Why we may never see a Core i7 Apple machine
With the recent crop of new Apple desktop hardware - The Mac Pro, iMac and Mac Mini (all of which we reviewed in Personal Computer World) - we noted the use of Intel's older Core 2 Duo processor rather than the newer and more powerful Core i7 chip. The Mac Pro is an exception, but Apple's high end workstation doesn't use Core i7 either, as it's built around Intel's Xeon 5500 processor (which is similar, but not identical, to Core i7)
It's a certainty that Apple will upgrade its range to use Intel's newer processors at some point, but it may be the recently announced Core i5 and Core i3 that it chooses rather than Core i7.
If you haven't been following Intel's roadmaps, Core i5 will use a completely different socket to current Core i7 processors, using 1,156 pins rather than 1,366, meaning if you want to use a Core i5 processor, you need to fork out for yet another new motherboard. Intel's decision to bring another socket to the market has been met with confusion and some disappointment from those who have already invested in Core i7.
The good news is that Core i5 processors and components should be much less expensive than Core i7, but still offer high performance, partly thanks to an integrated memory controller that gives better memory performance than its predecessor.
This leaves Apple with a choice of processors for its next mainstream desktop line. We'll bet on them choosing Core i5 for the iMac, Core i3 for the Mini and sticking with Xeons in the Mac Pro, meaning LGA 1366 Core i7 processors end up never used in an Apple computer.
Of course, Apple hasn't even announced a new desktop line, and Core i5 processors aren't on the market yet, making this little more than speculation on our part. However, as long as Core i5 is relatively affordable and offers a reasonable performance boost, we'll call this an educated guess on what Apple's next move will be.
Rays Per Pixel - the new benchmark for graphical realism?
While reading New Scientist's summary of how computing power is being used to create more realistic virtual worlds, I stumbled across a term that could be a major discussion topic over the next few years.
Currently, the majority of software that creates and draws a 3D scene in real time (games being the main example) uses a technique called rasterisation. This involves splitting complex 3D objects into triangles, which can be easily processed by a graphics card. The visual complexity of a 3D scene depends on the number of triangles used, while the performance of graphics hardware can be measured by how many triangles it can draw per second. The more triangles, the more detail and realism in a scene.
However, the next decade could see rasterisation thrown out of the window, as real-time ray tracing could become possible. Ray tracing is a rendering technique used by film studios (such as Pixar) which produces far more believable visuals than rasterisation. Ray tracing a 3D scene involves calculating the paths of individual rays of light, and how each ray affects the appearance of objects. The amount of calculations a computer has to perform for any ray tracing algorithm is phenomenal, especially when taking into account how multiple rays can bounce off objects onto others.
During the early 1990's, films such as Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park, which made heavy use of ray tracing (more commonly known as CGI, or computer generated imagery) became the most expensive films ever produced, partly because ray tracing required super computers that cost millions of dollars each. Even with these monsters of graphical computing, such as Silcon Graphics' workstations, rendering a single frame would take a very long time, and the idea of ray tracing at 30 frames per second was pure fantasy.
Computers are far more powerful now, and computer hardware design is currently on the verge of a renaissance, which could potentially see both CPU and graphics card merge into a single entity. One of the advantages of such new hardware, such as Intel's Larrabee, is that it will allow games to be drawn using ray-tracing, in real time, with a massive improvement in visual quality and realism.
Although this is still some way off, and may not even be possible with the first generation of Larrabee cards, the metric for measuring ray-tracing performance is already in place. In the same way that increasing the number of triangles raises graphical detail, so too does increasing the number of rays (which adds an enormous amount of calculations for your poor computer to keep up with).
Intel's Daniel Pohl states that the number of rays used, per screen pixel, determines how realistic the appearance of a scene is. He argues that photorealism (where a computer generated image is indistinguishable from a photograph) would require 100s of rays per pixel. Intel's demo of real-time ray tracing, including impressive reflection and refraction effects, uses around 10 rays per pixel and is only a 512 pixel-wide video. Even then it doesn't run at 30 frames per second.
Can't live without Aero Peek
Of all the new additions to Windows 7, Aero Peek and the new taskbar are the biggest change from previous versions of Windows. If you haven't tried Windows 7 yet, then the new interface could use some explanation.
In Windows Vista, XP and all other versions of Windows since Windows 95, if you have multiple windows open for the same application, such as two Word documents, or three Firefox browsers, they each appear as individual entries on the taskbar. Windows 7 does away with this, in favour of a tidier taskbar where only a single icon appears, even if you have multiple documents open. Hover the mouse over the icon and it pops up visual previews of each window, so you can select which one you wish to view.
The new approach takes some time to get used to, and some early adopters found it confusing and immediately disabled it. However, after using Windows 7 for a few weeks, I now hover my mouse over the Quick Launch icons on Windows XP without even thinking about it, subconciously expecting the preview windows to pop up in the same way as they do in Window 7.
I find these visual popups improve my workflow, as there's little chance I'll forget which of my open Firefox windows has the tab open that I want to refer to, a problem I found with the old interface.
It's important to mention Firefox though, on Windows 7, it doesn't make use of Aero Peek as well as Internet Explorer. In IE8, if you have a single browser window with multiple tabs, Aero Peek will show each tab as a preview, so you can go straight to the open page. Firefox doesn't support this yet, so a single browser window with multiple tabs will only show as a single preview. It doesn't sound like much, but Aero Peek is a very useful tool and we think every Windows application should support it as much as possible.
The web is your shrink
A new Australian study showing that web-based therapy programmes can be as effective as human therapists at treating depression comes as little surprise. Programs simulating the work of cognitive therapists have been around for nearly two decades, to my knowledge - I reviewed one called Overcoming Depression way back in 1991.
It was inspired by the old Eliza natural-language processing program which was capable of holding a semblance of conversation with you. Eliza often goes wildly awry but is humbling in how often it can sound rational and human - you realise how much conversation consists of ritual exchanges.
Sometimes Overcoming Depression functioned uncommonly well as a cognitive psychotherapist, whose job (as I understand it) is to talk you out of you depression, or get you to talk yourself out of it. One technique is to throw what you have said back at you for examination and comment - something Elisa can do with rather mixed results. You can try an online version here
All these electronic techniques are designed to complement contact with a "real" therapist, rather as a substitute, but they might still help people who hesitate to seek professional advice or can find nowhere to get it.
I am not a depressive but I know people who are, and that there are not always easy solutions. Some depression may have pathological roots and can be alleviated only by drugs, if at all. Some people's lives are so dreadful there is no way they can be happy. But if you are unhappy out of habit, which appears to be the case with many people, anything that snaps you out of your mindset is worth trying.
Symantec in the doo-doo again - but Apple remains unbitten
News that Symantec and McAfee have been fined for billing customers for upgrades without their consent will resonate with many users who find themselves having to stay alert for dubious practices by well-known brands.
PCW regulars may remember Test Bed had issues with Symantec early this year about misleading screens and messages that could lead desperate virus-hit users to pay for support they should have got for free.
I have stopped using Apple's Quicktime on my PC since it tried to get me to buy software to replace functionality it had itself disabled in Windows; if I have to watch a Quicktime movie, I fire up my Mac on the assumption that Apple, even at its most arrogant, would not risk antagonising its core users. For the record, more than a year after posting two blogs on the subject, and writing a piece in PCW, I have yet to have a whisper of apology leave alone an explanation from Apple.
Perhaps I should have taken up Britain's Advertising Standards Authority's invitation to submit a formal complaint so that the issue could be officially investigated. But I did not want to engaged in an unseemly feud and it is tiresome fighting off flames from Mac users who believe the company can do no wrong.
In the sun with the Cool-er ebook reader
Yes, it may be raining today, but last weekend we tried out the Cool-er ebook reader in the blazing Surrey sun to see how it performed. As you can see fairly convincingly from the pictures, the E-ink Vizplex display technology is pretty impressive compared to real paper, and perfectly readable in bright full-on sunlight.
Vista SP2 frees up disk space
After running Vista SP2 beta on one of our test systems since March, we decided to remove it and install the final release version that appeared last week. To our surprise, after the tediously long process, we found that about 30GB of extra free space was available on the 250GB C: drive - it had increased from 58GB to 88GB, a handy amount of useful space.
Moonwalk One: Classic Apollo 11 documentary restored to DVD
Great news for space buffs - on 21st June, a fully-restored DVD version of Moonwalk One - The Director's Cut will go on sale at Amazon UK for £19.99. This contemporary documentary about the 1969 Apollo 11 mission was commissioned by NASA and filmed by Theo Kamecke, and is widely regarded as one of the best documentaries about the Apollo moon landings ever made.
This newly restored 2-disc DVD version includes both the original 4:3 version and a widescreen 16:9 version with full 5.1 surround sound and includes several extra bonus features.
The original film won awards at Cannes, but to date the only DVD version available is a warts-and-all copy sold by the US National Archives. This restored version was made from Kamecke's own copy of the original film. The restoration was carried out as part of the celebrations to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the moon landings in July.
It can be pre-ordered by phone on +44 (0)845 053 0323.
First Looks - The Athlon is Back
AMD have announced two new dual core processors, both built on a 45nm process with the surprising news is that one of them carries the Athlon name. The first member of the new Athlon II X2 family is the 250 which has a clock speed of 3.0GHz. Based on the Regor core the 250 has no L3 cache which makes it smaller (117.5mm²) and cheaper to manufacture, but to make up for this AMD have given it 1MB of L2 cache per core.
Launched at the same time is the first dual core Phenom II, the Phenom
II X2 550 based on the 410mm² Callisto core. As the flagship of the new line, the X2 550 is a Black Edition meaning that it's unlocked so it can be overclocked past its 3.1GHz reference clock speed. It comes with 1MB of L2 cache and 6MB of L3 cache shared between each core.
Both cores have a 2.0GHz HyperTransport bus frequency and support both DDR2 and 3, up to DDR2-1067 and DDR3-1600. The TDP of the Phenom II X2 550 is 80W while the Athlon II X2 250 is rated at 65W
We managed to overclock the Phenom II X2 550 to a stable 3.958GHz with ease, while the Athlon II X2 250 was more problematic, but eventually we got it to run stably at 3.72GHz.
UK pricing for the Athlon II X2 250 is around £69.99 while the Phenom II X2 550 costs approx. £80.99
For full test results see our results database reportlabs.com
Sony Ericsson keeps us in the dark
Sony Ericsson tells us it has set up a gig on June 15 featuring a group called Friendly Fires who will play in absolute darkness. The idea is to "heighten the senses of the audience and increase their listening experience." The location is secret and we have not been invited; tickets are available via competitions and a MySpace channel. But their press relations people have asked whether we want "post event" pictures of the gig. We can go one better by heightening your senses with this exclusive pre-event picture (click to enlarge).
