Thursday, May 13, 2004

April Showers Bring May Flowers to the Southern United States Click here to view full image (1639 kb) Vigorous vegetation growth in the Southern United States after heavy rains fell during April and early May, 2004, is quantified in these images and data products from the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR). The images were acquired on April 1 (top set) and May 3 (bottom set), and extend through Kansas and Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas, and eastern Texas, with the Texas-Louisiana border at the bottom right-hand corner. The left-hand images are natural-color views from MISR’s nadir camera. In the month between the April and May images, the overall greenness is enhanced, and the Boston and Ouachita Mountains are transformed from brownish hues to vivid green. The city of Dallas, Texas, appears as the pale gray area at lower left and the Red River (which corresponds with the Texas-Oklahoma border) is apparent as the yellowish feature flowing toward the lower left-hand edge. Scattered clouds appear in the upper right-hand corners of both images. Quantitative values for the vegetation changes are provided by the center and right-hand images. The middle panels show Leaf Area Index (LAI), or the area of leaves per unit area of ground below them, as measured from above. The right-hand panels show FPAR, which is the fraction of the photosynthetically active region (PAR) of visible light (400 - 700 nm) absorbed by green vegetation. LAI and FPAR are two important quantities for monitoring the photosynthetic activity and carbon uptake efficiency of live vegetation. MISR’s LAI and FPAR products make use of aerosol retrievals to correct for atmospheric scattering and absorption effects, and use plant canopy structural models to determine the partitioning of solar radiation. Both of these aspects are facilitated by the multiangular nature of the MISR measurements. The Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer observes the daylit Earth continuously and every 9 days views the entire globe between 82 degrees north and 82 degrees south latitude. The MISR Browse Image Viewer provides access to low-resolution true-color versions of these images. These data products were generated from a portion of the imagery acquired during Terra orbits 22810 and 23276. The panels cover an area of about 380 kilometers x 704 kilometers, and utilize data from blocks 61 to 65 within World Reference System-2 path 26. Image courtesy NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team. Text by Clare Averill (Raytheon ITSS/Jet Propulsion Laboratory). 8:40:08 PM    comment []

Intel Bets on a New Design Strategy Technology Giant to Focus Its Development Programs On New 'Multicore' Chips By DON CLARK Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL May 14, 2004 Intel Corp. is placing a huge bet that multiple electronic brains are better than one, as part of several strategy changes that could affect the performance and security of computers. The Santa Clara, Calif., company told analysts that it is changing its fundamental design strategy to begin adding multiple microprocessor "cores" -- the calculating circuitry inside computers -- onto each of its chips. Intel had discussed the concept for some time, and last Friday signaled that it would accelerate the timetable for introducing such multicore technology from 2006 to 2005. But Paul Otellini, Intel's president and chief operating officer, yesterday indicated an even broader commitment, predicting that the conventional microprocessors that Intel invented in 1971 will quickly become a rarity. CNBC DOW JONES BUSINESS VIDEO Intel CFO Andy Bryant discusses the chip maker's business at an analyst meeting. Windows Media Player Required: HIGH bandwidth (DSL, Cable) LOW bandwidth (Dial-up) "All of our microprocessor development going forward is now multicore," Mr. Otellini said. "The design paradigm has shifted at Intel." Last Friday Intel said it will introduce dual-core chips next year and discontinue work on Tejas and Jayhawk, code names for two conventional processors that were aimed, respectively, at desktop and server systems. Mr. Otellini said it will also introduce similar two-processor chips for laptops next year as well, and expects more than half of its mainstream chips sold in 2006 to be dual-core. Multicore technology had been embraced earlier by companies such as International Business Machines Corp. Intel appeared to be in less of a hurry, in part because of its past success in boosting computing performance by increasing the operating frequency of its chips. But higher frequencies increase heat and energy consumption, big problems as Intel tries to move its chips more aggressively into portable computers and consumer-electronics devices. Putting more microprocessors on each chip can minimize the problem. Fully exploiting multicore chips requires new software, however. Mr. Otellini said an increasing number of programs are being enhanced to do multiple chores at once, and a new Microsoft Corp. operating system dubbed Longhorn is expected to take advantage of the new technology. Mr. Otellini, speaking at the company's annual gathering for analysts in New York, said the dual-core technology will bring a range of benefits to consumers, such as the ability to process digital video while a user does other chores. In another new strategy, Intel has recently built specialized circuitry into chips to carry out features that will be turned on later when software to exploit them is available. This summer, for example, Microsoft is expected to distribute software that will work with a feature in its latest Pentium 4 design -- code-named Prescott -- to all but eliminate a major security flaw that allows malicious hackers to take over PCs using a tactic called a "buffer overflow." Intel is also planning to introduce a server variant of Prescott this month that will support built-in circuitry to handle 64-bit computing -- an advance that lets computers tap into much greater pools of memory -- with desktop and laptop variants expected in time for a new Microsoft operating system next fall. Mr. Otellini added that the company remains committed to Itanium, a costly chip that has mainly been used in high-end server systems. He showed a silicon wafer containing prototypes of a dual-core version of Itanium that has a staggering 1.7 billion transistors, compared to just 125 million for Prescott. That chip, believed to be the first microprocessor to top one billion transistors, is four times the performance of existing Itaniums and will be shipped in 2005, Mr. Otellini said. 8:17:32 PM    comment []

WILL FOLEY & LARDNER OPEN AN OFFICE IN THE TWIN CITIES? 8:14:35 PM    comment []