Apple Takes On Intel
Lee Gomes, 02.04.10, 06:00 AM EST
Why chipmakers might not be necessary anymore.
BURLINGAME, CALIF. -- Besides Apple's stock prices and Steve Jobs' reputation for visionary entrepreneurship, something else is riding on the success or failure of the new iPad: The future of the semiconductor industry.
The chip inside the new iPad is a microprocessor called the A4 that was designed in-house by Apple ( AAPL - news - people ), most likely using the expertise it acquired via its 2008 acquisition of PA Semi, a Silicon Valley start-up. Selection of the A4 was described as a blow to both Intel ( INTC - news - people ) and Qualcomm ( QCOM - news - people ), since products from those companies were spurned in the process.
It certainly was that, but it also suggested that semiconductor technology has matured to the point where for many applications, the Intels of the world might not be necessary anymore.
Everyone knows about Moore's Law, which describes the tendency for electronics to regularly double in capacity with no accompanying change in price. What is often forgotten is that Moore's Law isn't some force of nature like gravity, one that occurs independent of human intervention. To the contrary, it is an extraordinarily expensive process, requiring billions of dollars a year in R&D. Spend the money and your chips can keep packing in the extra circuits. Skimp, and they stop improving.
Intel has skillfully taken advantage of this dynamic over the last 20-odd years. It had a dominant position in Pentium-style processors, one that made it billions in profits, which it alone was able to invest to design and manufacture the next generation of even-better products. Advanced Micro Devices ( AMD - news - people ) proved to be a valiant rival to Intel, but it was an expensive fight for AMD. And the fact that Intel has a market cap nearly 20 times that of AMD suggests that investors are unsure if the smaller chipmaker has the staying power to keep at it.
One of the fundamental rules of technology is that things that start out hard and complicated, able to be tackled by only a few people, eventually get easier to do, allowing more people to handle them. Dell ( DELL - news - people ) grew enormously during the 1990s because it figured out the complex art and science involved in running an efficient PC manufacturing process. Once it cracked the code, though, others were able to do the same thing.
Reader Comments
Surely you're not suggesting that Apple has designed its own completely new CPU from scratch? This makes no sense at all! The time and resources required would be considerable. The fact that the i
Currently, only mammoth companies like Google ( GOOG - news - people ) and Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ) know how to run big data centers. But that knowledge, too, will one day cease being a black art known only to a few and instead emerge as a straightforward bit of engineering that anyone can master.
It's clear that this "democratization" process is occurring right now in semiconductor design. The iPad is a relatively high-end device, yet Apple believed it didn't need to look outside its own walls for a CPU, and thus could forgo paying any form of "Intel tax." By contrast, the iPhones and iPods tend to use a chip called ARM that Apple, like many other ARM customers, need to license.
Of course, Apple is a very big company and, especially for the sort of high-volume product it hopes the iPad to be, it can afford the sorts of up-front engineering expenses that would make smaller companies reel. But if it can afford to make an in-house chip good enough for the iPad in 2010, might it not also be able to make one good enough for the Macintosh in 2013? And if it can do so by then, why couldn't Hewlett-Packard ( HPQ - news - people ) and Dell also?
To be sure, a walk through recent tech history involved stepping over the cadavers of any number of would-be Intel competitors. They might have been simply ahead of their time. Making chips seems to be getting easy enough that a company best known for marketing and branding is able to take it on.
To read more of Lee Gomes' stories, click here. Contact the writer at lgomes@forbes.com.
Thursday, 4 February 2010
USAINS allocates RM10mil to centre of excellence
USAINS allocates RM10mil to centre of excellence
By DAVID TAN
GEORGE TOWN: USAINS Holdings Sdn Bhd is allocating RM10mil to acquire equipment, software, and machinery for its Centre of Excellence for Electrical & Electronics (COE-E&E) over the next two years.
Dr Gan Ee Kiang (left) receiving the end user licence from Adrian Ng Siong Teck.Gan spoke after receiving the end user licence for the electronic design automation (EDA) software from Synopsys (Singapore) Pte Ltd senior executive account manager Adrian Ng Siong Teck.
USAINS had utilised a portion of the RM10mil from North Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA) to purchase the Synopsys EDA software, Gan added.
”We are now involved in doing designing work outsourced to us by five Penang-based multinational corporations (MNCs).
”We hope to get three more MNCs here to outsource their chip designing work to us.
”Our work for MNCs generates some 70% of the centre’s revenue.
”We will also be going for jobs from small and medium enterprises in the electronics industry,” he said.
Gan said that for the 2010 financial year, COE-E&E was targeting to generate RM1.5mil in profit on the back of RM3mil in revenue.
”The centre will also be launching its master of science programme, in collaboration with Universiti Sains Malaysia’s school of electrical and electronic engineering soon, in micro-electronics soon at USM.
”In 2011, we will be producing the first batch of graduates,” he added.
Penang WiFi hotspots ‘sabotaged, vandalised’
Penang WiFi hotspots ‘sabotaged, vandalised’
We will no longer reveal their locations, says Ooi
BY MANJIT KAUR
THE exact location of the WiFi hotspots will no longer be revealed publicly as there have been cases of vandalism where people have cut off the supply.
Jeff Ooi, the chairman of the state-appointed special task force to handle telecommunications infrastructure issues, said this was rampant especially in George Town, but did not provide figures.
One of the ways to overcome the problem, he said, was to fix WiFi hotspots at 24-hour restaurants so that restaurant owners could keep a watch over them.
“We will also not give details on the locations to avoid further sabotage and vandalism,” he said but did not provide the number of cases.
Speaking at a press conference to update the media on theWireless@Penang project and telecommunications infrastructure in Komtar yesterday, he however said that “as at end-December, there were 355 hotspots and we hope to reach the target of 750 hotspots by end of the year”.
Ooi said there was also network congestion due to peer-to-peer (P2P) download at the WiFi hotspots.
He said there were over 20,000 subscribers who were “maximising” the 355 hotspots.
“To avoid excessive download problems, we are looking at implementing auto-log off every 15 minutes,” he added.
On telecommunications towers, he said there were 849 rooftop and free-standing structures in the state.
“Those that don’t appear on the master list will be demolished, while those on the list must comply with the rationalisation process by the June 30 deadline,” he said.
He said out of the 849 structures, 285 had been approved.
On structures placed at several drains by PenangFon to offer faster connectivity using Fiber optic broadband connection unlike the conventional copper cable, Ooi said the management was adamant that the concept was approved by the previous state government and that the strategy was being used worldwide.
“We have complaints that the drains get clogged and rubbish get stuck in the fibres.
“We want to make Penang a world-class city, and using fibre optic in drains is not the right way. We are giving them time to comply with the guidelines, otherwise we cut off their lines,” he said.
PenangFon chief executive officer Robin Wong, when contacted, said the company was willing to cooperate with the state government and other agencies.
“If anyone googles and search for fibre optic, you will see that the strategy to place the structures in drains is widely used.
“Fibre is not hazardous, and the method has been used in many developed countries for better broadband service,” he added.
Jeff Ooi, the chairman of the state-appointed special task force to handle telecommunications infrastructure issues, said this was rampant especially in George Town, but did not provide figures.
One of the ways to overcome the problem, he said, was to fix WiFi hotspots at 24-hour restaurants so that restaurant owners could keep a watch over them.
“We will also not give details on the locations to avoid further sabotage and vandalism,” he said but did not provide the number of cases.
Speaking at a press conference to update the media on theWireless@Penang project and telecommunications infrastructure in Komtar yesterday, he however said that “as at end-December, there were 355 hotspots and we hope to reach the target of 750 hotspots by end of the year”.
Ooi said there was also network congestion due to peer-to-peer (P2P) download at the WiFi hotspots.
He said there were over 20,000 subscribers who were “maximising” the 355 hotspots.
“To avoid excessive download problems, we are looking at implementing auto-log off every 15 minutes,” he added.
On telecommunications towers, he said there were 849 rooftop and free-standing structures in the state.
“Those that don’t appear on the master list will be demolished, while those on the list must comply with the rationalisation process by the June 30 deadline,” he said.
He said out of the 849 structures, 285 had been approved.
On structures placed at several drains by PenangFon to offer faster connectivity using Fiber optic broadband connection unlike the conventional copper cable, Ooi said the management was adamant that the concept was approved by the previous state government and that the strategy was being used worldwide.
“We have complaints that the drains get clogged and rubbish get stuck in the fibres.
“We want to make Penang a world-class city, and using fibre optic in drains is not the right way. We are giving them time to comply with the guidelines, otherwise we cut off their lines,” he said.
PenangFon chief executive officer Robin Wong, when contacted, said the company was willing to cooperate with the state government and other agencies.
“If anyone googles and search for fibre optic, you will see that the strategy to place the structures in drains is widely used.
“Fibre is not hazardous, and the method has been used in many developed countries for better broadband service,” he added.
Huawei E5 3G modem and Wi-Fi hotspot Better known as the 3 MiFi
Huawei E5 3G modem and Wi-Fi hotspot
Better known as the 3 MiFi
4th February 2010 08:02 GMT
Huawei E5 / 3 MiFi
A 3G dongle you don't need to connect by cable. And handy if you want to share your 3G connection among multiple devices.- Suggested Price:
- £180 (Sim free) £0-50 (Contract)
- More info:
- Huawei's E5 page 3's MiFi page
Rating
Review Huawei's E5 is one of a growing line of compact, standalone HSDPA 3G modems that double-up as impromptu Wi-Fi hotspots. You may have heard of it as 3's MiFi.
Rather than hook the E5 up to a single device - your laptop, typically - the built-in access point means you can share its 3G link among all your gadgets: phones, tablets and so on. That said, the E5 can also connect directly to a computer and operate as a typical 3G dongle.
Huawei's E5: no bigger than an old-style 3G dongle, but with a Wi-Fi router on board
Don't have any other Wi-Fi devices? Then just treat the E5 as a dongle you don't need to plug in. Or even take out of your bag.
The Wi-Fi support is limited to 802.11b/g, but then most small mobile devices don't have 802.11n either, so this is perhaps no great loss. The E5's 3G radio operates in both the 900MHz and 2100MHz UMTS bands, and it has quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge support too should find yourself too far from a 3G basestation.
When you are in range, the device will support upload speeds to 5.76Mb/s and download speeds of up to 7.2Mb/s. These are theoretical maxima, so you won't get them in the real world, even if the network you're using supports them.
And, of course, you don't mind paying inflated data-roaming rates when you're traveling beyond your national borders.
USB or battery powered
The E5 is powered by its own, removable lithium-ion battery, charged over USB. A computer's USB port will do, as will any suitable AC adaptor, though you don't get one in the box, just a short cable.
Flipping out the battery - which, Huawei claims, is good for four hours' continuous usage; that's about right - reveals the modem's Sim card slot. On the side of the device is a separate bay, for Micro SDHC cards should you need to use the modem as USB Flash drive too - it isn't shared over Wi-Fi, though.
The web UI presents the same controls any other router has
You'll need to remove the battery not only to slip in the Sim card but also to find out the unit's pre-loaded WPA password and the WLAN SSID. Our review sample had a different SSID to the one printed inside the battery compartment, though the WPA key proved to be correct.
Not that it made much difference. Huawei states that the E5 is compatible with Windows and Mac OS X. That may the case with the dial-up software you use when you want the E5 to operate as a dongle, but we couldn't get Mac OS X 10.6 to accept the WPA key, even with a '0x' in front to indicate it's a hexadecimal one.
A handy Windows XP machine would relay the key correctly, but modem and PC refused to communicate sufficiently well for the Huawei to provide the computer with an IP address. So to change the WPA key into something more sensible, we had to resort to connecting the E5 with a cable so we could access the device's admin web page.
This despite restoring the E5's settings to factory defaults.
The UI is crude, but functional
Once in the management console, you have full access to the E5 and all the settings you'd expect from any standard Wi-Fi router. It isn't the best laid-out console we've seen - the options could be more logically organised, for example - but with a little exploration time you can find all the you need to enter your carrier's network login details and to set up your ad hoc WLAN the way you like it.
You can set the E5 to instigate a 3G connection when your computer is sending a request for internet data, or have it simply connect when it's powered up. You can also tell it only to connect when you push the tiny Dial button on the side of the modem, but 'auto' is so much easier and saves the inevitable pauses between browser requesting page and modem dialling in to deliver it. They always feel longer than they are.
3 calls the E5 the MiFi
Huawei is a past master in the art of 3G modem creation, so we weren't surpised at the E5's ability to establish a mobile broadband connection. The device's Wi-Fi abilities aren't bad either. As long as you don't expect expect the house-filling coverage a regular, mains-powered router can provide, you won't be disappointed. This is an on-the-go product for meeting places, hotel rooms and the like, and the coverage it provides is enough for that.
Our only beef with the unit is its display. Brightly coloured LED icons are great for photographs. But to conserve power, they have to be switched off, so you have to press a button on the E5 every time you want to check the battery status, 3G signal strength or even if there's a 3G connection present. We'd rather have a low-power LCD readout, please, even though it wouldn't look as good.
The E5 will set you back around £180 for an unlocked, Sim-less unit, or less if you buy it with an airtime contract. 3's prices vary from nothing to £50 for the E5, plus £7.50-23 a month for 18 or 24 months. Data allowances range from 1GB to 5GB.
Rather than hook the E5 up to a single device - your laptop, typically - the built-in access point means you can share its 3G link among all your gadgets: phones, tablets and so on. That said, the E5 can also connect directly to a computer and operate as a typical 3G dongle.
Huawei's E5: no bigger than an old-style 3G dongle, but with a Wi-Fi router on boardThe Wi-Fi support is limited to 802.11b/g, but then most small mobile devices don't have 802.11n either, so this is perhaps no great loss. The E5's 3G radio operates in both the 900MHz and 2100MHz UMTS bands, and it has quad-band GSM/GPRS/Edge support too should find yourself too far from a 3G basestation.
When you are in range, the device will support upload speeds to 5.76Mb/s and download speeds of up to 7.2Mb/s. These are theoretical maxima, so you won't get them in the real world, even if the network you're using supports them.
And, of course, you don't mind paying inflated data-roaming rates when you're traveling beyond your national borders.
USB or battery poweredFlipping out the battery - which, Huawei claims, is good for four hours' continuous usage; that's about right - reveals the modem's Sim card slot. On the side of the device is a separate bay, for Micro SDHC cards should you need to use the modem as USB Flash drive too - it isn't shared over Wi-Fi, though.
The web UI presents the same controls any other router hasNot that it made much difference. Huawei states that the E5 is compatible with Windows and Mac OS X. That may the case with the dial-up software you use when you want the E5 to operate as a dongle, but we couldn't get Mac OS X 10.6 to accept the WPA key, even with a '0x' in front to indicate it's a hexadecimal one.
A handy Windows XP machine would relay the key correctly, but modem and PC refused to communicate sufficiently well for the Huawei to provide the computer with an IP address. So to change the WPA key into something more sensible, we had to resort to connecting the E5 with a cable so we could access the device's admin web page.
This despite restoring the E5's settings to factory defaults.
The UI is crude, but functionalYou can set the E5 to instigate a 3G connection when your computer is sending a request for internet data, or have it simply connect when it's powered up. You can also tell it only to connect when you push the tiny Dial button on the side of the modem, but 'auto' is so much easier and saves the inevitable pauses between browser requesting page and modem dialling in to deliver it. They always feel longer than they are.
3 calls the E5 the MiFiOur only beef with the unit is its display. Brightly coloured LED icons are great for photographs. But to conserve power, they have to be switched off, so you have to press a button on the E5 every time you want to check the battery status, 3G signal strength or even if there's a 3G connection present. We'd rather have a low-power LCD readout, please, even though it wouldn't look as good.
The E5 will set you back around £180 for an unlocked, Sim-less unit, or less if you buy it with an airtime contract. 3's prices vary from nothing to £50 for the E5, plus £7.50-23 a month for 18 or 24 months. Data allowances range from 1GB to 5GB.
Verdict
The E5 is a great gadget, but how often are you likely to need it? There's no shortage of Wi-Fi hotspots, and many hotels rooms have it too. Those that don't often have wired links instead, and these you can set your notebook to share through its own Wi-Fi adaptor. Its utility depends on how often you need Wi-Fi coverage when there's only 3G to be had. It's a pricey device to buy on the off-chance. ®Blogging declines among teens, young adults
Blogging declines among teens, young adults
According to the new survey, Facebook is now the social network of choice among teens and young adults.
(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)As social-media sites like Facebook grow in popularity among teenagers and young adults, good ol' blogging has declined sharply over the past three years for this set, a new report shows.
In 2006, 28 percent of teens ages 12 to 17 and young adults ages 18 to 29 were bloggers, according to survey results released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. By the fall of 2009, however, these numbers dropped to 14 percent of teens and 15 percent of young adults. During the same period, the percentage of online adults over 30 who are blogging rose from 7 percent in 2006 to 11 percent in 2009.
The survey attributed the decline in blogging among younger Internet users to changes in social network use. About three quarters (73 percent) of online teens and an equal number (72 percent) of young adults use social-networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace. As they get older, people seem to use social-networking sites less. The survey shows that only 40 percent of adults ages 30 and older were using social-networking sites in the fall of 2009.
Among major social sites, the new survey results show that Facebook has taken over as the social network of choice among adults ages 18 and older with 73 percent of adult profiles. MySpace is second with 48 percent and LinkedIn follows with 14 percent.
The survey results also note that young adults ages 18 to 29 have embraced mobile gadgets and connectivity with 66 percent of them being laptop users. Some 81 percent of those 18 to 29 go online wirelessly compared to 63 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds, and 34 percent of those ages 50 and older. More than half of young adults have accessed the Internet wirelessly on a laptop (55 percent) or a cell phone (53 percent).
The quantitative results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research International between June 26 and September 24, 2009, among a sample of 800 teens ages 12 to 17 and a parent or guardian.
The survey is part of a Pew Research Center series of studies that explore the behaviors, values, and opinions of the teens and Twentysomethings that make up the Millennial Generation. You can learn more about this here.
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong.
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