Articles – Page 67

July 5, 2021

Clouds are ephemeral, passing quickly from sight, carried away on the lightest of breezes. Apparently, so are cloud-based products.

Consumer giant Samsung has decided to deep-six its entire SmartThings product line, starting with users’ home hubs. As of last week, SmartThings hubs stopped working. They’re essentially bricked because, like all cloud-based services, they sail upon the whim of the host company. Samsung decided it didn’t want to build and support SmartThings products anymore, so it simply blew them away.

This, despite the … Read More → "RIP, Cloud-Connected Devices"

Accelerating C/C++ Without Tears or Tribulations

by Max Maxfield

July 1, 2021

Just to make sure I have your attention, let’s start with the conclusion and then I’ll tell you how we got there. Is that OK with you? Good. In that case, the conclusion is that the clever folks at CacheQ have come up with a cunning solution that can take your regular single-threaded C/C++ code and compile it in such a way as to achieve multi-threaded acceleration on CPUs with multiple physical cores, all without any effort, pain, tears, trials, or tribulations on your part. Interested? If so, read on…

Your Car: 25 GB/Hour of Personal Data

Otonomo Makes it Their Business to Track, Sell Your Whereabouts

by Jim Turley

June 30, 2021

What defines creepy? Is it a dark abandoned house with creaking floors and a history of mayhem? A doll with eyes that seem to follow you? A backwoods loner with a chainsaw?

Or is it your car? Your car takes you to work, to your friends’ houses, to your favorite vacation spots, and back home again. It goes everywhere with you — or you with it. It’s your closest companion, along for every ride, every adventure, and every misadventure. So what would happen if this close companion blabbed to a … Read More → "Your Car: 25 GB/Hour of Personal Data"

Lattice Launches CertusPro-NX

Sets the Bar on Mid-range FPGA

by Kevin Morris

June 29, 2021

There is an interesting side effect of Moore’s Law’s relentless march, where some technologies atrophy even though they are still extremely relevant and applicable in the mainstream. Take, for example, the case of the 100K LUT FPGA. Not that many years ago, a 100K LUT FPGA was solidly in the high-end, and numerous applications took advantage of the generous helping of flexibility and hardware programmability that such a device brought to the table. At that time, the big FPGA vendors charged a premium for these devices, and customers lapped them up with glee.</ … Read More → "Lattice Launches CertusPro-NX"

Edge AI On The Cheap and Deep

Startup Deep Vision Emphasizes Programmability, Efficiency, Cost

by Jim Turley

June 28, 2021

There’s an old salesman’s adage that “confused customers never buy.” That’s why glossy sales brochures don’t have a lot of technical information, and why car salesmen don’t delve too deeply into features and benefits. Too much information can lead to analysis paralysis, and, while that might be fun for engineers, it’s bad for business.

There’s a separate but related effect in engineering. A new technology might be interesting and impressive, but if you don’t immediately grasp how to use it, it won’ … Read More → "Edge AI On The Cheap and Deep"

The A, B, C of USB for Beginners

by Max Maxfield

June 24, 2021

I don’t wish to appear greedy, and I certainly don’t wish to boast (I pride myself on my humility), but I do flatter myself that I know more than my fair share of Bobs (that is, people called Bob, not the hair style of the same moniker). I could start naming names, but (a) they would all be called Bob and (b) we would be here all day.

Suffice it to say that one Bob in particular is much on my mind at the moment, not least because … Read More → "The A, B, C of USB for Beginners"

Find Your Security in the Cloud

Sequitur Labs Adds “Trust as a Service”

by Jim Turley

June 22, 2021

Sometimes the biggest engineering challenge is overcoming NIH. The dreaded “not invented here” syndrome has derailed many a project, cost untold millions, wasted months, and produced inferior products. NIH is like our own children: it’s hard not to fall in love and overlook the flaws.

Sometimes what we need is a whack on the head and someone to tell us, “This is not your core competence! Give it up and let an expert do it!” It’s tough love in the engineering lab.

Morpheus Processor Foils Attackers

Research CPU is Designed to be Self-Vaccinating

by Jim Turley

June 21, 2021

Moving targets are always harder to hit. That’s the underlying premise behind Morpheus, a CPU designed to stop malware dead in its tracks. It’s not a commercial product, but a university research project created specifically to take on a DARPA challenge for secure processors. And so far, it looks like it works, deflecting every attack thrown its way.

Creating Tiny AI/ML-Equipped Systems to Run at the Extreme Edge

by Max Maxfield

June 17, 2021

One of my favorite science fiction authors is/was Isaac Asimov (should we use the past tense since he is no longer with us, or the present tense because we still enjoy his writings?). In many ways Asimov was a futurist, but — like all who attempt to foretell what is to come — he occasionally managed to miss the mark.

Take his classic Foundation Trilogy, for example ( … Read More → "Creating Tiny AI/ML-Equipped Systems to Run at the Extreme Edge"

Startup Polishes Wi-Fi HaLow

Palma Ceia Pivots from IP to Fabless Chip Business

by Jim Turley

June 16, 2021

There’s nothing quite like getting in on the ground floor. The whole market is yours. You’ve got “first mover advantage.” You get to set the pace that others must follow.

Or there’s the old adage that you can recognize the pioneers by the arrows in their backs. Either way you look at it, entering a new market is equal parts exciting, terrifying, lucrative, and risky. Even more so when your company is changing as fast as the market.

Things were going … Read More → "Startup Polishes Wi-Fi HaLow"