[HN Gopher] The Future of Hardware Is Software
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       The Future of Hardware Is Software
        
       Author : blueplastic
       Score  : 19 points
       Date   : 2022-01-11 21:13 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (octoml.ai)
 (TXT) w3m dump (octoml.ai)
        
       | aidenn0 wrote:
       | > A classic example is Itanium: it is only a historical footnote
       | today, but Itanium's explicit parallelism and focus on
       | scalability once made it look like the future of CPUs. The
       | problem was never the hardware itself--it was difficult
       | compilation and backward compatibility with the x86 software
       | ecosystem that doomed Itanium.
       | 
       | The problem with the Itanium _was_ the hardware itself. Finding
       | sufficient ILP on general purpose loads for a VLIW like Itanium
       | is an unsolved problem in compiler design. Saying the problem
       | with Itanium was software would be like entering a drag-racer in
       | formula 1 and saying the problem was that the drivers weren 't
       | good enough at steering.
        
       | fxtentacle wrote:
       | "The Future of Hardware Is Software" ... says everyone that wants
       | to sell you AI software on commoditized hardware.
       | 
       | Yet here I am, I recently won an AI competition by reviving an
       | old 2005 algorithm and just using the fact that compute power has
       | 7000x-ed since then (from 5 GFLOPS on a P4 to 35 TFLOPS on a
       | 3090). No AI was needed.
       | 
       | And now I'm building custom electronics for a new type of 3D
       | camera because even after years of AI and deep learning research,
       | structured light and/or stereoscopic 3D depth estimation is still
       | unusable. Try training a NERF from "only" 3 UHD images and you
       | know what I mean.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | TaylorAlexander wrote:
         | > I'm building custom electronics for a new type of 3D camera
         | 
         | I would love to know more. I am working on an open source
         | farming robot and vision is an important component. Are you
         | able to share more?
        
         | metadat wrote:
         | You're such a tease!
         | 
         | Seriously, please share the deets on this 2005 "junker" algo.
         | 
         | It was super unsatisfying to read your post with so much
         | interesting information glossed over.
        
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