:-)

thx to vowe for the link.

In February 2004, Pat Gelsinger – the CTO of Intel – presented some great inputs concerning the future developments in the field of processor during the last Intel Developer Forum.

Do we really need the increasing power of processors? – yes

Based on the experience made in the past, the increase in processor power is always used by / surpassed by innovation and new tecnologies. The offer is somewhat creating the demand, as with Microsoft products.

Incredible volume of digital data

The volume of digital data is already today surpassing the volume of non-digital data (study from Berkeley in 2003). Almost all new data are digital ones. Some figures to illustrate this:

Not enough?

Personally, I have:

=> These new common characteristics will allow a common definition of one new unique architecture which will be able to compute the Tera-requests.

Performance development

How can we define performance in the field of processor?

In the past, there was a clear concentration on speed increase, although some architectural improvements also appeared (hyper-threading, MMX technology, etc.). Some major obstacles are appearing now with frequencies increases and size of transistors decreases:

Consequently:

– performance increase has mainly to come from architectural innovations (rather than frequency increase)

– or disruptive change in the processor technology (eg.: photonic computing)

Conclusion

“A massively multicore architecture in which each core has multiple threads of execution with minimal memory latency, resistance-capacitance interconnect delay, and controlled thermal activity is needed to deliver teraflop performance”.

Two interesting articles from the Knowledge@Wharton (free subscription) and the MIT Technology Review about:

– productivity growth in the last years

– the usage of IT as a competitive advantage.

Three short abstracts:

– 1.4% from the 70s into the 90s

– 2.5% since 1995

– 4% since 2001.

i’ve created finally a comment functionality in my blog :-)

and without moving away from blogger, thanx to a “tool” from Holker Kreis! Holker is publishing his tool called Blogkomm as a freeware (current release: v1.6, used for my weblog: v1.7 beta). this tool is actually a set of php and css files, which can be integrated in your existing blogger’s blog. quite well documented, but you have to know something about css and php to be able to customize it a bit. for the functionalities, let’s see on my weblog, or the one of Holker ;-)

thx to Holker for his great job!

Already a new CD entry (right column)! It’s about a limited edition of the last great Placebo’s CD – Sleeping with ghosts.

In this limited edition, you will find a bonus CD with 10 amazing and unexpected covers. Some examples:

– Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush)

– Where Is My Mind (The Pixies)

– Johnny And Mary (Robert Palmer)

– I Feel You (Depeche Mode)

– and … Daddy Cool (Boney M) :-)

Really great and interesting!!

Three figures as a summary:

– fine: $613 million

– fine in % of Microsoft’s revenues (2002-03): 2%

– available cash by MS: $52 billion (!!)

So, I think that the problem for MS is not really the money (no charity subscription needed ;-), but more a strategic one. Difficult to accept that somebody else can impose which components can be integrated in the Operating System, and which cannot be. Media Player, in this field, could be just the first example of a long list of imposed changes…. Is this change interesting for us, for the end-consumers? Not really sure…

Who really likes/wants to play video or listen to music with a RealPlayer?? Real product challengers can win market shares (eg. Winamp) because they are really good products for the consumers.

I have added a “On heavy rotation” section (right column of the blog, under the “Contact” section). I will put here some audio CDs and / or DVDs I’m listenning to these days. I’ve started with an interesting CD from a French Parisian DJ called Stéphane Pompougnac and his sixth “Hôtel Costes” compilation. What is this Hôtel? The Hotel Costes, in the heart of Paris near the ultra-chic Place Vendome, is the place to be seen for top models, rock stars and film stars from around the world. The Costes brothers have been careful to make the music in the hotel an integral part of its special charm. Stéphane Pompougnac plays a selection of lounge tracks.

Steve Gillmor had an interview with Ray Ozzie, the CEO of Groove, about the new functionalities of the third version of this collaboration tool in an eWeek’s article. They talked together about the following issues:

– notification features

– the Groove File Sharing integrated in the explorer

– (RSS) aggregation and publication

– “zero-IT aspect”

– Longhorn as a threat

– virtual office & the positioning of Groove

Let’s have a look.

Umh, let’s have a look at this :-)

This time, it’s about pingu, seal and the famous yeti. I got personally the following results:

– best top: 447.31

– best score: 1’547.28

What about yours?

It appears that we are, since yesterday, in a “Google dance” phase :-)

After my two “active” weeks on the Net, I’m quite proud of the result of the following Google-search (keywords: didier beck).