Bangalore: The saga of the incredible shrinking personal computer continues. Last week, chip making leader Intel announced the world’s smallest, least power-hungry processor, packing 47 million of the world’s tiniest transistors ever squeezed into a slab of silicon, so small that 15 of them would fit into a 50-paise coin.
They called it the Atom. While ticking away at a very decent 1.8 billion times a second, it typically consumes around a watt or two of power compared to the 35 watts Intel’s own dual core PC processors demand today.
Two avatars
The micro (literally!) chip will be available in two avatars: one will fuel the new class of Ultra Mobile PCs or UMPCs, similar to the HCL MyLeap X that was based on the Intel Classmate PC design or the EeePC from Asus, both of which are now available in India.
The other, smaller, chip is expected to launch a new class of Mobile Internet Devices or MIDs: even smaller personal connection appliances that will hopefully provide millions of the world’s ‘unconnected’ people with a handy, easy-to-use and affordable device to access the Internet, and perform basic personal productivity tasks.
Intel calls these new devices, Netbooks or NetTops to distinguish them from notebooks and desktops of today.
No one knows quite what shape these new Internet devices will take — but we can see a few technologies going into them: movable storage elements like hard disks will be replaced with rugged solid state storage based on Flash, the same technology that makes all those thumb drives.
Today you can get thumb drives of up to 16 GB, and expect to see that double soon, so that the new generation MIDs will soon come with around 40 GB of onboard storage. The screen will shrink to between 4 and 7 inches across anything smaller and they will begin to look like mobile phones.
Briefing The Hindu, R. Sivakumar, Intel’s Managing Director for South Asia, said key drivers and other software for the Atom chip family were developed by engineers at Intel’s India-based development facilities.
They continue to innovate so that together with engineers at the company’s other centres they would come up, some time in the future, with a System on a Chip, a single chip that performs all electronic functions of the appliance it fuels. Small is beautiful, did someone say? It might just be powerful as well
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
IIM chip on your shoulder!!
Ravi Goel sends his daughter to class five in a Mumbai suburban CBSE school. The fees for the child works out to Rs 44,000 a year. But his neighbour, Suresh Mathur, can afford to spend more on his son, also in class five. He sends the boy to a more exclusive place, another Mumbai suburban school that follows the IB (International Baccalaureate) syllabus. Mathur spends almost Rs 1 lakh a year for the boy's school education.
Neither Goel or Mathur are too perturbed about the fees they are paying because, if they were to opt for one of those hill station schools outside Mumbai, the fee would be close to Rs 1.5 lakh an academic year. Both Goel and Mathur are amazed though about the frenzy that is building up over the decision of the Indian Institutes of Management to hike their course fee from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 1.8 lakh or so for a post-graduate programme in business management.
If thousands of students learning medicine and engineering in the country have no issue about paying course fees running up to Rs 25-30 lakh, over four-five years, why should the country debate of the pros and cons of IIM students paying a fraction of that, they reasoned. Explanation along the lines that anything to do with IIMs tends to get media attention these days did not cut much ice with the gentlemen.
Though the annual ritual of finding out and publicising the salary offers made to the IIM students has been religiously followed for many years, it is only in the last few years that placement week has resulted in such media hype, says Goel.
"Are you telling me that the future of less than 1,500 management students from the IIMs is more important than lakhs of graduates from other academic streams who actually go on to play a more integral part of the country's economy," he wanted to know. True, not many would be interested in knowing about a science graduate getting picked up as a scientific assistant in the Indian Space Research Organisation for a salary of Rs 15,000 a month when MNCs are picking up IIM students at Rs 15 lakh a month. Or the salary paid to a National Defence Academy pass-out. Maybe the IITs need to learn from the IIMs a few marketing lessons on how to place its students.
Just as other institutes of national importance, such as the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences and the National Institute of Design, need to. But, then, they also may not want to make a big tamasha of what their students earn.
Surely, it can only be viewed as a blessing that the trend has not grown beyond the campuses of the IIMs. It would indeed have become a bit tiring if all the arts and science colleges, the computer software finishing institutes, and many others were to indulge in the practice of trumpeting what salaries their students got each year.
Neither Goel or Mathur are too perturbed about the fees they are paying because, if they were to opt for one of those hill station schools outside Mumbai, the fee would be close to Rs 1.5 lakh an academic year. Both Goel and Mathur are amazed though about the frenzy that is building up over the decision of the Indian Institutes of Management to hike their course fee from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 1.8 lakh or so for a post-graduate programme in business management.
If thousands of students learning medicine and engineering in the country have no issue about paying course fees running up to Rs 25-30 lakh, over four-five years, why should the country debate of the pros and cons of IIM students paying a fraction of that, they reasoned. Explanation along the lines that anything to do with IIMs tends to get media attention these days did not cut much ice with the gentlemen.
Though the annual ritual of finding out and publicising the salary offers made to the IIM students has been religiously followed for many years, it is only in the last few years that placement week has resulted in such media hype, says Goel.
"Are you telling me that the future of less than 1,500 management students from the IIMs is more important than lakhs of graduates from other academic streams who actually go on to play a more integral part of the country's economy," he wanted to know. True, not many would be interested in knowing about a science graduate getting picked up as a scientific assistant in the Indian Space Research Organisation for a salary of Rs 15,000 a month when MNCs are picking up IIM students at Rs 15 lakh a month. Or the salary paid to a National Defence Academy pass-out. Maybe the IITs need to learn from the IIMs a few marketing lessons on how to place its students.
Just as other institutes of national importance, such as the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences and the National Institute of Design, need to. But, then, they also may not want to make a big tamasha of what their students earn.
Surely, it can only be viewed as a blessing that the trend has not grown beyond the campuses of the IIMs. It would indeed have become a bit tiring if all the arts and science colleges, the computer software finishing institutes, and many others were to indulge in the practice of trumpeting what salaries their students got each year.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Chocolate-Hub for voguish clothes
Lokhandwala Complex, being a shopping commercial hub is equipped with a myriad of places for fashionable and trendy clothes. In the company of all those shops or places, there exists a shop named Chocolate which is according to my view, incomparably best than all its counterparts. Having said that, I hold gravity of my words i.e. ‘incomparably best’ used for this shop. There are so many factors which attribute to this cause.
With the trendiest clothes hung across the crown of the glass door entrance and the mannequin posing the hottest attire, one could easily be charmed by the attractiveness of the plush external appeal. However, just walk into the store you will know that the interior design is pretty good and contemporary, but not the best or in match with the exterior razzmatazz as per my honest opinion. On the inside, you will find pile of clothes shelved systematically into different sections and gleaming lamps filling the shop with its illuminating light. Moreover, you will be grooving to some of the popular bollywood numbers as you enter the shop, thus, making the ambience rocking and modish while setting the perfect mood for the occasion. As you enter, the staff will keep you at complete ease with their courteous service. From smart casuals to trendy wear, you will be catered to clothes for any occasion. Be it party wear, office wear, denim wear, daily wear, sports wear or casual wear, you will be definitely catered for any occasion. Besides, you will even stumble upon branded clothes for affordable prices. If not branded, you will be flagrantly delighted and surprised to view the finest first copies of branded clothes available which almost appear branded for half of the prices. Keeping the most-up-to-date clothes in its den, it really does not fail to keep up with the expectations of the fashion conscious youngsters. Needless to say, clothes really form the USP of the shop due to its eclectic range in such easy on the pocket prices, thus promising to tug the heart strings of many customers regularly.
Lokhandwala Complex, being a shopping commercial hub is equipped with a myriad of places for fashionable and trendy clothes. In the company of all those shops or places, there exists a shop named Chocolate which is according to my view, incomparably best than all its counterparts. Having said that, I hold gravity of my words i.e. ‘incomparably best’ used for this shop. There are so many factors which attribute to this cause.
With the trendiest clothes hung across the crown of the glass door entrance and the mannequin posing the hottest attire, one could easily be charmed by the attractiveness of the plush external appeal. However, just walk into the store you will know that the interior design is pretty good and contemporary, but not the best or in match with the exterior razzmatazz as per my honest opinion. On the inside, you will find pile of clothes shelved systematically into different sections and gleaming lamps filling the shop with its illuminating light. Moreover, you will be grooving to some of the popular bollywood numbers as you enter the shop, thus, making the ambience rocking and modish while setting the perfect mood for the occasion. As you enter, the staff will keep you at complete ease with their courteous service. From smart casuals to trendy wear, you will be catered to clothes for any occasion. Be it party wear, office wear, denim wear, daily wear, sports wear or casual wear, you will be definitely catered for any occasion. Besides, you will even stumble upon branded clothes for affordable prices. If not branded, you will be flagrantly delighted and surprised to view the finest first copies of branded clothes available which almost appear branded for half of the prices. Keeping the most-up-to-date clothes in its den, it really does not fail to keep up with the expectations of the fashion conscious youngsters. Needless to say, clothes really form the USP of the shop due to its eclectic range in such easy on the pocket prices, thus promising to tug the heart strings of many customers regularly.
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