When the laptop you buy in 2010 comes with a connector from 1987 you know your standards body isn't working. Yet, VESA tries and tries again. I expect DisplayPort to join DVI and VLB on the trash heap.
CPU success is all about yield and it doesn't matter how may billions of people they have or how cheap the labor is, Intel doesn't "out-innovate" their competitors, they out-manufacture them. (ask AMD)
Hope this happens. After transcoding my CD collection to FLAC to arhive it, I now regularly batch re-encode to smaller and smaller bit rates using new releases of lossy encoders. AAC has gotten much better (esp AAC-HE) over the years to the point for a portable player, 48kbs is perfectly acceptable to my ears. With a 16GB iPod Touch, I could see buying music from the iTMS in some lossless format and transcoding to get my entire collection all on a small, flash memory player.
One other point - 256kbs is an odd choice - not ideal for archiving and not ideal for portable audio players (it's total overkill). I would have preferred to see FLAC or even ALAC (Apple's own lossless codec) rather than a high bit rate lossy.
Unlike lossless codecs which marginally improve compression ratios from release to release, lossy codecs continue to significantly improve at lower and lower bitrates. With a lossless archive, you can batch transcode your music collection as lossy technology improves thus giving you the ability to keep more and more of your music collection on your portable DAP (like a cellphone) without any compromises in sound quality. I currently use Vorbis at 80kbs for my portable music and FLAC for my archives...in other words, the two extremes. 256kbs AAC is technical no-mans-lands as far as I'm concerned.
I keep two copies - my FLAC 'originals' and my lossless transcodes. It is simply *AMAZING* the improvements in lossy codecs over the last 2 years. There are lot of misconceptions that remain like "any MP3 encoded at 192kbs sounds like garbage". Any codec released in the last year is really good at 128kbs. All the music on my portable players is 80kbs Vorbis. I keep FLAC sources and conduct listening tests every 6 months or so to see 'how low I can go'. My home stereo setup uses FLAC and a Sonos music system but my portable systems are all very low bitrate. My next transcode will probably be 48kbs AAC-HE. BTW - those 48kbs transcodes are running about 300KB a minute! You should try some listening tests for yourself...
I seriously doubt the average home machine is going to cost > $50K in 4 years. While a future home PC might have that kind of compute power, it won't cost ANYWHERE near that much.
A quick check at HP.com shows a ProLiant DL585 with 2 800-series dual-core Opteron processors starts at $12K. Add in 24GB of RAM and 10TB (two MSA30 each with 14 drives) and you're north of $50K in a hurry...
Even better - the DL585 now supports Dual-Core Opteron. If you can afford 64GB of memory - but a good server like the DL585 - it supports Hot Plug memory and memory mirroring to boot. It also has hot plug redundant fans and power supplies so with 8 cores and 64GB of memory it should be able to handle a LOT of work.
I stumbled across this link last year - this guy was basically doing the same kinds of things. See more at: http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm
This is about the battle for Corporate America. And while I agree that security is important, most companies want IE's security issues addressed rather than having to make the switch.
I think the reviewer made a lot of good points. Windows XP/2000 is effectively the corporate desktop standard. Thus, IE is *the* corporate browser standard. Things like group policies, MSI install packages, etc. are EXTREMELY important to IT staffs. No question the lack of these features will hamper the adoption of Mozilla-based browsers by large companies.
Corporate IT departments make the call. That's why they're there. It's easy to see why they use the browser that comes with the OS. Why have to maintain/test/roll out yet one more app? If it's your job to support 100,000 end users - just stick with what has been working.
Calling it a standard doesn't make it one. IBM needs to be working through a non-profit standards based organization. Until then, this is NOTHING but hype.
Uh...yawn. HP has been shipping a 4P Opteron server for about 2 months. HP announced their 64-bit 2P Nacona servers (360 and 380 G4) this week as well.
That's seriously the stupidest thing I've ever seen written. Nice job.
CEOs get paid to be ahead of the change curve, not behind. No question where you stand.
Read this http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/india.htm l
Kevin Rollins is picking up where Mikey Dell left off - bashing Compaq. For the last 15 years, the Delluddites have had a SERIOUS inferiority complex.
To give them credit, they've done well in PCs. But what about the rest of their portfolio? Servers...uh, haven't unseated Compaq, handhelds, nope; notebooks, nope; switches, nope; printers, HELL NO; services, nope; enterprise storage, nope...so that leaves PCs.
Rollins and Dell love to tell the world that Dell is going to unseat HP as king of printers. The thing that makes the HP printer business king is compatibility and I just can't see a good reason to by a Dell printer if you don't already own a Dell computer. Thus, they've grown quickly as they've sold to their own customers. I think they'll hit a cap soon and stagnate.
The only market share they've taken thus far is from is their own partner (Lexmark) - I wonder how long that will last.
With all the problems and destruction from the first Gulf War, Iraq is actually only the 9th largest refiner of crude oil, behind countries like Venezuela and Nigeria.
The reason wan't oil, but rather ego.
According to an HP press release, the only stuff that leaves DreamWorks goes to HP. See:
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2004/04041 9a.html
HP Utility Rendering Service: Adaptive technology helps improve cost-effectiveness
The HP URS was built by researchers at HP Labs in Palo Alto using a 1,000-processor compute farm built on industry-standard systems, including HP ProLiant DL360 servers running Linux and HP ProCurve network switches. It is linked via a secure, high-speed network to DreamWorks Animation studios to provide an extension of DreamWorks' internal data center. This gives the studio a pooled set of resources that can be tapped as needed without having to make a major capital investment.
A highly adaptive enterprise environment, the HP URS allowed DreamWorks the flexibility to add significant peak capacity for the final stages of rendering "Shrek 2," which will be released May 21. To date, more than a half million individual frames have been processed on the HP URS. This may be the first time a major film animation company has gone outside its gates for a significant share of the critical digital rendering process that adds color, texture, lighting and special effects to 3D character models and scenes.
HP Labs researchers developed advanced capabilities for service configuration and management and put comprehensive instrumentation in place to collect many terabytes of system data that are used to optimize performance and reliability. The URS data center is a high-density installation that employs HP's unique "smart" cooling and "smart" power solutions to provide the maximum compute capability in a small and cost-efficient footprint.
According the US Labor Dept Inflation Calculator, a $1000 TV in 1954 would cost about $6900 in 2004 dollars - about the price of a nice High-Def Plasma...interesting.
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When the laptop you buy in 2010 comes with a connector from 1987 you know your standards body isn't working. Yet, VESA tries and tries again. I expect DisplayPort to join DVI and VLB on the trash heap.
CPU success is all about yield and it doesn't matter how may billions of people they have or how cheap the labor is, Intel doesn't "out-innovate" their competitors, they out-manufacture them. (ask AMD)
There was an article on this company (High End Systems) in today's Austin-American Statesman here http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/technology/08/12/0812high_end.html
Hope this happens. After transcoding my CD collection to FLAC to arhive it, I now regularly batch re-encode to smaller and smaller bit rates using new releases of lossy encoders. AAC has gotten much better (esp AAC-HE) over the years to the point for a portable player, 48kbs is perfectly acceptable to my ears. With a 16GB iPod Touch, I could see buying music from the iTMS in some lossless format and transcoding to get my entire collection all on a small, flash memory player.
One other point - 256kbs is an odd choice - not ideal for archiving and not ideal for portable audio players (it's total overkill). I would have preferred to see FLAC or even ALAC (Apple's own lossless codec) rather than a high bit rate lossy. Unlike lossless codecs which marginally improve compression ratios from release to release, lossy codecs continue to significantly improve at lower and lower bitrates. With a lossless archive, you can batch transcode your music collection as lossy technology improves thus giving you the ability to keep more and more of your music collection on your portable DAP (like a cellphone) without any compromises in sound quality. I currently use Vorbis at 80kbs for my portable music and FLAC for my archives...in other words, the two extremes. 256kbs AAC is technical no-mans-lands as far as I'm concerned.
I keep two copies - my FLAC 'originals' and my lossless transcodes. It is simply *AMAZING* the improvements in lossy codecs over the last 2 years. There are lot of misconceptions that remain like "any MP3 encoded at 192kbs sounds like garbage". Any codec released in the last year is really good at 128kbs. All the music on my portable players is 80kbs Vorbis. I keep FLAC sources and conduct listening tests every 6 months or so to see 'how low I can go'. My home stereo setup uses FLAC and a Sonos music system but my portable systems are all very low bitrate. My next transcode will probably be 48kbs AAC-HE. BTW - those 48kbs transcodes are running about 300KB a minute! You should try some listening tests for yourself...
I seriously doubt the average home machine is going to cost > $50K in 4 years. While a future home PC might have that kind of compute power, it won't cost ANYWHERE near that much.
A quick check at HP.com shows a ProLiant DL585 with 2 800-series dual-core Opteron processors starts at $12K. Add in 24GB of RAM and 10TB (two MSA30 each with 14 drives) and you're north of $50K in a hurry...
Even better - the DL585 now supports Dual-Core Opteron. If you can afford 64GB of memory - but a good server like the DL585 - it supports Hot Plug memory and memory mirroring to boot. It also has hot plug redundant fans and power supplies so with 8 cores and 64GB of memory it should be able to handle a LOT of work.
I stumbled across this link last year - this guy was basically doing the same kinds of things. See more at: http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm
This is about the battle for Corporate America. And while I agree that security is important, most companies want IE's security issues addressed rather than having to make the switch.
I think the reviewer made a lot of good points. Windows XP/2000 is effectively the corporate desktop standard. Thus, IE is *the* corporate browser standard. Things like group policies, MSI install packages, etc. are EXTREMELY important to IT staffs. No question the lack of these features will hamper the adoption of Mozilla-based browsers by large companies.
Corporate IT departments make the call. That's why they're there. It's easy to see why they use the browser that comes with the OS. Why have to maintain/test/roll out yet one more app? If it's your job to support 100,000 end users - just stick with what has been working.
Calling it a standard doesn't make it one. IBM needs to be working through a non-profit standards based organization. Until then, this is NOTHING but hype.
This article explains it rather well: http://arstechnica.com/cpu/004/prescott-future/pre scott-2.html
Yes, I did read the post. Were you trying to convey something interesting or just stating the obvious? Another "me too" Dell product...how novel!
Uh...yawn. HP has been shipping a 4P Opteron server for about 2 months. HP announced their 64-bit 2P Nacona servers (360 and 380 G4) this week as well.
That's seriously the stupidest thing I've ever seen written. Nice job. CEOs get paid to be ahead of the change curve, not behind. No question where you stand. Read this http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/india.htm l
Kevin Rollins is picking up where Mikey Dell left off - bashing Compaq. For the last 15 years, the Delluddites have had a SERIOUS inferiority complex. To give them credit, they've done well in PCs. But what about the rest of their portfolio? Servers...uh, haven't unseated Compaq, handhelds, nope; notebooks, nope; switches, nope; printers, HELL NO; services, nope; enterprise storage, nope...so that leaves PCs. Rollins and Dell love to tell the world that Dell is going to unseat HP as king of printers. The thing that makes the HP printer business king is compatibility and I just can't see a good reason to by a Dell printer if you don't already own a Dell computer. Thus, they've grown quickly as they've sold to their own customers. I think they'll hit a cap soon and stagnate. The only market share they've taken thus far is from is their own partner (Lexmark) - I wonder how long that will last.
With all the problems and destruction from the first Gulf War, Iraq is actually only the 9th largest refiner of crude oil, behind countries like Venezuela and Nigeria. The reason wan't oil, but rather ego.
According to an HP press release, the only stuff that leaves DreamWorks goes to HP. See: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2004/04041 9a.html
HP Utility Rendering Service: Adaptive technology helps improve cost-effectiveness
The HP URS was built by researchers at HP Labs in Palo Alto using a 1,000-processor compute farm built on industry-standard systems, including HP ProLiant DL360 servers running Linux and HP ProCurve network switches. It is linked via a secure, high-speed network to DreamWorks Animation studios to provide an extension of DreamWorks' internal data center. This gives the studio a pooled set of resources that can be tapped as needed without having to make a major capital investment.
A highly adaptive enterprise environment, the HP URS allowed DreamWorks the flexibility to add significant peak capacity for the final stages of rendering "Shrek 2," which will be released May 21. To date, more than a half million individual frames have been processed on the HP URS. This may be the first time a major film animation company has gone outside its gates for a significant share of the critical digital rendering process that adds color, texture, lighting and special effects to 3D character models and scenes.
HP Labs researchers developed advanced capabilities for service configuration and management and put comprehensive instrumentation in place to collect many terabytes of system data that are used to optimize performance and reliability. The URS data center is a high-density installation that employs HP's unique "smart" cooling and "smart" power solutions to provide the maximum compute capability in a small and cost-efficient footprint.
I find Folding@Home to be a much more worthwhile use of my spare CPU cycles.
According the US Labor Dept Inflation Calculator, a $1000 TV in 1954 would cost about $6900 in 2004 dollars - about the price of a nice High-Def Plasma...interesting.