Category Archives: Hardware Technologies

Virtualization Commoditization

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I don’t believe that most people really see what is coming with
Virtualization … at multiple levels.  This plan by Microsoft,
IMHO, is common sense … and something that the Linux crowd really
will have to wake up to.  And I do not believe that Xen is it yet … not without full support for Microsoft operating systems.  Qemu is another interesting project that I have been following … they are also continuing to make advances.

With this plan by Microsoft – which I again believe is a great move –
it sounds like they will be expanding what they offer with Virtual PC … something that I use on a daily basis.  Microsoft will now be able to say “Hey … run Linux … as an APPLICATION on Windows!” 
So the installed base of Windows customers *will* be able to experience
the best of both worlds … they will maybe take a look at Linux by
running it on Windows.  They won’t have to give up Windows …
they keep Windows and get Linux too!

From what I understand, the Linux efforts for Xen will eventually be
able to compete as the next generation of processors are made available
from Intel and AMD.  As this next generation of CPUs hit, not only
will we see this advance in virtualization but these same processors
are going to be adding the multi-core, and multi-threaded capabilities
which will even further multiply the ability to virtualize operating
systems, and higher-layer abstractions.

Virtualization is starting become more of a commodity at the “hardware
virtualization” level … and more and more applications are being
written to the LAMP abstraction … another form of
virtualization.  This is all moving rapidly up the stack. 
It’s fun to watch.

News.Com: Microsoft ‘hypervisor’ plan takes shape.
Bob Muglia, senior vice president in the Windows Server Division, said
at Microsoft’s Tech Ed conference here that the software will be “built
directly in Windows and will allow companies to virtualize multiple
operating systems. [Tomalak’s Realm]

In Flight Movies … next generation

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As I am sitting here in my office, weeks after my trip to Singapore,
there are thoughts that hit me about the trip and some of the more
interesting points.  One of these was the great services on
Singapore Air.  They really are a spectacular airline, and one of
the technology points that I missed was something that I discovered on
the way back from Singapore.

On these flights, and many of the newer planes and flights, each seat
included its own “seat-back” TV for watching a variety of
programming.  I have used this before on JetBlue flights to New
York where they offer dozens of channels of satellite TV.  On the
flight over to Singapore I was reading the book Blink, and did some
catching up on magazines, and so I never did turn on the TV.  I
did, from time to time, hear people snicker or laugh and glanced over
to see one of the various new movie releases playing on someone elses
TV.

On the way back from Singapore, I was tired of reading and completing
work on my laptop, and so I thought I would check out the movie
system.  I first grabbed the in-flight guide and saw there were 60
different movies – besides the various TV programming that was being
offered.  Out of the 60 films, at least half of them were
Hollywood flicks … some new, some older.  The other half of the
movies were international movies.  I turned on the TV, put on my
headset, and started to cruise through the channels.  On each
movie that I came to, a small display appeared on the screen for a few
seconds that told me how far into the movie it was.  I found a
movie that was only 10 minutes in, and started to watch.

As I was sitting in my seat, I accidently squashed the controller –
which pops out of the armrest – and suddenly the movie started to
fast-forward!  WHAT?  I was shocked.  I hit pause …
and the movie paused.  I hit rewind … and it quickly returned to
where I had been watching.  I hit rewind again and went back all
the way to the beginning of the movie.  I had no idea that each
person had complete control of the movie they were watching!

I’m not sure how this is done, and how much control is being given,
however I was impressed.  I was able to pause to go to the
lavatory, and when I was done watching one show I could go to another
and simply rewind to the beginning!  I could not find a way to
simply “stop” the movie and restart it from the beginning, however
rewinding worked.

What is amazing to me is that for this level of control to be given,
there must be some impressive bandwidth within the plane, and they must
count on the fact that most people would not do this.  If not,
then there is even more intelligence in the system than I would have
thought.  Not only would the system have to keep track of each
person and what they were watching, it would have to be able to send
the appropriate content to the appropriate person at the appropriate
time.  Or the TV displays have the ability to buffer the movies?

In any case … I have to admit that I was impressed … nice system.

New HP tc4200!

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I finally got my new Tablet PC at work … a brand new HP tc4200! 
Once I have completed getting it all configured, updated, and all of my
software installed I might even be able to use it … maybe in a few
days.  I have to admit that I like the form factor, and the
extended travel battery adds just the right amount of tilt to the unit
when sitting on a desk.

We have been far too busy here at Agilix Labs for me to spend non-stop
time on getting it ready … but I keep spinning up new tasks on it
while doing other work.  I’m thinking that I might take it home in
the next day or two and see what I can wrap up there.

As we are now thoroughly into our beta testing of GoBinder 2006, and
our new release of Backpack, I also want to get going on developing
some plug-ins for our new architecture.  I have to get Visual
Studio installed on this new machine, and then see what I can start to
experiment with.  I know that many people have started to ask
about the beta, and the SDK … please go and check out our new support
forums as http://forums.agilix.com … and if you want to get on the
potential beta list, send an e-mail to:  beta2006 at agilix.com

New Palm Zire 72 … and new applications!

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Well … my Handspring Edge died.  I have now gone over a month
without it and I just can’t go any longer.  I have been using Palm
devices for a long time, starting with one of the original Palm
Pilots.  I find that it is just plain useful.

While growing up my father was always keeping lists.  Writing down
everything that he wanted to do each day … lists of errands … 
shopping lists.  Even to this day when I vist him at his home,
he’ll have a list of tasks, topics, and questions for us to
share.  I obviously picked up the habit from him … but I have to
admit that I moved from paper lists to the Palm.

I had to do some looking around, and although I had a lot of people telling my to go with the Treo 650,
I just really had no interest in having a larger phone.  I also
have heard a lot of complaints about the Treo devices.  In digging
around, I finally chose the Zire 72.

The Zire 72
has got a lot of nice features.  First off, it’s a Palm device
that will do everything that my old Palm did.  Plus it has a color
screen, is a digital camera, can play MP3 music, and has a SD slot for
expansion cards.  The one other feature that really hit me was the
Bluetooth wireless support.  It will actually talk to my Nokia
cell phone and allow me to send and receive SMS messages, and even dial
phone numbers from my Zire address book.

It is this last feature that really got me excited.  While
ordering I began to think about what possible applications I might
create where I have my Zire sending SMS messages for me … Hmmm. 
During the checkout process they of course pushed all of the various
accessories that I could purchase … and I did buy one – a SD
GPS!  I’m thinking that I want to create an application that
allows me to send and receive GPS data via SMS from my Zire 72.  I
can’t wait for it to arrive to begin to explore what is possible …

Apple’s First Tablet PC

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Well … that sure didn’t take too long! Here it is that I’m just
blogged about the fact that I can’t imagine that it’s too long before
Apple has a Tablet PC … and wham! It’s done! (Ok … sort
of!) One of my co-workers came across this post today … one of
the Tablet PC hackers out there got OS-X working on a Toshiba Tablet
PC. This whole Intel migration might just occur pretty quickly!

Installing Apple OS X operating system on a Tablet PC

Apple’s Developer Transition Kit offers information, sample code, software,
and hardware developers need to build Universal Binary applications to run on
Macs using Intel processors. As expected, people are also trying to install OS X
on Intel platform computers that they already own.

Charles Alexander installed OS X on his Toshiba Portege M200 Tablet PC. The
system runs. The digitizer functions. He’s run into issues with screen rotation,
networking, USB, etc. He writes on TabletPCBuzz.com,
“But with apple’s inkwell (http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/inkwell/) this thing is
really showing potential.”

I admit, I’m curious about this and would like to see this working. The
install process appears to be fairly complicated – certainly not an average
Apple or PC user experience for people. Nevertheless, a curiosity. [What is New]

Tablet PC … it’s not about Windows vs. Mac

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I just found an interesting post on my Tablet PC blog that gave me cause for this blog post:

Well, MAC IS BETTER THAN WINDOWS YOU PERSON!!

Hmmm … I’m not sure that I have anything against a Mac.  In
fact, I don’t believe that it will be long before Apple also ships a
Tablet PC. People ought to understand that the Tablet PC is not
necessarily about the operating system … it’s about a collection of
capabilities and an ergonomic design!

What I have found is that the Tablet PC is really about a design which
allows for easy use of a computer as a “tablet”, coupled with software
capabilities that allow for stylus-based annotation and writing. 
As I am watching the various vendors who are now introducing Tablet PC
systems – like IBM/Lenovo – I can only imagine that we are going to
watch more vendors jump onboard.  When Dell jumps in … it’s a
proven market.

One of my questions to my friends at Novell is why there isn’t more
Linux effort to support the standard Tablet PC platforms … and maybe
there is.  I just haven’t found too much yet.  Along this
same line of thinking, I really do think that it is just a matter of
time before Apple jumps in with their own Tablet Mac … or something
like that.  It’s not about the operating system folks …

The next wave of Robots

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When I was growing up, I remember seeing the Heathkit HERO Robots
… kit robots that you could buy from the premiere electronic kit
company.  They were too cool, and of course made me and friends
think about owning our own R2D2 robot.

Yesterday, I found out about the RoboBusiness Conference & Exposition
that was held this week in Cambridge, MA.  I am really impressed
at the conference, and the speakers, and I am sorry that I was unable
to attend.  I would have really liked to hear about the progress
that has been made in the areas of robotics and telepresense.  It
is really this second topic – telepresence – that really interests
me.  This is where robots are being used to extend the “senses” of
a human operator.  In military applications, these robots can
enter a building or cave and allow the human operator to look around
without being in danger.  In personal applications you could
remotely interact with one of your grandparents, and look around their
house for them and to keep an eye on them.

If you visit the website you will see a lot of companies working in
this space … and some very innovative solutions.  One of the
interesting robots is White Box Robotics and their new Model 914 PC-BOT … the next generation of hobbyist/experimental robots.  Is is available for purchase now, or at least to reserve one, and it is priced very aggressively.

There are many other examples, and again I really am impressed by the
list of speakers.  I’ll have to talk Doug Kaye into getting the
conference proceedings on ITConversations!

Head Mounted Displays

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I haven’t really been tracking the Wearable Computer market as much
lately.  It’s not that I don’t want to … it’s just that the
high-tech crash really crushed a lot of the innovators and stopped the
progress cold.

One area that was getting so close to delivering was in Head Mounted
Displays (HMDs).  I recently found that some vendors are again
stepping into this space.  I’m not sure that I saw Icuiti before, however I have to admit that I am pleased to see their progress!

Check out the monocular HMD, and binocular HMD … these are pretty good, and the price is not too high.  I might have to pick one up to check them out …

Photon Processors already?

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Along with other accelerating aspects of technology, of course
processors have to keep in step. There has been a recent trend
towards “mulcoth” architectures … multi-core, multi-threaded.
This is where a single “chip” that is placed in your computer might
actually contain “multiple cores” (multiple processors) and that these
processors would then provide “multi-threading” or “hyperthreading”
within them. What this give you is the equivalent of a
multi-processor machine inside of that single chip.

Much of the progress towards “mulcoth” processors was due to heat
issues as we continue to push up the speed of processors. So
instead of one giant “even faster” processor, you’ll be using machines that have
multiple cores … or multiple processors … running at current speeds in that one chip in your
computer.

I caught this article that shows where we are going to begin to track
the progress of newer approaches to breaking the speed limit on
processors. Photon Processors.

Look out … the future is coming quickly …

Production of Photon Processors Expected in 2006 [Slashdot:]