Horus1664 - Slashdot User

Submission + - IBM launching an open desktop solution

Submitted by

DJ_Maiko

on Monday February 12, 2007 @06:36AM

DJ_Maiko writes: "IBM just announced their intent to release an open desktop solution which they're calling "Open Client Offering." The new offering will make it possible for big businesses to present their employees with a choice of running Linux, Macintosh or Windows software on desktop PCs, using the same underlying software code, which will cut the cost of managing Linux or Apple relative to Windows. If this project succeeds, it will make it unnecessary for companies to pay Microsoft for licenses for items that don't rely on Windows-based software. IBM plans to also roll this out in-house to 5% of their 320,000 employees worldwide. This sure seems like a promising endeavor.

From the article:
"We worked with the open source community and found a way to write software once that will work regardless of operating system. It will run on Windows, Macintosh or Linux," said Scott Handy, IBM's vice president of Linux and open source.

So what do you guys think, will this (finally) displace Windows as the flavor du jour in the business marketplace?"

Submission + - Girls of Engineering pin up calendar ?

Submitted by bongey on Sunday February 11, 2007 @07:21PM

bongey writes: Thought this was funny , seems some engineering students got together and talked some of the woman engineers at U of I to take some racy photos for a calendar . Needless to say the title of the calendar is smart is sexy . All I can say is where can I get a copy. http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/246420,CST-NWS- calendar07.article

Submission + - Intel tests 80 Core chip

Submitted by Zeinfeld on Sunday February 11, 2007 @06:33PM

Zeinfeld writes: Intel has announced a test chip with 80 cores. The chip has a nominal processing capacity of over a teraflop. Whether the chip actually delivers that performance over a sustained interval on real processing problems is another question. Also unmentioned is how the issue of heat dissipation is dealt with. It is probably going to be a while before such chips are production.

This marks a major departure from tactics such as introducing more parallelism into the processor core and adding more cache memory that have been the norm since 64 mainstream processors reached 64 bits.

Submission + - World's first Quantum Computer to be demoed

Submitted by

Leemeng

on Sunday February 11, 2007 @01:43PM

Leemeng writes: "EE Times reports that D-Wave will demonstrate the world's first commercial quantum computer on Tuesday (Feb 13) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. If it works, that means it can solve some of the most difficult problems, called NP-complete problems, thousands of times faster than current supercomputers. Initially, D-Wave (Vancouver, B.C.) will lease time on its quantum computer, which will be accessed over a secure Internet connection. Eventually, the company plans to sell quantum computer systems.

Being able to quickly solve NP-complete problems has enormous consequences. A fairly well-known NP-complete problem is the travelling salesman problem, which has real-world implications for logistics. NP-complete problems are present in such diverse fields as medicine, biology, computing, mathematics, and finance. Of immediate concern is quantum computers' potential for cryptanalysis (codebreaking). Specifically, a quantum computer could factor very large numbers in a fraction of the time needed by current computers. That BTW, is just what you need for cracking the RSA cipher and other widely-used ciphers that depend on one-way mathematical functions. Perhaps this will light a fire under quantum cryptography efforts."

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