I am both Gmail and Google Reader user and I realy love the iGoogle home portal. Since guys from Mountain View rolled out the new version of the latter and I must admit I like the new approach:
- First of all they do not took from me the previous options.
- The second thing – I can have a real Gmail and Google Reader on my startpage.
I really missed the possiblity to use those services as I were accessing them the usual way, but no more! I’m now just 1 click away (and without a page reaload or new tab/window) from using the famous “J” shortcut to browse through unreaded RSS feeds, or switch to read unread e-mails and compose new.
In general, iGoogle experience is becoming more and more desktop like with features like maximizing gadgets accesing Google docs etc. and still its easy, fast and in result of above extreamly useful in everyday use.
The only uncool thing is that it is still not a default option for Polish Google site, and that caused I missed the initial realease by quite few (dozens of) days… The only reason I found it is that, at work, I started using Firefox with default website language set to English…
Better later then neve r.
As their alternative to CUDA by nVidia, ATI shows Stream. Same idea but on ATI processors. The initial rections among developers seem to be rather positive. I am not much a fanboy of ATI nor nVida, but I am somehow more attracted to the Stream (although I may be a victim of the whole “open” buzzword marketing brainwashing thing)
There are differences in terms of standards used to provide access to the GPU SIMD power (extract from Stream offical FAQ):
AMD is focused on providing the tools necessary to help our customers succeed with our AMD FireStream products, and we believe the open systems approach is a critical component of this philosophy. Open systems enables AMD along with partners and 3rd party vendors to collaborate closely when developing highly integrated solutions as well as work independently when targeting a niche solution.
AMD’s open systems philosophy includes:
* Open IL and ISA specifications to ensure developers can optimize system performance
* Support for AMD Brook+ along with other 3rd party high-level tools to provide a choice of familiar development environments
* Open source Linux drivers and AMD-enhanced Brook+ enabling developers to modify and retarget tools as needed
* AMD partnership opportunities with system vendors and integrators to deliver customer-focused solutions
What is important is that now there is a competion and choice – this is the best wide adoption driver you could imagine. There is however a problem of CUDA/Stream compatibility – writing seprate code for nVida and ATI cards is not what we would like to do it long term. I hope that nVidia will go towards industry standards as If we want to see mass adoption, the CUDA/Stream must by as transparent to the end user as using todays CPUs.