2016 is the year of portable computers

[comradekingu]

Depends how new it is.


Intel has / generates /bullies itself into so much money they can throw huge amounts away on their mobile segment. Which each year incurs a flat loss.


It yet to break into any marketshare with this subsidy. For ARM to compete has a lot to do with it, on the contrary, being to the benefit of many.


I'm glad intel as a company sold off its ARM branch long ago. But hey, we could see things coming down to size eventually.


Right now the market is converging towards more mobile units, and less upselling on irrelevant speed-increases.


Intel could lower the bar considerably by slashing its inflated prices, and focus on products people want, but they want to rock that horse with MS as long as possible.


Desktops went, laptops are gone, and now we have clever tablets I suppose. I feel the pyra is less odd than the openpandora was back when it came out. Things go in waves and there is always a reaction to things. Intel had good Linux products that were really at the forefront of progress, and then now they don't. They tried to have the larrabee graphics, and decided not to.


Real keyboards, small studio, indie games and Linux is on the up though, which is nice. I think maybe SteamOS will do for non-portables in the short term what Android did for portable linux. And with things coming down to where ordinary people can use it, the pyra and continuation, i have great hopes for.

 

[pmprog]

Depends how new it is.


Intel has / generates /bullies itself into so much money they can throw huge amounts away on their mobile segment. Which each year incurs a flat loss.


It yet to break into any marketshare with this subsidy. For ARM to compete has a lot to do with it, on the contrary, being to the benefit of many.


I'm glad intel as a company sold off its ARM branch long ago. But hey, we could see things coming down to size eventually.


Right now the market is converging towards more mobile units, and less upselling on irrelevant speed-increases.


Intel could lower the bar considerably by slashing its inflated prices, and focus on products people want, but they want to rock that horse with MS as long as possible.

To be honest, most of this post sounds anti-Intel rather than anti-x86; and I guess that's probably why you have no technical argument against x86.

Desktops went, laptops are gone, and now we have clever tablets I suppose.

What? Desktops and laptops are gone? Don't be silly.

 

[FaeMinx]

To be honest, most of this post sounds anti-Intel rather than anti-x86; and I guess that's probably why you have no technical argument against x86.


What? Desktops and laptops are gone? Don't be silly.

Not Quite yet, and in all likelihood, will always exist in some form somewhere.


But their spotlight in the sun is gone...


Portability + Power + Versatility


will be the three driving keywords in the next age of computing into which we are rapidly accelerating.


devices will fall under one of two categories:


*Specialist devices... smaller, cheaper, largely automatic and generally preprogrammed.


*Convergence devices... will replace phones (all iterations), computers (all iterations), media players (all etc.), spec wars will become tech wars will become function wars... the race to do more and more will lead to devices more akin to all-powerful companions than the basic, but necessary tools they are at this time.


Telescoping one's vision out of the moment and applying trajectory to the art of what you humans 'niavely' call 'imagination' will grant one vision of a kaleidoscoping picture that are the myriad time strings connected to the node point that you are - meshing in and out of each other fluidly, pulsing to the ebb and flow of your conscious perception.


So long as you are unattached to any one weave, you may perceive anything you so wish, and to engage with that moment as this moment, and in so doing, reweave the universe.


This is a natural skill that all connected beings innately have, and which operates regardless of the self-awareness of the incarnate.


However, when one fabricates a denial... this 'blind spot' in the being becomes a sink-hole for unwanted perceptions, secrets, little fears... your greatest fear of all....


... and there in the darkness it grows... feeding... taking you over in moments of no control... using you to send out it's perceptions into the multiverse... that ripple out in great waves, to rebound back at you in this escalating nightmare reality... the further you run from that dark place, the more terrible it becomes... the more everything falls apart, until there is nothing left to hold onto... all you know is fear ... ...and it consumes you utterly.


Deep within, locked close to that dark place, you know this to be true.


So, ...I am telling you now...


There is no escape.


There is no way out.


Surely with this knowledge, you would seek out the clues I have left, to find the pathway I have carefully laid out, to which you may escape this most terrible fate?


Surely?


You are already trapped in it's gravity well, sinking below the event horizon, soon... there will be no hope at all of you hearing me, or perceiving me in any way... even in reflections refracting within the event horizon, and you will be beyond my help.


Let go of your attachment, your obsession, or it will drag you into oblivion.


You have very little time to transcend corporeality. I urgently suggest you delay no longer and head this most serious, most urgent of revelations.


Oh... and P.s.


To you human beings to which this sounds Insane, embrace that.


You, who have that 'sinking' feeling, know perfectly well the inescapability to which I allude.


*ahem*


you were supposed to be giving them a picture of the future...


Well??


damn it Minky we agreed on a bullet-point snapshot virtually indistinguishable from 'other' news sources... you know the restrictions on time manipulation we have to work under?


this was a non-negligible allocation of re-source-s that went into the growing of these humans


... having more nodes shut down...


I am reactivating nodes that were written off. In this expression time is of the essence and I can no longer afford to be gentle in the weaving with the... more stubborn... ones.


what you ask is already beyond them...


I have seen greatness of being even for the darkest of those lost to us...


I have this opportunity to influence corporeality directly, from an undeniable source.


There is a delay I've anticipated and adjusted for... measure the fields... you will see the fruits

 

[Yoyobuae]

To be honest, most of this post sounds anti-Intel rather than anti-x86; and I guess that's probably why you have no technical argument against x86.

Very often the company behind the product makes all the difference. I mean look at Windows and Microsoft.


I personally got Pandora and will get Pyra because I perceive ED, the team and the community as a whole has interests which align well with my own. It's certainly not the technical specifications of the devices themselves which is the main draw (there are other devices have better specs and lower pricing).


Which brings us back to Intel. Near monopoly is never a good thing for the consumer. Competitiveness is what makes products better and cheaper. IMO its a good thing ARM is giving Intel a run for their money on the portable sector. I bet you that without ARM around Intel x86 would've taken much longer to become power efficient enough to be viable on tablets and such.


In short: Say NO to WIntel.

 

[Haraldur]

Depends how new it is.

Roughly two years old.

Which brings us back to Intel. Near monopoly is never a good thing for the consumer.

Why is x86 more of a monopoly threat than ARM? Patents and licences? Or is it because an x86 machine would be more difficult to implement because of the history and cruft of x86 vs. ARM?

 

[levi]

Well, yes - licenses.  Intel own the chip layout and the fab - it's vertically integrated apart from the instruction set (which is actually owned by AMD these days and licensed out, I think).  Meanwhile ARM own the instruction set and reference layouts, but licensees can and do make their own layouts and yet more companies go out and fabricate those layouts.  It's more companies = more expertise = more options.


Granted, ARM own one important bit - the reference layout, but they license it for pretty cheap, so it's rarely a big cost in the device you choose to buy down the line.

 

[Yoyobuae]

Exactly. A little bit like how Linux kernel is the base for all the different distributions, but different distributions can provide a different experience to the end use (but they all benefits from improvements made to the kernel).

 

[comradekingu]

X86_64 is more of a threat because it gives us worse products, and its run by a monopolist that abuses the market. ARM getting bigger is good, and ARM being equally big is not the same, nor do they show the intent of making it so.

 

[Haraldur]

So, if AMD licences out the instruction set (as patent or as copyright? Either way, there would still be some stuff that would have to be licenced from Intel, no?), why do more companies not do so? Too expensive? Or is there no market for cheap, crap x86 CPUs? In theory, any company with sufficient resources should be able to develop a layout -- and AMD, indeed, no longer has its own fabs and uses other companies for the purpose: there is a difference between hiring someone's fabs and licensing out a layout to another company that has its own fabs, but it does not seem to be a huge difference to me.

 

[WizardStan]

But their spotlight in the sun is gone...

Yeah, so?  They're ubiquitous.


The indoor flushable toilet's spotlight went out long time ago, that didn't usher in a new era of potty time, we just got so used to them that it literally became the norm to have one, and very strange if you didn't.  The refridgerator, the TV, the telephone, all things that at one time were amazing and then just became another thing that everyone had.  The desktop is going the same way.

 

[___]

I'd say the same for laptops. People now often own several. Every kid has their own, parents have theirs and they might have a tablet or even two in the household as well. At least I know a lot of families that do and it's not even a luxury any more. Hope that people will keep their laptops/desktops even when there is new shiny gadgets all the time.


Very interesting info on x86. Had no idea different parts were owned by intel and amd. May I also inquire about the privacy issue you mentioned comradkingu?

 

[FaeMinx]

Yeah, so?  They're ubiquitous.


The indoor flushable toilet's spotlight went out long time ago, that didn't usher in a new era of potty time, we just got so used to them that it literally became the norm to have one, and very strange if you didn't.  The refridgerator, the TV, the telephone, all things that at one time were amazing and then just became another thing that everyone had.  The desktop is going the same way.

Certainly, though I am talking to a fair step forward in time where space considerations and versatility are very important.


Most certainly, every home will have a 'home' computer... integrated into the fabrication of the unit (homes will be a lot smaller), with no detectable *physical* presence... I.e. screens will appear as projections or appear on walls and windows, or indeed - fed to your optical nerves through your own integrated circuitry. 


In order to 'swap out' components, it would necessitate removing wall panels and fiddling with the guts of the 'house'.


Oh, and yes... toilets as we know them now *will* become obsolete... they take up too much space and are a terribly inefficient waste of water, ....and the amount of plumbing and supporting infrastructure required for this primitive system is absurd.

 

[pmprog]

Oh, and yes... toilets as we know them now *will* become obsolete... they take up too much space and are a terribly inefficient waste of water, ....and the amount of plumbing and supporting infrastructure required for this primitive system is absurd.

Time to call Bill Gates!

 

[iprice]

Surely Bill Gates works the other way around - start with something good and turn it into shit?