Daily Archives: September 23, 2005

I have been following John Battelle’s blog Searchblog for almost a year now. He helped start the Industry Standard and definitly knows what’s going on in the world of search engines. Long story short, the blog is a great resource. But that’s not what turned me into a loyal reader of his blog.

What really did it for me was the fact that he gave updates on the book that he has been researching and writing the last couple years. Every now and then he would even ask for advice from his readers, or suggestions on a possible chapter title.

I feel like I have been a part of the process for this book to come into fruition. It has been out now for less than a month and I think it’s been accepted well into the wide world of reading on paper (something I gave up long ago).

If there is an interesting story to be told about the IT world of the last four years I think it lies in Search Engines. So this should be an interesting read.

Ars Technica hits this one right on the head when they label it as potentially simply fodder for the fanboy forums on a Friday (nice alliteration, eh?).

Han Solo, a G4TV.com poster whose claim to fame apparently includes a remarkably accurate leak of Xbox 360 stats prior to the official announcement, posted (located approx. 2/3 of the way down the page, #3 of the forums) what he claims are the specifications for Nintendo’s upcoming Revolution game console. Some details:

• 1 custom, dual-threaded IBM PowerPC 2.5 GHz processor w/ 256k L1 cache and 1 MB L2 cache (potentially L3 cache as well). 512 MB of 700 MHz system RAM

• ATI custom graphics chip w/ 256 MB RAM and a 600 MHz core supporting 2048×1268 resolution. HD support is still undecided.

• The system will support a PPU (physical processing chip) w/ 32 MB of its own RAM, which links to the CPU, GPU and the controller(s).

Aside from straight out comparisons to the Xbox 360 and PS3 (Solo says the PS3 still has a CPU edge, while the Revolution technically matches the superior GPU performance offered by the Xbox), Ars makes note of the fact that Nintendo may be playing it smart by providing potentially developers with a core system for which it’s easy to write games. Given that the majority of titles end up going cross-platform at some point, if the Revolution forgoes any ridiculously esoteric hardware that provides a novel gaming experience but a headache for developers might be the way to go. I make no pretense about being a game expert, but that’s my $.02.

Yeah, I know – no good eye candy or sweet hardware specs to get you drooling. Just some good, old-fashioned numbers that made me stop and think for a few moments:

According to the Pew Internet Life Project, the rate of growth in home broadband adoption dropped dramatically this year, climbing a measly 3 percentage points between December 2004 and May 2005 – approximately 53% of U.S. households now have broadband internet access. This data seems especially surprising, given the 20% growth rate reported between November 2003 and May 2004.

The report cites the changing demographics as the cause for the slower rate of growth, as the majority of today’s dialup users are “older, less educated and with lower income.” This basically translates into a smaller, less net savvy pool of potentials to graduate to broadband (I can’t help but picture some sort of geek-themed ceremony for this involving cat-5 cable, routers…ok, I’ll stop).

The report doesn’t offer other explanations or theories about whether or not we’ve hit some sort of saturation point (temporary or otherwise), but I find it surprising that we’re slowing down after hitting the halfway mark. Then again, I have a hard time remembering life P.I. (pre-internet). Then again, even my 75 year-old grandparents have broadband, having migrated up from dialup, just as the report says.