Mark, I have to give you credit for not letting the truth get in the way of a good "story".
Ten years into the future, microprocessors may be a million times more powerful than processors currently available. If that kind of processing power becomes available, a fluent linguistic processor interface could be expected. There is no point in trying to dispute a futurist prediction based upon processors as we know them today. Your distorted view completely ignored the point of origin of the discussion, that is the article published by the "Institute of the FUTURE". We approach the future a day at a time and in incremental steps. The reference made to the voice recognition application running on a Pentium processor, is one such increment.
Your comment about ASIC vs. programmable solutions shows how little you know about R&D. If a programmable solution and an ASIC solution were both suitable for an application, the programmable solution would be chosen over the ASIC everytime; why? because a programmable solution is more readily modified. If you must change an ASIC based design, its back to the semiconductor fab. In the future, as processor power increases, more and more applications will enter the realm of programmable solutions.
I also take exception to your comment about Wind River's involvement in the Mars Pathfinder mission, being a waste of investor money. The Pathfinder mission is a graphic example of what can be accomplished with a COTS RTOS. Any designer who is contemplating the choice of RTOS solutions would surely have elevated VxWorks on the list of possible choices, after the Pathfinder "DEMO". The concept that a company must invest a little money in R&D and marketing to improve their future prospects, is easily understood by most shareholders.
My guess is, that you would put a negative spin on anything that is favorable to WIND. Could it be, that you are caught shorting the shares and are feeling the squeeze?
Frank |
