Minecraft: The Blocky Sky's the Limit

Every so often, I'll stumble on a game that seems rather simplistic and boring at first, but becomes incredibly addictive fast. When a friend linked me to "Minecraft", I wasn't sure what to think. Each level is generated on the fly, and it's there for you to alter. You're given various blocks to work with, and you can destroy and build whatever you want. Sounds simple, right?

Well, it is, but it's that simplistic nature that makes the game such a blast to play. The graphics are modest and pixelated (though still fully 3D), but despite that, it still makes your imagination whirl, and I gotta say, this is one game that seems to be on the right track. It's currently in alpha, and free to play, but will cost once the final version gets released (pre-orders are less-expensive, €20 (~$28 USD) at launch).

There's even a multi-player mode, and that definitely seems to be where all the fun is. Logging into a server, you're able to see what others took the time to build, and some of it is simply incredible. There are small buildings, large buildings, humorous text, and even video game characters, like Mega Man.

The game's premise might be simple, but it's a little difficult to portray just how much fun it is to goof around, so I recommend you just try it out. Java is required, but the game runs well. For examples of some things people are building, check out a thread at the Something Awful forums. Just be warned, there's a lot of NSWF language and content there.

I've got a few plans and visions, but my only true design decision is to keep it fun and accessible. There's no design doc, but there are two lists; one for bugs, and one for features I want to add but think I might forget. I make sure to play the game a lot, and I've built my share of towers, and flooded my share of caves. If something ever doesn't feel fun, I'll remove it. I believe that I can combine enough fun, accessibility and building blocks for this game to be a huge melting pot of emergent gameplay.

NVIDIA's Betting Big on Tegra

For most enthusiasts, hearing the name "NVIDIA" invokes thoughts of graphics cards, GPUS, more graphics cards and even more GPUs. But according to the company's CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang, a few years down the road, the company is going to be known for a lot more than that. Not that this isn't the case right now, but such technologies as Tegra, ION and others are becoming increasingly popular, at a stark rate.

Tegra in particular is in Jensen's sights as having the most potential, and he even goes on to state that in a few years, their ARM-based processor is expected to account for half of NVIDIA's total business. Half! If that's not a huge shift, I'm not sure what is! That prediction does further prove just how much more important mobile computing is becoming, and its growth sure isn't going to slow down soon.

Huang also went on to say that we're soon going to be at a time where CPU-GPU co-processing is going to be fact, and he used Apple as an example for the claim. It's a good one, since Apple are the originators of OpenCL and offer support for it in their upcoming OS X "Snow Leopard" release, not to mention equip NVIDIA GPUs in their entire line-up of computers.

Let's just hope that NVIDIA keeps high-end graphics in their sights, rather than push them to the side!

"Apple is an early indicator," Huang said during his opening remarks that were streamed over the Web, referring to the importance that Apple is placing on the graphics processor. "The MacBook Pro to the MacBook Air has a GPU," he said. And he waxed eloquent about how the performance and power efficiency of the updated version of the Air has benefited by having co-processors: an Intel CPU and Nvidia GPU.

Moore's Law to Die Due to the Expense?

Yesterday, we posted about GlobalFoundries' demonstration of silicon built on a 22nm node, and according to some reports, that's just about as low as we're going to be able to go, at least for a while. According to market research company iSuppli, Moore's Law is going to die at 18nm. As you're probably already well-aware, Moore's Law states that the number of transistors will double on an integrated circuit every 1.5 - 2 years.

To date, that seemingly simple theory has held true, so what's going to cause a sudden halt? It's easy to assume that dies are simply going to become too small, and impossible to build, but that's not it at all. And no, it has nothing to do with current leakage. Rather, it appears the reason for the death of Moore's Law is... money. iSuppli states that beyond 18nm, the fabs to produce such chips are going to be incredibly expensive, and given that 32nm fabs currently cost around $4 billion... enough said.

Producing silicon on processes of at or smaller than 18nm isn't impossible, but thanks to the costs, whichever company can produce such products is going to belong to an incredibly exclusive club. Companies like the TSMC and Intel should have no problem stomaching the bill, but up-and-comers like GlobalFoundries may have a hard time with the financials. But the real question is whether or not there will be a true return-of-investment on such expenses. We'll have to wait and see.

"The usable limit for semiconductor process technology will be reached when chip process geometries shrink to be smaller than 20 nm, to 18 nm nodes," said Len Jelinek, director and chief analyst, semiconductor manufacturing, for iSuppli. "At those nodes, the industry will start getting to the point where semiconductor manufacturing tools are too expensive to depreciate with volume production, i.e., their costs will be so high, that the value of their lifetime productivity can never justify it."

Tech Roundup - June 17, 2009

Motherboards & Processors
• ASRock P45DE - PCShopTalk
• MSI Eclipse Plus - PC Perspective

Displays & Video Cards
• Lilliput EB701Y 7-Inch Touchscreen LCD Monitor - Benchmark Reviews
• Sapphire HD 4890 1GB Atomic - ClubOC

Memory & Storage
• Patriot Torqx SSD - PureOverclock

Peripherals & Gadgets
• Audio-Technica ATH-AD700 Headphones - techPowerUp
• Razer Sphex Gaming Mouse - Bjorn3D

Cooling
• Thermolab Baram CPU Cooler - Pro-Clockers
• Titan Fenrir CPU Cooler - Hi Tech Legion

Chassis & Power Supplies
• Cooler Master HAF 922 - Red and Blackness
• Eagle Tech Consus ET-CSTESU2-BK External HDD Enclosure - Verdis Reviews
• NZXT Beta Mid-mTower Chassis - TweakTown
• Tuniq Ripper 1000W Power Supply - Overclockers Online
• Xigmatek Midgard Chassis - Technic3D

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• Samsung ST50 12.2MP Ultra Slim Digital Camera - ModSynergy