prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: When did KSTP switch to a sports radio format?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 1: KSTP (1500 AM; SKOR North) is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Saint Paul, Minnesota  It is the flagship AM radio station of Hubbard Broadcasting, which also owns several other television and radio stations across the United States   KSTP has a sports radio format and is the ESPN Radio Network affiliate for Minneapolis-St  Paul   The radio studios are  on University Avenue in Minneapolis, shared with sister stations KSTP-FM, KSTP-TV, KTMY, and KSTC-TV  On weekdays, KSTP airs local sports shows from 9 a m  to 9 p m  and carries ESPN programming weekday mornings, late nights and weekends  Some KSTP shows are simulcast on other sports radio stations in the region 

KSTP runs the maximum power for AM stations, 50,000 watts   It shares clear-channel, Class A status on 1500 AM with WFED in Washington, D C   KSTP broadcasts a directional signal at night, using a three-tower array, with its transmitter on U S  Route 61 at Beam Avenue in Maplewood   Programming is also heard on 250 watt FM translator K235BP at 94 9 MHz in Bemidji 

History

WAMD and KFOY
KSTP's start in 1928 was the product of a merger between two pioneering Twin Cities stations: WAMD ("Where All Minneapolis Dances") in Minneapolis, first licensed on February 16, 1925 to Stanley E  Hubbard, and KFOY in St  Paul, first licensed on March 12, 1924 to the Beacon Radio Service in St  Paul 

Following a few test transmissions, WAMD made its formal debut broadcast on February 22, 1925  (In later interviews Stanley Hubbard traced WAMD's start to April 1924 ) It was located at the Marigold Dance Garden, and featured nightly "Midnight Frolics" broadcasts by the ballroom's orchestra  It is claimed that WAMD was the first radio station to be completely supported by running paid advertisements  Effective June 15, 1927, WAMD was assigned to 1330 kHz 

On November 11, 1927 WAMD's transmitter site at Oxboro Heath on Lyndale Avenue South burned down, two weeks after the station had been sold to the National Battery Company  An initial arrangement was made to carry WAMD's programs over WRHM (now WWTC), transmitting on WAMD's 1330 kHz frequency  Beginning on November 24, 1927 the WAMD broadcasts, still on 1330 kHz, were shifted to KFOY's facility in St  Paul  (At this time KFOY was assigned to 1050 kHz)  The next day it was announced that National Battery had purchased KFOY, and as of December 1, 1927 both KFOY and WAMD were reassigned to 1350 kHz  WAMD continued making regular broadcasts until the end of March 1928, while KFOY, although it continued to be licensed for a few more months on a time-sharing basis with WAMD, ceased operations at this point 

National Battery Company
In mid-December 1927, the National Battery Company announced it had received permission from the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) to build a new station, with the call letters KSTP, operating from a transmitter site to be constructed three miles south of Wescott  The next month it was reported that the new station, still under construction, had been assigned to 1360 kHz  KSTP made its debut broadcast on March 29, 1928  Although technically it was a separate station from WAMD and KFOY, both of which were formally deleted on April 30, 1928, overall KSTP was treated as the direct successor to a consolidated WAMD and KFOY 

Hubbard became the merged station's general manager, acquiring controlling interest in 1941  A month after the merger, KSTP became an affiliate for the NBC Red Network   It remained with NBC for 46 years  On November 11, 1928, under the provisions of the FRC's General Order 40, KSTP was assigned to a "high-powered regional" frequency of 1460 kHz  The only other station assigned to this frequency was WTFF in Mount Vernon Hills, Virginia (later WJSV, now WFED, Washington, D C )  On February 7, 1933, the FRC authorized KSTP to increase its daytime power to 25 KW  In 1938 and 1939 KSTP also operated a high-fidelity AM "experimental audio broadcasting station" Apex station, W9XUP, originally on 25,950 kHz and later on 26,150 kHz  In 1941, as part of the implementation of the North American Regional Broadcasting Agreement, KSTP was assigned to its current "clear channel" frequency of 1500 kHz, with the provision that it and WJSV, as "Class I-B" stations, had to maintain directional antennas at night in order to mutually protect each other from interference  An FM station, KSTP-FM, was founded in 1946 but shut down in 1952 

Hubbard reportedly acquired an RCA TV camera in 1939, and started experimenting with television broadcasts   But World War II put a hold on the development of television   In 1948, with the war over, KSTP-TV became the first television station in Minnesota   With KSTP 1500 already associated with NBC Radio, KSTP-TV became an NBC Television Network affiliate   From 1946 to 1952, KSTP also had an FM counterpart   KSTP-FM 102 1 was only on the air four years   There were few radios equipped to receive FM signals in that era, and management decided to discontinue FM broadcasts 

MOR and Top 40
As network programming moved from radio to television, KSTP programmed a full service Middle of the Road (MOR) radio format, in the shadow of its chief competitor, CBS Radio affiliate 830 WCCO  In 1965, a new FM station, reviving the KSTP-FM call sign, was put on the air, largely simulcasting the AM station   But by the late 1960s, KSTP-FM began a separate format of beautiful music   KSTP was the radio home of the Minnesota Vikings football team from 1970 to 1975  

In 1973, KSTP broke away from its longtime adult MOR sound and became one of four area stations at the time to program a Top 40 format  "15 KSTP, The Music Station" competed with Top 40 AM rivals WDGY, KDWB and later, WYOO  The competition would eventually shake itself out, with outrageous rocker WYOO dropping out after being sold in 1976, and then the staid WDGY switching to country music the following year   As for uptempo hits station 15 KSTP, it went from a tight Top 40 format to leaning adult rock in 1978, to leaning adult contemporary in 1979, to evolving into adult contemporary/talk by 1980   In 1982, it officially shifted to talk   Most Top 40 rock music, by this time, had moved to the FM band 

Past Personalities

Notable hosts who have been on KSTP include John Hines, Jesse Ventura, Larry Carolla, Tom Barnard, Big Al Davis, Don Vogel, John MacDougall, Griff, Mike Edwards, Geoff Charles, Joe Soucheray, James Lileks, Leigh Kamman, Barbara Carlson, Peter Thiele, Tom Mischke, Jason Lewis, Chuck Knapp, Machine Gun Kelly, Charle Bush, Mark O'Connell and Paul Brand  These broadcasters were supported by producers such as Bruce Huff, Rob Pendleton, Alison Brown, Jean Bjorgen, David Elvin (who Vogel dubbed the "Steven Spielberg of Talk Radio"), Mitch Berg and others 

The station has, for the most part, emphasized local hosts over the years   But in 1988, KSTP was one of Rush Limbaugh's first affiliates when his conservative talk show was rolled out for national syndication   (Clear Channel-owned KTLK-FM took over rights to Limbaugh's show in January 2006)  Other syndicated hosts previously heard on KSTP include Sean Hannity, Bruce Williams, Larry King, and Owen Spann 

Sports Radio
KSTP switched to Sports Radio on February 15, 2010   As the station had to wait for ESPN's contract with rival KFAN and its sister station KFXN to expire, it did not become an ESPN Radio affiliate until April 12, the same day that the Minnesota Twins were scheduled to play the first game in their new ball park, Target Field, against the Boston Red Sox   As a result Coast to Coast AM and Live on Sunday Night, it's Bill Cunningham were retained during this period   One ESPN Radio network program, The Herd with Colin Cowherd, was picked up by KSTP immediately following the format change 

In 2018, the station was approved for an FM translator on 94 1 FM, broadcasting from a transmitter atop the IDS Center in downtown Minneapolis  The two-watt signal threw most of its power to the west, preventing interference to low powered FM stations on the same channel including WFNU-LP in St  Paul  With only two watts of power, however, the signal was limited to the immediate downtown area surrounding the IDS Center   It later acquired a 250 watt translator, K235BP at 94 9 MHz   The original translator was discontinued 

On January 15, 2019, KSTP rebranded as "SKOR North" (a reference to the Vikings team song/chant, "Skol, Vikings"), with local programming between 12 noon and 7 pm  About a year later, in May of 2020, KSTP suspended most of its local programming and laid off nearly all of its local staff  Station management cited the economic toll of the coronavirus for the changes  Sports broadcasting continues, primarily composed of ESPN radio network broadcasts 

Sports Teams

KSTP-AM served as the radio flagship for the Minnesota Vikings football team from 1970 to 1975 

On August 1, 2006, the station announced that it would be the new flagship station for the Minnesota Twins baseball team, effective with the start of the 2007 season  The Twins had been on rival WCCO since arriving in Minnesota in 1961   KSTP served as the flagship for the Twins until the end of the 2012 season, when games moved to 96 3 KTWN-FM (now KMWA)   The Twins have since returned to WCCO 830 

The switch to a fairly weak FM station caused dissent among some listeners, particularly in communities that had trouble picking up KSTP 1500   Although KSTP is the state's second most powerful AM station, it must operate directionally at night, delivering a reduced signal to parts of the market  WCCO, by comparison, offers a signal with a wider coverage area during the day than KSTP does, with WCCO's non-directional 50,000 watt signal  In response, the Twins have expanded the number of affiliates 

On March 9, 2011, KSTP announced it would be the new flagship for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers men's and women's basketball and men's ice hockey, ending a 68-year run on WCCO  The rights have since moved to KFXN-FM, which already aired Gopher football 

On March 2, 2017, KSTP announced it would be the first radio broadcaster for Minnesota United FC   The move brings live soccer action to 1500 AM 

Previous logos

References

External links
KSTP website

FCC History Cards for KSTP (covering 1928-1980)
Radiotapes com Historic Minneapolis/St  Paul airchecks dating back to 1924 including KSTP and other Twin Cities radio stations 
Rick Burnett's TwinCitiesRadioAirchecks com has additional airchecks of KSTP and other Twin Cities radio stations from the '60s and '70s, including Chuck Knapp's 2nd show on KSTP 

Hubbard Broadcasting
ESPN Radio stations
Peabody Award winners
Radio stations in Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Radio stations established in 1925
1925 establishments in Minnesota
Minnesota Kicks
Sports radio stations in the United States
Clear-channel radio stations
Context 3: My Aspergers Child: COMMENTS & QUESTIONS [for Feb , 2017]
I emailed you a while back and you mentioned that I could email when I needed to  Thank you  I last wrote you in December that my son became involved in a dispute involving the local police  We have had 3 court dates  It keeps delaying due to not being able to come to an agreement  But the attorney, even though he was just vaguely familiar with Aspergers, has been very good with Craig  He has the compassion and excellence that is needed here  What started out very bad is turning into a good thing  It will probably take another 90 days or more 
But Craig is working hard  Too hard sometimes  He goes to therapy 3 times a week  Doing excellent  He's more focused and can calm down easier  He's got a lot on his plate but has support from his family  From his attorney  From therapy  And from his work 
He has been renting a room from a lady who has a son with ADHD  It is good for him  I'm a little worried though because since she smokes he wants to find his own place  With all the costs he has to balance it out financially  That is good  I can't help him more than I am which is good  He is stepping up and taking responsibility  He is listening much better 
He is going to have an evaluation today to get an accurate diagnosis  I understand that is a little difficult since he is an adult  Also the PTSD may cover it over  The attorney stated it would help to have the diagnosis 
Aware this is a long update, but thanks for reading  I am fighting much guilt still but I have a lot of peace now  My daughter and her 4 year old son also have Aspergers symptoms  So my life chapters may not close for a while  :-)
My name is Mac  I'm sure you're quite busy, so I'll get right to it I just wanted to pass on compliments on My Aspergers Child and your post, How to Implement the GFCF Diet: Tips for Parents of Autistic Children 
Me and my wife absolutely loved it!
I got a facebook message from him today begging to be able to come home saying he misses home and he will change  He says he will follow rules now  I stated to him the simple rules he has to follow which were - No weed in my house, or smoked in my house, coming home at curfew, going to school, no skipping, no drugs at school, and to drop the attitude of I am 17 I can do whatever I want 
I have made it very clear that if I see any drugs in my home I will be calling the police, as well as if I see signs of it being sold by him I will report him  (He has never had selling amounts in my house,     I believe it's being kept at his "friends" which of course I have no proof of    I just know it is not here 
I know my battle is not over by a long shot, I am sure we will have more consequences and possibly another being kicked out, but I am going to think positive and hope that he learned some form of a valuable lesson here 
Thank you so much for the guidance, never in a million years did I ever think I'd be on this side, (the one needing the help, as I am the one who helps )
I am going to go back to the start of the program like I said earlier and keep notes close by for reference 
Thanks for all you do, helping us all with ODD children/teens
I have a small company providing educational support services to a few families who have children with various disabilities in Ohio  One of the families has multiple adopted children of whom several have significant attachment disorders including RAD  As an experienced teacher and foster parent I have some experience in working with children who have extensive trauma backgrounds  However, I could use additional training  Also working with these children are two staff members with minimal background in attachment disorders who would also benefit from training primarily in behavior management  The primary caregiver to the children does a wonderful job managing their needs  In order to further develop team cohesion, I'm hoping to include her in any training as well 
Is it possible to schedule such a training session with you? If so, please let us know what will work for you including time, place, and cost  Thank you for your assistance 
I just listed to your tapes on dealing with an out of control, defiant teen  I'd like to ask your advice on a particular situation we have  Our 15 year old daughter is smoking pot almost every day at school  Because we had no way to control the situation, we told her, fine, go ahead and smoke weed  However, you will no longer receive the same support from us  You will not have your phone, lunch money to go off campus (she has an account at the school for the cafeteria she can use), and you will be grounded until you can pass a drug test  We will not be testing you except for when you tell us you are ready to be tested  She is now saying she's suicidal because she feels so isolated, yet she continues to smoke weed  In fact, she tried to sneak out last night but was foiled by our alarm system  For the particular drug test we have, I read it takes about 10 days of not smoking to pass the test  What would you do? Please advise 
I am having a problem with my 18 year old son, Danny, with high functioning autism  We finally had him diagnosed when he was 16 years old  I always knew something was going on with him but the doctors misdiagnosed him as bipolar  It's been 2 years now and he will not accept his diagnosis  He won't talk about it and when I try to bring it up he gets very angry  I've tried telling him that it's not a bad thing, that there's been many, many very successful people with Aspergers  He won't tell anyone and refuses to learn about managing life with it  He once shared with me that the other kids at school use it as an insult, like saying someone is so autistic when they do something they don't approve of  So he doesn't want anyone to know  He's turned down services that could help him  He has a girlfriend, going on 8 months  He won't tell her and they're having problems arguing a lot and I wonder if it would help for her to know 
I'm sad that he thinks it's a life sentence to something horrible instead of accepting, embracing it and learning about it more so he maybe can understand why he's struggling  I told him that he doesn't need to shout it out to the whole world but he won't even accept it himself 
I don't know how to help him with it and because he's almost 19 I have limited control now  It's made my life easier knowing what we're dealing with and I think his life would be easier is he accepted it 
Please help me help him 
I am a clinical psychologist in NYC who now has several (!!) children I see who have RAD  In 20 years of practice, I’d seen only one case  Now, I have at least three children with this  I have no training, per se, in working with this children though I know about setting structure, consistency, etc  I do a lot of work with parents about parenting  I work primarily within the school setting in a charter school whose mission is to educate children on the autism spectrum in a mainstream setting  We use Michelle Garcia Winner’s social thinking program with our ASD kids  I also work with gen ed kids in the school who are at-risk; the school is in the inner city from where the majority of our non-ASD kids live 
It would have been so much easier to mention to my adult son that I think (I know he does, but want to ease into the subject)
he has Asperger's when we were living together two years ago  He has since moved to Tennessee working in his field of interest
which is 3-D printing and software development  I am so happy for him that he has found his way into a job that he truly enjoys
even though he's socially isolated 
He's not diagnosed and does not know he has it  How I know is his classic symptoms being sensory issues (fabric feeling like sandpaper)
communication difficulties, meltdowns and much more  Throughout his childhood I just felt he was a bit different  Nothing major stood out and time
just passes, misdiagnosis of ADHD, low frustration, etc  We've talked about his ADHD numerous times (which I now know he doesn't have) 
It's so much easier to communicate with him now that I know he has Asperger's  I keep it "slow and low" in talking, with long moments
of silence and then we connect  It's really too bad that Asperger's got a diagnostic code back in the 90's, yet all the so called doctors,
physiologist's, etc, didn't know how to diagnose it  Too bad 
There seems to be no one answer to "should I tell my adult son he has Asperger's" from a few specialists I asked  He is typical Asperger,
complicated, highly intelligent (high IQ), anxiety at times, socially isolated, hard to make friends  Not knowing how he will react is the hard part 
How will he be better off knowing he has it? Do I wait to tell him in person, or ease into it with him over Skype? He likes direct, honest, concrete communication 
Why is this so hard for me? Maybe because no one know's if he is going to be better off knowing or not  Do you know if people are better off
knowing? I try to get up the courage to just let him know, then I back down 
I have been searching the web looking for advice and came upon your site  I am trying to read blogs, websites, books, and articles to help guide me  I was so happy when you said that I could ask you a question  My husband and I are struggling with my 27 year old son who lives with us 
Kyle is the youngest of 4 sons  He is a college graduate but never could find the "right" job  He has always been quiet and never had a lot of friends  Two years ago, his girlfriend broke up with him  Kyle had an online gambling addiction and was using pot all the time  After the breakup, Kyle was very depressed and started using heroin and finally told my husband he was using  He is now seeing a psychiatrist who has him on suboxone and antidepressants  He is also seeing a psychologist weekly for counseling but it does not seem to be helping 
Last October,, Kyle lost his job, got drunk, and was agitated and came home , fighting with us, damaging our home and being verbally abusive  My other son , age 32, who also lives with us called the police and Kyle got arrested  He is currently in the family court system  He went through an anger management course and now is in substance abuse classes  Kyle continues to verbally abusive to me and blame me for everything  He says he "hates me "and calls me terrible names  At times, he pushes my husband and intimidates me  My husband and I are so upset  We just hired an attorney for him because since he has been going to these classes, he is getting more depressed and not getting better  Kyle continues to drink while taking his meds prescribed by the psychiatrist and then he has his "moods " My husband and I have met once with the psychiatrist just to give him background information when Kyle started with him 
At this point, we do not know what to do  We never thought at this stage of our life, we would be supporting and spending our retirement money on adult children  I do not know why Kyle hates me, I could not have been a better mom  My husband and I have no life and just do not know what it the right path we should take  Kyle does not want anything to do with us  He spends all his time in his room playing football online We have tried tough love versus caring and love and understanding  Do you have any advice for me?
This whole ODD and ADHD is killing me as a parent  I work in the field of adult psych and addictions so I am well educated  I have been dealing with my teen being like this for almost 3 years and I totally lost my cool today with my 17-year-old son to the point I told him he is out of the house  He can never simple rules, comes and goes as he pleases sometimes doesn't come home, just recently back in school from several suspension for drug related    I am just so exhausted  He has made me hate life, hate being a parent and sometimes I just feel like not even being here  I bought your program in hopes to it would help, I am at week three and I feel things are getting worse    what am I doing wrong??
My partner hasn't been diagnosed yet but I know he has aspergers   day to day is a struggle   I feel I'm going crazy with how he makes me feel Feel let down constantly  He lies alot but I've been told they can't but I know he does I just feel trapped and unloved We have a 4yr old daughter together and my main worry with how he is that it will effect our daughter ; (his skills as a parent are so weak He can't disapline at all Feel so alone  he hides it well too I just wondered if things will get worse? He's angry so quick in arguments Scares me etc I can't leave as he's the main bread winner and our daughter loves him to bits Don't know why I'm writing this  Sorry if I'm going on and not making sense :(
I wanted to let you know about a research opportunity for children, teens, and young adults with autism  I am studying the effects of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and psychotherapy on helping people with autism develop subjective awareness of others 
I am writing you to see if this might help someone in your practice, or to see if you might know of someone with autism who may benefit from participating in this study  The requirements of the study will be:
1  A participant should be between 7-21 years of age and have a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder 
2  The participant should enroll in an approved Jiu Jitsu Academy and attend at least two sessions a week for a period of six months 
3  The participant should enroll in social skills groups, provided by my office or be in a steady psychotherapeutic relationship in your office, at least once a week, or minimally two to three times a month 
4  The participant will be given a SRS (Social Responsiveness Scale) test at the beginning of the study, at three months, and again at six months 
If you know of anyone who might benefit from this novel approach to helping to develop social awareness in autism, please do not hesitate to contact me for further information 
I have a 10 year old daughter who has outbursts with prolonged crying almost like tantrums that 2 year olds have when they cannot express themselves 
I had her in therapy from age 6-8 years old for the same thing but I feel that the sessions didn't really help much 
She has severe sensitivities to light, sound, vibration, frequencies which trigger irritability and crying 
We changed her diet and tried getting her involved with activities but she is anti-social and prefers reading than being social  She is terrified of change even in daily routine (even that will trigger prolonged crying) 
It frustrates me because I don't know what else to do with her behavior 
I've tried acupuncture (she refused at the first session); she refuses massage too 
She is an honor-roll student at school and has very minimal issues at school but if she has had a bad day it does result in a tantrum or crying and defiance 
How can I get her tested for Asperger's Syndrome?
Last night our 24 year old son with Aspergers told his dad and I that he is pulling out of the 4 college classes that he recetnly enrolled in because he has not been attending class or turning in his assignments  He paid $2800 (his own money) for tuition and I reminded him of this when he told us but it did not seem to bother him 
This is the 3rd time he has started college courses and has not completed them  (He also took some concurrent college classes while he was in high school that he failed)  This is a son who basically had a 4 0 grade point average through 10th grade and got a 34 on the ACT the first time he took it 
With the news that he was once again not sticking with college courses I did not sleep well  When I got up this mornning I began looking online for help in how to deal with his situation  I found your "Launching Adult Children With Aspergers" and purchased it  Most of what is included are things we have done or did with our son throughout his life  I was hoping for more help so I am emailing you now in hopes of more specific ideas 
We noticed some things with our son, Taylor, as a yound child but as we had not heard of Aspergers at that time we just did what we thought would help him  As a toddler and a child at pre-school he generally went off on his own to play  When I talked to his pre-school teacher about my concerns (that I was worried he would end up a hermit) she said she did not see him being a loner and that he seemed to interact fine with others in many situations  We worked with him on making eye contact when talking with others  We explained different emotions in people's faces and mannerisms to help him know how to interact with others  We discussed the fact that people would say things that did not mean what they souneded like - such as "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse"  As we did these things he worked hard to better understand communication with others 
During his 4th grade year I had a teacher from the gifted program ask me if I had ever heard of Aspergers  I told her that I had not heard of it  She proceeded to read me some of the charateristics and so many of them described my son  So we had him tested by the school district during the summer between 4th and 5th grade and they did find that he had Aspergers but that he was high functioning  We then set him up with and EIP which stayed with him until his sophomore year  We pulled him from it at that time because we had moved and the new district was requiring him to take one class a day that was a study class  This reduced the number of required classes he could take and he was doing fine with his studies at the time 
It was during the 2nd half of his Junior year that we noticed some of his grades going down  Then during his Senior year is when he started skipping classes and not doing assignments  We had not realized it before then but we soon became aware that he was addicted to gaming  He would go to the library or somewhere else on campus and play games on the computer rather than go to class  It was also at this time that he began lying about his actions (so as not to get in trouble) 
Based on his grades and his ACT score he received offers from colleges for full tuition scholarships  He chose the college where he had taken concurrent classes during his high school years  But he proceeded to skip class and not turn in assignments so he lost his scholarship and quit attending college  During this time he was only able to find employment through an employment agency where he was mostly sent to manuel labor type jobs (which is not something he enjoys but he did it anyway)  It was during this time that at one place had gone to on numerous occasions he was told if he came late one more time they would tell the emplyment agency they did not want him to come there anymore  (This seemed to make an impression on him because he has continued to be reliable and responsbile at his places of employment) 
At 19 1/2 he left to serve a 2 year full-time mission for our church  He completed his mission successfully  (I don't think it was without some struggle, stress and depression, but he was able to pick himself up and move on from those times) 
When he came home he started working for the employment agency again but began looking for employment elsewhere  He got a job at a local Chick Fil-A where he has worked for 3 years  He started college again shortly after he came home but as before it was short lived  He did finish out the semester but failed most of the classes due to his skipping class and not turning in assignments



ground_truth: KSTP switched to a sports radio format on February 15, 2010.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: How are smartphones and tablets different from a technical perspective?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 2: The future of mobile CPUs, part 1: Today’s fork in the road | Ars Technica
2013 may be a big year for the evolution of smartphones and tablets 
Mobile computing's rise from niche market to the mainstream is among the most significant technological trends in our lifetimes  And to a large extent, it's been driven by the bounty of Moore’s Law—the rule that transistor density doubles every 24 months  Initially, most mobile devices relied on highly specialized hardware to meet stringent power and size budgets  But with so many transistors available, devices inevitably grew general-purpose capabilities  Most likely, that wasn't even the real motivation  The initial desire was probably to reduce costs by creating a more flexible software ecosystem with better re-use and faster time to market  As such, the first smartphones were very much a novelty, and it took many years before the world realized the potential of such devices  Apple played a major role by creating innovative smartphones that consumers craved and quickly adopted 
To some extent, this is where we still stand today  Smartphones are still (relatively) expensive and primarily interesting to the developed world  But over the next 10 years, this too will change  As Moore’s Law rolls on, the cost of a low-end smartphone will decline  At some point, the incremental cost will be quite minimal and many feature phones of today will be supplanted by smartphones  A $650 unsubsidized phone is well beyond the reach of most of the world compared to a $20 feature phone, but a $30 to $40 smartphone would naturally be very popular 
In this grand progression, 2013 will certainly be a significant milestone for mobile devices, smartphones and beyond  It's likely to be the first year in which tablets out-ship notebooks in the US  And in the coming years, this will lead to a confluence of high-end tablets and ultra-mobile notebooks as the world figures out how these devices co-exist, blend, hybridize, and/or merge 
Against this backdrop, in this two-part series, we'll explore the major trends and evolution for mobile SoCs  More importantly, we'll look to where the major vendors are likely going in the next several years 
Tablet and phone divergence
While phones and tablets are mobile devices that often share a great deal of software, it's becoming increasingly clear the two are very different products  These two markets have started to diverge and will continue doing so over time 
From a technical perspective, smartphones are far more compact and power constrained  Smartphone SoCs are limited to around 1W, both by batteries and by thermal dissipation  The raison d’etre of a smartphone is connectivity, so a cellular modem is an absolute necessity  For the cost sensitive-models that make up the vast majority of the market, the modem is integrated into the SoC itself  High-end designs favor discrete modems with a greater power budget instead  The main smartphone OSes today are iOS and Android, though Windows is beginning to make an appearance (perhaps with Linux or BlackBerry on the horizon)  Just as importantly, phone vendors like HTC must pass government certification and win the approval of carriers  There is very much a walled-garden aspect, where carriers control which devices can be attached to their networks, and in some cases devices can only be sold through a certain carrier  The business model places consumers quite far removed from the actual hardware 
In contrast, tablets are far more akin to the PC both technically and economically  The power budget for tablet SoCs is much greater, up to 4W for a passively cooled device and as high as 7-8W for systems with fans  This alone means there is a much wider range of tablet designs than smartphones  Moreover, the default connectivity for tablets is Wi-Fi rather than a cellular modem  The vast majority of tablets do not have cellular modems, and even fewer customers actually purchase a wireless data plan  As a result, cellular modems are almost always optional discrete components of the platform  The software ecosystem is relatively similar, with Microsoft, Apple, and Google OSes available  Because tablets eschew cellular modems, the time to market is faster, and they are much more commonly sold directly to consumers rather than through carriers  In terms of usage models, tablets are much more PC-like, with reasonable-sized screens that make games and media more attractive 
Looking forward, these distinctions will likely become more pronounced  Many tablets today use high-end smartphone SoCs, but the difference in power targets and expected performance is quite large  As the markets grow in volume, SoCs will inevitably bifurcate to focus on one market or the other  Even today, Apple is doing so, with the A6 for phones and the larger A6X for tablets  Other vendors may need to wait a few years to have the requisite volume, but eventually the two markets will be clearly separate 
Horizontal business model evolution
Another aspect of the mobile device market that is currently in flux and likely to change in the coming years is the business model for the chip and system vendors  Currently, Apple is the only company truly pursuing a vertically integrated model, where all phones and tablets are based on Apple’s own SoC designs and iOS  The tight integration between hardware and software has been a huge boon for Apple, and it has yielded superb products 
Samsung is one of the few others companies that takes a vertically integrated approach to phones and tablets, although in truth its strategy seems to be ambivalent on that point  Unlike Apple, Samsung’s SoCs are readily available to third parties, and some Samsung devices, such as the S7562 Galaxy S Duos, use SoCs from competitors  More recently though, there has been a trend of Samsung devices using Samsung SoCs, at least for the premier products  For the moment, Samsung’s approach is best characterized as a hybrid, particularly as the company lacks a bespoke OS 
The rest of the major SoC vendors (e g , Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia, TI, Mediatek, etc ) have stayed pretty far away from actual mobile devices  These companies tend to focus on horizontal business models that avoid competing with customers or suppliers 
In the long term, mobile devices are likely to evolve similarly to the PC and favor a horizontal business model  The real advantage is one of flexibility; as costs drop and the market expands, it will be increasingly necessary for vendors like HTC to offer a wide range of phones based on radically different SoCs  While a vertically integrated company like Apple can focus and maintain leadership in a specific (and highly lucrative) niche, it would be very difficult to expand in many growing areas of the market  The differences between an iPhone 6 and a $20 feature phone are tremendous and would be very difficult for a single company to bridge 
However, SoC vendors will attempt to reap the benefits of vertical integration by providing complete reference platforms to OEMs  Conceptually, this is a form of "optional" system integration, where the phone vendor or carrier can get the entire platform from the SoC supplier  This has the principal advantages of reducing time to market while also providing a baseline quality and experience for consumers  Currently, this approach has mostly been tested in emerging markets, but it's likely to become more common over time  There is a crucial distinction between reference platforms and vertical integration  Namely, OEMs can always choose to customize a platform to differentiate, and the SoC vendor avoids dealing with consumers directly  Typically, most of the customization is in terms of software on top of a base operating system 
Quote:Moreover, that will make the transition to a 10nm node even more difficult, as the foundries will have to move from 20nm interconnects to 10nm interconnects and skip a generation The advances in technology lately allowing components on such a small scale to even be envisioned, much less planned for, are truly amazing 
Off topic: show
I present the first generation 'non-technical' rock:
I don't think your horizontal market development theory is supported by facts  Samsung and Apple are more vertically oriented than their competition, for starters  I know this article is narrowly focused on the hardware, but MS and Intel getting into hardware, Amazon getting into hardware, Google buying Moto, this is all vertical integration  How can you support the idea that this trend will be reversed with no real justification? I'm sure mobile chips will continue to specialize, but I don't think this means what you think it means  Automobile companies started making their own engines and with rare exceptions, never went back to being more horizontal  Same with retail and their store brands  Same with cloud companies and their servers  Same with mobile companies and their OSs  The horizontal market of PCs created by long-lasting standards and loose hegemony is the exception, not the norm 
Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?
I'm not so sure about several things:1- Moore's law's relevance  Moore's Law is about ICs  ICs are not as big a part of mobile computers as they are of desktops, even of laptops: screens, batteries, radios are a huge part of tablets' and phones' costs, as opposed to the bare SoC + RAM 2- The tablet vs phone dichotomy  For some reason (probably price insensitivity due to subsidies), Phones have a tendency to be more powerful than Tablets, ie phone SoCs are more than good enough for tablets  Since the OS and peripherals are the same, it makes more sense to design and build just one type of SoC, and just disable the phone-modem part of it (even the other radios are still required: BT, Wifi, GPS   ), same as Intel disable cache and cores for their entry-level CPUs  Once you're fabbing a SoC, it makes more sense to make more of the same than to setup a separate run of a cut-down SoC on an older process, unless volumes are huge  We might still be getting previous-generation, well amortized SoCs in cheaper tablets, though 3- On the contrary, I see a tablet and phone convergence (the ugly phablet)  I'm patiently waiting for the new 6"+ phones to replace my Nook Color and Galaxy Note 1 with a single device 4- The advantage of diversity ? Software is becoming ever more important than hardware  Multiplying SoCs means multiplying product development costs, making support and updates more difficult    Again, unless volumes are huge, OEMs are probaly better off going the way of the car industry and using modular "platforms" housed in different chassis with various screen sizes, keyboards, radios, digitizers   I'm wondering why the "single device" trend does not figure in your analysis  Is it stillborn ? Does it have no impact nor dependency on/with SoCs ?
Samsung has its own bespoke OS: Bada and it is used on an extensive line of devices  I think there are numbers somewhere that it outsold Windows Phone 7 for a time 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?First mover advantage 
SoC? System on a Chip I guess?
You're way off on the Moore's Law/cost of smartphones point  The processors used in today's high-end smartphones are already cheap, around $25  And there are less expensive options if you want a lower end product  In fact, the hardware in the whole smartphone is relatively cheap  Analyst's estimate the Z10's materials cost around $160, the iPhone 5 around $140  They're using expensive glass and metals, then there's the battery, memory, etc  which means the processor is a small factor of the cost And then there's the jump from $140 in materials to the unsubsidized costs  The reason these phones cost $650 is because of the high margins these companies are able to get and the high cost of hardware design and/or software development  But the point is that making the processors 4 times better/cheaper isn't going to change the economics of the smartphone  What will change the economics is commoditized designs and software and cheaper materials all around  Then you'll have a $50 smartphone that's decent 
Last edited by ggeezz on Wed Feb 13, 2013 9:17 am
bigterp wrote:SoC? System on a Chip I guess?Yup 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Money and momentum, the x86 market is a huge money maker for Intel so it is able to recoup its huge investments for advanced foundries 
Quote:Currently, the only products using 3D integration are FPGAs from Xilinx,Doesn't Sony use it in the PS Vita? I thought I read somewhere that they had the CPU, main memory (2 dies) and video memory, so 4 dies in total, sitting on top of each other all on the same chip 
renoX wrote:gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Money and momentum, the x86 market is a huge money maker for Intel so it is able to recoup its huge investments for advanced foundries Exactly and I would clarify that it's all about margins, the difference between what it costs to make a chip and what it sells for  The margins for desktop and server processors is huge because a) the whole product is expensive so $200 to $1000 for the chip is acceptable, and b) Intel has huge advantages in that space and little competition So Intel can afford to do the R&D to stay ahead of the curve and keep their position  When your smartphone chip sells for $25 you can't do the R&D to leapfrog a company that sells Xeons for $1000 and Core i5's for $200 
I am happy to see Kanter here at Ars, I like his writing and he maintains Real World Tech, where Linus Torvalds often shows up to comment on CPU arch and other interesting topics 
ggeezz wrote:renoX wrote:gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Money and momentum, the x86 market is a huge money maker for Intel so it is able to recoup its huge investments for advanced foundries Exactly and I would clarify that it's all about margins, the difference between what it costs to make a chip and what it sells for  The margins for desktop and server processors is huge because a) the whole product is expensive so $200 to $1000 for the chip is acceptable, and b) Intel has huge advantages in that space and little competition So Intel can afford to do the R&D to stay ahead of the curve and keep their position  When your smartphone chip sells for $25 you can't do the R&D to leapfrog a company that sells Xeons for $1000 and Core i5's for $200 Spot on Intel are able to piggyback other development efforts off the highly lucrative mainstream x86 market which generates the huge sums of money to fund their amazing fab technology The question for the future is how the economics will stack up when overall device costs fall significantly and there is a big downward pressure on SoC prices  In that situation, can Intel still justify bringing their A-game to a market where products are essentially commoditised and you have processors selling for a only a few dollars each?The lesson from their previous involvement in the DRAM market is that they probably won't want to be involved because there isn't enough money to be made to justify manufacturing phone SoCs on a cutting edge, or near cutting edge process  In that scenario, Intel may not totally abandon the market but they might just stick to manufacturing SoCs on nodes that are a step or two behind the state of the art 
solomonrex wrote:I don't think your horizontal market development theory is supported by facts  Samsung and Apple are more vertically oriented than their competition, for starters  I know this article is narrowly focused on the hardware, but MS and Intel getting into hardware, Amazon getting into hardware, Google buying Moto, this is all vertical integration  How can you support the idea that this trend will be reversed with no real justification? I'm sure mobile chips will continue to specialize, but I don't think this means what you think it means  Automobile companies started making their own engines and with rare exceptions, never went back to being more horizontal  Same with retail and their store brands  Same with cloud companies and their servers  Same with mobile companies and their OSs  The horizontal market of PCs created by long-lasting standards and loose hegemony is the exception, not the norm Yea, each year Amazon, MS, Apple and Google look more and more the same 
Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Intel's called Chipzilla for a reason up
Lagrange wrote:The question for the future is how the economics will stack up when overall device costs fall significantly and there is a big downward pressure on SoC prices  In that situation, can Intel still justify bringing their A-game to a market where products are essentially commoditised and you have processors selling for a only a few dollars each?The lesson from their previous involvement in the DRAM market is that they probably won't want to be involved because there isn't enough money to be made to justify manufacturing phone SoCs on a cutting edge, or near cutting edge process  In that scenario, Intel may not totally abandon the market but they might just stick to manufacturing SoCs on nodes that are a step or two behind the state of the art I think the processing is a bigger advantage than many realize  If Intel can stay ahead in process design - which this article seems to indicate - they should have a major advantage  All else being equal a 14nm chip should be significantly faster and more efficient than the same chip at 22nm  Add in the fact that yields increase geometrically - you can fit a lot more 14nm chips on a given wafer size vs 22nm (or 32nm for the other manufacturers ) and you have a very appealing proposition  And then add in the fact that Intel actually has a pretty good graphics stack and IP  It's not a sure thing by any means, but I suspect ARM may have just prodded a sleeping giant edit: Also worth noting, Intel, TSMC, and Samsung are the only manufacturers who are building out 450nm wafers  This will increase yields dramatically  Of course Samsung and TSMC will build ARM out, but it definitely puts quite a bit of pressure on all other manufacturers  As the article mentions Intel and Samsung are the only ones who control production top to bottom, and Samsung must share some of the benefits with ARM 
As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP 
Last edited by paul5ra on Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:06 am
introiboad wrote:I am happy to see Kanter here at Ars, I like his writing and he maintains Real World Tech, where Linus Torvalds often shows up to comment on CPU arch and other interesting topics Indeed  Most tech writing in this area is atrocious  This piece is one of the few well informed articles I've read in a long time 
ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that The word you're looking for is Haswell, as far as I know 
Mabsark
ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that Actually, that trend will not simply keep increasing going forward  The reason desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing is due to the fact that most people already have one and therefore don't need to buy another one  The exact same thing will happen with tablets as well  Sales are increasing now because people without tablets are buying them  When most people already own a tablet, they won't be buying a new one every year and therefore sales will stagnate/decrease The PC market is saturated and in a couple of years, the tablet market will be saturated too  Basically, in order to increase sales in a saturated market, you need to increase the population growth or decrease the longevity of the product 
gypsumfantastic wrote:Why wouldn't the foundries be able close the process gap with Intel? Is it a matter of money? Scale?Probably a mix of a lot of things  One big thing was during this recession, Intel was the ONLY fab company that didn't scale back their R&D  That alone gave Intel a large advantage Intel has almost always been ahead  One of the reasons could be that Intel works with much higher margins than many of the commodity companies like Samsung and TSMC Outside of the P4 flop and some of the monopolistic abuses, Intel has typically been selling to high end customers that are willing to pay a premium for "the best" Intel has a large benefit of having a relatively "good name" when it comes to CPUs, so they can effectively charge a brand-name premium I'm sure there are other reasons, and probably better reasons, but these are the main ones that I think of 
Mabsark wrote:Actually, that trend will not simply keep increasing going forward  The reason desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing is due to the fact that most people already have one and therefore don't need to buy another one  The exact same thing will happen with tablets as well  Sales are increasing now because people without tablets are buying them  When most people already own a tablet, they won't be buying a new one every year and therefore sales will stagnate/decrease The PC market is saturated and in a couple of years, the tablet market will be saturated too  Basically, in order to increase sales in a saturated market, you need to increase the population growth or decrease the longevity of the product That's true as long as most people are still buying both a tablet and a laptop when each needs to be replaced  I think the assumption is that, as you say, the tablet market will saturate, with people just replacing existing ones, but the desktop/laptop market could decrease much farther than that, if most people stop replacing them at all  I'm not sure of the likelihood of that, but I think that's where this idea comes from 
ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that The upcoming Haswell chip is showing to consume 1/3 the power of IvyBridge at peak, consumes 1/20th the power at idle, all the while maintaining Identical or better performance This chip should actually compete with ARM CPUs on both power/performance and idle I am expecting a large war 
Apple once again is dictating the performance in the mobile industry  Nice to see others being able to keep the pace, as well 
paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then Yeah, and most of the innovation in the automobile industry came about before Henry Ford came into the business  Doesn't change the fact that cars would probably have been an asterisk in the history books under "toys for rich people" if it weren't for him The same applies to to mobile computing for Apple, Samsung, et al 
SheldonRoss wrote:Lagrange wrote:The question for the future is how the economics will stack up when overall device costs fall significantly and there is a big downward pressure on SoC prices  In that situation, can Intel still justify bringing their A-game to a market where products are essentially commoditised and you have processors selling for a only a few dollars each?The lesson from their previous involvement in the DRAM market is that they probably won't want to be involved because there isn't enough money to be made to justify manufacturing phone SoCs on a cutting edge, or near cutting edge process  In that scenario, Intel may not totally abandon the market but they might just stick to manufacturing SoCs on nodes that are a step or two behind the state of the art I think the processing is a bigger advantage than many realize  If Intel can stay ahead in process design - which this article seems to indicate - they should have a major advantage  All else being equal a 14nm chip should be significantly faster and more efficient than the same chip at 22nm  Add in the fact that yields increase geometrically - you can fit a lot more 14nm chips on a given wafer size vs 22nm (or 32nm for the other manufacturers ) and you have a very appealing proposition  And then add in the fact that Intel actually has a pretty good graphics stack and IP  My point was that Intel might have a one or two process advantage over the rest of the industry at the cutting edge but that doesn't mean that they can afford to manufacture on those processes for very low margin parts  If the SoC market becomes increasingly commoditised, there isn't going to be the money to justify making them in a state of the art fab Remember that one of the big selling points of Itanium was that it would make use of process advantages that were effectively paid for by the mainstream x86 market  That didn't quite work out in practice and Itanium processors were often well behind Xeons in process technology 
paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP Just goes to show that people who have worked in an industry for a long time don't always understand what that industry is doing You haven't been working in it long enough to seem to know that it was Acorn and Apple that invented the mobile ARM CPU in the first place  All those companies you've mentioned have just been working off Acorn and Apple's pioneering work  Now, Apple is back at it again, very successfully, and all the companies you mentioned that produce chips with ARM IP in them are licensing them from the company Acorn and Apple formed—ARM 
Last edited by melgross on Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:13 am
Mark Havel wrote:ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that The word you're looking for is Haswell, as far as I know If tablets move into the $100-200 range, is there going to be room for Haswell?So long as there is a higher-end tablet market, then Haswell will be able to shine, but it's going to be a much more powerful and costly part than the sort of ARM based hardware that often runs tablets  If we see a race to the bottom where price is the dominant motivator behind purchases, then a high performance SoC will struggle to make its mark 
melgross wrote:paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP Just goes to show that people who have worked in an industry for a long time don't always understand what that industry is doing You haven't been working in it long enough to seem to know that it was Acorn and Apple that invented the mobile ARM CPU in the first place  All those companies you've mentioned have just been working off Acorn and Apple's pioneering work  Now, Apple is back at it again, very successfully, and all the companies you mentioned that produce chips with ARM IP in them are licensing them from the company Acorn and Apple formed—ARM Of course I realise ARM IP has indeed been a major driving factor too (though only one if several architectures before ARM became dominant), though I see ARM's influence on the mobile industry as having nothing to do with modern day Apple and only one small piece of the puzzle  My point is that the hard electrical engineering, mathematics, DSP, semiconductor physics/chemistry, RF engineering, analogue design, CAD etc  that make modern telecommunications possible has very little to do with the fashion companies who consumers (and unfortunately much of the tech media) associate with it and give the credit (though in this respect Samsung does deserve a bit more credit for their work on NAND flash and displays)  The industry simply would not exist TODAY without the overwhelming horizontal integration that already dominates 
Quote:In the long term, mobile devices are likely to evolve similarly to the PC and favor a horizontal business model  The real advantage is one of flexibility; as costs drop and the market expands, it will be increasingly necessary for vendors like HTC to offer a wide range of phones based on radically different SoCs  You don't mention in the article that each SoC necessarily requires a bit of parallel dev work unlike the PC  In the PC world there is a standard BIOS and HW architecture that allows for pluggable designs  On a highly integrated SoC this is untrue  HTC suffers because it has to support radically different SoCs, their drivers and boot loaders, etc  Quote:While a vertically integrated company like Apple can focus and maintain leadership in a specific (and highly lucrative) niche, it would be very difficult to expand in many growing areas of the market  The differences between an iPhone 6 and a $20 feature phone are tremendous and would be very difficult for a single company to bridge It's only difficult because Apple chooses to ignore that market, not because they can't  If they can release a $99 Apple TV, they can surely cobble together a $20 feature phone if they chose to eschew 8GB of NAND, BT, WiFi, a specialized dock connector, LTE, and their specialized processors  In other words, build the equivalent of an iPod shuffle with a horrible screen and no OS to speak of 
paul5ra wrote:melgross wrote:paul5ra wrote:As someone who has worked in the semiconductor industry for longer than contemporary fanboys have existed, I'm getting a bit fed-up seeing many of these articles which rewrite history with analyses distorted by the lens of the contemporary Apple or Samsung fanboy The mobile industry moved to horizontal integration a long time ago  Better indicators than these odd contemporary obsessions with the relatively non-innovative Samsung and Apple where when Motorola spun out its semiconductor division as Freescale, Nokia stopped making it's own custom designs with TI and ST, and Ericsson spun out it's Ericsson Mobile Platforms division and formed ST-Ericsson with ST The true innovation in the mobile market was done a decade or more ago mainly by Moto/Nokia/Ericsson/TI/Qualcomm, and Samsung and Apple had little to do with it  Under the hood most stuff has been on a simple linear evolutionary path by the SoC providers since then  The phone manufacturers have then mainly been simply sticking these off-the-shelf SoCs (and their included low-level software stacks) in a box, a job made all the easier with the SoC manufacturer collaboration providing the bulk of the work for the AOSP Just goes to show that people who have worked in an industry for a long time don't always understand what that industry is doing You haven't been working in it long enough to seem to know that it was Acorn and Apple that invented the mobile ARM CPU in the first place  All those companies you've mentioned have just been working off Acorn and Apple's pioneering work  Now, Apple is back at it again, very successfully, and all the companies you mentioned that produce chips with ARM IP in them are licensing them from the company Acorn and Apple formed—ARM Of course I realise ARM IP has indeed been a major driving factor too (though only one if several architectures before ARM became dominant), though I see ARM's influence on the mobile industry as having nothing to do with modern day Apple and only one piece of the puzzle  My point is that the hard electrical engineering, mathematics, DSP, semiconductor physics/chemistry, RF engineering, analogue design,etc  that make modern telecommunications possible has very little to do with the fashion companies who consumers (and unfortunately much of the tech media) associate with it and give the credit (though in this respect Samsung does deserve a bit more credit for their work on NAND flash and displays)  The industry simply would not exist TODAY without the overwhelming horizontal integration that already dominates Yes the efforts of these companies getting cellular communications standardized were immense  And the technology matured  And then they didn't do much with it  It took some youngin's to look at the problem fresh and add the UI that make today's smartphones work  As we have all seen, the moment your technology has matured is the moment you are screwed because someone else now has the opportunity to look at it as a black box and make something new  Each of those manufacturers knew that smartphones would eventually be awesome, but none of them had the UI and software design to make a truly breakout product  Imagine if Motorola would have been smart enough to buy the Android guys instead of Google  Instead, Google bought a bunch of patents on that cellular black box to try to defend it's platform And when you think about it, which consumes more man years of engineering effort per year at this point     iterating that cellular black box or developing the OS, services and apps that power today's smartphones?
Intel had better decide that they are competing in this space "for real", or they are screwed  They've already let the Atom languish for five years, during which ARM has completely caught up in performance Just like Tim Cook said, if you don't cannibalize your own markets someone else will do it for you Whether Intel will embrace that concept in time remains to be seen  Personally, I hope they don't; if Intel transforms into a chipless Fab company (like TSMC) everyone benefits 
I still think Samsung has the advantage long term because they have both the SOC and the memory products  As mentioned in the article, TSV's (Through Silicon Via's) are going to be quite a disruption  Today, people normally stack an LPDDR2 package on top of their SOC package (POP or Package On Package)  Within the LPDDR2 package, you could have a stack of DRAM die typically with wire bonding connecting the die within the package Once you more to TSV's, you can have a LOT more connections between the SOC and its DRAM's  While this is being standardized through JEDEC (http://www jedec org/category/technolog     a/3d-ics-0), Samsung has all the pieces in house to do whatever they want  You could see a 512 bit or higher bus from the SOC to the memory  The trick is that the memory and the SOC need to line up with each other when you stack them  This gives Samsung an inherent advantage This isn't just going to impact mobile either  Take a look at that JEDEC link  It also lists High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)  This is a 1024 bit bus that provides 128GBytes/s to 256GBytes/s of bandwidth to a stack of up to 8 DRAM's  Here is your processor that includes 8-16 cores and 4GBytes of really, really, fast DRAM    No DIMMs required  How many of them do you want in your server rack?If I was Intel or Apple, I would be thinking seriously about making some investments in Micron to guarantee they make some compelling DRAM's to integrate with their SOC's and processors    otherwise Samsung is going to blow them out of the water on bandwidth 
Great_Scott wrote:Intel had better decide that they are competing in this space "for real", or they are screwed  They've already let the Atom languish for five years, during which ARM has completely caught up in performance Just like Tim Cook said, if you don't cannibalize your own markets someone else will do it for you Whether Intel will embrace that concept in time remains to be seen  Personally, I hope they don't; if Intel transforms into a chipless Fab company (like TSMC) everyone benefits It's true that Atom has stood still for too long, but honestly it's pretty amazing how Atom is still competitive with current ARM chips  The Z2760 is even 32nm vs 28nm of the latest Krait and A15 chips But that's all changing with Atom moving to the tick tock schedule this year  It wouldn't even surprise me to see Apple move to Intel chips for IOS And I don't see how Intel moving to a chipless Fab company would help everyone  It certainly wouldn't help Intel 
Mabsark wrote:ggeezz wrote:Intel cannot abandon the phone/tablet market  Desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing and phones/tablets are on the rise  This trend is only going to increase going forward But you're right, they're going to have use their fabs that are a step or two behind the cutting the edge  But they're going to have to up their game in the tablet space to even be able to do that Actually, that trend will not simply keep increasing going forward  The reason desktop/laptop sales are stagnating/decreasing is due to the fact that most people already have one and therefore don't need to buy another one  The exact same thing will happen with tablets as well  Sales are increasing now because people without tablets are buying them  When most people already own a tablet, they won't be buying a new one every year and therefore sales will stagnate/decrease The PC market is saturated and in a couple of years, the tablet market will be saturated too  Basically, in order to increase sales in a saturated market, you need to increase the population growth or decrease the longevity of the product Yes and no  I'm not sure the tablet market will saturate in a "couple of years " It may be more like 5 years  But that's a quibble Here's the real issue  Right now Apple wants you to own an iPhone AND iPad AND Macbook AND iWatch AND Apple TV  Microsoft, OTOH, is making the Surface so that you could ditch your laptop and just use a Surface  Not everyone, but some people If 5 years from now, we're in a world where a significant number of people use a Surface-type device instead of a laptop, then the PC market is going to contract significantly  Maybe some of the tablet-like devices will use moderately expensive Intel chips, but some of them are going to use cheaper chips 
GravyGraphics wrote:I still think Samsung has the advantage long term because they have both the SOC and the memory products  As mentioned in the article, TSV's (Through Silicon Via's) are going to be quite a disruption  Today, people normally stack an LPDDR2 package on top of their SOC package (POP or Package On Package)  Within the LPDDR2 package, you could have a stack of DRAM die typically with wire bonding connecting the die within the package Once you more to TSV's, you can have a LOT more connections between the SOC and its DRAM's  While this is being standardized through JEDEC (http://www jedec org/category/technolog     a/3d-ics-0), Samsung has all the pieces in house to do whatever they want  You could see a 512 bit or higher bus from the SOC to the memory  The trick is that the memory and the SOC need to line up with each other when you stack them  This gives Samsung an inherent advantage This isn't just going to impact mobile either  Take a look at that JEDEC link  It also lists High Bandwidth Memory (HBM)  This is a 1024 bit bus that provides 128GBytes/s to 256GBytes/s of bandwidth to a stack of up to 8 DRAM's  Here is your processor that includes 8-16 cores and 4GBytes of really, really, fast DRAM    No DIMMs required  How many of them do you want in your server rack?If I was Intel or Apple, I would be thinking seriously about making some investments in Micron to guarantee they make some compelling DRAM's to integrate with their SOC's and processors    otherwise Samsung is going to blow them out of the water on bandwidth Why not AMD? Last I checked they still made memory   and processors/GPUs 
Context 3:  When he skipped class he would usually sleep in his car 
Taylor's life consists of working (where to the best of our knowledge) he does well, he is reliable and his employer likes him  When he comes home from work he either sleeps or plays video games or other games - such as kakuro  He spendes most of his time in the basement where his bedroom is and this is where he games  Taylor owns his own car, bought his own laptop and very rarely spends money  He pays us $200 /month to still live at home, unloads the dishwasher on a regular basis and does the weekly garbage  However, his room is a mess and he only cleans his bathroom when I tell him he needs to clean it 
Taylor used to read quite a bit and loved to learn  It has just been in his adult years that he has not read as much - I think because of his gaming addiction  Taylor goes to church on a regular basis but sleeps through the main meeting  In Sunday class room settings he stays awake - I think because he is able to particpate in discussions 
Taylor has only had 2 real friends since entering Junior High school  And as of now he only keeps in contact with one of them who still lives in Georgia  We have lived in Utah since the summer of 2007 and he has never had a friend to do things with since we have lived here  He has two younger siblings, a brother 22 and a sister 20  They love Taylor and spend time with him when they are home  They are both at college and doing well 
Throughout Taylor's school years he has seen a counsleor on a fairly regular basis  One summer during junior high he attended a weekly class where he interacted with other kids with Aspergers  We did see a lot of change in him from this group  After he returned from his mission he went to see a counselor for a short period - this counselor tried to help him with some social skills  His dad and I went with him the first 3 or 4 times but we found out that after we quit going with him he only went a few more times and then scheduled appointments but did not show a couple of the times  We only found this out when a bill came for a "no show" appointment 
I don't know if this is too much information but were are in dire need of help for him  In the information that we purchased from you you mentioned that you do coaching for Aspergers adults  I don't know if you can help us but I thought I would check with you just in case 
Alas I think I have found your information too late to save my marriage but I am hoping to save myself 
I am currently going through a very very painful separation after a 27 year relationship with my husband whom I am convinced has aspergers syndrome  It is a long and painful story and I am desperately trying to process it all alongside dealing with a very conflictual separation  My partner is angry non communicative and totally dismissive of me and our long shared history 
He walked out last year after I discovered he had been visiting massage parlours and developed a relationship with an illegal Chinese escourt whom he subsequently moved in with  He had been seeing this woman behind my back for over 18 months  The pain of all this indescribable and his dismissal of my pain and very existence beyond belief 
Leading up to this I had been battling anxiety and depression which my husband found very hard to cope with 
Over the years of our relationship I knew something was off but I just could not put my finger on it  I often felt a complete lack of validation and empathy  Communication was also difficult as my husband was defensive and unwilling to look at issues in our marriage 
Please Mark could you help me validate some of this pain and try and make dense of 27 years of my life without drowning in fear guilt and despair about my future 
Thank you for listening and your site 
I have had problems with drunkenness, being late for school, not handing in school work, buying pot from a dealer etc  I chose to focus on the drinking and did the grounding then (grounding happened 3 times)  I also stopped sleep overs at friends 100%  I have stopped handing out money for no reason or even buying treats like chocolate 
I did lose it one evening (and didn't do the poker face) when I was trying to unplug the internet at midnight on a school night (she’s always late for school so I am trying to get her to sleep at a reasonable hour)  I was physically stopped and pushed around so I slapped my daughter (it was not hard)  This ended up with her saying she didn’t want to come home (the next day after school)  By this stage, I also had enough and didn’t go get her  I thought I am not begging  You will run out of money soon  It was quite a relief to have some peace  Daughter’s Dad was in town (from another country) and called a family meeting with the counsellor  To cut a long story short, daughter and her counsellor put it on the table that daughter wants to go live somewhere else (with her friends family) because of the stress at home with me (we live on our own) (i e  stricter rules and her bucking up against it) 
I didn’t really want this but made a compromise that daughter would go there Tues morning – Friday afternoon as the friend is an A student whereas my daughter is failing  They do the same subjects  I made the decision at the end of the day based on what is good for me – some time away from the daughter  I also thought of your book when the child went to live with the grandparents – daughter will dig her own hole over at the friend’s house  They have a week day no going out policy which made me think it is OK  I went and discussed with them the problems experienced (drinking, pot, late nights, not handing in work)
I am also trying to follow the let go of school thing per your book  I find it really difficult to remain calm when I can see daughter on her phone and watching series (when I have her on the weekends) when I know there are projects due  I hired her a private tutor once a week for help with a subject  The tutor has just fired my daughter for not handing in work and being not committed  It’s not the first time private tutoring has not been appreciated  The school give me a report back on a Friday as to whether everything is handed in  The deal is – if the work is not handed in – no pocket money and no Friday night out)  Her school is a "progressive" school and there are no repercussions for her being late or not handing in work  I would change schools if I could but there are only 8 months left of school (she turns 18 in August) 
We have just completed the first week and beginning week two of your material  We are agreeing with your take and see our son and ourselves in most of what you are saying  Prior to finding your material and starting your program we had been having extreme out of control behaviors and had to call the police because he was breaking things in our house and pushed my husband  This happened three weeks ago  After that incident we took away privileges ie  PS4, phone (which had already been taken for a few days), and friends  So, last week while doing your program he already didn’t have privileges and has continued with poor behavior – name calling, throwing things, slamming doors  We are not sure when to give privileges back  He has been given the privilege of playing with friends on occasion  His 13th birthday is tomorrow  This past weekend, for his birthday my husband and he went boar hunting  Of course we debated about it but decided to go ahead since it was his bday  We are cooking some of the meet on the grill tomorrow night for his bday and inviting a couple of his friends over for a cookout  No more gifts other than cards and balloons  We are wondering if we should go ahead and give him his privileges back and not sure how to do it  Last Friday morning we attempted to talk giving him a date to return privileges and that conversation ended with him getting angry but he gathered from our conversation that he is getting his stuff back on his bday  We are starting week 2 assignments today but not sure how to handle what was already in place  Of course, we aren’t seeing the respect and responsibility we are looking for but realize it has been a long time  We were wanting him to pay for his phone and thought it might be a good time to introduce that idea  Allowing him to earn his phone  We expect that he will be angry with this idea and not sure how to implement 
My son and myself are interested in a inpatient Aspergers program  We line in Calif which is preferable  My son is very high functioning and was diagnosed dry late  He was eight years old  He has never been in or attended a full day of class  Partially due to depression,anxiety, and trouble with his ADHD also his aversion and being bullied and of course his Aspergers  He will not attend his freshmen year due to surgery on both Achilles' tendons from walking on his toes  With physical therapy he should be ready by his sophomore year! We all feel he needs in patient therapy to give him the tools on how to work with his issues in a structured setting and a place that will give him tools for the rest of his life 
In my utter desperation to find a way to get some help for my daughter's increasingly challenging behaviour I trawled the internet to see if I could find some strategies that would provide specific methods on dealing with teenagers with Asperger's syndrome  When I came across your website, I couldn't believe that every statement you made was exactly what I have been going through with my daughter  She has just turned 14 last week, and was diagnosed with Asperger's/ Autism Spectrum Disorder 15 months ago  I have already been seeing a child psychologist for the past five months, however the methods she has been advising have not been very effective 
Our main difficulty with our daughter is her overwhelming obsession to use her cell phone (and to a lesser extent her laptop) constantly  Without any restriction, she will be on it every minute of the day, and will be awake until the early hours every day  We have tried to incorporate her input around rules as to when she has to give in her phone, but she is unwilling to compromise on a time that she should give it to us, believing that she should have unlimited use  I believe she is unable to do any adequate study or homework, as she is constantly having to look at the phone  We have tried to put rules in place that she has to give in her phone and laptop on school nights at 22:15  If she is able to do this then she is given rewards, and if she doesn't then she knows that there will be consequences  The consequence has been restricted use the following day  However, this is usually where we fail, because taking her phone away from her results in tantrums, screaming, and even threatening to harm herself  This behaviour is relentless to the point where the whole family becomes deeply distressed, and inevitably results in her getting the phone back 
This obsession is affecting her schoolwork, and more severely her eyesight  She has become very shortsighted, and her eyesight continues to deteriorate as a result of holding the phone or laptop very close, and mostly in the dark without any lights on  My husband and I have a constant battle on our hands daily, in all areas of discipline with our daughter, but our main concern is that we have been unable to find a way to minimise this obsessive behaviour centred around her phone and laptop  Please can you provide some strategies that can help us specifically with this problem 
First of all, I thank you for developing this program and I am only at the first stage of assignment 1  I have loads of books I have bought, attended psychiatrists for my son and myself, family therapy, occupational therapy, begged and prayed for change but have been dealing with behavioural issues for so long I am definitely exhausted and resentful 
I am a mum to a 15 yr old boy with ASD, dyslexia, OCD and ODD  Sorry to focus on the labels but just to give you an idea of what I am dealing with  I also have a 13 yr old son whom finds his brother’s behaviours difficult, embarassing and challenging  My husband whom is not in great health ( he had a cerebral aneurysm clamped two years ago and has two further aneurysms that are inoperable so endures fatigue, headaches and stress)  We have however a pet cat that is very social and a calming influence in the home! I was fortunate enough to have loving parents but I lost both my mum and dad in 2008 and 2015  My inlaws are elderly and quite directly say they are too old to help us so it feels we are alone in dealing with the issues we have 
I am desperate for change as the household is one of stress and anger and I feel all the control lies in my son Patrick’s hands  I am hopeful your programme can make life better for all of us but I wonder if it is too early to ask you two questions?
The first lies with what to do when Patrick goes into my other son Brendan’s room and will either turn on a light when he is sleeping, yell when he is on his phone or create some disturbance  He will not leave the room when asked to do so and the situation always escalates into yelling and Brendan attempting to physically remove him  This happens regularly and always ends badly with doors slamming, my husband being woken and myself in tears feeling the lack of control and also I admit I seem to think “Why me?” which rationally I know is of no help 
The second problem is leaving the house for school  Patrick refuses personal hygiene (either morning or night) and any request to even brush his teeth is fraught with swearing and abuse  If I can get him to shower, he will watch the water roll down the drain and turn up the water really high temp (mu husband has had to turn down the thermostat on the hot water service) without so much as getting wet  My husband leaves for work at 6am but I leave at 745 to work as a nurse in a busy outpatients department in the Alfred Hospital (Melbourne)  My work is my sanity as it is a paid break from home but most days I am late which is causing considerable stress and anxiety not to mention my responsibility to do my job  Patrick simply refuses to leave the house and as much as I am tempted to just walk out and leave I know the house would be left unlocked and wonder if Patrick would even attend school  The time I need to leave is not negotiable but Patrick uses this to his advantage and seems to delight in stressing me out and subsequently speeding to work in a frazzled mess 
The interesting and frustrating element in all of this is that although he is socially isolated at school (he has no friends) and academically challenged his behaviour at school is not a problem  He is quiet and his teachers report he does his best and is compliant and well mannered  It is like a Jekyll and Hyde situation where another side of him at home is so angry and abusive yet at school this behaviour does not happen 
I’m Jackie, I now work primarily as a freelance tech writer, after starting my career in software development and moving on to teach IT to young adults at a variety of colleges and schools 
My freelance work is pretty varied and looks at many aspects of the computer industry as a whole, and I’ve just recently completed a piece which gives help and advice to anyone wanting to become a game designer, which you can read here: http://www gamedesigning org/become-a-game-designer/  It highlights the hard work and effort it takes to get into such a role, and also how you can further your career and continue to learn and improve as you go  I hope you’ll agree it shows that starting work in the industry takes dedication and skill and that becoming a game designer isn’t just a fly-by-night job!
If you’d be interested in sharing a quick mention of my work on your blog that would be really wonderful and I’d appreciate the chance to get my work out there to a wider audience  Alternatively, I’d be happy to write a short blurb or paragraph or two (or a longer piece - just let me know) highlighting the key points because I think some of your readers might get a lot of value from it 
My son just turned 15 and is a freshman in high school  Although this is his first year in a general ed environment, he is struggling with behaviors in school  He has meltdowns and does not express why he would have them until much later  Once we all know what caused it, the school will accommodate him and try to "change up" things so as not to cause his meltdown  Once that is resolved, another issue comes up and causes him to melt down  He is a high functioning and academically does well, when he wants to do the work  We battle at home over homework  He does not care how it is done, as long as he hands it in  He thinks failing a test is ok, at least he took the test  Homework is never on his mind when he gets home from school  If I never prompt him, he would never open is backpack  He can be aggressive but is never intentionally trying to hurt anyone  He may push over a chair in school, but it is not directed at anyone  We know how that in itself could hurt someone who gets hit by it though  He is defiant in that he only wants to do what interests him  He does not go out by himself (still immature), or abuse alcohol or drugs and never curses  He is a very funny kid and very talented  His main problems are task avoidance and seeking attention  He can be disrespectful to adults in that he is "cheeky" with them, trying to be funny or cute  And he has no "filters" 
I’ve just finished reading your Living with an Aspergers Partner ebook  I found it so informative, thank you 
You offered some personal advise, and i wanted to run a situation past you and seek your input as to a strategy for what to do next 
I’ve been seeing a guy for about 7 months now who I believe has Aspergers  I came to this conclusion months ago and I don’t think he realizes, (or acknowledges) although he is aware he has some traits 
He’s highly intelligent and successful, a pattern seeker, has a tendency to focus on the project to hand to the total exclusion of all else for as long sit takes (work or home) socially awkward (has learned coping strategies), sensitive to loud noise, high anxiety with control strategies, black and white thinking etc  He’s currently not working and I’ve seen a slow withdrawal over the last 6 weeks, including the need to ‘escape’ and leave a situation at least once 
He also has a bipolar ex overseas who has primary custody one daughter where there has been ongoing patterns of drama which has recently increased 
Over the past couple of months (since stopping work and drama increase) I’ve gone from being ‘wonderful’ in his eyes to him now being sorry and not having the ‘urge’ to spend close/intimate time with me and offering friendship  Since he shared that with me in a message he’s stonewalled and has retreated to the safety of minimal messages and talks about not knowing what best to say and not being able to find the right words somehow 
He’s a good kind man who I feel is struggling  I’m concerned about his anxiety and possibly the risk of depression  I’m fairly resilient and whilst i’m disappointed he doesn’t want to pursue a relationship with me, i’m concerned for him and his well being  One of his very few close friends is also just leaving the country to live overseas 
The strategy I’ve used so far is simply to back off and give him space  I’ve asked to take him up on an original offer he made to talk but haven’t pushed it  I also haven’t been aggressive or accusatory in the few messages i’ve sent 
Any advise you could give would be greatly appreciated,
Carli who is 10 years old and has had behavioral issues her whole life  The other night she came home very upset after having a conflict with a friend  She was at her friend's house and her and her friend wanted to get on the computer and the older sister was using it  Carli made up a story that someone was at the door to get the older sister off the computer  Her friend didn't understand that she was making up a story to get the sister off the computer  She got excited that someone was at the door and ran downstairs to answer the door  In the process of getting the door, she fell and yelled at Carli  Carli became extremely upset  She was able to control her feelings at her friend's house, but when she came home, she proceeded to cry extremely loudly for over an hour  Her dad spent most of that time with her, talking to her and trying to calm her down  After an hour, I asked him if he could please tell her to be more quiet because the other members of the household were trying to go to sleep 
My question is    how do I as the girlfriend, handle this? He did not like that I asked her to be quiet  We have a rule that if she is having bad behavior, and can't calm down in 5 minutes, he takes her out of the house because her yelling doesn't stop for a long time and is very upsetting to everyone in the household  I would like to ask him to do this with this kind of situation as well  Is this a reasonable request? His thought was that she shouldn't be made to calm down, because everyone handles being upset in a different way  But, she was literally sobbing and wailing very loudly 
My other question is should she have been told that if she wouldn't have lied, this wouldn't have happened? She has a history of lying and of not accepting responsibility for her actions  My boyfriend became very upset with me when I brought this up  He was being very sympathetic and understanding to her  I feel like he was giving her negative attention, and being an over indulgent parent by not putting his foot gown and saying, "you can't carry on like this, even though you are upset"  Please let me know how we can handle these situations better 
I am contacting you for help with adult AS  I am taking initiative to pre screen potential therapists to help my current boyfriend get therapy and help with Adult AS 
He has seen many therapists, but it seems like they aren’t really helping him with his problems  They don’t seem to understand how his (undiagnosed) AS would affect therapy approaches  For example, he may not share enough in therapy session and I’m assuming an AS therapist would recognize that is part of the AS and employ strategies to get information from him that helps with treatment  Sometime he tunes out when he is processing something heavy or that he doesn’t want to hear necessarily, or he gets distracted and I’m hoping an As therapist would recognize that and get that he may need repeated something for example, if this is happening 
He is currently suffering from depression that appears clinical in nature as well as reoccurring negative thoughts about something specific that has been worrying him about our relationship  Today he told me these reoccurring thoughts happen during all waking hours unless he watches TV, he never gets a break from them and they make him feel like he is going crazy  As his girlfriend, I am extremely concerned that he cannot get relief from these thoughts and that the therapists he is seeing are unable to help him with his problems  Therefore, I am taking initiative to try and help him find better therapy options, because I want to see him someone who can better help him get to the bottom of things and help him with the challenges he is facing  He really needs an advocate that will help him go deep to figure things out and not just assume therapies are working well, without seeing changes or getting supporting feedback from him in that regard 
Here are some questions I am trying to ask in advance to find the right people to help us with this  As you may know, insurance for these therapies are not often available  We don’t have a lot of money to go from therapist to therapist to find the right person and are hoping prescreening will help 
I recently downloaded your e-book and listened to your talks and your information is by far the most helpful I have been able to find to date  It's very accurately describes my situation as an NT wife married to a very probable AS husband  I think you for taking the time to write this and sharing your insights as well as the experiences of many of your clients  It has really helped me understand the last 32 years of our marriage and get a grasp on how to move forward 
One area that is of primary concern to me, that I did not see addressed, is stimming  I believe that is the behavior my husband is showing through constant vocal singing, repetition of words, shouting out, as well as slapping himself in the chest and general nervous activity  It is very loud and disruptive to our household and it is often a relief when he is not at home  I think there may be a level of Tourette's syndrome as well 
I did some searches on the Internet and could not find anything that really describes his behavior  Most of what I found was flapping or children's behavior  I understand that it is a release of nervous tension but I am really trying to find some strategies to help him stop this behavior as it is extremely frustrating and builds my resentment in dealing with it daily  A lot of it is embarrassing as well and sounds childish to me 
He usually does this when close family members are around and will reign himself in if he is around other people besides us  When we are home it is constant  He also has a lot of anger, mostly at himself, and blows up at unimportant things, it is as if he has a ton of negative energy inside him that need to get out and stimming is one outlet 
I will try to build my acceptance of it, but I also would just like him to stop especially the loudest and most annoying portions  Would you have any resources you could point me to?



ground_truth: Smartphones are more compact and power constrained.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What is the research opportunity that is mentioned?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 4: 
Senate Floor Amendments of 8/20/10 revise the statute of
limitations and remedies for specified housing-related
ANALYSIS : The Planning and Zoning Law requires cities
and counties to prepare and adopt a general plan, including
a housing element, to guide the future growth of a
community  Following a staggered statutory schedule,
cities and counties located within the territory of a
metropolitan planning organization (MPO) must revise their
housing elements every eight years, and cities and counties
in rural non-MPO regions must revise their housing elements
every five years  These five- and eight-year periods are
known as the housing element planning period 
Before each revision, each community is assigned its fair
share of housing for each income category through the
regional housing needs assessment (RHNA) process  A
housing element must identify and analyze existing and
projected housing needs, identify adequate sites with
appropriate zoning to meet its share of the RHNA, and
ensure that regulatory systems provide opportunities for,
and do not unduly constrain, housing development  The
reviews both draft and adopted housing elements to
determine whether or not they are in substantial compliance
with the law  The Planning and Zoning Law and the Subdivision Map Act
also includes a number of sections governing zoning and
entitlements specifically related to housing, including:
? The Housing Accountability Act, which requires a city or
county to make one or more specified findings in order to
disapprove a particular housing development 
? A provision requiring cities and counties, when adopting
an ordinance which limits the number of housing units
which may be constructed on an annual basis, to make
findings as to the public health, safety, and welfare
benefits that justify reducing the housing opportunities
of the region  ? Density bonus law, which requires cities and counties to
grant a developer a density bonus, incentives, and
concessions when the developer proposes to include
specified percentages of affordable housing within a
development  ? The Least Cost Zoning Law, which requires cities and AB 602
counties to designate and zone sufficient vacant land for
residential use with appropriate standards to meet
housing needs for all income categories and to contribute
to producing housing at the lowest possible cost 
? A requirement that, when determining whether to approve a
tentative subdivision map, a city or county shall apply
only those ordinances, policies, and standards in effect
as of the date the developer’s application is deemed
Prior to a recent court decision, it was understood that
current law allowed a party to challenge the adequacy of a
city’s or county’s housing element at any time during a
planning period, provided that the challenger brought the
action “in support of or to encourage or facilitate the
development of housing that would increase the community’s
supply of [affordable] housing ” The challenging party was
required first to serve the city or county with a notice
identifying the deficiencies in the housing element  After
60 days or the date on which the city or county took final
action in response to the notice, whichever occurred first,
the challenging party had one year to file the action in
court  This process and statute of limitations also
applied to actions brought pursuant to the housing-related
statutes listed above  In 2006 Urban Habitat Program brought suit to challenge the
City of Pleasanton’s housing policies, including the city’s
annual cap on housing permits and the city’s cap on the
aggregate number of permissible housing units, both of
which Urban Habitat claimed were insufficient to allow the
city to meet its RHNA obligation  In 2008, the First
District California Court of Appeals issued an unpublished
decision in the case of Urban Habitat Program v  City of
Pleasanton allowing the case to proceed with respect to
some causes of action, but ruling that the challenge to the
housing element itself was time-barred  The court stated:
Although the statute does not specify the time within
which [a deficiency] notice must be given, it is our
conclusion that the statute must be interpreted as
containing a time limit within which this requirement
must be met? In sum, a party bringing a challenge AB 602
governed by section 65009, subdivision (d), has 90
days from the date a legislative action is taken or
approval is given to notify the local land use
authority of any claimed deficiencies in such an
action or approval  Its claim then accrues 60 days
after it gives this notice 
In other words, instead of being able to initiate a
challenge to a deficient housing element at any time during
the planning period, housing advocates and other interested
parties may now only initiate such a challenge by
submitting a deficiency notice within 90 days of the
housing element’s adoption 
1 Removes from the current list of city or county actions
which may be challenged pursuant to Government Code 65009
notice and accrual provisions those actions related to
the Housing Accountability Act, the Subdivision Map Act,
and the application of a Density Bonus ordinance to a
particular project, all of which are project-specific
actions  The bill maintains the ability to use these
notice and accrual provisions to challenge the adequacy
of a city’s or county’s density bonus ordinance
2 Extends lengthening the time in which a deficiency notice
may be served to cover all remaining city or county
actions described in this section of law, as opposed to
just housing element challenges  In other words, the
amendments apply the longer timeframe to serve the
deficiency notice to actions relating to the Least Cost
Zoning Law, annual limits on housing permits, and the
adequacy of a density bonus ordinance, in addition to
housing element law  3 Provides that an entity challenging such an action in
support of affordable housing may serve the deficiency
notice up to five years after the city’s or county’s
action  After 60 days or the date on which the city or
county takes final action in response to the notice,
whichever occurs first, the challenging party has one
year to file an action in court, except that the lawsuit AB 602
may not be filed more than five years after the city’s or
county’s action  In other words, the entity must file
the lawsuit within one year of the expiration of the
deficiency notice or within five years of the city’s or
county’s action, whichever occurs first 
4 Provides that a housing element from a prior planning
period may not be challenged if the city or county has
adopted a revised housing element for the new planning
Government Code 65755   Current law requires a court, if it
finds any portion of a general plan, including a housing
element, out of compliance with the law, to include within
its order or judgment one or more of the following remedies
for any or all types of developments or any or all
geographic segments of the city or county until the city or
county has complied with the law:
? Suspend the authority of the city or county to
issue building permits 
grant zoning changes and/or variances 
grant subdivision map approvals 
? Mandate the approval of building permits for
residential housing that meet specified criteria 
? Mandate the approval of final subdivision maps for
housing projects that meet specified criteria 
? Mandate the approval of tentative subdivision maps
for residential housing projects that meet specified
This bill clarifies that in any action or proceeding
brought pursuant to the notice and accrual provisions of
Government Code Section 65009 described above, neither the
court remedies described above nor any injunction against
the development of a housing project shall abrogate,
impair, or otherwise interfere with the full exercise of
the rights and protections granted to an applicant for a
tentative map or a vesting tentative map under specified
provisions of the Subdivision Map Act or to a developer
under a specified provision relating to development AB 602
Under current law, HCD operates a number of grant programs
to which cities and counties may apply  In many cases, the
law requires a city or county to have an HCD-approved
housing element in order to be eligible for funding  This bill provides that if a third-party challenges the
adequacy of a housing element in court and the court finds
that the housing element substantially complies with all of
the requirements of housing element law, the element shall
be deemed to be in compliance for purposes of state housing
The statutory language interpreted by the court and at
issue in this bill was added to statute by AB 998 (Waters),
Chapter 1138, Statutes of 1983, a bill sponsored by the
League of California Cities and the California Building
Industry Association  AB 998 created a short statute of
limitations period for land use decisions generally but
provided a specific exception to protect the ability to
challenge deficient housing elements  The Senate Housing
and Land Use Committee and the Senate Third Reading
analysis of the bill stated that the bill:
Specifies that for challenges in support of low- and
moderate-income housing requirements, the petitioner
shall notice local government 60 days prior to filing
action  The [one-year] statute of limitations then
begins on the first day the legislative body fails to
In the intervening 25 years prior to the Urban Habitat
ruling, housing advocates filed and successfully settled at
least ten cases in which the 60-day deficiency notice was
sent more than 90 days after adoption of the city’s or
county’s housing element  In none of these cases was the
timeliness on the advocates’ suit contested  Likewise, six
bills amended other portions of this statute during those
intervening years, and there was never any controversy
surrounding the lack of a deadline for housing advocates to
serve a deficiency notice nor any attempt to change the AB 602
statute in this regard  Current level of housing element compliance   According to
HCD’s website as of June 7, 2010, only 46 percent of cities
and counties have adopted an HCD-approved housing element
for the current planning period that began in 2005 for the
San Diego region, 2008 for the Southern California, Fresno,
Kern, and Sacramento regions, and the summer of 2009 for
the remaining areas of the state  Unlocking the private market   The purpose of housing
element law is to create opportunities for the private
housing market to function  Builders cannot build without
access to appropriately zoned land, and current land use
plans in many cities and counties in California fail to
provide sufficient opportunities to accommodate projected
population growth  The San Diego Association of
Governments’ Regional Comprehensive Plan describes this
typical California paradox in the following way:
Under current plans and policies, more than 90 percent
of [the San Diego region’s] remaining vacant land
designated for housing is planned for densities of
less than one home per acre, and most is in the rural
back country areas dependent upon scarce groundwater
supplies  And of the remaining vacant land planned for
housing in the 18 incorporated cities, only about
seven percent is planned for multifamily housing  When
taken together, the current land use plans of the 19
local jurisdictions do not accommodate the amount of
growth anticipated in our region  SANDAG’s population
forecast, which reflects the current adopted local
land use plans in the region, projects that while
population will increase by 37 percent by 2030,
housing will grow by just 30 percent  The forecast
shows that if local plans are not changed, demand for
housing will continue to outpace the supply, just as
Housing element law addresses this problem directly by
requiring cities and counties to zone land at appropriate
densities to accommodate the projected housing needs of all
income groups and to remove constraints that prevent such
sites from being developed at the allowed densities  AB 602
Cities and counties, however, are not required to build
housing because that is the role of private developers 
The law holds cities and counties accountable only for that
which they control: zoning and land use entitlements 
Without the ability to enforce housing element law, the
market’s ability to meet housing demand may well remain
locked up 
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com : No
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/23/10)
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (co-source)
Housing California (co-source)
Advocates for Affordable Homes in Fremont
California Coalition for Rural Housing
Community Housing Improvement Program
Community Housing Works
Eden Housing
Fair Housing of Marin
Grassroots Leadership Network of Marin
Kennedy Commission
Public Advocates, Inc
San Diego Housing Federation
Self-Help Enterprises
Sierra Club of California
American Planning Association, California Chapter
JA:nl 8/23/10 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
pasoobserver says:	09/11/2010 at 11:17 pm
To whatisup — Thank you for your response to my comments  However, you failed to answer some of my questions that I mentioned to you  It’s almost like dealing with some City officials  They just let the public vent at their bimonthly council meetings  In my opinion, it’s difficult to deal with narcissism and arrogance  Over the years, there has been some very good input to our elected officials on how to proceed on the Nacimiento water pipeline,but it fell on deaf ears  You wanted me to answer some of your questions,but you did not answer some of my questions  Again, are you willing to subsidize new development?,Yes?or No?, are you willing to pay for a commodity that you are not receiving? Yes?or No? and another question for you  Are you willing to pay over 300% on your water bills within the five (5) year plan that the City has proposed? Also, the water rates will be subject to later increases too  By the way, I do concur with the city’s plan of “you pay for the amount of water units you use”  (748 gal=one unit)  However, the higher water rates are not good for our senior citizens on fixed incomes and other struggling families in our community  My first suggestion years ago was desalination  The response was it was too expensive  Of course, now it is more expensive  I would suggest that our elected officials recall the existing bonds (The bonds can be recalled early)  The City council can explain to the citizens in detail with financing of new bonds at a lower interest rate as of now for the sewer plant and Nacimiento water pipeline and present their new proposal in compliance with Proposition 218  Let the citizens of Paso VOTE on the financing bonds for their approval  Most of the citizens,that I had spoken to were not happy with the way our City Council handled the Nacimiento water pipeline project  The citizens of Paso didn’t give our City Council a “BLANK CHECK” for $176 million to spend without voter approval  I would suggest that it be a “special tax” or “an assessment” be levied on our property taxes  A percentage of those bonds can be deducted on Federal Income taxes  As it is now, a” fee” on a capital funding project is not deductible  Of course, there are homeowners would not go for this suggestion due to our poor economy  My analogy mentioned above would be, you would get something back on a “special tax” or an “assessment” verses nothing on a “fee”  What say you?
whatisup says:	09/12/2010 at 9:02 am
Unfortunately the law says we have to subsidize new development in California  I don’t like it, but it is the law  I know paying using the property taxes was bandied about  The argument against it was it would mean some would be paying for water they aren’t using and others could be big water users, but pay a small special assessment on their property taxes  I think the decision that was made to base it on usage was out of fairness  It seems to me if people are using water and not paying their share of the costs it is not fair  The Senior issue is very difficult  If someone is retired for twenty years is it realistic to think prices don’t go up during the 20 years of retirement  Think what prices were in 1990 compared to today  Should Seniors never have to pay for capital improvements? Paso Robles also had very low water rates  Rates that are no longer possible given the circumstances  Desalination will happen eventually  California is out of water  If you want to pay $1,000,000 a gallon there is no more allotable water of any consequence in California  The expense will be tremendous — still have to build a desalination plant, still have to build a pipeline  I don’t know if the plant has to be built along the ocean or if the salt water could be piped over to Paso Robles  If it has to be built along the ocean, Paso Robles doesn’t own land on the ocean and, in any case, the environmentalists will keep it in courts for years as they have done so for other proposed desalination plants in Southern California  Eventually necessity will force desalination past the environmentalists, but not yet 
pasojim says:	09/13/2010 at 7:46 am
Whatisup – On one of your previous post you made the comment you haven’t heard any of the legal suggestions for the water issue, But you obviously have  That is a good thing  So we can move the discussion ahead 
Once, again this was handled incorrectly by our city custodians from the beginning  And now here we are  The public is not supporting this very expensive, very limited benefit project  As you said, until a plan is developed that the public can support, things don’t look good 
All this discussion about the water issue has only reinforced my opinion the issue hasn’t been about water, only how the plan should be paid for  Or more specifically, to what extent do we allow our elected custodians and our un-elected GOD tzar decide which laws they will follow and which laws they will ignore  When the City GOD tzar tell citizens at a council meeting if we don’t agree with the City’s plan, then we should just sue him, and when the City Attorney explains to a citizen at a City Council meeting that she does have to respond to their questions because she does NOT work for them  When the project is voted down by the citizens and the council brings it right back up, it is clear that our elected representatives are not doing their job providing direction to their employees and listening to and representing the CITIZENS 
The subject of the original post was the need to elect different representation  I think with all the conversation made on this post, as well as the post on Cal Coast about the hiring of the new legal firm you were involved in, Supports my original opinion 



ground_truth: A study on the effects of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and psychotherapy on people with autism.