Penryn and Nehalem sound like a heavy metal magician act, but they're the code names for Intel's new 45-nanometre process CPUs that'll be out in the second half of this year, and in 2008.

Intel's building on the existing, successful Core 2 architecture, adding features while keeping the power consumption at today's levels. We'll get the same amount of cores (two and four) but larger caches (6MB and 12MB) and slightly higher clocks speeds - Intel would only say "over 3GHz" yesterday.

There's a new power saving mode for the new processors, plus the opposite - a turbo booster that'll ramp up the speed of a single core when needed. Maths capabilities are also improved with a Super Shuffle Engine - I love that name - and new SSE4 instructions.

Penryn looks good by itself, but Nehalem really packs on the features: it looks like it'll have an integrated memory controller a la AMD, and also an optional graphics processor. That's right: video straight from the processor, instead of an add-on card.

When I went to the Intel Developer Forum last year, the integrated GPU was mentioned as the next move in integration, but it won't stop there: Intel is working on adding a network controller as well as the serial ATA storage controller to processors. In order to do that, the processors need to have fat internal bandwidth, hence all the talk about optical interconnects.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 2 )

Does that still hold true for the Google Pack?

I've not been a fan of the Google Pack collection of freebies because:

a) You can download the all the stuff elsewhere, also for free
b) It's a disjointed collection of software with some Google glue added that doesn't really hold anything together.

Now Google's done a deal with Symantec though, so you get the Norton Security Scan utility included in the Pack. Ditto the Spyware Doctor Starter Edition from PC Tools.

That's an improvement, but I'm not impressed yet. How exactly do crippled starter editions make for a great software bundle? OK, it's free but still... Microsoft and the others have nothing to fear from Google in the software arena if this is the best the search giant can manage.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

No, I didn't drop the nice new Lenovo X60 tablet that arrived late last week; just couldn't think of a better headline for the blog post.

I haven't had a tablet notebook for ages, so I was looking forward to the X60. Overall, it's a pretty well put together little notebook dressed in standard IBM, sorry, Lenovo, corporate black. Haven't done any extensive battery life testing (there's no optical drive to load the software from) but the X60 seems to go for three hours or so with the supplied battery.

Windows XP Tablet Edition is pretty impressive, considering it can make sense out of my horrible handwriting most of the time. However, it's guessing abilities are annoyingly US oriented - switching the default language to NZ or UK English makes no difference.

Using a program like ArtRage from local heroes Ambient Design makes the X60 come into its own. But... you can get the same fun and artistic usability if you buy a cheaper digitiser tablet, although I'd say drawing and painting directly on the screen like with the X60 has a slight edge still.

In terms of writing, the novelty of being able to scribble straight onto the screen wears off fast. You're never going to be able to write faster than typing, basically, so it's a good thing the X60 retains a good-sized keyboard with nice feel to it. Being a masochist, I handwrote this entry on the X60 and it took a long time, as it's not that easy to correct mistakes.

Furthermore, tablets tend to be designed for right-handed people mainly. If you're a southpaw, you can reorient the screen, but controls are not ambidextrous so they remain right-handed. I would've liked the X60 to run cooler as well: it's not a laptop in the true sense of the word, unless you wear asbestos undies. Lenovo got the size and weight right with the X60 though, making it nicely portable.

Still, I like the ability to quickly draw a picture of something instead of using words even though for a freelancer one of the former really isn't worth a thousand of the latter. Presentations could be a lot more interesting with a tablet as well - is there any tablet functionality/features in PowerPoint?

Next, I might upgrade XP to Vista, which apparently has much improved tablet support. Need to check if all the hardware is supported first though.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 1:07 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

OEMs fear they'll shoot off both feet by disappointing customers with DRM

I'm probably in danger of being labelled DRM obsessive, but I can't help passing on something that cropped up in a conversation yesterday. You've probably noticed that it's actually quite hard to complete the entire DRM chain from OS, computer system/video card to monitor, simply because you can't buy the gear.

Or, if you can, it's not the gear you want as full support isn't ubiquitous.

The reason for this is as one vendor put it, complete lack of demand from customers. Moreover, no vendor wants to take a gamble on DRM working as advertised. Putting it like this, if you plonked down thousands of dollars on the latest video card, a massive LCD monitor and a true multi-core blimey box only to find that one bit of the DRM chain didn't quite work... how would you feel?

Not entirely happy, perhaps?

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 1 )

Are we getting shafted with Digital TV?

I always suspected that the temptation to tamper with the traditional Free To Air TV model would be too strong once the networks go digital. If the Electronic Frontier Foundation is to be believed, it's already started.

Digital TV means DRM, basically.

DRM means amongst other things:

* Enforcing severe home recording and copying limitations. Content Protection and Copy Managment (CPCM) will allow content providers to apply copy restriction labels to broadcast streams. For example, a program could be marked as "Copy Never." In turn, your DVRs and others devices receiving the signal will have to obey and forbid copying even for home use. A content provider could opt to allow recording but still enforce a multitude of restrictions on copying to other devices.

* Imposing controls on where you watch a program. Even if you are given permission to move a program to your laptop or other portable devices, "geography controls" may kick in and stop playback once you leave home or a particular locale. These restrictions may be enforced using tamper-proof GPS receivers built in to your devices. CPCM can also be used to block sending video to yourself over your own home network or the Internet, among other things.

* Dictating how you get to share shows with your own family. CPCM can be used to examine, for instance, the frequency with which devices are connected to a personal network and determine whether your sharing is within an "Authorized Domain" Absurdly, DVB spent significant time arguing over what happens to a digital video in case of a divorce!

* Breaking compatibility with your devices. You may have already invested in new high definition displays and receivers that rely on component analog connections or unrestricted digital outputs, but CPCM will allow the studios to arbitrarily block these connections. In other words, individual copyright holders can turn your gadgets into oversized paperweights. CPCM- restricted media will also be able to carry blacklists and revoke compatibility with particular devices that don't enforce Hollywood's restrictions sufficiently.

That doesn't sound like Free To Air, does it?

We need to start thinking about DRM in our TVs here too, because it's already here. TVNZ's new on-demand site only works with Windows Media Player because of DRM and some content that you pay for self-destructs after seven days.

I don't think a tax-payer funded organisation like TVNZ should dabble with viewer-hostile technology like DRM.

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 3 )

Open Source for mobile phones is not just cool, but necessary.

Why do I say that? Because it stands to reason. First, "smart" phones and similar ones with PDA functionality cost a lot. You obviously want to be able to keep it going for a few years at least, and not dump that $1,500-$2,000 device simply because there's no choice.

That's currently how it works with many phone makers. My Telecom Apache is great, but the maker, HTC, doesn't provide timely updates for it. Microsoft has released Windows Mobile 6, and it'd be nice to upgrade to that as it has many features I'm keen on but... no. There is no upgrade path for the HTC Apache to WM6.

This silliness points to the current model of proprietary vendor releasing an OS to an OEM who then passes it onto an operator being broken. It only takes one entity in that chain to stop cooperating and customers are stuck with old software that's buggy and insecure.

A standards-based open source solution like OpenMoko could fix all that, and benefit not just customers, but also OEMs and operators.

It's not a pipe-dream either: electronics giant FIC of Taiwan has already produced an OpenMoko phone, the Neo1973. This is a far more exciting development than Apple's proprietary iPhone that locks customers in to what the iJobs allows them to do. I hope it's the first of many Open Source phones!

Posted by Juha Saarinen at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 10 )