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September 10, 2007, 03:15 PM ET
Mild-Mannered Desktop Computer
It’s about time that everybody’s computer became super, say researchers at the University of Maryland at College Park. To demonstrate, they have recently unveiled a prototype of a supercomputer the size of a normal desktop.
Called the Explicit Multi-Threading (XMT) computer, it can run 100 times faster than a typical PC, reports Computerworld, and is simple enough for a high-school student to program. Maryland researchers are making this computer using parallel computing algorithms in combination with transistors found in modern processors.
Officials say such a supercomputer is at least three years away from reaching people’s desks, and who knows how much it would actually cost. But they see strong applications for such a product outside the realm of research organizations and in the offices of the pharmaceutical, aerospace, and entertainment industries. —Dan Carnevale
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