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[God Father]

US takes supercomputer top spots

The top two spots on the list of the world's most powerful supercomputers have both been captured by the US.

The last time the country was in a similar position was three years ago.

The fastest machine - Titan, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee - is an upgrade of Jaguar, the system which held the top spot in 2009.

The supercomputer will be used to help develop more energy-efficient engines for vehicles, model climate change and research biofuels.

It can also be rented to third-parties, and is operated as part of the US Department of Energy's network of research labs.

The Top 500 list of supercomputers was published by Hans Muer, professor of computer science at Mannheim, who has been keeping track of developments since 1986. It was released at the SC12 supercomputing conference in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Mixed processors

Titan leapfrogged the previous champion IBM's Sequoia - which is used to carry out simulations to help extend the life of nuclear weapons - thanks to its mix of central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) technologies.

According to the Linpack benchmark it operates at 17.59 petaflop/sec - the equivalent of 17,590 trillion calculations per second.

The benchmark measures real-world performance - but in theory the machine can boost that to a "peak performance" of more than 20 petaflop/sec.

To achieve this the device has been fitted with 18,688 Tesla K20x GPU modules made by Nvidia to work alongside its pre-existing CPUs.

Traditionally supercomputers relied only on CPUs.

CPU cores are designed to carry out a single set of instructions at a time, making them well suited for tasks in which the answer to one calculation is used to work out the next.

GPU cores are typically slower at carrying out individual calculations, but make up for this by being able to carry out many at the same time. This makes them best suited for "parallellisable jobs" - processes that can be broken down into several parts that are then run simultaneously.

Mixing CPUs and GPUs together allows the most appropriate core to carry out each process. Nvidia said that in most instances its GPUs now carried out about 90% of Titan's workload.

"Basing Titan on Tesla GPUs allows Oak Ridge to run phenomenally complex applications at scale, and validates the use of 'accelerated computing' to address our most pressing scientific problems," said Steve Scott, chief technology officer of the GPU accelerated computing business at Nvidia.

The other top systems included:

Fujitsu's K computer at the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan, which was in third spot.

IBM's BlueGene/Q Mira computer at Argonne National Library, near Chicago in the US, which came fourth.

Another IBM BlueGene/Q system, called Juqueen, at the Forschungszentrum Juelich in Germany - Europe's fastest - which came fifth.

Out of the top 500 computers, 62 used a mix of CPU and GPU processors. Six months ago the figure was 58.

[God Father]

Tablets to aid Indian students

India is once again trying to make low-cost computers available to students across the country.

The country's president has unveiled an upgraded version of the world's cheapest tablet computer - despite the functionality and distribution problems faced by the device's predecessor.

Made by UK-based Datawind, the Aakash 2 has a longer battery life and is faster than an earlier version.

It is expected to go on sale in about a week, at 2,263 rupees ($40; £26).

A right to information request filed by Indian media blog Medianama showed that only 572 of the first devices have been distributed, reaching fewer than 20 colleges.

It is expected that the first 100,000 units of the latest tablet will be offered to students at colleges and universities at a subsidised price of 1,130 rupees ($20; £13) before appearing in stores.

The Aakash 2 was unveiled by the Indian President Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday 11 November, India's National Education Day.

"Technology-enabled learning is a very important aspect of education," said Mr Mukherjee at the event.

"This must be adapted to our specific needs and introduced expeditiously in all educational institutions across the country."

The Indian government believes that low-cost tablets can help revolutionise internet access across the country.

At the moment, there are close to 150 million internet users in India, according to figures from Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), but it is still a relatively small proportion of the country's 1.2 billion population.

The Aakash 2 has a 7-inch (18cm) screen, the latest Android software, and a three-hour battery life. It also has 800Mhz processing speed, 800x480 pixel resolution and 512MB memory.

The tablet benefits from a SD card slot, a USB port and works over wi-fi. It does not have 3G capability, however, so users need access to a good internet connection.

Bombay IIT, an engineering institution, aims to distribute 100,000 tablets to colleges around the country.

In an earlier interview with the BBC, Prof DB Phatak from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay said that the tablet was "a fully-fledged computer, not just an access device".

"The applications and the content on Aakash 2 are most important, not just the device."

Warmer reception?

Although the device seems to be better than its predecessor, one analyst told the BBC that it remained to be seen how user-friendly it was going to be.

"When Aakash 1 came out, the specifications were so poor that even at a very low price, it wasn't the device that anyone would want to have," said Katyayan Gupta from Forrester Research, based in New Delhi.

"Also, in action, it wasn't functioning pretty well.

"However, Aakash 2 specifications are very impressive, and the price is very attractive, but the big question is how it will really function - and we will only know it once it goes on sale.

"But I think it will definitely have a much better response, and a much warmer reception from the consumer market, as it seems definitely to be a better product.

"I would definitely think that this device probably will be a game changer for tablet market in India."

[hunterkabai]

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