The Future of Your PC
(continued) NO.2
One Device to Rule Them All?The PC has been the window to the digital world for 25 years, but ways of accessing information continue to evolve. In this chart, we've taken an admittedly arbitrary crack at laying odds on which device will be your go-to gizmo in 2011.
Operating Systems: Vista Arrives...and EvolvesWindows Vista is now expected in early 2007. How will it change the way the Windows world works?David Siroky, a Microsoft veteran and the group product manager for Windows, says that Vista's enhancements fall into three major categories. The first, and most visible, is graphics. Unlike XP, Vista can use a computer's GPU for multiple tasks simultaneously. That's key, because Vista's Aero user interface is graphics intensive, and developers--for the first time--will be more easily able to use advanced graphics outside of games.Vista will likely change information management and data storage, as well. Says Siroky, "Now that there's no cost associated with taking a snapshot, people have a lot more photos to deal with." XP's lack of tools gave rise to a bustling market for photo software, but Vista indicates that Redmond has started to catch up. Users can tag photos with keywords or other metadata, and Vista's photo gallery simplifies locating your pictures.Elsewhere, Vista's integrated "reliability monitor" can show you a chart of how stable your system has been over time. If you experience a sudden spike in reliability problems, you can check what happened during those days and react appropriately.On the Linux front, the XGL and Compiz windowing systems, GUIs that can give Linux a pretty face, may outdo Apple OS X's Aqua interface in sheer awe factor. In Compiz the windows stretch and skew as you move them, and you can view multiple desktop environments in 3D as the cube-like workspace rotates.Apple's Leopard revision of OS X, due out next spring, will make incremental but steady improvements to the Mac operating system, adding such features as an automated backup utility and multiple workspaces. According to Gartner, both Linux and Mac OS will gain in user support, while research continues on the Web-based OS.
After Vista, What's Next?Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the company "won't ever take five years to develop another version of Windows." If that's true, and if the time between previous major consumer versions of Windows is any gauge, that places the successor to Windows Vista, code-named Vienna, on course for a 2010 or 2011 release. Our timeline has more details about Windows releases.
CPUs: The More Cores the MerrierWithin a few short years, AMD Athlon X2 and Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs will feel decidedly quaint, because multicore technology is just getting started. Jerry Bautista, director of technology management at Intel's Microprocessor Technology Lab, says he has already built prototype chips with eight cores. "Up to eight works well for productivity applications. But thousands of cores are possible. The trick is finding what's practical," he says. While dual-CPU Xeons (with a total of four cores) have been around for a while, this kind of power is finally coming to the masses. Both Intel and AMD plan to introduce quad-core chips. Intel's Kentsfield chip will arrive by year-end, while AMD's, known as K8L, is slated for mid-2007. AMD's 4x4 technology promises a dual-socket system using two Athlon 64-FX chips that will be available in time for the holidays.The limit for multicore technologies is really a software issue, as programs must be fundamentally redesigned to take advantage of parallel processing on a large scale. In other words, splitting a task across two or even four processor cores is relatively easy, but splitting it into dozens or hundreds of pieces is most definitely another thing altogether.Still, even with eight cores, expect to see dramatic performance improvements in complex programs, from games to search technologies. Simon Hayhurst, Adobe's director of product management for digital video and audio, says that most of Adobe's video applications already have elements that can make use of many cores, because previous work optimizing programs for hyperthreaded CPUs also works on multicore CPUs. Says Hayhurst, "The beauty of this approach is that we can write one piece of code that is hyperthreaded, which will scale up or down to multiple cores. We can soak up many more cores than are available today."The great leap in simultaneous processing capability is also likely to improve artificial intelligence. According to Intel's Bautista, "A video game's AI will be indistinguishable from what a person would do," forcing the player to take cover and track opponents organically rather than following an established script. He adds that such intelligence will extend to other applications, as well: "You will be able to search through thousands of photos and videos for people, certain backgrounds, or even specific facial expressions," he says.
(continued) NO.2
One Device to Rule Them All?The PC has been the window to the digital world for 25 years, but ways of accessing information continue to evolve. In this chart, we've taken an admittedly arbitrary crack at laying odds on which device will be your go-to gizmo in 2011.
Operating Systems: Vista Arrives...and EvolvesWindows Vista is now expected in early 2007. How will it change the way the Windows world works?David Siroky, a Microsoft veteran and the group product manager for Windows, says that Vista's enhancements fall into three major categories. The first, and most visible, is graphics. Unlike XP, Vista can use a computer's GPU for multiple tasks simultaneously. That's key, because Vista's Aero user interface is graphics intensive, and developers--for the first time--will be more easily able to use advanced graphics outside of games.Vista will likely change information management and data storage, as well. Says Siroky, "Now that there's no cost associated with taking a snapshot, people have a lot more photos to deal with." XP's lack of tools gave rise to a bustling market for photo software, but Vista indicates that Redmond has started to catch up. Users can tag photos with keywords or other metadata, and Vista's photo gallery simplifies locating your pictures.Elsewhere, Vista's integrated "reliability monitor" can show you a chart of how stable your system has been over time. If you experience a sudden spike in reliability problems, you can check what happened during those days and react appropriately.On the Linux front, the XGL and Compiz windowing systems, GUIs that can give Linux a pretty face, may outdo Apple OS X's Aqua interface in sheer awe factor. In Compiz the windows stretch and skew as you move them, and you can view multiple desktop environments in 3D as the cube-like workspace rotates.Apple's Leopard revision of OS X, due out next spring, will make incremental but steady improvements to the Mac operating system, adding such features as an automated backup utility and multiple workspaces. According to Gartner, both Linux and Mac OS will gain in user support, while research continues on the Web-based OS.
After Vista, What's Next?Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the company "won't ever take five years to develop another version of Windows." If that's true, and if the time between previous major consumer versions of Windows is any gauge, that places the successor to Windows Vista, code-named Vienna, on course for a 2010 or 2011 release. Our timeline has more details about Windows releases.
CPUs: The More Cores the MerrierWithin a few short years, AMD Athlon X2 and Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs will feel decidedly quaint, because multicore technology is just getting started. Jerry Bautista, director of technology management at Intel's Microprocessor Technology Lab, says he has already built prototype chips with eight cores. "Up to eight works well for productivity applications. But thousands of cores are possible. The trick is finding what's practical," he says. While dual-CPU Xeons (with a total of four cores) have been around for a while, this kind of power is finally coming to the masses. Both Intel and AMD plan to introduce quad-core chips. Intel's Kentsfield chip will arrive by year-end, while AMD's, known as K8L, is slated for mid-2007. AMD's 4x4 technology promises a dual-socket system using two Athlon 64-FX chips that will be available in time for the holidays.The limit for multicore technologies is really a software issue, as programs must be fundamentally redesigned to take advantage of parallel processing on a large scale. In other words, splitting a task across two or even four processor cores is relatively easy, but splitting it into dozens or hundreds of pieces is most definitely another thing altogether.Still, even with eight cores, expect to see dramatic performance improvements in complex programs, from games to search technologies. Simon Hayhurst, Adobe's director of product management for digital video and audio, says that most of Adobe's video applications already have elements that can make use of many cores, because previous work optimizing programs for hyperthreaded CPUs also works on multicore CPUs. Says Hayhurst, "The beauty of this approach is that we can write one piece of code that is hyperthreaded, which will scale up or down to multiple cores. We can soak up many more cores than are available today."The great leap in simultaneous processing capability is also likely to improve artificial intelligence. According to Intel's Bautista, "A video game's AI will be indistinguishable from what a person would do," forcing the player to take cover and track opponents organically rather than following an established script. He adds that such intelligence will extend to other applications, as well: "You will be able to search through thousands of photos and videos for people, certain backgrounds, or even specific facial expressions," he says.
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