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Ultrawideband means faster wireless connections
06.10.2004
SAN FRANCISCO - Think of it as Wi-Fi on steroids.

On its way to US living rooms and maybe even automobiles is a new type of high-speed wireless connection that promises downloaded data rates of up to 1 gigabit per second -- roughly 18.5 times the speed of Wi-Fi -- to personal computers and other devices.

This Ultrawideband technology, which could become available in the next two years, also allows the devices to send data upstream to a network at 480 megabits per second.

The idea is to make it possible to do things like stream high-definition television signals throughout the home, send video shot on a digital recorder live across the internet, and even connect a digital music player to a car's stereo system -- all with a wireless connection.

Ultimately, Ultrawideband chipsets could be installed in any electronic device -- such as a PC, set-top box, camera or tablet PC -- to enable really high-speed data transmission.

Dating back to the 1960s, Ultrawideband was once a classified military technology whose earliest applications weren't so much in communications as in tracking stealth aircraft and the like, said Bruce Watkins, chief executive of Pulselink, a San Diego start-up focusing on the platform.

The US Federal Communications Commission approved the technology for commercial use in February 2002. Since then, two competing camps have sprung up and are now working to establish a single standard.

Industry experts and analysts see Ultrawideband complementing both Wi-Fi, which now transmits data downstream at up to 54 megabits per second, and ultimately WiMax, a high-speed wireless technology that is in the early stages of development and works over much greater distances.

"(Ultrawideband is) very inexpensive, works across short ranges, but has very high performance," said analyst Craig Mathias of market research firm the Farpoint Group.

The technology has won support from big chip companies like Intel Corp., Texas Instruments Inc. and Motorola Inc. spinoff Freescale Semiconductor Inc. FSL.N , as well as smaller players like Pulselink, Israel's Wisair and San Diego-based Staccato Communications.

Electronics giants Sony Corp., Philips and Panasonic are also embracing the technology.

"There is an effort under way to standardize Ultrawideband," Mathias said. "And assuming that happens, we expect the market to be very big."

Aesthetically conscious consumers would appreciate the high-speed wireless streaming of HDTV signals through the home -- meaning, for example, no cables snaking up to the wall-mounted plasma TV.

The technology would also enable wireless USB 2.0 or FireWire connections, which transmit data at about 440 megabits per second.

This would allow consumers to download photos, music, video and other data-rich tasks without having to plug the devices into their personal computers.

"Wireless USB would be a key application," Mathias said.

As for streaming HDTV signals, Ultrawideband is better than Wi-Fi, whose underlying technology isn't really designed for sending video images.

"If you want to start streaming high-definition television signals from your set-top box to your plasma display, Wi-Fi's technological underpinnings are not well suited for that," Pulselink's Watkins said.

At the same time, he said, the rapid transmission rate of Ultrawideband could even allow consumers to, in real time, broadcast DVD-quality video from a camera to friends and family over the internet.

"They can watch the video while I'm filming it," Watkins said.

Thanks to Moore's Law, the 1965 observation by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a single chip doubles roughly every 18 months while production costs are halved, the technology is becoming cheaper.

"Our chief technology officer likes to say that the equipment used to take an entire room and cost millions of dollars," Watkins said, "but now you can do the same thing on a microprocessor that costs a few dollars."

Eventually, the industry will hammer out a standard, and consumers could expect to see Ultrawideband-enabled electronic devices in 2006, analysts said.

"The marketplace is as potentially exciting and high-growth as Wi-Fi," Mathias said. "But there are many twists and turns between now and then."

Seiko Epson targets OLED TV in three years

Seiko Epson

Seiko Epson’s massive 40 inch prototype boasts a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels (WXGA) and 260 000 colors. The company is planning to commercialize the technology by 2007. (Credit: Seiko Epson)

Seiko Epson Corp. plans to develop OLED (organic light emitting diode) technology within three years, to gain an edge in the market for screens manufactured for televisions and other entertainment applications, according to a company executive.

The Japanese manufacturer would like to develop new display panels that are technically competitive with and cheaper than current TFT (thin film transistor) LCDs (liquid crystal displays) and PDPs (plasma display panels), said Tetsuya Mizuno, manager of Seiko Epson´s OL Business Planning Dept., on Tuesday.

In May, Seiko Epson unveiled in a prototype 40-inch OLED display, which was the largest OLED yet shown by any manufacturer. Its unveiling was intended to demonstrate the company´s research progress and generate interest in OLED among materials manufacturers. Cooperation with these manufacturers is important if Seiko Epson is to meet its self-imposed 2007 deadline, according to Mizuno.

˝Expectations were very high for a long time,˝ he said, referring to a period nearly three years ago when many display companies began showing OLED prototypes and talking up the technology as a replacement for LCD panels in cell phones and other portable devices such as PDAs (personal digital assistants).

˝However, (the technology) was very difficult to launch as a product so the market slowed down,˝ said Mizuno. Technological barriers to the continued development of OLED, as well as improvements in LCD design, made the new displays a less attractive alternative, he said.

Seiko Epson´s current development work is designed to push past these problems, and the prototype unveiling was part of its plan to put its progress with OLED technology on show.

Currently, one of the biggest problems facing OLED technology is display life. The organic material used in the screens has a working life of between 1,000 hours and 2,000 hours, which at first glance, may seem more than sufficient. However, Seiko Epson believes OLED won´t be a viable replacement for TFT (thin film transistor) LCD or PDP until the lifetime reaches 10,000 hours. This is one of the areas in which the company hopes material makers will be able to aid OLED development.

What is Dual-Channel Memory?

"Dual-Channel Architecture" is a physical property of the motherboard, not the memory.

A normal Single-Channel motherboard has one 64-bit memory controller and thus one 64-bit interface. Each module of DDR also has a 64-bit interface (unless it's ECC then you get an extra 8 bits = 72-bit). This single controller accesses memory modules in all of the DIMM slots.

A Dual-Channel motherboard has two 64-bit memory controllers and thus one 128-bit interface. Often you'll see something advertising 128-bit memory, etc. This is the basis since Dual-Channel uses the same 64-bit DDR memory.

However, in Dual-Channel boards, the first memory controller only accesses modules from the first two DIMM slots. The second controller accesses modules from the 3rd (and 4th in the case of some boards) so you have two controllers simultaneously accessing memory.

Theoretically, this doubles the speed at which all memory related functions can occur. In real life, it's not doubled because of physical restrictions and other interactions, but it usually does give a nice boost in memory performance (much more on Intel boards than AMD due to advanced buffering techniques).

You may have noticed that neither controller accesses memory from the other's respective DIMM slots. This means you must use at least two modules of memory in order to run a Dual-Channel setup. One module for each controller to access. If you only run one module, even in a Dual-Channel capable motherboard, you'll run it as if it were a Single-Channel motherboard since only one of the controllers has access to it.

The underlying idea is that when one controller is working the other is resetting or preparing to access/write memory and vice-versa so it reduces memory, "down time."

The biggest requirement is that the modules you use are closely enough matched that they can run almost exactly the same. They will run with the same latency settings, same speed, etc. For example, Corsair tests their TwinX sets in a Dual-Channel configuration to make sure they can, "take the heat," but if you bought their Value Select memory, they do not test it in Dual-Channel. However, many times people are still able to run them as such. You have a better chance of it working the more high quality the RAM is (to simplify things).

In the real world, you may or may not ever notice a difference in performance. It depends on the types of programs you run and how memory dependant they are. Many video games would probably get a boost, but nothing too substantial because of their dependance on other hardware such as the video card. The more your programs need to access RAM, the more of a performance boost you'll recieve.
 

DVD proliferates in retail and the portable DVD option.

Nobody agrees on what DVD stands for, but the optical discs are undeniably taking over from video tape at home. The image and sound quality is much better, and the discs are far more robust and convenient to handle than tapes (plus, you'll never have to rewind again).

Nevertheless, there are a few purchasing gotchas for DVD players and recorders, so read on.

DVD players

Price range: starts at $90. Big brand models cost $200 to $400 and specialist brands more than this.

Even cheap DVD players produce much better image quality than a standard video cassette recorder (VCR), so for many people that $90 supermarket special is fine.

It will play a variety of video and audio discs, often handles multiple DVD formats, comes with 10-bit digital to analogue converters to make great-looking images, and has 24-bit/96KHz 5.1 Dolby Digital/DTS for decent surround sound too.

Considering what you get for the money and how much DVD players used to cost, these units are bargains.

Going a bit further up the price scale, look for features such as component video output and progressive scan for a more stable picture with better colour separation - important for big screens, but check the TV can handle it.

Electronics for sound and video processing improve as the price goes up, as does the overall build quality and the features list.

If you plan to use the DVD player for music CDs as well, having a "bypass" feature to shut off some surround sound processing circuitry provides better audio fidelity.

Being able to load multiple discs in a carousel tray is also nice for uninterrupted music or very long DVD watching sessions.

Support for Super Audio CD (SACD) for ultra-high fidelity music is worth looking out for, if you're an audiophile.

DVD recorders

Price range: starts at $700; big brands cost twice that.

Once you've watched video on DVD, you will not want to go back to fuzzy VHS tapes, even for recording. Luckily, DVD recorders have also dropped in price, and now start at the $700 mark.

That money buys a single-format recorder (usually DVD+R/+RW) that can play back other formats and otherwise offers many of the same features as a DVD player.

More expensive recorders support multiple formats, such as DVD-R/-RW as well, but that feature is of dubious value.

Being able to record from a variety of sources - camcorders, TVs, digicams, audio equipment, for instance - is more useful.

The iLink connectors on newer DVD recorders enable digicams to be plugged directly to the machine to copy over pictures to the disc.

Some DVD recorders will also read camera memory cards for the same reason.

When recording video, expect to get around one hour a disc at the highest quality setting.

At Super VHS quality, the recording time is three to three-and-a-half hours, depending on the player.

At the lowest quality setting, most players can squeeze in six hours' worth of video a disc.

Making back-ups of DVDs isn't easy. Copy protection (Macrovision) on the discs distorts the recording signal, and filtering it out is not easy. And DVD recorders cannot yet process digital surround sound.

Hybrid machines

Price range: $350 to $400.

DVD players with a built-in VHS tape recorder are convenient all-in-one solutions that bridge the gap between the two technologies.

But VHS recorders are cheap so you're not saving any money by getting a combo player. Unless you particularly want a single box for both, separate DVD and VHS players are better value.

A more interesting combination would be a DVD player with a CD burner, but that has yet to appear in New Zealand shops.

Some DVD players come with a hard disk that can record TV programmes, still pictures and music.

Hard disks are quicker than DVDs and tapes and fit large amounts of information allowing lots of programmes to be recorded and navigated through quickly.

But to justify the extra money, you'll want to be able to record video on the hard disk to DVDs.

Otherwise you will have to delete recordings from the hard disk as it fills up. Also, a DVD recorder with a hard disk makes it easy to create home videos.

Portable DVD players

Price range:Around $600 buys a mid-range portable DVD player, which looks like a laptop but is solely devoted to the play back of DVDs and CDs. Most come in widescreen format for optimal viewing and with a 17cm screen.

Perfect for long plane trips where the inhouse movie selection lets you down.

These devices are very popular in Asia where space is a premium but with the price of laptops having dropped steeply, many people opt for laptops with built-in DVD drives, which generally come as standard on machines selling for as little as $1000.

Format wars

The DVD industry couldn't agree on a single format for recordable discs, so now we have DVD+R (Plus) and DVD-R (Minus), as well as the rarer DVD-RAM to choose from.

Add to that the rewriteable DVD+RW and DVD-RW formats, and the buyer is left wondering which one to go for for future compatibility.

The good news is that most recorders support the DVD Plus and Minus formats. Usually, the device will record/playback in one format, but only playback in the other format, although some high-end machines can do both.

DVD-RAM is another story. This has several advantages - fast reading and writing, up to 100,000 rewrites a disc, and the simultaneous playing and recording "time slip" feature - but it is the least compatible of all.

While DVD-RAM players can often read other formats, the discs are usually not readable in other-format players. The format is probably heading for obsolescence, but it's worth noting that compatibility is only an issue when swapping your recordings with other people.

But just when it seemed the dust had settled, a new DVD recording format, HD-DVD, is appearing.

The "HD" stands for "High Definition", and the format was developed to keep up with HDTV broadcasts abroad - current DVD players can handle only standard definition TV. HD-DVD can fit up to five times more information than today's discs.

But history is repeating itself, and DVD makers are split in two camps over which format to use.

HD-DVD is interesting for New Zealand, as it is likely to be the only way for audiences to enjoy HDTV programming for some time.

Zoning laws

Film studios want to control what we can and cannot watch, and have devised region-encoded DVDs to ensure this.

DVDs have eight regions or zones. New Zealand is in Region 4, with Australia, Latin America and the Pacific Islands. DVDs encoded for Region 1 (North America) or 2 (Middle East, Europe, South Africa, Japan) won't run on Region 4 players.

Luckily, "region free" and "multi-region" players get around this. And many single-region players can be set to a different region, or multi-region. The procedure for this depends on the player, and can cause problems if the user gets it wrong. A search for "multi-region hack" on Google will provide further details, or ask at the shop.

Not content with annoying millions of legitimate DVD purchasers, the film studios have upped the zoning nuisance ante with region code enhancement (RCE).

RCE is designed to stop Region 1 (North America) discs being played on region-free DVD players. An RCE-encoded disc will display a message that it is intended to play only on non-modified Region 1 players.

Most multi-region players can play RCE discs, but some can't.

Check with the shop, or better yet, try with an RCE disc. If you can manually adjust the region on your Region-Free player, try setting it to Region 1. Sometimes, you can play the RCE disc by selecting Title 1, Chapter 1 on the remote, getting past the lockout screen.

DVD on the Net

DVD demystified

Many DVD web sites contain adult material, so take care when browsing.

 

Intel innovation could double chip power

SAN JOSE, Calif.--Intel showed off a new chip technology Tuesday that, if successful, will allow one chip to act like two.

Called "hyperthreading," the new technology essentially takes advantage of formerly unused circuitry on the Pentium 4 that lets the chip operate far more efficiently--and almost as well as a dual-processor computer. With it, a desktop can run two different applications simultaneously or run a single application much faster than it would on a standard one-processor box.

"It makes a single processor look like two processors to the operating system," said Shannon Poulin, enterprise launch and disclosure manager at Intel. "It effectively looks like two processors on a chip."

Paul Otellini, general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, demonstrated the hyperthreading technology at the Intel Developer's Forum here Tuesday.

In the same speech, he showed off a 3.5GHz Pentium 4 running the computer game "Quake 3" and managing four different video streams simultaneously. The Pentium 4 demonstration didn't depend on Hyper-Threading; instead, it came out as part of Intel's effort to show how consumers and software developers will continue to need faster PCs.

"There are a lot of tremendous applications on the horizon that will consume the MIPS (millions of instructions per second)," Otellini said. "Gigahertz are necessary for the evolution and improvement of computing."

Technically, hyperthreading takes advantage of additional registers--circuits that help manage data inside a chip--that come on existing Pentium 4's but aren't used. Through these registers, the processor can handle more tasks at once by taking better advantage of its own resources. The chip can direct instructions from one application on its floating-point unit, which is where the heavy math is done, and run parts of another application through its integer unit.

A chip with hyperthreading won't equal the computing power of two Pentium 4's, but the performance boost is substantial, Poulin said. A workstation with hyperthreaded Xeon chips running Alias-Wavefront, a graphics application, has achieved a 30 percent improvement in tests, he said. Servers with hyperthreaded chips can manage 30 percent more users.

Will developers climb aboard?
The open question is whether software developers will latch onto the idea. Software applications will need to be rewritten to take advantage of hyperthreading, and getting developers to tweak their products can take an enormous amount of time.

Intel, for instance, has been working for well over a year to get developers to rewrite their programs to take full advantage of the features of the Pentium 4, which has been out for approximately nine months. The company even changed the migration program to speed the process of optimizing Pentium III applications for the Pentium 4.

Still, to date, only 30 applications have been enhanced to take full advantage of the Pentium 4, according to Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of the Desktop Platforms Group at Intel. But more are on the way, he said.

Otellini acknowledged that recruiting developers will take time.

"The real key is going to be to get the applications threaded, and that takes a lot of work," he said.

Nonetheless, adopting the technology to server and workstations applications should be fairly easy if the application already runs on dual-processor systems, other Intel officials said. "Thread your applications and drivers and OSes to take advantage of this relatively free performance," Otellini asked developers during his speech.

Hyperthreading, which will appear in servers and workstations in 2002 and desktops in 2003, is part of an overall Intel strategy to find new ways to squeeze more performance out of silicon. For years, the company has largely relied on boosting the clock speed and tweaking parts of the chip's architecture to eke out gains.

The performance gains to be achieved from boosting the clock speed, however, are limited. In all practicality, most users won't experience that much realistic difference between a 1GHz computer and one that contains a 2GHz chip, according to, among others, Dean McCarron, an analyst at Mercury Research.

Ideally, hyperthreading, which has been under development for four and a half years, will show meatier benefits. An individual could play games while simultaneously downloading multimedia files from the Internet with a computer containing the technology, Poulin predicted.

Hyperthreaded chips would also be cheaper than dual-processor computers. "You only need one heat sink, one fan, one cooling solution," he said, along with, of course, one chip.

Chips running hyperthreading have been produced, and both Microsoft's Windows XP and Linux can take advantage of the technology, according to Poulin.

Computers containing a single hyperthreaded chip differ from dual-processor computers in that two applications can't take advantage of the same processor substructure at the same time.

"Only one gets to use the floating point at a single time," Poulin said.

On other fronts, Intel on Tuesday also unveiled Machine Check Architecture, which allows servers to catch data errors more efficiently. The company will also demonstrate McKinley for the first time. McKinley is the code name for the next version of Itanium, Intel's 64-bit chip that competes against Sun's UltraSparc. McKinley is due in demonstration systems by the end of this year.

 

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