Pure speculation : the idea of open source sells. It's more appealing than the alternative.
The Sipeed Lichee Pi 4A coming with Debian pre-installed, is arguably the first consumer RISC-V device.
Qualcomm has good reason to focus on RISC-V. I'm expecting them to bring out SoCs as soon as they can. And with the Nuvia team, they have the design prowess to produce some very performant silicon.
I guess this is a fair indication then of how much Meta receives per person from advertisers...
What are your predictions on consumer hardware for the next decade in relation to RISC-V?
I had 2023 marked as the Year of the RISC-V SBC. But I think it's more than that : with the Lichee Pi coming with Debian pre-installed, and looking stable, RISC-V is on the verge of consumer-grade hardware. There are other devices from Sipeed, Pine64 and others too, of course, including laptops and tablets.
I think the real watershed will come in 2025/26 though. It's widely predicted that more powerful RISC-V processors will be ready by then.
We know that some Chinese tech organisations are working tirelessly on RISC-V, and I think we can expect to see them really pushing the technology. But Qualcomm, Broadcom, NXP etc. are going for it too. Qualcomm (feat. Nuvia) have real design prowess, and also have every reason to go RISC-V.
This is sad news. Condolences to his family and friends.
Perhaps at that point the consumer will opt for the repairable options.
A sign that the smartphone has reached maturity, I guess. People don't feel the imperative to upgrade any more. That's good for the planet!
Is this technology open source?
The hardware isn't the issue...
The problem comes when Apple decides not to upgrade the OS any more. Then, some time after that, the apps you like to use won't work.
Planned obsolescence : environmentally iniquitous.
What a remarkable bolt! Can it come and do my place when it's finished?
... so not much has changed in a hundred years then.
Or it could finally be the Year of Linux.