Mayday Mayday we need some ps3 for backup!

seraphimvc

sorry for the sh!tty title...but i just cant help myself.

A link from my friend:
so US air force gonna buy some ps3,total of 300

I wonder are they seriously using them for research?
The Air Force Research Laboratory is conducting a technology assessment of certain cell processors. The processors in the Sony PlayStation 3 are the only brand on the market that utilizes the specific cell processor characteristics needed for this program at an acceptable cost.

this is a mad world indeed....

p/s: or half of the 300 consoles will go to soldiers' living rooms?

AlmightyCushion

The cell is actually quite a powerful processor. Linking many of them together would provide a lot of processing power quite cheaply

stevenmu

They wouldn't be the first to do it, the cell processor is ideal for many types of scientific research and there seems to be quite a few groups out there building clusters out of PS3s to use as supercomputers.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319205733.htm
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/10/ps3_supercomputer

and that's only two, stories pop up fairly regularly about others.