Gadgetopia

News.com reports that Microsoft is working on a version of Windows for supercomputing environments. God help us. Microsoft is aiming to have its first cluster version of Windows ready in time for a supercomputing conference this fall. Software Architect Marvin Theimer said on Thursday that the company hopes to have ...

'Big Mac' supercomputer one of world's fastest: Fast and cheap the Pam Anderson of supercomputers. "A supercomputer built by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from 1,100 dual-processor Macintosh G5 PCs looks likely to rank with the five fastest machines in the world, despite costing a relative pittance. In ...

'Big Mac' Ranked 3rd Fastest Supercomputer: Yeah, but just try finding software for it. "A supercomputer made from 1,100 off-the-shelf Apple Macs at Virginia Tech now ranks third among the world's 500 fastest supercomputers, many of which handle with ease 1 trillion calculations per second."

NSA risking electrical overload: And you think your Athlon uses a lot of juice. The NSA is already unable to install some costly and sophisticated new equipment, including two new supercomputers, for fear of blowing out the electrical infrastructure, they said. [...] The NSA is Baltimore Gas & Electric's largest ...

Computer Groupthink Under Fire: An interesting look at the grid vs. supercomputer debate. Each side is better at some things than the other. Critics at a House Science Committee hearing in July on the status of supercomputing in the United States claimed that federal agencies are focusing too heavily on ...

Supercomputing s New Idea Is Old One: I remember when Cray was a name to be revered in the computing world. When Cray (the man) died, the reverence seemed to die with him. Maybe it s coming back: For the first 25 years of supercomputing, Mr. Cray s machines held the title of ...

Linux weighs in: With all the hype about Linux on the desktop, and the presumption that Linux runs servers, a lot of people forget that pure Unix is its competitor in the server room. This article is talking about 500 or 1000-processor Linux installs not your everyday workgroup server. ...

Cray forecasts Red Storm for masses: It's about time that Cray re-entered the commercial market. I remember when Cray was a force to be reckoned with. Things were never quite the same after Seymour Cray the founder of the company died in a car accident back in 1996. ...

Confessions of the World's Largest Switcher: A lot has been written about Virginia Tech's Mac-based supercomputer. This, however, is one of the more in-depth pieces, concentrating on Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan the guy who built it and why exactly he chose the now-infamous route he did. "A prime constraint ...

Roger Ebert s Journal: Fanzines beget blogs: Roger Ebert has a blog now, which is crazy cool in and of itself. This week he talks about how the old world of fanzines preceded the current crop of blogs and perhaps even the Web itself. I have always been convinced that the ...

You can now buy a piece of the history-making Virginia Tech Supercomputer. MacMall is selling refurbished Apple G5 computers that came from Virginia Tech. In my opinion the Apple-refurbished systems are priced a bit high at $2799, which is only $200 less than a new G5, but they do come ...

The Secret Of Their NFL Success: 60 Minutes had a great segment tonight about NFL coaches and the role they play in their team's success. Apparently computers are playing an huge role in NFL team strategy. They showed John Fox, coach of the Carolina Panthers, in front of his machine. ...