News Analysis

Comcast, Verizon troubles illustrate peer-to-peer software opportunity

It's long been an open secret that many major telecommunications companies, including Internet service providers (ISPs) and cellular data providers, impose specific limits on the volume and type of bandwidth consumed by their customers.

"Open" in the sense that these companies almost universally reserve the right to impose such limits, and occasionally make public statements defending their right to do so. "Secret" because the companies rarely reveal their specific limits, and because it seems like these limits are constantly being rediscovered by people who ought to know better.

It reminds me of people who claim … Read more

More alternative-energy innumeracy

As an engineer, I hate to see bad engineering treated like a good idea.

I've written recently about questionable proposals for human power generation, electric vehicle recharging and fuel cells. In some cases, there's nothing really wrong with the underlying technology, but it's being implemented and promoted using bad math and misleading promises.

The latest example of innumeracy comes from Shawn Frayne, an independent inventor here in Silicon Valley. Frayne's Windbelt is a low-cost wind-power generator that uses a fluttering membrane instead of rotating blades to convert wind power into mechanical motion; a simple linear generator … Read more

Hoping for the best from Sony's updated Reader

This week, Sony introduced the new PRS-505 Reader for ebooks. I've already ordered one to replace my PRS-500, which I used a lot before it broke not long ago.

Update: my PRS-505 has arrived. The review, in two parts, begins here.

That's my old Reader there. The damage was internal, somehow. I have no idea what went wrong. I didn't sit on it or anything like that. I just turned it on one day and that band on the left side of the screen showed up. You can see that the band doesn't extend to the … Read more

Another low-cost Linux laptop gets a price hike

I wrote recently (here) about the One Laptop Per Child project's plan to begin selling the XO laptop in a special one-for-two deal: buyers pay $400 for two, receive one, and get a tax deduction for the other, which is then delivered to a child in a developing nation.

As I said, I think that's a good deal--the XO is likely to be a pretty interesting machine, even though its price is twice its original $100 target, and battery life isn't likely to live up to OLPC's original projections (I covered that issue here and here).… Read more

Warning: Dan Rather may be unsafe

I finally got around to watching the recent episode of HDNet's Dan Rather Reports titled "Plastic Planes," about alleged safety problems with Boeing's new 787 "Dreamliner" passenger jet. I was interested in the story for two reasons. As I've said here before, I want to buy one of these planes someday-- and secondly, I've long been fascinated with composite materials.

Vince Weldon, a former Boeing engineer, alleges that the composites used in the 787-- principally forms of carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP)-- are brittle, insufficiently tested, dangerous in a fire, and vulnerable … Read more

The OLPC laptop: Cheap at twice the price

The XO laptop from the One Laptop Per Child project is finally going on sale, with a special deal: buy two, get one. That's "get one," not "get one free." You'll buy two, and you'll only get one. But it's still a good deal because the other one will go to a good cause: children in developing nations.

Starting November 12, you'll be able to place an order on a new XO Giving Web site. In the meantime, you can sign up there for an e-mail reminder or send a… Read more

IDF Fall 2007, part 7-- Ultra-Mobility keynote

I learned today that Intel has a Mobility Group and an Ultra Mobility Group. There's a sensible explanation for the difference: notebook PCs are defined as "mobile"; smaller systems are considered "ultra-mobile."

Intel further divides these ultra-mobile machines into two smaller classes: ultra-mobile PCs (UMPCs) and mobile Internet devices (MIDs). Traditionally, the former have 7" screens; the latter category goes all the way down to the tiny screens of smartphones.

Intel's Anand Chandrasekher, senior VP and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, took the stage for the second keynote of the day to talk about "Unleashing the Internet Experience."

His primary contention is that… Read more

IDF Fall 2007, part 6-- Mobility keynote

I'm not going to try liveblogging the keynotes today as I did yesterday. There's just never enough content in IDF keynotes to justify the effort.

The first keynote for Day 2 here at IDF was from Dadi Perlmutter, senior VP and general manager of Intel's Mobility Group. His theme was "Breaking the Barriers of Mobility."

He presented the results of a survey that showed the top needs of mobile computer users:… Read more

IDF Fall 2007, part 5-- Penryn Inside

In a technical session following Pat Gelsinger's keynote, Intel Fellows Stephen Pawlowski and Ofri Wechsler described Penryn, the newest dual-core processor from Intel. Penryn is shipping to OEMs now, with a formal launch scheduled for November 12. The full details of Penryn are available elsewhere, so I'll just focus on some interesting points from the presentation.

Penryn has a "deep power-down" state called CC6 (I don't know what the acronym means). The state saves the core's architectural state into a special on-die memory. According to the presentation, the chip's lowest power consumption can only be achieved when both cores on the chip are in the CC6 state.

Penryn will also support "dynamic acceleration," in which one core of the chip can run faster if the other… Read more

IDF Fall 2007, part 4-- Pat Gelsinger keynote

Pat Gelsinger worked on the Intel 286 and 386 processors and was the chief architect of the 486. Today he's a senior VP of Intel and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group.

But today his IDF keynote started out with a seemingly broader theme, covering Intel's "tick tock" development plan, platform technology, and other issues.

He opened by drawing an analogy between the aerospace industry and the microprocessor industry. If airplane development since the 747 had followed Moore's Law, one passenger jet would carry… Read more