AMD has fired the first shots around a massively parallel computing architecture in the form of the ATi Radeon HD 4800 series GPGPU featuring a mind-blowing 800 cores (or shader units). A GPGPU, or General Purpose Graphics Processing Unit, blurs the distinction between CPU and GPU and promises to usher in an entirely new paradigm for programmers to learn. The future has arrived in a chip that delivers more than one teraflop of computing power, and, best of all, it has arrived in the form of a $200 (6,700 baht) mid-range graphics card.
SOFTWARE COMPETITION
The Software Industry Promotion Association (Sipa) is accepting entries for the Thailand ICT Awards 2008 (Ticta) with the hope that the top entry will win the regional prize in the Asia Pacific ICT Alliance (Apicta) Awards, to be held in Indonesia later in the year.
SOFTWARE PARK'S 10TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE
Leading Thai IT executives and researchers stepped back to look at the long-term future of software development in a panel discussion during Software Park's annual conference that also marked the organisation's 10th anniversary last week.
BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
IBM has suggested that the insurance industry in Thailand and the Asia Pacific region should spend more on IT and differentiate their business models by offering products on the Web and by using electronic forms, rather than relying on the traditional approach.
BUSINESS SOLUTIONS
Compuware, which has made a name for itself selling mainframe IT services for 37 years, is re-launching itself as Compuware 2.0, and this time the message is not about technology, nor is it about putting programmers in a client's office for two years. Rather, Compuware 2.0 is about business solutions and best practices that allows companies to do their work better, in an holistic manner.
OPEN THOUUGHT
Nokia-Siemens dropped me a nice press release the other day on Dtac's "environmentally friendly" base station upgrade and how it had placed an order for 1,500 FlexiEDGE base stations that cut power consumption by 70 per cent. A nice gesture, but would it not be better to invest in 1,500 new W-CDMA stations that use even less power?
EXTENSIONS
A high proportion of computer users are dependent on networks. A problem with the system means that productivity falls and, in proportion, frustration rises. For many of us, mercifully, once a small home network is set up, it rarely needs any changes.
The RFID hype is over. People are no longer going to conferences to learn about RFID and real adoption is taking place, only it is happening in areas other than where the industry thought it would occur.
DATA CENTRES
TCC Technology (TCCT) and three other data centres, 1-Net Singapore, Malaysia's AIMS Asia Group and Vietnam's CMC Telecom, last week announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to form a Data Centre Alliance to meet data centre requirements in the region.
COMPUTING ON THE GO
Last year's debut of the HTC Touch, HTC's first Windows Mobile Phone, was a hit. The unit, with its minimalist design and curvy case, is very striking. TouchFlo technology, first implemented on this original model, is also a fantastic differentiator from other Windows Mobile devices.
COMPUTER CURRENTS
Would you like a little Wine with that, sir? It took 15 years to develop while dodging Microsoft resistance, but the work of 1,076 programmers is ready. Wine is a middleware product that allows Windows to be run on Linux.
EVENTS : Ayudhya Allinaz C.P. is holding an orientation course for students who enter its AACP Thailand Animation Contest, on July 2, from 1 to 5pm, at the Sofitel Central Lat Phrao Hotel.
HOME BUILDER
This week I have been doing a lot of database work with Microsoft's SQL Server Express Edition.
SLOAN RANGER
If you are addicted to PowerPoint or if you hate PowerPoint so badly it hurts, you had better have a look at KeyJnote.
Vista has generally superior customisation options than previous Windows versions. Right click on the taskbar and choose Properties. You can configure four separate displays.
HELP DESK
I'm trying to use MP3Gain, as recommended by Ms Wanda Sloan for managing MP3 files.
APP SHOT
You know how you go to Google and enter a search and almost instantly get results?
WORLD REVIEW
Buzzzzz! That was the sound heard round the world after the most important event in the history of computing - the new Firefox browser got the buzz because it is 723 times faster than the old Firefox browser and has 15,423,683 improvements; although the humble Mozilla team insisted it was only nine times faster and had a mere 15,000 improvements, here at the World Review we counted precisely instead of estimating; if that's not enough, Firefox dropped that old piffle of an address bar and replaced it with an Awesome Bar that actually allows you to type in the name of web sites or searches; "It keeps track of all the stuff you've done in the past," explained engineer Damon Sicore, who added it could also, er, be easily erased; the browser share of the despicable Microsoft bullies fell to a mere 74 per cent over the past year, and Firefox's rose a full four per cent in the same period.
HOME REVIEW
Assistant governor Kamol Takabut said the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand was ready to begin an eight-year feasibility study for nuclear power plants, as soon as it selects a consultant from the short-list of five applicants from the US, Japan and Switzerland; the study will review possible sites, environmental issues and legal and economic matters; Egat said power consumption continues to rise in Thailand by five per cent or more annually, and over-reliance on natural gas-fired plants have resulted in crippling power bills; Greenpeace members rallied on Wireless Road against nuclear power of any kind ... about 5km downwind from the Bangkok nuclear reactor. The Asean Forum on Nuclear Energy Safety met in Bangkok, because you can never have enough committees on nuclear energy.
User groups are a resource that dates back to the origins of computing. It's fair to say that they peaked in the '90s before many of them - including the Bangkok User Group or BUG, formed by the merger of the CP/M Group and the 6502 Group - went virtual and disbanded after the Internet became the channel for much of the support its members were looking for.
