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Filed under: Gaming

Japan’s Nikkan is reporting that Sony and Toshiba will begin mass production of the 45nm Cell processor in 2009 — not this autumn as previously rumored. The smaller chip which cost less than the current 65nm Cell to manufacture also require 40% less power to run. This opens the door to possible price drops on existing PS3 consoles in 2009 as well as slimmer, cooler running rigs should Sony decide to refresh the industrial design.

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Source: Thomas Ricker

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Filed under: Desktops

It’s not the first time IBM has tossed around “world’s fastest” language when discussing its Power6 processors, but the company’s now found reason to boast again, with it recently announcing that it’s released some new supercomputers based on its new “world’s most powerful microprocessor.” Getting that distinction is IBM’s latest Power 575 “Hydro-Cluster” supercomputer which, thanks to some nifty in-rack water-cooling measures, is able to accommodate the company’s speedy new 5GHz Power6 processor. According to IBM, that processor should deliver “two-to-three times the performance per core of comparable HP or Sun processors,” while still requiring only about the same amount of energy as previous Power5 processors. For its part, Sun is a bit skeptical IBM’s focus on speed, with a company spokesperson telling the San Francisco Chronicle that “it’s an easier marketing message to deliver to say that faster gigahertz means a faster processor,” adding that Sun instead focuses on multithreading to make its processors more efficient.

Read - IBM press release
Read - SFGate, “IBM chip is fastest on Earth”

[Via Slashdot]

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Source: Donald Melanson

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

As of this morning you can add Hitachi to the list of cohorts IBM has gathered in its quest for sub-32nm circuitry. Hitachi’s 2-year semiconductor research agreement — a first between IBM and Hitachi — puts them under a loose-knit alliance with AMD, Chartered, Freescale, Infineon, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba and STMicroelectronics. The notable, non-member here is of course, Intel; that little company making “45-nm processes” and “Hi-K metal gate” house-hold terms amongst geeky, type-A adopters of consumer electronics. Yes, we’re looking at you.

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Source: Thomas Ricker

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Filed under: Networking

So IBM is apparently working like crazy on some next-gen communications technology that — ready to have your mind blown? — “uses light instead of wires to send information.” We know, this is some crazy future crap up in here, but check it out. Apparently this so-called light-based communications system is supposed to be ten times more power efficient than others in its class, and can transfer data at speeds far greater than our current 4Mbps token-ring networks and even the next-gen 10BASE2 Ethernet (as if!); if optical data communications are actually real, well, it’s just in time because we’ve been seriously maxing out our Tandy 1000 playing MUDs. Touting such other gibberish as “high definition content,” and “ex-aflop supercomputing,” IBM’s Optocards (which feature integrated “Optochips”) can apparently move data at up to 8Tbps / 1TBps per second, which isn’t quite up to snuff to compete with Alcatel-Lucent’s latest, but is still, like, way more than necessary for accessing the Engadget BBS.

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Source: Ryan Block

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Shocking as it may seem, mainframe computing has never really gone away — even in this age of modular PS3-based supercomputers, financial institutions, retailers, and other large corporations still buy the big iron, which means IBM still makes it. The company’s latest, the fridge-sized System z10, follows up on the million-dollar System z9 released three years ago with faster, cooler processors, more energy efficient designs, 70 percent more computing capacity — and a smaller price tag, starting at just south of a million dollars this time. Hilariously, the z10 caused a bit of a mainfraime Osbourne effect: eager customers holding off on z9 purchases in anticipation of the z10 caused a 15 percent drop in IBM’s mainframe revenue last quarter. Mainframe fanboys? Nothing surprises us anymore.

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Source: Nilay Patel

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Filed under: Desktops, Networking

Well, it sure looks like IBM is keeping all its supercomputing bases covered these days, with it not only working on a chip-sized supercomputer, but a global-scale shared computer that’d be capable of “hosting the entire internet as an application.” That latter word comes in the form of a white paper ambitiously dubbed “Project Kittyhawk” (we’re guessing they found “Project Mulitvac” a little too obvious), which aims to explore the construction and implications of such a massive scale computer. That apparently wouldn’t be a SETI or Folding@home-style shared computer consisting of everyday PCs, however, with it instead relying on IBM’s petaflopping Blue Gene/P as a common platform, which would effectively be able to run any web-scale application you could throw at it. Of course, none of that has moved very far beyond the page just yet, so you can rest easy that there’s still no supercomputer out there that’s capable of bringing the entire internet to the halt on a whim, at least that we know of.

[Via Slashdot]

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Source: Donald Melanson

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Filed under: Gaming

IBM might be lagging slightly behind the likes of Intel and Microsoft in the 45nm department, but rest assured that a 45nm version of Cell is in the works and most certainly headed for the PS3. Microsoft told us that 45nm for Xbox was in the works last year, and Intel is obviously churning out Penryn chips as we speak, but IBM has finally solidified its own 45nm plans for Cell, and will change over production “soon.” The chip will use about 40 percent less power and will be 34 percent smaller than the 65nm version. That means less heat and more reliability, which of course means cost savings for Sony which will (theoretically) be passed on to consumers before too terribly long.

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Source: Paul Miller

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Filed under: Cellphones

Remember that formal announcement of Lotus Notes Mail on the iPhone? Right, Apple’s first big corporate iPhone push which the AP said would happen at LotusSphere? Not going to happen, at least not yet. An IBM spokesperson told ZDNet Australia, “It’s not something that (is) ready to go out and market or launch.” In other words, Jobs heard about IBM’s plan to steal his February SDK-launch thunder and shut down the announcement right quick. The most absurd part of all this has to be an enterprise adoption comment made by the so-called analyst, Kevin McIsaac, at IBRS (I be arse?). He said, “I can’t really imagine someone who’s really hip and cool — like an iPhone user — wanting to use Lotus Notes.” Since when do the personal desires of users and corporate IT policy have anything in common Kev?

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Source: Thomas Ricker

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