Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0

And here we go again. Microsoft just announced some information about its next generation development tools dubbed Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0.

These tools should arrive late 2009 to mid-2010 with the same schedule as Windows 7.

More information can be found here

'SuperSpeed' USB 3.0 is soon with us!

Are you tired of slow USB speeds? Well with the new USB version 3.0, dubbed 'SuperSpeed', you won't be disappointed. The new specification boosts speeds up to ten times that of USB 2.0!!!

The new USB standard is backward and forward compatible with USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 but while the older USB standards run on 4 wires, the new standard adds 5 new wires to that for a total of 9 wires. The USB plug is still the standard rectangular plug we all know and love but the difference is that it seems deeper so that to allow the extra 5 pins.  

The additional 5 pins increase the thickness of the USB cable which makes it more like a UTP cable. The reason for the new wires are to implement high speed, full-duplex, high-speed communications over separate data links for concurrent bi-directional communication.

The new port standard also gives you more power; The current limit has been increased from 500mA to a whopping 900mA which gives you more power to charge your devices or makes it possible to eliminate some external power supplies for high power devices.

The USB standard will be available for hardware manufacturers by mid 2009 and for consumers by early 2010. We will be eagerly waiting...

Click here for more information

Lack of 64-bit support

I don't know what is happenning to the computing industry but 64-bit is here and is to stay. The first 64-bit capable processor from AMD came in April 2003 as the Opteron, so all machines from the last 5-6 years are 64-bit capable, so, I ask, why are you not supporting it? In processor age, this is 'a lot'. 

64-bit is a good platform that does not just offer more memory access but it also offers faster execution of code than 32-bit. Microsoft provides WOW64 for 32-bit compatibility which is good to keep making 32-bit applications but the implications and the constant switching from 32 to 64-bit makes any process suffer including the actual operating system.

The open-source community does have 64-bit support BUT mostly for Linux. Why not also Windows? In my experience working with 64-bit, it is not very difficult to support the 64-bit operating systems, so what is holding back?

I sure hope that next year we will have more 64-bit applications including the most popular ones which people use the most.