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Comdex 2001
Coverage Part 1
Another year of Comdex arrived, the biggest North American technology show
including companies from the every single corner of the world. Small, medium
and big businesses take advantage if this yearly event to introduce their
latest technologies. This is our second year in a row to visit Las-Vegas for
Comdex. The organizator, Key3Media took much stricter security measures this
year due the September 11 tragedy. All visitors, exhibitors and even member
of the media have to pass by a metal detector and have its bags checked by
a security agent before entering in the convention center. Inside the convention
center is no exception, security agents are standing at every single entrance,
while this can be a bit frustrating sometime, I am happy to see that Key3Media
took this measure very seriously in order to assure our safety.
November
11Th: Arrival and Bill Gates Keynote
The eleventh was a good day. On my schedule I had to go pick up my media badge
at the media booth located in front of the Convention Center, where Comdex
takes place and then hit straight to the MGM GRAND hotel to register for Bill
Gates Keynote that took place at 7pm. I unfortunately missed his last year
speech due my late arrival in Las-Vegas. I was lucky enough to get a sit on
the first row of the MGM arena, I was originally assigned to seat on the 174
row but noticed a few free seats on the first rows, I moved there without
even thinking. It was quite a thrill sitting and talking there with some of
the top publishers, TV journalists and executives.
Bill Gates speech went ok. Nothing very new, he covered a lot of information
touching the appliance market, Windows XP, the XBOX and a few other points.
I was waiting for something more deep of him, however was satisfied with his
presentation. In addition to this, Microsoft gave away 4 XBOX’s to the audience.
November 12th: Nvidia and AMD
The
12th started with a Nvidia press conference at 8am. I must say
that I was quite happy of how the event was organized; the folks at Nvidia
provided the press with a breakfast and then started the announcement of their
new NV17M mobile graphics chip. What can be said about the NV17M? A lot. I
would simply put it as the Geforce2 for laptops.
Nvidia's
President/CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and Target PC's Oleg Mitskaniouk
The NV17M
incorporates several power saving features in order to maximize the battery
life of your notebook. Powermizer is Nvidia’s power modulation hardware/software
technology that is taking care of this specific task. In simple terms, powermizer
balances the power between the GPU and CPU in order to deliver power savings
while providing performance and speed. In addition, the use of its .15-micron
process can lead the NV17M too much higher frequencies.
Nvidia’s NV17M also focuses on visual quality improvements. They focused on
the visual quality by offering higher LCD resolutions and Antialiasing techniques,
including AA, 2x and 4x AA in order to offer the best mobile experience to
date. This technique results in a superior visual experience and at the same
time maintains higher frame rates without having to touch the performance
of the computer or the chip it self.
Of course that is not everything it has to offer. The NV17M features increased
memory bandwidth combined with vertex shader acceleration. The chip it self
is a very highly integrated graphical processing unit offering transform and
lightning capability, enhanced memory interface, 4x AGP on board, MPEG-2 Playback,
support for different display devices including LCDs, CRTs, TVs, and digital
flat panels. In addition, Nvidia’s MAP package technology squeezes a graphics
subsystem (GPU) core and memory frame buffer up to 64MB into a space that
was previously used for a single GPU.
My next meeting was with AMD. Needless to say, AMD did not have anything new
to show at Comdex publicly, we have talked about their new ratings that they
started using on their latest processors in order to attract the average Joe
thinking about a P4 processor being the most performing. We also talked about
their upcoming .13 processor, which looks to be a very promising processor.
Later AMD invited us to their racing night at the Las Vegas Motor Speed way
with special guest IRL driver Scott Sharp. I must say that I had a great night
with all the folks from AMD and the members of the media. We had the chance
to race on a Viper (V10) and on a Corvette (V8). The funny part was how AMD
categorized both cars. The Viper V10 was marked AMD ATHLON XP inside and the
V8 corvette was marked as AMD ATHLON XP NOT INSIDE pointing perhaps to the
Pentium 4? An open bar and a great
open buffer was offered to all. AMD has done a great job on organizing this
event.
The Viper representing AMD
The Corvette representing INTEL?
Summation
For the first two days, I must say that I am quite satisfied with how things
are rolling at Comdex this year. I have met some new people, companies and
had great fun. My next meetings include Intel, Soyo, Nvidia and a few others.
Come and check us later this week for our second comdex report.
Oleg Mitskaniouk
01/11/13
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