Robert Dow

CG and CV are black holes for processing power

Too much, good enough—nonsense   Some of you reading this may know I’ve postulated a few axioms over the years, all of them about scale in one way or another. One of my favorites is my first: In computer graphics, too much is not enough—1981. It was true then, and it’s true now. It’s also why I get so tired … Read more

Workstation market breaks out to record-setting quarter in Q2’14

TIBURON, Calif— September 8, 2014. – Characterizing any mature market's quarterly performance as “breakout” verges upon oxymoron. After all, no one is going to confuse the well-established workstation market with a hot emerging market, nor should the former ever expect to see the big quarter-to-quarter growth numbers of the latter. However, in light of a lackluster recent history coupled with … Read more

The PC isn’t dead—I told you so

What’s next? In terms of economic recovery, and overall growth trends, the PC market is a lot healthier than many others—  automobiles, for example. However, although the PC market recovered faster than autos, it got gob-smacked by the impact of tablets. Seeing the downturn in sales, the sharpshooters on Wall Street drew a straight line and cleverly predicted the PC would … Read more

Technology is a state of mind

Samsung, Apple, Nvidia, Google, Microsoft—they’re competitors. How in the world did that happen? It happened because what you do is becoming more important than what you’re doing it on. We used to think Samsung built displays, and Apple built computers, Nvidia built graphics processors, Microsoft built an operating system, and no one knew what the hell Google built. So now … Read more

GPU shipments (MarketWatch) Q2 2014 – Charts and Images

Graphics chips are without doubt one of the most powerful, exciting, and essential components in tech today: not only does every computer require one (or more), but the technology is entering into major new markets like supercomputers, remote workstations, and simulators almost on a daily basis. New technologies and compute programs are taking advantage of the ability of GPU power … Read more