Intel talks up next-generation chips

Intel expects its forthcoming Conroe and Merom chips to deliver a performance advantage of at least 20 percent over chips from AMD that are slated to be released at the same time.Merom and Conroe are expected to launch for notebooks and desktops, respectively, in the second half of this year.

The awkwardly titled Next-Generation Micro-Architecture is yet to receive a catchy name like Netburst, the Pentium 4 architecture it is replacing. Intel has already disclosed a few details about NGMA. It uses 14 pipeline stages instead of the 31 used by Intel's Pentium 4 processors. Information is processed through a processor's pipeline. The more stages in the pipeline, the less work each individual stage performs, requiring the chip to run very fast and therefore very hot. Intel has moved away from that design strategy in favour of smaller pipelines that do more work per stage, and can therefore run at slower clock speeds.

The microarchitecture also allows the processor to issue four instructions per clock, rather than three, as on Intel's current chips. It uses advanced branch prediction technology borrowed from the Pentium 4 designs. And chips built on that microarchitecture will also share the unified cache introduced with the Core Duo processor.Chips built with NGMA will use 4MB of cache memory.Unifying the caches on a dual-core processor improves performance by expanding the amount of cache each core can make use of, which will produce a huge improvement on single-threaded applications that only use a single core, he said.The combination of all those architectural changes will allow Intel to outperform AMD's planned offerings for the second half of 2006 without having to resort to adopting AMD's integrated memory controller design.

Intel has been hesitant to embrace the integrated memory controller since the failure of its last attempt to use such a design. Integrating the memory controller allows that vital gateway between the CPU and the memory to run at the speed of the processor, whisking data into the processor at high speed. But it also forces the processor to be designed specifically for a certain type of memory, which doomed Intel's Timna processor when its integrated memory controller was designed for Rambus' short-lived RDRAM standard.Instead, Intel will count on its microarchitectural improvements and a faster front-side bus to deliver the 20 percent improvement in performance over AMD's chips, based on standard benchmarks.

AMD is not planning any major architectural changes to its processors this year, but it does plan to introduce support for DDR2 memory. That memory standard can reach faster speeds than the current DDR memory used by AMD's chips, which will improve the performance of AMD-based systems.

Privatisation of Airports-Selling India to the World

At last the bid for the Delhi Airport goes to GMR- Fraport.GMR beeing an India based company, dealing in construction and infrastrucure development holds only a chunk of share while the lion's share is occupied by Frapport,a France based organisation managing the Frankfurt International Airport.

Don't be surprised to see a board hung in front of airports reading "Indians Not Allowed",prepare for another fight for liberty in the near future.All this selling of India is beeing termed privatisation,modernisation and what not. So in this country having a population of whopping 100 Crore ,isn't there a single person who can manage and develop our infrastructure in airports.Should we do a "Call for" to corporates from foreign nations to manage our airports under the name of modernisation.

If the Malaysian and Singapore governments can manage their airports very well then why not the Indians?. Not only the former manage their's very successfully but they are even ready to manage airports in India.So should we rely on others especially foreign governments rather than doing it ourselves.It just reminds me of India in the hands of the British.But the only difference this time is that we ourselves want them to take over us.

Think...Think....Think...

Apple launches first Intel Macs

Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs on Tuesday served up the first Intel-based Macs, introducing a new high-end laptop and a revamped iMac.

The new machines both include Intel's Duo dual-core chip. The iMac will come in the same sizes and sell for the same prices as the current models, but the Intel chips make it two to three times faster, Jobs said. A new laptop computer, called the MacBook Pro, will be available in February, he said.In addition to the crop of new Macs, Jobs announced a new version of the iLife suite that adds a tool " iWeb" designed to make it easy to create Web sites with video, audio and blogs, and new features meant to simplify the sharing of photos over the Web and the creation of podcasts.

Jobs said Apple would transition to an all-Intel line-up of Macintosh computers by the end of 2006.The release of the new Macs comes just seven months after Jobs shocked the computer world with an announcement that Apple would move to Intel Chips, after years of using the PowerPC hardware made by IBM and Motorola.Jobs said last June that Apple would have computers ready to ship by June of this year. Beating that mark by almost half a year will help ease a transition some feared would result in several quarters of diminished sales.

Once released in February, the MacBook Pro line of laptops will include a £1,429 model running at 1.67GHz and featuring a 15-inch screen. That version will also come with an 80GB hard drive and a new infrared sensor to use with the Apple Remote control device. A second version will feature an 1.83GHz processor and a 100GB hard drive and cost £1,779."The MacBook Pro is the fastest Mac notebook ever, obviously," Jobs said.The company's consumer applications, including iLife, will run natively on the new Intel processors starting immediately, as well as on the Power PC chip. Professional audio, video and photo applications will be updated in March, and customers will be able to buy a "crossgrade," or new version of the existing software.

Most other applications will run smoothly by using the translation software called Rosetta, which will come with every new Intel-based Mac, he said. Microsoft's Office will be one of those applications.Microsoft Mac Business Unit General Manager Roz Ho joined Jobs onstage to say that the software powerhouse is moving ahead to create an Intel-based version of Office. She announced a deal between Apple and Microsoft under which Microsoft will continue creating new versions of Office for Mac for a minimum of five years.

The "commitment should leave no doubt in your mind that we're here to stay, and we're in it for the long term," Ho said.The quick release of the Intel-based products has left some developers, who expected a few more months before release, scrambling to transfer their own applications over to an Intel-compatible version. Code written specifically for that hardware will typically run faster than software written for the PowerPC chips, but using the Rosetta translation software.

Some of the largest developers have already done considerable work, and are nearly ready to release product.Developers are starting to release Intel-based versions of their products too, but they hadn't been warned of the change in the release schedule, Jobs said.

Leaving no doubt that Apple would launch a marketing blitz around the Intel-based machines, Jobs showed off a new advertisement introducing the products. Reminiscent of the "1984" commercial that touted the first Macintosh computer, it painted the new line of products as a liberation for the Intel chip itself.For years, the Intel chip has been "trapped inside PCs — dull little boxes, dutifully performing dull little tasks", the ad says. "Starting today, the Intel chip will be set free, and get to live life inside a Mac."

Lakshmi N.Mittal - Man of steel

If Sardar Vallabhai Patel is cherished as the Iron man of India;Mittal has gone few steps ahead to distinguish himself as the Steel man of this world. Mittal is often acclaimed as King Midas when it comes to the steel industry.History affirms that the strategy adopted by him is to acquire ailing firms and make it profitable under his dynamic leadership.An instance may be quoted where his first acquisition was Iscott steel of Trinidad which operated with a loss of $100,000 a day.In a years time it was yet another feather in his crown of steel and thus started his Midas touch.Till now there has never been an occasion to look back.

Mittal has sure cruised a long way through the rugged terrains to be acclaimed as the third richest man in this world.Which started as a small firm called Ispat is now the World's Largest producer of steel christened as Mittal Steel. Nearly 40% of the world's steel produce origin from his stable.
So what has made this Bachelor of arts graduate to race ahead the top notch personalities in this world.He was just another boy who was a victim of poverty from the state of Rajasthan.Its his sheer foresight and his ability to turnaround the fortunes of the companies he takes over.One of his saying goes like

" Hard work certainly goes a long way. These days a lot of people work hard, so you have to make sure you work even harder and really dedicate yourself to what you are doing and setting out to achieve."

The secret behind his success is his attitude.Mittal, till now hasn't given up over anything in his life. His buzz word is try,try,try and if you do not achieve it, still try even harder to achieve there is nothing such as giving up in this world.

India - Abashed by Politicians

India- The world's largest democracy as it can be put upon maybe a fact to be rejoiced upon,but what has it resulted in!!!Its become nothing but a country where a pack of people calling themselves politicians do nothing but to fight each other.

Politics as the meaning goes by,is the art of governing.But yes politicians here are experts in it but the fact is, where do they apply those skills.They apply those skills in managing their unaccounted earnings.Thus their unmatchable skills gets unnoticed due to this fact. When someone asks me, "Whom do you rate the best planners and strategists? ";bang will come the reply from me that Indian politicians are unmatched winners.

Politics here is nothing but to behold each other from doing something useful,but that too happens only once in a bluemoon as most of the time goes in fighting each other,henceforth there is barely no time to think about the people.They do sometimes think about the people,their welfare but, that would be the eve of elections.Don't be surprised by the fact that most of the sops are put on hold in abeyance until the eve of elections.Most of the time spent by a newly elected government is to abrogate the previous governments policies and projects.

So what prevents the second most populous country from having good and efficient people governing it.Indians excel anywhere except India.When Indians are able to govern multinational conglomerates then why cannot they govern their own country.The fact is that the deserving candidates are not offered oppurtunity to do so.People here are also to be blamed to a certain extent as they go by the most old policy of caste based politics.

What do you think about the qualification for a person to become a successful politician here? When we take the past history of successful politicians they mostly have one thing in common, they haven't even done their pre-schooling and also have excellent criminal records.Many of these personalities are to be abhorred.But there may be a few exceptions who have an exceptionally sound ground knowledge.Many promises are made only during the election times an as the saying says so
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers"

The so called election manifestos are prepared with most care than while devicing policies for the people.It is for this reason or so these manifestos are said to be written in water.They not only aberrate from it but transgress .

So what are we still waiting for? Its time to realise.Think not about the party you vote for but think about the person whom we vote.If done so we can expect ,nothing short of a prosperous and peaceful India.We can not only be the most populous country but a country to be looked upon with awe.