Tech. World

It used to be that you only needed a bachelor's degree and elbow patches to be taken seriously as an academic, but now it's all about that 50-petaflop supercomputer with 500 petabytes of storage whirring away in the basement. The University of Illinois used to shop with IBM , but it's just about to have a brand new Cray XK6 installed instead, so it can continue providing computing power to the National Science Foundation's Blue Waters project. It's not all about inciting gadget envy, of course: the machine's unlikely truce of AMD Opteron 6200 16-core processors and NVIDIA Tesla GPUs will help more than 25 teams of scientists to model and understand real-world phenomena, from the damage caused by earthquakes to the way viruses to break into cells. Breakthroughs from these projects will -- hopefully, one day -- make the $188 million total cost of Cray's products and services seem like a bargain. Full details in the PR after the break. Continue reading Unive...

As Nokia's first Windows Phone lights up shop fronts across Britain, Orange has informed us that the Lumia 800 has attracted the most attention it's ever seen for a Nokia device. Based on preorders, the smartphone has trumped both the critically acclaimed N95 and the 5800, while we're sure the gratis Xbox 360 for upgraders hasn't hurt demand -- 50 percent of those looking to pick up the polycarbonate phone are already Orange customers. The carrier has told us that an Xbox-based offer for new customers looking to pick up the Nokia-coated Windows Phone is also in the pipeline -- something for UK network hoppers to get excited about. Nokia Lumia 800 hits UK stores, preorder demand leaves Orange UK glowing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Nov 2011 08:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Intel spent most of yesterday standing in the bar at the SC11 conference showing off the size of its computing prowess. Admittedly, it's on a roll; the Xeon E5 processor powers ten of the Top 500 supercomputers in the world, and Intel chips as a whole are found inside 85 percent of all the machines on the list -- not to mention the E5's newly minted PCI Express 3.0 compatibility. The Santa Clara chip maker is also building a new Exascale lab at the Barcelona Computing Center , a ten petaflop "Stampede" machine at the Texas Advanced Computing center and several other machines for Government agencies like NASA. The Seattle shindig was a great excuse for Intel's Rajeeb Hazra to show off the new Knights Corner co-processor, built with a new Tri-Gate 3D 22nm process that packs 50 cores into one strip of silicon. In fact, the only thing Intel wasn't bragging about was being bested by the record breaking Fujitsu K , the mere mention of which caused everyone to go ...

No point in hiding in plain view, eh? Boxee has just affirmed that the leaked Live TV dongle is legit, and it'll be splashing down on North American shores in January. The Boxee Box Live TV dongle will allow North American users to connect an antenna to their Box to watch channels like ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC in HD with no monthly fee -- assuming you're close enough to an OTA tower to receive said signals, of course. Once equipped, a Box will be able to fetch content from the major networks, Vudu, Netflix and Hulu, though you may want to spring for that bolstered internet connection. Boxee Live TV works with signals from HDTV antennas (using ATSC) or an unencrypted cable connection (using ClearQAM), and a portable antenna is included. Users who live out in the 'burbs may want to consider something a bit beefier, and if you're hoping to use this thing with something other than the Boxee Box... well, keep dreaming. In fact, Boxee has confirmed that even the forthcoming up...

A tablet running Ice Cream Sandwich ? That's what China's Fuzhou Rockchip has apparently produced with the Android 4.0 PAD, as seen by our brethren over at Engadget China. According to the manufacturer, this slate is the very first to run Android 4.0, having been put together only a couple of weeks after Google released the source code for its latest OS. Rockchip's being rather mum on specifics and release dates for supported devices, though it has revealed that this particular prototype's powered by its 1GHz RK2918 processor. The company's released a teaser video as well -- check it out for yourself after the break, and do also head over to Engadget China for some hands-on shots. Continue reading Fuzhou Rockchip teases Android 4.0 PAD, brings Ice Cream Sandwich to the big screen (video) Fuzhou Rockchip teases Android 4.0 PAD, brings Ice Cream Sandwich to the big screen (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Nov 2011 03:18:00 EDT. Please see our ter...

The pandemonium of Black Friday has now subsided, leaving Amazon with nothing but a big grin and stellar sales. According to the retailer, the Kindle Fire dominated this year's one-day extravaganza, standing proud as the top-selling product across all of Amazon.com and the best-selling tablet at Target. Amazon also claims to have sold four times as many Kindle products as it did during last year's post-Thanksgiving rush, though it didn't divulge any precise figures -- Cyber Monday , after all, is far from over. Head past the break for the full PR. Continue reading Amazon sees huge jump in Kindle Black Friday sales, Fire leads the way Amazon sees huge jump in Kindle Black Friday sales, Fire leads the way originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Nov 2011 06:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

It's apparently not a done deal just yet, but Bloomberg is reporting that AT&T is currently in negotiations to offer at least one Nokia Windows Phone sometime next year. That word comes straight from the head of AT&T's tablet unit, Glenn Lurie, who reportedly said that AT&T is now working on completing the details of the agreement -- no word on any specific phones, though. In other news, Lurie also said that "you are going to see prices come down" on tablets next year, although in that case he was unsurprisingly only referring to prices on a two-year contract (tablets from Acer and Samsung were specifically mentioned as ones that would be receiving discounts). AT&T in talks to offer Nokia's Windows Phones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .