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PlayStation 3 tackles world ills The PlayStation 3 is released in November The spare processing power of Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) will be harnessed by scientists trying to understand the cause of diseases like Alzheimer's.Sony has teamed up with US biologists who already run the distributed computing project, folding@home (FAH). The project harnesses the capacity of thousands of PCs to examine how the shape of proteins, critical to most biological functions, affect disease. FAH say a network of PS3's will allow performance similar to supercomputers. With 10,000 machines joined together the researchers calculate they should be able to do...

Macinteltosh is small beer compared with the PS3 WHILE THE PRESS brouhaha happily follows Apple about and co-conspirator Intel looks on, smugly hoping its tie-up with the much-loved computer maker will bring it some added kudos in its assault on the consumer electronics market, IBM, the giant ousted from the party, is getting on with business. Big Blue may have been dumped by Apple but its compensation is plentiful. Its Power chips form the heart of upcoming console offerings from Sony and Nintendo as well as the XBox from Microsoft. And let's face it, the press might like Apple and...

Since 2000, Folding@Home (FAH) has led to a major jump in the capabilities of molecular simulation. By joining together hundreds of thousands of PCs throughout the world, calculations which were previously considered impossible have now become routine. FAH has targeted the study of of protein folding and protein folding disease, and numerous scientific advances have come from the project. Now in 2006, we are looking forward to another major advance in capabilities. This advance utilizes the new Cell processor in Sony’s PLAYSTATION 3 (PS3) to achieve performance previously only possible on supercomputers. With this new technology (as well as new...

This news came out a week ago (edit: IBM’s press release came out this afternoon) but I didn’t have anything to add so I didn’t post it. I decided this morning that it was interesting and ought to get a mention just for the news.****************************Specifically, a supercomputing machine—dubbed “Roadrunner” and set to be fully installed by 2008 at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Los Alamos National Laboratory—will run on some 16,000 Cell Broadband Engine processors and a similar number of AMD Opteron processors. The Cell chip was originally built for Sony’s Playstation 3 console, which has been delayed until November...

Mercury Computer is sampling a PCI-Express add-in card powered by a Cell processor running Yellow Dog Linux. The Cell Accelerator Board (CAB) targets rendering, ray tracing, video/image processing, and signal processing applications, and is said to deliver 180 GFLOPS (billion floating-point operations per second). (Click for larger view of Mercury CAB) Mercury claims the CAB will be the first Cell-based system for the "workstation" market, when it ships early next year. Mercury also claims to have shipped the first Cell-based computer in general, a 470 pound blade chassis that shipped in January. The CAB runs a Yellow Dog Linux BSP...

FINALLY! We’ve all waited 4 years to see a good report on what happened to Saddam’s WMD, and yesterday the last investigative report was released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The only problem is…I searched the entire 400 pages of this “Phase II report” (or rather both reports that make up the Phase II report), and I couldn’t find those two words: “Bush lied.” I can’t even find, “Bush mislead” in the 400 pages. What I did find was 400 pages of evidence showing that the intelligence community used small amounts of weak intelligence from a decrepit litany...

Chip-maker Intel Corp. said Tuesday a total of 10,500 jobs will be eliminated over the next year through layoffs, attrition and the sale of underperforming business groups as part of a massive restructuring. The Santa Clara-based company said most of the job cuts this year will come from the management, marketing and information technology ranks. The world's largest chip maker is fighting to reverse sinking profits and regain market share stolen by smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The cuts come amid intense pressure for Intel to unload money-losing divisions and halt the encroachment of AMD on its lucrative core...

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini is expected to announce a massive layoff as soon as Tuesday that could eliminate as many as 10,000 jobs, CNET News.com has learned. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker, having suffered several financially disappointing quarters, launched an internal analysis in April to find ways to increase its efficiency. Otellini is scheduled to announce the results of the analysis, including the layoff, on Tuesday after the stock market closes, sources familiar with the plans said. Intel has about 100,000 employees worldwide, so the cut could be as high as 10 percent of the company's staff. The job...

Globalization is real, but its power to improve the lot of humankind has been madly oversold. Globalization enthralls and binds together a new aristocracy--the golden crust on the human loaf--but the remaining billions, who lack the culture and confidence to benefit from "one world," have begun to erect barricades against the internationalization of their affairs. And, from Peshawar to Paris, those manning the barricades increasingly turn violent over perceived threats to their accustomed patterns of life. If globalization represents a liberal worldview, renewed localism is a manifestation of reactionary fears, resurgent faiths, and the iron grip of tradition. Except in...

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - The director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said Tuesday that the spy agency avoids racial profiling because it is "fundamentally stupid'' and does not knowingly use information gleaned under torture offshore because the practice is "morally repugnant.'' James Judd told a gathering of Canadian judges on Tuesday that he is "acutely aware'' of complaints that the agency, along with several other organizations, targets the Muslim community in fighting the war on terror. "We don't profile because it's fundamentally stupid and we don't have enough resources,'' said Judd. "From a national security perspective, we can't afford...

Hezbollah Iran Missiles Slam Hadera Israel - Nuclear War Approaching? By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Tel Aviv----August 5......The only good thing about the terror group Hezbollah (Hizbollah) or Islam Party of God is that they keep their promises. Just two days ago Hezbollah terror leader Hassan Nasrallah said from Lebanon that he would strike Tel Aviv, Israel with missiles if the Israel Defense Forces attacked parts of central Beirut. A few hours ago, Hezbollah launched three Iran missiles at the Israel city of Hadera. Hadera is 70 miles south from the Lebanese border and 30 miles north from Tel...

IBM servers use chips by AMD Sunnyvale company gets boost in battle with rival Intel Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer August 2, 2006 ------------------------------------- IBM Corp. unveiled a line of business computers using Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron microprocessor on Tuesday, giving another boost to the chipmaker in its rivalry with Intel Corp. Tom Bradicich , chief technology officer of IBM's systems and technology group, said the Armonk, N.Y., company has embarked on a major expansion of its relationship with AMD by introducing Opteron-based servers. The roll-out of five computer systems and blade computers follows the announcement in May by...

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Intel officially closed the books on the Pentium era on Thursday with the Core 2 Duo, its most important product launch in 13 years. "This is not just an incremental change, this is a revolutionary leap," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said at a launch event here, held in a heavily air-conditioned tent. The last time the company held such an event at its headquarters was when it introduced the Pentium processor in 1993, a similarly important milestone in its history. Back then, the PC market was a fraction of its current size, Otellini said. Pentium quickly became one...

If you’re not living underneath a rock you probably know about the escalating war in Israel and Lebanon. I am very sympathetic to the innocent people who are affected by this war. I prefer not to turn this into a war discussion, I am just talking about the potential effects that it has on our industry. Over the years Israel has been on the cutting edge of research and development in various advanced technologies. Israel boasts many thousands of high technology companies in a wide range of fields such as telecommunications, software, semiconductors, biotech, and medical electronics. Many of the...

The bad news never seems to end for Intel. Soft financials, management cutbacks, and a shake-up of senior executives are just the latest developments amid sliding sales and market share. The world's largest maker of microprocessors wants to change the conversation from the mistakes of the past to the promise of the future. Step one: an overhaul of its processor lines. Intel last week introduced five new versions of its high-end Itanium 2 chips. This week, it formally introduces its mass-market Core 2 Duo platforms for desktops and notebooks. The company will introduce quad-core versions of its processors for servers...

Two weeks from now, Intel will release its all-new Core 2 Duo processor. The technical details were made available to the public in March 2006, and first benchmarks made clear that Intel is not joking: Core 2 Duo shall become the undisputed leader in performance and performance per Watt. It's time to separate facts from rumors. Intel does not talk about changes to the processor architecture; it talks about a complete redesign. The engineers took elements from the current Pentium D NetBurst architecture and added ingredients that made the Pentium M and Core Duo mobile processors successful, and voilá: The...

SAN FRANCISCO — Troubled Intel Corp. plans to fire 1,000 managers as part of an effort to cut $1 billion in costs, a company spokesperson said Thursday (July 13). Spokesperson Chuck Mulloy confirmed that the company had informed employees Thursday morning that 1,000 managers would be let go as the first action of the company's previously disclosed restructuring initiative. The affected managers are from across all Intel business divisions in all geographies, Mulloy said. Mulloy said the company is not disclosing the anticipated cost savings of the manager layoff at this time. Intel will provide an update on its restructuring...

Intel aims to reclaim market dominance with new chip Jun 26 4:37 PM US/Eastern US computer chip maker Intel began shipping a speedy, power-efficient processor it claimed would turn the tables on arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). "We're back to a position we are used to having, undeniable leadership in the area of performance," Intel Vice President Tom Kilroy told a briefing of analysts and the press in San Francisco. "It's an exciting day. Our end customers were waiting for this." Kilroy touted its freshly released Xeon 5100 series chips as the "fastest dual-processor ramp" in Intel's history. The chips,...

Chicago (IL) - If AMD has its way, then Intel's performance-per-watt leadership claim may be short lived: The first quad-core Opterons, due in 2007 will consume the same power as today's dual-core processors, while AMD expects Intel to increase the power envelope when adding more cores. Intel will be dominating the headlines in tech publications early next week with the debut of a new architecture ("Core") that is believed to not only increase the firm's competitiveness with AMD's processors but also bring a visible advantage in performance and power consumption. And while we are patiently waiting for Intel's designated savior...

EETimes has reported that an Intel price war has been planned. Armed with a bandoleer full of Dual Core Smithfield and Presler based chips for ammunition. The company has taken another road to challenge their rival, AMD.“We expect another profit warning from Intel, guiding Q2 sales to $7.9 billion versus a consensus of $8.4 billion,” Diesen said in a note to clients. “After Intel stuffed the channels with chips in February and March, the floor fell out in April, and [PC processor] sales dropped 52 percent year-on-year,” he added.Also stating;"Intel has obviously given up on making any money on their...