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A Hardware-Software Symbiosis

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the your-job-will-be-replaced-by-robots-soon dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "We all want smaller and faster computers. Of course, this increases the complexity of the work of computer designers. But now, computer scientists from the University of Virginia are coming with a radical new idea which may revolutionize computer design. They've developed Tortola, a virtual interface that enables hardware and software to communicate and to solve problems together. This approach can be applied to get a better performance from a specific system. It also can be used in the areas of security or power consumption. And it soon could be commercialized with the help of IBM and Intel."

4 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. How about some details? by AKAImBatman · · Score: 2, Interesting
    TFA is amazingly short on details. All it says is:

    ...a middle layer between hardware and software that can translate and communicate between software and hardware, allowing for cooperative problem solving. "This middle layer would allow software to adapt to the hardware it's running on, something engineers have not been able to do in the past," she says.


    That doesn't really say much. In fact, without further details it sounds like dynamic tuning in virtual machines. Which can't be the case here, as that would be reinventing what has already been inventing. (Seriously, her professor wouldn't approve a project like that, would he?)

    Anyone have any more details?
    --
    Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
  2. HOT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Damn! That professor is Hot!!!! And she teaches Compilers!!!!

    http://www.cs.virginia.edu/kim/

  3. WTF, again?! by vivaoporto · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Although this is not a dupe, it practically is. Check this other story, New Way to Patch Defective Hardware, less than two months old. Basically, both approaches suck in the same way, they allow hardware manufacturers to be sloppy in order to rush the product out as fast as possible while allowing them to try to correct the errors that will appear later in the process. In short, they reinvented the FPGA.

    Two non-stories. But makes one think, cui bono? Who is benefiting from these articles? Roland for sure, being such a click whore. But other than him, who else? Weird, very weird indeed.

  4. Transmeta Crusoe by dduardo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    How is this any different than what Transmeta has already done?