World's Fastest Computer Announced

[Edisonian]

IBM plans to announce today that it has built the world's fastest supercomputer, the Blue Gene/L. The new system inches by the speed record of 35.86 "teraflops," with a working speed of 36.01 teraflops (or trillions of calculations per second).

 

This is proof the US is not falling behind in the computer industry.

[Duke]

I had a feeling IBM would be anouncing a new super computer soon. I heard they are working with sony on the playstation3. Im not sure exactly what technology they are using; something to do with gel - but if any of this is true this new technology will make the Playstation3 about 20 times faster than the Xbox2. This is all just rumour by the way but it seems to fit together quite well.

[5614]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991157

ASCI White consists of 8,192 microprocessors and has as much memory as 50,000 personal computers. It could hardly fit on the average desktop, however. Located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the supercomputer occupies as much space as two basketball courts and weighs as much as 17 elephants

its the way forward, but it'll be a while before the average person can use it.

[Edisonian]

Hey, when is playstation 3 going to be released? I heard this coming Spring, but I did not hear the IBM was working on it too.

[drz]

IBM has been working on a CPU called the CELL, which if memory serves is supposed to be used in the PS3. See:

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/12/sony_ibm_cell/

 

Sony and IBM today said they will ship workstations based on the pair's upcoming Cell parallel processing chip in December.

The machines will be geared toward digital content creation, so we're essentially talking PlayStation 3 software development machines here.

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/03/12/sony_ibm_toshiba_team/

 

Sony, Toshiba and IBM are to co-operate on what they're calling a "supercomputer on a chip" and which to us sounds like the successor to the Emotion Engine processor currently driving the PlayStation 2.

 

I'm not sure when the ps3 is expected to be released, but sony expects the ps2 to be a competing system until 2010 or so. They have already slimmed it up, they will soon offer a model that appears to be thinner then the original playstation.

[Edisonian]

Thanks for the info on PlayStation 3. I can only imagine what future versions of PlayStation will be like. Another area of computer development that I find very interesting is computers made of biological material.

 

Once computers are small enough and biologically based, we should be able to use them to interact with our bodies.

[5614]

there is a company which allows you to interact with the screen.

 

it works with a few [not many] wires and thats it.

 

its meant to be far better than the eye-toy, and many major companies have tried to buy out this small "1 house" company for many millions of pounds, for some reason though they said no.

this is why no one has heard of the company.

[Firedragon52]

Once computers are small enough and biologically based, we should be able to use them to interact with our bodies.

Would you really want a computer permanently embedded in your body?

[drz]

people stick crazy stuff in there body as is, which has little to no functional worth.

 

Although I don't see the need in having some implant, unless you are seriously handicapped in some form.

 

At the same time, if technology progressed to the point where I could do a websearch from nearly anywhere, and find information I need, I could handle having some kinda chip in me.

[Lance]

I never thought I would see 'playstation' and 'world's fastest supercomputer' discussed in the same thread.

[drz]

well, if you think about it, when the ps2 was first released, it had one of the most advanced cpu's on the market.

 

I wouldn't so much think playstation, but more sony, as they have huge resources and have always been pioneering new technologies.

[Mad Mardigan]

But Microsoft has deeper pockets, so the XBOX could be a Craig supercomputer. lol

[Sayonara]

well, if you think about it, when the ps2 was first released, it had one of the most advanced cpu's on the market.

Errr... no it didn't. It uses a 294MHz processor.

 

What was 'advanced' about the PS2 when it was released was that it could perform operations that the existing consoles could not (that so called Emotion Engine and so forth), which was a lot more to do with the way they designed the O/S than it was to do with the CPU.

[rakuenso]

if a typical 2ghz pc was built solely for gaming purposes, it would blow away all the consoles

[Jordie]

IBM plans to announce today that it has built the world's fastest supercomputer' date=' the Blue Gene/L. The new system inches by the speed record of 35.86 "teraflops," with a working speed of 36.01 teraflops (or trillions of calculations per second).

 

This is proof the US is not falling behind in the computer industry.[/quote']

 

I am a computer programmer and I have never though the United States was falling behind when it comes to the computer industry. Since this thread is about computers have you guys seen the DNA based computers? I find it a very intresting topic. You can find more information about them here -> http://chronicle.com/data/articles.dir/art-44.dir/issue-14.dir/14a02301.htm

[drz]

sorry Sayo, once again my responding without thinking has got the best of me. WHat I meant was it was the most advanced in the console market.

 

Raku, yes and no. Take Need for Speed underground. ON a decent computer it blows ps2 out the water. However, you would have speant more money on the ram alone, or on the video card alone, then you would on the ps2.

 

Consoles are dedicated systems, whereas, no matter how much you build a pc for gaming purposes, it still uses system resources for other things. Also, the expense of a pc vs a console is out of proportion.

 

I mean, my graphics card costs more then a ps2 or an xbox.

[jsatan]

As Regarding cpu and gaming colsoles, the n64 was in its own team.

96mhz I think it was.

still rocked thou.

 

edit, as said before if a pc was built just for gamign it would rock, so true.

First get rid of windows and you're away. loll.,

nope its 93.75mhz

[ed84c]

whats the differents between a Hz and a flop?

[Perennial]

What sort of uses have they thought for the new thing ?

[maverick88]

I have heard about something like 57 teraflops

[maverick88]

I have heard about something like 57 teraflops

[fairychild]

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991157

The computer will be used by the US Department of Energy to simulate nuclear weapons tests. It was commissioned following a 1995 directive from former US president Bill Clinton requiring more stringent weapons testing.

curious, isnt it

[Verusamore]

More stringent weapons testing or was that more stringent weapons control ,yeah I'm curious.

[5614]

well, look at it this way, we have weapons of mass destruction, why not put a computer towards testing and controlling it?

 

what else can a supercomputer do that's as useful as possibly saving lifes in future war (as we'd know if it is safe to use etc.) like, at the moment, we'd use the weapons anyway, so whilst people would die, if we could properly control it, less people would die as it would be controlled in the area its aimed at, not off course etc.

[Verusamore]

Why not set the computer to do only 'good' things than 'evil' things , sure if it is powerful enough to do huge amounts of calculations then why not calculate alternate ways 0f saving people from having them resort to war, themore sensible way in saving lives .