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Largest-ever math proof chews up 200TB of data
You've probably been asked to prove a math solution at some point, but never like this. Researchers have created the world's largest math proof while solving the Boolean Pythagorean triples problem, consuming a whopping 200TB of data -- the previous record was 'just' 13GB. The sheer size came from having to consider the sheer range (nearly 1 trillion) of possibilities involved in coloring integers. You could technically use a 68GB compressed version at home, but it'd take about 30,000 hours of processing time to crunch the data.
UT Austin creates world's highest resolution tiled display: Stallion
If you thought 220 million pixels was a lot, well, you'd be right. But given how things are in Texas relative to everything else, we'd say there's no denying that 307 million pixels is indeed a lot more. Dubbed the world's highest resolution tiled display, Stallion has just been unveiled by the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at The University of Texas at Austin. Designed for studying diminutive cells and checking out old game footage, the system boasts 75 Dell 30-inch LCDs, each of which has a native resolution of 2,560 x 1,600. It also packs 36GB of graphics memory, 108GB of system memory and 100 processing cores. And just think -- if the Longhorns could get that one game back against the Red Raiders, every fan within a 10-mile radius of Austin could see their team in the championship game on this thing.[Via KanYeWest Blog]
IBM unveils one-petaflop Blue Gene/P supercomputer
It was but two years ago that we all sat in awe of IBM's beautiful 280.6-teraflop masterpiece, and it's finally safe to call that workhorse a thing of the past. Today, Big Blue announced the second-generation of its famed supercomputer (dubbed Blue Gene/P), which reportedly comes close to "tripling the performance of its predecessor." In an attempt to showcase its might, IBM suggested that 27 million clinical trials could be computed "in just one afternoon using a sliver of its full power." Additionally, the engineers went the extra mile by crafting a highly scalable system that comes in "at least seven times more energy efficient than any other supercomputer," but we're sure those 294,912 processors (each touting four PowerPC 450 CPUs) can churn through some energy when utilizing the whole petaflop. And just think, Sun probably thought the 500 or so teraflop production from its forthcoming Ranger would be the (momentary) top dog.Read - IBM's Blue Gene/P, via CNETRead - Sun's Ranger, via Wired
