CS403: Advanced Computer Architecture- Results Prove the Point

Results of this course came out recently. The results prove the point I made a few posts back. My class managed to get only As and Bs, no Es or Os. Well. one interpretation of it certainly can be that I could not teach it well enough! But, the normal distribution of results of the course follows the trend well enough where the mean is around B grade. Students who have not even read OS until then, can never understand Advanced architecture well enough!

OS concepts, feel for what happens in programming are necessary skills, prerequisites for this course. I do not understand why this is not taught later in 3rd or 4th year of the curriculum! It makes much better sense there!

Books as we Know it

Will the printed books be around 10 years hence! 25 years or 50 years! Music became disembodied digital stream of bits a while back. Kindle started a revolution, turned books digital yet mimicked the format of a printed book.  So though the content has started becoming digital the whole experience was of reading a book. Along came iPad. Besides lot of other things it can do,  it  reads books in full color and with animated content. So who needs the books in the format we have been used to since the time of Gutenberg!

Electronic books, in full color, which you annotate too and that can talk to you, show video in full HD seems like an ideal medium for knowledge transmission. Kids growing up in digital environment will latch into these kind of things absolutely naturally. Like most things though the printed book also will run parallel though  at much less volumes than today. But then you never know. How quickly those records, cassettes vanished. very soon audio CDs also will go the same way. The only CDs available will have MP3 recordings on them. So, let's see how it goes.

Video is King!

Video is getting consumed everywhere. We are not talking about network programming. It is more of consumer contributed videos.Even network programming is depending more and more on user contributed videos. Think of all those funniest videos, disaster videos, crime cam shots and so on. But what really is a tidal wave is the YouTube movement. YouTube and similar sites are supplying content to more and more consumers.

I had a pet theory for sometime now. According to that theory viewing video would become like our picking a book from a library, we choose of course, and view that at our convenience. The social media based video viewing fits that model perfectly. Look at the iTunes like stores, once again it is the library model. Video rental is becoming streaming based or downloaded. Now comes news that more and more consumers want an Internet enabled TV. That will let them view these Internet based streaming media at one's own convenient time. This Nielsen report points the following trends in video viewing. I quote form the report announcement.

• Online Video: approximately 70% of global online consumers watch online video; but North Americans and Europeans lag in adoption. More than half of global online consumers watch online video in the workplace.
• Mobile Video: is already used by 11% of global online consumers: penetration is highest in Asia-Pacific and among consumers in their late 20s.
• Tablet PCs: are expanding the definition of mobile video. Globally, 11% of online consumers already own or plan to purchase a tablet PC (such as an iPad) in the next year.
• Television: is a universally important platform for video consumption, with connected consumers in many markets spending 4+ hours per day watching television.
• HDTV (High-Definition TV): is improving the TV viewing experience for as many as 30% of global online consumers. Adoption is highest among older consumers and in North America, where HD content has proliferated.
• 3DTV (Three-Dimensional TV): will have a small but important audience: 12% of global online consumers own or have definite intent to purchase a 3DTV in the next year.
• “Over the Top” TV: televisions with Internet connections are gaining interest. About one in five (22%) global online consumers owns or has definite interest in buying a television with Internet connection in the next year.