Nvidia: Smartphones Will Beat Console Performance by 2014

On Thursday Nvidia released a slide showing the progression of GPU performance in the console, PC and mobile sectors from 2001 to 2014. As Nvidia showed us last year, consoles have created a "Z" on the chart, jumping up one level after releasing a new version with better hardware, but flatlining for numerous years thereafter. They can outperform the PC on a graphic level thanks to an integrated design, but that victory is only brief to say the least as PC hardware performance steadily climbs.


What's shocking is the steep increase in GPU performance in the mobile sector. According to Nvidia's chart, devices began to show a real increase between 2008 and 2009, but the steepest climb thus far has been from 2010 until now. What's interesting is that Nvidia's chart shows the mobile GPU to be cranking out better graphics than the current Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles starting 2013. That says a lot given that smartphones weren't even considered as competition until Apple released the iPhone in 2007.


To some degree, smartphones are in a "golden era," mirroring a similar era experienced in the 1990s when GPUs began to infiltrate the PC sector. Developers like id Software and Epic Games were always pushing the envelope, squeezing out every ounce of performance the current hardware could provide while also pushing hardware manufacturers to implement features into the next generation. We're seeing that again in the mobile sector, and it's downright fascinating to watch this technology mature so quickly.


On a visual level, the progression has been phenomenal. We've moved from monochrome Tetris-like games to console-quality titles like Modern Combat 3 in a span of a few years. The rise in visual performance wasn't quite so dramatic in the PC sector, moving from the likes of Wolfenstein 3D in 1992 (PC, Mac) to Return to Castle Wolfenstein in 2001 (PC, Mac, Xbox, PS2).

Everybody Chill Out: Apple is a long-term goldmine.

When I left the country–and much of the Internet–to go on vacation three weeks ago, the tech world still seemed halfway sane. Instagram was just a super-cool dozen-or-so-person start-up, not a billion-dollar behemoth. Google’s augmented reality glasses were only a zany rumor, not a confessed roadmap. And beneath it all, Apple was still the surest bet in tech: On the strength of monster sales of the iPhone, the new iPad, and the news that it would begin offering a tiny dividend, AAPL had surged by more than 50 percent since the start of the year, and its future appeared limitless.

It still does. I admit I was under a rock for the past few weeks, but scanning through the headlines, I can’t find a single negative piece of news regarding Apple’s business fundamentals. (There was the Justice Department ebook complaint, but that doesn’t count; ebooks matter as much to Apple’s future revenues as Google Glass matters to the search company.)

And yet, in the absence of any new information about Apple, investors went nuts. Over the past month, they first ran up Apple by six percent, pushing it to a high of $644 on April 9. Then, just as swiftly, Apple plummeted. Yesterday the stock closed at $572.98, marking a decline of nearly 10 percent since the peak. Looking at the chart, you’d assume the company disclosed something terrible in the middle of April, some bit of news that suggested its future would be dire. But it didn’t. What happened, instead, was that investors got spooked by Apple’s success. The company’s stock is now laboring under the ridiculous smear known as the “law of large numbers”–a theory that, asNetwork World’s Yoni Heisler points out, holds water in statistics but makes little sense when applied to the stock market. The basic idea is that Apple is too big to keep winning; you can only be so good for so long in the tech business, and once you’ve had a string of wins, you’re going to lose.

Perhaps that makes sense in baseball or poker. It doesn’t make sense in tech. Apple’s recent wins weren’t merely lucky. They were the result of a determined, unmatched strategy to create bestselling, profitable products in the most remunerative new market in tech, the business of mobile computing. I’m ethically barred from owning AAPL, but if I were shopping around for tech stocks, I’d pay attention to two stellar facts about the company. First, nothing about Apple’s recent performance suggests any change in that basic strategy–Apple’s products continue to sell extremely well, and, more importantly, they continue to be unnervingly profitable. Second, and more importantly, the markets that Apple is in–smartphones and tablets–are the closest thing in business to being unbounded. Over the next few years hundreds of millions of people around the world willswitch from dumbphones to smartphones, and probably as many more will pick up tablets to replace their PCs. A large number of those people–perhaps not a majority, but a substantial minority–will choose Apple. And because Apple makes so much money on each of its devices, its numbers will continue to stun.

I’ve made this argument before. The problem is that these are long-term trends. Apple’s performance now looks fantastic, but it will take a couple more years–as more and more people in new markets join the mobile revolution–for us to recognize the company’s performance as being truly historic. Apple’s recent stock chart, though, suggests that many investors don’t seem interested in the long term. They’re vulnerable to anxiety, to panic, to cashing in on a recent good thing. You can see some logic to this. If you bought a bushel of AAPLs at $411 on the first trading day of the year, selling at $600 now yields a nice 45 percent return over just four months. Why stomach any more risk if you can keep such a sweet sum?

Because there’s more–a lot more–ahead. When you look back on this time a few years from now, cashing out of Apple now will begin to look like jumping from the train just after it chugs out of the station. The key is to look at long-term trends; don’t focus too much on what’s happening in any given quarter, but rather on the large tech positions that Apple is poised to realize.

You’ll have an opportunity to exercise such self-control this Tuesday, when Apple releases its second quarter financial results. Most analysts will pay attention to the number of iPhones the company sold. If that number comes in above Wall Street estimates of around 30 million, the stock will surge. If it comes in below, even slightly below, the stock will slide, possibly by a bundle.

The smart investor will ignore any slight tick above or below “expectations.” Remember: As it pertains to Apple’s future, it’s going to make little difference if the company sold 28 million iPhones this quarter or 33 million. What really matters is that Apple is continuing to expand its sales (28 million iPhones would represent a larger than 50 percent increase over last year) and that its margins stay relatively healthy.

Top 13 Twitter Pics of the Week

Gangs of Facebook: How a few angry users can kill your app

Facebook may be hugely popular among brand marketers and app makers, but the company does a remarkably poor job of keeping those users protected.

If enough people report that a particular application is offensive, Facebook’s automated spam-reporting technology will likely take it down in minutes without any type of warning. And that can happen even if the reports are completely fabricated.

This attempt at user-friendliness by Facebook is easy for users to abuse, and the outcome is actually user-unfriendly, not to mention, quite frustrating for those trying to do business on the platform.

My company, Dutch Monaco, experienced this kind of false flagging firshand. As soon as we’d published a new client app as part of a contest activity, comments started to pour in. A number of strange comments with fraudulent links began to appear that were clearly spam — most likely generated by software. Those comments were soon removed, but shortly after similar comments began to appear again. Those too were removed, and the users were blocked for good measure. But that wasn’t the end of it.

Within two hours, our client’s Facebook app was taken down and the Dutch Monaco Facebook user name was blocked without so much as consulting the host company. Our client was unhappy and wanted answers fast. In the end, after two days of countless conversations with an accounts team at Facebook, we were able to recover the user name and reinstate the client’s application.

What’s interesting to note is that, once the application went live again, we were sent a generic letter outlining application development best practices, including the most notable tip: Change the copy to be more Facebook user oriented.

It wasn’t until a week later that Facebook informed us that a large number of users in a short period of time had reported that the app contained “abusive content,” even though the application was aimed at recognizing and rewarding user interaction with a familiar brand.

There’s no question that Facebook is a great platform for developing brand recognition, but it still needs to make huge improvements in its content-vetting process.

Some GSM Galaxy Nexus connectivity issues is fix

When Android 4.0.4 rolled out to some GSM Galaxy Nexus phones a few weeks ago, it brought some wireless connectivity bugs along with it. Affected users have been waiting for a fix since then, and while Google hasn't officially released a patch, some GSM Galaxy Nexus users are reporting that build IMM76I of Android 4.0.4 has started being pushed out over-the-air (the previous build was IMM76D). WIthout any official release notes, we can't say for sure whether this will fix the connectivity bug, but some XDA-developersforum posts indicate that this update should indeed straighten these issues out. However, this doesn't appear to be being pushed out widely yet (we haven't seen it on any of our phones), so you may have to wait a bit longer before getting relief from this annoying bug. Hopefully this limited release means all users will receive this update sooner than later.

webOS homebrew developer builds new Google Maps app

Last year HP rolled out a new version of Maps for webOS devices that was powered by Microsoft's Bing. A homebrew developer named Jan Herman didn't love the change — nor did he find the languishing official Google Maps app to his liking — so he rolled his own, and it looks like it may be better than either of the other two offerings. webOS Nationreports that Herman's app, simply titled Google Maps, features multiple viewing options, directions, live search suggestions, current traffic conditions, and even Google Maps Street View. It's actually Herman's first webOS app, built initially for his own Pre Plus, but in the weeks since debuting an early version he has been iterating at a rapid pace, adding a number of new features and ensuring compatibility with all devices running webOS 1.4.5 or higher. There are a handful of known issues, particularly on the Pre3, and Herman still has a long list of features he plans to add to the app. At the rate he seems to be going, however, both should be taken care of sooner rather than later. If you're a webOS user and would like to try his handiwork out for yourself, the app isavailable for download now.

Bang & Olufsen's 'affordable' V1 HDTV rumored to retail for $3,170 and up - The Verge

New details have emerged about Bang & Olufsen's forthcoming HDTV under its cost-friendly brand, B&O Play. According to Recordere, it is called the V1 and will debut at a press event on May 2nd. It will allegedly come in 32- and 40-inch varieties and sport integrated 5.1 surround sound audio, LED illumination and wireless networking. Although it is rumored to be more aggressively priced than the BeoVision 12 TV, which retails for $11,350, it is hardly what many would consider cheap. The 32-inch model, the V1-32, is expected to retail for €2,399 ($3,170), while the 40-inch model, the V1-40, will likely cost €2,899 ($3,831). Both will apparently come with Bang & Olufsen's overhauled TV software that will boast a redesigned user interface, DLNA media player, and support for photo and audio sharing from Android and iOS devices. With the announcement rumored to be taking place in less than two weeks, fans of Bang & Olufsen's premium design may not have to wait long to get their hands on the V1.