posted by 杜江凌 (John Du) on November 28, 2007
This post originally appeared on our China Research blog on 10 October. At every US IDF, the keynote speech on the first day is by our CEO to talk about the vision for technology and its application. This year’s theme, “from extreme to mainstream”, focused on the process of technology adoption from early adopters/tech enthusiasts/extreme users to more mainstream users. WiFi is a typical example of a once extreme technology that is now a basic configuration for nearly every laptop. Current “extreme technologies” including ultra mobility, powerful graphics ability, 3D processing for entertainment software, etc, could be part of a common technology configuration in the near future.
Comments (0)
tagged: China, IDF, innovation, research
posted by Anwar Ghuloum (葛安华) on November 28, 2007
I recently had a debate with a colleague about whether we should be investigating new programming languages for parallel computing given all the languages that have been developed in the last few decades. In the course of this, I made the following arguments (paraphrased):
“In the last 14 years, we’ve seen modest to (very) aggressive commercial adoption of python, ruby, java, javascript, C#, HLSL, Cg, Erlang, OCaml. That’s just what I can think of off the top of my head. That’s a new language about ever 18 months. Can you think of a computer-related field of endeavor that has similar fluidity in commercial adoption? Moreover, many of the ideas promoted in “failed” (from a commercial perspective) languages end up in mainstream languages…just go look at next gen C++ draft specification if you don’t believe that.
Not to mention that, in research, a proliferation of ideas and technologies is considered the sign of a vibrant and healthy community.”
Comments (6)
tagged: parallel computing, programming languages, programming models
posted by Justin Rattner on November 19, 2007
On Thursday October 18th, the Radiocommunication Sector of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-R) approved the inclusion of WiMAX in the IMT-2000 set of standards, commonly known as 3G. This announcement is a major accomplishment for the WiMAX community and would not have been possible had it not been for the dedication and commitment of participants of the IEEE 802.16 Working Group, the WiMAX Forum, and individual companies.
Comments (1)
tagged: policy, radio, Rattner, standards, technology, WiMAX
posted by Anwar Ghuloum (葛安华) on November 15, 2007
Physics is driving a revolution in software development. For software developers, I’m sure it’s odd to think about it this way but the evolving trends in semiconductor manufacturing is going to have a profound impact in how applications, tools, and software design methodologies take shape in the coming years. In a nutshell, the combination of Moore’s Law scaling and power-efficient architectural designs is leading us down a path that will greatly increase the amount of parallelism visible to the software developer. As a result, what was once the niche discipline of parallel programming is now going mainstream in a huge way. With this transition, however, comes an enormous challenge…
Comments (8)
tagged: Ct, itj, multi-core software, parallel programming
posted by Sean Koehl on November 05, 2007
Final comments from Scott Ettinger on the robot race:
DARPA announced the winners at an awards ceremony this morning.
Comments (1)
tagged: CMU, DARPA Urban Challenge, Robot car, Robotics, Stanford
posted by Sean Koehl on November 04, 2007
A description of the race and early results of the DARPA robot car contest from Scott Ettinger.
Today was the day of the DARPA Urban Challenge final event and people turned out in force to watch high-tech cars drive themselves through city streets for a two million dollar prize (for a full description of the Urban challenge, please see my previous posts). I knew DARPA would put together a well organized event, but I have to admit it was better than I had expected – complete with stabilized helicopter video coverage and audio commentary from Jamie and Grant of Discovery Channel’s show “Mythbusters” shown on three giant projection screens in the main tent. Impressively, this coverage could also be viewed on the internet via webcast for free. The production was great (like major TV network sporting event coverage but without commercials) and it allowed spectators to get involved in the event which would be difficult to observe without the aerial coverage.
Comments (0)
tagged: DARPA Urban Challenge, Robot car, Robotics, Stanford
posted by Megan Langer on November 03, 2007
You may have seen the blogs this week from Scott Ettinger, Intel Research Scientist helping Stanford’s team, giving you the play-by-play during the qualifiers. You’ll hear from him again tomorrow - watch out for it, because the event today was quite exciting. Junior did fantastic - was the first to cross the finish line! The official winner will be announced tomorrow morning in Victorville by the DARPA Grand Challenge race officials.
I was able to hang out with the Pit Crew earlier this week while they were preparing for the race - watch these videos to hear from Sebastian Thrun and the other pit crew members.
Comments (0)
tagged: DARPA Urban Challenge, Intel, Robot car, Robotics, Stanford
del.icio.us