Don't forget that although you only see gaming cards, the same chipsets are often sold on different graphics boards for CAD. These cards can easily be $1000. In fact it was only a few years ago that a high end graphics card was $3,000-$5,000. Why are the cards more expensive? Specialist drivers (and hence support costs), specialist output features, multiple sets of chips and so on.
"The real mass-scale piracy that actually costs the *AA real sales is in Asia and Eastern Europe, where the counterfeiters will be completely unaffected by this and every other copy-protection idea, not in American living rooms, where Mom will always be worried that if the VCR-alike breaks or is stolen, she'll never be able to play back the recording of the time she was interviewed on the local news again."
I am a westerner living in Eastern Europe who often sees the pirated DVDs and digital media for sale here. I have watched a film directly from the oscar review committee on DVD, bought from a market stand by a local. I was offered T3 a month before it was in the cinema. Police currently turn a blind eye and in every major city here, the latest hollywood movies are for sale for about 5USD.
In my opinion the distributors are to blame for mass piracy and limiting digital recording will increase this trend, not decrease it.
The average take home salary here is less than 300USD a month. You need a place to live and most people also need a car. While a house may be cheaper, a car is not. This means there is very little free money for the average Joe here. For entertainment therefore, people have home satellite systems and enjoy "media".
So you watch a good film or series on TV and want to see it again. The DVDs are the same price, if not more, as America. But its worse, the choice is very limited. For instance Terminator 2 is simply not on sale here due to distribution rights, unless you buy it with Terminator 1 in a boxed set. You simply can't get it. Sure it can be ordered off the internet but then you have to pay import duty which is actually more than just buying the pirated version. So the distributors limit choice and keep prices artificially high meaning not only can the average person not afford to buy media but often they cannot find what they want.
So, given a culture where media is important, where recording at home is the only viable, legal way to acquire favourite media, any attempt to make this harder will result in more illegal copies being sold.
Personally, until I lived here, I never considered "pirating" media or filesharing in any way. Now though, I consider it strongly (though have not yet done it). I can't get my favourite shows here except by downloading from the net or by buying DVDs from other countries, forcing me to pay inflated import duties.
Its not true that I cannot affrord to buy DVDs though but I certainly limit myself to 1 a month or less. So I buy that 1. Now is the industry losing money if I buy a pirated one? No. If I download? No.
Anyone who claims the industry is losing money in Eastern Europe is, at best, spinning the truth. Anyone who puts recording limitations on broadcast material will increase illegal sales. Its technical hypocrisy born of short sighted business techniques. The companies create a desire for media and then fail to fulfill it in an accessible way. Of course the need will be filled by others.
The machine is really multithreaded with special hardware to support threads *as well* as being SIMD. Like a normal processor only one thread can run at a time but pre-emption, priorities etc are supported. So its multithreaded in the same way a normal processor is, not a MIMD machine.
Power/performance is key in some fields. This chip is 3W whereas a P4 is much more.
As you point out only 12Mil transistors which means there is room for a lot more even at low power and some articles talk of 128 or 256 PEs coming next. At 256, assuming power is roughly linear, it would be 12 watts for 2xP4 performance. Not bad. Buit you make small chips to begin with and then iron out process issues with bigger chips.
Hi all. I used to work at Clearspeed. Their claims are valid, not hype. The article in wired needs rewired a little as the chips _are_ real, not just in simulation. Another article about them points out that manufacturers will have samples this year, ie once a full run, not a prototype run is done at the fab.
Yes I had similar experience. To manage an Indian project successfully requires dedication, lots of follow-up checking and an understanding of Indian culture, if thats not grouping too many people into one.
I'm a western living in so-called "New Europe" where wages are much lower. Engineers here speak perfectly good English and the culture difference is less severe than with eastern or African countries.
I can assure you that 25$ an hour is a fantastic wage. In fact, after a brief calculation I would say bout 10$ would be a great wage for most. However, I think thats not the point.
The reality of open source software is that a company could open a bidding process to reduce costs but who knows what you will get? Do I chose the 5$ bid or the 7$ bid offering 10 years of open source experience? Better by far to go to the author. I'd rather pay higher prices for a guaranteed delivery than lower prices and have nothing at the end of the project.
I agree with other posts that if you charge normal contrcting rates, better get ready to deliver or be sued though. If I pay top dollar I want delivery, not excuses.
If all government services in a state are forced to run on one operating system, better yet with a fixed configuration insofar as possible cost benefits result.
We all know that running an IT department with one main operating system reduces maintenance costs, training costs, can result in lower buying price for hardware (all the same) and a thousand small cost benefits resulting in a big IT saving.
Further, the secondary effect of unification of services can result, leading to lower costs in running a given service. For example if departments can exchange information on a person who moves from one area of the state to another through a shared database format, rather than by paper copy, time and cost benefits result for the tax payers.
So, given that the software in question is free (according to their article), their whole argument is flawed.
Thats too polite. A flaw is usually a small inaccuracy in argument, their article is...
(answers on a postcard)
WrocEng
(ps I live in a post communist country so their rhetoric seems even more ridiculous than their basic argument)
Or how to make yourself unpopular...
I haven't seen one person read this patent in detail before shouting about prior art yet (though I've not read all posts). The patent is quite specific. For example, if you maintain web pages in categories and allocate number of downloads per category you are not covered by this patent. If you create a filter database of any kind, categorised, time based etc but add the pages by hand, you are not covered (though you may be by another patent). There are many styles of implementing filtering that are not covered by this patent. Specifically you must have in your system:
1. Categories
2. A learning database based around words
3. Lexical analysis of incoming pages
4. Timing
5. Users permission list
If any one of these elements is missing, its not prior art.
So no, filtering per se is not covered.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget that although you only see gaming cards, the same chipsets are often sold on different graphics boards for CAD. These cards can easily be $1000. In fact it was only a few years ago that a high end graphics card was $3,000-$5,000. Why are the cards more expensive? Specialist drivers (and hence support costs), specialist output features, multiple sets of chips and so on.
I am a westerner living in Eastern Europe who often sees the pirated DVDs and digital media for sale here. I have watched a film directly from the oscar review committee on DVD, bought from a market stand by a local. I was offered T3 a month before it was in the cinema. Police currently turn a blind eye and in every major city here, the latest hollywood movies are for sale for about 5USD.
In my opinion the distributors are to blame for mass piracy and limiting digital recording will increase this trend, not decrease it.
The average take home salary here is less than 300USD a month. You need a place to live and most people also need a car. While a house may be cheaper, a car is not. This means there is very little free money for the average Joe here. For entertainment therefore, people have home satellite systems and enjoy "media".
So you watch a good film or series on TV and want to see it again. The DVDs are the same price, if not more, as America. But its worse, the choice is very limited. For instance Terminator 2 is simply not on sale here due to distribution rights, unless you buy it with Terminator 1 in a boxed set. You simply can't get it. Sure it can be ordered off the internet but then you have to pay import duty which is actually more than just buying the pirated version. So the distributors limit choice and keep prices artificially high meaning not only can the average person not afford to buy media but often they cannot find what they want.
So, given a culture where media is important, where recording at home is the only viable, legal way to acquire favourite media, any attempt to make this harder will result in more illegal copies being sold.
Personally, until I lived here, I never considered "pirating" media or filesharing in any way. Now though, I consider it strongly (though have not yet done it). I can't get my favourite shows here except by downloading from the net or by buying DVDs from other countries, forcing me to pay inflated import duties.
Its not true that I cannot affrord to buy DVDs though but I certainly limit myself to 1 a month or less. So I buy that 1. Now is the industry losing money if I buy a pirated one? No. If I download? No.
Anyone who claims the industry is losing money in Eastern Europe is, at best, spinning the truth. Anyone who puts recording limitations on broadcast material will increase illegal sales. Its technical hypocrisy born of short sighted business techniques. The companies create a desire for media and then fail to fulfill it in an accessible way. Of course the need will be filled by others.
Power/performance is key in some fields. This chip is 3W whereas a P4 is much more.
As you point out only 12Mil transistors which means there is room for a lot more even at low power and some articles talk of 128 or 256 PEs coming next. At 256, assuming power is roughly linear, it would be 12 watts for 2xP4 performance. Not bad. Buit you make small chips to begin with and then iron out process issues with bigger chips.
I'm a western living in so-called "New Europe" where wages are much lower. Engineers here speak perfectly good English and the culture difference is less severe than with eastern or African countries.
I can assure you that 25$ an hour is a fantastic wage. In fact, after a brief calculation I would say bout 10$ would be a great wage for most. However, I think thats not the point.
The reality of open source software is that a company could open a bidding process to reduce costs but who knows what you will get? Do I chose the 5$ bid or the 7$ bid offering 10 years of open source experience? Better by far to go to the author. I'd rather pay higher prices for a guaranteed delivery than lower prices and have nothing at the end of the project.
I agree with other posts that if you charge normal contrcting rates, better get ready to deliver or be sued though. If I pay top dollar I want delivery, not excuses.
WrocEng
Thank god they dont have H(acking)UI charges.
We all know that running an IT department with one main operating system reduces maintenance costs, training costs, can result in lower buying price for hardware (all the same) and a thousand small cost benefits resulting in a big IT saving.
Further, the secondary effect of unification of services can result, leading to lower costs in running a given service. For example if departments can exchange information on a person who moves from one area of the state to another through a shared database format, rather than by paper copy, time and cost benefits result for the tax payers.
So, given that the software in question is free (according to their article), their whole argument is flawed. Thats too polite. A flaw is usually a small inaccuracy in argument, their article is ...
(answers on a postcard)
WrocEng
(ps I live in a post communist country so their rhetoric seems even more ridiculous than their basic argument)
Or how to make yourself unpopular... I haven't seen one person read this patent in detail before shouting about prior art yet (though I've not read all posts). The patent is quite specific. For example, if you maintain web pages in categories and allocate number of downloads per category you are not covered by this patent. If you create a filter database of any kind, categorised, time based etc but add the pages by hand, you are not covered (though you may be by another patent). There are many styles of implementing filtering that are not covered by this patent. Specifically you must have in your system: 1. Categories 2. A learning database based around words 3. Lexical analysis of incoming pages 4. Timing 5. Users permission list If any one of these elements is missing, its not prior art. So no, filtering per se is not covered.