VLC media player v0.8.6a

VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

• Download: VLC media player v0.8.6a (Freeware)

• View: Change Log

• Homepage: VLC media player

CDDA / VCDX plugins:
* Security updates (VideoLAN-SA-0701)
Mac OS X Interface:
* Fullscreen controller improvements

POWER6, Intel's 80-core chip, and more at ISSCC '07

The program for the 2007 International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in early February is out, and Stephen Shankland over at CNET spotted it before I did. You might have seen his article a few days ago, so here's my own take on the program's highlights.

POWER6 and Cell

The short description for IBM's POWER6 session (quoted below) doesn't really tell us much about the processor that we didn't already know:

5.1 Design of the POWER6^TM Microprocessor

J. Friedrich, B. McCredie, N. James, B. Huott, B. Curran, E. Fluhr, G. Mittal, E. Chan, Y. Chan, D. Plass, S. Chu, H. Le, L. Clark, J. Ripley, S. Taylor1, J. Dilullo, M. Lanzerotti

The POWER6^TM microprocessor combines ultra-high frequency operation, aggressive power reduction, a highly scalable memory subsystem, and mainframe-like reliability, availability, and serviceability. The 341mm2 700M transistor dual-core microprocessor is fabricated in a 65nm SOI process with 10 levels of low-k copper interconnect. It operates at clock frequencies over 5GHz in high-performance applications, and consumes under 100W in power-sensitive applications.

This session will probably reveal long-awaited details of the POWER6 microarchitecture. We should finally be able to solve the long-standing riddle of how close POWER6 is to the POWER4/5/970 lineage, and how close it is to the PPE architecture that powers parts of Cell and the Xbox 360. We might also learn more about how IBM managed to combine a clock frequency north of 5GHz with such a low power envelope (100W in some applications) on a 65nm process.

Note that there are some implications here with respect to The Switch, but any musings about POWER6's apparently miraculously high clockspeed/watt ratio, Jobs' claims about reasons for moving to Intel, and what Jobs knew about POWER6 when he made the decision to switch are all academic at this point. This is especially true in light of what Bootcamp has done to the Mac vs. Windows switcher equation. Mac marketshare is up, and many current Windows users are now considering the Mac because if they decide they don't like OS X, they can always install Windows on the machine.

The program also contains a session on a new version of Cell that's clocked at 6GHz and fabbed on a 65nm process. High-performance computing buyers of Cell will be happy to have that options, but the impact on Sony is less clear. Basically, IBM could downclock this chip so that it runs at the same speed as the PS3's current processor, thereby saving on power consumption. This would make the PS3 cheaper, because you could get rid of some of the elaborate cooling apparatus.

Note that the same would be true of a 65nm Xbox 360 chip from IBM, though no such chip is mentioned in the program.

PA Semi to unveil 2GHz dual-core PowerPC chip at 25W max

Speaking of PowerPC and stunning clockspeed/watt numbers, PA Semi will host a session on their heavily anticipated dual-core 2GHz PowerPC chip. You may recall this chip from earlier reporting, as it was announced shortly after The Switch and it blew everyone's mind. The specs are worth repeating, because they're so out of control for a laptop-capable chip:

• Two 64-bit, superscalar, out-of-order PowerPC processor cores with Altivec/VMX
• Two DDR2 memory controllers (one per core!)
• 2MB shared L2 cache
• I/O unit that has support for: eight PCIe controllers, two 10 Gigabit Ethernet controllers, four Gigabit Ethernet controllers
• 65nm process
• 5-13 watts typical @ 2GHz, depending on the application

This looks like a great SoC, and it would've made for a fabulous Apple portable. Oh well; life goes on.

Anyway, this chip will probably see use in markets from embedded all the way up to HPC. With all of that per-chip I/O bandwidth and at 25W (max) a pop, you can go nuts ganging these together in a blade chassis.

(As with POWER6, David Kanter at RWT has the in-depth scoop on this chip, if you're looking for more details.)

Intel touts Terascale research chip, AMD opens up quad-core Opteron

When news of Intel's 80-core, floating-point-centric, "Terascale" prototype chip broke, it was pretty clear that this was a research project that wasn't intended for market anytime soon. I suppose the project is going well enough that Intel is doing a session at ISSSC on it, a fact that may up the likelihood of this thing becoming a reality.

For my part, I wonder if this has any relation to the whole Intel GPGPU skunkworks project that the Register has been on about recently. If Intel uses the Terascale chip's TSV (through silicon via) interconnect technology to stack a bunch of fast SRAM onto a cutting-edge GPU design, they may eat everyone's lunch.

On the AMD side of the fence, the quad-core Opteron gets its own session. Hopefully, AMD will release even more microarchitectural details on the new design, so that we can get a better sense of how it stacks up to Woodcrest.

Source: arstechnica.com

AMD’s next-generation Star supports DDR2-1066 & SSE4A

In the 4-year life time, AMD’s K8 processors have put AMD to its high. Not until the launch of Intel Core processors, these K8 processors were said to be the leader of performance. Of course, AMD is unwilling to pass the leading position to Intel. In the fore coming Q3 2007, AMD’s next-generation Star processors will be put into the market and fight with Intel’s Core. To prepare this war, besides the improvement of its microarchitecture, AMD is persuading JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) to put DDR2-1066 as the standard, letting the faster memory be officially supported in Star.

The new Star family includes quad-core Agena, mainstream dual-core Kuma, entry dual core Rana, and single-core Spica. In addition, the old K8 architecture has been renamed to Cities. The new Star microarchitecture has lots of improvements includes : Hyper-Transport 3.0 (from 2GT/s to 5.2GT/s), 32B Instruction Fetch, more precise Branch Prediction and Out-of-Order Load Execution, 4 Double Precision FLOPS/Cycle, Dual 128Bit SSE calculation, and Load per Cycle. At the same clock speed, the new microarchitecture would further push the performance to another high. It should be noted that AM2+ and AM2 is compatible to each other. For example, Altair can work in the existing Socket AM2 main board, the only need is BIOS upgrade. Yet Hyper-Transport will get only 2GHz in Socket AM2 main board as ver. 2.0. Furthermore, AM2+ main board is also designed to support AM3, according to AMD’s AM2r2 specification.

In the previous plan, AM3 processors with build-in DDR2/3 memory controller are the direct successor of the existing AM2 processors. Yet AMD has decided to postpone AM3 as they reviewed the market trend of DDR3 memory, estimated that DDR3 will only be put into common until 2009. The decision is good to both consumers and AMD, such that AMD can simplify its design to lower the cost as well as making more time to AMD to prepare the upcoming DDR3 era.

So far, JEDEC has only recognized DDR2-800 as the highest standard of DDR2, DDR3 would be the next-generation high-speed memory. Regarding with the memory performance, DDR2-800 seems too weak to compete with DDR3-1066 which supported by the upcoming Intel’s Beaelake platform. For this reason, AMD is persuading JEDEC to also put DDR2-1066 as the standard, letting the faster memory can be officially and natively supported in Star.

Regarding with the 48 SSE4 to be added into Intel’s next-generation 45nm products, AMD has announced last week that Star will have SSE4A, a derivative edition of SSE4 in which those Intel 64 instructions are not available. Instructions include graphic, video encoding, 3D calculation, multimedia related are all compatible in Star.

In the first quarter of its launch, AMD estimated that Star would share 10% of the total shipment for entry and above market. When single-core Rana is released in Q4 2007, this figure rise to a double of 20%; while in Q1 2008, Star would increase to 60%, crossing over with the old models.

MS considering games for Zune

It's been oft rumored that Microsoft's music-playing, photo-sharing Zune (which was almost called the Xpod) will eventually have some sort of game-playing ability as well. Now, Microsoft Europe Chief Chris Lewis has thrown some more fuel on the rumor fire, telling TotalVideoGames in an interview that "gaming is certainly something we're considering for the device."

We can definitely see the appeal from Microsoft's point of view -- the move could provide the company with a quick, back-door entrance into the highly competitive portable gaming market while at the same time keeping up with Apple's game-playing iPod. The online functionality of Xbox Live and the library of casual and classic games from Live Arcade could also provide for good software support.

Still, we're not convinced games will attract many new customers to the weak-selling Zune. Given the system's design as a music player, we doubt the system has the hardware power or game-centric interface needed to really compete with the firmly entrenched DS and PSP. Still, you can never have too many devices that play Bejeweled in your pocket.
http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/21/ms-considering-games-for-zune/

Gmail users report vanishing e-mail

A number of Gmail users are complaining that their e-mail has mysteriously vanished. After TechCrunch picked up the story, Google issued a public apology, stating that the problem affected only 60 users. There don't seem to be any noticeable patterns in the group of affected users.

Google seems confident that it is the result of an "isolated problem", but so far no specific details have been provided. Some of the affected users report that Google has restored a week or two of e-mail, but most of their messages were unrecoverable.

One could point to the little "beta" sigil below the Gmail logo and say that such problems are to be expected, but that doesn't change the fact that instances of significant data loss will create at least some uncertainty about the service. This incident also serves as a warning for those that use web-based mail interfaces exclusively. Gmail users should consider using the service's POP functionality for backup purposes. For those of us that depend on consistent and reliable mail access for business; mail backups are as important as document backups, if not more so. Let's hope that this really is an "isolated problem" and that it doesn't recur in the near future.
Source: arstechnica