Posts by Richard Dudley

Submarine cables get simpler, faster

Over hyped?

I watched the video because this did sound on first reading something rather special. Removing the need for regeneration? It would be amazing if it were true. But I can only see they now have the flexibility over the transmission format to reduce the need for regeneration (at the expense of reduced bandwidth), not remove it entirely. Use of DSP in signal regeneration is nothing new, just they're now using a faster one (based on a smaller feature size 32nm CMOS process).

Jimbo Wales 'to advise Whitehall on transparency'

Loss of SOH?

Perhaps Jimbo is only doing it for the publicity or is blissfully unaware of the wisdom of Sir Arnold in 'Yes Minister' ('Open Government') -

"My dear boy, it is a contradiction in terms: you can be open or you can have government.

How digital audio ate itself and the music industry

Oversampling <> overspinning

Oversampling means increasing the sample rate - it was originally introduced by Philips because at the time their DAC (TDA1540 from memory) only had 14bits, so they used this technique to get closer to 16. The disk span at the same rate, the extra samples are created mathematically in a filter (SAA7220 in Philips' incarnation). With a new sample rate of 176kHz the high frequency noise (images) is easier to remove, being further from the wanted signal.

Groupon sues ex-sales heads for defection to Google

Underbid?

A $6m bid for Groupon? No wonder it failed.

Stallman: Jobs exerted 'malign influence' on computing

Good ol' fashioned cynicism

Stallman's seeing nothing but his own negative perceptual slant here. Walled gardens are to computing as water wings are to swimming. People too timid to go out to play in the big open jungle are encouraged to have fun at the shallow end which Jobs has provided for them. In time, they'll gain confidence then maybe Stallman will collect a new disciple.

Windows 8 secure boot would 'exclude' Linux

Smart as he undoubtedly is, The Professor is failing to see the bigger picture. The future is not PCs and x86, its ARM and Linux/Android. So let M$ get on with hastening their own demise by further restricting the PC platform. Encourage them to do so even. The ecosystem will always come up with the goods eventually, the sooner people kick the Windoze/x86 habit and go cold turkey the sooner we can all embrace the more egalitarian digital future.

Intel rewrites 'inadequate' roadmap, 'reinvents' PC

Paul Otellini you are no Andy Grove

Andy Grove's book 'Only the paranoid survive' is a great read. In it he explains that whenever there's a 10-fold change in some technology metric you have a 'strategic inflexion point'. Basically he's saying 10X is disruptive. ARM has that 10X improvement in MIPS/mW and some. So long Intel and thanks for all the fish.

'Portable' CD player puts MP3 into a spin

Re: Re: Rubbish

Hey Luke,

Its you that's got CD physics wrong, not our Jimmy. CDs are read out at a constant linear velocity (CLV) which means they rotate less quickly when the head's at the edge than when its in the middle (starting point). Jimmy's referring to the head's position, not a point on the disk.