Saturday, August 07, 2010

Yottabyte

A Yottabyte is a unit of information or computer storage equal to one septillion (one long scale quadrillion or 1024) Bytes (one quadrillion Gigabytes). As of 2010, no system has yet achieved one Yottabyte of storage. In fact, the combined space of all the computer hard drives in the entire world does not amount to even one Yottabyte.
1 Yottabyte = 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Bytes

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Guilt ridden employees missing out on doctors appointments

A recent poll by one of the world's largest health sites, www.ehealthforum.com, shows that almost a third (30.22%) of people surveyed feel guilty about taking the time to attend a doctor's appointment during office hours. The results showed that 28.69% of people in the U.S. felt mild to extreme guilt, 28.27% of Canadians and 35.4% of Brits followed suit.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Technology Key to Identifying High-Risk Behaviors Among Adolescents

According to a new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Innovation in Pediatric Practices in The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital, technology may be the key to identifying high-risk behaviors among adolescents.

Injury risk, depressive symptoms and drug and alcohol use are the leading causes of adolescent morbidity and mortality; yet pediatricians often lack the time to screen for these behavioral concerns. This paradox of care is the motivation behind a new study, which found adolescents who participated in computerized screening with real-time results were more likely to be identified as having a problem by their pediatrician than adolescents whose screening results were delayed.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Google, Virgin to Colonize Mars

Google Inc. and Virgin Group have launched of Virgle Inc., a jointly owned and operated venture dedicated to the establishment of a human settlement on Mars.

The Virgle 100 Year Plan's milestones will include Virgle Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050), and the achievement of a truly self-sustaining Martian civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108).

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Reducing Software Piracy

According to a new IDC study released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), reducing software piracy in Asia by 10 percentage points over the next four years could generate 435,000 new jobs, over $40 billion in economic growth and over $5 billion in tax revenues above current projections.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

World's Tiniest Nanophotonic Switch

IBM announced recently that its scientists have built the world's tiniest nanophotonic switch. The switch has a footprint about 100X smaller than the cross section of a human hair.

Nanophotonic switches use light pulses instead of electrons to send information inside a computer chip.

IBM's new nanophotonic switch is an important building block to control the flow of information inside future chips and can significantly speed up the chip performance while using much less energy.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

BELLE

BELLE, built by Ken Thompson In 1977, was the first computer to use custom design chips to increase its playing strength from 200 positions per second to 160,000 positions per second. The chess computer, which used over 1,700 integrated ciruits, costed $20,000 and was used to solve endgame problems.

Friday, July 27, 2007

KAISSA (ICL 4/70)

In 1974, KAISSA (ICL 4/70), programmed by Donskoy and Arlazarov, and created at the Institute of Control Science, Moscow, won the first world computer chess championship. The second place went to CHESS 4.0.

Monday, July 23, 2007

CHESS 3.0

In 1970, the first all-computer championship was held in New York and won by CHESS 3.0 (CDC 6400), a program written by Slate, Atkin and Gorlen at Northwestern University. Six programs had entered the first Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) North American Computer Championships.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

MacHACK VI

In Spring 1967, MacHACK VI became the first program to beat a human, at the Massachussets State Championship. By the end of the year, it had played in four chess tournaments, winning 3 games, drawing 3 and losing 12. In the same year the program was made an honorary member of the US Chess Federation.