September 2003 News Archive


Saturday, September 27, 2003 - 3:20PM

End of Week Anime Release Wrap-up

Please note that the anime that I put up here when they get released are what I watch, or what I intend on watching, and these are also some of the more popular series as well. Any suggestions as to what anime you would like to see, add a entry in my guestbook.
[HQA&AonE] Ikkitousen Episode 07
[a-o]Prince of Tennis Episode 92


Friday, September 26, 2003 - 5:20PM

Segway Gets Recalled

This is interesting here, from an article that Arstechnica has, it says that the Segway has been recalled due to it allowing customers to fall over when in a low battery state. Interesting recall, as I would think that it would be a good idea to recharge it when the battery level gets around 10% or so. However, just 6000 units have been recalled

Quote from report
Hazard: Under certain operating conditions, particularly when the batteries are near the end of charge, some Segway HTs may not deliver enough power, allowing the rider to fall. This can happen if the rider speeds up abruptly, encounters an obstacle, or continues to ride after receiving a low-battery alert. [...] Remedy: Call Segway LLC toll-free at 877-889-9020 between 8 am and 8 pm Monday through Friday (ET) for information on how to receive a free software upgrade. Segway LLC is directly contacting owners of these products.
Click here to read more.


Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 6:20PM

Congress Attempts to Reverse DNC injuction

I saw this at ArsTechnica. One day after a judge places an injunction on the do not call list, congress is attempting to reverse the decision. This is good because for at least once, the congress is specifically looking out for us. The senate also passed legislation today 50-0 in favor of reversing the judges decision.

Quote from report
Just a day after a Federal Court Judge blocked the October 1st implementation of the National Do Not Call registry, Congress is in a hurry to pave the way for a reversal of that decision. The main reason the Federal Court injunction was issued was because the Federal Trade Commission did not have explicit authority to implement a DNC call registry, and today the House overwhelmingly passed legislation which would give the FTC that authority. The Senate may vote on similar legislation today. Why is Congress moving like they have a burr in the saddle? Drafting and passing such legislation is a no-brainer when you have the backing of over 50 million Americans.
Click here to read more.


Thursday, September 25, 2003 - 5:20PM

New Narutaru Episode

[Triad-AonE] Narutaru Episode 11


Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - 7:40PM

AMD Accuses Intel Of Intimidation

I saw this on AMDZone. They have post about a report at The Inquirer about how Intel is trying to intinidate AMD distributors

Quote from report
THE THIRD launch in two days of AMD’s Athlon 64 processors is currently taking place in New York New York, Taipei, with support from Nvidia partners Via and Nvidia, but with precious little signs of major vendors brave enough to say they will use the chips.

That follows accusations of Intel intimidating vendors at the San Francisco launch yesterday. Hector Ruiz, CEO of AMD, launched an attack on Intel claiming pressure from the chip giant forced third party vendors to chicken out. He didn’t use the phrase chicken out, but if the accusations are true, it sure shows the big boys have little backbone and knees of jelly.

The heftiest press release in the world claimed that 60 manufacturers and system builders will use the FX and the Athlon 64 chips. What do we have? HP, Fujitsu and Packard Bell, and a stream of smaller people like Brummie based Evesham, Lancashire firm Time, London outfit Mesh, and Fry’s, the big US computer chain.
Click here to read more.


Tuesday, September 23, 2003 - 5:35PM

Latest Subbed Anime Releases

These are some of the latest and most popular anime series releases available from the fansub services:
[Anime-Junkies] Full Metal Panic Season 2 Ep 4 Part 6-7
[Saikou-Fansubs] GetBackers Episode 49
[SS & F-A] Green Green Episode 06
[HQA&AonE] Ikkitousen Episode 06
[Triad-AonE] Narutaru Episode 10
[ANBU-AonE] Naruto Episode 50
[Inf-AonE] Onegai Twins Episode 09
[Anime Otakus] Prince of Tennis Episode 90
[Keep-ANBU] Scrapped Princess Episode 22


Monday, September 22, 2003 - 6:59PM

Consumers aren't the only ones unhappy with the RIAA

I saw this at ArsTechnica. They report that music artists are also becoming unhappy with the RIAA because they feel that the RIAA is interested in protecting its corporate profits instead of the artists.

Quote from report

As the RIAA lowers the boom and enters full lawsuit-frenzy mode, the backlash is intensifying. Consumers are obviously upset with their tactics. Now, another group affected by high CD prices, piracy, and the lawsuits are speaking up. Recording artists are venting their anger with the direction the recording industry has taken.

"Lawsuits on 12-year-old kids for downloading music, duping a mother into paying a $2,000 settlement for her kid?" said rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy. "Those scare tactics are pure Gestapo."

"File sharing is a reality, and it would seem that the labels would do well to learn how to incorporate it into their business models somehow," said genre-busting DJ Moby in a post on his Web site. "Record companies suing 12 year old girls for file sharing is kind of like horse-and-buggy operators suing Henry Ford."

Moby and Chuck D are right on the money, and they are part of an industry that has been unable and unwilling to adapt to changes in consumer expectations and buying habits. While the lawsuits fly, the artists feel the pain of decreased record sales and shrinking royalties. They also don't buy the notion that the RIAA has their interests at heart as it sues their fans:

Click here to read more.


Sunday, September 21, 2003 - 6:15PM

RIAA collects fines, doesn't pay artists

I saw this at The Inquirer. They are reporting that even with all the fines that the RIAA is collection, they have not even paid the artists

Quote from report
This brings us to the point of whether or not file-sharers meet the criteria of "fair use" or are indeed guilty of copyright infringement. This is less clear. Let's assume that they don't meet the confines of the fair use doctrine. Is it the RIAA's lawful right to sue them or does that right belong to someone else? File-sharers have not entered into a contract with artists and do not collect fees for the songs that are up-loaded from their computers. Therefore, they are not stealing anything. Infringing perhaps. But not stealing. But does the RIAA have the right to speak for the artist if such an offense has occurred? As Fred Wilhelms pointed out in the September 6 RIAA Watch column, there are some serious questions about the artists' contracts with their labels and whether they include digital rights. And also about how the payments are to be made to the artists. The major labels are collecting fees from for-pay download sites such as iTunes and also through lawsuit settlements against file-sharers. RIAA Watch has already pointed out how the industry may be pocketing money that isn't theirs. Now Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, has stated that none of the lawsuit money will be passed on to the artists either.

These comments beg the question, "Who is really doing the stealing here?" Artist's incomes are tangible. Copyrights are not. I'd call pocketing income that has already been collected as stealing. I wonder if current Justices O'Conner, Rehnquist, and Stevens, all who supported the 1985 Dowling decision, would agree.
Click here to read more.


Saturday, September 20, 2003 - 5:35PM

Hard Drive Measurements - Is there a discrepancy

I'm not sure if this is worth reporting on. ArsTechnica has a report up on a class action suit against several OEM's by consumers over the practice of how they measure hard drives. OEM's measure hard drive space in the decimal 1GB=1000MB and not the binary 1GB=1024MB. This has a tendancy to confuse poeple, and thus this suit is born. For example, my 120GB hard drive measured in the 1000MB=1GB actually nets 114GB in the 1024=1GB binary format

Quote from report
A lawsuit seeking Class Action status was recently filed in LA charging that computer manufacturers are lying about the sizes of the hard drives they sell. The suit names Apple, Dell, Gateway, HP, IBM, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba, and charges that their choice to use the "decimal system" to represent hard drive size amounts to misrepresentation. Part of this is the old problem that 1000x != 1024y. Another aspect may well be the fact that hard drive "capacity" pre- and post-formatting differ, too. The interesting thing is that, aside from IBM and Toshiba, none of these companies actually make hard drives that you can buy off the shelves. They're clearly going after OEMs.
For example, when a consumer buys what he thinks is a 150 gigabyte hard drive, the plaintiffs said, he actually gets only 140 gigabytes of storage space. That missing 10 gigabytes, they claim, could store an extra 2,000 digitized songs or 20,000 pictures. The lawsuit asks for an injunction against the purportedly unfair marketing practices, an order requiring the defendants to disclose their practices to the public, restitution, disgorgement of ill-gotten profits and attorneys' fees.
Click here to read more.


Friday, September 19, 2003 - 6:15PM

ATMs: OS/2 Out, Windows In

Now this is interesting. Wired news has a report that banks plan on moving ATM's over to Windows OS, and by 2005, 65% of all ATM's will have a Windows OS on them.

Quote from report

Within three years, most bank machines that dispense cash will run on the Windows operating system, according to a study published last week.

By 2005, 65 percent of bank ATMs (not including free-standing machines in places like convenience stores and casinos) in the United States will use a stripped-down version of Windows. About 12 percent of the machines will use the operating system by the end of this year, according to Gwenn Bezard, an analyst at market researcher Celent

Bezard asked 20 of the top 60 banks in the country about their plans to upgrade ATMs. He also interviewed the top 10 ATM manufacturers and software vendors.

He concluded the banking industry is ready to scrap IBM's OS/2 operating system, which powers most ATMs today. They would prefer Windows, a platform they consider "open" in that it is compatible with their internal corporate networks. Also, it's so ubiquitous that they can add features to all their ATMs without having to write multiple pieces of code for different machines.

"Because we are seeing so many mergers and acquisitions in the last few years, you have large banks running a fleet of ATM hardware," Bezard said. "With open technologies it is easier to run different types of hardware on the same software."

Click here to read more.


Friday, September 19, 2003 - 5:55PM

AMD Prepares for 64bit Launch

I saw this at InfoWorld. They have an article up about AMD preparing for the 64bit launch. It does seem to appear that many don't understand AMD64 all that much.

Quote from report
The long-awaited launch of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s (AMD's) Athlon64 processor is less than a week away, and it's only a matter of time before rival Intel Corp. duplicates AMD's approach, the company said Wednesday.

AMD thinks it has a winner with the Athlon64, which can run both 64-bit and 32-bit applications on a PC with a 64-bit operating system. The idea is to give users excellent 32-bit performance right away, and allow them to migrate to 64-bit applications when they are ready, said John Crank, senior brand manager for AMD's Athlon product line.

AMD will launch the chip on Tuesday at an event in San Francisco. Desktop and notebooks will be available with the processor as of Tuesday, Crank said.

Many in the industry are skeptical that users need 64-bit performance at this stage, but AMD thinks it can drive a entirely new set of applications by bringing 64-bit technology to the masses. The processor uses a new instruction set, AMD64, which was developed by adding 64-bit instructions to the x86 instruction set used in AMD and Intel processors for several years.
Click here to read more.


Thursday, September 18, 2003 - 3:35PM

H&R Block To Standardize on HP Athlon XP Systems

I saw this at AMDZone. They report that H&R Block is going to standardize their computer system on Hewlett Packard AMD systems. The plan is to buy 15,000 systems and might boost AMD's stock a bit.

Quote from report
"We chose the AMD solution because it will help reduce the number of desktop image changes," said Roger Zaremba, H&R Block's vice president/technical services. "Because we support thousands of desktops across many regions and our tax software changes every year, a more stable system image will help us eliminate a significant amount of time spent on image development and testing and will significantly lower our total cost of ownership."
Click here to read more.


Wednesday, September 17, 2003 - 6:15PM

Magma Ports Software to AMD64

Over at AMDZone, they report that Magma is porting their software over the AMD64 so that it can run on the AMD64 and Opteron processors

Quote from report
SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Claiming to provide the first complete RTL-to-GDSII implementation system on the AMD Opteron processor, Magma Design Automation has announced that an AMD64 version of its entire toolset is currently in limited release with key customers. A general release is planned for December 2003.

EDA users called for 64-bit Opteron support in a recent E-Mail Synopsys Users Group bulletin. Some said the Opteron, which can run both 32-bit and 64-bit Linux applications, offers better price/performance than Intel Itanium 2 servers, but suffers from a lack of EDA application support.
Click here to read more.


Tuesday, September 16, 2003 - 5:45PM

Opteron & Athlon 64 Power dissipation

At Ace's Hardware, they are reporting on the power dissipation values for the AMD Athlon 64 and the Opteron's. AMD has given a max value of 89W.

Quote from report
I was reading the messageboard and I noticed that some people noticed that the "opteron might consume up to 89 Watt". For reference, the TPD of a P4 3.2 GHz is 83Watt (maximum Power dissipation > 100 Watt), so 89 Watt is a lot. I like to clear that up.

First of all, if you think about it, it is very hard to believe that the Opteron (1.8/2 GHz) consumes 89 Watt. A 2.167 GHz Barton consumes typically less than 60 Watt, and at most 75 Watt. Now consider how much a 2 GHz Athlon with a lower core voltage (1.55V versus 1.65V) on a SOI process might consume. That would be a lot less than 60 Watt (Power is proportional to voltage squared). It is hard to believe that the integrated northbridge and 512 KB extra cache would increase the power dissipation so much.

So where does the 89 Watt number come from? Well, I asked AMD. AMD has made - IMHO - a very good move: for all "Hammer cores", motherboard/heatsink manufactures have to design for a "worst-case" CPU that dissipates up to 89 Watt. There were too many Athlon boards which could not be upgraded, because the power circuitry was not designed for faster Athlons. For each faster Athlon, all heatsinks had to be tested again before AMD could recommend them.
Click here to read more.


Monday, September 15, 2003 - 7:15PM

Intel CTO says 64-bit desktop computing unnecessary

This report at The Register says that the Intel CTO believes that 64bit processing for desktop computers is unecessary. They don't believe it will be necessary for another 5 years. Ah... how I see AMD gaining tons of market share, and Intel losing footground on the 64bit era. Its about time for AMD to succeed.

Quote from report
AMD and Apple are touting 64-bit computing on the desktop far too quickly, Intel CTO Pat Gelsinger said today.

Moving beyond 32-bit addressing is "really not needed for several more years", he told reporters attending the Intel Developer Forum in San Jose.

AMD, of course, isn't going to wait that long. Next week, the company will unveil its long-awaited 64-bit desktop processor, the Athlon 64. And, just a few weeks ago, Apple began shipping its Power Mac G5 desktop based on the 64-bit IBM PowerPC 970 processor. But if Gelsinger's comments are anything to go by, Intel believes its rivals are coming to market too early.

"How many [users] have seen the crippling 4GB limit on their desktop PCs?" he asked. Today, he claimed, there aren't apps that need more than the 4GB offered by virtual memory schemes, let alone however much physical memory is available.

So when will 64-bit computing on the desktop become a necessity? "As a rule of thumb, address space [requirements] consume a bit every two years," he said. "We're at 1GB now and starting to see 2GB. So we're probably about three of four years away from really needing that 4GB on general desktops. That puts you out in the 2006/07 timeframe."
Click here to read more.


Sunday, September 14, 2003 - 5:45PM

Graphics for PCI Express to pose cooling problems

At nVplanet, they have a post up about a report at The Inquirer about graphics for PCI express can pose a cooling problem due to the high power dissipation and power requirements.

Quote from report
Graphics cards using PCI Express tech will, however, require 75 watts max, and that means a few things. First, the 12 volts on an ATX power supply won't do the trick. The answer will be to use a 2x12 connector with the same pinouts as server SSIs, which requires a 300W power supply.

The other problem is that machines will need to use side panel vents, ducting, and use large fans.

Cheng will claim that the entire graphics industry will be "reset", AGP will die, and new features will "open doors" for emerging graphics and multimedia apps. A PCI Express graphics card, however, will run at PCI compatible mode, with few software changes.
Click here to read more.


Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 6:15PM

Sun to Consider Opterons

Over at Infoworld, they have a report on how Sun is considering using Opterons in their new server products and Opteron support in their software

Quote from report
SAN FRANCISCO - Sun Microsystems Inc. will use its SunNetwork conference next week to reveal long-awaited details of a new pricing scheme it plans to introduce for its server software products, the company's chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) said Tuesday.

Sun said in February that it would package all of its key server software products together and ship them in synchronized quarterly releases under a project called Orion. The goal is to sell more software by making life easier for customers who have to deal with numerous different pricing schemes and release cycles.

Sun has stayed quiet about how it plans to price the software, but Chairman and CEO Scott McNealy implied Tuesday that customers who buy the Orion software stack could see significant savings. The products include its Sun ONE application server, portal server and directory server, as well as management tools for Solaris.
Click here to read more.


Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - 4:50PM

Anime, Anime and more Anime

I believe the time has come for me to talk about Anime. Anime is great, I love it. Anime can range from the outright crazy like Puni Puni Poemi to the serious types such as Perfect Blue. For the most part Anime is directed mainly towards the adult group, and males. You will often hear words such as fan service as a result.
There are quite a few Anime that I like, and two right now I can easily recommend watching. These two are Onegai Teacher, and Onegai Twins which is currently premiering in Japan. Episode 8 came out today. You can either download a fan sub titled version of these episodes withing days of it showing on Japanese TV (such as TV Tokyo), or buy the DVD when it is released (I still recommend watching it in Japanese and english subtitiles). Often the english subtitled translation will be different among the different fansub organizatios, and some will provide a note as to what a particular saying means. Watching a fansub, you can often learn a japanese word when its used by itself and reading the english translation, and later recognize it when it is used within a sentance, which often helps you detect when a sentance wasn't fully translated. I enjoy watching the subtitled versions because of that.

Onegai Teacher was 12 episodes and one OVA. Twins is 13 episodes. These two anime are extremely well done, and Onegai Teacher has a little bit of comedy, drama and romance. Onegai Twins is also pretty much the same. The Onegai series is produced by Bandia Visual.

Another Anime I should suggest watching is Ai Yori Aoshi, or its english translation of Bluer than Indigo. This anime is 24 episodes long. It is about a story of a young man disowned by his family and a girl that is his prearranged fiance, and his trial and tribulations as well as all of his friends he gets to know. I have also heard that they are producing another season of it, due out in October. This is produced by J.C. Staff
Websites to view discussed content:
Please Teacher
Bandai Entertainment
Please Please in Japanese
JC Staff in Japanese


Tuesday, September 9, 2003 - 4:30PM

Intel's new "Lowend" Itanium 2

Over at Ace's Hardware, they have a report up on the new Low end Itanium 2 chip code named the Deerfield. Power consumption is half of the regular Itanium at 62W.

Quote from report

More details on Intel's low-end Itanium chip, Deerfield, have appeared in this article at News.com. The processor features an Itanium 2 (McKinley) running at 1 GHz with a 1.5 MB L3 cache and is officially known as the "Low Voltage Itanium 2." The chip's maximum power consumption is 62W, compared to 130W for Madison.

The Low Voltage Itanium 2 runs at 1GHz and comes with a 1.5MB cache, which is a reservoir of memory integrated into the processor for rapid data access. Because it runs slower, the Low Voltage chip consumes about half the energy of the high-end Madison processor and features a maximum energy consumption ceiling of 62 watts. Lower energy consumption translates to lower heat dissipation, which allows engineers to stick the chip into smaller servers and/or cram more servers into a single computing room
Click here to read more.


Monday, September 8, 2003 - 7:30PM

Asia Windows Rival Would Raise Concerns

At ieXbeta, they have a report up on how the new rival of the Microsoft Windows OS could raise concerns. It would run on open source software like Linux and be copied and freely modified. Source of news is at Reuters.

Quote from report
A plan by Japan, China and South Korea to develop an alternative operating system to Microsoft Corp.'s Windows software would raise concerns over fair competition, the world's No. 1 software maker said on Friday.

Japan, the world's second largest economy, made a proposal at an Asian economic summit this week to build an inexpensive and trustworthy open-source operating system that would be based on a system such as Linux, which can be copied and modified freely.

"We'd like to see the market decide who the winners are in the software industry," said Tom Robertson, Microsoft's Tokyo-based director for government affairs in Asia. "Governments should not be in the position to decide who the winners are."

Microsoft's Robertson said that all governments and consumers were concerned by security and that it was an industry-wide issue. "Pointing to a particular software vendor and to a particular software (standard) gets you nowhere," Robertson said.
Click here to read more.


Monday, September 8, 2003 - 7:14PM

Comcast to increase downstream bandwidth from 1.5 to 3.0Mbps

ArsTechnica reports on how Comcast is increasing downstream bandwidth to 3Mbps, but the catch is that they are keeping the upstream at 256Kbps

Quote from report

All of you Comcast subscribers can soon rejoice because Comcast has declared that they will be increasing the current downstream of their cable modem customers from 1.5 Mbps to a whopping 3.0Mbps. That's like having two T-1 lines of downstream bandwidth! So what's the catch? According to this Reuters article:

The service nearly halves the time it takes to download web pages, video and audio, a Comcast spokeswoman said. But uploading, or the ability to send data, will remain the same at 256 kilobits per second. (emphasis added)

Talk about a buzz-kill. 3Mbps is a wonderful thing and it will certainly help me rationalize spending $54 per month on Internet access, but with such little upstream, it still hurts the wallet. Frankly, I would be happy with 512 or even 384kbps upstream. Currently the only way to get 384kbps upstream from Comcast is to subscribe to their $95-per-month "Comcast Pro" service. Yikes! But as one of our forum moderators pointed out, at least it is not as bad as Cox's miserly 128kbps upstream.

Click here to read more.


Friday, September 5, 2003 - 6:47PM

ABIT KV8-MAX3 Opteron Board

I saw this one at AMDZone. They report on how ABIT is getting ready to produce their new AMD Opteron board, the KV8-MAX3 based on the VIA KT800 chipset

Quote from report
Built on the long-anticipated Athlon 64 CPU and based on VIA's high performance KT800 chipset, the KV8 MAX3 promises to bring AMD fans the ultimate platform for gaming, multimedia and insane overclocking. Being a MAX product, the KV8 is loaded with features including 6 channel serial ATA RAID, 6 channel audio, gigabit LAN, SPDIF In and Out, USB 2.0 and Firewire. The KV8-MAX3 also comes with the ABIT OTES thermal solution for the PWM mosfets and capacitors, ensuring that your system will stay cool and stable, even under the most extreme overclocking missions.
Click here to read more.


Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - 7:45PM

What were they thinking

A report at ZDNet details how Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is building a Apple supercomputer, with 1100 Dual CPU nodes, or a total of 2200CPU outputting a total of 10TFlops. Apparently they aren't paying attention to the current economy, and the fact that Apples are the most expensive computer system out there. It would have been cheaper for them to buy a Opteron system that would have been much faster.

Quote from report
Apple Computer has landed a major customer for its Power Mac G5, with Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University confirming Tuesday that it will use 1,100 of the machines as part of a supercomputer cluster now under construction.

The university, better known as Virginia Tech, said it has been working with the Mac maker for months to set up the massive computer cluster. The dual 2GHz machines started coming off the manufacturing lines last month, the school said.

"Virginia Tech's idea was to develop a supercomputer of national prominence based upon a homegrown cluster," Hassan Aref, dean of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering, said in a statement.

Click here to read more.


Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - 7:33PM

Intel Itanium set sales records as...

The slowest selling server chip. The Register reports that the Itanium set a sales record as it jumped into the lead as the slowest selling CPU. They don't mention the total number of Opterons that were sold

Quote from report
A stunning total of 3,250 Itanium-based systems were shipped in the second quarter. We'd say systems sold, but that might not be accurate. It turns out that a lot of Itanium vendors have resorted to giving their systems away, hoping to attract future buyers.

Cracking the 3,000 server barrier is an important milestone for the chip. It obliterates last year's Q2 mark of 331 servers sold. It's also beats out the 1,963 Itanium servers sold in this year's first quarter. That's progress.

HP, the bet-the-company-on-Itanic vendor, has benefitted most from the chip's gains. HP shipped 3,178 Itanium servers this quarter, up from 1,835 in Q1 and 2,667 in Q402. Everyone can breath easy over in HP's server division. Itanium is rising once again
Click here to read more.


Wednesday, September 3, 2003 - 6:53PM

Opterons in Sun computers

The Inquirer reports that they have heard more evidence that Sun might be using Opterons in their computers.

Quote from report
MAGEEK AND THAT Charlie D guy were hunting round at the intro of Jerry's Opterons in spring for any sign that Sun had signed up for the platform.

Of Sun there was no Sun sign, although Carly F made an appearance at the AMD W Ball.

We heard yesterday afternoon that all is not lost for AMD in the vales of McNealyvale, no, far from it, far from it.

Sun is committed to X86 Solaris and you know poring over IDC's figures last week, it's pretty clear that there's a clear gap in McNealy's toothypegs lineup in some areas of its server offerings.

Click here to read more.


Tuesday, September 2, 2003 - 4:55PM

IBM To Develop Single-Chip Supercomputer

Over at Yahoo! News, they have a report up on about how IBM is planning to develop a single 1 TFLop Supercomputer chip. Its supposed to have 250 million transistors and run at 500MHz by 2005. The ultimate goal is to have a chip running at 10GHz by 2005 capable of 1 trillion ops per second.

Quote from report

IBM (NYSE: IBM - news) plans to take supercomputing to the next level with the development of a chip capable of handling one trillion operations per second. The tech giant is working with researchers at the University of Texas on the project.

The embedded supercomputer is based on an innovative architecture called "TRIPS" (Tera-op Reliable Intelligently adaptive Processing System), which uses block-oriented execution. Instead of operating on a few computations at a time in sequence, the TRIPS processor crunches large blocks of computations in parallel, significantly boosting performance.

Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin plan to have prototype chips that contain some 250 million transistors and operate at 500 MHz by December 2005, according to Burger. The ultimate goal is to create a 10 GHz chip capable of executing over a trillion instructions per second by 2010.

The joint-effort research collaboration is facilitated by a Linux (news - web sites)-based IBM eServer xSeries computing cluster, which will help provide the bandwidth and computational capabilities needed to simulate and verify the TRIPS processor design.

Click here to read more.


Monday, September 1, 2003 - 6:25PM

US workers "most productive" in the world

I saw this at Ars Technica. They have an article up about a report by the UN Labor Agency that says that US workers are the most productive in the world when looking at total output.

Quote from report

It's obviously labor day here in the states, a holiday dedicated to the worker. That's why this CNN story is rather apropos: the UN Labor Agency has released a report that says that American workers are the most productive in the world when looking at total output.

The output per U.S. worker last year was $60,728, the report said. Belgium, the highest-scoring European Union member, had an output of $54,333 per worker.

This, of course, runs contrary to the common view that American workers are lazy and unproductive. However, there is an interesting catch. Because workers in the US tend to put in more hours than their European counterparts, the rankings change when you look at productivity per hour worked.

Norwegians lead the world with an output of $38 per hour worked last year. French workers were in second place, averaging $35 an hour, the report said. Belgians were third at $34, followed by Americans at $32.

Click here to read more.


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