The battle between ARM and x86 (Intel) has been gaining steam more and more lately as Intel begins its movement into the mobile space (tablets, smartphones, etc.). Here is an article that provides a detailed analysis of ARM vs x86 in regards to performance and power consumption. Surprisingly, the paper  concludes that the current Atom [...]

Here is a somewhat lengthy but very good in-depth description of how an x86 machine boots up from the point you hit the power button until the operating system kernel initializes. “Things start rolling when you press the power button on the computer (no! do tell!). Once the motherboard is powered up it initializes its [...]

A multi-core CPU is not always a better performer than a single-core CPU. This fact depends upon many different factors, including the task at hand, the architecture of the CPU, etc. The following article provides a good bit of information on the factors surrounding this fact in detail. Check out the excerpt below or check [...]

“In the early days computers were much simpler. The various components of a system, such as the CPU, memory, mass storage, and network interfaces, were developed together and, as a result, were quite balanced in their performance. For example, the memory and network interfaces were not (much) faster than the CPU at providing data. This [...]

“Who invented the computer? For anyone who has made a pilgrimage to the University of Pennsylvania and seen the shrine to the ENIAC, the answer may seem obvious: John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert Jr., who led Penn’s engineering team in the 1940s. As it says on the plaque, the giant machine made of 17,468 [...]

This isn’t necessarily Computer Science related, but it is an article which I found interesting nonetheless. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the article that gives you a good overview of what the entire 4-page article is about: “Current computer graphics are fairly well known and understood. But how did we get here? [...]

I got a chance to play around with a Google CR-48 laptop today. It’s a pretty interesting device but way too barebones for my daily computing needs. I honestly don’t know if it would even be sufficient for me considering how I spend my time just browsing the web. I guess maybe I don’t fully [...]

“Lyric Semiconductor has unveiled a new type of chip that uses probability inputs and outputs instead of the conventional 1′s and 0′s used in logic chips today. Crunching probabilities is much more applicable to many computing task performed today rather than binary logic…” Read more at: physorg.com