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Firm Sues Sony Over Cell Processor
An anonymous reader writes that earlier this month, Sony received word of a lawsuit from a Newport Beach company called Parallel Processing. They've filed against the electronics giant alleging that the Cell processor, used in the PlayStation 3, infringes on a patent they own. They've made the somewhat outrageous demand that every infringing chip (and console) be 'impounded and destroyed'. From the article at Next Generation: "The patent, 'Synchronized Parallel Processing with Shared Memory' was issued in October 1991. It describes a high-speed computer that breaks down a program 'into smaller concurrent processes running in different parallel processors' and resynchronizes the program for faster processing times ... Parallel Processing said that Sony's alleged actions have caused 'irreparable harm and monetary damage' to the company."
If things weren't going bad enough for the PS3, then this comes along.
The game.
Are they going to go after AMD and Intel for their multicore CPUs?
Cheers!
Atheist: Buddhist in a Prius
While I must admit I would absolutely love to watch every PS3 be destroyed and Sony die a horrible death (what, me, bitter?), isn't the Cell an IBM chip? So shouldn't this be a suit against IBM and not Sony?
Cray Supercomputer and others were doing all sorts of parallel processing back in the 70's and 80's. Per their history page , the Cray-1 came out in 1976 and various quotes from that page include "first multiprocessor supercomputer (1982) ...
multiple 333 MFLOPS processors (1988) ...
massively parallel processing (MPP) system (1993)"
What are Sony's lawyers going to patent next - using MPP (multiple parallel painters) to paint a house?
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Patent link. Should be in the summary, IMO.
wow...ignoring the patent part which everyone else will address, i would suggest this to the company if they somehow won this suit. Instead of just "Impounding and destorying" every infringing chip, wouldn't it make more sense just to ask for a "cease and desist" order for the PS3 and all related services? That way it won't require trying to track down half a million PS3 users, and can target people planning to make money off of the patent leak.
... Parallel Processing receives an undisclosed amount of cash from MS.
Thanks god IBM quit building those RS/6000 SP2 system parallel thingies.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I have a patent for an electromechanical device that like a human brain is able to make choices based on a series of logical assessments of sensed data, like "they're both true" or "neither are true." I would like royalties please, or burn all the computers in the world, thanks!
technical writing / development
Is there a good chance that this company will win their suit? IANAL
On a less serious note, this company should receive some type of award, for saving thousands of lives which could have been lost to exploding PS3's
As far as I'm aware, there's no patent police to come kick down my door and take my PS3, so what exactly do they expect to happen if they win?
Do you really think people are going to volunteer to have their PS3 destroyed because you patented the computer processing version of the assembly line?
I only go to buffets for the unlimited soft serve.
I disagree parent is offtopic. Other than the "What are Sony's lawyers going to patent next" the rest of the information is actually relevent. Seeing as sony is being sued over a multiprocessor, a citation of previous work is actually very important information. I think xmas just got confused who was suing who.
Isn't there some sort of limit to just patenting stuff and then holding it for years before you do anything? And isn't this a bit late for a lawsuit too, PS3 announced they would use the Cell processor a while before its release.
So the end of 60's, we had multics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics) and one of the cool things was "process memory"... To me it seems to be splitting hairs; multiple processors, actually multiple processes accross those processors, having their own and/or sharing memory.
/\/\icro/\/\uncher
Mods, prior art IS relevant when discussing patents. Unfortunately I have no points today to undo damage to an informative post.
Oh, wait, defending Sony = BASH.
An errant Sony Jet has crashed into the HQ for Newport Beach based company Parallel Processing resulting in a 150 foot fireball.
uhhh...Sony isn't suing themselves. Good job actually reading the article there, bud.
They've made the somewhat outrageous demand that every infringing chip (and console) be 'impounded and destroyed'.
The US Constitution gives inventors "... the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." If they do win at trial, destruction of every infringing device is within their rights.
Whether they have a proper patent, and if Sony infringes on that patent, is an exercise for the reader and jury.
It's Linux, damnit! Pay no attention to renaming attempts by self-aggrandizing blowhards.
Does the transputer invalidate this patent as prior art?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transputer
I mean common the very notion of the cell processor was highly propagated in the media since 5 seconds of the PS2 launch and that PS3 would be based on a multi processor system.
These parasites and other that do the same should stop their disruptive business practices and begin working for real.
... die by the sword.
... unreasonable patent claims.
... tomato (hmmm ... that doesn't work very well in writing)
unreasonable copyright claims
tomato
Oh, wait, defending Sony = BASH.
Except that the poster wasn't defending sony, he appeared to be claiming that it was sony holding the patents (and suing themselves?)
They don't want to have every PS3 impounded and destroyed. They want MONEY. By pushing for nuclear option they hope Sony will pay them off. They probably know that they don't have a chance to win in court but by making the stakes so high they are hoping that Sony will just give them a few million to go away.
If they where just asking for damages then Sony would without a doubt go to court and beat this case. So they want to push the risk level to a point that Sony will just offer them a wad of cash to get them out of their hair.
If they did recall all the PS3 Son would instantly loose not just the console race but it would also kill Blue Ray since the PS3 is the most popular Blue Ray player on the planet.
My guess is that Sony will smack them down anyway but it is a good gamble.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=%2Fnet ahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r= 1&l=50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=5056000.PN.&OS=PN/5056000&RS= PN/5056000
This could be good business for the Smash My PS3 folks.
I wouldn't be surprised if Sony took out contracts on these clowns, and made them sleep with the fishes.
How ya like dat?
The Cell was developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba. I don't know if IBM or Toshiba are selling any yet, but it doesn't make sense to sue only Sony. Well, unless this is a bullshit lawsuit and this company is hoping for an extremely fat settlement check.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
IBM holds a lot of the IP that goes into the Cell. They have a very good legal department. This little company may just have bitten off more than they can chew.
I can see the IBM lawyers now..."Hmmm, interesting. Yes it may be possible that you have something there on this one patent. Let's see..." ruffles through a huge stack of papers in front of him. "However, we've discovered that you're also in violation of these 127 patents of ours. Now, shall we deal?"
What I find a bit odd and perhaps suspicious about this whole thing is the fact that this case is being filed not where this company seems to be located, and not where any Sony offices are located but in TEXAS. Why isn't this being adjudicated in LA or San Diego?
What do they think the bumpkins in Tyler might gain them?
It also seems bizarre that they are bringing suit only now. This product has been on sale to the general public for quite awhile. This means that it has been available to developers for ages. Why didn't this get nipped in the bud while the units were still game studio prototypes rather than waiting until Sony made and shipped a million of them?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
At least read the headline and figure out who's holding the patents.
While most dual/quad systems, the program or OS itself takes care the threading. With Cell and apparently this patent the master CPU helps take care of that. Still not a very patent. As the concept of a master node and slaves nodes for parallel processing has been around for decades. Just those tend to be 1 computer acting as a master with other slave "computer" nodes. Just in this patents case they're replacing "computer" with "CPU"
Personally I hope Sony wins.
from TFA "Parallel Processing said that Sony's alleged actions have caused "irreparable harm and monetary damage" to the company.".
Oh, Really?
Did they mean to say "Parallel Processing said that Sony's alleged actions have caused an opportunity to turn a fairly wide ranging patent that is useless on its own into some solid income via legal means.".
So they waited to see if the console was selling then hit them with a law suit so Sony would be more inclined to settle quick?
I am getting quite sick of IP trolls and patents that are so broadly phrased that they cover anything from toothpaste to nuclear physics. (disclaimer, I have not read the patent yet - but I am assuming that Sony carried out patent searches before building the Cell). And on that subject - why is the suite against Sony in particular not against the other members of the consortium that developed the Cell.
I hope Sony sees them in court instead of folding.
1 - "a plurality of multi-access memory modules;"
The PS3 does apparently use 4 RAM chips, but they don't appear to be multi-access. Elpida makes them, and I couldn't find ANY of their offerings that were 'multi-access'.
2 - "2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the number of processors is equal to the number of multi-access memory modules."
Ouch, pretty sure there's 7 cores to that Cell processor, and NOT 7 RAM chips. (There's 4.)
6 - "including a plurality of multi-access memory modules,"
Too bad, guys, you lost your lawsuit before you started. The others are all based on 1 or 6, and losing both of those kills the whole thing for sure.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Anyone can see that the Cell processor does not infringe this claim. If the computer did the breaking down thingie, then the Cell processor wouldn't be such a pain to program.
Not Sony's lawyers... go back and read the summary at the very least.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
...and did nothing? I mean that patent sounds so disturbingly vague that surely a lot of massively parallel architectures could potentially be sued by this? Like, nearly every supercomputer and workstation processor architecture of the last decade? You know, the whole superscalar thing?
Not to mention the Playstation 2 with the two vector units of what the Cell is sort of spiritual sucessor to...
Aren't Toshiba and IBM equally responsible for development and distribution of the cell processor?
Does this lawsuit sound really, really absurd to anyone else? It doesn't sound like the plaintiff specified how the thing was going to be built, simply that something along the lines of what the Cell Processor does would be built.
Who knows? Maybe they read Slashdot, and figured now would be the perfect time to jump on the f*ck Sony bandwagon? Ha ha.
I think we have to acknowledge once and for all that for too many companies the purpose of a patent is to hide in a blind and wait for someone who has brains to make a go of something similar enough and resources to sue rather than make a product of their own.
It is sheer parasitism.
Auto giant Ford Motor Company filed patent infringement suits against GM and Chrysler for their use of the round steering device, commonly known as the 'steering wheel', in their vehicles. The suit demands an immediate recall of all vehicles in question. Motorcycle legend Harley Davidson is also suing Indian, Enfield, Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, and Kawasaki for patent infringements on the handlebar and the belt rear-drive system.
Lets just assume for one second that the patent is valid and rock solid. It seems quite silly to me that they are claiming irreparable harm. The design on the processor is pushing 6 years now and it's been in production over 2 years and it wasn't as if it was quietly dropped onto the market. These people have a responsibility to mitigate their damages.
How the heck is being utterly unreasonable supposed to help their case? It's one thing to start kicking and screaming 2 years after a product has been released saying it will somehow cause so much harm to your company it takes you 2 years to actually try to stop it. It's another thing entirely to within the tyrant demand the impossible. Pissing people off makes people more, not less likely to fight.
That would be "who was suing whom".
What... There claiming they have a patent on parallel processing. I think they should have already gone after several other companies too... Don't most modern graphics cards use parallel processing backed by on board memory to achieve the frame rates they currently have. This also sounds a lot like "hyper threading" or "multi core" but what do I know.
I guess they have a case. Maybe I should sue Bill Gates because he wrote an os that makes my computer blue screen daily. I don't see my case making it but I can try none the less.
I guess there success may not be won in the court room but has already been achieved in the media spotlight. We will see how far it goes. I hope this doesn't turn into another SCO vs. IBM thing.
On the contrary. If they win their lawsuit, then Sony will have done irreparable monetary benefit to the company ;)
More to the point, can we ensure that those who modded this up never get mod points again ?
It's not perfect but maybe IPM could be sued for copyright infringement...
International Parallel Machines Inc. v. International Business Machines Co.
Probably not illegal, but it sure is fishy.
Something smells fishy...
Why are they only targeting Sony in the lawsuit?
Development of the Cell was a joint effort of several companies.
IBM uses Cell in servers.
Others use the Cell as a graphics processor for next generation televisions.
Microsoft XBox360 has a CPU similar to the Cell (created by the same team as Cell at IBM).
Why just Sony and why now?
Recall that the claims define the patented invention. Always start reading at the claims, then look to the specification to determine what the claims mean (if necessary). Reading the abstract or specification gives little clue to what is actually patented.
So, I read the claims.
The only semi-unique thing there are the synchronization signals combined with standard MIMD architecture circa 1989. Yes, the transputer predates this patent and is likely to void it. There was a lot of other parallel 'puter research in the mid 80s including hyper cubes and other interconnection schemes. This is when "threading" was introduced into unix (versus the heavier process level stuff). They all used signals to report back that they were done, dead, or ready. The old math coprocessors in IBM PCs might be prior art.
Sony can get this patent tossed, but is more likely to throw the plaintiff a settlement to make it go away. Patent litigation is very expensive. It's often cheaper to just settle.
Why wait so long? The patent is almost expired! gotta use it before it's gone. Also, how much of the engineering level prior art still exists?
Why ask for every infringing device to be impounded/destoryed? Why not? It's within the law to seek that remedy even if it can't be reasonably performed. Since it can't be performed, they'll take money.
Oh yeah, the "impound 'em all" and "irreparable harm" stuff is boiler plate.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
SIMD / MIMD are about powerful vector processing, and I thought Cray was building this stuff a long time before anyone else was. I chalk this up as, yet another reason to get rid of patents altogether.
This is my sig.
They can have my PS3 when they pry it from my cold, dead, hands!
Putting a patent away until widely infringed is not a submarine patent. A submarine patent is produced via continuation practice. Continuations, divisions, and continuations in part are available while an application is being processed. Processing ends with issuance, abandonment, ... Under the old rules, a new app could be filed with an extremely old priority date. It's a bit harder now.
I am a lawyer, but not yours. Anything I tell you might be a total lie intended to benefit my clients at your expense.
First off the Cell was created as a collaboration project between IBM, Sony, and Toshiba so Sony isn't the one that should be used. Second the Cell does not use shared memory at all. The Cell on the PS3 is split into 10 cores, two PPC cores(called the PPU) have 256MB of memory in the same way a multicore Intel or AMD system shares the total amount of between all of there cores. The Cell cores(called the SPE) each have there own 256kb memory to them selves. The reason the Cell processor is just a pain in the ass to code for is because of transferring memory to and from the SPE. This is just another SCO grabbing for money because they know there going out of business.
As far as I'm aware, there's no patent police to come kick down my door and take my PS3, so what exactly do they expect to happen if they win? Do you really think people are going to volunteer to have their PS3 destroyed because you patented the computer processing version of the assembly line?
You will voluntarily accept Sony's refund. Why? Because that $500+ console will never see another new game. Development of PS3 games will stop if the PS3 is pulled from the market. Developers will probably be filing law suits to recoup their expenses to date.
According to the patent the master node could be any of the parallel processing units in this patent. This is unlike the Cell processor in which the PPE is the de-facto master of the remaining SPEs. The patent claim says "wherein any one of said processors is operative as a master processor."
The other major difference is that the Cell processor requires the PPE to control the SPEs in a master-slave fashion: "the SPEs are not fully autonomous and require the PPE to initiate them before they can do any useful work. (from wikipedia)"
According to the patent claim "Each processor has its own local memory and local input/output capabilities, and therefore can act as an independent computer."
So yeah, the patent claim is a whole lot of hogwash.
A company who has failed to do anything noteworthy with patented technology in 16 years doesn't deserve to have the patent.
Patents were designed to prevent companies like Microsoft from throwing their weight around & puting others out of business, not to give people who don't want to work a way to benefit from another companies work.
Has anyone ever even heard of this company, or anything they've done ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Language evolves as people use it. Live with it. Several college-level grammar texts are beginning to cite 'whom' as an outdated usage.
They didn't do any of the development work that IBM, Sony, and (IIRC) Toshiba did to bring the Cell processor to fruition. They're not being harmed competitively by it since they have no apparent product harmed by it. I feel, given that the whole patent process is intended to benefit society, that if you're not using it, you simply lose it! No more just sitting on submarine patents, waiting for someone to trip across them.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Isn't there a point at which a patent can no longer be defended? Shouldn't these people have brought this up three years ago when the media hype for the Cell processor began? It seems to me that if you let someone talk about a product for years, then manufacture it and sell it for nearly a year before you decide to tell them they owe you money you've sort of missed out. Tough titty, you snooze you loose.
Game on, Sony. (more games! lower price!)
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
How about this: Let's just award them the full profits Sony's realized from the PS3 up through the date of the lawsuit.
Every penny.
I think this would be an eminently fair solution, and I'm confident Sony would accept it.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
This term is overused considerably in law. The "harm" is that it's cost them money. Seems like there's actually quite an easy fix; Money should do it.
Dont'know much about patent but it seems to me that the exclusive rights are granted only for 20 years...
"The patent, 'Synchronized Parallel Processing with Shared Memory' was issued in October 1991"...
I predict that within 100 years, consoles will be twice as powerful, 10,000 times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them.
If only there were some way of modding the modders...it'd be like moderation, only meta.
One rule of suits: Demand the moon, negotiate for the sky, but be willing to accept the ground.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
A company who has failed to do anything noteworthy with patented technology in 16 years doesn't deserve to have the patent ... Has anyone ever even heard of this company, or anything they've done ?
You hearing about it would hardly be necessary for something to be noteworthy. Shall we check to see how nobel prize topics you have heard about?
Don't worry dude. I have trouble rooting for Sony, too, considering all the crap they've pulled.
It broke my brain, and clearly broke yours.
Fine. But we're not helping you find either of the two we sold.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Fair question. If you think about it, they aren't going to alienate Sony by their irrational demands; they are already filing a lawsuit, which is enough to alienate just about anybody.
Lawsuits happen most businesses accept this fact and move on, simply getting sued is not something that most businesses take personally. Suing for unreasonable demands and publicizing the suit likely will.
It's much more desirable to negotiate down from "give me the moon, and throw yourself on your own sword" to some reasonable compensation than to attempt a more rational-sounding "pay me $5 million, and ten cents per unit henceforth" approach which would get laughed off and negotiated down to $50 and a cup of coffee by Sony.
Perhaps for the lawyer paid by the hour. Most lawyers don't go into these things blind, they have a good idea of their chances and how much litigation is going to cost and the trade-off point for settling. The ask for the sky strategy only drags things out and increases your costs paying lawyers to bounce offers off each other. The only time outrageous claims would be a positive is if they places a trade-off far higher then you expect and come back with a counter offer far higher then you really wanted. That virtually never happens and usually starting with a high but reasonable offer would yield similar results. Regardless it's fine an good (but may not be smart) to ask for the moon when negotiating outside of court. This ceased being negotiation when they filed a lawsuit. The lawyers will need to present this to a judge with a straight face and have quite real possibility of pissing of a judge or jury with the absurdity of damanges. It's a bad strategy all around.
So this was patented in 1991 and a patent is good for 17 years.
They sure waited a long time to be "irreparably harmed...
The patent, 'Synchronized Parallel Processing with Shared Memory' was issued in October 1991...
The stuff in Claim 1 of the patent (5,056,000) is basic multi-processor stuff which certainly wasn't actually novel in 1989 (when the patent was filed). And the Cell doesn't seem to violate it anyway. It appears to be Claim 6 they are suing over. Claim 6 describes a particular way of partitioning processing power in a MIMD system, but again I doubt it was novel in 1989.
Even in a worst case scenario, the patent ought to expire next year.
Supercomputers are a series of synchronized processors working in parallel with a shared memory pool. Supercomputers have been around a lot longer than this patent. I hope this company loses their garbage patent.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
It's bound to be worth something on eBay one day .....
Not really. The sentiment you express encourages people to keep junk so modern items will be far less scarce are therefore go for a lower price. Also consider net present value, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_present_value. Imagine you could sell the PS3 for $1,000 in 10 years. Today a 10 year treasury bond is yielding about 4.8%. So that $1,000 10 years in the future is worth about $625 dollars today. However that is not a fair comparison, PS3 speculation is risky, a treasury bond is not. A better comparison might be the stock market, let assume a 7% annual yield. That future $1,000 is now worth around $508.
The Amiga had discrete processors and used shared memory, long before the patent was issued.
Wait, this company is doing business under the name "Parallel Processing"?
If this isn't a clear case of the trademark office falling asleep at the switch, I'm not sure what is. Perhaps their claim of irreparable harm could be restated "If we lose this case, it will cause our company irreparable harm".
The patent specifies in the independent claims that "any" of the multiple processors can function as the master. The Cell has one dedicated master, and the SPUs can't replace that functionality. Hence, non-infringing.
This is a load of bs.. First they sued the wrong party, probably because if they know if they sue IBM they will probably get 0wn3d.
Secondly they could still lose because they haven't defended there patent against the billions of other things that do this exact same thing. This is essentially the same 'process' that distributed computing like SETI@Home is using in many ways. Additionally how is what MPI, Mercury and Pthreads do any different. I can't wait to see their patented invalidated because it is insensibly vague, and doesn't actually cover anything patentable.
It is also FUD because it doesn't meet their claims... their first claim is that it is a PLURALITY of PROCESSORS. Not CORES. the cell is ONE processor, multiple cores. I would imagine that would do the trick right there... Seeing as multicore wasnt patented or in existence when this patent was filed I dont see how it could cause a multicore solution to be in violation.
That and the fact that the cell processor is covered by its own set of patents several of which even reference this one (i just did a simple search in google of "Synchronized Parallel Processing with Shared Memory" and followed the links)
Proof yet again that our patent system is miserably flawed. It sounds like they have a software patent, whereas the cell is a chip. Secondly IANAL but it pretty much reads like they are trying to claim any attempt at MIMD is a violation of their patent when they reference the existence of MIMD before they begin... This could be entertaining
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
> They've made the somewhat outrageous demand that every infringing chip
> (and console) be 'impounded and destroyed'.
I wouldn't get too worried. I'm sure they would reconsider if you just heaved enough money
oh, wait
I just got what's going otn.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Mod parent "-1, Illiterate".
Thats all PS3's in the US being destroyed, rather than in the world. Wow, that would cause a serious backlash to the US patent system.
Given the insanely complex programming model required by the Cell processor I wouldn't be entirely surprised if all the PS3 Games ran just as well with optimized code running on a multicore PowerPC and a decent GPU.
I think patents shouldn't hold weight unless they're being used in one way or another. So what is this company doing with their patent?
"To be is to do." --Socrates
"To do is to be." -- Aristotle
"Do-Be-Do-Be-Do..." --Sinatra
20 years ago INMOS developed the Transputer, an early attempt at a microprocessor that could work in parallel with other Transputers in an array.
I think that this is a case of prior art - case dismissed.
Apparently Sony referenced this patent in their application:
3 s_cell_processor_faces_patent_challenge
/understatement
"Oddly enough, Sony's own patent, filed in 2001 and issued in 2007, actually lists the 1991 patent as a citation. In other words, Sony's own patent lawyers have already seen the old patent and deemed it not to be a threat, and the U.S. Patent Office apparently agreed when it issued Sony the patent in June."
http://news.digitaltrends.com/news/story/13725/ps
There may be very little ammo in this suit.
You don't believe me, apparently, but perhaps you should take a moment and actually look through a modern grammar handbook like the ones used in colleges today.
The thing of it is, the capital required to do certain kinds of R&D is so heavy, that startups could just as likely leverage the thousands of patents the likes of Intel, IBM and Microsoft have behind them. What can't happen today is, somebody at MS does something kind cool, but someone else outside sees the potential of it, fixes it, and makes a go of it. Today, that lands you in patent trouble, and really, its unfair because that sort of free for was exactly how MS and Intel got started themselves.
Anything law that protects the "little guy" protects the big guy that much more.
This is my sig.
Doesn't the patent imply that there is a master processor that automatically controls division of workload and the subsequent gathering up of results? That's not how the core works - each processor is a seperate entity, albeit on the same processor die, and you have to program them individually. Granted, the standard programming model is to write a control program for the main PU core, then trigger sub-tasks on the SPE's, but surely that's under the software applications control and not a master 'controller' processor?
Wait until they get a beowulf cluster of these! Oh wait, *poof*
Drat....
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm pretty sure the WOPR-looking "Connection Machine" from Thinking Machines could be considered "prior art." I was cranking on one of those in early '91.
I bought PS3 hardware specifically because it had the cell cores. For the purpose of doing parallel programming research. I am not giving up my equipment after spending the time and money to develop on it. If they actually try to seize and destroy these consoles, I expect a small revolution over it. I will be waitching this litigation closely.
Wasn't all that done on the CM* system (16 processors) in the 70's. That system even had a programming language designed so that almost any expression could easily be dispatched to a separate processor.
How cruel can this Parallel Processing company be?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I'm going to patent my very original idea of a wireless device that works as AP and wireless card at same time so in the future when someone invented some device like this I'll own it :)
ghostbar page.
This patent violates the fundamental principles of even Babbage's contraption. Cutting up any process into smaller parts is what any processor does. IO interrupts could probably even count as prior art for parallelization, and if it is specifically multi-core, I am sure Sony have plenty of their own patents that claim the same thing.
Trace the money, I'd put $20 on another story linking this company to Microsoft in some way.
Microsoft => SCO => Linux
Microsoft => Patents => Sony
Since Microsoft are definitely playing defensive and being pushed into price cuts, having their xbox touted as 2.5G, and 'one to avoid' because of the effective recall, their tactics are stepping up.
Microsoft's very own Ministry of Truth at work.
"Getting OSI compliance for shared-source is a move forward for Microsoft"
When actually it is a move backwards, Microsoft conceding more ground and trying to cover its tracks.
You read the news announcements from Mr Product Manager whoever it was, saying these exact words, how OSI compliance is a move forward, yet, as repeatedly stated, Microsoft trying to parallel and remove the distinction between it and open source software is a concession and a step backwards.
I really find it baffling how the ties between Microsoft and the aggressive insane kamikaze SCO suit against IBM are not more widely reported.
I smell MS business tatics.
It is my recollection that in 1984 the amiga, and it's coprosessors did this same thing.