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I have a friend who suffers from a chronic back injury that neither surgery nor countless attempts at medical intervention has relieved. During a recent visit - my wife spied her HP netbook, sporting a pink designer lid and pink keys, and thought, "how cute." This netbook is our friend's constant companion - lightweight enough to not add pain to her daily routine that typically lasts far longer than her daily strolls through the web. You can imagine my wife's disappointment when I opted for the non-pink, black-keyboard version of said-same netbook. After working through the apparent loss of svelt and style, my wife still considers her netbook "cute" - seemingly without the same level of enthusiasm expressed for the pink relation. After having this new addition to the computing family for about a month - I think her descriptor has broadened far more dramatically than anyone would have anticipated. While she still calls it "cute" - particularly in the hands of a 5-, 7-, or 10-year old daughter - the vocabulary surrounding the new appliance has grown to include convenient, fun, quick, amazing and cool. If you limited her to one - it would mostly be - convenient. This little Mini-Me netbook absolutely meets, or rather exceeds, her computing needs - quicker than the dinosaur desktop that will be replaced shortly, lighter than the bread-baking laptop I hover over in the evening hours, and straightforward... meaning without all of the extras that keeps the teens chained to the family box. My 5-year-old has taught her how to login and start the browser (either Explorer, Chrome, or Firefox) - and has shown her how to setup her tabs to open her favorite websites as often as she likes. Our household is now kept abreast of the outside temperature, weather forecasts, news headlines, and the latest social, civic, and personal email updates. She readily admits the netbook is not for the rest of us -- who spend hours video editing, photo sharing, or chatting on Facebook - but for her and the junior members of the family - it's more than perfect. If you had one word, how would you describe your netbook affliction? |
| 27/08/2009 12:32 PM |
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When trying to defeat an intelligent computer (or android) bent on doing you harm, everyone knows you need to use logic. You might even employ paraqdoxes involving truth tellers and liars. Nobody wants a tool to purposefully give false results, and since computers are tools, we don't expect them to knowingly tell a falsehood. Colossus never needed to tell a fib since he had control of all the missles. However, HAL 9000 told some whoppers in 2001: A Space Odyssey to "protect the mission." Is there ever a time or situation that we would program our computers to lie and give false results? If my computer were being hacked and thieves were looking for personal information, I think I wouldn't mind the thieves getting the wrong info. But, how can my computer know the diference between me, the hackers, or me trying to gain entry in an unconventional manner due to circumstances in order to know whether it should be reliable or dishonest? Are there other cases when a lie would be beneficial? I find it to be an interesting question to ponder every now and then. Mick West, while not specifically addressing or answering my more general question, has written about cases where sub-optimal solutions are desired. Mick's article, Intelligent Mistakes: How to Incorporate Stupidity Into Your AI Code, discusses some cases in the field of game programming when a less-than-optimal solution will enhance the overall gaming experience of the player. The techniques that West discusses don't exactly involving lying since the best possible play for the computer is usually calculated. This best move is just ignored for something that will give the human player a fighting chance to overcome the AI of the game, massage the player's ego, and bring her back again for another shot. It turns out that programming a game AI to know when and how to make a move that is not the best and to make it look like it is a natural outcome of the processing billions of moves per second is harder than it sounds. West's article is very easy to read and understand even for someone not familiar with game programming (like me). Check it out if you're at all interested. I would say I've identified one case where bending the truth a little by a machine is beneficial. If you know of other cases, please fill me in, too. Or if you know of other computers or robots or androids in fiction, movies, or TV that deliberately lie (not actually programmed to give false information), I'd like to hear about them, too. |
| 27/08/2009 12:00 PM |
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As an Oxford University alumni it was very cool this morning to see the Radcliffe Camera featured on Bing, you can learn more about this interesting library here. I have a master's degree in software engineering from Oxford University and although I have walked past this building on numerous occasions they don't have too many software engineering text books. I'll have to venture inside one of these days... |
| 27/08/2009 09:54 AM |
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On Monday this week, we kicked off the "What's Inside You Sweepstakes". Share your story of how Intel processors make a difference in your life and be entered into a drawing with the chance to win several notable prizes, including a Sony VAIO* W series netbook autographed by Conan O'Brien. Since Monday, we've seen at least a dozen great entries - so don't forget to share your story! Over the next few weeks, during the sweepstakes, I'll be sharing stories from sweepstakes entrants, so stay tuned! |
| 27/08/2009 09:08 AM |
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Pssst...$50K in advertising for your favorite non-profit. Pass it on. |
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One of the things that I love about working at Intel is the support and encouragement provided for employees to volunteer at local schools and non-profits. Truth be told, I would probably volunteer regardless of the support I get from Intel, but I have to say that the flexibility I’m afforded in my schedule to sometimes volunteer during work hours and the fact that all of my hours are matched with dollars from the Intel Foundation, makes it a whole lot better. So, with this support, I have been serving on the board of directors of a local non-profit organization Tempe Community Council, or TCC. TCC manages programs and provides support to non-profit agencies to meet social service needs in the community, from food banks to transitional housing programs to domestic violence shelters. I am so proud of this organization and the work that it does to connect people who care with people in need, which these days is hard to wrap my head around. I’m always on the look-out for other ways to channel my support to TCC where I can. Earlier this year, I ran (ok well, partly ran, partly limped) a half marathon to raise money to help fundraise. Intel’s new Vote for a Cause campaign gave me another potential way to help provide visibility and support for my favorite non-profit (and a way that is much easier on my knees…). So, do you regularly volunteer with a non-profit organization? If so, why not “donate” a few more minutes and fill out a form to nominate them to possibly win $50K in advertising support? The nomination process takes just a few minutes. Until Friday the 28th, you can go onto Facebook and nominate your own favorite U.S. based non-profit for a chance to win $50,000 in co-branded advertising from Intel. As of this morning, 506 causes have been nominated. Once the nomination period closes, the top vote-getters will enter the voting rounds, starting with 32, then 16, then 8, then 4, then just 2 - until they get to a winner at the end of September. But even though there will be only one “winner”, the other nominated non-profits will hopefully get extra visibility with other potential donors or volunteers out there in the community. So click here to get your nomination in before the deadline on Friday. Then come back and participate when the voting process kicks off on the 29th. |
| 27/08/2009 09:21 AM |
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I have avoided writing here about my new healthcare problem because I thought it would be too self-serving, but I don't feel I can hold this in any longer. I am just really, really tired, overwhelmed, a little scared, sometimes even exhausted. I know, I know...I am an oh-so-popular-big-time healthcare blogger (one person other than my Mom read last week's entry!), and the power players of healthcare reform are just hanging on my every word. So I am supposed to be energized, passionate, and committed to reform. But I am just so fatigued--ready for all of this to be over--ready to change the proverbial channel. Honestly, I've been ignoring these symptoms for a month or more, but I finally called my doctor's office to try to get an appointment last week when I saw something online about how serious my Reform Fatigue could be. I thought it was just stress, but who knows, could be much more serious than that. After all, Google came up with 198,764,145 possibilities. I'm not that worried, but, then again, it could even be terminal, according to my friend's brother who heard something about this kind of thing while playing golf with a doctor's sister's friend. So I figured I better have it looked into by a professional. I am relieved to report that Dr. Hurray finally fit me in this morning after I left twelve voice mails for his nurse and faxed over the stack of lab results given to me by the specialist Dr. Hurray had asked me to see before I came to see him again. (I think I left some of the papers in the specialist's waiting room, but how important could those be anyway?) Traffic was just awful this morning going over to the clinic. It was a miracle I got a parking space--some guy in a wheelchair tried to slip his van into the space that I had been waiting on for ten minutes. Sheesh! The waiting room was a can of smelly sardines with everyone sneezing and coughing in my face. My god, there were sick kids running everywhere acting like 4th graders or something. "I waited a week for this?" I thought to myself. There were eight people in front of me for the check-in, but after ten minutes, I had finally made my way up to the little sign telling me to "Please Wait Here Until Called, Out of Respect for Other Peoples Privacy." (What is it about people not using apostrophes correctly anymore?) More waiting. And I could have shot the idiot in line in front of me who couldn't find his insurance card, had had unprotected sex with a woman he met at a bar last night, and was there to see a doctor about potential STDs. I mean, that is so 1980s. All of us in line were embarrassed for him. Finally, I got up to the window which the attendant slammed shut in my face, pointing to the pen and notepad to sign in, as I frantically looked around for hand sanitizer. The window swept back open with a grating metal noise, and Darth Receptionist thrust a clip-board in front of me. "I need your insurance card, and fill all of these out, and we'll call your name in a little bit." She retreated behind her glass fortress, closing the drawbridge to lock out me and my band of personal space invaders. I was concerned about the words "a little bit." I had just filled out the same form last month when I was in for the flu. But I dutifully tried to remember and spell the nine medications I take regularly, the last decade I had had a tetanus shot, and whether it was 1973 or 1974 when I had broken my elbow from that terrible fall off my bicycle when Billy Jones pushed me. Hmmmm...."reason for visit today?"...I wondered what to say. I mean, if I marked anything in the "Mental Health Problem" section, then someone...my wife, my boss, some sneaky blogger, even the CIA...might get the data somehow and jump to the wrong conclusion. I'm not depressed, after all! So I just put down "fatigue" and "shortness of breath" in the blanks provided at the end of the form. I stepped away from the window, searching for the most solitary seat I could find. It's like scanning across a police lineup looking for the person who is least guilty of being sick. Ah, finally, the back left corner where the light bulb was burned out and the air conditioner blower was setting a new wind tunnel record. "I'd rather be cold and alone than sitting in the sick section," I thought to myself with a sense of satisfied victory. I sat down to wait. About 15 minutes later, this huge woman with Kleenex stuffed in the top of her blouse tried to sit next to me and grab the dog-eared copy of People magazine that was on the table, but I was there first. I frowned and grabbed the magazine (unfortunately, it had Michael Jackson on the cover...from 12 years ago...when he was still alive and looked almost human). Then I hocked up the best tuberculosis-sounding cough I could muster, which drove her into full retreat. My drama degree was paying off. About 30 minutes meandered by, and I didn't hear when the nurse called "James!" until about the sixth time. I go by "Eric," my middle name, but they just can't seem to get that straight after 10 years of my going to the same clinic. She escorted me back, thrusting the thermometer into my mouth and nudging me up on to the scales to weigh me. I almost gave a "moo" for effect, but decided I better not tick off the person who might have to give me a shot or blood draw later. "189 pounds!" she disdainedly (that should be a word!) announced to the entire office staff. She didn't seem to care that I was wearing heavy clothes, my Ipod, my cell phone, my wallet, and what must have surely been 18 pounds of change in my pockets. Whatever happened to scientific rigor and accuracy in measurement? She rustled me into the arctic chill of exam room 5, told me to put on a gown (now she asks me to disrobe, once she has already bungled my burdened weight!), and said, "The doctor will be in, in a few minutes." I knew that wasn't true. I could hear him trying to explain to the poor woman in the next room, who clearly didn't understand much English, what a hemorrhoid was. I took a mental note not to shake his hand. I don't care much for Sports Illustrated (interestingly enough, there was an article in it about bicyclists avoiding hemorrhoids), but hey, Tiger Woods was on the cover, so I read the April 2006 issue to catch up on my current events. Finally, Dr. Hurray hurried in with "Hello, James, how have you been?" "Eric," I replied. "Huh?" "I go by Eric," I repeated. "Oh, yes, sorry Eric. What can I do for you today? It says here you are having stomach cramps." He seemed reticent to touch me. (The feeling was mutual.) Come to think of it, I can't remember when Dr. Hurray has actually touched me in the past two years of visits. He just asks me questions and gives me prescriptions, but never actually does an exam. "No, that's someone else's chart. I came in because I'm a little, well, um, fatigued and have some shortness of breath." He sheepishly put away his papers, scrambled through some other official-looking papers in a chart, and said, "Ah, yes" with confidence that didn't convince me he was really looking at my chart. "Tell me what seems to be the problem. When did you notice the shortness of breath?" "Should I tell him about the mood swings?" I thought to myself. No, no. Not yet. "Well, I was reading a newspaper at the time...it was the Wall Street Journal...about the trillions of dollars of debt expected over the next decade from the healthcare reform bill." "I see," he said he saw. "Anything else?" "Well, I am just really, really, really tired. More so than usual. Just overwhelmed a bit...not really sad or depressed mind you...but moody." He jotted down a note with a concerned look in his eye. I wished I hadn't said the word "moody." "Tell me more about the moodiness," came his next question. Damn. "Well, uhm, one minute I am really excited about healthcare reform, then I'm way down about it...though, of course, never actually depressed...and then I am way up again." "That could be something," he mused. "Any other symptoms?" "My blood pressure medication usually keeps things pretty stable, but I just find it boiling at times. Like when I was watching the news stories on the death panels. And when I heard talk radio going on about communism while driving home from work the other day." I thought then, at that moment, he would actually touch me, actually do something, you know, an exam. But he deftly wielded his stethoscope to listen to my breathing without his hand actually making contact with me. It's not like I wanted a bunch of probing, mind you, but I'm thinking this guy is in the wrong profession if he is scared to touch patients. "Sounds interesting. I'll be right back," he promised as he scurried out of the room like a cockroach running from the hallway light. About 20 minutes later (I could hear him re-explaining hemorrhoids to exam room 4, promising he would call her at home in a few days to check in on her), he came back in the room with a glossy brochure. "You have Reformania Exhausticitis...it's a new disease...but I'm seeing a lot of it these days. It's nothing to worry about, there's a very harmless new drug you can take that will clear it right up." "What is it?" I asked. "It's called Complacencia," he said as he handed me some literature, and I suddenly felt like I was in one of those awkward TV commercials that plays during the six o'clock news. "Can't I just have an antibiotic? Or is there something else I can do without having to take another pill?" I pressed. "No," he retaliated, and handed me his scribbled prescription on a piece of paper. "Here, I'll give you some samples to get started. And I'll call you next week just to see how it is going." Ah, free samples. Music to my ears. I felt like I had won the Pharmacological Lottery. I embraced my swag, reading the pretty, glossy font: "Complacencia**: That Little Something to Restore Your Satisfaction with the Status Quo." It went on to explain how the medication could help me stabilize my reform moods, fend off my cravings for real progress and change, and better manage my tolerance for mediocrity. Clutching my prize, I took the first two pills right then and there, and by the time I reached the parking lot, I was ready to get back into the trenches of healthcare reform...hungry for more of the same. Once again, the miracle of modern medicine had shown me its awesome power. **Notice: Complacencia is not for everyone--use only as directed by a physician. May cause drowsiness or excitability, especially in adults who act like children. Some patients report dry mouth, wet mouth, constipation, diarrhea, sadness, happiness, the urge to gamble, the urge to stop gambling, and a propensity to want to just sit around and watch television. Do not use Complacencia if you are an activist, reformist, concerned citizen, or employed in a job where you need to be highly motivated. Ask your doctor about taking Complacencia if you are already taking optimism-reducing medications such as Headlinea, Partisinia, Prodeficitia, or C-spania. Extreme liberals and conservatives should not take Complacencia for more than 30 days without consulting your doctor. Moderates should not take Complacencia, as it can cause an overdose of complacency that can be fatal. Have a nice day. |
| 27/08/2009 11:40 AM |
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Parallel Programming Talk #44 - The PLASMA Project and Top500 with Prof. Jack Dongarra |
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Hello Parallel Programers, I'm Aaron Tersteeg and welcome to Episode 44 of Parallel Programming Talk. Joining me again is Master of the Parallel Universe Dr. Clay Breshears. On today's show we talked with Prof. Jack Dongarra the director of the Innovative Computing Laboratory at the University of Tennessee. First the News The Rapidmind founders, engineering team and marketing team have joined Intel. Intel has acquired the Rapidmind products and technology. Rapidmind proved itself to be an innovative company with advanced technology for helping software developers with data parallel programming for multicore processors and accelerators. Their joining Intel will let us do even greater things together. RapidMind is a development and runtime platform that enables single-threaded, manageable applications that fully leverage multi-core processors. With RapidMind, developers continue to write code in standard C++ and use their existing skills, tools and processes and the RapidMind platform then ?parallelizes? across multiple cores. Intel Threading Challenge Phase 2 - Problem 1 is is now live! Problem: Write a threaded code to multiply two random matrices using Strassen's Algorithm. The application will generate two matrices A(M,P) and B(P,N), multiply them together using (1) a sequential method and then (2) via Strassen's Algorithm resulting in C(M,N). The application should then compare the results of the two multiplications to ensure that the Strassen's results match the sequential computations. The UC Berkeley Par Lab Boot Camp was last week and Aaron attended. Upcoming date to keep in mind: Listener Question Show on September 1st. Send in your question and show ideas to ParallelProgrammingTalk@Intel.com On Today's Show Prof. Jack Dongarra, Director of the Innovative Computing Laboratory The Innovative Computing Laboratory (ICL) is part of the Computer Science Department at the University of Tennessee and is engaged in research in various areas of high-performance computing. Jack specializes in numerical algorithms in linear algebra, parallel computing, the use of advanced-computer architectures, programming methodology, and tools for parallel computers. His research includes the development, testing and documentation of high quality mathematical software. During the show we discussed the LAPACK Project and Sca/LAPACK forum PLASMA Project: The Parallel Linear Algebra for Scalable Multi-core Architectures (PLASMA) project aims to address the critical and highly disruptive situation that is facing the Linear Algebra and High Performance Computing community due to the introduction of multi-core architectures. MAGMA Project: The MAGMA project aims to develop a dense linear algebra library similar to LAPACK but for heterogeneous/hybrid architectures, starting with current "Multicore+GPU" systems. Top500 list: The Top500 list the 500 fastest computer system being used today. In 1993 the collection was started and has been updated every 6 months since then. The report lists the sites that have the 500 most powerful computer systems installed. The best Linpack benchmark performance achieved is used as a performance measure in ranking the computers. The TOP500 list has been updated twice a year since June 1993. Upcoming events to keep in mind Coming up on Parallel Programming Talk That's our show. Thanks for listening to Parallel Programming Talk. |
| 26/08/2009 11:48 AM |
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Check it out now. For a complete list of optimization tools visit our MIDs resource page. I personally like this page for its consolidated list of links under clear headlines. Enroll in Intel® Software Partner Program today and learn how the program can help you deliver innovative solutions to meet your users' demands. Learn More |
| 26/08/2009 11:33 AM |
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Sometimes being a parent in this newly connected world can lead to issues that our parents never had to face. Take for example these two text message I received the other night: ?Dad wake up i got caught sneaking out im sorry were coming right now? Followed by ?The police are gonna come wake you up once again im sorry? As it turns out I didn?t have the phone close enough to where I sleep to have it wake me up. I awoke to my son knocking on my bedroom door telling me he was in trouble and that I needed to come and meet the police officer at the door. With this connected world of MIDs, cell phones, GPS and more I realized that I could have used software to warn me that he was out. I could have turned on the alarm system to wake me when he tried to sneak out. There are many ways I could have used technology to try and prevent such an incident but honestly, no technology ever can replace the need for a parent to do just that: Parent! My son wasn?t in big trouble, our small community has police officers watching over it 24x7 and thankfully we?ve avoided many problems larger cities have due to this oversight. He was brought home for sneaking out to enjoy a summer evening with a couple of girls from a few blocks away. He had violated curfew but was not causing trouble in doing so. The reason I wanted to mention this is that sometimes we get so caught up in technology solutions and we might forget that human interaction, parenting, social circles and the regular face to face activities in life are still necessary and help us build the families, relationships and communities we enjoy. |
| 26/08/2009 10:54 AM |
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Parallel Programming Talk #43 - Parallel Patterns with Dr. Ralph E. Johnson |
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Today on the show we talking with Ralph E. Johnson, a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Download link to a high quality MP4 video file of the show (about 300MB). But First the News Intel Threading Building Blocks 2.2 Released August 4. New features include: Intel visual computing showed a few demos last week. One of the one's that I though most interesting was the Horsepower ? Visual Threading Demo - based on Smoke Tech Demo Upcoming events to keep in mind Send in your Questions and Ideas to ParallelProgrammingTalk@Intel.com. The next Listener Question Show on September 1st Coming up on Parallel Programming Talk |
| 26/08/2009 10:36 AM |
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Senior VP and General Manager of Intel?s Digital Enterprise Group Pat Gelsinger is one of Intel?s grandest geeks and gets gitty about his favorite tech industry gatherings of all, the Intel Developer Forum. We like catching Pat and other IDF keynoters on camera to tease some of the topics they?re planning to share on stage because thekeynotes are where we see tech demonstrations and new announcements made public for the first time. Pat hops on stage during Day One at 1:00 p.m. PT, following Intel CEO Paul Otellini?s IDF kickoff keynote. He says he?ll be sharing deeper insights into Intel codenames and strategies for future products, including Larrabee. He says to watch for new initiatives, including one for really big, scaleable datacenters. He?ll talk about Intel Xeon processors moving into the ?mission critical? computing space, and says to watch for first ever demos and first peeks at projects that got their start inside Intel Labs. . If you?d like to follow the integration and innovation stories leading up to, during and after the Intel Developer Forum (September 22-24 in San Francisco), please follow: |
| 26/08/2009 10:04 AM |
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Ok - I’ll be totally honest here… when I was first invited to goto Blizzcon - I hesitated. Why? Well, for one - I’m not a Warcraft player, I’ve seen Starcraft, and many of my friends have lost countless hours playing the Diablo series games… so why wasn’t I hooked on these games? After attending Blizzcon - I now realize why Blizzard’s ‘accidental community’ is such a strong community… it’s a mix of the people, the game lore, the artistry involved - and finally - the games themselves! Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime stated in the opening ceremonies that the 20,000 tickets for Blizzcon sold out in under one minute and over 50,000 joined in on the DirecTV & Internet Streaming of the event!- that’s ASTOUNDING! So I felt lucky to be a part of the crew… and what a crew it is! First of all, when I arrived - I was part of a team - so I didn’t have to stand in the milelong lines for registration, which was AWESOME! BUT! I also didn’t get a ‘goodie bag’ like everyone who DID stand in line… so I was writhing in my own skin to find out what is in the box! After a few hours of hard work, I was able to get my hands on mine! Here are the contents of the Blizzcon 2009 Goodie Bag! I found this video that goes though all the bits in the bag - nice job!
So as you can see, lots of ‘stuff’ in the Goodie Bag - and I may even start playing WoW since I got a free Murloc pet! I figure, my gaming hours are usually from 10pm to 2am - why not make it 10pm to 6am? (just kidding!) Well, this will probably be my last Blizzcon post - so I wanted to leave you with a video montage of the event. Pretty much everything that was going on at Blizzcon! Let me know if you were at the event, and add more replies with your own video/photo coverage of the event - I am truly impressed with Blizzard’s ‘community’ of gamers! Oh - and for those of you wondering about release dates World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be out around November 2009 StarCraft 2 should be released in 2010 (with new Battlenet platform) Diablo 3 is slated for 2011 (from what I’ve heard) so keep watching |
| 26/08/2009 06:48 AM |
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Keith Packard has been developing open source software since 1986, focusing on the X Window System since 1987, designing and implementing large parts of the current implementation. He is currently a Principal Engineer with Intel?s Open Source Technology Center. Keith received a Usenix Lifetime Achievement award in 1999 and sits on the X.org foundation board. Dawn: What made you decide to join Intel's Open Source Technology Center (OTC) in 2006? Keith: Intel was about the last place I'd considered working when I started looking for a new position in 2006. But, I came out and interviewed with Imad Sousou, the Director of the OTC, and discovered that Intel had changed when I wasn't looking -- Intel clearly "got it" and had started making sure that Intel hardware was well supported by Open Source software, by working as a part of the community in developing software and supporting the community by releasing documentation. Mr. Sousou asked me to come to Intel and help fix the Linux desktop, both in continuing my efforts in the broader X window system as well as by working inside Intel to improve support for Intel graphics hardware. It's been a great pleasure to work within the OTC and see how much progress we've been able to make. Dawn: Out of all of the work you've done at Intel over the past several years, what are you the most proud of? Keith: The OTC graphics team has led the way in rewriting a huge chunk of the Linux graphics infrastructure in the last two years. Much of this work had been in the planning stages for years, but never really started due to a lack of developer time. Having the support of Intel to build a team able to work with the community in this kind of intensive and long-term effort has been very satisfying. Dawn: What are your favorite geeky (or not so geeky hobbies) that you do when you aren't hacking on X? Keith: I've been involved in amateur rocketry for the last several years. I've worked with the Portland State Aerospace Society, as well as built and flown my own rockets. Recently, I've been collaborating with Bdale Garbee on a new rocket flight computer called |
| 26/08/2009 05:30 AM |
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GC'09: Ubisoft presents brand-new strategy gaming title R.U.S.E. |
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During GC'09 Senior Producer Mathieu Girard from Ubisoft took some time and showed us their brand-new gaming title R.U.S.E. which will show up in 2010. R.U.S.E. is a strategy game with a completely new game engine which allows ultra fast zooming and offers new AI and physics capabilities. R.U.S.E. seems to define the genre of real time strategic game play completely new. Based on a new game engine called Iriszoom gamer will be able to zoom in and out the battle field within seconds without any glitches or frame drops. So what we could see in this short presentation of R.U.S.E. was quite amazing. And this really done in real time. In order to do this smoothly all 3D objects are stored in a huge database and will be rendered while the player is seeing them. This means that you need a fast microprocessor with multicore architecture and high memory bandwidth. That's why Ubisoft / Eugen Systems decided to optimize R.U.S.E. for the Intel Core i7 micro architecture. Eugen Systems multi-threaded R.U.S.E. completely. But instead of putting AI on one CPU core and physics on another they split up the whole application into micro-jobs in order to achieve the best and most efficient usage of the available processor hardware. This results in several tasks which can be loaded well-balanced on two, four, eight and even on twelve cores. So, have a look at the video interview and the game demo and enjoy it. It's really fun! |
| 26/08/2009 05:19 AM |
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THE GORY DETAILS Let?s continue from where we left off last time. Let?s figure out the why of the equation,
P = C * V^2 * (a * f) To do this, we?re going to have to look at what is going on in one of the fundamental building So when and how does this circuit dissipate power? Before getting into the math, let?s get our variables right. Vdd is the voltage across the gate Ipeak is the peak short circuit current going through the gate when it switches state (0 to 1 or 1 to 0) Ileakage is the current through the gate even when it is reverse biased (i.e. in a 0 or a 1 state) CL is the capacitance of one transistor ts is the switching time needed to change the state of the switch fg=1/Tg is the maximum rate that the gate can cycle at in our processor. In other words, it is the gate?s clock frequency.
Let
The one going through the gate results from the brief time that both semi-conductor transistors are closed causing a short circuit. In an ideal world, the switch would be instantaneous and there would be no current flow, and hence no power loss. But this isnts, when weVdd, multiplied by the current, Ipeak. (Wets. Then the total energy lost is bounded by
Energy loss due to open circuit = Vdd* Ipeak * ts
Letts is small compared to Tg we can approximate the energy loss as,
Energy loss due to reverse biased gate ~ Vdd*Ileakage*Tg
What about the total energy loss? If the energy loss due to the reverse bias leakage and short circuit current are so small, where is all that energy coming from that is heating our processor?
To get this, we need to look more closely at what a gate looks like in an analog sense. A reverse biased transistor is basically a capacitor, that is, two plates separated by an insulator / dielectric. From the figure above, itCL. A forward biased transistor is a short. These plates charge and discharge like a capacitor because of the design of a gate. In the one state, one transistor is
The equation for the energy stored in a capacitor (C) is
Energy in a capacitor =
At each transition, the capacitor dumps the energy stored in it to either to ground or to the other complement transistor, giving us the following.
Energy flow due to a state transition =
Remember that one cycle has two state transitions. So the complete equation for the energy loss caused by one cycle, which weEtr, is,
Etr=CL*V2dd+ 2*Vdd*Ipeak*ts+Vdd*Ileakage*Tg
IIpeak, may still be.
After dropping those last two terms, we
Etr ~ CL*V2dd
This is almost what we want. Wefa * f, where f is the frequency of the processor and a is some constant.
Energy output of a gate/sec ~ CL * Vdd2 * (a*f)
And how many gates are in a high-end Intel processor today? Close to a billion for 45 nm. (And the next generation is 32 nm.) So we
Energy output of a processor/sec ~ CL * Vdd2 * (a*f) * number of transistors
Now before those of you who actually know this stuff start crabbing, let me make it clear that I am only attempting to help people understand where the equation comes from. Yes, the effect of the short circuit current contributes noticeably to the processor
But for those of you who are neither processor architects nor researchers into modern IC materials, mayhap this gives you a little better understanding of where this (I hope) formerly mysterious relationship comes from.
Of course, I could be just blowing smoke, but then, one of you less than gentle readers out there will let me know.
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| 25/08/2009 01:06 PM |
