Supercomputing is a hot topic as the Big Mac(intosh) takes 3rd place in the World’s Fastest list and IBM promises to blow NEC’s monster Earth Simulator off top spot with a petaflop machine. IBM’s Blue Gene/P will be used to explore protein folding, injecting atomic fire-starter into the already-exploding field of systems biology. Europe may […]

As of last month, the world’s second (maybe third) fastest supercomputer is a cheap (US$5 million) Mac cluster. As of next year, one of the world’s top supercomputers could be your desktop PC, thanks to a new chip being shipped to computer manufacturers for evaluation right about now. Photonic computing is not yet ready for […]

The antidote to Internet viruses may be a whole new Internet, already under construction. While we’re at it, why not a whole new Web as well? Today’s Web is a massive, publicly-accessible information warehouse utilizing the combined storage capacity of the millions of computers connected to the Internet. Tomorrow’s Web — also already under construction, […]

An intelligent personal secretary — that could double as a personal physician — on which the U.S. Defense Department has lavished a $29 million down-payment could very well, like the best secretaries, also read your mind. Meantime, in the basement of your computer, where the operating system hums away, autonomous guards will fend off any […]

Computer memory built from nanoscale components — molecules or carbon nanotubes — might be as close as five years hence. So too might quantum computing, with serious venture capital backing an innovative approach. When you add to the mix: An easier way to link millions of computers and computing devices on the Internet together to […]