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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will develop an exascale supercomputer, as Moore's Law and conventional computing designs begin hitting a wall, the government agency said Friday.

DARPA's Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) program seeks "to create an innovative, revolutionary new generation of computing systems that overcomes the limitations of current evolutionary approach," the agency said in a statement. Companies involved in the project include Intel and Nvidia.

The UHPC program addresses priorities set out by President Obama's "Strategy for American Innovation" to achieve "exascale" and energy-efficient computing, DARPA said. One … Read more

Kitchen appliances are generally manufactured with convenience in mind--not surprising as all cooks appreciate some form of convenience. As convenient as some appliances are, however, some simply are not convenient enough. Or thoughtful enough. They may have all the bells and whistles meant to enhance the cooking experience, but sometimes, for some at least, they don't have the feature that matters.

The Terraillon 8776 Linear Vocal Kitchen Scale takes an easy-to-use popular kitchen appliance and adds the convenience of voice. Speaking in three languages (English, French and German), the talking scale may be a convenient feature for some, but … Read more

The massive amounts of data being created on the Web and the rise of cloud computing together make an ideal environment for alternative database technologies to thrive. And the Web is often proving to be just an entry point for bleeding-edge technology to be tested out before it starts heading into the enterprise.

NoSQL databases and associated operational-data technologies based on nonrelational approaches to data management and manipulation continue to be top of mind for big Web shops and are slowly starting to make their way into enterprise IT infrastructure.

I've spoken with a number of vendors roaming the NoSQL space over the last few months and there seems to be one common thread that they push: traditional relational databases are expensive, bulky, and simply not ideal for this new era of Web technology.

On Wednesday, a new NoSQL database joins the fray: Membase. Launched as an open-source project under the Apache 2.0 license and co-sponsored by NorthScale, Zynga, and NHN (Korea's top online gaming portal), Membase is optimized for storing the data behind interactive Web applications.

Membase says it is 100 percent compatible with Memcached, the de facto standard for distributed object caching behind Web applications. Basically, Membase is as easy to use as Memcached but also stores data.

According to James Phillips, NorthScale co-founder and senior vice president of products, the thousands of organizations that use Memcached (18 of the top 20 most visited Web sites including Twitter, Facebook, and Google) have a demand for a solution that looks like Memcached but acts like a distributed, highly available, high-performance, elastic database technology. … Read more

While it is often cited that cloud computing will change the economics of IT operations, it is rare to find definitive sources of information about the subject. However, the influence of economies of scale on the cost and quality of computing infrastructure is a critical reason why cloud computing promises to be so disruptive.

James Hamilton, a vice president and distinguished engineer at Amazon.com, and one of the true gurus of large-scale data center practices, recently gave a presentation at Mix 10 that may be one of the most informative--and influential--overviews of data center economies of scale to date. … Read more

The Withings scale, already breaking waves as the first Wi-Fi body scale that uploads weight and body mass data to personal online accounts, announces this week a new partnership with Gym Technik, enabling much easier tracking via pretty much any smartphone on the market.

Via Gym Technik, users can set up workout routines online, track daily progress via their smartphones, peruse an exercise library for workout tips, and upload before/after photos. Synching this with the Withings scale now allows users to instantly track their weight, body fat percentage, and BMI stats just by standing on it.

This is probably … Read more

Kitchen clutter is the enemy. But as far as enemies go, jam-packed kitchen countertops are a pretty OK one to have. If you're always in a fight to free up your kitchen counters, it (usually) means you have a nice assortment of gadgets; if you're reading this blog, you probably even like kitchen gadgets and appliances. However, it's still nice to have a clean kitchen where everything has its place. Sometimes you just have to look in the right place to find a way to store everything.

The Terraillon Book-Shaped Digital Kitchen Scale doesn't just blend … Read more

Music theory is a stumbling block for many amateur and would-be professional musicians. Major and minor scales are basic, and pentatonics and harmonic minors come up a lot in certain types of rock music, but when it comes to the modes, everything starts to sound like Greek--literally. (Modes are basically a major scale from one key played in a different key, and many have Greek names like Dorian and Phrygian.) If you're forming your first punk band, you probably don't care. But if you want to play with more sophisticated musicians, you have to know your scales and … Read more

It was horrible to imagine. A Belgian man, uncommunicative since a car accident left him paralyzed in 1983, suddenly seemed to have a message to convey last November with the help of a speech therapist. He was not unconscious, he indicated. He was trapped.

Now, neurologist Steven Laureys, one of Rom Houben's doctors who diagnosed the patient as conscious based on bedside tests performed four years ago, is telling reporters the speech therapist got it wrong. While recent brain scans of Houben do show brain activity and even consciousness, Houben is not communicating, Laureys says.

"We did not … Read more

The act of cooking can at times be exhilarating. The race to finish everything at the same time requires coordination, skill, and experience. The last thing anybody wants is to become hampered by equipment issues. However, sometimes outfitting a kitchen is akin to fitting square pegs in round holes. Ultimately this often leads to awkward twisting and turning while moving about. Flexibility in the kitchen is always a good thing, so instead of letting your kitchen gadgets dictate their positioning, let your kitchen gadgets come to you.

Though the OXO Good Grips Food Scale with Pull Out Display may not … Read more