You all know these P2P (peer-to-peer) computing projects like SETI@home -- certainly the one with the greatest visibility. But there are other ones: Folding@home, Genome@home or FightAIDS@home.
Now, SETI is claiming two milestones: it has used a million years of computer time since its inception. And it reached the same speed as the giant supercomputer from NEC I was telling you about on April 20, 2002 (See "Japanese Computer Is World's Fastest").
The same result by gathering 3.5 million PCs, Macs or workstations? Maybe, even if I'm somewhat skeptical. The same speed? Certainly not.
Note for purists: the author mentions the teraflops measurement and he writes it means trillion calculations (gloating point operations, or flops) a second. No, it's not gloating, but floating.
Source: George Johnson, The New York Times, Apr. 23, 2002
Bill Gates is testifying in a Washington courtroom. OK, what's new? He still doesn't want to see Microsoft punished, and he might win. However, he seems less *arrogant* than last time.
And even if this column doesn't offer new insights, I really enjoyed Dan Gillmor coined words: "Bill Gates launched Testimony 2.0 this week."
How long will we have to wait for Testimony 3.0?
Source: Dan Gillmor, San Jose Mercury News, Apr. 23, 2002
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