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Vernier Offers Free Software, Plays with Legos, Goes Green For Education

7/2/2008

Data collection technology provider Vernier Software & Technology has announced several new offerings for the education market, including free Logger Lite and LabQuest Emulator software, a new NXT sensor adapter for Lego Mindstorms NXT robots, and free eco-friendly classroom activities.

U Illinois Urbana-Champaign Named CUDA Center of Excellence

7/1/2008

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has been named Nvidia's first CUDA "Center of Excellence" for adopting parallel computing strategies and applying them to research. The university also said it has received $500,000 from Nvidia to support ongoing research and to help develop parallel computing facilities.

The Wharton School Beefs Up Data Center with Blade Servers

6/30/2008

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania has a new data center built on Dell PowerEdge M600 blade servers and EqualLogic PS5000X storage arrays. The data center will allow the school to triple both its mailbox quota and the storage capacity available to faculty and students, as well as provide researchers the ability to operate a Linux grid cluster powered by the blade servers.

Eclipse's Third 'Release Train' on Schedule

6/24/2008

Tomorrow the Eclipse Foundation is sending its third annual "release train" chugging down the track. This year's synchronized launch of several Eclipse projects at once (code named "Ganymede") involved the coordinated release of 23 projects, up from 21 in last year's "Europa" release, and 10 in 2006 with the original "Callisto" release.

Sao Paulo University Taps Sun Technology for Computing Cluster

6/23/2008

Sao Paulo University (UNESP) has chosen Sun Microsystems technology to power the largest computing cluster in Latin America, which will span across seven different sites in São Paulo State. The UNESP Computer Capacity Integration (GridUNESP) compute cluster will provide processing and data storage capacity for research in particle physics, genetics, meteorology, medicine, and other areas of scientific investigation.

New Green Supercomputer Powers Up at Purdue

6/20/2008

A new supercomputer installed at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN is being compared to a "fleet of thousands of bike messengers." Individually they don't carry much freight, but they use less energy and are more effective in some situations. At least, that's the hope. Gerry McCartney, vice president for IT and CIO at Purdue, said the supercomputer, a SiCortex 5832, uses one-fortieth the power of traditional supercomputers.

Tokai U Uses PTC MCAD Software To Design Car that Competes at Le Mans

6/19/2008

Tokai University, which competed in this year's Le Mans 24-hour endurance race, developed its competition vehicle with Pro/Engineer, PTC's 3D computer aided design/manufacturing and engineering software. The Tokai team was formally approved for participation in the race and began vehicle design in 2001 and produced a study car in 2005. According to the school, this was the first time a university team participated in the race.

HPC Server 2008 RC1 Coming This Month

6/18/2008

At the International Supercomputing Conference being held this week in Germany, Microsoft announced that it will roll out the first release candidate (RC1) of its Windows HPC Server 2008 for high-performance computing in the last week of June. A system at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) out of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign running a beta of HPC Server 2008 on Dell PowerEdge hardware debuted today at No. 23 on the list top 500 supercomputing sites for June.

Swedes Deploy Dual-Boot 'Green' Supercomputer with IBM, Intel Chips

6/17/2008

The High Performance Computing Center North (HPC2N), a Swedish consortium of universities and research centers based out of Umea University, is installing a supercomputer that combines IBM Cell Broadband Engines and Power processors with quad-core Intel Xeon processors running both Windows and Linux in a dual-boot configuration.

Cambridge Installs Panasus Parallel Storage System for Research Support

6/16/2008

The University of Cambridge's High Performance Computing Service (HPCS) has deployed a Panasas parallel storage system to support work being done by university researchers. Cambridge has deployed the Panasas ActiveStore AS5000 solution with the PanFS parallel file system.

2008 Vernier/NSTA Technology Awards Open

6/13/2008

The 2008 Vernier/National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Technology Award program is now open. Each year, the program awards cash, technology, and travel funds for science teachers who demonstrate innovation in inquiry-based learning activities involving data collection.

Indian Outsourcing Firm Infosys Funds Research Center at USC

6/12/2008

The University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering and Infosys Technologies, a Bangalore-based IT services and consulting company, jointly announced an agreement to set up a research center at USC.

Microsoft Edges Further into HPC

6/11/2008

As Microsoft readies the release of its HPC Server 2008 for later this year, the company is showing signs of an increased presence in the high-performance computing market. Wednesday, Microsoft released details of eight HPC projects in higher education using its Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003, al of which launched within the last nine months.

Mac OS X 'Snow Leopard' Previewed at WWDC

6/9/2008

At its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) being held this week in San Francisco, Apple released preliminary details of "Snow Leopard," the forthcoming successor to Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard") and the next major revision to the Mac operating system. The next revision will focus on performance, according to Apple, "rather than focusing primarily on new features."

SD Supercomputer Center Processes Red-lining Data

6/9/2008

The San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, San Diego will be using clustered storage from Caringo as part of a project to bring red-lining grids to UC campuses. The implementation has started with a CAStor clustered storage pool that is initially tasked with archiving The Redlining Archives of California's Exclusionary Spaces (T-RACES). The project brings the history of red-lining from the shelves of the National Archives and puts it online in digital format.

Supercomputers Crank Up in Three Japanese Universities in Collaborative Pursuits

6/6/2008

Three universities in Japan have started operation of open source supercomputers designed jointly to enable collaboration among the systems. The T2K Open Supercomputer Alliance machines were built from specifications developed jointly by the University of Tsukuba, The University of Tokyo, and Kyoto University.

Clemson U Installs Dell High-Performance Computing Cluster

6/5/2008

Clemson University has gone public with its use of a high-performance computing cluster (HPCC) from Dell to enable academic research on topics ranging from how family migration patterns impact schools and children's development to the design of wireless communication networks.

Universities Join IBM Multi-National 'LA Grid'

6/4/2008

Calling it a "perfect living laboratory for research to advance the healthcare industry," the Quantum Group, which provides consulting and applications for the healthcare industry, is joining 12 universities as part of IBM's Latin American Grid (LA Grid) initiative. LA Grid (pronounced "lah grid") is comprised of a collection of human and computing resources in North America, Latin America, and Spain, working in collaboration to perform as one massive supercomputer for advanced research.

IBM Rational's Big-Band Jazz Release

6/3/2008

IBM's Rational Software division yesterday unveiled 20 new commercial products based on its Jazz collaboration platform and opened up the Jazz community to all interested parties.

U Arizona Brings Phoenix Mars Mission to iTunes U

6/3/2008

The University of Arizona has brought video and animation relating to the Phoenix Mars Mission onto iTunes U, the education-focused portal hosted on Apple's iTunes. U Arizona is the lead on the mission, the first in a NASA program aimed at launching smaller missions to Mars designed to complement larger ones.

Jenzabar Launches Foundation To Support Student-Led Projects

6/2/2008

Jenzabar, which produces a campus management suite of applications, has created a non-profit foundation to fund student-led community service projects around the world. The mission of the Jenzabar Foundation is to recognize and support the humanitarian efforts of student leaders serving others.

Microsoft Releases ASP.NET MVC Preview 3

5/30/2008

This week Microsoft released the latest preview version of its model view controller (MCV) architecture for Web applications frameworks.

Seneca Students To Expand Open Source Expertise within Fedora Project

5/29/2008

Seneca College will expand the use of open source software in its curriculum through the Fedora Project, a Red Hat-sponsored and community-supported open source collaboration. Seneca College students in the School of Computer Studies will work within the Fedora Project while learning open source development and administration.

Google's App Engine: No Waiting

5/29/2008

Google's long-percolating application development environment, the Google App Engine, is now generally available to the public at large, the company announced Wednesday.

Scripting Gurus Debate Dynamic Languages

5/16/2008

Tim Bray, co-inventor of XML and Sun Microsystems' director of Web technologies, hosted a lively post-Script Bowl panel discussion on the future of dynamic scripting languages at this year's JavaOne Conference.