China's Super Computer Retains Title of Fastest

 

China's Tianhe 2  which can operate at 33.863 trillion operations a second again retains it's title as world's fastest computer, a benchmark it set in June of 2013.  The benchmark is called the Linpack and it compiles it's list twice yearly.  

From the BBC News online article:

• It  (the linpack benchmark) measures how fast the computers can solve a special type of linear equation to determine their speed, but does not take account of other factors - such as how fast data can be transferred from one part of the system to another - which can also influence real-world performance.

IBM has five out of the top ten fastest computers believes that the test should be changed to reflect the way computers are used today.  For example the Linpack does not measure how fast data travels inside the computer.  This is very important on the usefulness of the system.  However officials from Linpack hint that the test changes would not take place. 

 Worlds top 10 fastest computers

1. Tianhe-2 (China) 33.86 petaflop/sec
2. Titan (US) 17.59 petaflop/sec
3. Sequoia (US) 17.17 petaflop/sec
4. K computer (Japan) 10.51 petaflop/sec
5. Mira (US) 8.59 petaflop/sec
6. Piz Daint (Swiss) 6.27 petaflop/sec
7. Stampede (US) 5.17 petaflop/sec
8. Juqueen (Germany) 5.09 petaflop/sec
9. Vulcan (US) 4.29 petaflop/sec
10. SuperMuc (Germany) 2.90 petaflop/sec
(Source: Top500 List based on Rmax Linpack benchmark)

A Boy And His Atom: The World's Smallest Movie

Hey kiddies, here is something that will and should blow your mind. It is a short film made by IBM researchers working in the field of atomic memory. Here, IBM researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope to move thousands of carbon monoxide molecules, to make a movie so small it can be seen only when you magnify it 100 million times. This film, rightfully so, holds the Guinness World Records™ record for the World's Smallest Stop-Motion Film.

And below is a short description of the ripples that are constantly being created on the small screen. I was wondering...now I know!

Watson Said What?!!!!

What do you get when you mix an urban language dictionary with a supercomputer?  Yep, a foul "mouthed" computer.  At least that is what happened to Watson, IBM's supercomputer.  

It seems that Eric Brown, Watson's "dad" at IBM  wanted to make Watson's conversations to be more "human" in their context.  To accomplish this Brown's team loaded the English language Urban Dictionary into Watson.  

The computer had no problem absorbing the dictionary, but the trouble started when Watson began to pepper its replies with rather profane remarks.  One researcher's inquiry was met with one word from Watson "bullshit".   It seems Watson has no way to differentiate between polite and profane so the only thing the team could do was remove all the dictionary data and install a filter to prevent a 

recurrence.   Brown also revealed that this is not the first time this problem has crept up.  Watson picked up a similar bad habit after reading through Wikipedia. 

Now that is just plain funny!

Tech2 article 

Sequoia Topples K

IBM's Sequoia has replaced Japan's K as the fastest computer in the world.

The Sequoia uses 1.5 million processors to establish a benchmark speed of 16.32 petaflop/s which bested K Computer's 10.51 petaflop/s.

For those of you that would like to know what a mind blowing speed 16+ petaflops a second is - a petaflop is a quadrillion floating-point operations per second, or, to over simplify it a bit a quadrillion is 10 with 15 zeros after it or 10 million billion and Sequoia is doing 16+ basic mathematical operations of these. Can't hardly say the number let alone comprehend it.

In the BBC New article, IBM said that to put a bit more understanding to the number:

• Sequoia was capable of calculating in one hour what otherwise would have taken 6.7 billion people using hand calculators 320 years to complete if they had worked non-stop.

Also according to the article:

• Sequoia will be used to carry out simulations to help extend the life of aging nuclear weapons, avoiding the need for real-world underground tests.

Also not only is Sequoia faster than K but is also 150% more energy efficient using  7.9 megawatts to K's  12.6. 

WIKI article here

IBM Centennial Film: 100 X 100

The full name of this short film is "IBM Centennial Film: 100 X 100 - A century of achievements that have changed the world" it may sound a bit self serving, IBM's achievements over the past 100 years are nothing short of amazing. I am not suggesting that we go and deify the company, it is just put into chronological order, it is hard to imagine what the world would have been like without some of the equipment that by today's standards is quaint, but at the time of inception was noting short of ground-breaking. IBM uses a rather unique method of describing their innovations. Many of the narrators were born when IBM was creating their innovative breakthroughs. I think it is a clever use of resources. You don't have to be a wild eyed supporter to appreciate the images and history.