SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Intel may be planning to sue Microsoft for its plans to include x86 emulation in Windows 10 for ARM machines:
In celebrating the x86 architecture's 39th birthday yesterday—the 8086 processor first came to market on June 8, 1978—Intel took the rather uncelebratory step of threatening any company working on x86 emulator technology.
[...] The post doesn't name any names, but it's not too hard to figure out who it's likely to be aimed at: Microsoft, perhaps with a hint of Qualcomm. Later in the year, companies including Asus, HP, and Lenovo will be releasing Windows laptops using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 processor. This is not the first time that Windows has been released on ARM processors—Microsoft's first attempt to bring Windows to ARM was the ill-fated Windows 8-era Windows RT in 2012—but this time around there's a key difference. Windows RT systems could not run any x86 applications. Windows 10 for ARM machines, however, will include a software-based x86 emulator that will provide compatibility with most or all 32-bit x86 applications.
This compatibility makes these ARM-based machines a threat to Intel in a way that Windows RT never was; if WinARM can run Wintel software but still offer lower prices, better battery life, lower weight, or similar, Intel's dominance of the laptop space is no longer assured. The implication of Intel's post is that the chip giant isn't just going to be relying on technology to secure its position in this space, but the legal system, too.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Saturday June 10 2017, @05:12PM (7 children)
I suppose it depends on which patents, and what is being emulated, but: Don't patents expire after 17 years? 17 years ago was already the first Xeons. Anything up to that point ought to be out of patent protection. That certainly covers the general architecture; the only thing not covered would be instructions developed since then.
Even then: I would submit that an instruction set is actually an interface, specifically, an interface to allow software to interact with the hardware. The implementation of the instruction set would be patentable, but the simple definition of instructions? Not so much. An emulator will have a different underlying implementation, but providing the same interface should be fine.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @05:51PM (4 children)
They don't fall under 10+10 patents?
If so you're looking at 2020 before 2000 era patents qualify, which is pre Pentium 4.
That means no SSE2+, NX, AVX, VMX, x86_64, no 180nm process tech, no IPC improvements from the past 20 years, etc.
Obviously *SOME* of them might actually be unpatentable/overturnable thanks to prior art, but the majority of these there is at least one patent they can swat you with. Having said that, Intel's relevance in the market is fading, even if it isn't obvious to the business community/stock market yet. SoftBank is looking more and more like the heir apparent to the technological throne. Owner of the ARM IP, Owner of Boston Dynamics and other robot/manufacturing technology. Internet/Telecommunications master. Financial supporter of many anime (and even a few MMOs?) They have their hands in almost everything tech nowadays, but unlike Intel they don't seem to be flailling about with their purchases. They are systematically buying up specific companies in specific markets that are both undervalued for their potential and capable of much more given the proper corporate support and guidance (IE taking boston dynamics' designs and actually producing some field prototypes... rad-hardened for use in Fukashima Daiichi, for instance.)
Having said all this, from a consumer perspective the greatest benefit to come from this would be a non-profit organization devoted to producing RISC-V chips with user friendly features, like wholly device owner controlled TPM/TrustZone/ME implementation that allows the user to input keys (whether into efuses inside the CPU, efuses outside the cpu in a seperate package, or simply loaded from flash during bios initialization, with physical write protection to ensure it stays disabled... Which BTW is dangerous on SPI flash, where the write disable pin only works if the flash has write-disable *ENABLED* in software after poweron! Meaning glitching could exploit and allow a write to flash even when you believe yourself protected by a read-only behavior! Unlikely to happen in practice, but impossible to ensure without architectural changes!)
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday June 10 2017, @06:17PM (3 children)
As an employee of Boston Dynamics who was working there throughout the selloff to SoftBank, I can state that there was a good reason why Google sold off Boston Dynamics -- because nobody in their right mind would buy any of Boston Dynamics' inefficient rube-Goldberg contraptions and all the worth is in the IP.
We are understandably demoralized, as the new management SoftBank put in love to torment us. For example, since a few employees suffered repetitive-motion injuries, group stretches are now mandatory twice a day and I've already been reprimanded for saying, "This is bullshit," and walking out of a group stretch session.
Then during our all-hands meetings, the new management started enforcing "team-building exercises" -- and again, we are forced to perform such humiliating acts as playing pin the tail on the Donkey under threat of reprimand and poor performance reviews, although I managed to weasel out of that idiocy by showing up a few minutes late and eating my dish of catered food really slow.
I'm usually the kind of guy who likes to wait around until I get laid off, so I can collect, but Boston Dynamics has become so terrible that I've already lined up some extra work and am bailing. Had some good times there, though, like that time I caught Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidt stealing our inventories of expensive gold-plated pins and trying to melt them into ingots using one of our blowtorches. They might be smart guys, but they need a crash-course in metallurgy and inventory management.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday June 10 2017, @07:13PM
Didn't hear about the sale so I'm submitting it now. I'm expecting big things on that one.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday June 10 2017, @11:00PM (1 child)
The military has no use for those robotic burros? Nor Fukushima Daiichi as a tool to get into contaminated areas?
Seems Sergei Brin and Eric Schmidt forgot the ask-first-do-later thing. Especially in hi-tech where health dangers and economic loss lies present in unexpected ways. Doing such things in a nuclear lab can end quickly.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday June 11 2017, @12:54AM
The military found them to be too noisy [soylentnews.org].
They found Fukushima nuclear robots to clean up after that mess, but it's been messy:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/17/14652274/fukushima-nuclear-robot-power-plant-radiation-decomission-tepco [theverge.com]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/robots-fukushima-nuclear-disaster-dying-probe-clean-up-tepco-toshiba-reactor-nuclear-radiation-a7612396.html [independent.co.uk]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/09/fukushima-nuclear-cleanup-falters-six-years-after-tsunami [theguardian.com]
https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/25/japanese-authorities-decry-ongoing-robot-failures-at-fukushima/ [techcrunch.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @05:53PM (1 child)
Not to mention most of Intel's x86 code is actually licensed from AMD and their amd64 instruction set. Every intel chip running 64 and 32 bit code is using this instruction set because it was better than their in house version called IA64.
It's saber rattling with no real threat imho. If they do take it to court it will be opening a can of worms as qualcomm and microsoft will devote legal resources to tracking down the origin and original patent/licenser of each instruction set on a modern intel cpu. Intel would have a good chance of being found to violate someone else's licenses/patents and costing them major money in turn.
They won't risk it, that is unless intel is not only too badly hurt from the hit by ryzen. And too scared of how top end phones can pretty much be drop in replacements for low end and corporate desk jockey systems. Ie i3's and celerons.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2017, @02:13AM
No high end smartphone is anywhere near the speed of any i3. You need to come back to reality.