Off-Topic: The Machine
Steven D'Aprano
steve at pearwood.info
Wed Jun 25 01:52:02 EDT 2014
On Tue, 24 Jun 2014 13:06:56 +0200, Johannes Bauer wrote:
> On 24.06.2014 03:23, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> http://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-type-computer-capable-
>> calculating-640tbs-data-one-billionth-second-could
>>
>> Relevance: The Machine uses *eighty times less power* for the same
>> amount of computing power as conventional architectures. If they could
>> shrink it down to a mobile phone, your phone might last 2-3 months on a
>> single charge.
>
> The article is highly unscientific and unspecific. It does not elaborate
> on what it means to "calculate" a terabyte of data nor does it specify
> what it means to "handle" a petabyte of data. They're terms used by
> ignorants, written for ignorants.
Heh, yes, it's a puff-piece, based on HP's publicity, not an in-depth
review. Considering that The Machine isn't publicly available yet, that's
hardly surprising.
> So all in all I think it's safe to discard the article.
Taking it with a generous grain of salt is one thing, but outright
rejecting it is a bit harsh. I understand that HP has actually
demonstrated the Machine, so unless they faked the demo, the basic facts
are probably more-or-less correct.
> Also, mobile phones don't waste most of their power doing "calculating"
> and "handling" terabytes of data, but the RF and display consumes the
> most of power. Therefore, even if you could scale the CPU down your
> phone would still not go 2-3 months on a single charge.
Fair point.
But given how much smart phones get used for playing games these days, I
think the savings would still be considerable.
--
Steven
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