January 21, 2009 by
Jason
What, exactly, are supercomputers? The clue is in the name, really: they’re powerful computers capable of calculating many millions of floating operations per second (FLOPS) essentially, they’re very, very fast.
While any array of powerful computers, such as a modern-day web server which consists of several motherboards (the main circuit board of a computer) running in parallel can be considered a supercomputer, generally the term is reserved for machines that dedicate their entire hardware to one complex task at any given time.
Take the NEC Earth Simulator in Japan, for example, which was created specifically for modelling weather problems associated with global warming. Or the world’s fastest computer, BlueGene/L at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US, which simulates the behaviour of biomolecular structures and protein folding. It’s capable of 600 trillion FLOPS (tera-FLOPS or TFLOPS), whereas, the six-year-old Earth Simulator is only capable of 36TFLOPS. BlueGene/L won’t hold the top spot for long, though. Supercomputers twice as powerful will be online soon. Read More»
Posted in Computer, Hardware | No Comments »
Although Apple is yet to acknowledge 3G connectivity issues surrounding its newly-released iPhone, reports are hitting from everywhere with claims of both hardware and software glitches to be the cause of weak signals. Additionally, Apple is said to be prepping a software fix to deal with the problems users are experiencing.
A BusinessWeek piece, for instance, reveals that the Infineon chipset used to provide 3G connectivity in the iPhone is likely the cause of the said issues. Forced to keep up with the immense data consumption of the device, the connectivity is poor or lost in some cases. Other sources cited in the report say that Apple has been so conservative with the software settings that the device cannot accurately determine whether the 3G signal and bandwidth are sufficient to support the features using it.
“Two sources say Apple will likely issue a software update by the end of September – if not by the end of this month – to resolve the issues,” reads the report. “Apple and Infineon are currently testing the fix, which will be included in a broader update of the iPhone’s software [...]. Part of the role of the Infineon chip is to check whether there’s enough 3G bandwidth available in a given area. If 3G isn’t available or there isn’t enough bandwidth, the iPhone will be shifted to a slower network.” Read More»
Posted in Mac, Software | 1 Comment »
January 26, 2007 by
Jason 
In anticipation of the 802.11n Wi-Fi specification being finalised later this year chipmaker Intel has started shipping ‘Next-Gen Wireless-N chips to laptop makers, including Acer, Gateway and Toshiba. The first products are expected to go on sale in the US in the next few weeks. Key benefits include much faster data transfer rates, better range and lower power consumption, though the increase in speed is not going to be much use until products like 802.11n routers and access points become available, and that’s unlikely to happen until the Autumn. In the meantime Wireless-N equipped laptops will still be able to connect to existing 802.11b and 11g networks
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