Altera (www.altera.com) are one of the many silicon companies announcing 42nm devices shipping in the next year or so. Xilinx fanboys - I'm sure they promise the same (picture an AMD/Intel bunfight if you will) - though I must confess I am friendly towards them as an ex employee of sorts, I am certain they are not the only ones proposing to produce devices at this process node in the near future. Intel and IBM being very much at the front of the curve, so to speak. The gap between theoretical limits being announced and actual manufacturing at the announced node seems to be getting a lot shorter. Is quantum really next, or is optical? As we get down to 32nm and beyond the so called 'moores law' (which seems only to really serve journalism as such;) ) seems to really, genuinely be nearing the limits. What IS next after silicon transistors on a die? Gallium is supposedly running out (due to flat panels) and that's only a doping chemical for speed, still in the silicon domain, not a real sea change of technology. Whats going to happen to the size/power curve? Even multicore processors will suffer as long as they are still roadmapped out on the same substrate. Are we really running out of time now? I don't really hear of the 'next big thing' in any form other than conjecture at the moment..?
How can it be fearmongering when NO ONE KNOWS YET what will happen as we produce more nano material? I confess, I have committed the sin of not reading the FA, and for once not even reading any comments, but I feel so strongly about this. If asbestos, in its current chemical and physical form can infiltrate the lungs to such a degree to cause severe illness, why shouldn't something a millionth or billionth of its size? We JUST DON'T KNOW yet (I never use caps normally). Therefore I advocate extreme cautiousness in the field of research. Thats not to say I don't want it investigated.. Just a little more humility from the people that play 'god' on our behalf.
I was thinking about the whole Trent Reznor thing the other day. Now Trent's not really been my thing ('Head like a hole' excepted, but that was waaaay back).. But he is absolutely right and I think what he is doing is very exciting for the future of the music industry (read:artists, not labels). My particular favourite band are New Order. Yes, they have had their day, I know.. But if they released a new album tomorrow, I would actually be prepared to pay $200 - without actually hearing it - simply because I am a big fan of theirs and always have been. OK this will need to scale down to lesser artists (who don't have the fan base desperate enough to hear their new tunes for that sort of cash yet) but in this whole micropayment climate I'm sure it would somehow if more took the risk/adopted the model.. It's the old piracy argument - Just because I might rip something for free, doesn't mean I would ever have paid for it in the first place. But there's been many times I have liked something I have had as a taster (say on a mix cd) that's led me to buy from an artists I may never have heard of, or thought I might like before. We get a whole load of TV for free, but plenty of people keep the DVD market alive because people will always pay for the things they like best. And if they like them a lot, and the quality is there, they might just pay a lot.
I'm 'only' 33. I grew up with computers (programming experiments at 8), consoles and consumer electronics. I also have a qualification in EE, and currently work designing chips into mobile devices. So I'm really not averse to technology. Still, I cannot stand the idea of Facebook, and I have been putting off trying LINUX for about 2 years now, even though I know it can be better than Windows, because I could do without the learning curve (perceived or real). Yes, the generation gap is alive and kicking.. I'll stick with what I know until I have to do otherwise. Now, please, could you get off my lawn?
I'd just like to go on record here and say that as far as I am personally concerned the Beatles were over-hyped shit in the 60's and it shows just how far Jobs is up his own ass paying $400 million now just to have them on iTunes, like its some sort of coup that will add 'cool' to his own over-hyped little service. Jesus. Lennon was an idiot, and McCartney IS an idiot. Yellow Submarine, Lucy in the Sky with diamonds, Paperback-fucking-writer? Drivel. Mod me down, please, its worth it just to get that off my chest.
This is the most singularly coolest but most creepy and frightening thing I have ever seen on the net. I don't mind real snakes too much (my wife can't even look at one) but the look of this combined with the impressive things it can do for a robot are quite worrying and eerie. Am I not the only one to sit here with shivers going up my spine?
I should follow this up with a disclaimer - I don't believe this technology will be 100% 'perpetual motion' but there is the possibility it may be more efficient than current methods of harvesting the energy source and using it. It may not be ideal for now, but the closer we can get the better.
No mod points today but exactly what I was thinking as I was reading through this thread. When was the 'flat earth held up on the backs of four turtles theory?' 1600's? You'd get burnt at the stake (or equivalent - history is not a strong point of mine) at the time then for disagreeing with that. So here we are in the 'enlightened' 21st century and so many people here saying the same thing - Exxon (insert 'evil' oil company name here) will have it crushed!! It's vaporware!11lolz!!! Conspiracy theory!!!!
They are, as a previous poster has already claimed, canny. If oil is running out as we are led to believe, they will want to explore options for their own future existence for themselves and for their shareholders. Why go out of their way to alienate those of us educated to the issues with hydrocarbon usage and spend money chasing a disappearing resource when with a bit of cash (which they undoubtedly have) they can buy themselves a whole new business model? I'm not naive enough to think this might not bring problems of its own in the future, but the cynicism on/., which is supposedly made up of intelligent people, staggers me sometimes. Keep an open mind people.
And someone releases a product with the crypto built in and "mass casual" piracy is back on the air.
If I think I have understood this sentence correct you insinuate that because a file is protected by an anti copying mechanism once it is broken its a free for all anyway? It only takes one person to circumvent the protection and seed the file and crack - then you don't need to be a geek to download something you haven't paid for. You *seem* to make it sound like each individual has to do the protection bypassing on their own..
Good points. I would still stand by the fact that even though what I said is slightly erroneous, most people on/. appear to be software rather than hardware oriented (not a bad thing just what I have observed)... And expect lower geometries to produce better results with little change to the technology underlying shrinks. I stand corrected though.. I do realise about the IO not matching the core voltage a little too eager to make my point. Not sure what I meant about curve right now but doesn't mean the post was total crap...
Well yes, but _if_ it could be done efficiently and on a sufficient scale, wouldn't it be a second bite at the cherry? First you could get the piezoelectric effect as the rain hit the 'ground' then secondly, once it had been channeled get the second bite at the dam itself? OK all it may ever be (due to those laws of thermodynamics) is an offset rather than a net gain in our energy requirements but maybe that is better than nothing? Personally I think we have the technology (which will improve in efficiency over time) but I wonder how much space it will take up on the surface of the earth forcing more and more of us to city-like urban dwellings as the rest of the natural world is taken up with the kit we need just to keep those city dwellers alive..?
It's very simplistic to say that with voltage drops comes power efficiency - process geometry and materials play a part here too (and I'm not even going to mention the issues with noise tolerance and problems with SSO - Simultaneous Switching Outputs at the 0.3v level). So called 'current' (90nm) geoms are a nightmare for power leakage due to the the relatively small atom thickness that goes to make the gate of the switching transistors. You need to look at such tricks as gate oxides and other power mitigating technologies... BTW - When I say 90nm is current, I know people are doing 65nm, 45nm, 32nm and beyond (which are, given process geometry/power efficiency/newer techniques slightly better in some ways) but the lower geoms are slightly ahead of the curve somewhat..
I can't believe no one has yet nominated Homer Jay Simpson and/or Barney Gumball yet... That episode was the birthplace of 'I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords' (OK that might not have been the exact original phrase, but I'm memed out here...)
Do you remember Star Trek showing people being beamed down to the surface of a planet, say, in the late 60's? That's not been done yet. Just because something is predicted in a fictional TV show doesn't mean it's simple evolution if it happens. TV is fiction. Doing it is fact.
I felt like coming downstairs on Christmas day to see my parents brutally butchered, the dog raped, and my presents smashed right before the jerk leans down and tells me that there is no Santa Claus... and he killed the Tooth Fairy and shoved her up the Easter Bunny's ass
That's pretty disturbing for a response to an article about silicon. Got issues?
There was special feature on Elite in this months Retro Gamer (UK publication). Very interesting stuff if you were a fan on any platform, with (seperate) interviews with both Braben and Bell. Strangely they are not on speaking terms anymore, but no one seems to know why...
An interesting point (so why post AC?) - But I work here in the UK with the military and I'm not sure I agree with that - as a supplier of silicon I have worked across a great many UK mil projects and I just don't see that holding water... Seeing some of the extra (thousands of) man hours of testing and qual that needs to be done over the consumer market to qualify kit for deployment, I doubt the bigger mil/aero companies would allow such a thing. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that if you were the government paying for a $$$$ UAV, are you likely to let someone control it with any old controller laying around or follow the whole 'feather the nests of the mil contractors' way of qualification (we all know how this market works). I think not.. Army personnel buying their own flack jackets to protect themselves - well that's understandable, if not a sad indictment of our defence spending here. But you cannot compare that to the command and control of (very) expensive electronics.
I think so - seeing as the qualification for equipment use in military battlefields can take many years before approval the XBOX360 controllers shown would have needed to be in prototype around 1999...
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Altera (www.altera.com) are one of the many silicon companies announcing 42nm devices shipping in the next year or so. Xilinx fanboys - I'm sure they promise the same (picture an AMD/Intel bunfight if you will) - though I must confess I am friendly towards them as an ex employee of sorts, I am certain they are not the only ones proposing to produce devices at this process node in the near future. Intel and IBM being very much at the front of the curve, so to speak. The gap between theoretical limits being announced and actual manufacturing at the announced node seems to be getting a lot shorter. Is quantum really next, or is optical? As we get down to 32nm and beyond the so called 'moores law' (which seems only to really serve journalism as such ;) ) seems to really, genuinely be nearing the limits. What IS next after silicon transistors on a die? Gallium is supposedly running out (due to flat panels) and that's only a doping chemical for speed, still in the silicon domain, not a real sea change of technology. Whats going to happen to the size/power curve? Even multicore processors will suffer as long as they are still roadmapped out on the same substrate. Are we really running out of time now? I don't really hear of the 'next big thing' in any form other than conjecture at the moment..?
How can it be fearmongering when NO ONE KNOWS YET what will happen as we produce more nano material? I confess, I have committed the sin of not reading the FA, and for once not even reading any comments, but I feel so strongly about this. If asbestos, in its current chemical and physical form can infiltrate the lungs to such a degree to cause severe illness, why shouldn't something a millionth or billionth of its size? We JUST DON'T KNOW yet (I never use caps normally). Therefore I advocate extreme cautiousness in the field of research. Thats not to say I don't want it investigated.. Just a little more humility from the people that play 'god' on our behalf.
I mod this +1 insightful. Without any mod points! God, I'm good.
I was thinking about the whole Trent Reznor thing the other day. Now Trent's not really been my thing ('Head like a hole' excepted, but that was waaaay back).. But he is absolutely right and I think what he is doing is very exciting for the future of the music industry (read:artists, not labels). My particular favourite band are New Order. Yes, they have had their day, I know.. But if they released a new album tomorrow, I would actually be prepared to pay $200 - without actually hearing it - simply because I am a big fan of theirs and always have been. OK this will need to scale down to lesser artists (who don't have the fan base desperate enough to hear their new tunes for that sort of cash yet) but in this whole micropayment climate I'm sure it would somehow if more took the risk/adopted the model.. It's the old piracy argument - Just because I might rip something for free, doesn't mean I would ever have paid for it in the first place. But there's been many times I have liked something I have had as a taster (say on a mix cd) that's led me to buy from an artists I may never have heard of, or thought I might like before. We get a whole load of TV for free, but plenty of people keep the DVD market alive because people will always pay for the things they like best. And if they like them a lot, and the quality is there, they might just pay a lot.
Interesting point, but no points to give out I'm afraid.
I'm 'only' 33. I grew up with computers (programming experiments at 8), consoles and consumer electronics. I also have a qualification in EE, and currently work designing chips into mobile devices. So I'm really not averse to technology. Still, I cannot stand the idea of Facebook, and I have been putting off trying LINUX for about 2 years now, even though I know it can be better than Windows, because I could do without the learning curve (perceived or real). Yes, the generation gap is alive and kicking.. I'll stick with what I know until I have to do otherwise. Now, please, could you get off my lawn?
I'd just like to go on record here and say that as far as I am personally concerned the Beatles were over-hyped shit in the 60's and it shows just how far Jobs is up his own ass paying $400 million now just to have them on iTunes, like its some sort of coup that will add 'cool' to his own over-hyped little service. Jesus. Lennon was an idiot, and McCartney IS an idiot. Yellow Submarine, Lucy in the Sky with diamonds, Paperback-fucking-writer? Drivel. Mod me down, please, its worth it just to get that off my chest.
This is the most singularly coolest but most creepy and frightening thing I have ever seen on the net. I don't mind real snakes too much (my wife can't even look at one) but the look of this combined with the impressive things it can do for a robot are quite worrying and eerie. Am I not the only one to sit here with shivers going up my spine?
I should follow this up with a disclaimer - I don't believe this technology will be 100% 'perpetual motion' but there is the possibility it may be more efficient than current methods of harvesting the energy source and using it. It may not be ideal for now, but the closer we can get the better.
No mod points today but exactly what I was thinking as I was reading through this thread. When was the 'flat earth held up on the backs of four turtles theory?' 1600's? You'd get burnt at the stake (or equivalent - history is not a strong point of mine) at the time then for disagreeing with that. So here we are in the 'enlightened' 21st century and so many people here saying the same thing - Exxon (insert 'evil' oil company name here) will have it crushed!! It's vaporware!11lolz!!! Conspiracy theory!!!! They are, as a previous poster has already claimed, canny. If oil is running out as we are led to believe, they will want to explore options for their own future existence for themselves and for their shareholders. Why go out of their way to alienate those of us educated to the issues with hydrocarbon usage and spend money chasing a disappearing resource when with a bit of cash (which they undoubtedly have) they can buy themselves a whole new business model? I'm not naive enough to think this might not bring problems of its own in the future, but the cynicism on /., which is supposedly made up of intelligent people, staggers me sometimes. Keep an open mind people.
Or are we nearing the day when Sony finally 'wins' a format war?
Good points. I would still stand by the fact that even though what I said is slightly erroneous, most people on /. appear to be software rather than hardware oriented (not a bad thing just what I have observed)... And expect lower geometries to produce better results with little change to the technology underlying shrinks. I stand corrected though.. I do realise about the IO not matching the core voltage a little too eager to make my point. Not sure what I meant about curve right now but doesn't mean the post was total crap...
Must be Microsofts/Googles/Apples/SCO's fault. Delete as applicable.
Well yes, but _if_ it could be done efficiently and on a sufficient scale, wouldn't it be a second bite at the cherry? First you could get the piezoelectric effect as the rain hit the 'ground' then secondly, once it had been channeled get the second bite at the dam itself? OK all it may ever be (due to those laws of thermodynamics) is an offset rather than a net gain in our energy requirements but maybe that is better than nothing? Personally I think we have the technology (which will improve in efficiency over time) but I wonder how much space it will take up on the surface of the earth forcing more and more of us to city-like urban dwellings as the rest of the natural world is taken up with the kit we need just to keep those city dwellers alive..?
It's very simplistic to say that with voltage drops comes power efficiency - process geometry and materials play a part here too (and I'm not even going to mention the issues with noise tolerance and problems with SSO - Simultaneous Switching Outputs at the 0.3v level). So called 'current' (90nm) geoms are a nightmare for power leakage due to the the relatively small atom thickness that goes to make the gate of the switching transistors. You need to look at such tricks as gate oxides and other power mitigating technologies... BTW - When I say 90nm is current, I know people are doing 65nm, 45nm, 32nm and beyond (which are, given process geometry/power efficiency/newer techniques slightly better in some ways) but the lower geoms are slightly ahead of the curve somewhat..
I can't believe no one has yet nominated Homer Jay Simpson and/or Barney Gumball yet... That episode was the birthplace of 'I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords' (OK that might not have been the exact original phrase, but I'm memed out here...)
Do you remember Star Trek showing people being beamed down to the surface of a planet, say, in the late 60's? That's not been done yet. Just because something is predicted in a fictional TV show doesn't mean it's simple evolution if it happens. TV is fiction. Doing it is fact.
There was special feature on Elite in this months Retro Gamer (UK publication). Very interesting stuff if you were a fan on any platform, with (seperate) interviews with both Braben and Bell. Strangely they are not on speaking terms anymore, but no one seems to know why...
Please, please let this be a cure for... Umm. Where did I put that tube of Pringles?
I think the joke stands without the accents, but thanks for the french lesson!
There are 3.7 Billion Firefox users in Societe General alone!
An interesting point (so why post AC?) - But I work here in the UK with the military and I'm not sure I agree with that - as a supplier of silicon I have worked across a great many UK mil projects and I just don't see that holding water... Seeing some of the extra (thousands of) man hours of testing and qual that needs to be done over the consumer market to qualify kit for deployment, I doubt the bigger mil/aero companies would allow such a thing. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that if you were the government paying for a $$$$ UAV, are you likely to let someone control it with any old controller laying around or follow the whole 'feather the nests of the mil contractors' way of qualification (we all know how this market works). I think not.. Army personnel buying their own flack jackets to protect themselves - well that's understandable, if not a sad indictment of our defence spending here. But you cannot compare that to the command and control of (very) expensive electronics.
I think so - seeing as the qualification for equipment use in military battlefields can take many years before approval the XBOX360 controllers shown would have needed to be in prototype around 1999...