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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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Dell has just announced that it will start offering a free software update for Latitude XT owners that will bring them multi-touch capabilities on their XT machines. By upgrading their XT’s firmware users will be able to maximize the full real estate of their XT’s screen.

Once the XT’s firmware is upgraded, users can start using their XT’s screen to scroll through web browsers and productivity application as well as zoom in and out various contents just by placing two fingers on the screen and moving them together horizontally or vertically. Users can also program a double-tap gesture on the screen to to launch an application or to turn the machine off. This feature is somewhat similar to the multi-touch capability of the MacBook Air’s touchpad..

The firmware upgrade is available at http://support.dell.com. If you want to find out how this multi-touch capability works, keep on reading to watch the video demo.

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