Craig Hockenberry benchmarks original iPhone vs. the iPad

I realize that the form factor is considerable different between the iPhone and the iPad. However guessing that a not too power reduced A4 chip will most likely be in the next iPhone this year the performance increase in two and a half years is as Hockenberry says 'Holy crap!'. I would like to see how this compares with the Moore's law performance increase in desktop computing over a similar period.

More here:

Benchmarking in your lap by Craig Hockenberry

Native performance: Original iPhone vs. iPad

Test	iPad/3.2	iPhone/2.0	Faster by
100,000 iterations	0.000035 secs.	0.015 secs.	428x
10,000 divisions	0.000010	0.004	400x
10,000 sin(x) calls	0.000012	0.105	8,750x
10,000 string allocations	0.004321	0.085	20x
10,000 function calls	0.000338	0.004	12x

The most remarkable change is when you compare the original iPhone to the iPad. Using the numbers from my original tests and the results above reveals an improvement of several orders of magnitude in just over 2½ years. I believe the technical term for this is “Holy crap!”

Note: I don’t remember if the original tests were optimized builds, or if it was even possible to get gcc to do them with a jailbreak toolchain. Even if they weren’t optimized like the current tests, the performance increases are still stunning.

All-in-all, a remarkable achievement by Apple’s engineers, especially when you consider that the battery life of these devices has gone up, rather than down.

 

 

 

Checking out two new apps, MarsEdit 3.0 on OSX and Note Taker HD on iPad

I've been experimenting with two new applications, MarsEdit 3.0 on OSX and Note Taker HD on the iPad.

I've used Dan Bricklin's software since VisiCalc on the Apple. It is great to see him writing apps for the iPhone and iPad. Note Taker is an app that lets you write notes just like you were writing with a pen on paper. No attempts to OCR but many interesting technologies to make writing in a 'e'-format the same [or better] than on paper. I have tried various technologies in this area for years, but until Note Taker HD and the iPad I've found all far from the mark of replacing my trusty Mead Composition books. The first one I tried was a predecessor to the Adesso CyberPad, CrossPad by A. T. Cross Pens and IBM. I do not think much has improved since  device until the iPad and Note Taker HD.

 

 

There is still much to be tuned in working with the user interface on the iPad, and Note Taker HD is in the middle of these as many apps are on the iPad. But over all this is a fantastic application. I am still up in the air as to whether typing notes on the iPad or writing them is the right future. Or perhaps a combo of the two is the way to go. Note Taker HD does not attempt to handle typed text currently and I do not know if this is on Bricklin's radar. All of the combo apps I have tried so far are far from a good solution. A third aspect is recording audio as well as writing or typing notes. Note Taker HD, again, does not attempt this and I do not know if it will, some or the note pad type apps do include this feature. I have used a simple hardware voice recorder for many years, but to be able to keep audio and your written notes in sync right from the recorded point is a very useful future.

I have done some test writing with Note Taker HD to get familiar with its operation. There are two edit modes, called Edit 1 and Edit 2. Edit 2 seems to be the way to go for note taking, picture a little 'zoomed' in window that moves along as you write. This is one area were some work is needed, the operation and smoothness of using Edit 2 can be improved, it still gets in the way of pure writing like you do on paper. It needs to be invisible as you write.

I am looking forward to taking Note Taker HD on a real world

 

 

 

 

drive and sharing my experiences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am writing this post with the new 3.0 version of MarsEdit for OS X, Daniel Jalkut at Red Sweater Software had a great application for writing blog entries and this new version is an outstanding upgrade. I will write about it more as I learn its new features.

 

 

Internet of Things and Games talk by Jesse Schell at DICE conference February 2010

This is a funny and though provoking talk by a smart game designer Jesse Schell about using games and point chasing with the ubiquitous sensor future of the 'Internet of Things'. Two key points he makes. First, humans love to compete in games. And second, the connected world of much of what we touch and do during the day is going to have sensors attached that will report our actions to someone. It is coming, as he says there is no doubt about that.

Sony PS3 hacked: ""I rigged an FPGA button to send the pulse. Sometimes it kernel panics, "

The Register is reporting that a very smart hacker has been able to open up the Sony PS3. What is interesting here is what appears to be his combination of a hardware, software, old school 'keep pounding on the door till you get in' solution.


"I rigged an FPGA button to send the pulse. Sometimes it kernel panics, sometimes it lv1 panics, but sometimes you get the exploit!! If the module exits, you are now exploited."

With the increase of open source hardware debuggers coming available, the 'old' clip of the young John Conner in the movie Terminator 2 sticking his 'hacked' ATM card into the ATM machine and getting money is here.

RFID passport privacy issues uncovered: A Traceability Attack Against e-Passports

This paper by Tom Chothia and Vitaliy Smirnov at the University of Birmingham shows another example of why open source vetting and more transparency are necessary before massive Internet of Things systems are rolled out.

Their conclusion:
'Our work shows the inherent dangers of using RFID tags in personal items.'

Berg Insights research: 1.4% of world wide wireless connection are machine to machine (M2M)

The research firm, Berg Insights, did a study at the end of last year  that finds that 1.4 percent of wireless communications is from one machine to another. And this is predicted grow by 26% per year. In the USA, Berg says the current percentage of wireless M2M connections is 4.3%.

This is the 'Internet of Things' growing at a very fast pace. This research only focuses on the mobile/cellular market, so the machine to machine communications in other frequencies [WiFi, Zigbee, Dash7] are even larger.

From Berg's research paper:

New M2M initiatives launched by major mobile operator groups are expected to have a positive influence on demand, stimulating new large-scale projects. Regulatory developments are predicted to have a major impact on the telematics industry. The EU is expected to propose formal legislation for the introduction of eCall by 2014 but in Brazil the fate of Resolution 245 is more uncertain. Another significant development to watch will be the progress of the Dutch government’s plans to introduce a nationwide electronic road charging system for all motor vehicles.

More on bad embedded software coding and coding practices

Good article here in Electronic Design about litigation that is starting to occur around embedded systems code. Just have a look at this line of code the author of that article found:

y = (x + 305) / 146097 * 400 + (x + 305) % 146097 / 36524 * 100 + (x + 305) % 146097 % 36524 / 1461 * 4 + (x + 305) % 146097 % 36524 % 1461 / 365;

In the original listing, there were no comments on this line to help. I eventually learned that this code computes the year, accounting for extra days in leap years, when given the number of days since a known reference date. But we still don’t know if it works in all cases, despite its presence in an FDA-regulated medical device. The Microsoft Zune Bug was buried in a much better formatted snippet of code that performed a very similar calculation.

This is a follow up to my post about the poor code that TI shipped out with their Zigbee products. I saw posts today that they are shipping updated code, but how long will it take to get it rolled out.

This article really highlights how important good training, good review processes and I think much more open source review is needed as we move forward to the Internet of Things.