I have seen, first-hand, the eruption of a volcano. I watched on television as Americans were freed from captivity and as Berliners took down their wall. I have viewed images from the outer reaches of space in awe and wonder. And today, I witnessed two grown men roll themselves around on a stage covered with one hundred live, snapping mouse traps. And that was pretty cool too.

The opening of the IBM Impact 2008 Smart SOA Conference in Las Vegas on April 7 was well-suited to its host city. First, the UNLV marching band – full uniforms, flags held high – entered the MGM arena space playing “Tusk.” (Which is, by the way, the only GCG-approved Fleetwood Mac tune.) Next up, the CIO of Harley-Davidson rode in on a – what else? – Harley. And really, no kickoff could be complete without Cirque De Soleil acrobats dangling and spinning from what appeared to be floor-to-ceiling fabric swags, accompanied by the music of a live string quartet. Damn, but those folks could climb some drapes!

IBM publicly unveiled its new System z10 Enterprise Class hardware today as the cornerstone of its New Enterprise Data Center – IBM’s new model for virtualized, business-driven, and service-oriented IT delivery. The five System z models range from 12 –…

First Runner-up: “Sun customers are those who see IT as a competitive weapon.” A concise insight into the company’s posture and executive-level thinking; Mr. Schwartz was referring to three core markets: ·         HPC: Not just TACC and other supercomputing centers,…

Sun Analyst Summit 2008: The Network is (Still) the Computer… and Software Drives the Network Industry and financial analysts received an enthusiastic welcome from CEO and President Jonathan Schwartz, who laid down the baseline message: “Network Innovation Is Our Focus….

Industry and financial analysts attending Sun’s Analyst Summit in San Francisco were invited to kick off the festivities by getting a “sneak peek” the Menlo Park Sun Solution Center set to open in March. This sixth U.S. center showcases the…

IBM made public today its newest strategy for expanding its System x product line – a new licensing agreement with Lenovo.  This agreement follows the template of the two companies’ PC arrangement: Both will manufacture and sell uni- and 2-way…

I was featured fairly prominently in a recent CNET article titled “Help! I can’t program my car.” The story centered on how new cars are are becoming increasingly computerized and that snazzy new features now require a significant amount of…

One of the stops on the press preview of the exhibit hall was the RapidMind booth, where we learned of some astonishing performance increases made possible by their Multi-Core Development Platform. The platform is comprised of a Code Optimizer (analyzes and optimizes computations), Load Balancer (synchs work to keep all cores fully utilized), Data Manager (reduces bottlenecks), and Diagnostics. The API integrates with C++ Windows or Linux apps and requires no new tools, compilers, or workflow. Applications that are not multi-core enabled can take advantage of all available cores (including GPUs and Cell processors) and will automatically scale to future additional cores.

Just when I finally convinced myself to get off of the couch/ away from the computer screen and actually you know DO something, I learned about ResearchChannel. This nonprofit media and technology organization makes the work of researchers available to…