Cutting the telephone cord…

I’m sure you’ve noticed, but there are quite a few options for residential phone service these days.  You have your traditional service from your local Telco, a number of Voice over IP options such as Vonage and there are digital cable services like the one I’m currently using from Comcast called Comcast Digital Voice service.  I’ve used VoIP from Vonage and I’m now using Comcast Digital Voice and let’s just say, they both have a few little “issues”.  So I’m one of the many millions of people out there thinking of going pure wireless with my cell phone and cutting the cord on the my home phone line.  I just have a few reservations…

First, I’ve had our same home phone number for years. It’s almost part of my identity! Not to mention a whole bunch of my family and friends have that number to reach me. Second, I really don’t like the idea of using a cell phone at home phone for several reasons.  Traditional home phones styles and  functionality (speaker phones, multiple handsets, ergonomics…) still appeal to me.  Technology to the rescue!

I’ve found a couple of interesting options that will allow you to use a cell phone at home, but connected into your standard home phone infrastructure.  Check out the potential:

1)      Add a line to my family plan for $9.99/month.  (Verizon)

2)      Transfer my old land-line number to my new cell phone line.

3)      Use my existing set of home phone equipment already in place.

There are two relatively new devices that will enable this type of scenario.  The first is a system called Dock N Talk from PhoneLabs. The other is a series of products from GE branded Cell Fusion.  Both devices are designed to connect  a cell phone into the existing infrastructure of your home phone system.  The result is that you can make and receive cell phone calls using your existing phone wiring &  hand set equipment.  Sound intriguing? We’ll see… I just ordered the GE Cell Fusion Gateway – the most basic in a series of products from GE’s Cell Fusion line.  In my next post, I’ll let you know how it’s working!

URL: http://media.seagate.com/2009/05/davidburks/3736/

How PC Gaming helps shape the future of computing

How PC Gaming helps shape the future of computing

One of the reasons I enjoy working in the Games industry so much is due to the rapid pace at which innovation occurs. It’s not uncommon to learn about and be surprised by some new development on a daily basis. I’m going to focus specifically on PC gaming primarily because key advancements and innovations typically seem to occur in PC Games first which then trickles down into other disciplines, fields, or platforms like the Console, Hand Held, MIIDs, etc.

My next thought is around just how exploitive PC games are compared to other mainstream consumer software applications. Personally; I’m not sure there is any other software application that taxes a PC’s OS or hardware components to the extent that PC games can. One would likely have to go outside the boundaries of a mainstream software consumer application to find examples of software that even comes close. (e.g. Scientific, Exploration, Climate Modeling, Medical, etc)

At a high level PC Games are utilizing: the Graphics stack, the Audio stack, the Network stack, and so on. At a glance here are just some of the key technology features exploited by PC Games:

• Graphics – PC games typically run thru an API (Application Programming Interface) like DirectX® or OpenGL™, and are fast approaching cinematic quality graphics rendering in real time.
- PC Games can also run at much higher screen resolutions with faster refresh rates and a ton more flexibility for tweaking and user preferences.
- Past examples of graphics advancements were things such as: Bump Mapping, HLSL (High Level Shader Language), etc.
- Future examples of graphics advancements will be things like: Real time Ray Tracing, Global Illumination, etc.
• Audio – PC games can take advantage of full surround sound. Another key audio feature that’s also come a long way is the in-game chat client. If in-game chat is not available then a PC gamer can opt to use a VoIP client such as Ventrilo or TeamSpeak
• Network – Remember when you used to play a game over dial up? Broadband has definitely revolutionized PC Gaming. Wireless Broadband takes that experience to a whole new level. I’m very excited about the prospects of WiMAX.
• AI (Artificial Intelligence), Pathing, Crowd Control – are all examples of technologies that have been heavily used in PC Gaming. However; I’d love to see the boundaries stretched some more. How cool would it be to have your own personal HAL (2001), or JARVIS (Iron Man) while gaming?
• Physics – Exploding, breaking, twisting, bending, stretching, etc are all examples of things that make a game more interesting and believable.
• Multi-Core/Threading – PC Gaming, because of the spectrum of hardware and software technology innovations that it exploits, has a lot to benefit from the ability to utilize and take advantage of more cores and threads.
• 64-Bit – In the PC gaming sense of the word we’ve only scratched the surface. While utilizing 64-Bit may not necessarily always translate to faster speeds what you can bank on is being able to load larger levels, more objects, and activity onto the screen at comparable speeds you experience today in a 32-Bit world. Side by side there’s no comparison. Exploiting 64-Bit can’t happen soon enough in my books.
• Input Devices – The quick examples that go beyond the mouse and keyboard include things like: gamepads, joysticks, flight yokes/throttle/pedals, wheels, musical instruments, etc.

While my above list is by no means exhaustive I’m hoping it’s more evident just how many different types of processes are going on inside a PC Game simultaneously. While I don’t expect every non-gaming software application to require or need most of the features listed above, I do believe that most software applications can still benefit from the advances found in PC Gaming that can later translate to: better graphics, better AI, better threading, and so forth. For example, future vision montages like this from Microsoft tend to be pretty feature rich in their vision of graphics utilization. By facing the challenges we find in PC Games today I think we can start realizing some of these visionary goals for the future just that much sooner.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts and feedback.

(Special thanks to Phil Taylor who helped me with parts of my laundry list, and to a fellow Intel blogger, Doug Holland, who noted the Microsoft Montage)

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IntelBlogs/~3/2YQwjT6ngRY/

Where do you want the Internet?

On CNN this morning, there’s an article about Nettops, another internet device powered by the Intel Atom processor.  In my previous posts, I’ve talked about wanting a stylish little netbook - to carry around in my purse.  But now, I’m kinda starting to think that I want a nettop on my kitchen counter too.  True, I could use the netbook in the kitchen, but I kinda like the idea of having an unmoveable internet device on my countertop.  It could be the recipe organizer and family calendar and it wouldn’t get lost in the house!  I surfed around a little bit and found a touchscreen version of the nettop that would fit the bill just perfectly on Amazon.com:

Today, as I travel through my day, I’m just thinking to myself – if the internet was here, what else could I do?  How would the experience change?  What ideas do you have? 

To help spur some thoughts, consider some of Intel’s forays into infotainment devices, media phones, eco-technologies and other industrial-strength applications (see full list of intriguing applications here).

We’re headed into the time of Ubiquitous Internet…  how amazing is it that the world wide web as we know it today was born only 20 years ago…  I love this stuff!

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IntelBlogs/~3/X3l2OSVK_KE/where-do-you-want-the-internet.php