Silver Strand Half Marathon 2010

All my limbs and joints held up okay after I ran slightly shy of 13.1 miles the other day. I think I can go ahead and update this space now.

Please consider supporting me as I run my first half marathon and more importantly the bigger cause - AID San Diego's many projects in areas such as education, women's empowerment, agriculture and much more. I tell myself that a 2 hour session in "pain management" is not in any universe commensurate with the throes of the underprivileged. I am grateful that through AID, I have found an avenue to contribute and make a difference.

Visit AID San Diego's project page for a list of projects and initiatives supported.

All donations to AID are 100% tax-deductible, under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS code.

Ranga.

Esam Al-Amin: Who Killed Hariri?

Esam Al-Amin: Who Killed Hariri?: "America's Best Political Newsletter."

Dr.Wreck’s take on Mobile Devices and IC Convergence

Dr.Wreck’s take on Mobile Devices and IC Convergence: "

We love consumer electronic tear-downs, we’ve seen and performed a ton of them. In the past year we’ve seen a pretty considerable level of convergence in multi-use/multi-function IC’s.

A few notable corporations have played a major role in what we’ll call “hardware convergence”. One company that really stands out for leading this front is Qualcomm. Founded in 1985, these guys have definitely withstood the test of time.

Their “do everything mobile reference designs” cover everything a mobile device needs – BaseBand, AppCore, PMIC and even radio tranceivers. This makes it super easy for ANY run-of-the-mill ODM to build state-of the art smartphones. All you really need these days is Google and Qualcomm – save some special extra boutique devices we come across from time-to-time.

We can trace similar HW convergence to what happened with age old PC architecture (leading to the X86 design of modern PC’s). Combining all functionality into a tiny package ARM based processor core is very attractive from a cost and PCB design perspective. Unfortunately, these do-everything IC’s are often met with heavy power requirements. For perspective, each new BlackBerry device that get’s launced is met with reduced charge longevity. Of course, LCD screens are getting brighter and larger but these devices get really hot with use. This has to be related with packing a 1GHz Baseband/App Core/Kitchen Sink under the hood.

Is hardware convergence really even a good thing? In our opinion, yes and no. On one-hand, it should open the space for smaller companies to develop market ready and attractive smartphones. On the other hand, if every device uses the same HW and OS, the only differentiating consumer factor is overall physical design. Building that top-of-the line do everything well device requires custom hardware configurations. We’re talking Capacitive touch screens, Laser-navigation devices and even devices that boost USB transfer speeds.

We can compare this convergence to a Toyota Corolla – it’s reliable and get’s the job-done but doesn’t include the bells and whistles. Our dream device is more comparable to a BMW M5. It’s fast – (maybe not so reliable :S) but allows us to tweak our experience with more options then we’ll probably ever use. Sure, most of those options can be enabled at the Firmware level, but having the supporting Hardware is absolutely required for the optimal, Dr.Wreck approved experience. Let us know what you think!

@DrWreck

"

Lula and the Brazilian moment

Lula and the Brazilian moment

Steve Jobs' letter explaining Apple's Flash distaste + Apple's aggressive tactics | Deep Tech - CNET News

Steve Jobs' letter explaining Apple's Flash distaste | Deep Tech - CNET News: "Apple's CEO doesn't like Flash. Here's the full memo explaining why the company is keeping Adobe Systems' software off the iPhone and iPad. Read this blog post by Stephen Shankland on Deep Tech."

A short history of Apple's aggressive legal tactics | Circuit Breaker - CNET News: "The investigation into the missing iPhone is only the most recent example of Apple taking a more muscular legal approach. Read this blog post by Erica Ogg on Circuit Breaker."javascript:void(0)