Articles – Page 16

Augmenting an Existing 2D CMOS Sensor to Provide 3D Depth Perception

December 26, 2024

The term “machine vision” refers to the technologies and processes by which machines extract, analyze, and interpret visual information from the physical world using sensors and computational algorithms. It enables machines to “see,” make decisions, and perform actions based on their visual inputs.

While 2D machine vision is great—I won’t hear a bad word said about 2D—it must be acknowledged that everything is better in 3D. Being equipped with 3D depth perception provides machine vision systems with more complete data for their AI applications. This enables robots, automobiles, and other … Read More → "Augmenting an Existing 2D CMOS Sensor to Provide 3D Depth Perception"

The Day of the Drum Machine

by Steven Leibson

December 23, 2024

Ikutaro Kakehashi founded Roland Corporation in Osaka on April 18, 1972. He’d just resigned from his first company, Ace Electronic Industries, the previous month. Ace made electronic rhythm machines for electronic organs, and its largest customer was the Hammond Organ Company. When Roland opened for business, it had no products. Kakehashi quickly developed electronic drum or rhythm machines to start the revenue stream that would help him realize his bigger dream of delivering a broad range of electronic musical instruments to musicians around the world who longed for ways to make new and novel sounds. That first year, … Read More → "The Day of the Drum Machine"

Bringing Innate Intelligence to Trillions of Devices

by Max Maxfield

December 19, 2024

Did you ever wonder why they (whoever “they” are) chose the prefix “tera” to mean trillion (as in 10^12, or 1,000,000,000,000)? Well, it’s because because this comes from the Greek word teras, meaning “monster” or “marvel.” Thus, “tera” was chosen to reflect the large size of a trillion, implying something vast and extraordinary, much like the way a monster or marvel would stand proud in the crowd. You’re welcome.

The reason I mention this here is that I was just chatting with Sumeet Kumar, who is the CEO at Read More → "Bringing Innate Intelligence to Trillions of Devices"

The Man Who Loved Music

by Steven Leibson

December 16, 2024

This article is a book review of an autobiography of Ikutaro Kakehashi, published in 2002 and titled “I Believe in Music.” Kakehashi-san founded the electronic music powerhouse Roland, and this review was triggered by an article I read about the user-programmable Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, an automatic electronic drum machine. Kakehashi’s autobiography details the life of a man who dedicated his life to music, electronics, and entrepreneurship. I found the book to be an amazing story involving the rise of Japan from the bitter ashes of World War II to an economic and electronics powerhouse in the … Read More → "The Man Who Loved Music"

From Concept to Programmable Logic Prototype in Minutes

by Max Maxfield

December 12, 2024

My poor old noggin is currently buzzing with ideas for things I could do with the new line of programmable devices that were recently introduced by the guys and gals at Texas Instruments.

As usual, of course, in addition to these new devices themselves, myriad ancillary thoughts are currently cavorting around my cranium.

Let’s start with Texas Instruments itself. It may not surprise you to learn that this is a Texas-based corporation (talk about a clue). This … Read More → "From Concept to Programmable Logic Prototype in Minutes"

A Bold New Twist on Optical Computing

by Max Maxfield

December 10, 2024

There are obvious attractions to “computing at the speed of light” with photonics-based technology—not just the extremely high speed, although that’s important, of course, but also the extremely low power as compared to transistor-logic-based computational implementations.

I’ve been exposed to a few companies offering various flavors of optical computing solutions over the course of the past couple of years. Until now, however, these have all predominantly involved injecting multiple beams of light at different frequencies and phases into lengths of optical fiber and using interference to perform complex calculations that … Read More → "A Bold New Twist on Optical Computing"

AMD Tweaks Versal Premium FPGAs to Produce Next-Generation Devices

by Steven Leibson

December 9, 2024

AMD has announced the eventual appearance of 2^nd-Generation Versal Premium FPGAs. Plans for this new generation include four devices with 643,456 to 1.5 million LUTs and 3332 to 7616 DSP blocks. Most of the logic fabric inside these 2^nd-generation devices remains architecturally unchanged from the first generation, but there’s been an emphasis on more DSPs and relatively fewer LUTs. This architectural change targets mil/aero, test and measurement, and 6G comms applications. The new Versal FPGA generation will be built on TSMCs 6nm process (N6), a … Read More → "AMD Tweaks Versal Premium FPGAs to Produce Next-Generation Devices"

Will the last person to leave Intel please turn out the light?

by Steven Leibson

December 9, 2024

Intel’s CEO Pat Gelsinger has left the building – specifically Intel’s headquarters: the Robert Noyce Building in Santa Clara, California. On December 2, Intel issued a press release stating that:

“…CEO Pat Gelsinger retired from the company after a distinguished 40-plus-year career and has stepped down from the board of directors, effective Dec. 1, 2024.”

This is not the normal way to announce the retirement of a high-tech CEO. Normally, such things are pre-announced, not announced after the fact. The announcement’s appearance a day after the fact indicates that things … Read More → "Will the last person to leave Intel please turn out the light?"

Streaming AI Development and Deployment at the Edge

by Max Maxfield

December 5, 2024

I’ve said it before, and I’ll doubtless say it again—I like a simple story that I can wrap (what I laughingly call) my mind around. Too many times have I received a briefing from some overly enthusiastic company spokes-wiffle-waffle-person—you know the kind, they talk quickly and wave their arms around a lot—only for us to arrive at the end of the presentation with me finding myself wearing a rictus smile and thinking, “Say what?” to myself.

Bearing this in mind, you will be happy to hear that I … Read More → "Streaming AI Development and Deployment at the Edge"

The Rise and Fall of Heathkit – Part 6: And Yet More Final Thoughts

by Steven Leibson

December 4, 2024

Before conducting my Zoom interview about the Heath Company and Heathkits with Chas Gilmore – formerly the VP of product development, marketing, and sales at Heath – I sent him a written list of questions so he could review and organize his memories of working at Heath. We covered most of my questions during the interview, which appear in the first five parts of this article series, but we did not touch upon or only partially discussed three of my written questions.

After I’d written the 5-part article series covering the information that we … Read More → "The Rise and Fall of Heathkit – Part 6: And Yet More Final Thoughts"