How fast is your Internet connection? Compare that to Intel’s new invention and soon to be a new innovation! So what is it? Intel has discovered a way to transfer data at 50 gigabits per second. The current technology is only allowing up to 12 gigabits per second data transfer rate at maximum. To hit the 50 gigabits per second rate, Intel creates a new type of chip that can convert photons into electricity using more channels in one chip. The medium for transferring data using the new chip technology is still going to be over fiber optic cables. According from source, as long Intel improves the technology of the new chip, it may be able to transfer 1 terabit per second in the future; 1 terabit per second equals to something as transferring entire printed collection of the Library of Congress in 1.5 minutes. Source: Venturebeat.com’s “Intel demos chips that can transfer an HD movie in 1 second.”
When AOL and Time Warner merged together, everyone thought it was the best idea ever! After many years of failing to make any major footprint in the industry, suddenly AOL Time Warner was a joke to the industry which led to the spin-off where Time Warner re-established its presence fully in the last month of 2009 — a status of which it had before the merger. 10 years later, the two former CEOs of both companies are reunited on CNBC to speak about their thoughts on what so called “the worst merger of the century.” The program was aired on January of 2010, and both CEOs were nice to each other enough and opened about what went wrong with the merged company. The former CEO and co-founder of AOL, Steve Case, also commented on Twitter and Facebook!
The merger of AOL and Time Warner was executed poorly and the clash of cultures which had created a toxic environment where internal politics had overdriven to a point that there was little left of energy to invest into innovation; with hindsight, the merged company faced tough competition with an Internet economy that was bursted, and yet all that while the merged company failed to innovate which led to its downfall/spin-off. The idea of forming AOL and Time Warner had merit and probably is still very true today! Take a look around you today, you can see AT&T has U-verse and Verizon has FiOS — these two companies’ new services are very similar to what AOL and Time Warner had in mind! Why? U-verse and FiOS both offer TV over IP. Although customers don’t care what formats their televisions run on as long they can see their pictures fine, and that’s exactly the point! With careful messages, these companies promote newer entertainment platforms with phrases such as smart TV. It’s true though that customers are able to do more with smart TV such as be more interactive with TV shows. Recording TV programs for later viewing is one of those interactive features that make newer entertainment platforms attractive.
With hindsight, Gerald Levin and Steve Case failed to manage their merged company correctly, therefore they failed to develop what could have been an entertainment format 10 years ahead of its time. Nowadays, phone companies such as AT&T and wireless companies such as Verizon are doing just that and even more. What is more? Besides TV over IP, these companies are offering Voice over IP (phone over IP format). Voice over IP isn’t new, because Vonage has been offering that for years. Unfortunately for Vonage, they have been failing to convince everyone to forgo the traditional phone companies such AT&T fast enough, therefore such companies are catching up with time and technology to put major hurt on Vonage.
Back to the topic, Gerald Levin and Steve Case were ahead of time, but they failed to execute their great vision. With this in mind, we may see the entertainment platforms that we have been accustomed to — change rapidly as the industry moves forward. The technology is smarter, therefore customers are more likely to enjoy the newer entertainment platforms than the previous ones. For an example, TV over IP allows you to be more interactive than otherwise, because it’s easier to do just that with the current technology.
With all the talk of the past and the now, let not forget the future! Google and Intel are teaming up to create something they call Smart TV. Google is planning to bring its Android Operating System closer to TV, and in a way it can contagiously spread its advertising influence onto the TV market. Is this different from TV over IP? It sounds different, but would it be? Instead of TV over IP, it sounds as Google is trying to bring IP over TV. But we all know that is ridiculous, because there is no such thing IP over TV! I’m not an expert, but let me guess! What they’re trying to do is to pushing out a technology that can allow customers watch TV and also surf the web and do the web interactive stuffs, altogether with ease; I guess such technology has to be very similar to TV over IP! Anyway, the point is that more than ever before, more media providers are lining up to form new interactive platforms that custom around customers’ lives — all can very well be even more addictive and pleasurable for customers, and it may very well be very profitable for the providers in terms of subscriptions and advertising.
Besides being good at mobility, laptops can also be friendly to TV. Well, it’s depending on which laptop you have! How about the new laptops that have Intel 2010 core CPU, these are coming with wireless display capability. You also need a “Push to TV” adapter (sort of like a router) that uses HDMI cable to hook up to your TV allows your TV to receive wireless display signals from your laptop. Check out the video after the jump for a better explanation of this setup.
At the moment, Quad-Core computers are available in many computer stores for purchases, but a concept chip with 48 cores which proves to be feasible is not too far away from being available for the computer market. 48 core computer, when it comes out will probably going to dwarf a Quad-Core computer in term of multi-tasking. You’ll be surprised if I told you that this 48 core chip uses the same amount of electricity as a single Intel processor. You can bet on that big companies with huge data centers are going to love 48 core chip, because they can save huge amount of money by not wasting space and electricity. It’s going to be a challenge for programmers to program software that take full advantage of a chip with that many cores. Source.
Intel wants your legs to be cooled when you use a laptop. A laptop can get really hot when you let it sits on you for quite some time. Bad designed laptops end up be really hot quite quickly, and if you touch these, you think you are touching the hot part of the stoves; it’s a little exaggerating, but it does make you think that laptop makers need to redesign their products. Intel promotes a new way of cooling a laptop to prevent heat from inside the laptop heating up the outside of the laptop by using Intel Laminar Flow Technology.
Months back, Intel demonstrated laminar flow in Taiwan using animation to show how laminar flow works. You can picture this, inside a jet engine, extreme heat exists, and if the heat is not redirect away from a jet’s internal combustible components, the result could be catastrophic for a jet without a proper cooling technology. Although a laptop’s temperature could never rise to the level of a jet, but by implementing laminar flow, Intel suggests that the heat within a laptop could be redirect to a proper outer ducting and away from a laptop’s skin.
Laminar flow could be a crucial element that laptop makers would want to use on their super thin laptop models. Nowadays, more laptop makers are trying to make thinner laptops, as thin as possible. Laminar flow can provide a solution for laptop makers. It’s not clear how much thinner a laptop could get by implementing laminar flow, but you and I can expect that the future laptops to be found in electronic stores near you may be a lot thinner than you could ever imagine. Source.
The future is here! Ooops, I’m overjoying too early, because it won’t happen yet, but maybe it will happen in my lifetime. Did I say I’m overjoying? Well, it is a figure of speech, because it’s somewhat scary for a person to use thoughts to control electronic devices. Not because of how you could do it, but because of the process of acquiring the ability to. Intel is experimenting with human brain waves. Intel throws a lot of resources into creating an electronic chip that can be implanted into your brain; this allows you to use your brain waves to turn on TV, text messaging through thoughts, surf the web by just thinking about stuffs, and much more. Why is this scary? It will be a whole brand new way for hackers to be in business, I think! Imagine a hacker is hacking your mind while you asleep, eat, and doing a hundred other human chores daily. Don’t tell me you are going to get an antivirus and a firewall for your brain, too! One word, cyborg! It’s the future folks! Source.
Intel Reader is a new e-book reader that is designed for the visually impaired. It’s very expensive! Intel Reader is pricing at $1,499. Why this device is cool? This device can capture images from any real book, and then using its special technology to read the captured images aloud. This is great as visually impaired person now can read any book at any store by allowing this device to scan the materials and to have it read the materials aloud. Whenever a user push any button on the Intel Reader, a voice will say what is being pushing. Battery is also easy to access for replacing. Intel Reader is also allowing a user to choose a reading speed. The device is a little bulky, but it comes with a very cool easy to access jacket. The jacket does not cover up the camera, and so a user can put the Intel Reader in a shoot mode to capture images at any-time. The downside for this device is its size and its price, but other than those, it’s a perfect device for the visually impaired. Source.
Flash memory is dominating the non-volatile computer storage market for now, but phase-change memory may change all that when it be ready for the market. Intel and Numonyx are the two companies that focus on flash memory announce that they are creating a new prototype of phase-change memory. Maybe in the future, flash memory will be no more and phase-change memory will take flash memory’s place.
Why phase-change memory but not flash? The idea of phase-change memory has been around since 1970, but there were problems of material quality and power consumption that prevented the idea of phase-change memory to materialize. Recently, those problems are no more as those have been overcome by Intel. To be brief, phase-change memory could be shrink even smaller than flash memory could, and so this means capacity for phase-change memory is bigger. Imagine a same size USB flash drive but using phase-change memory technology can have a much bigger memory capacity. Phase-change memory is not susceptible to degradation by radiation as easy as flash memory. Phase-change memory could last longer than flash memory. Keeping phase-change memory at the right temperature (85°C), the data using phase-change memory could be around for at least 300 years. Since phase-change memory is non-volatile type of memory as flash memory, this means phase-change memory does not lose data when power is turned off. With bigger capacity but smaller in size means there is less power consumption, and so phase-change memory is not wasting power as much as flash memory. Phase-change memory can also be faster than flash memory. Quoting from Wikipedia:
PRAM can offer much higher performance in applications where writing quickly is important, both because the memory element can be switched more quickly, and also because single bits may be changed to either 1 or 0 without needing to first erase an entire block of cells. PRAM’s high performance, thousands of times quicker than conventional hard drives, make it particularly interesting in nonvolatile memory roles that are currently performance-limited by memory access timing.
It’s great to hear Intel is in progress of making phase-change memory becomes a reality. Source: Cnet and Wikipedia.
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