Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Google's Compute Engine Is Sfnally Large
Google's newly announced Compute Engine is an infrastructure-as-service product that allows users to run hundreds of thousands of Linux Virtual Machines on Google's infrastructure.
Watch the sequence from Google I/O 2012 starting around 41:00 and particularly 45:00 to 47:00; Compute Engine head Urs Holzle describes how fast a computer can be when you spin up 600,000 cores to solve a problem from the Institute for Systems Biology. The Institute built a 1,000 core device to define relationships between genes in a genomic analysis.
(Google helps the Institute for Systems Biology)
SF writers love describing enormous computing systems; readers may recall the metal calculator planet from Clifford Simak's 1949 story Limiting Factor and the gigagnostotron from Stanislaw Lem's 1965 novel The Cyberiad: Fables for the Cybernetic Age. Also, the City Fathers from James Blish's 1957 novel Cities in Flight makes use of the notion of more than one hundred separate devices that work together.
The earliest example I can think of is the games Machine from A.E. van Vogt's 1945 classic World of Null-A:
The Machine itself stood on the leveled crest of a mountain.It was a scintillating, silvery shaft rearing up into the sky...
People sometimes think that the electronic brain system of the Machine constitutes a development superior to that of man. They marvel at the Machine's capacity to handle twenty-five thousand individuals at once, but actually it can do so only because twenty-five thousand electronic brains were set up in intricate series for just that purpose... [my italics]
(Read more about van Vogt's games Machine)
Read more about Compute Engine. If you want to get started running a "Hello World" on 750,00 cores, you can take a look at the Compute Engine tutorial.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/4/2012)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Computer ")
Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.' - Bruce Bethke, 1983.
Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...' - John Brunner, 1975
Neuroplatform Human Brain Organoid Bioprocessor Uses Less Electricity
'Cultured brains on a slab.'- Peter Watts, 1999
AI Worms That Spread
'...there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net now' - John Brunner, 1975.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
'The crawling... object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
Taikonauts Exercise In China's Tiangong Space Station
'Joe got out the gravity-simulator harnesses...'
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On
'Better late than never.'
Have AI Researchers Given Up On 'Bio-Babies'?
'You couldn't have the capstone without the pyramid to hold it up.'
Bunker Busters and Bore-Pellets
'The first revelation of the new Soviet bore-pellets.'
'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks
'the unobtrusive inspections with tiny remote-cast snoopers...'
