Microsoft Developing Console Chips

The Cheesecake writes "The New York Times is running an article that says that Microsoft is looking into designing and developing microchips. These will primarily be for the next generation of the Xbox. They also mention it could be used for things like voice recognition. They look to be doing this through a process designed by UC Berkley which makes it possible to reconfigure computer designs without the cost of making finished chips."

Comments

the start of the end

[otacon]

First it's software, then it's computer chips, then it's robots, then it's...well we all saw Terminator...

Gotta spend!

[iluvcapra]

Gotta spend that 10-digit R&D budget on something. Anything.

Lots of R&D projects make MSFT look like a buy with growth potential. Competent maintenance of a core business (like Windows or Office) would make it look like Otis Elevator.

Re:Gotta spend!

[Grishnakh]

Which is why Otis Elevator is obviously doing a terrible job in the market. They should be coming up with wacky new designs and trying them on their customers. It's ok if a bunch of people get killed in their beta-version elevators, as long as the company is showing sign of growth, because that's what stockholders want to see.

In the world of publicly-traded companies, a stable company that makes a great product and loyal customers but doesn't continue to grow is a very bad thing.

Re:Gotta spend!

[hcob$]

In the world of publicly-traded companies, a stable company that makes a great product and loyal customers but doesn't continue to grow is a very bad thing. Only since the 1990's(and possibly the 1980's). Prior to this time, Public companies focused on building value INTO the stock and returning dividens. In those cases a solid company with good customers and steady revenue flow was highly sought after.

But then came the .COM bubble and the day-traders. These two factors combined into the idea of:

Hey, let's buy a cheap stock, tout it highly make it look like they are going to shoot through the roof, hope to hell people(day traders) run up the price, and then we dump it all and take the dumbasses' money."

Hopefully the current economic growth(and this seems likely) is swinging away from that mentality and we'll start seeing people being able to live off stock dividens again. One can hope.

Berkeley, what a surprise...

[192939495969798999]

If you've ever browsed through the old Windows C library header files, you notice some "Copyright Berkeley Systems Division" type stuff in there... no surprise that's where they turn!

DRM Enforcement and/or Removing Mod Capabilities

[Numbah One]

I wonder if Uncle Bill and Uncle Steve are looking to enforce DRM through hardware or remove (or severely restrict) the ability to mod-chip the next-gen Xbox.

Re:Microsoft Invents FPGA

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, what could be possibly be the satisfaction in making up nonsensical things like this in order to ridicule them? Could there possibly be a cheaper form of argumentation? Nowhere in the article is anything that anyone with brain function could possibly construe as "Microsoft Invents FPGA".

Other ways to avoid cost of making finished chips

[JonTurner]

>>makes it possible to reconfigure computer designs without the cost of making finished chips

Dear Bill,

There are two other ways to "make it possible to reconfigure computer designs without the cost of making finished chips"
1) buy the finished chips from someone else
2) use FPGAs if the design must change on-the-fly or after delivery to customer.

On the other hand, that's what software is for.

You're welcome.
--
Jon

Re:when Sun, SGI, DEC, and IBM built their own chi

[Libertarian001]

"If you don't call DEC's Alpha chip a 'great commercial success', than what is? Does it still have to be on the market? What chip from the Alpha era is still on the market? They've all been redesigned since."

I'm a huge Alpha proponent, so please understand that when I ask you what the hell you're smoking. Alpha was a monumental "commercial" failure. It was a huge "technological" success, but for many reasons it failed commercially. Heck, Apple sold more G4 Macs in a single quarter than DEC (and Samsung and Mitsubishi) sold Alphas during its entire product life.

Sheesh.

Re:Press 1 If You Just Cried "Wolf"

[asuffield]

Every time Microsoft introduces another new platform, whether OS, Office, HW, game console, or new executive, they promise voice recognition. Of course they never deliver.

Voice recognition is the sort of thing that stupid people love to hear about. The trouble is that we've got voice recognition already, and it just bites. It's a lousy way to control a computer. Computers cannot respond to unstructured input, and very few users, even those who are normally considered technically adept, are capable of speaking in a well-structured manner. The limitations of the mouse-and-keyboard interface are also their strength - by constraining the user to a limited set of actions, they greatly increase the stupid user's ability to figure out what to do. If you let somebody sit there and say anything, they'll sit there all day without saying anything that the computer can understand. Prompting them doesn't work because most of these people never read anything that is displayed on the screen.

Or, more briefly:

Most computer users can grasp the concept of pointing and clicking with a mouse. Very few computer users can grasp the concept of speaking with correct grammar. While we are doing reasonably well at parsing and interpreting more-or-less correct english (as is reasonably common in written form), there is presently no ability to write software that can comprehend the gibberish that most people speak. You probably need human-level intelligence to manage it.

Voice control is a white elephant.