3arn0wl

@3arn0wl@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do you think Technology makes us more lonely...?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago⁩:

  Question of the day! Obviously there are no definitive answers. So I've only got more questions... sorry.

  I wonder if our tech choices project our thoughts / feelings / worries...

  Hardware... Do we buy a certain brand as a talisman to tell the world we belong to a particular club? And do we put stickers on our laptops to emphasise that? Do we get the latest bit of kit to say "I've made it"? Does staring at a screen isolate us from engaging with those around us? And do we actually want that? A nicer world inside the device than outside? Do we prefer the voices in our tech to those in real life?

  Software... Do we play multi-player games just for interaction with others? Are we using social media to 'piss into the wind'? Or do we want / need to engage with others? Is Lemmy a club of like-minded individuals, where we feel safe and secure in the knowledge that - mostly - people here think / feel the same way as I do? Are we addicted to up-ticks to confirm our views? Or to massage our ego that we've got a certain level of popularity?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes - Arm has had to ease up both on licensing fees to smaller companies, and also has granted more flexibility in design, both as a result of RISC-V's popularity. And they certainly didn't want to do the latter!

  The really interesting question is : Will RISC-V have gained enough momentum by the time the Nvidia/Arm deal has been decided upon (and probably rejected)? (And was this all a ruse by Nvidia for RISC-V??)

  The recently announced extension ratifications help - especially Vector. And China is certainly pushing it, thanks to the tech trade dispute.

  But here's the point : There's no real reason for designers not to use RISC-V. They've been teaching RISC-V at top universities for a decade. There's open source software available to design and ratify. There's no licencing costs, and there's even funding available to get designs fabbed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago⁩:

  Well... obviously some people simply prefer the open source philosophy - and we are seeing open source processors coming out of the open source instruction set : By backing RISC-V, they are sending a message to OEMs.

  Nvidia's argument for using RV was that they had the freedom to do things that they weren't allowed to with ARM, and as result they designed better microcontrollers. Surely that turns into the consumer's advantage?

  I'm just a couch potato, but as I understand it, RV can beat ARM on PPA because of its modularity : whether that turns into a significant advantage for the consumer, I guess depends on what the processor is being used for.

  RnD could be sped up either because of "standing on the shoulders of giants" or because of not having to wrangle licenses : The consumer potentially gets the next generation tech quicker...

  And production might be much cheaper, and those cost reductions could be passed on to the consumer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago⁩:

  There's not much information from Beagleboard on their plans at the moment, so far as I know.

  I believe the Sipeed SBCs are open source.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago⁩:

  Well... yes and no.

  Beagleboard are no longer involved in "Starlight", though Sipeed are producing the original board, and promising the board with the GPU to follow.

  Beagleboard have promised another RISC-V board - or perhaps two - next year.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago⁩:

  The biggest tech disappointment for me this year was Beagleboard pulling out of their RISC-V project.

  I share your desire for a 8GB RPI4 equivalent RV board next year... and I remain fairly optimistic that it will happen.