I would argue that sharing cache between CPU and GPU is not necessarily ideal. Also, keep in mind that GPUs and CPUs use memory very differently; CPUs prefer low latency, GPUs prefer raw bandwidth- this is why Llano's graphics performance is very sensitive to the clockspeed of the memory you're using.

Don't you mean a hypothesis?

MIDI is very limited. MIDI was set up 30 years ago as a communication interface, and by today's standards it's a poor one- you're limited to one note per millisecond. IIRC, you are also limited to 16 channels, so composing scores for an entire orchestra is out of the question.

To top it all off, it wasn't meant for music notation. Symbols like Accelerandos, Ritardandos are notably absent- changes to tempos are hardcoded. Many other symbols are absent as well. Sometimes notes need to be formatted in a special way (ie- for readability, or left/right hand on piano).

Anyone who has ever composed in Finale, Sibelius, etc and tried to export to midi will notice the limitations right away. Why, what's your beef with XML anyway?

Please don't confuse capitalism with corporatism. The very fact that the Government would dictate or allow someone else to dictate what someone can and cannot do with his/her own property goes against one of the basic tenets of free-market capitalism. In a true capitalist system, Sony wouldn't be able to take legal action against modchip manufacturers.

"Intellectual property" is another concept that is falsely attributed to capitalism. The government should never enforce monopolies, especially over ideas.

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but in case you aren't...

Some Motorola Android phones have MotoBlur, which require a MotoBlur account (it does its own cloud syncing). My Atrix, unfortunately, is one of those phones.

I believe the Motorola Droid phones (Droid, Droid 2, Droid X) on Verizon don't have MotoBlur, and thus don't require a Motorola account.

This kind of thing pisses me off. After having knee replacement a few years ago, I was hobbling around on crutches for a month- and shopping with a regular cart was a pain in the ass. There were times when I went to the grocery store and the "mobility carts" were all taken up by fatasses who could really use the exercise.

I've always wanted to tell them off, "Hey tubby, laziness and lack of self-control isn't a disability!"

I can't imagine how people with permanent disabilities would feel in that situation.

No joke.

That's why there are "no gays" in Iran, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad joked about on a previous US visit. Known homosexuals are either forced to have gender reassignment surgery, or risk jail or execution. It mirrors the way western countries forced gays to undergo chemical castration as recent as 50 years ago (like what happened to Turing), but it's terrible that this kind of thing still happens today.

A capacitive stylus is more like writing with a crayon than a pencil. If you look at these, you'll quickly notice that they're not much more precise than your finger (unless you have really fat hands).

Now be serious... there's only 535 seats in Congress. That's hardly enough to put a dent in other criminal enterprises.

Considering that Android users use more data, it's a safe bet that Verizon's network can handle the load.

You're right, I was referring to the A8 core within the two SOCs. However, they both use the same PowerVR SGX 535 and were designed by the same firm (Intrinsity, which was acquired by Apple last year) in collaboration with Samsung. The A4 is slightly smaller, owing its decreased die size to smaller cache and other tweaks. Functionally, they're very similar, much moreso than any other A8-based SOC (TI OMAP, Qualcomm Snapdragon, etc).

1) The same argument was made before dual core made it to consumer PCs. If you build it, they will come.

In any case, waiting on either PC or phone is usually due to some IO task, not heavy CPU usage. By far, the most waiting I'm going to be doing is when web pages are being loaded.

Media playback and games are primarily where users will see the most benefit from dual-core in the foreseeable future. Having a heavy webpage with Flash running smoothly doesn't hurt either. :)

2) Today, chips have very good power-gating. If only one core is being used, only one core is being powered. Also, the power usage increase is logarithmic. For this reason, having a second core doesn't double the TDP of the entire chip.

Also, most of these dual-core chips add a fraction of die space in return for an extra core. The SOCs already only dedicate a minority of space to the ARM core- the rest is taken up by the GPU, Memory, radio, and other misc controllers.

And due to die shrinkages with every generation, many dual-core chips will be drawing less power than their single-core counterparts. Case in point: the 3rd generation Snapdragon with dual-Scorpion cores is claimed (at least by Qualcomm) to use less power than the Snapdragons in current smartphones. Going from 65nm to 45nm (28nm expected by end of 2011!) provides that kind of headroom.

Besides, the biggest user of battery space is usually the screen, then radio (wifi, 3G/4G, bluetooth, etc), then the CPU at a distant third.

Double core- Double battery usage? Right, whatever.

Why not? Multi-core was marketed successfully for PCs, what makes smartphones any different? Tech specs are pretty important to the Android crowd. Besides, now that certain devices will have docks that allow them become netbook and HTPC replacements, people will find uses for that extra core.

A4 is not dual core- it's an ARM Cortex A8 core with a PowerVR SGX 535 GPU. It's nearly identical to the Samsung Hummingbird CPUs used in the Galaxy S phones.

The 5th gen iPhone is rumored to have dual core, but it won't be out until at least this summer.

I hate to break it you, but Fusion, Bobcat, and Bulldozer have been in development for quite a long time- all of these projects started when Hector was at the helm. Dirk can hardly be credited with these product releases, other than keeping AMD afloat long enough to allow these products see the light of day.