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roadrunner
Roadrunner Military Supercomputer Sets Processing Record
Roadrunner, the IBM supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, manages 1.026 quadrillion calculations per seconds, also known as a Petaflop. Twice as fast as IBM's Blue Gene/L, the previous World's Fastest, the Roadrunner—also from the House of IBM, will be used, once classified, to solve military problems—such as making sure our proud nation's nuclear weapons will continue to work correctly as they age. Until classification, however, it will be used for important scientific problems, such as
Super Processors
Straight out of IBM's Zurich R&D labs are these concepts for semiconductor chips that are stacked on top of eachother and allow enough space in between for water cooling. Developed jointly with the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin, the '3D' stacking of these chips not only uses less space and allows for greater speed, but the water cooling technique could potentially take the generated heat and reuse it for other purposes. IBM says the water cooling structure is as thin as 50 microns and equal in complexity to the system of nerves and blood vessels in the human brain. Crazy stuff.[IBM via TG Daily via Engadget]
IBM Developing Water-cooled, '3D' Semiconductors
Straight out of IBM's Zurich R&D labs are these concepts for semiconductor chips that are stacked on top of eachother and allow enough space in between for water cooling. Developed jointly with the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin, the '3D' stacking of these chips not only uses less space and allows for greater speed, but the water cooling technique could potentially take the generated heat and reuse it for other purposes. IBM says the water cooling structure is as thin as 50 microns and equal in complexity to the system of nerves and blood vessels in the human brain. Crazy stuff.[IBM via TG Daily via Engadget]
solar power
IBM Boosts Solar Cell Efficiency Using Magnifying Trick
IBM's researchers have been busily beavering away trying to improve solar power technology, and they've just come up with a neat solution that uses a surprisingly simple technique: concentrator photovoltaics. In much the same way as kids use magnifying glasses to focus the sun on things to burn them (we all did that, didn't we?) the IBM boffins combined a large lens and a photovoltaic cell to focus a record-breaking 230 watts solar energy per square centimeter. That ends up producing about 70 watts of useful electric power, effectively creating a solar cell about five times more powerful than the cells commonly used in solar farms. More »
data
We have good news and bad news. The good news is that IBM is exploiting electrons to create memory with 100x the data density we see today. In terms of iPod, that's 500,000 songs. The bad news is that the technology won't be ready for 7+ years. Here's how it works:
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IBM Racetrack Memory To Boost Storage By 100x
We have good news and bad news. The good news is that IBM is exploiting electrons to create memory with 100x the data density we see today. In terms of iPod, that's 500,000 songs. The bad news is that the technology won't be ready for 7+ years. Here's how it works:
More »
supercomputer
IBM Mixes Water, Chips to Make Supercomputer And Cook Dinner Too
It might sound like a risky idea, but IBM's new Power 575 supercomputer uses a new system of chip-level water-cooling to keep its processors chilled. Nicknamed "Hydro Cluster", the machine actually uses 448 of the new 5GHz POWER6 processors. They must kick out a hefty heat load because IBM thinks there're eco-friendly uses for the spare hot water. Much like the Swiss town pool mentioned the other day, the suggestion is that it could be used for heating people's homes or even for cooking. Check out the video to see how IBM plans to take water even closer to the chip surface in the future. More »
speed
Scientists Build Optical Databus Capable of Tbps Transfers
IBM's new prototype 48-way optical databus takes up just 3 mm of width on a PCB, and is capable of a truly ridiculous data rate of around 8 Tbps. That's roughly 5,000 high-definition video streams per second, even if better has been done on fiber. Even better, this "green optical link" is a hundred times more power efficient than conventional electronic connections, so the environment benefits too. More »
skynet
IBM Kittyhawk to Host the Entire Internet, Eat the Planet with Fries
In what is a sure sign of recklessness and suicidal tendencies, IBM has decided to take us closer to Skynet with Kittyhawk, a global-scale shared supercomputer so enormously big, so gigantastically powerful that it will be able to run the entire internet as one application. Because that's exactly what the planet needs, a Skynet-like supercomputer with 67.1 million cores and 32 petabytes that could probably gain consciousness, take over a Large Hadron Collider and open a black hole to send us all to hell. Or discover the secret of eternal life and the perfect Margarita. Either way works for me.
[IBM via Wikinews]
laptops
Here's an interesting bit: The Lenovo x300 almost had the old IBM butterfly keyboard of old. This detail and others were revealed in a Businessweek cover story on the ultrathin, quickly being recognized as the antithesis to the Apple Air. The piece has a lot of other interesting background, like the above info graphic of a teardown with weight for each component. Also, it nearly had a 10-inch screen.
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Backstory and Teardown of the Lenovo X300 (Components By Weight!)
Here's an interesting bit: The Lenovo x300 almost had the old IBM butterfly keyboard of old. This detail and others were revealed in a Businessweek cover story on the ultrathin, quickly being recognized as the antithesis to the Apple Air. The piece has a lot of other interesting background, like the above info graphic of a teardown with weight for each component. Also, it nearly had a 10-inch screen.
More »
riches
IBM Says Storm Worm Creators Making Millions, Daily
The cunning masterminds behind the Storm worm are apparently rolling in great wealth. The boffins at IBM estimate the worm is netting just under $2 million per day for its creators. The Storm worm's financial success comes from the fact that it has successfully created a massive collection of autonomously running computers, a.k.a. a botnet, which can be used to launch profitable spam attacks. More »
ibm
The PS3 Processor Has Been Successfully Shrunk
IBM has successfully miniaturized 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. More »
line-up
We already gave you a spec-wise comparison of the Macbook Air and its prominent competitors, but The Usual Suspects—the Lenovo X300 (recently leaked), Sony TZ and Dell XPS m1330—are all back for a photo shoot. Jump for the fantastic line-up of the laptop bad boys bearing it all.
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Macbook Air and The Usual Suspects
We already gave you a spec-wise comparison of the Macbook Air and its prominent competitors, but The Usual Suspects—the Lenovo X300 (recently leaked), Sony TZ and Dell XPS m1330—are all back for a photo shoot. Jump for the fantastic line-up of the laptop bad boys bearing it all.
More »
ces 2008
IBM Wins Most Sexist and Degrading Promotional Device
I have so many issues with this LCD shirt that IBM is making women wear at CES, I don't know where to start. First off, they're instructed to say "Are you looking at my chest?" as people pass by. And supposing I do just that, why have her feminine curves been replaced with a grotesque bionic interface? Don't tell me this thing is a touchscreen. The end result is that I pay no attention to the ad at all. Sorry, IBM, there are some things technology can't improve. Spare this poor woman—bring back the sandwich board. [CES 2008] Thanks to Mark W. for that extra reporting!
roundup
Afternoon News: Harry Potter Is Too Close for Comfort, DirecTV Breaking Promises?, Best Buy's Profits Soar and More
• Daniel Radcliffe, a/k/a Harry Potter, just bought an apartment in Manhattan. Coincidentally, it's only four blocks from our NYC headquarters. Luckily we have our own Dark Lord Balthazaar to protect us from his spells. [Gridskipper]• Less than two weeks remain for DirecTV to add 15 more HD channels in order to reach their promise of 100 by the end of 2007. Hope you like the sound of Drying Paint HD, Growing Grass HD and Water Boiling HD, DirecTV customers. [Broadband Reports] [Thanks, Erin!!]
• Toshiba is joining IBM, AMD, Samsung, and others to work on 32nm chip technology. Now the alliance is just an wind, fire and heart away from summoning Captain Planet. [Reuters]
• XM Satellite Radio has settled its lawsuit with Universal Music Group over the time-shifting recording capabilities of XM's Inno player. Surprisingly, the terms still allow for the creation of more time-shifting devices. [Digital Trends]
• Best Buy's profits spiked 52% this quarter, due to fewer promotions on flat-panel TVs. Thanks a lot, Best Buy. [Market Watch]
mainframe
University Buries Its 47-Year-Old Mainframe Computer in a Touching Ceremony
When Betelgeuse, the University of Manitoba's 47-year-old mainframe computer, breathed its last recently, the computer science department turned out in full to pay their last respects. There's a corking video of the university's director of Administrative Systems, Marvin Kocay, eulogizing over the mainframe's demise, after the jump. More »
IBM Sues Asus For Patent Infringment
Infringments include designs found in "power supplies, computer cooling and computer clustering capabilities." [Reuters]
Infringments include designs found in "power supplies, computer cooling and computer clustering capabilities." [Reuters]
semiconductors
IBM Unleashes Photonic Supercomputer... On a Chip
Modern supercomputers are still at least 100 times faster than the crappy laptop you bought a week ago, and electrons are to blame. Today, IBM introduced a way to speed up the action on regular silicon chips by replacing the wiring with pulses of light, a technology called—what else?—silicon photonics. This method works for longer stretches requiring communication between cores, but it doesn't have a major impact in very tight spaces, so copper can still be used. This all may sound familiar, as it's essentially a teeny tiny version of today's fiberoptic networks. Now that you're kicking yourself about that laptop purchase, here's the good news: photonics won't be marketable on chips for another decade. [InfoWorld]
gross
