Intel has announced that a research unit has delivered an 80-core processor with performance at the teraflop level. While they insist they have no plans to bring this precise processor to market, the technology demonstrated is astounding. Let me quote from the Intel press release:

 The first time Teraflops performance was achieved was in 1996, on the ASCI Red Supercomputer built by Intel for the Sandia National Laboratory. That computer took up more than 2,000 square feet, was powered by nearly 10,000 Pentium® Pro processors, and consumed over 500 kilowatts of electricity. Intel’s research chip achieves this same performance on a multi-core chip.

Also remarkable is that this 80-core research chip achieves a Teraflops of performance while consuming only 62 watts – less than many single-core processors today.

Let’s stop to think for just a moment about the sort of applications this class of processor makes possible. Mobile speech recognition–not just simple auto-dial commands but genuine speaker-selective recognition–becomes possible. I know people who need adaptive systems–they’re almost literally dying for this performance level. Intelligent adaptation in medial instrumentation takes on a whole new meaning with this much power, as does intelligent navigation for all sorts of transportation systems.

With massive memory and solid-state storage, the ability to solve problems and capture ideas from any location becomes incredible. Add WiMax networking, and you really do approach the time science fiction writers have discussed: when a person can ask essentially any question from any location and get an immediate answer.

The nature of many tasks will change. I get all frothing at the mouth when I talk about education, so I’ll leave that for someone else. My own profession will continue to evolve because the mere presentation of information won’t be special any more. (Frankly, it’s less and less special even today.) Journalists will have to add their own value in the form of telling a compelling story, vouching for the accuracy of statements, and winnowing wheat from chaff on an ongoing basis. I’m excited by the possibilities, but then I think that many current models of publishing have outlived their usefulness already.

Let me know what you think–is teraflop computing in a laptop-capable package a big deal, or will we just make way for an operating system that presents open files painted on lionfish as they swim through the data reef? I wish it were easier for me to swear that this last won’t happen…

Categories: General computing, Hardware
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I once heard an old-time road warrier say that for the first year of your business life you got to travel. After that, you had to travel. I understand. It’s been a while since my yearly flight mileage was in six figures, but business travel is still tough. I’ve spent too many evenings eating a room-service chicken Caesar salad to get deeply into the whole “glamour of travel” thing.

With that said, it looks like the Marriott chain wants to make things better. I can’t say that a 32-inch HD TV would make every night on the road better, but it wouldn’t hurt. Now, if we can just get them to make sure that there are HD channels worth watching in each hotel, then we’ll truly be on the right track. The only downer is that they’re limiting the chains slated to get the nice televisions; you have to stay in a Marriott, JW Marriott, or Renaissance hotel to get the eye candy. Forget the high-end properties–it’s the weary road-warriors in the Courtyard who need their HD TV.

Categories: Consumer Technology
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I’ve been quiet for the last few days. It’s not that things haven’t been happening in technology: no, it’s just that a combination of deadlines and a vicious infection has left me with no time, energy, or attention to spare. Things should be getting back to normal, soon.

 Thanks for your patience.

Categories: Housekeeping
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One of the great things about being a geek is that there are so many cool things happening to keep life exciting. Today, courtesy of News.com comes word of an Robert Swan’s Antarctic adventure and the on-line window into the mission. I’m going to be following Swan as he progresses, just like I’ve followed missions from groups like the Cousteau Society.

We’ve been inundated with news about pedophiles, terrorists, and other assorted bad-guys using the Internet, so I think it’s important to keep the good stuff in mind, too. There are a lot of journalists and pundits who are more than happy to write headlines designed to scare the bejabbers out of folks, and the knee-jerk reaction is to write new rules and laws to regulate on-line behavior. I’m very much a free-speech absolutist–I think that the best protection from bad ideas is a greater volume of good ideas, and I can’t think of a single governmental entity (or trans-governmental entity) that I trust to tell me which is which.

Enough of the soapbox–there are more adventures to find on- (and off-) line.

Categories: General computing
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First, an admission: I’m a LifeHacker fan. Huge fan. It’s one of the sites I make sure to hit every day, because they’re going to have something there I find interesting, even if I don’t end up using it.  Today, they point to an article at NextPath on top web tools for college students. It’s a pretty good starter list that focuses on things that will make it easier to find and store information, and to communicate with your fellow hard-working students. The list does a good job of recognizing the reality of a lot of college students–that collaboration is a part of life. They suggest some of the Google tools, and they’re a good start, but I think that there are tools that might just serve your needs more completely.

First, if you want to keep track of information for various classes and projects, you should look at Microsoft OneNote, a product that has improved with each iteration. The article recommends http://www.google.com/notebook/, and it can have some advantages, especially if you find yourself logging in from many different computers. Of course, it’s also free, but if you buy Microsoft Office Home and Student, you get OneNote at a very low price bundled in with other key office productivity applications.

If you want to keep a group of people organized, I can’t say enough about Airset. I first learned about Airset through a Tom Regan column in the Christian Science Monitor. Carol and I tried it and it seems that it can go a long way towards helping us keep our schedules from bump-drafting us into the wall. In addition to the calendar, there are lists, blogs, and contact books that could be perfect for classes or oranizations for which a lot of collaboration is required. The developers seem like good folks, too, who are receptive to ideas on how to make the site better and easier to use for high-demand families and groups.

I am continually amazed at how good the tools are for gathering, organizing, and using information. As Vista becomes more widespread–and with the coming of the next generation Macintosh operating system–I think we’ll see a lot more applications designed to make working in a group more effective and far more efficient.

Categories: General computing, Software
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I like using a dual-screen setup on my desk. With my laptop and a 21″ monitor, I can be happy looking out at the electronic universe I inhabit. Of course I want more–my buddy Dave has a three-monitor setup, but I try not to let it come between us–but two monitors are wonderful. There’s the inevitable letdown when I have to go somewhere else to work, but that’s life–or it was until now. News of a dual-screen notebook comes via Crave, and I think I need one. I’m not really sure why I need one, or precisely how I’d use it (though I’m fairly sure it would be a nightmare in the economy class of any airline I can think of), but it’s definitely an object of techno-lust.

Categories: General computing, Hardware
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Once in a while you see something that’s just a darned good idea. We ran across an incredibly good idea at the International Builders’ Show, and I suspect I’ll be placing an order before too long. FlatWire is a wide tape with two paper-thin ribbons of copper bonded to the surface. You spray an adhesive on the wall, apply the FlatWire, hit it with spackle and then paint–and you can’t see where the wires are. This is going to be a neat product for folks who need to run home theater systems in existing rooms, or who need to add lighting without going into the walls. Now, the lighting products are low-voltage lights with a transformer in a wall-wart, but there are a number of different styles and sizes available.

The FlatWire company was purchased by SouthWire over a year ago, and it’s taken a while for the transition to new ownership to work through the company, but they’re beginning a marketing push that should have these products much more visible in the near future. Right now, you can buy the lighting and audio products through an on-line store, and they were demonstrating FlatWire video cable, telephone cable, and data cables in their booth at the show. In some of the marketing material on their web site they talk about Cat6 FlatWire–I want to see it and look at performance numbers before I buy that particular product–but even without the Cat6 this is a seriously cool product that looks like it could make life much easier for remodelers. With so much structured cabling and home entertainment equipment aimed squarely at the new-construction market, it was great to see something aimed at those of us whose houses have already been built.

Categories: Consumer Technology
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In a recent post I mentioned the compact fluorescent bulb that came in the press kit at the International Builders’ Show. It’s been installed in the front-entrance fixture, where it’s nice and bright without giving the house that “prison-yard feel” that my dear wife loves so much. Inside, I’ve started evaluating a Koncept Z-Bar Lamp that uses 60 LEDs to give a nice blue-white glow. I’m using it beside the bed as a reading lamp and, so far, it’s working well. The light balance works well in a task lamp, since it’s not expected to do anything kind to skin tones. I’m also pleased that it doesn’t cast such a wide light circle that it illuminates the whole bedroom. It’s a very high-tech look, but Carol says she’s interested in one on her side of the bed, too, so I think we may have a winner.

I was very impressed with some of the LED fixtures we saw at the IBS. They use far less energy that halogen or incandescent fixtures, remain relatively cool to the touch and, in the newer versions, have a color temperature that’s shifted much farther into the yellow than earlier LEDs. They’re still far more expensive than the other lighting technologies, but with a lifetime that can be measured in decades and lower energy costs, LEDs have an important role to play in the lighting future.

Categories: Consumer Technology
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I grew up a child of the Cold War, when various sorts of school drills and regular tests of the Emergency Broadcast System were a part of everyday life. Yes, there was nothing like the reminder that nuclear holocaust might be only moments away to put that test on diagramming sentences into perspective…

Instapundit has done another in his ongoing series of posts on disaster preparedness. This one focuses on food, with a side glance at, errr, morale. Both are important, and I’m pleased to see anyone remind folks that it’s important to plan ahead for life’s least fun moments. I’ve been disappointed to see many conversations on disaster planning continue to assume that a cell phone is all the emergency communications you’ll need if things get truly sticky. In every significant disaster of the last decade, the cell phone infrastructure has followed shortly on the heels of the land-lines in rolling over to languidly wave their electronic legs in the air.

Regardless of the disaster’s cause and form, effective communications boost survival rates and lessen the burden on everyone concerned. It’s important that you start with a battery-powered combination NOAA/FM/TV radio like this one. There are rather a lot of these available –the key is looking for those that have the Weather Alert feature, that can be battery powered, and that have FM/AM/TV capabilities so you can hear instructions from emergency managers during and after the trouble.

Now, the weather radios solve part of the problem, but they won’t do anything to help reunite your family or let friends and family members in distant locations know that you’re OK. For those tasks you need a way to talk to the outside world without using any part of the telephone system. Now, in a limited number of cases, VoIP wins–if you get your broadband via cable modem or satellite, you may be able to get on the Internet and then use e-mail, IM, and VoIP to let the world know how you’re doing. For most people, though, when the phones go away, so does communication with the rest of humanity. What then?

For very local communications (from next door to perhaps a mile or two away), a GMRS radio like one of these may do the trick. You can give one to each member of your family or group, agree on a channel and protocol, and be in communications as you work to get back together. (One note: unlike the lower-powered FRS, GMRS is a licensed service; if you get the radios, do the right thing, and send your application and fee to the FCC.)

If you might need to reach a bit farther and talk to people who aren’t in your immediate circle of family and friends, then the old-fashioned, much-maligned CB radio still has a role to play. There are still quite a few models to choose from and any of them can be used to contact REACT or any of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who still own and use CB radios.

If you’re really serious about staying in touch through a disaster, though, nothing matches amateur radio. I’ll admit to a bias here: I’m a radio amateur (KG4GWA), as are my lovely wife and my son. We each carry hand-held radios and have used them to keep in touch in emergencies. It makes me feel better knowing that, in the worst case, I can reach people around the country if things truly go to pot. It’s getting easier to become licensed–as of February 23, morse code will no longer be required for any amateur license. Getting a Technician License, which will let you communicate throughout metropolitan areas, or across rural counties, should take most folks no more than a few hours of studying. If you’re interested, get in touch with your local ham club, or contact the ARRL.

Regardless of the method you choose, it will be far less effective if you don’t develop a plan and rehearse emergency communications on a regular basis. You can make if fun for young people, but you must make it mandatory for everyone. We’ve seen far too many cases of people who’s lives were lost or forever disrupted because they couldn’t communicate in an emergency. This is one problem that each of us can solve for ourselves and our families. Start now.

Categories: Consumer Technology, Security
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Over on Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds has been talking about his search for a good compact fluorescent lightbulb. I’ve been trying to convince my family to switch over, with mixed success, and in the process we’ve worked our way through a significant lists of the energy efficient bulbs.

In the press packet we received when we registered at the International Builder’s Show, there was an n:vision 100w (equivalent) bulb. You can’t get it at Amazon, but you can find it at Home Depot, and you can find a similar bulb at the Home Depot web site. I’ve installed the n:vision next to my favorite chair in the living room. The good news is that it has a fairly short warmup time and is warmer in color temperature than the CF bulbs I’ve installed in the overhead tracks here. The overhead bulbs make me feel virtuous, but they take the better part of two minutes to come to full brightness, and when they do they give the living room the warm glow of a steel-fab shop. Needless to say, my lovely wife is less than thrilled.

I think that compact fluorescent bulbs (and the more-expensive LED fixtures) are important for energy conservation. They represent small steps that, if taken by enough people, could add up to significant savings. Before they are widely adopted, though, manufacturers have got to solve the warmup time issue and the color balance. Until the color balance warms up considerably, compact fluorescents are going to remain niche products. Me? I life the n:vision but I’m going to keep looking. There have to be better bulbs out there…

Categories: Consumer
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So I had planned on blogging from the press room at the International Builder’s Show. Reality got in the way. I’ve got many pounds of notes and press releases, and will be posting lots of items in the coming days. In the meantime, some valuable lessons learned this week in Orlando:

1. The Orange County Convention Center is huge, and the IBS stretches it to the limits.  It’s not so much the floor space (I’m sure there were exhibit halls that weren’t used), but the combination of exhibit space and attendee level. In coming years, this show is going to bounce between Las Vegas and Orlando–I dont think that there’s really more than one other convention center that could compete (Chicago’s McCormick Place has sufficient squre feet), but when you add up in the need for floor space, hotel rooms, and parking lot space to build model homes, you’ve eliminated all but a couple of cities in North America.

2. Tens of thousands of business owners in one place = lousy cell phone performance.

3. When Orbitz says that a property has wireless Internet, it means that somewhere on the property you might be able, at some price, to grab a signal. We stayed in a nice place (that was, unfortunately, about halfway between Orlando and Tampa) that claimed wireless Internet access. Turns out you could pay for access in the lobby. Thank heavens for vacation condo owners who haven’t figured out how to lock down an access point (and a laptop wireless adapter that is quite good at grabbing and using a weak signal).

4. There’s something just odd about trade show booths featuring fireplaces. One side of the hall had to keep the A/C working overtime. Between the number of people walking around and the gas fires burning, it could get rather warm in parts of the hall.

5. There is a vast gulf between products available for new construction and those intended for replace and remodel work. In some areas (structural members) that’s not surprising, but I think that the building automation and home theatre vendors are missing a lot of business by focusing all their attention on new construction. If the new housing market really does slow down this year (and I mean slow down in a big way) it will be interesting to see whether some of these companies change their marketing messages.

6. Kudos to show management for one detail in the press room: lockers. Great idea that should catch on at los of other shows.

7. There were a lot of companies talking about energy efficiency but I frankly expected more. The homebuilding industry is ruled by small contractors who learned the trade by example, so it’s going to take a while for the green technology message to percolate down and sink in. With that said, there were a handful of truly exciting products there that could make a huge difference in the energy use and pollution emissions from homes.

As I said, lots more soon. Thanks for sticking around–let me know if there’s something special you’d like to see.

Categories: Consumer, General computing
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There has been another attack on the Internet’s root DNS servers. This one would have passed unnoticed by most Internet users, because it was targeted against only a few of the servers. There are some interesting charts of the traffic levels generated by the attacks…you can see the spikes in messages that each server must cope with.

Instapundit properly, I think, identifies these as practice attacks. In that regard, they’re no different that hundreds of other attacks that take place against institutions, routers, and servers each week. The attacks are designed to show proof of concept for exploiting new vulnerabilities, and to allow the attacker to watch the response–the better to design attacks that can operate longer without an effective response.

Here’s my fearless prediction of the day: There will be a hit that people notice, because it makes some significant part of the Internet unavailable for a period of time. We’ve seen it before. I suspect that the next time, though, the Internet attack will be to facilitate or distract from some other attack, quite possibly against financial or economic infrastructure targets. This is old news to Internet security folks, but we still don’t see the level of information sharing and response coordination between different security areas that we should. It’s time more people tool these reconnaissance attacks seriously–and time we started learning as much from them as do hackers do.

Categories: Security, Threats
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I mentioned Gizmo a few days ago. I’m going to be looking at more VoIP systems in the coming weeks, but I’m really enjoying Skype. I like the quality, I like the convenience, and I like the price. The folks at LifeHacker have found a new reason to like Skype; it can be part of your home security system. This article talks about the basics of setting up a system to check on your home while you’re away and, I must say, it looks slick. When I worked with Steve Ciarcia at Circuit Cellar INK back in the day, he built a system to do about what this setup does. The only difference is that his system cost thousands of dollars to design, hundreds of dollars to build, and required several chunks of seriously customized hardware. This, friends, is the march of progress.

Categories: Consumer, General computing, Security
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Once in a while, an idea that appeals to our sense of shared purpose and community comes along. Fon is one of those ideas–you share your bandwidth with Fon members passing by and, in return, you get to share their whenever you go a-roving. If you like the idea, now’s the time to hop on the bandwagon because they’re offering free wireless routers to celebrate their first birthday.

Now, before you order you should check your user agreement with the ISP (there are some that will get grumpy about sharing bandwidth) and, if you’re in a business, you should check the applicable laws on secure wireless access points. If you’re cool with both of those, though, this seems like the sort if idea that could make the wireless world a little happier for all of us.

Categories: Networking, Wireless
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Sorry about the break in blogging. It’s been a crazy week with lots of deadlines. I’m trying to get a bunch of things out of the way before I head to Orlando for the NAHB Convention later this week. I’m going to be looking at technology for building, with an emphasis on home automation, entertainment, and energy efficiency. It will be especially interesting to see the extent to which manufacturers have started  connecting efficiency to either entertainment or automation.

If there’s something you’d like me to check out at NAHB, drop e-mail to me here. I’ll be blogging every day I’m there, with followup after I’m back in the office. Should be fun…

Categories: Consumer, General computing
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