Via comments on an entry about Fujitsu’s 3D image recognition chip, I came upon this Cadalyst article on visualization which like the commenter, points out the advantages of integrating CAD and traditional design visualization tools

The ability to turn a design drawing into a visualization that mimics reality is an invaluable tool for troubleshooting a design, convincing a nervous client or helping to promote a design firm’s capabilities. This segment of the CAD software industry continues to grow and evolve, with rendered visualizations becoming more sophisticated.

While this trend is indeed a positive one, it is fundamentally constrained by an exclusively designer-centric perspective. This view understandably stems from the historical hardware constraints which made customer/end user access to the CAD data prohibitively expensive. However, as can be seen in the high end, proprietary CAD/PLM offerings of Dassault, this tradeoff is not an inherent requirement. In a rhythmeering environment integration is needed for manufacturing, maintenance, supply chain, marketing analysis - throughout the complete product lifecycle. In order to achieve this level of deep integration, the underlying information models for CAD have to become features of the operating system and eventually the hardware. Open source platforms like Croquet point the way.

Along the way to hardware that is really fluid and adapable, software is weaving its way deeper and deeper into the hardware. A couple of writers envisioned the next near-term steps earlier this year:

… virtualization technologies should be pushed down further into the iron and sold in volume. In short, there should be some way to make these technologies a low-cost part of the system, … it should be made in an on-demand fashion, activated with a key for a nominal fee, complete with physical-to-virtual conversion tools and virtual-to-physical tools to undo the virtualization if customers decide to do that, too.

The Unix Guardian: Virtualization belongs in the system, not in the software

The effect of free, hardware based virtualization which is automatically there would make for very interesting x86 servers. Even more so with a few on-board, fully virtualized, multi-fabric I/O channels. Kind a baby mainframe.

Maybe it’s a crazy idea. Maybe its a vision of the future of computing.

Is this a crazy idea?

Now, in the aftermath of the VMWare IPO, we’re seeing it unfold.

“With virtualization, where you can run any operating system on top, it seems a lot more logical that it would be effectively a layer sitting on top of a server,” said Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff. “Why wouldn’t it be supplied with the server?”

XenSource announced XenExpress OEM Edition last week, and market leader VMware this week is announcing VMware ESX Server 3i at its VMworld conference. The products run from flash memory built into a server instead of being installed on the hard drive.

The embedded versions aren’t just a fantasy. VMware has partnerships with IBM, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Network Appliance. “We expect them to begin integrating ESX Server 3i into their servers later this year or early next,” a VMware representative said.

The move has strategic importance in these relatively early days of virtualization, elevating the profile of virtualization specialists’ products. Getting a foot in the door could help the virtualization specialists get a foot in the doors of customers who might be interested in higher-level products to manage the increasingly sophisticated computing infrastructure that can be built atop virtual machines.

Virtualization has been around for decades, but its inclusion in mainstream computers with x86 chips is bringing it out of the shadows. And the money is following.

Virtualization: A feature of the hardware, not the OS? | CNET News.com

There are a number of trends interrelated to this many of which are growing exponentially. Kansas has left the building.

Rhythmeering is inherently a multi-disciplinary field so these developments are important steps along the way

UC Berkeley’s dean of engineering is remaking the school’s program to attract new students. He’s mixing nanotech, biology and social engineering into the agenda.

… Berkeley isn’t alone in trying to mix in these types of subjects. Stanford University has opened its own design school. Chipmaker Intel, meanwhile, has hired anthropologists in recent years to get a better handle on how people, particularly in emerging nations, interact with technology.

CNET: Engineering A New Curriculum