Articles – Page 97

December 3, 2019

“The most dangerous tool in the world is a dull knife.” — unknown

Google Earth is pretty cool, right? You can zoom in on any arbitrary point on the planet or watch the scenery zip by as you skim the surface at 1000 feet and 1000 MPH. Check out your neighbor’s backyard pool or circle the Eiffel Tower. It’s all right there in your browser.

Ever wonder how that works? Streaming an entire globe’s worth of high-resolution photos, elevation data, GIS info, … Read More → "WebAssembly: JavaScript Done Right"

Full-Chip ILT in a Day

D2S Brings a Custom Computing Platform to the Party

by Bryon Moyer

December 2, 2019

The upshot: With a custom computing box that emulates a giant CPU/GPU pair, D2S says that they can perform full-chip ILT in a day.

Ever since the sizes of features to be printed on silicon dropped well below the wavelength of the light used to do the printing, we’ve had to monkey with the shapes on the mask. We’ve had to print not simply what we want, but some morphed form of that, replete with “assist features” that make the mask Read More → "Full-Chip ILT in a Day"

Half-Life 2: Killing Products

Should Intel Delete Firmware for Older Motherboards?

by Jim Turley

November 26, 2019

“Veni, Vidi, Velcro: I came, I saw, I stuck around.” – unknown

How long should you keep your products in production?

If you’re making steam locomotives, the answer is: about a hundred years. If it’s iPhones, the production life shrinks to just a handful of months. Harlequin romance novels? About a week.

But what if you’re making software? Is there a reasonable time limit for availability, or should code live on forever? At what … Read More → "Half-Life 2: Killing Products"

Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?

Neocortix Would Like it to Be So

by Bryon Moyer

November 25, 2019

The upshot: Neocortix can muster smartphones to act as cloud computing resources.

From where we all sit, we see lots of cloud computing – either being developed or fully rolled out. The general public is also heavily involved with the cloud, although they may not be as aware of it. To much of the public, the cloud might feel like an amorphous notion of giant banks of computers – perhaps dominated by the Big Tech Overlords – that are out of their control. In other words, they’re not personally involved … Read More → "Is Crowd Computing the Next Big Thing?"

What the FAQ are ASICs, ASSPs, SoCs, SOMs, etc.?

by Max Maxfield

November 21, 2019

In my previous column — What the FAQ are CPUs, MPUs, MCUs, and GPUs? — we discussed the fact that the electronics industry is replete with acronyms, especially the three-letter variety. We also noted that we tend to learn a lot of things by osmosis, gradually (often unconsciously) assimilating nuggets of knowledge into a conceptual framework that appears to make sense… until it doesn’t.

Art Markman summed things up … Read More → "What the FAQ are ASICs, ASSPs, SoCs, SOMs, etc.?"

Bipolar Bear: Surface Pro X Tries Again, Fails Again

Microsoft’s New Tablet Has the Sexy Hardware But Not the Software

by Jim Turley

November 19, 2019

“Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” – Robert A. Heinlein

Microsoft is still a software company, right? Aren’t they the guys who made Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, and Flight Simulator? So then why do most of these not work on Microsoft’s own Surface Pro X computer?

In-Memory Computing

No Fewer than Four Approaches

by Bryon Moyer

November 18, 2019

The upshot: Memories can be arranged such that an “access” becomes a multiply-accumulate function. Storing weights in the memory and using activations as inputs saves data movement and power. And there are multiple ways to do this using RRAM, flash, and SRAM – and then there’s an approach involving DRAM, but it’s completely different.

In the scramble to win the artificial-intelligence (AI) lottery, numerous companies are trying to create the best machine-learning (ML) engines. That means the fastest inference with the lowest power, and the lowest-power thing … Read More → "In-Memory Computing"

What the FAQ are CPUs, MPUs, MCUs, and GPUs?

by Max Maxfield

November 14, 2019

I’m sure you know what the terms CPU, MPU, MCU, and GPU stand for. I’d wager you think you know which functional blocks each of these terms embraces. But are you 100% certain? Would you bet on it?

One of the problems we have in the electronics and computing industries is a surfeit of TLAs (three letter acronyms). The fact that the same TLA can be used to represent multiple and diverse things only exacerbates the matter.

Another issue is the fact that … Read More → "What the FAQ are CPUs, MPUs, MCUs, and GPUs?"

Imagination Technologies Rents Talent

IP Company Lends a Hand to Go with Its Circuitry

by Jim Turley

November 13, 2019

“I don’t want my personality to overshadow my talent.” – Cardi B

What is the IP business, really? You’re buying a product, albeit an intangible one. You pay a license fee and you get a thing in return, like huge and complicated Verilog files or millions of lines of software. Maybe you also get some documentation, or the right to stamp a logo on your product.

I don’t think it’s any of these. At its heart, IP isn’t … Read More → "Imagination Technologies Rents Talent"

Passwords Rent Asunder

The Tide Foundation Proposes Password Splintering for Better Security

by Bryon Moyer

November 12, 2019

The upshot: The Tide Organization tested password splintering and, in one study, found an increase of 14,064,094% in security as compared with “conventional, centralized alternatives.”

Passwords are this horrible thing that we can’t seem to escape. If we’re doing it right, each of the 300-odd passwords we need will be random, long, changed every month, and, of course, never written down anywhere. Yeah right. So… how can we make passwords more secure in the real world?

You want to be able … Read More → "Passwords Rent Asunder"