobile Big companies, big smart companies, have the ability to take a body block and keep going. Cash reserves, tons of engineers, and determination are their muscle. And like any company, they make false starts, and unsupportable claims. That delights the press, and short-siders, but doesn’t really add much to the ecosystem. This week Intel revealed its latest power core design, Silvermont, fabricated on its 22nm FinFET process, a variant of the 22nm process it started to use last year for Ivy Bridge, but adapted for use in SOC…

Time to upgrade

Posted by Jon Peddie on April 25th 2013 | Discuss
Tags: amd intel peddie moore's law upgrade

Inflation and Moore’s Law favor the consumer and the enterprise When I’m preparing a presentation, I look at relevant historical data. It helps set the stage for my talks and gives the audience a chance to get in sync with my comments. When you’re running in the trenches 24/7, you tend to forget some of the outside world events—and that happens to me, I’m embarrassed to say. A recent historical review reset my perspective.  In 2009 Intel released the Core i7 Nehalem processor, and AMD brought out its six-core CPU Istanbul processors. We thought those new processors were amazing, and for…

Has Moore’s Law gotten away from Intel?

Posted by Jon Peddie on April 10th 2013 | Discuss
Tags: amd intel moore's io law risc arm ti

The democratization of Moore’s Law, the revolution led by ARM I think it’s pretty obvious the PC market is transforming from the conventional two form factors we have been using for the past 15 years into a three or four form factor future. Transforms, not disappears. The “new PC” is many things: tablet/convertible/hybrids; conventional clam shells with bigger processors, optical drives, more I/O, and bigger screens; notebooks; conventional desktop/desk-side PCs; and All-in-One desktop versions make up the new PC model. As processors, memory, and, sensors got smaller, and better, and people began carrying small powerful portable computing devices, cleverly disguised as…

The new highs and lows?

Posted by Jon Peddie on March 28th 2013 | Discuss
Tags: nvidia cg computational photography gtc

New definitions needed If you read the story on the uncanny valley in this issue (page 1), you learned a little about Jorge Jimenez’s breakthrough work. And if you’ve hung out with us for any time, you know Peddie’s First Law: In computer graphics, too much is not enough. At one of our first Siggraph luncheons, in San Antonio, Texas, in 2002, we put the question to our distinguished panel, “Are we done yet?” Not only was the answer no, it was Hell no—are you stupid? Every year since then I ask my friends and colleagues, “Do you think we’re done…

Jailbreaking a PS4: the best of all worlds

Posted by Jon Peddie on March 19th 2013 | Discuss
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I wonder if you’ll be able to jailbreak a PS4 and run Windows on it? After all, earlier this year, in the US it became illegal to unlock your phone without your carrier’s consent. Or even cooler, run Sony’s Linux OS in a partition and have a dual boot system. It’s sure to have USB ports so you could hang a keyboard and mouse, or maybe via WiFi—which means it could run PC (Windows) games, which means it qualifies as a PC gaming machine, which means, it’ll run Steam and Origin games. And with a WiFi connection it’s also a smart…

The new highs and lows?

Posted by Jon Peddie on February 27th 2013 | Discuss
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New definitions are needed The first quarter of 2013 has ushered in new levels for the high-end, and what might have been considered the low-end. The high end currently belongs to Nvidia with its 2688 core Titan GPU, where does the low-end belong? Is it the new PS4 with integrated graphics and unified memory? Or is it an ARM Cortex A15-based Chromebook? I think the bar has been lifted for them all. Nvidia is claiming its ARM thingie has the best graphics, and Qualcomm just can’t seem to agree with that. Nvidia thinks their high-end Titan is the killer machine (price-wise…

There’s a disconnect in our thinking – I think…

Posted by Jon Peddie on February 12th 2013 | Discuss
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Ever since I can remember, we have been striving to design a machine that will make life easier and help us communicate better. Word processors are better than typewriters. Email is better than physical mail. The web is better than – well everything.  Today we are looking at what Intel calls Perceptual Computing. We will talk to, wave our hands at, stroke,  punch, and tap at our machines. And why? So we can capture our thoughts as fast as we get them. And why do we want to do that? Because our thoughts—especially MY thoughts—are freakin brilliant, that’s why: and you…

On magic and tides

Posted by Jon Peddie on January 29th 2013 | Discuss
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In 1998 Steve Jobs was asked, how can you compete in the PC business? What’s your strategy? He smiled and said, “Wait for the next big thing.” Hardly seems like much of a plan, and it is exactly what RIM and Nokia didn’t do, and look at them. Sometimes companies try to create the next big thing like Intel did with netbooks, Apple did with Newton, and various others did with S3D—when it’s not right, it’s just not right, and the consumers always vote with their checkbooks. There was no pent-up demand for tablets. No one had measured consumers’ desires and…

Augmented reality showing us stuff that’s not there

Posted by Jon Peddie on January 15th 2013 | Discuss
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Soon we won’t know the difference When augmented reality (AR) was first introduced isn’t clear. (Damn, that’s such a great pun.) But seriously folks, the idea of AR is pretty old, and can be traced back to L. Frank Baum’s short story, The Master Key, written in 1901, in which he introduced the idea of AR, I give you the Character Marker. It consists of this pair of spectacles. While you wear them every one you meet will be marked upon the forehead with a letter indicating his or her character. Baum, like Asimov, had many advanced ideas and is worthy…

Everyone is a fortune teller

Posted by Jon Peddie on January 7th 2013 | Discuss
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Want a prediction? Just touch the web. The future is clear as day to me so I've decided that in 2013, I will just stay home. I know that mobile is going to be big, Samsung will rule, the losers will continue to lose, and startups, often funded by Kickstarter, will surprise us. I also know AMD, Intel, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and others will introduce new products in 2013 using the latest technologies and offer amazing and incredible performance. And miraculously they all will use less power and give higher benchmark scores than any of their competitors—something like Schrodinger's cat, I think.…