ibm-atom-film
computers
IBM Fools Around With Atoms and Makes a Rubbish Film

IBM has made a film. Only instead of hiring Gerard Butler and Helen Hunt to portray the potential for atom-level processor power, the tech company has organised actual individual atoms to create a stop motion stick boy story. Read More >>

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image cache
Bill Gates and Paul Allen Recreate Iconic 1981 Microsoft Photo

Back in 1981, Bill Gates and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen pulled of an audacious feat: they licensed MS-DOS to IBM, but in a deal that saw them retain entire control of the software. To mark the occasion, the pair were photographed amid a sea of contemporary computers—and now they've recreated the image. Read More >>

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supercomputers
Roadrunner Supercomputer Goes Dark Today

The world's fastest supercomputer isn't the world's fastest super computer anymore, so it's getting turned off today. At Los Alamos National Laboratory, IBM's Roadrunner is being replaced by a faster, cheaper and more energy efficient computer, Cielo. Read More >>

IBMwordprocessing
the dreamers
“A Rather Unusual Way to Write Books”: The First Literary Work Produced With a Word Processor

An Associate Professor of English at the University of Maryland has identified the first literary work to be written with a word processor, instead of a typewriter. The book is Bomber, by Len Deighton, a World War II thriller published to critical acclaim in 1970. What follows is a magnificent tale which sees several fellow authors' names being put forward for this accolade, before Deighton himself was fingered. Read More >>

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gadgets
IBM’s Watson Got a Job as a Pastry Chef

Super computer Watson can crush puny humans at Jeopardy. It can do a pretty bang-up job as a doctor. It can swear up a storm. Two of those aren't easy for a normal person, but that's not enough for IBM. IBM wants more. And part of it's plan to push Watson to its limits should really get things cooking. Literally. Read More >>

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monster machines
How Stanford’s Million-Core, Five Dimensional Super Computer Will Silence Jet Engines

The modern-day jet engine may be powerful enough to shuttle travellers across a continent in just six hours but it's also unbearably loud—for both the ground crews that work around them and residents within earshot of airports. And while aircraft engineers are developing quieter designs, building and testing these hushed prototypes can run into the six figures. But with the help of the US Livermore National Labs' supercomputer and some open-source modelling software, commercial airliners may soon be whisper quiet. Read More >>

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computers
One Million Computer Cores Used in Mundane Jet Noise Modelling Experiment

Researchers working in the rather niche field of turbulence dynamics have set a new multi-core computing record, using a custom app to harness one million simultaneous processor cores to model supersonic jet sounds. Read More >>

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uncategorized
The Smartest Computer in the World Also Has the Dirtiest Mouth

We already knew Ken Jennings thought IBM's Jeopardy-winning supercomputer was a dick, but he's not alone. Developers at IBM were forced to wipe part of Watson's memory once they realized their hyperintelligent computer had turned into a bit of a twat. Read More >>

Expensive hard drive
monster machines
The Most Expensive Hard Drive Ever Spun 22.7 GB on 11-Inch Platters

Twenty-two Gigabytes seems like a paltry amount of storage by today's standards, but in the early days of networked computing—when most storage capacities were measured in a lower order of magnitude—IBM's ultimate DASD offered an unheard of amount of space. Read More >>

5 in 5 tech ideas
gadgets
Will We Have Cognitive Computers That Feel and Smell in the Next Five Years?

At the end of each year, IBM releases its "5 in 5" — five technology predictions that IBM researchers foresee coming to fruition within the coming five years. These predictions are based on everything from emerging market trends to cultural and social behaviours to actual technologies IBM has incubating in its many labs. And if this year's predictions are to be believed, many computational systems — from your tablet and laptop to your smartphone — are about to get a lot more sensory, learning to see, hear, touch, taste, and smell in their own digital ways. Read More >>

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google
Google60: Search the Web Mad Men-Style

Grab yourself a cocktail and say goodbye to your productivity with this brilliant Google60 parody that lets you use the search tool as if you only had access to a monstrous IBM System/360 mainframe. Spoiler alert: you'll probably be pulling your hair out after five minutes. Read More >>

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techversary
Happy 20th to the ThinkPad: The First Laptop in Space

The ThinkPad is a legendary machine—it's been in space, it's displayed in the Museum of Modern Art, and as of today, the classic computer is 20 years old. Happy birthday, old guy. Read More >>

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science
A Water-Cooled Chip That Concentrates the Sun to Desalinate Water

Anyone who's dropped a mobile in the bath knows that water and microelectronics don't usually mix well. But at IBM's Swiss lab in Zurich, marrying the two is becoming almost commonplace: microprocessors with water coursing through microchannels carved deep inside them are already crunching data in SuperMUC, an IBM supercomputer - with the heat that the water carries away used to warm nearby buildings. Read More >>

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uncategorized
Large Scale Water Cooling System Chills Europe’s Fastest Supercomputer and Warms Its Operators

Extreme PC gamers often use highly efficient water cooling systems to eek every last drop of performance out of their PCs. But Europe's most powerful supercomputer, the SuperMUC, will be one of the first facilities to use a water cooling system on a far grander scale. Read More >>

sequoia
science
IBM Cranks Up The Pace As New Supercomputer Trumps Fujitsu

If the Stig was more into computers than he was cars, he'd be mighty proud right now, as IBM has overtaken Fujitsu with their brand new supercomputer that is now the fastest... in the world. Read More >>