Articles – Page 98

October 2, 2019

The Internet of Things will be a defining element of the next big era of computing, but building it is like making a lake with an eye-dropper. That’s because each IoT user has to figure out its return on investment (ROI), design an embedded system geared for it, and overcome its fears of insecurity.

Back in the late 1980’s, Mark Weiser of Xerox PARC defined this next phase as one in which computers are deeply embedded in everyday objects, creating smart environments. At the time, he called it ubiquitous computing, but now it’s commonly called … Read More → "The Three Foes of the IoT"

Patent-Analysis AI Forecasts Market Activity

Software Scours USPTO Filings for Tech-Related Developments

by Jim Turley

October 1, 2019

“The average member of modern society is ill-equipped to be alone with his thoughts.” – John Krewson

What if you could get inside information on your competitors’ plans? Better still, what if you could get a heads-up when companies you’ve never even heard of start making moves to enter your turf?

That’s the business proposition for Magic NumberRead More → "Patent-Analysis AI Forecasts Market Activity"

Sound Bites

An Audio Update

by Bryon Moyer

September 30, 2019

Funny how, right after I put out my previous audio story, I suddenly started receiving more audio news than ever. So I’ve collected a few of the announcements to breeze through today. Each was selected for some interesting piece of what was going on. … Read More →

The Artificial Intelligence Apocalypse (Part 2)

Is It Time to Be Scared Yet?

by Max Maxfield

September 26, 2019

In Part 1 of this 3-part miniseries, we cogitated and ruminated on the origins of artificial intelligence (AI). We also started to look at some of the “happy face” aspects of AI in the form of speech recognition, voice control, and machine vision.

Let’s continue with our happy faces for a moment. AI is now turning up in all sorts of applications, many of which are truly exciting with the potential to make the world a better place. Later, when we’ve lulled ourselves into a false sense … Read More → "The Artificial Intelligence Apocalypse (Part 2)"

IP Market Large, Growing, and Strange

Apart from One Big Winner, Fortunes are Decidedly Mixed

by Jim Turley

September 25, 2019

The semiconductor IP market is big, growing, lopsided, lumpy, and weird.

What it’s not is particularly lucrative. Which is odd, considering that you’re selling the rights to intangible goods and collecting royalties on that in perpetuity. At first blush, it’s like printing money, just without the money part.

The total IP market raked in somewhere around $4.7 billion to $4.9 billion in 2018, depending on what you count and whom you ask. (As there … Read More → "IP Market Large, Growing, and Strange"

AI Sparks Hyper-Competition

Summit Points to the Future for Accelerators

by Rick Merritt

September 24, 2019

Big data center operators say they are seeing a steady stream of new architectures for accelerating deep learning neural networks—and the flow is just getting started, according to comments at last week’s AI Hardware Summit. One analyst pegged the number of established and startup companies designing AI accelerators at a whopping 130.

“The machine-learning revolution has reopened the opportunity for new architectures…let a thousand flowers bloom,” said … Read More → "AI Sparks Hyper-Competition"

From Chiplet to Chiplet

Open Interconnect for an Open Market

by Bryon Moyer

September 23, 2019

A couple of months ago we talked about the new chip disintegration approach: chiplets. And even longer ago, we talked about zGlue’s fabric for interconnecting chiplets. But there are actually several ways in which chiplets are viewed as being co-assembled, which leaves the question, how are we going to connect these … Read More → "From Chiplet to Chiplet"

The Artificial Intelligence Apocalypse (Part 1)

Is It Time to Be Scared Yet?

by Max Maxfield

September 19, 2019

Since time immemorial, humans have been drawn to the idea of creating artificial creatures and intelligences. In Jewish folklore, for example, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being formed from inanimate clay or mud (as an aside, Helene Wecker’s break-out novel, The Golem and the Jinni, will have you on the edge of your seat at its conclusion).

More recently, mechanical automata … Read More → "The Artificial Intelligence Apocalypse (Part 1)"

Embedded File Systems: a Tricky Task

by Jim Turley

September 18, 2019

“Fast, cheap, or reliable: pick any two” – Racer’s adage

Storing data used to be so easy. You’d MOV or POKE a few bytes into RAM and leave ’em there. If you had to store a lot of data, maybe you’d use an EEPROM, hard drive, or flash memory. Retrieving the data was almost as easy… assuming you remembered where you’d stored it.

Now, we need entire file systems to keep track of all the stored data, … Read More → "Embedded File Systems: a Tricky Task"

Group Puzzles Out Silicon Specs

Chiplet Effort Seeks Interface Standards

by Rick Merritt

September 17, 2019

Someday, a new class of semiconductor companies will assemble their products Lego-style, mixing and matching dice from multiple companies. It’s a huge change that’s still a long way off.

More than 146 people from 80 companies signed up for an event last week at IBM’s Almaden Research Center to take some small steps in this direction. It was the fourth major face-to-face this year for the Open Domain-Specific Architecture (ODSA) group, following others hosted by Samsung and Intel.

In a sign of growing … Read More → "Group Puzzles Out Silicon Specs"