Well, you still can’t play Halo 3 on it, but a UMass professor has a more practical use in mind for his PS3. Dr. Gaurav Khanna, an assistant professor at UMass, created an 8 node cluster using PS3s to run models to see if gravitational waves, which have been postulated for nearly 100 years but never observed, are strong enough that we could actually observe them one day.
In the past, Dr. Khanna had rented time on various supercomputing sites across the US, typically using a couple hundred processors and costing as much as $5,000 of his grant money.
Khanna’s cluster has been up and running for a little over a month. He says that the cluster is roughly equal to about 200 of the supercomputing nodes he used to rely on. Read more at Wired…
PS3 clusters have been created by other researchers as well. One of the pioneers is a North Carolina State University Professor, Dr.Frank Mueller, who created an 8 node PS3 cluster back in March of this year for a total cost of about $5,000.
Interested in the idea, but not sure about where to begin? Terra Soft Solutions is offering turnkey PS3 clusters. An 8 node cluster will set you back about $21,500 and a 32 node cluster $52,250. Besides the obvious cost of the consoles, for that price you also get a dual-proc Power Mac G5, a 48 port switch, Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed (developed and maintained by Terra Soft for the Power architecture family of CPUs), 7 cat 6 cables, mouse, keyboard, 19″ display, and 20 hours or technical support.
On September 20th a 1seg add-on tuner will be available in JApan for an extra $57 USD along with the PSP Slim. Kotaku says to “think what you’ll be doing with your PSP this Fall and what they’ll be doing in Japan. Watching a cruddy digital reception, that’s what!” They may be just teasing. But on a serious note: at least they have this technology implemented on some level where we, in the U.S., aren’t even close to where we should be in consumer technology.
Unveiled at E3, the latest Wii accessory is one to keep you in shape. The Wii Balance Board has dual sensors to detect your weight and balance as you exercise to the activities in Wii Fit. Nintendo said the new device is crucial in providing the “ultimate interactive experience”. Not sure that’s entirely true, but it’s still pretty cool. More shots [Engadget] and watch the video below…
Here’s a cool mod for the Wii, your choice of a 7 or 8.5-inch display for playing the Wii anywhere. The screen can be turned in four directions for adjusted visual angle. You can also control volume and color adjustment. Pega HK
Sony has just announcd their new ‘Home’ online user community service for the Playstation 3. It’s a 3D interactive world with endless possibilities, and from the looks of it, will be competing with Second Life for 3D world junkies.
Kotaku tells us that “Home starts you out in a central lobby. You use a virtual PSP in this world to access features, but can also just walk around. The main lobby we saw included dynamic advertising on billboards, games you could just walk up to and play, like bowling or pool and even a mini arcade that featured some cool little arcade titles.”
Home will go beta this April and will eventually become finalized this fall for all users.
See more screenshots of Sony’s Home at Kotaku. Watch promo video for Home below…
Benjamin Heckendorn of Engadget just designed this sweet Wii Laptop. Featuring a 16:9 widescreen 7-inch LCD, Stereo sound, Gamecube controller port, built-in short range Sensor Bar, ports for using original Sensor Bar and A/V output jacks (for use on external display, and built-in power supply and compartment for power cord. Gallery and Video
According to Verdicts, “An unconfirmed source has revealed that Nintendo are currently working on a wireless version of their Nunchuck attachment for the Wii remote.”
Some say the wire is quite annoying and can be a problem, so a wireless version would be extra nice. There are reportedly “many complaints from gamers who feel that the dangling wire which links the two devices, simply distracts from gameplay, especially in games which require significant movement of the arms, such as Wii Boxing or Call of Duty 3.”
No comments or official announcements from Nintendo about this, but hopefully it will be confirmed soon.
Unveiled at E3, the latest Wii accessory is one to keep you in shape. The Wii Balance Board has dual sensors to detect your weight and balance as you exercise to the activities in Wii Fit. Nintendo said the new device is crucial in providing the “ultimate interactive experience”. Not sure that’s entirely true, but it’s still pretty cool. 
