ZDNet UK Ignoble Christmas Catalogue 2011
Itanium Extreme
ZDNet UK presents the 2011 Ignoble Christmas Catalogue of products and services that cannot or should not exist. You won't see these in 2012... probably.
Itanium Extreme
Intel's latest many-core system (above) couples 50 Itanium II cores on one giant wafer. Using Intel's proprietary StuffedCrust fab, this 24-inch chip clocks in at 10kw and one teraflop*. Combining a unique WiMax internal bus, 4004 compatibility in software, quad-gate plutonium-silicon transistors and a gigabyte of cache per core, this chip is self-powering and doubles as a system backlight. Overclocking generates sufficient hard X-rays for medical imaging solutions.
*Simulated. A compiler capable of generating running code for the Itanium Extreme is expected Q4 2016.
iPhone Shuffle
iPhone Shuffle
Apple knows social. In fact, Apple knows your social network better than you know yourself. With the iPhone Shuffle, tear free of the tedious business of deciding who to call and when to call them, and enjoy the liberation of renewing old conversations, catching up with friends — or even giving your bank or boss a surprise call.
With no display or controls to worry about, all you need to is slip on the headphones when the red light shows and hold the phone in the approved position — and you're already connected to a random selection from your contacts list, at a random time!
Apple's cloud-based Genius Connect servers have already analysed your every move online and on the phone, and generated the best possible sequence to revitalise your personal, business and even your love life!
Apple: It's your call. But we own it.
Canon 4D Printer
Canon 4D Printer
3D? That's so 2010. With Canon's new Permextrude space-time printer, the output never stops. After creating solid objects, the Permextrude continues to describe their passage through existence by decoupling them from the normal Einsteinian universe and printing them continuously in a warp manifold. All this with crisp, bright colours, duplex output and LaserJet compatibility too!
CAUTION: Operation with unofficial toner can cause local black holes and matter-antimatter interaction. Use on a well-ventilated planet.
HP BI AI
HP BI AI
HP continues its history of excellence in innovation by making its own Artificial-Intelligence-based Business Intelligence service available to all. Take advantage of the same cutting-edge systems that have driven HP's own market success.
This masterful data analysis tool uses cutting-edge Bayesian tree technology to fully codify all available data, assigning intensively iterated weighting and conducting best-fit parametric analysis, before arriving at actionable, C-level decision advice that's clear, detailed and entirely barking.
VMware Virtual Virtual
VMware Virtual Virtual
VCubed is VMware's next generation of virtualisation excellence. Take all the advantages of virtualisation — enhanced management, lower power consumption, increased resource efficiency — and apply it to virtual machines themselves. By pushing VMs out of the realm of software and into the dimension of fantasy, VCubed finally aligns VMware's marketing message with reality — or what's left of it.
Virtual virtual machines (VVMs) have no actual existence, and so they are faster to create, simpler to migrate and guaranteed bug-free while suffering no resource contention or compatibility issues. When used with CFOS (the Cloud Fantasy Operating System, itself also built from pure thought and beer), your IT infrastructure will operate as never before.
Intellectual Ventures Project Neutrino
Intellectual Ventures Project Neutrino
Patent powerhouse Intellectual Ventures (IV) has issued a suit against CERN over patent 45334134, "A method or practice for travelling backwards in time through focussed neutrinos."
Although the patent was not filed until after the experimental results that showed neutrinos travelling faster than light, and thus back in time, IV says that prior art does not apply as causality has been violated.
Company spokesman Susan Foreman said: "Although we normally leave the actual use of our patented IP to our licensees, in this case we feel the ability to retrospectively claim any and all inventions through Project Neutrino will deliver maximum shareholder value by destroying the economy and encourage innovation by completely preventing it." On claims that this was paradoxical, she claimed: "It won't be, as of yesterday, as we see great utility to our licensing community in establishing new grandfather rights through a fundamental recasting of logic".
Nokia Hedz-Up Phone
Nokia Hedz-Up Phone
All smartphones have a camera on the back, and many also have a front-facing one for videoconferencing. Now, Nokia takes smartphone video one step further and massively increases user safety and convenience with Hedz-Up, an HD, image-stabilised, auto-tilting camera placed on the top edge of the mobile.
Hedz-Up comes with the ForeView app, which overlays a small area of the screen with its video. In practice, this allows pedestrians and drivers to safely use their phones to browse the web, interact via social media or consume content, while maintaining a clear, easy-to-see view of the road or pavement ahead.
ForeView Plus, a premium app, also networks Hedz-Up users who are close together and travelling in the same direction, allowing them to see further ahead than ever before, potentially spotting lamp-posts, potholes and homicidal axe murderers in plenty of time to take avoiding action.
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