11. The CPU/GPU
There's a very big year ahead in processors, with more than a few game-changers on the horizon. Six-core and eight-core processors, 32nm manufacturing and more will appear this year.
Perhaps nothing will change the processor game so much, however, as the integration of graphics into the CPU, which may spell the beginning of the end of discrete graphics. Surprisingly, it's Intel leading this charge, with the coming "Clarkdale" desktop and "Arrandale" mobile processors, both manufactured using 32nm processes. Clarkdale and Arrandale both have two cores as well as a GPU packaged into a single chip. These processors will be sold under the Desktop or Mobile Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 brands, as well as the Pentium G6xxx.
The Atom is also getting an integrated GPU early this year in the new "Pineview" model, enabling even smaller (and hopefully cheaper) netbooks and nettops.
Don't expect these products to overtake discrete graphics chips immediately, of course. For a start, it's Intel, which doesn't have the best graphics technology going, and Intel certainly isn't pushing these as high-performance parts. At best, they're going to be equivalent to chipset graphics, and mostly these processors are about reducing the number of parts in a device and thus cost, not about performance.
They're also not integrated chips, as we'll see from AMD's Fusion later in 2011. They're two separate dies packaged into the same chip: a 32nm processor die and a 45nm die that contains the GPU and major "north bridge" components such as the memory and PCI controller. A single die with both GPU and CPU integrated (the GPU perhaps replacing one or more processor cores) is not likely to appear this year, but we know that both Intel and AMD are working hard on such a solution for 2011.
Even so, Arrandale and Clarkdale should be a major blow for discrete graphics in 2010, providing system-on-a-chip solutions for mainstream computing and driving down the cost and size of both netbook and desktop computers.
12. 100 Megabit broadband
When it comes to broadband in 2010, you're going to hear the figure 100 megabit bandied about a lot. ADSL is going to stay much the same, although volumes might go up a little with recent Telstra volume boosts and the new PIPE Networks link through Guam, but basic speeds won't change.
The bigger changes will be happening in cable and fibre.
Spooked at the prospect of 100Mbit fibre-to-the-home, Telstra announced last year that it would be progressively upgrading its cable network this year to support up to 100 megabits. The real question is when and where. Currently, most of Telstra's network supports either the 17-megabit DOCSIS 1.1 standard or the 30-Megabit DOCSIS 2.0.
It completed the upgrade to 100 megabit download/2 megabit upload DOCSIS 3.0 in Melbourne in December, but the rollout for the rest of the country is still very unclear. Telstra has announced that everybody in the country that uses its cable network will be at least upgraded to 30 megabit DOCSIS 2.0 by the end of 2010, but the availability of 100 megabit services outside of Melbourne is up in the air, and may depend on what happens with current legislation to break up Telstra and the progress of the NBN.
Optus, too, is upgrading its cable network this year. It made the surprise announcement in December that it would roll out 100 megabit in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. But when and at what cost had yet to be revealed.
This year's other big broadband development, of course, is going to be the national broadband network (NBN). Not a shared medium like cable, or a jury-rigged and limited system like ADSL, the NBN promises 100 megabit fibre directly to our homes, and will likely completely replace the century-old copper network that's currently in use. Even the roughly 10% of the population without fibre-to-the-home has been promised 12-megabit wireless broadband.
While the NBN is an eight-year project in total that's still very much in the planning stages, the first services are likely to come online in some areas of Tasmania midway through this year. As for the rest of us, who knows?
13. E-books
We're going to go out on a limb and say that this year will be a good one for eBooks. The Amazon Kindle was made available for international shipping late last year, and several other eBook readers are already available (if still a little overpriced), such as the BeBook, the Eco Reader, several Hanvon models, the Sony Reader and several others. And the Apple iPad has just launched.
Most of the currently available eBook readers top out at about 6", which is a little smaller than a paperback, but we'll see larger products released this year. Amazon already has the 9.7" Kindle DX available in the US, and it's likely to be available for international shipping later this year.
Colour, too, is coming. Current eBooks use E Ink, a technology that's thin, looks like real paper and keeps the battery going for more than five minutes - but is only available in monochrome. Several demonstration eBook readers were shown off late last year with colour "paper", however, including a model from Qualcomm that even enabled video. According to Qualcomm, we can expect to see this technology available by the end of the year.
14. Cloud computing
Late last year, Google announced Chrome OS. Its idea was to clear away all the legacy chaff and local applications and focus entirely on the cloud. In effect, Chrome OS will have only one local application - the Chrome Web browser. Everything you want to do will be done inside the browser using Web-based applications.
Early generations of the open source version of the operating system, Chromium OS, are already available for developers, and it's exactly what Google said it was: a fast booting operating system that comprises pretty much only a tabbed Chrome Web browser. There is an applications page, launched by clicking on a Start-like button in the top left of the screen, but it only launches Web applications like Facebook, Gmail and Google docs.
Chrome OS isn't going to be for use on mainstream desktop and notebook computers, but Google thinks it might find a place on netbook and nettop computers where a Web browser is the only application that people really use anyway.
While the concept is certainly interesting, other companies have tried this model in the past and failed. Can Google succeed where Sun and others haven't? Perhaps - it's a different world now - but we wouldn't be too sure of it happening in 2010.
Not to be outdone by Google, Microsoft is planning to go big on cloud computing this year. Among other things, it will release its Office Web applications, which are lightweight versions of its Office applications that run in a browser. They will be offered through Microsoft's Office Live Workspace service, and they will be free for use by consumers. There's also Microsoft's Live Mesh, an online service for file synchronisation and sharing. Live Mesh also provides a remote control service, letting you control your Windows PC's desktop from a remote PC. And there's Microsoft's Azure cloud platform, a hosted services platform that business can use to develop their own cloud computing applications.
15. GPS on your phone
There's no question that 2010 is going to be a huge year for mobile applications. According to analyst group IDC, the number of iPhone applications available will triple next year to 300,000, while the number of Android apps will quintuple to 100,000.
Indeed, we're perhaps most excited by the opportunities on Android, which is unburdened by Apple's vice-like grip on application delivery and is a much more open platform.
GPS on Android phones is looking to be a particularly cool experience, especially after Google opened up Google Maps for Android development in November. This, quite frankly, is going to make every other GPS solution look like Android's poor cousin, since developers will now be able to combine a GPS-enabled Android with Google maps to do things like overlay satellite imagery onto maps, provide Street Views of routes, provide live traffic views and information, enable plain English searches of locations (much as in Google Maps), access information about locations en route and perhaps even read live Internet feeds of current events in your area.
And just to annoy every other GPS vendor on the planet, the service is going to be free. You won't ever have to pay for map updates again.
The downside - and it's a biggie - is that you'll need live Internet access to be able to use this application. Routes may be able to be cached, but you won't be able to (at least in the immediate future) download all of Google maps onto your mobile. It's also likely to churn through your 3G data quota like nobody's business and if you don't have coverage at least at the beginning of your trip you won't be able to use it at all. For all its coolness, it's dependent on an Internet connection, and in many areas of the country that's still a flaky proposition.
Next page for 16-20.
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