hardware standards

apple in 2006

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if you wait long enough, everything comes to los angeles. dvexpo west opens at the LA convention center from 7-9 december 2005, and panasonic has prepared a presentation on the DVCPRO HD AG-HVX200 camcorder. so 2006 will usher in a new generation of affordable hidef, along with other computational milestones in the mactel world.

if you would have asked me a few months ago about the intel platform, i would say it was good for the x86 operating systems (solaris, linux, irix, windows), but did not have much of an impact, since i was a mac user. this summer everything changed and i’ve become a intel fan.

intel has some work to do to improve the energy efficiency and performance of their silicon, but in about a year, there stuff will rock our world. they’ve been working on a few initiatives ever since andy grove left the company. they’ve botched up a few items like itanium and the calyley (LCOS) microdisplays. grove lead intel for almost 20 years, replacing gordon moore, until craig barrett took the reign for a short 7 years, and now we have paul otellini. otellini took over in may 2005, and for his debut announced that apple computer is their latest customer. then came the woodcrest, conroe, and merom stuff in september at IDF, and next month otellini will keynote at CES 2006 in las vegas releasing the viiv platform.

i wonder when apple will keynote at CES? so 2006 will be a great year for intel and apple as their partnership may start as early as january at macworld expo 2006 in san francisco, and i can’t wait for some great products. sometime in 2006 we should hear about mac OS X leopard, the successor to mac OS X tiger, which should ship around the same time as microsoft windows vista (Q1 2007). never before, in my recollection have apple customers been privy to such long term planning, and budgeting so we should know when to upgrade systems and applications.

apple has a fantastic digital media platform based on final cut pro. in this suite of products called final cut studio, we have DVD studio pro, soundtrack pro, motion, and complementary shake and logic. these applications make staying on the mac platform worth the long wait, since these apps are so tightly integrated into the OS. they perform well, have regular upgrades, and have a devoted user community. in los angeles, i get to go to three monthly user group meetings:

motion graphics los angeles
los angeles final cut pro user group
los angeles logic pro user group

the future is bright. apple will lead the way into the intel transition. apple consumer electronics like ipod and future stuff will lead in new growth and dominance.

so as the year closes out, merry Christmas and happy new year to all. 2006 should be the true transitional year from powerPC to intel, NTSC (SDTV) to ATSC (HDTV), AG-DVX100B to AG-HVX200, and war to peace (i pray).

x64 as future

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as software solutions seem to move toward open standards, hardware platforms are moving this way as well. just one year ago, we had various CPU’s that dictate a specific OS platform. there was ultraSPARC, AMD x64, PowerPC, intel itanium 2, and intel x86 EM64T. now as industries converge, the move toward an industry standard hardware platform has begun.

sun microsystems has open solaris for the x64 platform, microsoft was windows XP x64, red hat linux runs on x64, novell SUSU linux runs on x64, and coming next year, mac OS X will run on x64. each hardware vendor can optimize the hardware by selecting various ASIC’s and components to maximize applications to make their respective OS shine. we are just eight months away from the mac OS X tiger x64 release, and data centers around the globe are preparing for the transition.

the move to standardization

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at the 2005 annual sun microsystems stockholder meeting scott mcnealy, CEO, gave a optimistic view of the next generation of computing. in a matter of a few short years, we’ve moved through the stone age of computing, the iron age, the industrial age, and skipped through the internet and information age, and landed squarely into the participation age.

sun in june 2005 started a share ad campaign, with employees, industry partners, and visionaries. in the new age of participation computing users bid, podcast, download, school, and live on the web. every device, from a handheld, desktop, and light bulb have IP addresses to communication on the participation highway. sun wants to build the infrastructure for the next data center, in direct competition with IBM.

sun has some compelling strengths like complete control of solaris OS and hardware, even though they are moving aggressively into standardized hardware based on X64 architecture. as a company, like other industries, green computing (low cost, low energy density, low administration, high performance) is also a factor.

their technologies to make this all happen are display over IP, star office, java desktop, and java enterprise system.

changing clocks

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there’s a twice a year ritual called changing the clocks to either prepare for the return of standard time or anticipating daylight saving time. sometime in 2007 all these rules will alternate again, and the long established time calendar changes.

i find it impressive on how many clocks require adjustment. fortunately, desktop and notebook machine usually have a network time server to work, so their clocks are updated automatically. it’s the DV camcorders, televisions, digital photo cameras, automobile clocks, watches, phones, thermostats, microwaves, wall clocks, cuckoo clocks, and other time pieces requiring modification. every year, another device comes on the marketplace, like an ipod or portable DVD player that also needs adjustment. good luck finding all those devices before 2 AM sunday morning.

mac zealot and PCIe

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i unapologetically am a mac evangelist. in the industries of entertainment, architecture, visualization, publishing, and other creative endeavors the mac platform is the only solution. the tools work and excel on mac OS X and the power mac machines. just listing the applications is a who’s who in the software pantheon: final cut pro, DVD studio pro, photoshop, illustrator, dreamweaver, shake, pro tools, indesign, and maya define entire industries.

last week apple announced three new power mac systems, all with dual-core CPU and access to the fastest GPU’s available from NVIDIA. expect the fastest ATI GPU’s in a future announcement. all machine also inherit faster RAM, and a new PCI-express (PCIe) architecture, a change from the AGP and PCI-X motherboards of previous generations. the old PCI standard was a parallel strategy whereas PCIe is serial, much like the move from IDE/ATA drives to SATA drives.

the user community welcomes the new systems, especially the power mac G5 quad, a sight to behold when it comes out next month. some users are balking that their investments have come to a crash, as PCIe systems will not allow the use of PCI-X or PCI conventional cards at all. PCIe is an entirely new architecture, not just a faster revision of the PCI workhorse cards. this is not a driver issue, but the cards don’t fit, much less work. maybe in the future a riser may come along that bridges from PCI conventional/PCI-X to PCIe, but not today.

in some professional industries the PCI investment may exceed 2 or 3 times the investment in the system, with VBR MPEG-2 boards, SDI boards, audio boards, and connectivity boards easily surpassing $1000 and up. the one consolation to these folks is the CPU rating stayed the same in the 2.0 GHz and 2.3 GHz dual G5, and while they last in the marketplace, the PCI-X machines, along with PC3200 RAM, are still available. get them while you still can, because in a few weeks the only thing out there will be PCIe and PC2-4200 RAM.

powerPC goes out fighting

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apple does not disappoint when it comes to product announcements. independent of any major mac event, apple has sprung several very significant products in the last several weeks. first we got the new imac G5 and video ipod. today the second shoe falls on the powermac G5 quad, a behemoth of a system. you get four processors, and i’m sure several more virtual processors for a great price.

finally the partnership with NVIDIA and apple pays off with the availability of professional graphics cards. we say a farewell to the geforce line and welcome the quadro PCIe chipsets to the mac. now i believe 3D software will work on par with wintel systems and linux systems.

november 2005 cannot come soon enough to get my hands on one of these fantastic products. the intel product line is a long ways away. i predict sometime during macworld SF 2007 with the intel chipsets inside the powermac. portable systems will get intel inside by june 2006.

video ipod revolution

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apple delivers a knock out blow to VC-1 and other proprietary standards. AVC, or advanced video codec, also known as H.264 by the ITU and MPEG-4 Part 10 by ISO/IEC is an open standard developed my many patent holders. VC-1, the public face of microsoft window media 9, along with flash video 8, or on2 video are both welded shut boxes of technology with one patent holder to take the reins.

multiple companies including apple, IBM, Barco, Dolby Laboratories, Fraunhofer Institute, HP, Motorola, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung Electronics, TANDBERG television, and Texas Instruments have all joined forces to give consumers product choice and unlimited possibilities. the fruits of that partnership were the first successful H.264 or AVC product, the sony playstation portable device, and now the second mass consumer product, the apple ipod.

north american disney TV shows are only the start of what is possible in AVC. the codec can scale from mobile phones at 128 pixels all the way to 1080 pixels high definitions images. all media is going to AVC for content delivery for quality, compression efficiency, and broad support through the consumer electronics industry, information technology industry, and broadcast industry.

mac joins GPU future

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when apple moved to an open standard operating system, BSD UNIX, most developers and users saw the potential of using GNU license open source software on the mac. slowly, the same transition is happening on the hardware side, as apple will be moving the entire mac line, including powermac, imac, powerbook, and ibook to intel chipsets.

today, apple announced the latest imac, and aside from the wonderful home technology hub, the most significant move in my mind is the retirement of the accelerated graphics port( AGP graphics). most high end graphics subsystems require not AGP 4X or 8X, but higher end PCI-express (PCIe), and now the fall 2005 imac includes a radeon PCIe for access to next generation GPU’s.

sometimes apple surprises the mac community by launching newer technology into the imac in advance of the workstations like the powermac or servers like the xserve. i hope PCIe makes it to xserve and powermac lines very soon, so anyone can access highest ATI or NVIDIA technology.

interesting tech protocols

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technology advances, but not as fast as some would want. it used to be called web time, but since humans still build it, it still takes two years of software or hardware development to get something out the door for a fair price. take the introduction of the zigbee protocol. i first heard of zigbee in 2003, but only one company has commercialized the technology well, control 4. take LED LCD backlights. imagine driving a color display beyond the limited NTSC color gamut, but still only once company has product, sony qualia 005, but they too announced today that the qualia line is disappearing.

this Christmas season, i expect to see samsung, sharp, NEC, and other LCD display manufactures to latch on to high color gamut LED backlights, instead of a florescent light, or in a hybrid grid. zigbee any day now will be in the eaton electrical home heartbeat.

in a final note, tripp lite has finally released a product that works natively in mac OS X. ever since mac OS X jaguar, apple has provided system level USB uninterruptible power supply (UPS) support. only APC had products, but now tripp lite announced the SMART1000LCD for a great price and 1000VA.

looking for a server

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it’s a shame that i’m running out of time to include thoughts to my blog. it seems i’ve always been ahead of the curve when it come to adoption of technology. i was first out of the box in 1997 to go to handheld computers. if apple.com had not hired steve jobs, i might be using the latest messagepad right now, but instead i’m still lugging around a newton 120 with OS 2.0, until something equivalent comes out.

at comdex, i saw the tablet PC’s and smart displays, which might rival the legendary newton platform. one of my newtons did give up the ghost, not cracked or totally gone, but the handwriting recognition has failed, and you have to use brute force to navigate the interface. i’m the first one out of the box with an online presence with greenconcepts.com and now my blog. i’ll be hosting the blog on my very on webDAV server in the coming weeks. right now i’m looking for a server.

i thought i should use my legacy machine (powermacintosh 7600), but i’ve kind of set it up as ruth’s primary system, i’ll be using a SE/30 with 4 GB SCSI internal drive, but i want not only to server web pages, but e-mail, DNS, quicktime content, and other services that a 13 year old machine with a 25 MHz processor just can’t handle. i think as a DNS or backup unit, the SE/30 is good, but not as a “big iron” server. if you have any suggestions on which server to get (under $3000), drop me a line.