Hasta La Gadget!

Hundred core chips might not be breaking news — especially if the company announcing it is Tilera — but what if that new multi-core CPU drew an insanely lower wattage and set its sights on powering a few cloud server farms? Well, that’s exactly what chip maker Tilera has up its silicon sleeve. “Co-developed with the world’s leading cloud computing companies” — take a guess who that might include — the new 64-bit TileGx-3100 clocks in at up to 1.5GHz while sucking down a lighter 48W. Line that up next to the current cloud favorite, Intel’s Xeon, and your power consumption is slashed nearly in half. Of course, the barrier to entry is high for the nascent chip developer since most code written is for the x86 — requiring a whole new set of instructions for data centers to play nice. Expect to see this face-melting monster sometime early 2012, by which time, you’ll probably have your 50,000 strong music library synced to the cloud.

Tilera’s new 100-core CPU elbows its way to the cloud, face-melt still included originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 22:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember the K — the Fujitsu supercomputer that promised to do a whopping ten petaflops by the year 2012? Well, it hasn’t reached that threshold just yet, but according to the latest Top 500 supercomputer list, it’s still faster than any other machine on Earth. In fact, the top-ranked beast is more powerful than the next five supercomputers combined, consumes enough electricity to power about 10,000 homes for a full year, and is capable of churning out about 8.2 quadrillion calculations per second — three times as many as what runner-up (and former number-one) Tianhe-1A can process. Today’s announcement marks the first time since 2004 that a Japanese creation sits atop Top500.org’s rankings, but Fujitsu isn’t exactly resting on its laurels. Before deploying it next year, engineers at the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science are aiming to add about 100,000 cores to the K’s collection of 548,352, which would provide it with even more computational muscle, and likely spell doom for all of humanity. Find out more in the PR after the break.

Continue reading Fujitsu K supercomputer now ranked fastest in the world, dethrones China’s Tianhe-1A

Fujitsu K supercomputer now ranked fastest in the world, dethrones China’s Tianhe-1A originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Jun 2011 08:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The next step for Panasonic’s UniPhier family of processors for HDTVs and Blu-ray players has been unveiled, taking form as a 1.4GHz ARM Cortex-A9 based design that it claims is the industry’s fastest for TVs. The MN2WS0220 will begin sample shipments this month and it can handle two HDTV streams, plus internet content and smart TV apps all at once while cutting power consumption from the previous generation by 40%. This follows in the footsteps of Toshiba’s Cell-based CEVO TV processors that also bring multiple cores and high speed memory to bear. The other question of course is backwards compatibility, while some of the new Viera Connect apps for 2011 were also compatible with 2010 HDTVs, it’ll be interesting to see if Panasonic’s platform can take advantage of the new chip without making televisions that are currently on shelves obsolete, or if it considers joining forces with the Google TV cadre for apps like SlingPlayer and OnLive.

Continue reading Panasonic’s 1.4 GHz dual-core Smart TV chip is industry’s fastest, should load Netflix quicker

Panasonic’s 1.4 GHz dual-core Smart TV chip is industry’s fastest, should load Netflix quicker originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nintendo’s new console, the Wii U, was finally unveiled to the world today at E3 2011, and we got a glimpse of its graphical prowess at the company’s keynote. Details were scarce about the IBM silicon Nintendo’s new HD powerhouse was packing, but we did some digging to get a little more info. IBM tells us that within the Wii U there’s a 45nm custom chip with “a lot” of embedded DRAM (shown above). It’s a silicon on insulator design and packs the same processor technology found in Watson, the supercomputer that bested a couple of meatbags on Jeopardy awhile back. Unfortunately, IBM wouldn’t give us the chip’s clock speeds, but if it’s good enough to smoke Ken Jennings on national TV, we imagine it’ll do alright against its competition from Sony and Microsoft.

[Thanks, Sonny]

Continue reading IBM puts Watson’s brains in Nintendo Wii U

IBM puts Watson’s brains in Nintendo Wii U originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Jun 2011 14:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It takes a lot of energy for computing systems or data centers to patch up critical errors, but what if we devoted less power to fixing less urgent issues? That’s the basic idea behind EnerJ — a new power-saving system that could cut a chip’s energy consumption by 90 percent, simply by prioritizing critical problems over those that are less threatening. Unlike, say, liquid cooling techniques, the University of Washington’s framework focuses exclusively on the programming side of the equation and revolves around two interlocking pieces of code: one that handles crucial, precision-based tasks (e.g., password encryption), and another designed to deal with processes that can continue to function, even when facing small errors. The system’s software would separate the two codes, meaning that energy from one section of the chip would never be used to fix a major problem that the other should address, while allowing engineers to more efficiently allocate voltage to each region. The system has already cut energy usage by up to 50 percent in lab simulations, but researchers think the 90 percent threshold is well within their reach, with computer engineering professor Luis Ceze (pictured above) predicting that the system may even be able to increase battery life by a factor of ten. The team is hoping to release EnerJ as an open-source tool this summer, but for now, you can find more information in the PR after the break.

Continue reading EnerJ power-saving system prioritizes CPU voltage, may reduce energy consumption by 90 percent

EnerJ power-saving system prioritizes CPU voltage, may reduce energy consumption by 90 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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