Technobabble #9 - Thur Sep 07/06

IBM Working On ‘Roadrunner’ Petaflop Computer
IBM is working on a supercomputer, the Roadrunner, for the US Energy Department. The Roadrunner will be a petaflop machine, capable of 1,000 trillion calculations per second. The US Congress put in $35M for the project. Some intended applications are to monitor the US stockpile of nuclear weapons. [via CRN]

Recycling Old Scientists
South Korea is lacking skilled researchers. So what do they do? Bring 70 year-old scientists out of retirement [VNU Net] and set them to work in nearly 80 small companies. Just when you think you’re out, they pull you back in. I guess these scientists still have a lot of half-life left in them. Maybe IBM should have just put a few of them inside a big spinning wheel, to drive their new Roadrunner computer.

You’ve Got Mail: Or Is that E-Pink Slips?
Radio Shack in the US recently fired 400 employees by email today. [via CNBC TV] How very classy. Why didn’t they attach a virus to the emails while they were at it? Up here in Canada, Radio Shack has been replaced with The Source. Down in the US, the HR department has been replaced with hamsters.

Google Web Office To Take On ‘Office’ Software?
Google plans to offer a suite of web-based “office” applications as part of a package called Your Domain. The package includes email, Google calendar, instant messaging, a web page builder, and more. Email sent will not use Google’s “gmail.com” domain name but one you select. [via Antara News]

The package is free, supported by ads, and apparently aimed at SOHO (Small Office, Home Office) businesses, though some SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprise) might find it of value as well. Since most of the features are free from Google individually already, this, I suppose, is a conveniently packaged version of a select set of tools.