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Intel)

Most of his keynote centered on Nehalem, and one of the features Intel was pushing hard at IDF was a technology called Turbo mode.

Nehalem-EP, or Nehalem Efficient Performance, will be a quad-core chip for mainstream servers and workstations. What Intel traditionally calls two-socket servers, Gelsinger said.

SAN FRANCISCO–Intel plans to bring its first dual-core Atom to market next month, it was revealed here Monday during the Intel Developer Forum. The chipmaker also disclosed more details of the Nehalem processor.

In short, in multi-core processors, cores not doing much can still use power. So, it’s better to use, for example, a couple of cores more efficiently than four cores inefficiently.

Also due in September is the six-core Dunnington server processor, the final member of Intel’s 45-nanometer “Penryn” family, which will ship to customers next month, Gelsinger said.

The feature “requires no operating system intervention. It is fully detected and managed by the hardware. If it has detected an idle core, it is able to reallocate that power budget to the other cores,” Gelsinger said in an interview after his keynote.

The mainstream desktop will be the Core i7. “With the i7 we have high-end desktop and extreme,” Gelsinger said. The extreme edition is for overclockers, he said. Enthusiast gamers often overclock processors (ratcheting up clock speed beyond the rated speed) to gain extra performance.

Intel Nehalem processor lineup as shown at IDF 2008

Gelsinger broke down the future processor lineup–with graphics on the processor die and without–as follows. “Lynnfield and Clarksfield are the versions without graphics. Havendale and Auburndale are the versions with integrated graphics.” (Even Intel executives occasionally get confused by all the code names and it took two tries for Gelsinger to get this right.)

On another front, Intel showed the first eight-core Nehalem chip. “This is the first showing of the eight-core Nehalem-EX,” Gelsinger said in his keynote. He said the chip is a monolithic design, meaning that all eight cores are on one piece of silicon.

Turbo mode is essentially a switch that turns off unused processor cores and then uses the remaining active cores more efficiently. This kind of sophisticated power-management technology will be used in both Nehalem-based laptops and servers, according to Gelsinger, and will become increasingly necessary as Intel brings out chips with more cores like the eight-core Nehalem processor due next year.

Gelsinger also talked about Intel’s plans to put graphics directly onto the same piece of silicon as the processor. This will be a first for Intel.

That news was revealed to this reporter by an Intel employee as senior vice president Pat Gelsinger was delivering his IDF keynote, which included more specifics about Nehalem, the family of chips the company plans to begin rolling out in the fourth quarter. Gelsinger, the general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, showed the first wafer holding individual eight-core processors, detailed the power-saving features of the Nehalem processors, and confirmed future mobile Nehalem processors.

The power saving technology is enabled by “an integrated microcontroller which only works on power management,” said Rajesh Kumar, an Intel Fellow, who spoke during Gelsinger’s keynote. There are about 1 million transistors dedicated solely to power management, Kumar said.

But there will be more pedestrian dual-core versions of Nehalem too. “There will be versions for the desktop that will be dual-core as well,” Gelsinger said.

"Turbo Mode" is a linchpin Nehalem technology

He described why Intel is putting graphics right next to the processor. “There’s a big sucking sound near the CPU. It keeps pulling things closer to it. This is uniquely enabled by Moore’s Law…and as things get closer together I’m able to drive down thermal envelopes (i.e., heat) and decrease physical form factors (i.e., enable smaller computer designs),” Gelsinger said.

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Intel)

The power-efficient processor will be targeted at Atom-based desktops called nettops. Currently, Intel offers the Atom N230 processor for nettops. This chip has a slightly higher power envelope than the Atom processors built exclusively for mobile devices.

What makes the service truly interesting is its graphs of other Feedflix users. It will group together this information and anonymize it, giving you a bit of a peek into other people’s habits. There are charts of the average rental period, popular plans, and most frequent return days. However, the neatest one of the bunch is the breakdown of other users’ queue sizes. According to Feedflix, about a quarter or more of users have queues in the low hundreds which is truly impressive. I’d be very interested to see how this data stacks up with subscriber information from the source.

FeedFlix does a pretty good job at helping you figure out your rental habits, you just have to set it up with your RSS feed and it will keep tracking you over time.

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FeedFlix)

Feedflix is completely free of charge, however you will need to be a Netflix subscriber (or friends with one) to make use of its data crunching prowess.

Ultimately, most of this information is useless, as with some simple math a Netflix membership tends to end up costing less per-rental after just four DVDs based on the most popular plan. Where you get the value is by coming back a few months later since it keep tabs on your RSS feed over time. You’ll then have a better analysis of your watching habits and know if you if you need to get out of the house more often, or if it’s time to ditch Netflix altogether.

If you’ve ever wondered how much you’re costing Netflix when you go on those month-long movie binges, you should give Feedflix a go. It takes any one of your personal Netflix RSS feeds and figures out how many movies you’re watching per month and what the cost comes out to for each DVD. It also breaks down your biggest return days and how long you tend to keep titles.

“–so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

I wonder, however, if in so doing we emasculate open source’s power to truly change our industry. Does it make it that much harder for us to find a new way to serve customers?

The Cheshire Cat

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

And then we win.

For me, the end game should be “world liberation,” not domination. We’ve already suffered through decades of Microsoft’s take on the “world domination” theme. I didn’t like it much.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

Total world liberation. That’s the goal. With that goal in mind, the answer to the “How do we get there?” question becomes much clearer. We don’t take shortcuts. We choose our license models based on what will maximize customer value. We aggressively compete with tired proprietary vendors.

Open source makes software something more than “just software.” It makes software meaningful outside the few big vendors determined to dominate it. Open source, in short, gives software back to the community.

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“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

Linus Torvalds used to talk about “world domination” as his goal for Linux. These days, though, while we seem to be making progress toward this end, we also appear to be increasingly complacent. We downplay the ideology that underlies open source in favor of “safe” rhetoric about lower sales and marketing costs and such.

By “liberation” I also mean that software vendors free themselves to innovate with their customers, competitors, and community.

“Cheshire Puss,” [Alice] began,…”Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

By “liberation” I mean freeing emerging markets to grow on their own terms, not as vassal states to US and European software vendors. By “liberation” I mean freeing customers to innovate with their vendors on customers’ own terms, not vendors’.

It reminds me of Alice’s interaction with the Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

My former teammate and now editor in chief of ZDNet, Larry Dignan, and I continue our weekly podcast (formerly called “Between the Lines”) covering the top headlines of the week. This week on “EIC Squared,” we two square editor in chiefs discuss the iPhone’s quest to seduce business users, some of the highlights from Microsoft’s Mix ‘08 conference, and Facebook’s new chief operating officer.

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Many people already recognize video-streaming service Hulu.com as a great destination for watching TV shows (it has every single episode of Arrested Development, people!), but did you know it also offers movies? Over 100 of them, in fact, and some darn good titles, too. Here are my picks for the Five Best Movies to Watch on Hulu:

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Hulu)

Thanks to Craig for mentioning this deal!

I didn’t mention Sideways and The Big Lebowski because I think they’re overrated–but they’re there, too, along with plenty of other gems (and, truth be told, some serious dreck). You’ll have to sit through the occasional commercial–and stay tethered to your PC, of course–but that’s a small price to pay for watching free movies on demand. All hail Hulu!

In a statement, Turner said Scott’s responsibilities will focus on making the most out of Microsoft’s IT investments, providing feedback to Microsoft product groups, and sharing best practices with other high level IT executives.

Microsoft said on Thursday that it has hired Tony Scott as chief information officer to head management of its internal IT systems.

Scott comes to Microsoft from Walt Disney, where he led a major IT infrastructure upgrade. Before that, he was chief technology officer at General Motors and vice president of operations at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Scott fills a position open since November, when Microsoft fired previous CIO Stuart Scott for violating company policies. The company did not disclose which policies those were. Tony Scott will report to Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner.

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Ina Fried/CNET)

The move, which is still under consideration, is one of several things Microsoft has looked at to try to make it convenient to upgrade machines that don’t come with a CD or DVD drives.

Microsoft has shown Windows 7 running on Netbooks ever since it introduced the operating system last fall. However, helping consumers get it on their notebooks has proven more tricky.

Microsoft executives have said that they recognize that upgrading Netbooks poses a challenge and are exploring ways that the company can make it easier. In an interview on Thursday, Senior Vice President Bill Veghte said that Microsoft had nothing to announce on that front.

Microsoft is considering offering
Windows 7 on a thumb drive to allow Netbook owners to more easily upgrade their machines, a source tells CNET News.

Complicating matters further is the fact that most Netbooks are running Windows XP. Those moving from Windows XP can buy an upgrade version of the software, but must back up their data, do a clean installation of the operating system and then reload their applications.

The same goes for all XP owners, as well as users looking to move from a higher-end version of Vista to a lower-end version of Windows 7 and all users in Europe trying to upgrade to Windows 7 using the browser-less “E” version–the only one Microsoft plans to offer there.

Although a USB flash drive could offer the simplest way to move a Netbook to Windows 7, there are other options. Buyers with an external drive could hook up that to their Netbook, while another option would be an upgrade through a service such as Best Buy’s Geek Squad. Microsoft also sells a downloadable version of Windows today, so, in theory it could do the same with Windows 7, allowing buyers to put the OS on their own thumb drive.

Matt Bonin, a merchant director at Best Buy, said this week that the company is aiming to work with Geek Squad to develop services to streamline Windows 7 upgrades. As for Netbooks, he said the company recognizes the challenge they present and said the store already offers services to load other types of software, such as antivirus programs.

The challenge of getting Windows 7 on to older Netbooks threatens to cast a shadow over the technical work Microsoft did to get Windows 7 running on Netbooks. Its predecessor, Windows Vista, proved ill-suited to Netbooks forcing Microsoft to continue selling Windows XP as its answer to the low-cost notebook phenomenon.

I didn’t get a direct answer on one of my biggest questions–what Microsoft plans to do come
Windows 7 with its built-in tools like Movie Maker, Mail, and Photo Gallery. With Vista, Microsoft shipped each of these in non-Internet connected form as part of the operating system and then offered separate, but related, Windows Live versions.

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Microsoft)

The company would seem to have a few options come Windows 7. One would be to pull out the programs from the OS and offer only Internet-enabled Windows Live versions. A bold move would be to risk antitrust ire and ship the Live versions as part of Windows 7. Another would be to maintain the status quo.

Microsoft’s downloadable Windows Live tools all got an update last week, but the “Wave 3″ enhancements to its online services will take longer to crest.

The online tools, things such as Windows Live Skydrive, Windows Live Spaces, and so forth will all get updates in the coming weeks, though general manager Brian Hall declined to offer a specific timeline in an interview earlier Monday.

He did let slip that Windows Live Hotmail will be the first of the services to get an update–sometime this week. Hall said that the main focus of the update is speedier performance on slower machines, some of which could see the Web-based mail service run up to 70 percent faster.

Hall said while the past few years have been about rapidly creating new services, the focus now has shifted toward making those different services work together.

The new Windows Live Messenger beta lets you use a short video as your display picture, as well as change your display picture to match the "emoticon" you type.

Hall did make a comment about the declining utility of programs that lack the services component, suggesting to me that the first option might be the most likely, perhaps with links to download the programs as Microsoft does today with Windows Live Messenger.

“Today it is not a simple as it could be,” he said. “The benefit we have to the approach we are taking is we are iterating on a regular basis.”

As for last week’s update, Hall did show one neat feature I missed in last week’s update to Messenger. Although I noticed the ability to stay logged in on multiple devices (say two PCs or a PC and a phone), I didn’t notice that you can now have a short video as your display picture. Also, you have the ability to have a different display picture appear when you type certain emoticons. I think I could have some fun with that one.

He also conceded that the current approach is more than a little confusing.

“The next four years is really going to be a race to simplify the Web,” Hall said. “The hard part is going to making sure they are accessible and usable by the broad masses.”

I had a fairly good shop program in high school (what’s up, Tumwater T-Birds!). Instead of making rickety chairs for our mothers to injure themselves on, or fire-prone wooden ashtrays, our class concentrated on technology. That’s where I got to play with my first industrial laser, built my first robotic arm, and designed my first circuit board. It was pretty great.

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TechEBlog)

We’re not sure what school this kid goes to, but that’s not important. What we’d like to know is: which teacher signed off on the project that was likely titled “Making a magnetic silent death device”?

Badassery.

You can see a video of the thing in action at TechEBlog.

But not as great as the work of this kid, who, as a side project, built a six-round, bolt-action, high-powered coil gun. For those who don’t play video games, a coil gun is an electronic weapon that uses a series of magnetic coils to accelerate a magnetic projectile–like a bullet–to a fast, destructive speed.

Microsoft said the Open Source Interoperability Initiative will foster a better working relationship with open-source projects, and will provide technical assistance, such as interoperability testing.

In a statement, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said these steps are part of the company’s efforts to comply with antitrust obligations laid out by the European Court of First Instance (CFI).

CNET News.com’s Martin LaMonica contributed to this report.

It laid out four principles aimed at making its high-volume enterprise software support standards and better handling data from non-Microsoft software.

Microsoft said the pledge will ultimately extend to
Windows Vista, the .NET Framework, Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, Office 2007, Exchange Server 2007, and Office SharePoint Server 2007.

Ray Ozzie (left) and Steve Ballmer.

Although it does not mention ODF specifically in its release, Microsoft also launched a Document Interoperability Initiative to “address data exchange between widely deployed formats.”

Microsoft on Thursday announced changes in its business practices to work better with software from other providers, including open-source communities.

The software maker had already taken baby steps in this direction, signing individual pacts with companies like Novell and Turbolinux, as well as agreeing not to sue individual developers.

“As we said immediately after the CFI decision last September, Microsoft is committed to taking all necessary steps to ensure we are in full compliance with European law,” Smith said.

Microsoft’s top executives are set to announce a broad interoperability strategy that includes an agreement not to sue open-source developers for products that connect to Microsoft software, a source familiar with the company’s plans told CNET News.com.

The company has scheduled a conference call at 8:30 a.m. PST on Thursday to discuss the news. Among the executives on the call are CEO Steve Ballmer, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, server and tools head Bob Muglia, and General Counsel Brad Smith.

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Microsoft)

Microsoft said that it will not sue open-source developers who create non-commercial software based on Microsoft’s protocols.

Specifically, Microsoft said it will publish the documentation for the application programming interfaces and communications protocols in its “high-volume products.” Developers do not need to buy a license or pay a royalty to access the information.

Through a previously created Interoperability Executive Customer (IEC) Council, Microsoft will seek to create a better “(dialogue) and outreach” with partners, customers, and developers on the subject of interoperability.

As a first step, Microsoft will publish protocols for communicating with Windows Server, which had previously only been available under a trade secret license. Protocols for interoperability with Office 2007 will be published in the coming months, the company said.

Update: Microsoft issued its press release with more details.

The company also said that it will provide new application programming interfaces to developers so that Office 2007 can better work with document formats. The company does not natively support the alternative Open Document Format, or ODF, standard in Office 2007.