Windows HPC hits top 10 among supercomputers - Network World
Microsoft on Tuesday hit another high-performance computing milestone by placing its server for the first time in the top 10 on the list of the Top 500 super computers as judged by Top500.org.

Just a year ago, the best Microsoft could do was 116th place based on rankings from Top500.org, which has been benchmarking supercomputers since 1993 with its bi-annual tests it calls “runs.”

Windows HPC Server 2008, a 64-bit system that shipped Nov. 1, came in at No. 10, achieving 180.6 teraflops with 77.5% efficiency at the Shanghai Supercomputer Center and Dawning Information Industry Co.

Despite the high ranking, Microsoft’s biggest high-performance computing challenge is likely in front of the vendor – creating easy-to-use developer tools for writing applications for the platform.

Apple’s new MacBook lines include a form of digital copy protection that will prevent protected media, such as DRM-infused iTunes movies, from playing back on devices that aren’t compliant with the new priority protection measures.

The Intel-developed technology is called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) and aims to prevent copying of digital audio and video content as it travels across a variety of display connectors, even if such copying is not in violation of fair use laws.

Among the connectors supported by the technology are the Mini DisplayPort found on Apple’s latest MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air, in addition to others such as Digital Visual Interface (DVI), High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), Gigabit Video Interface (GVIF), and Unified Display Interface (UDI).

I guess that now many people who considered switching to Apple will stick with non DRM OS (I know I will).

After 27 years as a print publication, PC Magazine is ditching its print edition and going online-only in February.

The move, announced Wednesday, highlights the pressure on newspapers and magazines to protect their profit margins as more advertising dollars flow to the Web.

Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney and Guns N’ Roses released their biggest hits on vinyl records and compact discs, but on Thursday, their new albums will debut online on MySpace.

Users of MySpace, the world’s largest social network on the Internet, will be able to listen for free to “Electric Arguments,” the new album by McCartney’s side-project group The Fireman, and “Chinese Democracy,” the long-delayed album by hard rock band Guns N’ Roses, before the songs are in stores and at online shops like Amazon.com.

Members of News Corp-owned MySpace will be able to play the songs on the bands’ MySpace pages, but they will not be able to download them onto their computers.

Geffen Records plans to exclusively release “Chinese Democracy” on November 23 in the United States at consumer electronics chain Best Buy Co Inc. Most of its tracks have already shown up in various forms, including pirated versions on the Internet.

A federal judge has tossed out Psystar’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple, one of its most important avenues to remaining in business.

Judge William Alsup of the U.S. Federal Court for the Northern District of California rejected Psystar’s argument that Apple uses anticompetitive practices to prevent companies from selling computers that run Mac OS X, according to court documents spotted by AppleInsider. Psystar can amend its complaint in order to try to convince the judge that it has a better argument, but it has only 20 days to decide whether or not it can overcome the judge’s decision.

The Mozilla creators of the popular open source Firefox browser are offering a supplementary web application that helps users customize the browser to their specific needs. On a side note, the company also announced that the Firefox add-ons that provide this customization have passed the one billion download milestone.

“One of the best parts about Firefox is the amazing richness of our 5,000-plus free add-ons,” said Mike Shaver, vice president of engineering at Mozilla. “We’re excited to introduce Fashion Your Firefox because it makes it even easier for people to discover useful add-ons that make the browsing experience better and more personal.”

Instead of requiring users to hunt through thousands of extensions to customize their browser, Fashion Your Firefox offers nine categories of people to choose from, and presents appropriate extensions based on these profiles. The categories are Finder and Seeker, Social Butterfly, Shutterbug, Digital Pack Rat, Rock Star, Decorator, Shopaholic, News Junkie, and Executive Assistant.

For example, the Social Butterfly collection includes extensions built for the Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn social networks, along with instant messaging and bookmark sharing tools.

To try the service out for yourself, point your browser to www.fashionyourfirefox.com.

The US space agency NASA said it successfuly conducted a first test of a deep space communications network modeled on the Internet.

“This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications capability, an interplanetary Internet,” Adrian Hooke, NASA’s manager of space-networking architecture, technology and standards, said in a statement.

The US space agency said Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit dozens of space images to and from a NASA spacecraft some 20 million miles 32.4 million kilometers from Earth.

NASA said the software protocol, which must be able to withstand delays, disruptions and disconnections in space, was designed in partnership with Vint Cerf, a vice president at Internet search giant Google.

DTN sends information using a method that differs from the normal Internet’s Transmission-Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, communication suite, which Cerf co-designed, NASA said.

Unlike TCP/IP, DTN does not assume a continuous end-to-end connection, NASA said, noting that glitches can happen when a spacecraft moves behind a planet, or when solar storms and long communication delays occur.

It said the delay, for example, in sending or receiving data from Mars takes between three-and-a-half minutes and 20 minutes at the speed of light.

NASA said that if a destination path cannot be found, data packets are not discarded but kept by each network node until it can communicate safely with another node.

Eventually, it said, the information is delivered to the end user.

Microsoft Corp said Wednesday it will discontinue sales of its subscription PC security service and instead offer free software to help protect computers from viruses, spyware and other threats.

With the move, the software giant appears to be taking aim at McAfee Inc and Symantec Corp, its chief rivals in the PC security market.

Microsoft plans to halt sales of its Windows Live OneCare service on June 30. The service being discontinued costs $49.95 a year and covers up to three PCs.

The new security program, which the company has code-named “Morro,” will be available as a free download in the second half of next year.

Morro is designed to work with smaller, less powerful computers, the company said, which should make it appeal to a wide group of consumers.

However, McAfee said the move is a sign of capitulation on the part of Microsoft. McAfee said OneCare managed to capture less than 2 percent of the market in the two years it has been out.

“Microsoft is giving up,” a McAfee spokesman said. “They are now defaulting to a dressed-down free model that doesn’t meet consumer security needs.”

Google Inc. has opened an online photo gallery that will feature millions of images from Life magazine’s archives that have never been seen by the public before.

The new service, available at http://images.google.com/hosted/life , debuted Tuesday with about 2 million photos. Eventually, Google plans to scan all 10 million photos from Life’s library so they can be viewed on any computer with an Internet connection.

About 97 percent of Life’s archives have not been publicly seen, according to Life.

The photos can be printed out for free as long as they aren’t being used as part of an attempt to make money. Time Warner Inc., Life’s parent company, hopes to make money by selling high-resolution, framed prints. The orders will be processed through Qoop.com.

National Geographic is getting into the video game business. Through its for-profit unit National Geographic Ventures, the nonprofit National Geographic Society is set to announce Tuesday that it has created National Geographic Games.

The division’s first game, “Herod’s Lost Tomb,” was developed in-house and is a free download for PC, Mac and the iPhone. After that, NGG is coming out with games for Nintendo’s Wii, Sony’s PlayStation 3 and handheld devices.

Some will be developed in-house while others will rely on partnerships, like “National Geographic Panda” from Namco Bandai and “National Geographic: Africa” from Sony.

Chris Mate, previously an executive with Take-Two Interactive Software and Bethesda Softworks, was named GM of NGG.

Intel began selling its new Core i7 processor on Monday, finally matching the lower power consumption and ability to handle multiple tasks offered by smaller competitor Advanced Micro Devices.

Intel is already one year ahead of AMD in offering chips with 45 nanometer features that improve efficiency and power consumption, but in some ways the Core i7 is playing catch-up to AMD.

The new Intel chip, formerly code-named “Nehalem,” has four processing cores on a single piece of silicon and automatically cuts down power usage when the chip is doing less — both features that AMD has boasted.

Until now, AMD has argued that Intel strapped together two separate double cores and called them a quad core, while AMD has had a true quad core.

Each of the Intel chip’s four cores can handle two different “threads,” or processes, at once.

The new features translate into improved speed for such calculation-intense operations as video editing and games, without using more power, Intel said.

Analysts say these features are available with AMD’s new Shanghai chip, but note that it serves only the thinnest slice of the market at the high end.

AMD buyers must wait until next year to get the consumer version for desktops.

Intel took the opposite approach, offering its desktop version first. That will be followed over the next year by versions for laptops at the low end and servers at the high end.

Video compression software maker DivX Inc said on Monday it filed a lawsuit against Yahoo Inc for planning to end a two-year advertising services agreement.

DivX said the termination would hurt its results for 2008 and 2009.

The lawsuit was filed in California Superior Court in Santa Clara County, seeking damages and specific performance under the agreement, which was announced in September 2007.

“Yahoo’s decision to breach is unjustified given DivX’s fulfillment of its obligations under the agreement,” said DivX Chief Executive Officer Kevin Hell, adding that his company would aggressively pursue legal action.

Yahoo said it has been working with DivX to restructure their previous agreement but the two companies could not come to an amicable resolution at this time.