Jon Peddie Back Pages - It's all about the pixels

HPUs will transform the world

Posted by Jon Peddie on April 21st 2011 | Discuss
Tags: gpu cpu hpu

Just got back from COFES in sunny warm Scottsdale Arizona. Ensconced in the conference at a resort, and venturing out only at night to nearby restaurants, we were immune to the tremendous political stress this old west state is suffering through. Battling on multiple fronts with immigration pressure and unconstitutional remedies, minimal gun laws, tea parties, budget cuts, birther bills, an infamous country sheriff who's being sued by the feds, collapsed real estate values and tax base, it's amazing how cheerful everyone we met seems to be. Either they're living in some kind of a denial dome, or it's true what…

Calling all gamers ...  Come here, I want to count you

Posted by Jon Peddie on April 12th 2011 | Discuss
Tags: gaming report software games pc computers

At least once a week someone asks us how many gamers are there? We then have to go into a long series of questions to qualify the answer so we can try to quantify it: PC, console, handheld, or mobile phone? "PC," answer the person. So then we ask: Extreme enthusiast, enthusiast, mainstream, or casual? That usually gets an "Ahhhh… - what's the difference?" Then we know we're in trouble and the answer is not going to be satisfying. But we go for it anyway, that's just how we are. Extreme enthusiasts play intense first person shooters and flight sim (on-line…

What would we do without Moore’s Law?

Posted by Jon Peddie on March 25th 2011 | Discuss
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And all the other phrases and acronyms we live with Have you ever wondered how you would explain the technological developments of the past ten years, or the forecast for new technology without using the phrase, Moore's law? I supposed you could, but it'd be wordy, probably awkward, and you'd never say it quite the same way each time. Thank you Carver Mead. Carver Mead? In April 1965, in Electronics Magazine, Gordon Moore published a story titled, "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits." In that paper he stated that transistor counts had doubled every year. But it wasn't until 1970 when…

Video games don’t sell — wait yes they do

Posted by Jon Peddie on March 10th 2011 | Discuss
Tags: nvidia ati 3d intel report games s3d pc

No they don’t…ah… I’ve been having this debate with myself, my colleagues, and almost anyone who will listen to me for more than 30 seconds, about the game publishers unjustified bias against PC games and love affair of console games. I don’t play console games. Everyone else here does, I’m the lone holdout. Well maybe Ted too, although I think I’ve seen him sneak a console game from time to time. Console games are limiting — I like FPSs and therefore want and need fine precision aiming and fast firing. That’s just not possible with a console controller — one of…

Tablets — are we excited yet? Did anybody do ANY planning and analysis?

Posted by Webmaster on February 24th 2011 | Discuss
Tags: mobile tablets ipad marketwatch

It is amazing to see the gold rush fever that's happening over tablets — no, it's astounding. Doesn't seem like anyone's had an original idea since Apple introduced the iPad and yet everyone plans on beating Apple at its own game without a clue or a strategy other than to show up with something that has a touch sensitive screen. Never mind that the OS they chose doesn't support touch, or that they haven't a clue as to who their prospective customer is — it'll all get figured out — if we build it, they will come. So everybody except JPR…

Brahms the programmer

Posted by Webmaster on February 10th 2011 | Discuss
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Parallel processing is the future. It is how we will increase our processing capability without having to double the clock speed of processors every other year. But parallel processing requires generating parallel processing programs. And writing parallel processing programs is difficult. These are the two common beliefs in our industry now and they've been used as an excuse. Last week we went to the famous and beautiful Paramount Theater in Oakland California. If you live within 50 miles of it you should go (I can also recommend a great nearby restaurant.) At the theater we heard Brahms Requiem. A masterful collection…

2011 – The Come Back Year

Posted by Webmaster on January 27th 2011 | Discuss
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This week's issue of Tech Watch is filled with stories about new products, many of them semiconductors, SOCs to be more specific. SOCs are tricky devices to design, and get right. Almost no one got the first one or two right. Temperature, performance, battery consumption, and of course price are just a few of the macro factors that can undermine such a product. Usually companies have to sneak up on the SOC, designing a smaller device first with limited functionality. Then one day taking the plunge and hoping they got right the hundreds of items that are interlinked. Also there is…

CES is forty-five years old

Posted by Jon Peddie on January 13th 2011 | Discuss
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The first CES conference in New York City in 1967 attracted 17,500 dealers looking for the next CE products. Last year, just wobbling out of a recession the show had a surprising 126,641 visitors and a slight drop of exhibitors (2,500 compared to 2700 in '09) and a smaller exhibit area (1.4M2ft. compared to 1.7 in '09). 2011 however was up and first estimates are something north of 130,000 (maybe as high as 140,000) and 2,700 exhibitors – it felt crowded, and if you needed a taxi, bus, or the tram you know what I mean. I've often questioned the value…

Your butterfly moment

Posted by Jon Peddie on December 21st 2010 | Discuss
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Last week I gave a presentation at the Congress Of Future Engineering Software (COFES) in Tel Aviv on the Opportunities For Innovation In Design And Sustainability. I was the token hardware person at a conference for softies, and I asked the question of those people, “can hardware help in design and sustainability – or is it just something we take for granted ?” Does anyone, end user, software developer, IT manager, know what the FLOPS load/requirement of their application and their usage actually is? Do they care? And if they knew would they make different buying decisions? Could more intelligent hardware…

How many different ways can we watch TV?

Posted by Jon Peddie on November 25th 2010 | Discuss
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Modern up-scale TVs have as many or more holes in them as a PC. A TV now offers the usual LRV RCA jacks, Composite jacks, S-video, an OTA and/or cable ready F connector, IR audio, HDMI, USB, some have VGA or DVI, and most recently RJ45—and every one of them can serve up some kind of TV or video signal. One of the latest additions is WHDI, a wireless receiver that plugs into the TV’s HDMI socket. Add to the list of sources the many STBs and/or adaptors. Google TV and Apple TV are two of new popular STBs, iRevo’s smart…