Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Air Force Buying Another 2,200 PS3s

Posted by Soulskill on from the quick-who-knows-a-good-ps3-flight-sim dept.

bleedingpegasus sends word that the US Air Force will be grabbing up 2,200 new PlayStation 3 consoles for research into supercomputing. They already have a cluster made from 336 of the old-style (non-Slim) consoles, which they've used for a variety of purposes, including "processing multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images (known as synthetic aperture radar image formation), high-def video processing, and 'neuromorphic computing.'" According to the Justification Review Document (DOC), "Once the hardware configuration is implemented, software code will be developed in-house for cluster implementation utilizing a Linux-based operating software."

11 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. The harder one to explain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    were the 2,200 copies of the new Guitar Hero.

  2. Re:Wow by shivamib · · Score: 2, Funny

    So much for a Beowulf cluster, then.

  3. Re:Wow by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 3, Funny

    They already know they don't run Linux, they just to play Uncharted 2 and Demon's Souls.

    --
    Summation 2
  4. Black Friday Deals! by upto0013 · · Score: 5, Funny

    They should wait for Black Friday, nobody is going to fight the Air Force for a doorbuster...

    1. Re:Black Friday Deals! by MichaelSmith · · Score: 3, Funny

      Except the Army?

      --
      http://michaelsmith.id.au
    2. Re:Black Friday Deals! by jank1887 · · Score: 2, Funny

      SOF got in there the night before.

  5. Re:Wow by TheDarAve · · Score: 5, Funny

    Its the Air Force, it'd be an Airwolf cluster.

  6. Re:Wow by TheDarAve · · Score: 3, Funny

    I just had a scary thought of instead of using linux, they just program a "UAV flight game" and leave them in various Air Force recreation centers.

  7. Re:Wow by Sebilrazen · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ala Last Starfighter?

    --
    "There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
  8. Amazing! by bytethese · · Score: 2, Funny

    I didn't know Skynet was made of PS3's...

  9. Re:Wow by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 3, Funny

    So. Just in time for Xmas. The Airforce of the United States is depriving children of consoles at the peak of season?

    That's 2,200 children who will wake up, sad and dissapointed - with a boxing day that brings only an electric train set, or an iPod touch.

    I weep for the dead children in Afghanistan and the empty stockings of children on the American home front.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."