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AMD Launches World's First Mobile DirectX 11 GPUs
J. Dzhugashvili writes "Less than 4 months after releasing the first DX11 desktop graphics card, AMD has followed up with a whole lineup of mobile graphics processors based on the same architecture. The new Mobility Radeon HD 5000 lineup includes four different series of GPUs designed to serve everything from high-end gaming notebooks to mainstream thin-and-light systems. AMD has based these processors on the same silicon chips as its desktop Radeon HD 5000-series graphics cards, so performance shouldn't disappoint. The company also intends to follow Nvidia's lead by offering notebook graphics drivers directly from its website, as opposed to relying on laptop vendors to provide updates."
If there was a big tech shocker this Christmas, it was the fact that the Kindle was the top selling gift of all time, according to multiple news sources. Really? If so, did the entire industry miss the mark, leaving the space open to a guy whose company specializes in online books sales? A guy who has never really entered the hardware space in any meaningful way before, except as an investor?
How did this happen?
The kicker here, is the fact that numerous failed attempts at a pad machine have been made, beginning with the imaginary Dynabook in the 1970s and including various WinPads and other tablets right up to the Microsoft announcement of a tablet platform a few years ago. You remember that, right? This was the platform that was set to dominate all computing by 2000 or 2004 or whatever. In the meantime, a slew of "convertible" laptops evolved and subsequently ended up in the trash heap of innovation.
Apparently all anyone actually wanted was a device they could read books on. Of course, this may only be the beginning, should Apple come out with its iSlate or iPad--what I prefer to just call a Giant iPod Touch.
So, what changed? Why are we making this sort of platform shift, all of the sudden?
How's this for an idea: This would have happened a long time ago, were it not for Microsoft. The same holds true for the smartphone. It would have become an object of desire a lot sooner, had Microsoft laid off.
The software giant has been a hindrance to progress ever since it transformed from a subversive company to a kind of IBM-clone to a lackey for big business. There's no connection between the company and the end-user anymore.
To understand this, we need to travel back to the introduction of Excel. The dominant spreadsheet app used to be Lotus 1-2-3. The program put Lotus at the top of the software heap. The company was bigger than Microsoft--by a lot. Microsoft had a crummy spreadsheet program called Multiplan at the time, but it discovered a guy who was working on a Lotus killer. His app became Excel and Microsoft ran a series of humorous ads featuring people skulking around an office, showing each other Excel in a manner that suggested their fictitious company wouldn't approve of the use of the unauthorized product. All of the workers continued to use it on the sly, because they could get so much more work done.
The ad was totally subversive. It fit right in with the mid-1970s PC revolution, where attendees at those early computer conferences would boo IBM's name. The entire "micro-computer" scene was very subversive in that way. But Bill Gates said that he'd like Microsoft to become the software version of IBM. It's since managed that feat, and now Microsoft is as likely to get booed as IBM was back in 1976
And you know what? Judging from the company's recent history, it deserves it. Microsoft is the post-modern IBM, serving as the same sort of hindrance to the scene that IBM was 50 years ago. Microsoft is hindering the industry with its vision, stumbling into places it doesn't belong. The company is like the big, dumb rich kid you don't want at your party. He comes anyway and knocks over the punchbowl--again. The company ruins markets just by showing up.
Microsoft entered the smartphone space early on and slowed things down in the process because nobody wanted to compete with its money and fickle approach. It's not worth risking that the company would take your good idea, re-brand your idea, and ruin the whole thing for everyone. It's a scorched earth policy. Examples are everywhere. Look at FrontPage, a very functional HTML editor bought and branded as a Microsoft product. The company kept mucking with the app until it was useless. The product line was eventually shuttered. HTML and page editing gravitated to the Mac in order to avoid Microsoft (the aforementioned big, dumb rich kid). That Mac software was eventually re-coded for Windows.
Microsoft's tablet was doomed from the beginning--actually, it's been doomed numerous times over the years. The c