Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Friday, May 30, 2008

Corkboard Mac gives push-pins new purpose

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/300523256/

Filed under: Desktops

Best we can tell, the Corkboard Mac was constructed from critical parts of an older PowerBook and gets held up by a series of colorful push-pins. Legend has it that the actual casing was destroyed in an unfortunate cooking accident, but thankfully, all of the vitals -- LCD included -- were left intact. Peep one more shot in the read link, and pay your respects as you enter.

[Thanks, Steven]

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Vigor Gaming latches onto AMD's GAME! brand for new Force Recon SP desktop

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/300567917/

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

It wouldn't be a decent pointless chip marketing program if you didn't get minor computer builders supporting the "spec" in an effort to make a name for themselves. AMD GAME! just got its first product announcement from Vigor Gaming, and it's quite the yawner. Vigor is sticking the required AMD components into its Force Recon SP desktops, with a "mainstream" version running an Athlon X2 5600+ processor, ATI Radeon HD 3650 graphics and 2GB of RAM for around $1,845, while an AMD Game! Ultra configuration bumps up to a Phenom X4 9650 chip and Radeon HD 3870 graphics for $2,733. Both systems are naturally based on AMD's 770 chipset and run Vista. Vigor offers free overclocking for the brave and custom painting for the aesthetically challenged.

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Intel and Micron produce first sub-40nm NAND device

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/300584819/

Filed under: Storage

Just a few months back, we all gave SanDisk a round of golf claps for moving towards 43-nanometer NAND production. Fast forward to today, and that "feat" doesn't look so mighty anymore. Intel and Micron have just announced the industry's first sub-40nm NAND flash memory device, the 34nm 32 gigabit multi-level cell chip. The process technology was collaboratively developed by the two firms' joint venture, IM Flash Technologies (IMFT)," and there's nary a hint of shame when they trumpet that this is the "smallest NAND process geometry on the market." Sample shipments are expected to leave the dock in June, while mass production should get going sometime in the second half of this year. Somehow, we get the impression this won't stay on top for long.

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Researchers create supercomputer with four GeForce 9800 GX2 cards

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/300792799/

Filed under: Desktops

It's far from the first supercomputer created with the help of some gaming hardware, but this rig built by a group of researchers from the University of Antwerp is certainly impressive enough in its own right, with it employing four of NVIDIA's high-end GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards (which combined pack eight GPUs) to help develop new computational methods for tomography. Dubbed the FASTRA, the system also packs an AMD Phenom 9850 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 750GB hard drive, all of which is powered by a 1,500W power supply (and tastefully lit up with some blue LEDs). That apparently lets 'em do calculations that previously took an hour in just a few seconds, not to mention finally get a decent frame rate in Crysis. Be sure to check out the video after the break for a thorough (and more entertaining than it should be) overview of the system.

Continue reading Researchers create supercomputer with four GeForce 9800 GX2 cards

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Bacteria computer is good at math, even those pesky story problems

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/300867571/

Filed under: Desktops

Scientists have successfully developed a computer out of E. coli bacteria (again), which has managed to solve the Burnt Pancake Problem -- at least in a limited form. The problem involves creating a golden-side-up stack of pancakes out of all different size pancakes, each of which is burned one one side, with the largest pancake on the bottom tapering up to the smallest on top. You can only use a spatula to flip a top section of pancakes, and the math problem is to sort the stack in as few flips as possible. In addition to making regular human mathematicians very hungry, the problem exponentially spirals out of control -- for six pancakes there are 46,080 permutations, for 12 pancakes there are 1.9 trillion. The E. coli computer differs from a regular computer in that it turn each piece of DNA into a simulated pancake, with sections of DNA being flipped to hide from a killer antibiotic if they get the answer right, and killed if they get the answer wrong. With millions of "computers" able to fit in a drop of water, scaling won't be an issue once they figure things out, but for now E. coli can only figure out how to sort two pancakes.

[Thanks, Hraefn]

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