kabz - Slashdot User

Submission + - Cell SPU at 4Ghz and ~25% smaller (beyond3d.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 16, 2007 @01:17PM

An anonymous reader writes: Beyond3D reports that Toshiba has migrated the Stream Processing Units found on the Cell processors away from its previously custom design towards a synthesizable design that can be easily integrated into new processors. The new design created an SPU that 20-30% smaller than the SPUs found in the Cell, although it is 10% slower at the same frequency. However, the new design is capable of hitting 4Ghz, much faster than current SPUs.

Submission + - Smart Car Will Be Sold In The USA 1st Quarter 2008

Submitted by Blahbooboo3 on Saturday June 16, 2007 @10:06AM

Blahbooboo3 writes: Finally, the smart car is coming to the USA in January 2008. Smart car uses a special designed crash cage to protect the driver and gets upwards of 40MPG. Crash test are very positive. The car is deceptively large inside, as showcased by this great ad from the smart usa web site. The 2nd gen Fortwo will be offered first, starting around $12000. The slick roadster unfortunately isn't coming soon.

Submission + - Orson Scott Card Confirms Ender's Game Video Games (filefront.com)

Submitted by lymeca on Saturday June 16, 2007 @04:09AM

lymeca writes: In an interview over at Gaming Today, Orson Scott Card confirms the development of an Ender's Game video game and elaborates on the multitude of potential future games in the Ender universe. He also talks about his experiences writing for and playing games, as well as why he believes games inherently never have the potential for storytelling on the level of novels and films. From the interview: "What makes a game work is the opposite of what makes a story work. In a story, you are seeking to find out what really happened — why people do what they do, what the results of their choices are. You identify with the character(s) but you do not control them. Instead, the author has the ultimate authority. ... In a game, the opposite illusion must be created. Even though most games absolutely force you to follow preset paths, the gamewrights try to give you the illusion that you are making free choices."

Submission + - Apache Ant gets a Makeover (placidsystems.com)

Submitted by on Saturday June 16, 2007 @12:38AM

An anonymous reader writes: Virtual Ant, a new GUI for the popular Apache Ant build tool creates an environment similar to Windows Explorer where users can play around with their file system, while whatever they do is recorded and turned into an Ant build script. The real cool part is that whatever they do inside Virtual Ant does not affect the real file system. So deleting a file by mistake doesnt actually delete it. The program also has some really cool features like allowing you to go back and forward in time to see how the file system looked like after each ant task was executed on it.

Submission + - IT ads from the past: From the quaint to the weird (computerworld.com)

Submitted by

PetManimal

on Thursday June 14, 2007 @06:50PM

PetManimal writes: "Computerworld has dug up some funny IT advertising gems from decades past. The highlights include "The Personal Mainframe", Elvira hawking engineering software, and an image of the earliest screenless "briefcase portables." Strange to think that people not only took these technologies so seriously, but also paid big bucks for gear that seems positively primitive now."

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