As a nerd and a VC, I’m very partial towards “enabling technologies” – the underlying technology that makes stuff tick. That’s one reason I’m so interested in semiconductors: much of the technology we see today has its origins in something that a chip or semiconductor product enabled. But, despite the key role they (and other [...]
This is an old tidbit, but nevertheless a good one that has (somehow) never made it to my blog. I’ve mentioned before the private equity consulting world’s penchant for silly project names, but while code names are not rare in the corporate world, more often than not, the names don’t tend to be dull and [...]
I’ve mentioned before that one of the greatest things about being in the technology space is how quickly the lines of competition rapidly change. Take ARM, the upstart British chip company which licenses the chip technology which powers virtually all mobile phones today. Although they’ve traditionally been relegated to “dumb” chips because of their low [...]
My good friend Joe and I spent a little amount of time last week disassembling an Apple TV, on a personal level to both take a look inside as well as to get a sense of what folks at companies like iSuppli and Portelligent do when they do their teardowns. I was also asked to [...]
I’m always a fan of stories/articles highlighting the importance of Taiwan in the technology industry, so I was especially pleased that one of my favorite publications recently put out an article highlighting the very key Computex industry conference, the role of the Taiwanese government’s ITRI R&D organization in cultivating Taiwan’s technology sector, and the rise [...]
I recently read an interesting rumor off of tech blog Ars Technica that Apple has acquired small processor company Intrinsity – who’s website is, as of the time of this writing, down. In the popular tech press, very few self-professed gadget fans are aware of the nuances of the chip technology which powers their favorite [...]
A few weeks back, I wrote a quick overview of Clayton Christensen’s explanation for how new technologies/products can “disrupt” existing products and technologies. In a nutshell, Christensen explains that new “disruptive innovations” succeed not because they win in a head-to-head comparison with existing products (i.e. laptops versus desktops), but because they have three things: Good [...]
I recently read The Race for a New Game Machine, a new book which details the trials and tribulations behind the creation of the chips (which run on the POWER architecture, hence the title of this post) which powered Microsoft’s Xbox360 and Sony’s Playstation 3 next-gen gaming consoles. The interesting thing that the book reveals [...]