It's still around $2.80 here in SoCal....meanwhile HiTech and commerce moves forward:
IBM Makes First Cell Computer Generally Available
Cell-Based BladeCenter System Poised to Boost Performance for New Applications in Aerospace, Oil & Gas and Medical Industries
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ARMONK, NY, Sep 12, 2006 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- IBM today announced that it is making its first computing system based on the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell BE) generally available on a global basis, with early adopters such as University of Manchester, RapidMind, Inc. and Fraunhofer Institute deploying compute-intensive applications on early ship versions.
The IBM BladeCenter QS20 is a Cell BE-based blade system designed for businesses that can benefit from high performance computing power and the unique capabilities of the Cell BE processor to run graphic-intensive applications. The IBM BladeCenter QS20 will expand the use of Cell into industries such as medical imaging, aerospace, defense, digital animation, communications and oil and gas -- with the ability to dramatically transform those industries.
Based on the Power Architecture, the Cell BE was originally developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba for use in gaming consoles. Cell BE's breakthrough multi-core architecture and ultra high-speed communications capabilities deliver vastly improved, real-time response effectively delivering 'supercomputer-like performance' by incorporating IBM's advanced multi-processing technologies usually reserved for the company's most sophisticated servers.
Beta versions of the IBM BladeCenter QS20 are already in use at customer sites across the U.S., as well as in the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, France, Japan and Korea.