The democratization of the PC—the ubiquitous USB port
I remember back to 1996 when the first USB standard was proposed. I had done a little consulting with Intel prior to that and tried to convince them to use Philips’ I2C which had been ...
Of hot rods and chipsets—Nvidia can’t win
What an incredible week this has been for Nvidia. It started out with them introducing the most revolutionary new architecture in a decade and ended with stories about them getting kicked out of the chipset ...
If a dog ever caught a truck, what would he do with it? – Or … be careful what you wish for…
Remember the old joke, we lose money on every unit, but we make it up on volume? Sometimes, I wonder if that’s what we’re doing in the electronics business. Last week, at two conferences, on ...
On GPU computing—it’s not about languages
GPU computing has come into its own this year and is, I think, well understood and accepted by industry and to a large extent many consumers and scientists. Although I still encounter people in all ...
Do OEMs, ODMs, and/or consumers value technology?
If company A builds a chip and it is better and newer than company B’s, shouldn’t company A get more market share? Suppose company B introduced a part in January and it got a Pmark ...
So many pixels and so much Andouille
This was my 30th Siggraph, I was 10 when I attended the first one… Almost all of them have been fun, educational, and informative. If measured by attendance, this year’s event had the poorest showing ...
How I spent my summer vacation
School runs, in most parts of the world, from September to June, with a few breaks for religious and political celebrations in between. And school’s out in the summer, and August is as summer as ...
On being a curmudgeon and the meaning of life.
I need another thing From tiny screens that fit your wrist to systems that give you 1080p HD. Taking the philosophy of “we did it because we could,” which translated into modern parlance becomes, “Yes ...
Economy of scale doesn’t
A tale of electronic ink and the stupidity of false economy I got a new Kindle 2 for Kathleen for her birthday. I have a Kindle 1 and she kept borrowing it. It was a ...
On R&D and the singularity
I was thinking about where R&D comes from. And then I realized that what I really cared about was the R of R&D. Research, real research which has no immediate product connection, is something only ...
A quiet week is predicted
As predictions go my track record is pretty good, if I do say so myself. So, I’m predicting this week will be rather quiet, with the exception of Apple’s noise of course. And it should ...
On being James Tiberius Kirk
To beat the unbeatable Kobayashi Maru simulation (designed by Spock) at Star Fleet Academy, the young cadet James T. Kirk reprogrammed the game—he changed the rules because of he refused to accept a no-win scenario. ...