Posted on 10/16/2006 10:03:09 AM PDT by Straight Vermonter
Mercury Computer Systems will help will design a system for soldiers in the battlefield utilizing gaming and artificial intelligence technologies, a Mercury executive said Thursday.
The project is the latest to tout alternate uses for the Cell Broadband Engine processor, originally developed by Sony and IBM for use in the PlayStation3 console.
Working with visualization experts Barco Federal Systems and the Ft. Huachuca Battle Lab in Arizona, Mercury, based in Chelmsford, Mass., will help create a computer system that will give fighters such as soldiers, pilots, and seamen better ways to sense and interpret data—and to act on it.
The system will combine sensor expertise from Barco Federal, a subsidiary of the Belgian company Barco that provides technology for the U.S. Department of Defense and other U.S. agencies, with Mercury’s computing know-how.
To be sure, it’s hard to gauge how impressive the Mercury/Barco system will be. Joel Radford, vice president of strategic marketing and alliances for Mercury declined to divulge many details—such as now deeply the project delves into cognitive computing or AI—citing Barco’s recalcitrance.
In general, however, technology used to make games ever more realistic is a natural for military use. “Game devices and other simulation software applications often leverage a layer of software that performs calculations that simulate reality [such as] gravity, collision dynamics, [and] waves,” Mr. Radford said.
Mercury shares were up $0.33 to $12.03 in recent trading.
The system won’t be the first to put the processor at the heart of Sony’s gaming console to work outside of gaming. IBM has bragged of new supercomputers and blade servers based on the chip. Even startup PeakStream bets that Cell-based high-performance computers will be a big market.
Meanwhile, other companies are using gaming technology for systems beyond the gaming market. ATI, a game card maker set to be acquired by chip maker AMD, recently touted its technology as part of high-performance computing systems that are being used for jobs such as Alzheimer’s research.
Tech ping?
this stuff is just awesome.
It's amazing how much mileage IBM has gotten off the basic POWER architecture, from tiny low-power mobile chips to mainframes.
Very true. POWER was just in its infancy when I started with the company and now it is so pervasive it seems to be in everything.
IBMer? Well, at least they ain't usin' PS-2's..........
Are you one of the few remaining American IBMer's? :)
There are still over 200,000 of us.
I'm a contractor for IBM hoping to soon become an IBM'er. I support all ThinkPad and Lenovo laptops. If you need IBM warranty service, you will call me.
WND Exclusive: Why Iraq's buying up Sony PlayStation 2s
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3a3f27852c0f.htm
Just don't scratch the play disk... It would be a bummer in the heat of battle to see, "Cannot read disk" or "No data" come up on the screen!!
Are there any drawbacks, with relation to EMP's?
That's not something that I know anything about. I suppose it would be the same to harden it against EMP as any other electronics.
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