AMD offers $185 computer design, consuming only 1W power
Just as Intel announced that it won’t chase GHz increases any more, AMD has announced an Internet-enabled computer design, capable of being sold at around $185 in countries like India and China. The more interesting point for me was that this computer would only consume 1 W of power - for comparison a full featured PC with latest everything consumes 100-200 Watts of power. Apparently AMD was going to support Linux, but Microsoft has provided them with a Win CE based OS that is cheaper than their traditional PC versions. We can assume it would only be a matter of time before Linux also runs on that device.
Given how power constrained India and China are, this is a very good development. The world cannot afford the environmental consequences of 2 billion PCs consuming hundreds of watts and sitting idle! With the advent of mobility, the relevant parameter may not be GHz or Mips, but Mips/Watt.
Just as in the case of the Intel announcement, this has important consquences for software. It is becoming more and more important to write tight code capable of running in very power contrained (in both senses of the word!) devices. Already, software for mobile devices is a major growth area. Now more and more consumer software may be driven by similar constraints.