Articles – Page 199

April 3, 2014

Do you like to be watched while you work?

Most people don’t. There’s this fine line between making sure that stakeholders know about your progress on a project and having those stakeholders all up in your business all the time. The latter is micromanagement, and no one likes that.

More and more EDA tools are being provisioned with management and reporting features. These make it easier for you as a designer to let your supervisor or project manager know what you’ve accomplished and what remains – and you spend less time writing up … Read More → "Exposed by Tools"

Ray-Tracing Wizard Requires Imagination

New PowerVR GPU Includes Ray-Tracing Hardware

by Jim Turley

April 2, 2014

Ray tracing is one of those cool things that computer geeks often play with at some point in their careers. I fiddled with ray-tracing software a number of years ago and decided that (a) it was pretty cool technology, and (b) I was no good at it.

If you’re not into graphics, “ray tracing” is a way of producing computer graphics by mathematically calculating how rays of light would actually bounce around a scene if it were real. That is, instead of a graphic artist drawing the scene on his/her computer, you instead model the … Read More → "Ray-Tracing Wizard Requires Imagination"

Augmented Reality

A Compelling Mobile Embedded Vision Opportunity

by Amelia Dalton

April 1, 2014

The prior article in this series, “Embedded Vision on Mobile Devices: Opportunities and Challenges,” introduced various embedded vision applications that could be implemented on smartphones, tablet computers and other mobile electronics systems (Reference 1). In this and future articles, we’ll delve into greater implementation detail on each of the previously discussed applications. Specifically, this article will examine the processing requirements for vision-based tracking in AR (augmented reality), along with the ability of mobile platforms to address these requirements. Future planned … Read More → "Augmented Reality"

The Annual EUV Update

No, We’re Not There Yet. Am I Gonna Have to Turn This Thing Around?

by Bryon Moyer

March 31, 2014

OK, folks, SPIE Advanced Litho happened last month, so it must be time for… wait for it… wait for it… wait for it…

That’s the best clue I can think of.

Still waiting for it? Yup, we are. EUV is the thing we’re awaiting, of course.

So this is the obligatory update on the The Technology that Will Finally Save the Imminent End of Moore’s Law. Which would, of course, be disastrous. Ending Moore’s Law, that … Read More → "The Annual EUV Update"

Accelerating Innovation in Cloud & Mobile Computing

Part 2

by Jim Turley

March 27, 2014

In part one of this article series, I suggested that datacenter architectures could benefit from revisiting the parallel computing innovations of the 1980s, and I waxed lyrically about the Transputer, which struck a chord with a surprising number of readers – including one reader who wrote “we built a fabulous Transputer board … didn’t sell many of them … I haven’t thought about it for decades.” It was a heartfelt email, though I am not clear if that was because of his fond memory of the … Read More → "Accelerating Innovation in Cloud & Mobile Computing"

Officer, My Computer Crashed

Self-driving Cars Might Be Better Than What We Have Now

by Jim Turley

March 26, 2014

When you’re driving at 182 MPH, don’t slam on the brakes and expect to survive.

That thought flitted briefly through my mind as I watched the concrete wall surrounding Daytona International Speedway approach my car window at, well, 182 MPH.

This is the sort of thing that happens to me in the winter months, when the racetracks are too wet, the tires are too cold, and the carburetor is too finicky. I wasn’t really racing at the real Daytona. Oh, no. A strong sense of self-preservation runs in my family. … Read More → "Officer, My Computer Crashed"

Board Revolution

Part 2 - Mentor Xpedition

by Kevin Morris

March 25, 2014

Mentor Graphics is number one in PCB design tools. They want me to tell you that. They want me to tell you that – even after reading about my disdain for marketing the market share of your product. So – there ya go. They’re number one. Why does this matter? Well, they rightfully point out that nobody ever got fired for buying the leading tool, and that EDA can be a fickle business. If an EDA tool is number one (they observe), the company … Read More → "Board Revolution"

Distributing Data, Machine to Machine

RTI Updates Their DDS System

by Bryon Moyer

March 24, 2014

The Internet of Things (IoT) is all about Things talking to people and to other Things. This relationship between Things and other Things and People is vague enough that pretty much any product, from transistors to toilet paper, can be marketed as somehow helping to enable the IoT.

While that confusion suggests that some ordering of the IoT might be helpful to those trying to comprehend it (which I’ve attempted before and was originally planning to Read More → "Distributing Data, Machine to Machine"

Communications Out of Thin Air

Ambient Backscatter Concept Proven

by Bryon Moyer

March 20, 2014

The piper will be paid.

You can do all kinds of things to reduce currents in your wireless sensor node or other module that will be sending a signal. Heck, you can magically make it draw zero power, and still the piper will be paid.

Because when it comes time to transmit that data, then, by definition, you will expend power. That power is required to send your message from you over the air to wherever. That doesn’t happen for free. And it’s typically the most power-hungry part of a well-defined, optimized wireless … Read More → "Communications Out of Thin Air"

Qualcomm: the Intel of Cellphones

In the Mobile Modem Market, There’s a Different 500-pound Gorilla

by Jim Turley

March 19, 2014

In the computer world, we’re long accustomed to Intel’s being the overwhelmingly dominant supplier. If you use the words “computer chip” or “microprocessor” around normal people, they reflexively think of Intel, the way most people equate “Coke” with fizzy cola drinks or “NSA” with creepy surveillance.

It’s a different reality with cellphone makers. In that world, Qualcomm is the proverbial 500-pound gorilla. The San Diego–based company makes 58% of all the baseband chips used in cellphones around the world, regardless of country, wireless standard, or price level. That means Qualcomm alone sells more chips … Read More → "Qualcomm: the Intel of Cellphones"