Its recently been revealed that Toshiba is planning to use Sony PS3 technology in its upcoming TVs and Notebooks. The OC Register’s Gadgetress got her hands on the Toshiba’s Qosmio notebook (shown above), which will use the SpursEngine chip, jointly developed between Toshiba and Sony around the Cell. The processor will handle much of the video and multimedia processing, taking the load off the main CPU.
Our good friends over at Kotaku have posted this nugget of gold – Apparently the US Air Force has put in a requisition for 300 40GB Playstation 3 consoles.
Rather than actually use it for good, like playing GTA IV, watching Blu-ray movies or Folding at Home, the Air Force’s Research Laboratory plans on “conducting a technology assessment of certain cell processors”. In other words, using them for evil.
According to the Presolicitation notice found online, the PS3 is the only cell chip on the market that can be acquired at an acceptable cost. So obviously they won’t be buying their PS3s from Australia, then.
Sony always said that the PS3 wasn’t just a games machine. Now it’s a military research device as well. Hopefully future wars won’t all be controlled by a DualShock though.
Now that the war is over, you may be wondering what the future will hold for Toshiba. You may not, too, but yesterday at the local press event for HD DVD’s demise, Toshiba’s Australian General Manager Mark Whittard dropped some pretty big hints as to which direction Toshiba will be looking to move post-HD DVD. And as you could imagine, it isn’t Blu-ray.
He cited that one of the major influences in Toshiba’s decision to pull the plug, outside of Warner and Walmart’s decision to turn their backs on the format, was the rapidly growing demand for downloadable entertainment. The market for online content was growing faster than Toshiba had expected, and had severely reduced the lifespan of both next-gen disc formats.
IBM has successfully miniaturised the Cell processor that you know from Sony’s PlayStation 3. Formerly built upon the 65nm scale, the new version will be based on the 45nm high-k process. What’s this mean? Money, power and heat savings for Sony. And maybe a smaller or cheaper PS3 for you.
Sources say yes, apparently Sony has been canoodling with Toshiba over a possible sale of their chip manufacturing plants. The same ones where they currently produce the Cell used in the PS3. Although this would help Sony free up some always useful cash, around $860 million to be specific, and allow them to focus their efforts on other parts of the company like their gaming, digital camera and HDTV divisions. No other details were available, but we’ll keep you updated. [Reuters]
Sony’s showing off their Cell processor (“Cell Broadband Engine and RSX graphics processor) at SIGGRAPH this week. The demo will use the 230 GFLOP Cell and the arithmetic of the RSX processor, on a board that will fit inside of a 1U 19-inch rack, to do demos including processing of 4K images. [Sony]
If you’re interested in doing programming for the PS3, there’s no better way to learn the ins and outs of the system than by taking a course dedicated to the cell processor that’s offered at MIT.
The course is funded by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM, which means every student gets a PS3. Yeah, that’s right. That’s a lot better than the used copy of Beloved you got with your last English class, eh? Anyhow, the course focused on programming for a parallel processor, and they ended up making a 3D pong game over the course of the four-week class.
No, seriously, they got free PS3s. Stupid, lucky nerds. –Adam Frucci
GamePro [via The Raw Feed]
