5.23.2007
IBM Unleashes 4.7 GHz POWER6 Microprocessor
IBM Unleashes 4.7 GHz POWER6 Microprocessor
From the article:
From the article:
- IBM claims to be launching the world's fastest chip for UNIX servers
IBM just launched the dual-core 64-bit POWER6 processor running at 4.7 GHz, which doubles the speed of the previous generation POWER5 while using nearly the same amount of electricity to run and cool it.
The POWER6 processor is a result of a five-year R&D period, is composed of 790 million transistors and is built using IBM’s 65nm process technology. IBM scientists targeted the way instructions are executed inside the chip to improve performance. For example, in the POWER6, the number of pipeline stages – the chunks of operations that must be completed in a single cycle of clock time – are kept static, but each stage is made faster, removing unnecessary work and doing more in parallel. As a result, execution time is reduced.
Earlier this year, IBM hinted that its new POWER6 architecture may hit frequencies higher than 5 GHz.
5.21.2007
Rise of the machines
Many interesting items about robots can be seen in this article:
Rise of the machines
Examples:
Rise of the machines
Examples:
- "As part of its bid to put a robot in every household by 2015, South Korea has just drawn up a code of ethics for robots as they become a vital part of daily life. Meanwhile, at a meeting last month in Rome, the European Robotics Research Network called on the European Commission to set up a robot ethics committee to deal with the problems of hostility to and from robots as well as avoiding accidents, tracing their location and monitoring the nature of their intelligence."
- "In Japan, where humanoid robots aimed at being more aesthetically pleasing to the public are about to hit assembly lines, robots are gradually replacing humans in the menial jobs that are increasingly hard to fill."
- "In response to the vocations crisis in the priesthood, a bearded robo-priest is on call 24 hours a day at the Yokohama Central Cemetary to perform funerals, while at Tokyo’s University of Science, visitors are greeted by a robo-receptionist in a uniform who answers questions and gets bored when there’s nothing to do."
- "By next year, robots will be expected to work as cleaners. By 2013, they will be able to make beds, and by 2016, to lift and carry the sick. "
- "The development of robotic sex toys is expected to prove one of the most controversial. Vibrating and remarkably lifelike sexbots are already being developed in Japan and there are grave fears that it is only a matter of time before sex dolls resembling children are developed, feeding into the dangerous fantasies of paedophiles."
- "Within a decade, one third of American military transport is expected to be driverless while a robot has been designed in South Korea, capable of policing the border with the North, with a shoot-to-kill policy operating at a range of 500 metres."
- "In the future, robots will replace humans in jobs deemed too dull, dirty and dangerous, from house-sitting to toxic waste cleaning."
- "A decade from now, hospitals in countries with low birth rates and strict immigration policies will begin to replace human nurses with robots capable of administering drugs, lifting patients and turning hospital corners. As Ireland’s elderly population grows, health authorities may turn to machines to look after society’s most dependent."
Robotic nurses
Robotic nurses set for wards
- ROBOTS could soon replace nurses by performing jobs like dispensing drugs, taking temperatures and cleaning up wards.
Health ministers say the machines will make caring for patients cheaper and safer — after trials showed robots make fewer mistakes.
A Department of Health spokesman said: “One robot being developed has an arm like C-3PO in Star Wars. It can mix cancer drugs at an amazing speed.”
Prototypes are being tested in hospitals in Newcastle upon Tyne, Warwick and London.
5.10.2007
Robots Are a Soldier's Best Friend
Robots Are a Soldier's Best Friend
From the article:
Archives
From the article:
- The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have become an unprecedented field study in human relationships with intelligent machines. These conflicts are the first in history to see widespread deployment of thousands of battle bots. Flying bots range in size from Learjets to eagles. Some ground bots are like small tanks. Others are the size of two-pound dumbbells, designed to be thrown through a window to scope out the inside of a room. Bots search caves for bad guys, clear roads of improvised explosive devices, scoot under cars to look for bombs, spy on the enemy and, sometimes, kill humans.
Even more startling than these machines' capabilities, however, are the effects they have on their friendly keepers who, for example, award their bots "battlefield promotions" and "purple hearts." "Ours was called Sgt. Talon," says Sgt. Michael Maxson of the 737th Ordnance Company (EOD). "We always wanted him as our main robot. Every time he was working, nothing bad ever happened. He always got the job done. He took a couple of detonations in front of his face and didn't stop working. One time, he actually did break down in a mission, and we sent another robot in and it got blown to pieces. It's like he shut down because he knew something bad would happen." The troops promoted the robot to staff sergeant -- a high honor, since that usually means a squad leader. They also awarded it three "purple hearts."
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