PS3: Now Unraveling Mysteries of Outer, Inner Space
Sure, Sony’s Playstation 3 might be a little expensive. But thanks to its unique open platform, the PS3 has been moonlighting as a high-powered research tool. Dr. Gaurav Khanna, a computational astrophysics specialist at Dartmouth, now uses eight interlinked PS3s to study super-massive black holes and the theoretical gravity waves they set off in space-time, reports Wired. Khanna says his “gravity grid” is cheaper and more efficient than the costly supercomputers he used to rely on for his research–and that the eight-console PS3 cluster can tackle the work of 200 supercomputing nodes. “Basically, it’s almost like a replacement…I don’t have to use that supercomputer anymore, which is a good thing.”
Meanwhile, Kotaku reports that a team of UC Irvine students linked 3 PS3s together to mimic the brain algorithms that produce sight, thereby creating a robot with super-accurate visual processing–a breakthrough that may pave the way for future development of self-guided cars, computers and robots. The students won first place in IBM’s Cell Broadband Engine Professor University Challenge and their findings were showcased here in Austin as part of the 2007 Power Architecture Developer Conference.
Still no word yet on whether someone will capitalize on all this with “Algorithm Wars: The Cluster” for PS3.
Image via qubits cluster.