If the Tegra 3 chip provide similar or more performance than the current dual core Atom 1.6GHz, I think it would be REALLY nice to have, especially with the lower price tag. And I don't care about an OC version of Tegra 3, which is possible due to the "no" heat limitation of a desktop. ie: Having a heat sink doesn't prevent the product (tablets) to be made. Other cool thing. Dual system in one. Basically the Dell Latitude ON feature on laptops, powered by Tegra or some other powerful ARM chip. Dell Latitude ON, for those you don't know, is a second system within the laptop (currently powered by Linux), which provide instant boot. It has it's own memory, storage, graphic chip, so you have "all day computing" (Dell statement, I don't have it) of usage with a 9-cell battery. Or you can switch to the full Windows experience, by pressing the normal power button, switch will transfer the data stored to the HDD, and go to Windows, where you can have well Windows, and more computation power (but only 10 hours and half of battery (with a (at the time, before Core i series was out) latest Core 2 Duo (P series), HDD, 4GB of RAM, Nvidia GPU, and so on). This 10 hours and half is my measurements, which consists of (Minimum brightness (the screen is really bright.. minimum is about 30-40% brightness on other laptops), wireless N turned on, Office 2010 OneNote open, IM program running on the background, no A/V, Win7 64-bit, Core 2 Duo P8400, 5400RPM HDD, no disk in drive, no USB devices connected, power scheme set to Dell Extended Battery life (Power Saver + power cut on optical drive, indexing service disabled, screen refresh rate set to 40Hz instead of 60Hz, firewire and media card reason turned off), Aero ON. I think the problem these days, is that most people don't need more power form their computer. If I get a Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz, or a Core i7 950.. and I just websurf... the performance is the same. Back in the old days, simple programs benefited from a faster CPU, even web surfing. I think we reached to a level where software (and I don't mean games), are evolving so slowly, because they assume a good and smooth experience for the person with the the slowest computer than the rest of the population. BUT, if a software DARES to go faster.. people jumps on it, attacking it of being "bloated", and "badly optimized" and I don't know what. Already Firefox has trouble with this. So everything is moving very small step at a time, while back in the old days, where we wanted to be contrary, no one cared and enjoyed fancy features, even though it eats a lot of system resources to make it happen.
From a 'consumer' perspective then I would have to say... Tegra 3 (and the mobile market in general) and the next generation of GPUs seeing as we missed out on the die shrink with the 400/500 and 6000 series. I would also say how everything is slowly becoming ingreated (CPU with memory controller and now GPU) combining with cloud services, resulting it incredible mobile devices with everyone using less power. From a 'business' perspective, again the cloud movement. Still love how virtulisation is enabling everyone to cut back on hardware and electricity and how VDI is becoming more and more popular (seeing Citrix and View maturing is great). Seeing how we are able to overcome some of the bottlenecks for these kinds of things in the mid-market now as well (SSDs and tiered storage are still difficult to convince people that they are worth the cash though sometimes). Just the fact that everyone is still pushing further and further when it comes to efficiency.
Graphene/Graphite replacing silicone, 3D gate transistors, optical and quantum computing. And also battery technology, carbon nanotubes etc it would be nice not to have to charge a smartphone with a decent sized screen every single day.
The new NGP. Quad CPU/Graphics is just awesome for a handheld. Cannot wait. But its the current tech that gets me hot under the collar: New build PCs and all the exciting hardware. I can finally run 20-30 programs at the same time - Yippee! Win 7 - finally a windows that is the best yet. Ubuntu - Great alternative and free! The light netbook version got my G/friend using a computer at last. Super fast broadband on cable - its here, we are living the future. Virtual Machines via software, namely VirtualBox. Can run all my old systems again. Eyefinity - I will get more screens in the distant future. New Game Consolses - Can't wait to see if the XBox/Wii can catch up in disk capacity so that all multiplatforms games are not capped by the PS2 8 GB DVD. Lets hope the super fast consoles takes gaming into wonderful directions.
1- GPU's 2- Monitors 3- Kinect, only the idea of it as an input device for htpcs 4- Smartphones 5- home networks/ media streaming between pc's and conventional equipment
Things I'm looking forwards to: Bulldozer - AMD, kindly HURRY THE F**K UP, I'd like to know if it is a contender or not as I want a new PC. Watching the crappy mobile interface for Windows 8 crash and burn - Crossing over a mobile interface on a desktop device is wrong. ARM chips hitting the desktop with Windows 8. Android mobile development XBMC - I really want to know how their working with hardware manufacturers goes, I'd love an actual XBMC box in my living room, the Boxxee box was utter s**t (but they get points for the excelent controller). Arduino development - The uses for this prototyping platform never cease to amaze me.
You want to look at ASUS Xtion then - it's Kinect hardware for PCs. /marketing done for the day. CPUs and GPUs are still the strong suit for many then. Which all comes down to process technology from Intel/TSMC/GloFo... which is running out? 32/28 - 22 - 14 - 11??
I'm interested in hardware - faster CPUs, GPUs and RAM is always good. I keep an eye on SSDs as well but mainly from a price point of view since I want my next major rebuild to have enough SSD room to store my games on (a terabyte or two will do ). Additionally, I'm also interested in the optional visual extras AMD and Nvidia can enable on their GPUs. I enable ambient occlusion whenever I can, as well as forcing AA and AF if necessary. One day I hope to see true Gaussian AA applied in-game, or allowing downsampling from a high resolution without potentially killing my monitor(s)! New technologies like DX11 get me moist as well. Tessellation can be leg humpingly awesome when applied correctly. Basically, I like any technology that'll run games faster and better!
