Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 10 January 2003, 5:22 PM
Friday
Friday 10/1/2003
What's in a name, mused the Bard. "That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." And it is to be hoped that the poor, confused lump of software called Whistler, then Windows Server 2002, then. Net Server 2003, will finally find happiness with Windows Server 2003 Microsoft .Net Connected, the name that Redmond has finally pronounced good.
The same's true of The Processor Formerly Called Banias. Of course, nobody expects the internal code names to stick at birth, but Intel has decided to call this the Pentium M. This will live alongside the Pentium 4-M -- no chance of confusion there then -- but will also be a member of the Centrino family of components. The idea, says Intel, is that if you buy the complete kit of processor, support chips and wireless networking bits for your laptop design you can easily get it qualified and slap a Centrino logo -- which looks like a finch's head or a flight from a dart, according to taste -- on the box.
Centrino is a strange name. In physics, subatomic particles end in -ino (including the infamous mystery object that caused so much confusion when it was first spotted in the lab it had the unofficial name of a fuctifino) and the elements, which are built out of those particles, often end in -um. Intel has turned that on its head, with the constituent particles having an -um name and the whole concoction being -ino. I don't suppose anyone other than physics nerds will care, but the company must be stuffed full of them. And as for production queen Laura's suggestion that it sounds more like half a junglist band, a la Oxide and Neutrino, I can only suppose since Centrino is largely made out of silicon oxide, it's a fair rap.
What's in a name, mused the Bard. "That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." And it is to be hoped that the poor, confused lump of software called Whistler, then Windows Server 2002, then. Net Server 2003, will finally find happiness with Windows Server 2003 Microsoft .Net Connected, the name that Redmond has finally pronounced good.
The same's true of The Processor Formerly Called Banias. Of course, nobody expects the internal code names to stick at birth, but Intel has decided to call this the Pentium M. This will live alongside the Pentium 4-M -- no chance of confusion there then -- but will also be a member of the Centrino family of components. The idea, says Intel, is that if you buy the complete kit of processor, support chips and wireless networking bits for your laptop design you can easily get it qualified and slap a Centrino logo -- which looks like a finch's head or a flight from a dart, according to taste -- on the box.
Centrino is a strange name. In physics, subatomic particles end in -ino (including the infamous mystery object that caused so much confusion when it was first spotted in the lab it had the unofficial name of a fuctifino) and the elements, which are built out of those particles, often end in -um. Intel has turned that on its head, with the constituent particles having an -um name and the whole concoction being -ino. I don't suppose anyone other than physics nerds will care, but the company must be stuffed full of them. And as for production queen Laura's suggestion that it sounds more like half a junglist band, a la Oxide and Neutrino, I can only suppose since Centrino is largely made out of silicon oxide, it's a fair rap.
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