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Supercomputers are great, in fact even the name is great: conjuring images of CPUs in red capes flying to the help of damsels in distress.  However, in the real world they are hundreds of cabinets stuffed full of computer stuff and do in fact loo incredibly dull.  The opposite can be said of what they actually do as they push the boundaries of what is capable using solely 0s and 1s to solve complex calculations, help define new theorem, and play Crysis on full graphics.

Yet, as with everything in this world, it has become a competition to have the fastest computer and this has been going on since computers began; in fact, even Romans competed over abacus skills.  In June, the Roadrunner which was built by IBM, became the fastest computer ever achieving a sustained speed of 1.026 petaflops. 

However there could be a new leader on the Top 500 list which is compiled by computer experts and is to be updated this week in a supercomputing conference in Austin.  This is Cray’s Jaguar XT, which claims to have reached 1.64 petaflops, a massive increase on its probable predecessor and is set to gain this prestigious honor.  It runs Linux and has a massive 362TB of memory which is spread out over its 284 cabinets, each of which holding 192 quad-core AMD Opteron chips.

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Today, Garmin announced two new GPS units that are similar to each other called the Nuvi 500 and Nuvi 550. The interesting thing about these GPS units is that they are both capable of helping when driving, or when outdoors such as hiking. One of the main differences between the 500 and the 550 is that the 500 provides US only maps, while the 550 comes with maps of North America.

Both of these devices sport 3.5-inch screens, full street maps, waterproof touchscreens, as well as handy topology maps. It comes with a swift toggle system to switch between maps, and it also comes with a compass. The topology maps and the compass should both come in handy when outdoors. They also have support to load photos as well as sharing photos. It has something called Route 66 guide, which means it will display special POI’s or landmarks along highways.

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Europeans have gotten a nice addition to the smartphone lineup, the Treo 500. Originally announced for the Vodafone network back in September 2007, it is now being offered as an unlocked version for anyone to use and will retail for £269, which is around $526 US.

The unlocked Treo 500 is running Windows Mobile 6 Standard, has a 320 x 240 display, full QWERTY keyboard, tri-band GSM/GPRS connectivity along with 3G support, 256MB flash memory with 150MB available to the user, Bluetooth 2.0, a 2-megapixel camera and microSD storage.

Product [Palm Europe] Via [The Register]

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