Running the Ovi Suite installer of the Nokia N97, it’s clear that Nokia’s PC software could use improvement. A lot of improvement.

At first glance, it’s nice to see the installer provide the user with some options during setup. Install Nokia Photos? Leave out Nokia Music? But in hindsight, this approach—separating the various facilities into different applications—does not work. Not only does it come off as cumbersome (What, I have to install all of this?!), it lets users potentially miss out on functionality required to maximize their phones.

The rant/article continues on Philippine-affiliate Technograph.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Yes, I am the Steven Chu

But he is adamant that great efficiency, particularly in buildings, will significantly reduce the number of power plants built. To really take effect, he says, global co-operation on technology to improve efficiency is vital. And that co-operation, he says, could be best facilitated by open source software to avoid the wrangling over intellectual property that is sometimes a source of tension between developed and developing countries in climate change talks.

That line of reasoning requires quite a leap. A leap based on the assumption that well-designed software will keep future buildings running smoothly and efficiently, and the hope that open source software will eventually gain widespread acceptance. Assuming that entrenched players would want to perpetuate the proprietary-software-for-profit scheme, all I can say is good luck.

Post from: The Gadget Blog

Looks like software makers have their own sort of catching up to do, reminiscent of consumers constantly upgrading their hardware to run the latest applications. Ironically, according to IT research firm Gartner, users will be hard-pressed to maximize their hardware, thanks to software that has consistently failed to catch up to multi-core functionality.

Analyst Carl Claunch said: “Many of the software configurations in use today will be challenged to support the hardware configurations possible, and those will be accelerating in the future.”

…Part of the problem, Claunch said, was the speed of innovation in today’s chip design. Chips develop with more cores and each core gets more threads as well, adding to the issue, he said. Each generation turns the same number of sockets into twice as many processors.

The implied solution was that developers should be more forward-looking and start coming out with software that won’t impose any future bottlenecks on computing power. But aside from providing contingencies for future CPU technology (a projected possibility is the 1024-cores running four years from now), the challenge also lies in anticipating the so-called “soft” limits, which according to Claunch, “are uncovered only from word-of-mouth, real-world cases.” Looks like the performance and capability of current and future operating systems are crucial in this situation.

(Image from Wikipedia. Thanks ZDNet!)

Post from: The Gadget Blog