Jim Larus

The Computer Science Department here at UC Davis hosted Jim Larus from Microsoft Research yesterday for a "distinguished lecture". He spoke on "Spending Moore's Dividend", which was based largely on his recent article in Comm ACM (see p. 62). The talk was a fascinating look back at how computer processors have developed over the last 40 years or so and how software has developed to take advantage of the huge increases in processing power and then a look forward to the very different future that we face as increases in processor speed have stopped in favour of increasing numbers of processors (cores) per chip. That trend is going to require some very different approaches to how we do things in future, and it was fascinating to hear some thoughts about what form that might take. The article is well-worth a look if you have access to the Comm ACM.