The human body and the set of biological processes we collectively refer to as “life” bear little resemblance to any real machine. We attempt to synthesize the complexity of the natural world but in fact have done so only on the fringes, in marginal, limited contexts. Undaunted, we anthropomorphize with respect to our creations, crowing about their ability to listen, see, hibernate, snooze, sleep, wake up.

These particular verbs feature prominently in discussions of power savings, where various approaches are combined to effect a reduction in a system’s appetite for energy. While the … Read More → "Towards a More Human Machine"

To no one’s great surprise, there’s yet another new ARM chip available in the market. This time the perpetrator is Toshiba, and its lyrically named TMPM330FDFG is a new low-cost microcontroller based on the Cortex-M3 processor design.

The new chip marks Toshiba’s first step into the world of ARM Cortex-M3 processors. The company has certainly produced its share of microprocessors and microcontrollers before – probably numbering in the billions by now – but never one based on ARM’s newish low-end architecture. It’s a move designed to … Read More → "Toshiba Grows a Prefrontal Cortex"

“So where are you off to this week?” a neighbour asked. “Paris and Munich,” I replied.  “Oh, very nice,” he said. Well, perhaps.

Actually, apart from the bus from the airport to the hotel, the hotel in Paris could have been a company event anywhere in the world. It was Freescale’s Paris Technical Forum, where they gather together customers and prospective customers (around 600 people in total) from across Europe and present a series of technical papers and tutorials alongside a small scale exhibition (Technology Lab) with booths from … Read More → "European Roundup"