Standing room-only event wows the locals
Intel, at one of the first major shindigs at its Santa Clara Headquarters since rolling out the original Pentium, wowed about a 1000 journalists, bloggers, analysts and valley wags with more gloating than I’ve seen in the valley for decades.
Executives such as Paul Otellini could only be described as beaming like an Alabama virgin who just discovered sex as everyone else was just short of nonstop high-fives and Homer Simpson Woo-hoos. It was quite a scene and yet another reason why I don’t like leaving the house. The giddyness makes me itch. Seriously, it does.
I was lucky enough to go to the breakfast for bloggers exercise done by the company with VP Don MacDonald who was pumping the small audience of bloggers with a repetitive use of the word “fabulous” in some effort to get them to use it to describe the chips. That said, and my cynicsim aside, MacDonald was quite candid and so were the rest of the Intel crew. And why not? They suddenly reappeared as, uh…well, Intel! These chips rock. Let the fun begin.
Two or three things emerged from the event that are worth reporting. The most interesting was told to me by one of the strategists at the company. These new chips have new instructions. This hasn’t been widely reported but the instructions will be rolled out probably in the next month under what I suspect will be a copyrighted moniker, “MEDIA BOOST.” And yes they are aimed at the consumer electronics side of things. I’m told that as fast as these new chips work with codecs, using the new instructions can increase the effectiveness by at least another 15-percent. I’m sure these new instructions will be documented by the hackers sooner than later.
The other thing that I found very interesting was the fact that Intel has finally relented on the over-clocking aspects of the chip. They will not condone it but will have zero roadblocks or “locks” to prevent or hamper the process. VP MacDonald made these comments in the morning about what he’s seen already. Apparently the chip overclocks nicely. Here’s the cam vid of MacDonald’s comments.
Finally, do not be surprised by a 4-core chip before the end of the year. At least one engineer I spoke with already plays with a Core 4 Quad or whatever they are going to call it. Intel obviously did not go to its “name consultants” for this round of products.
Two of the notorious Frag Dolls — a group of professional gamers — helped Intel show off the gaming capability of the chips. In the process they demonstrated how to destroy some horrid cyclops beast in hi-def coming close to making everyone in the audience sick as they were forced to watch the hi-res stabbing of a cyclops in the eyball. Yuk.
Wu Hoo!
It was one of Intel’s In-house gaming experts, Regina Wu, who hired the Frag Dolls for the rollout. When asked about how good these women are at playing video games Regina said they were good but she could take them, no problem.
If anyone is interested, the french version of the Frag Dolls are pretty cute!
Joao — I think you’re missing the point of the economics of virtualization.
Macs come with an operating system. One reason for some of the “higher” price. I own both Macs and PC’s and experience not only tells me the Macs are a better value — using OS X has become my 1st choice.
I’m not talking about Boot Camp or Parallels. Real virtualization — as I understand it and have used it — lets me run Windows software without having to own a copy of XP [or Vista, whatever].
That certainly has to upset M$oft.
I’m curious to see if Apple will try to make use of the soon-to-be ubiquitous TPM to limit the use of MacOS to Apple hardware…
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1989032,00.asp
8. Today, only business PCs have the TPM 1.2 protection chip built in. With Core 2 Duo, all PCs will be protected. TPM (Trusted Platform Module) protects your passwords, logons, and personal data at a hardware level from hackers, spyware, and identity thieves.
34 Moss, that’s emulation, not virtualilzation
I don’t think so… that was the whole point of calling in “WINE” = Wine is not emulation…
http://www.winehq.com/
http://www.codeweavers.com/
Well… Moss and Mike.
You drive your points well. But it’s not the same. Wine is not emulation, and it’s not virtualization.
I’m using Ubuntu right now with wine installed. Let me tell you… couldn’t make it work with the majority of programs. Wine is an API compatible but alternate to Windows. I can see only two ways of make it work: either you reverse engineer Windows (a frightning task…) or you develop using the publicly availabe and documented set of function call of the API. As you know, not every program is completely within this discipline of the API. And wine is a layer on top of an operating system. If the underlying OS can’t deliver some functions then it’s the task of the layer to provide them. Virtualization is something different. It’s the notion that you can separate some memory and processing power to acess resources and virtually run a new machine on your hardware. From the OS point of view it has acess to the all hardware, while running native. Like emulation, but emulation is a layer on top of another layer. It’s a virtual machine on software. That’s why it’s so slow.
So, in short. If you emulate or virtualise, you have to have a OS, and have to legally buy it. If you use alternate compatible API, you find yourself not running that much code…
PS. Dells come with an OS too. Heck even my white brand machine I can build with parts I choose can come with an OS. And be cheaper than Apple. Do you really know what’s inside an Apple? chipset, memory, HD…you don’t usually, so how can you say it’s better? It feels better. It looks better. It’s better presented to you. And better marketed.
PS…iPod user being the user base of Apple ? Don’t think so.
Wow, you guys sure do get angry about your geek love. I do appreciate the attempt to tie ideology into this (of all) debates, however.
JCD: To borrow from popular culture, Sandra Bullock. She’s never over done, and makes what has been done look effortless. She’s also a brain: She’s EP of the George Lopez show, actually makes money with her pet projects, and (according to my wife, who’s interviewed her) nice to talk with.
The big question, to me, is since there are now so many outlets for women to use beauty as their main (and sometimes, only) means of advancement, that the pool has gotten too thin as its widened, and the bar has been lowered.
Of course, based on the comments in this thread, geek love has no bounds… or basement.
João PT,
iPod users give Apple money for services. That’s a user base. If Apple can get iPod users to buy an Apple computer, that’s converting the iPod user base to becomeing users of Apple computers as well. Currently, only a small percentage of iPod users own Apple computers.
Understand now?
James, I have no qualms about Sandra Bullock but you seem to be mixing things up a little when you start talking about “smart” “no makeup” “brains” “nice.” This crowd at DU, generally speaking, is not about inner beauty but just “looks.” Let’s face it, we aren’t about to run off with any of these women anyway. It’s an exercise in group taste. You seem to be a dilettante on this topic or, dare I say, a sensitive male taking it too seriously. Kind of like the guy who complains about the fake breasts at a strip club. Having taken the pic of those two fraggers I can assure you they were indeed good looking and personable. I probably could have made them look better with a different focal length but these are quick pics.
38 If you use alternate compatible API, you find yourself not running that much code…
Agreed. They target a few of the “biggies” like Office & Photoshop – and anything else that happens to run is just gravy… [grin]
I think I understand the use of “virtualization” as it is used in the marketplace – pretending to be a different hardware. i.e. Virtual PC on a Mac petending to be the hardware of a WinTel PC, or Apple’s use of “Rosetta” on Intel Macs to pretend they are PowerPC Macs.
I’m a little less clear on how Wine is not an emulator – since it is trying to be a functional equivalent of Windows. Is it because it is running the instructions directly – at native speed – without having “translation” overhead?
Smartalix. I get it… sure I do.
Just that the majority of iPod users are just that: iPod users. And a lot of them are Computer users too. But I bet the greater part of those just don’t give a rats ass about Macs or PCs, they just use what it’s best for them and usually is a PC Redmond flavoured, just because it’s what they use at office, or what their friends have or were advised to buy.
Sure, some people on certain areas are more “design” conscious and they will, eventually, change to Mac. But to correlate iPod penetration (gaik…) to Mac market share it’s a stretch…My view is also that (and I’ve said this before.) Apple is the new Sony. And it will be for 10 to 20 years more. Funny, for someone that set out to knock the IBMs of the world, they became something else. Microsoft became Big Brother (the symbolic one, the one from the 1984 commercial) and Apple is more and more media oriented, and consumer oriented too, playing the role of the Japanese giant.
Bet that the new “thing” they are concoting (you know…the large nand buy…) will have something to do with media. Either a enhanced iPod or a portable mediacenter. A gizmo that replaces your Bang&Olufsen sound system and your LoweOpta TV. And it’s integrated with your BMW, but affordable to the middle class.
Oh well…have a nice saturday…enjoy the summer…and be cool….
#42-Mike
Clarification please:
Virtual PC and Rosetta are Emulators. ie. they “simulate” in software the hardware (sometimes just the processor, but often also the “environment”) they emulate.
Wine is not an emulator, since it only simulates the environment (ie. windows) not the hardware. Since it runs on x86 linux it “just” maps windows specific functions to linux functions (this is simplistic, just to get the picture…).
Virtual machines are, IMHO, encopassing these techniques to create a Virtual machine inside another machine, functioning independently. Like a “sandbox” machine, a machine inside a machine.
Well (remember, this post is about intel CORE2) put in a processor with multiple cores (multiple processors) and it really makes you wonder…two independent cores can run two independent systems easier…
Mike, also if you got 50 minutes or so, go to http://www.twit.tv and listen to security now podcast number 50. It is about all this technology. And is very well laid out too, without being too complicated.
A lot of off topic talk about girls but I’ll just add that beauty is very subjective and the fact that James used Sandra Bullock as an example proves it. She repulses me.
As far as Intel goes, I despise their anticompetitive practices and don’t like the idea of supporting these big companies with limited competition for fear of the competition dying off but this new processor does have me salivating a bit with it’s performance. It would really be nice to see these CPU companies add a PPU core to these multicore CPU’s so we could see a really big difference in game quality… cause massive adoption/integration of this specialized tech [hardware version] is the only thing that’s going to get it off the ground IMO.
Britney Spears engaged My Prerogative Kevin Federline courts a bit of controversy with her latest video, “Everytime,” in which her wrist spontaneously starts bleeding. The video which premiered on April Avril Lavigne 12th on “TRL,” just one Kevin Federline day after Easter was explained by Spears to Kevin Federline be more like a movie. “It’s different than anything I’ve ever done. It’s dark, and it shows me in a different light. Of course, I’m going to go back and do dancer Kevin Federline videos of Kevin Federline, but I wanted to be inspired and challenged.”
re # 41. John, I don’t read your stuff for your photography skills. I would guess James’ comments are not representative of the majority of your readers. Personally I’d hazard a guess that James is still undergoing therapy from not being able to be present at his wife’s interview of Sanda and that he’s just jealous that you are man enough to maintain your composure in front of the Frag Dolls. I mean come on, back to photography skills, in your defense the shot was clear and not blurry, you held it steady. Good job, and thanks for sharing.
The new Intel product is out, which will certainly change from what it is today…to something even faster…just hope the rest to the hardware-software community stays up to par with
(I had to touch this one) Did “James the Mean” mention Hustler? (that seems to say it all) I wonder if his wife reads his blogs? I bet not…and she’d probably like to have a chance with a big ugly stick along with the Fragg Dolls in a dark room with James’ eye… (James was really asking for attention…so you got it buddy…better turn it around or sleep lightly dude)…
(I deal with abuse and domestic violence cases)…
Back to the real subject at hand…
Speaking of abuse…how about the price abuse on the new chips themselves in comparison to the old technology chips and no apparrent and immediated price drop…seems everyone was yelling “Price war!” and nothing became of it…
Intel has finally relented on the over-clocking aspects of the chip. They will not condone it but will have zero roadblocks or “locks” to prevent or hamper the process.
It brought up all of wrong memories for me:
I remember how I started (and proptly ended) my OC hobby in 1996;
It did cost me a brand new Pentium processor;
At the time cost was only 250$…