Leaping ahead: 2 billion-transistor computer chip from Intel

Indeed, Intel knows what it means to leap ahead. Surpassing the previous highest number of transistors packed into a computer (at 1.7 billion), Intel is set to deliver the first computer chip with two billion transistors.

The company announced on Monday that it has created a two-billion-transistor computer chip expected to offer supercomputers "a leap in performance and capabilities."

It is a new Itanium brand chip, codenamed "Tukwila," designed for supercomputers. Tukwila increases the power of computers more than twofold and will be available near the end of the year. Intel says this "quad core" chip is built with four processors that share computing workloads.

"The quad-core chip is coupled with higher bandwidths and large caches to enable a doubling in performance of Tukwila over the current Intel Itanium 9100 series processor," the Santa Clara, California, company said in a release.

Intel is the world's largest maker of microprocessors.

Miniature and Efficient Technology

The new Intel chip furthers the trend seen in many modern processors of consuming lower power.

Here are excerpts of BBC's interview with Intel officers.

"That's very much a reflection of the market place demands," said Justin Ratner, chief technology officer of the firm.

He said that firms that used the chips demanded more performance and were willing to trade power to get it.

"These chips go into a quite a unique market place," he said.

The firm will also show off a chip designed for ultra-mobile devices, known as Silverthorne.

The processor is based on the firms latest transistor technology which contains features just 45 nanometres (billionth of a metre) wide.

Tukwila is based on 65 nanometre technology.

"[Using 65nm technology] reflects the design time involved in that processor," Mr Ratner told BBC News.

Both chips will be shown off at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco.

Introducing...Vitamin Beer

A Filipino concocts a Vitamin B enriched beer that took center stage during the gathering of members of the International Federation of Inventors Association in Bangkok, Thailand.

Filipino inventor, Billy Malang, created a healthy beer that was sure to draw a crowd. A previous study has found health benefits in beer and this new development serves "another reason to drink."

Malang says: "All clear beers have no vitamins. It (sic) just contains alcohol, which is converted to sugar which gives you a big tummy, called the beer belly. So I brought back the Vitamin B to make beer a healthier habit."

Malang was one of the inventors from 27 countries who featured more than new 150 inventions in the Bangkok gathering. Other inventions featured include chopsticks that double as a toothbrush and a hi-tech sandwich filling machine.

Vitamin Beer

A Filipino concocts a Vitamin B enriched beer that took center stage during the gathering of members of the International Federation of Inventors Association in Bangkok, Thailand.

Filipino inventor, Billy Malang, created a healthy beer that was sure to draw a crowd. A previous study has found health benefits in beer and this new development serves "another reason to drink."

Malang says: "All clear beers have no vitamins. It (sic) just contains alcohol, which is converted to sugar which gives you a big tummy, called the beer belly. So I brought back the Vitamin B to make beer a healthier habit."

Malang was one of the inventors from 27 countries who featured more than new 150 inventions in the Bangkok gathering. Other inventions featured include chopsticks that double as a toothbrush and a hi-tech sandwich filling machine.

No double dipping please

Is there any risk associated with sticking a piece of partially eaten food into a dip or salsa?

Researchers from Clemson University say yes based on a study conducted by measuring the amount of bacteria in a dip that came from the mouths of study participants.

The participants were asked to take a bite out of a cracker that they had just scooped up with dip. After performing the double dip eight times, the study found that the a few extra ingredients in the dip - unwanted and unhealthy ingredients.

"Yes, you have a lot of bacteria on your skin and more in your mouth," said Joanne Konschak, director of infectious disease control of South Jersey Healthcare. "(For most bacteria) the dip becomes a breeding ground they can use to feed off."

XNote Stopwatch

Here's one for the time-conscious.

It's a small and useful tool that does what it's meant to do. It works as an alarm clock, stop watch, and countdown timer. It's called XNote Stopwatch and it's impressively light and fast. You can have it for free -- just bear with the nag screen.

Publisher's description

From dnSoft Research Group:

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http://dnsoft.swrus.com/

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XNote Stopwatch is a multifunctional digital-stopwatch and countdown timer utility for your computer's desktop. The program features both count-up and count-down modes, an alarm with various events, a resizable display with always-on-top mode, system-wide hot keys, time snapping (split/lap time feature), save/load support, time rewinding, and decimals customization. XNote Stopwatch has a digital display similar to real stopwatches and clocks. Moreover, it can be resized to achieve your preferable size of digits and even be switched to a compact state, in which the stopwatch/timer doesn't show controls and stays on top of your desktop.

My notes:

• The publisher does not mention XNote being an alarm clock. Well, you can actually make it one. Xnote has a feature that enables audio playing or the launching of applications after a countdown. Just configure the feature to set your alarm.
• Set hotkeys to easily control XNote.
  
• Eeasily resize XNote (compact mode) and place it anywhere on your screen.
• You can simultaneously run several XNote timers or stopwatches on your screen.
• Change digit and background colors to your liking. You can also adjust XNote's transparency.
  

Display:


Stopwatch Window


Compact Mode

Jump for temporary clogged nose relief

Whenever the cold hits me and that annoying clogged nose part starts to set it, I jump.

Frantically, I jump.

I jump and hop till I get that temporary clogged nose relief. After feeling an increase in heartbeat and breathing rate, nasal passages start clearing up. Breathing becomes easier though there could be some panting. I start feeling a bit comfortable..

I don't have scientific explanations yet but the jump technique really works for me.

Faster flash from Micron and Intel

Flash is fast--and could be faster.

Running up to five times faster, a new flash memory architecture from Microsoft and Intel increases the data transfer rates in consumer electronics by cutting the bottlenecks affecting conventional NAND flash memory.

IM Flash Technologies, a joint venture between Intel and Micron, has developed an 8G-bit SLC (single-level cell) high-speed NAND chip which can reach read speeds up to 200M bytes per second. This enables writing speeds of up to 100M bytes per second, bringing about faster data transfers between devices like solid-state drives and video cards.

Conventional NAND flash memory from Micron and other players presently have transfer data at read rates of 40M bytes per second. Write rates are about 20M bytes per second.

The faster flash's architecture achieves the speed defined in the ONFI (Open NAND Flash Interface) 2.0 specification. Industry players and analysts say products based on the ONFI 2.0 specification have been under development and were expected.

Micron is currently sampling the high-speed NAND component and mass production is expected to start in the second half of 2008. The technology is expected to be put to future use in video and high-end photography devices that require flash memory with quick transfer speeds and reliable data retention.