Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 14th Sep 2012 22:30 UTC
You'd think this sort of stuff belonged to the past - but no. Apparently, Microsoft is afraid of Android on its Windows 8 tablets, because Intel has just announced that it will provide no support for Linux on its clover Trail processors. Supposedly, this chip is "designed for Windows 8". What?
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RE[3]: Comment by redshift
by bert64 on Tue 18th Sep 2012 12:40
in reply to "RE[2]: Comment by redshift"
Member since:2007-04-23
An x86 port of Android would be a red headed stepchild...
Best case it would be no worse than the more common ARM devices, it would run the same platform neutral or open source apps, with equivalent performance and battery life.
Worst case...
It won't run a large number of existing Android apps which are closed source and only compiled for ARM.
It will use more power than competing ARM designs, and therefore have inferior battery life.
An x86 windows tablet on the other hand, does offer benefits over an arm based windows tablet (availability of existing programs, albeit program unsuitable for use on a tablet ui)... The windows tablets will be different enough to the android tablets to mask any efficiency differences, and the x86 tablets will be sufficiently better than the crippled arm version of windows that many people will be happy to sacrifice some battery life for a massively superior device.
RE[4]: Comment by redshift
by lemur2 on Wed 19th Sep 2012 02:29
in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by redshift"
Member since:2007-02-17
It won't run a large number of existing Android apps which are closed source and only compiled for ARM.
Whilst I agree with the main point of your post, I do question this assumption.
Android apps are written in "Dalvik", which is modelled after Java (it is not derived from Java, since Dalvik has no Java code). As I understood it, a Java app, and hence a Dalvik app, contains bytecode and not compiled binary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_bytecode
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_%28software%29
"Dalvik is the process virtual machine (VM) in Google's Android operating system. It is the software that runs the apps on Android devices. Dalvik is thus an integral part of Android, which is typically used on mobile devices such as mobile phones and tablet computers as well as more recently on embedded devices such as smart TVs and media streamers. Programs are commonly written in Java and compiled to bytecode. They are then converted from Java Virtual Machine-compatible .class files to Dalvik-compatible .dex (Dalvik Executable) files before installation on a device."
Hence I would assume that Dalvik-compatible .dex (Dalvik Executable) files are architecture independent.
http://source.android.com/tech/dalvik/dalvik-bytecode.html
An x86 Android device could therefore execute the exact same Dalvik executable .dex files as an ARM device, without any re-compilation required.
Edited 2012-09-19 02:30 UTC
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:33 UTC
Official Apple statement on PRISM and privacy: "Regardless of the circumstances, our Legal team conducts an evaluation of each request and, only if appropriate, we retrieve and deliver the narrowest possible set of information to the authorities. In fact, from time to time when we see inconsistencies or inaccuracies in a request, we will refuse to fulfill it." This is basically Apple re-publishing their earlier statement in a more official manner. You either believe it, or you don't.
Linked by Anonymous on 06/18/13 22:26 UTC
The open source Contiki operating system and its commercial Thingsquare distribution are making strides towards the connected home. According to a Computerworld article, a new LED light bulb manufacturer is putting small computers into their light bulbs. Each computer runs the Contiki OS, which gives each bulb an IP address and allows them to be controlled with a smartphone application. To connect the bulbs to the application, the bulbs use both Wi-Fi and the much lower power IEEE 802.15.4 mesh technology.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 22:25 UTC
"Google asked the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to ease long-standing gag orders over data requests it makes, arguing that the company has a constitutional right to speak about information it's forced to give the government. The legal filing, which cites the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech, is the latest move by the California-based tech giant to protect its reputation in the aftermath of news reports about sweeping National Security Agency surveillance of Internet traffic." Draining the ditch after the cow has drowned in it.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:45 UTC
"I can't find one person who has been using the Nexus 7 for an extended period of time, and hasn't seen a massive downgrade in performance. Just what kind of downgrade are we talking here? I cannot pick up my Nexus 7 without experiencing problems like a lag of ten seconds, or more, just to rotate the display; touches refusing to acknowledged; stuttering notification panel actions; and unresponsive apps." Fully and utterly agreed. My Nexus 7 was blazing-fast and awesome for a few months, and at some point, it just started sucking. Just like that. I've tried loads of ROMs, and nothing helps.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/18/13 17:32 UTC, submitted by poundsmack
A new release of the hobby operating system MenuetOS! The release notes are a bit non-descript, but you'll have to take what you can get: "updates and improvements (picview, httpc, ehci, ...)".
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:58 UTC
"The Internet is one of the most transformative technologies of our lifetimes. But for 2 out of every 3 people on earth, a fast, affordable Internet connection is still out of reach. And this is far from being a solved problem. There are many terrestrial challenges to Internet connectivity - jungles, archipelagos, mountains. There are also major cost challenges. Right now, for example, in most of the countries in the southern hemisphere, the cost of an Internet connection is more than a month's income. Solving these problems isn't simply a question of time: it requires looking at the problem of access from new angles. So today we're unveiling our latest moonshot from Google[x]: balloon-powered Internet access." Insane.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/17/13 17:52 UTC
"MineAssemble is a tiny bootable Minecraft clone written partly in x86 assembly. I made it first and foremost because a university assignment required me to implement a game in assembly for a computer systems course. Because I had never implemented anything more complex than a 'Hello World' bootloader before, I decided I wanted to learn about writing my own kernel code at the same time. Note that the goal of this project was not to write highly efficient hand-optimized assembly code, but rather to have fun and write code that balances readability and speed. This is primarily accomplished by proper commenting and consistent code structuring." Just cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 21:03 UTC
Jon Rubinstein, former CEO of Palm: "Well, I'm not sure I would have sold the company to HP. That's for sure. Talk about a waste. Not that I had any choice because when you sell a company you don't get to decide that. Obviously, the board and shareholders decide that. If we had known they were just going to shut it down and never really give it a chance to flourish, what would have been the point of selling the company? I think the deal we had with Verizon really hurt us, but who knew that at the time? These things are all hindsight."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 20:46 UTC
"And so it is with Dell's Alienware X51 R2, a small form factor gaming PC in console digs. It's shaped similar to Microsoft's Xbox 360 Slim, and though it's slightly larger than either a 360 or PlayStation 3, the X51 R2 would be right at home in a living room setting nestled next to a large screen TV. Indeed, it's adept at running Steam's Big Picture mode, and if your primary objective is to play games in the living room, go ahead and consider the X51 R2 a hybrid game console." This is obviously not the only machine like this - still, these are very valid console alternatives even for those that don't like being hunched over with a cramped WASD-claw. Also, PC gamers among us: could you get away with the $699 model for gaming?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/14/13 17:32 UTC
From Bloomberg: "Microsoft, the world's largest software company, provides intelligence agencies with information about bugs in its popular software before it publicly releases a fix, according to two people familiar with the process. That information can be used to protect government computers and to access the computers of terrorists or military foes." The lid has officially been blown off.More News »
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Member since:
2007-04-18
Let's be clear, this is pure unsupported conjecture. (N.B. not agreeing with you doesn't mean I agree with Thom.)
How about at least putting out a binary blob driver, like lots of vendors do? (nVidia, AMD, Broadcom, etc.) This argument has been shown to be wrong before.
You do realize that the non-Apple tablet market (for which this chip is almost certainly targeted) is about 100% Android (and thus Linux)? Windows 8 has 0% of the market. Thus, from a pure business perspective (even accepting your above arguments about IGPs), it makes next to no sense at all to target a non-existent market with a new product, unless there are other motives behind it as well (such as an exclusivity deal with Microsoft). Just to drive this point home a bit better, let's quote the linked article on the The Inquirer:
Is this absolute 100% proof that Intel and Microsoft have an exclusivity deal? No. But it makes it extremely likely, to the point of being beyond a reasonable doubt.
Edited 2012-09-15 10:22 UTC