Archives for January 2007

There’s a lot of odd stuff going on in supercomputing these days. Before long we’re going to need to start have primers in quantum mechanics at SC just to keep up with technology briefings. Speaking of the quantum, Fujitsu is getting closer to really small storage: With this latest patterned media announcement, Fujitsu has successfully […]

Ian Foster points to a video, on YouTube of all places, that addresses the why of supercomputing. If you’re struggling to explain what you do to your wife, point them to this video. Very high production value, and a very strong narrative. All professionally done. I’m impressed, and happy as a clam to see something […]

There is a lot of chatter on the web about grid computing again, but this time it’s not aimed at us, it’s aimed at the enterprise. This kind of grid computing is often conflated with server virtualization concepts, and is aimed a on demand provisioning and extremely high availability for transactional processing. Dan Ciruli has […]

This was announced way back on the 8th at CES and I missed it, but Xilinx demonstrated a 3-D hardware accelerator core targeted specifically for the automotive industry. From the release: High-end 3-D navigation, hybrid and reconfigurable clusters, multi-use center stack displays, and automotive infotainment require enhanced processing power as well as automotive qualified devices […]

A couple days ago I reported on a New York Times article addressing the potential adverse impact of the continuing resolution on science and computing in the research community. The Computing Research Association yesterday covered data released by the NSF detailing the impact of their effective $400M budget reduction: Reductions in programs will include: International […]

The fine folks over at Washington Technology had an article on Monday about Sun’s growing presence in the government, and DISA’s deal to rent Sun’s computers. There is an interesting quote from Scott McNealy (one of the founders of Sun): First of all, 37 percent of the world’s data is residing on the Sun platform, […]

Dan Ciruli has a pointer to a flash-based grid computing game at TryScience.org. In it, you control the world’s computer grid, and you have to prioritize the grid as it solves different scientific problems. Sure, it’s a fun diversion (turn down the volume a little on your computer before you go there). But it’s also […]

The AP yesterday carried news that HP is developing technology to create more powerful processors that consume less power than today’s chips using nanotechnology. Researchers say that excessive heating and nanoscale operational defects are deflecting technology off the Moore’s law doubling curve we’ve been on for decades. But HP researchers may have found a way […]

I don’t usually do financial news here, but I’m a Fool from way back, and I think it’s interesting that they’ve picked one of our companies to highlight. Motley Fool’s CAPS community forums have picked Cray as one of 7 previously “unloved” stocks that it recommends investors check out. From the article: So what’s making […]

Ian Foster points to an interesting article in IEEE Distributed Systems Online in which Matei Ripeanu notes that the top end of the list is growing slower than the bottom end: Thus, for example, the bottom 25 machines in the Top500, if aggregated together, would match only the #30 machine in 1993, but match the […]