“Make a habit of canceling every subscription to anything you don’t have time to read.” – Marilyn vos Savant
There’s a famous “hype cycle” in marketing, first popularized by Gartner. We seem to be in the early upward part of that cycle, where connecting every #@%$ thing to the cloud seems like a good idea. Right up until it’s … Read More → "Revenge of the IoT Failures IV"
“It is easier to write an incorrect program than to understand a correct one.” – programmers’ adage
My first real job was repairing hard disk drives. I’d open up the drives, clean the platters with an alcohol pad, and align the read/write heads using a screwdriver and an oscilloscope. The guy at the bench next to mine had the same job, but he smoked all day and liked to rest his cigarettes on the edge of the drive while he worked. He was careful to blow any … Read More → "Tales from the Debugging Crypt"
Industrial facilities are jam-packed with expensive machines of all shapes and sizes. If something goes pear-shaped with one of these little scamps, it can bring a production line to its metaphorical knees. Fortunately, the folks at MathWorks have the 21st century equivalent of a crystal ball that can help predict when the machines might fail.
I love the smell of fresh machine oil in the morning. It may sound strange, but I really enjoy wandering around an industrial facility heeding the sounds, observing the machines in action, and having a … Read More → "Digital Twins Promote Predictive Maintenance"
“The benchmark of quality I go for is pretty high.” – Jimmy Page
By now it will have escaped no one’s attention that the fastest computer in the entire world is powered by… ARM processors.
Yup, the little Acorn that could is all growed up now and playing with the big boys. The biggest, in fact. The same CPU architecture that powered your old iPod is now plotting global takeover. Or making weather predictions. Or curing cancer, or whatever it is the … Read More → "The Supercomputing Monoculture"
Intel has announced what they call their “First Intel AI-Optimized FPGA,” the Stratix 10 NX family. The company says these FPGAs “will offer customers customizable, reconfigurable and scalable AI acceleration for compute-demanding applications such as natural language processing and fraud detection.” Intel has bet on all the horses in the AI race, adding “Deep Learning Boost (DL Boost) to their flagship Xeon processors to dramatically accelerate AI inference in conventional data center processors, but also investing heavily in acceleration strategies such as FPGAs, acquisition of Habana Labs, Nervana (whose technology has now been reportedly dropped in favor … Read More → "Intel Announces Stratix 10 NX"
“My strength is translating emotion because I’m such a feeler.” – Selena Gomez
Apple’s upcoming ARM-based Macs will run existing x86 software alongside ARM native code. How does that work, how good is it, and what magic tricks is Apple using? We asked around to find out.
I spoke with some current and former Apple employees and microprocessor designers, who shall remain anonymous. They hinted at certain hardware/software tradeoffs that hold the secret to Apple’s remarkably good performance in … Read More → "What’s Inside Apple Silicon Processors?"
I just heard from those clever chaps and chapesses at Algolux, who tell me they are using an evolutionary algorithm approach in their Atlas Camera Optimization Suite, which — they say — is the industry’s first set of machine-learning tools and workflows that can automatically optimize camera architectures intended for computer vision applications.
As we will see, this is exciting on many levels, not the least that it prompted me to start cogitating, ruminating, and musing on the possibilities that might ensue from combining … Read More → "When Genetic Algorithms Meet Artificial Intelligence"
“Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
There’s something about MEMS that seems almost magical, like tiny machines forged by elves. We think nothing of a 7nm CMOS die with billions of transistors, but a wee electromechanical accelerometer with moving parts seems otherworldly.
So, it’s no small feat when a startup company produces a tiny MEMS speaker, suitable for your next set of AirPods, hearing aid, or Bluetooth headset. We’ve had MEMS microphones for … Read More → "Startup Introduces MEMS Speaker"
Lattice Semiconductor has a knack for finding and exploiting holes in the programmable logic market. Years ago, they gave up chest beating their way into a distant third place in the FPGA market and decided instead to concentrate on the areas that the two dominant players (Xilinx and Intel/Altera) were ignoring. In a broad sense, that meant low-end FPGAs – devices with small form factors, small price tags, and very low power consumption. In support of that strategy, they launched lines of well-focused low- and mid-range FPGAs and acquired SiliconBlue – a startup that was making extra-tiny … Read More → "Lattice Launches Certus-NX"
“Instagram… is like doing a photo shoot for no money, which is cool.” — Goapele Mohlabane
The city of Munich, Germany, is famous for two things: the annual Oktoberfest party (which is really in September) and as the headquarters of carmaker BMW. It also has large and leafy parks (with clothing-optional areas), views of the Alps, a 38-hour work week, seven huge breweries, and lots of museums and cafes, and it’s a hub of high-tech electronics companies. Okay, make that eight things.
