supercomputers
Science
Gifts For Science Nerds Who Love To Tinker
11:00AM Rosa Golijan | Meteorites, microscopes or mixing things to go boom. Your science nerd loves it all. Here are a couple of gift ideas for that space explorer, mad scientist or engineer in your life. More »
Hardware
It Takes 147,456 PowerPC Processors To Out-Think A Cat
4:01AM John Herrman | Also on IBM’s cat-sized-brain-simulation materials list: 143 terabytes of RAM, miles and miles of cabling, a million watts of electricity, 6675 tons of air-conditioning equipment and an acre of floor space. More »
Computers
New Fastest Supercomputer Also Has The Largest, Tackiest Case Mod
6:00AM Jesus Diaz | This is Jaguar, the new King of the Petaputerpower Hill, running at 1.75 petaflops-per-second. The Cray XT5 supercomputer was behind IBM’s Roadrunnner for more than a year, until some clever scientist decided to paint a running Jaguar all over it. More »
Science
How Much Power Does It Take To Simulate The Human Brain?
6:40AM Sean Fallon | Kwabena Boahen, a computer scientist at Stanford University, believes that it would require 10 megawatts to power a processor as smart as the human brain. His new “Neurogrid” supercomputer might be able to do it on only 20 watts. More »
Computers
SGI’s ‘Personal Supercomputer’ Handles 80 Cores, 1TB RAM
1:20AM Adam Frucci | SGI’s Octane II is a “personal supercomputer”, which isn’t to say it’s designed for you to play video games and check your email on. It’s just a supercomputer that garage physicists might be able to save up for. More »
Computers
IBM Sequoia: Faster Than the Fastest 500 Supercomputers, Combined
4:40AM Mark Wilson | 20 petaflops. That’s the speed rating of IBM’s slated Sequoia supercomputer, the future world’s fastest supercomputer that promises to be faster than every system on the Top500 supercomputer list, combined. More »
Science
Supercomputers Corroborate Einstein’s e=mc2 After 103 Years
9:56AM Jesus Diaz | Believe it or not, but it has taken 103 years and the combined power of various of the world’s top supercomputers to prove Eintein’s biggest equation right, resolving e=mc2 at the scale of sub-atomic particles. The feat has been achieved by a team of French, German, and Hungarian physicists led by Laurent Lellouch at the Centre for Theoretical Physics in France, and has finally answered a question that has puzzled scientists for decades: The Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Atom Mass! More »
Computers
IBM Roadrunner Tops Cray as the Official World’s Fastest Supercomputer
1:45AM Mark Wilson | It’s like a geek soap opera. Just last week, Cray bragged that their updated Jaguar XT supercomputer was the world’s fastest. Now this week, IBM responds to the trash talk with a number one ranking of their Roadrunner system on the newly published Top500 supercomputing list.
Computers
Cray XT Jaguar: The New World’s Fastest Supercomputer
12:20AM Mark Wilson | Pumping out a sustained 1.64 quadrillion mathematical calculations per second (1.64 petaflops) after a recent technological overhaul, the Cray XT Jaguar is now the world’s latest fastest supercomputer (huge disclaimer coming) for non-classified research. And once you see what’s under the hood, you’ll know why. More »
Science