Interesting article about ARM


sverm

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http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/arms-race-why-your-next-laptop-might-not-have-intel-inside/3994?tag=nl.e589

It’s no secret that the performance margin between smartphones and netbooks is shrinking. But soon it could disappear altogether.


[...]


Unlike Intel, ARM doesn’t manufacture or sell chips. Instead it licenses its recipes to chip designers who customize them and add other ingredients to develop more complex SOCs (System-On-a-Chip). These customers can either manufacture the SOCs themselves or hire a foundry to fabricate the chips. Nearly all cell phones use ARM-based processors developed in this manner.


[more...]
 
The "Windows is going to fail" posters make me embarrassed to be a linux user sometimes. They give a bad name to linux users everywhere. :( "Oh, here we go, another Linux zealot. Let's solidify our position as Windows users because he's spouting a bunch of nonsense." They do more harm than good.


At the same time, the posters saying "if it can't run Windows it'll fail because people want Windows" also makes me sad. Brand loyalty is a scary thing no matter where it comes from. If you're car shopping but are only interested in buying Ford, you are going to miss out on a huge market of potential vehicles, some of which may suit your needs better than anything you can get from Ford.


The problem of Windows being necessary also makes me sad because it highlights the lack of basic training people are getting. They're not taught how to find files on the hard drive, they're taught to double click the My Documents icon, and then double click the document they want to open. Even if the process is the exact same, but the icons slightly different, these people flounder. "I can't find My Documents! No, that's not it, it's a beige picture on my computer. This one is blue! Obviously it's something different." Yes, paraphrased from an actual conversation. My faith in the "average" computer user falls a little more every day.
 
Somehow I am still happy I started using computers before windows or linux were there I have the feeling that in those home computing and DOS times you still had to figure out some stuff. After figuring something out there was instant gratification (mostly in the form of finally being able to run a certain game). In todays world you dont need to invest because everything is presented in a a very easy form. That is until something goes wrong (which to be honest doesnt happen that much) and because not encountering and solving simple problems on a computer one is faced immediately with the bigger problems. That and people are scared to use the help function.


At my work everybody uses illustrator to make figures for scientific papers. The first thing they do is shout bosbeetle how does this work. Most of the time I google for an easy solution or check the help. This could be done by themselves as well but they just dont want to invest time. And that is I think the problem, you have 2 types of people those who are willing to invest some time in using a computer and those who don't. The latter will never try to fix anything themselfs if it isnt very obvious.


sorry for all the oftopic stuff
 
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