Russia

A Russian university has bought one of the world's most powerful supercomputers, the first time that such sophisticated technology has been exported to the former Soviet Union, makers IBM said.

The Moscow State University has selected a Blue Gene device capable of 27.8 trillion operations per second to use in research on nanotechnology and scientific applications such as modeling the heart, an IBM spokesman said.

"This agreement with IBM heralds a new era of supercomputing in Russia," said Viktor Sadovnichiy, rector of the university.

The world's most powerful supercomputer is a Blue Gene device owned by the U.S. Department of Energy and used at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to model the ageing of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and predict potential problems.

IBM said the supercomputer sold to Moscow University would be among the 50 most powerful supercomputers in the world but had received an export license from U.S. authorities and would be used “purely for scientific research”.

The Department of Computational Mathematics at the Moscow University paid around $5 million for two racks of the supercomputer, which can run 2,600 times faster than the fastest home PC and should be operational by April 2008.

Because of advances in technology, each rack of the supercomputer is about the size of a U.S. domestic fridge and additional racks can be added as requirements grow.

The Blue Gene version used by the U.S. government is almost 20 times more powerful than the one bought by Moscow.

The Russian Government is planning to complete the installation of open source (OS) software in every school computer by the end of 2009.

In 2008, the government will start piloting test in three regions, including Tomsk region, Perm Regions and Republic of Tatarstan. The Russian Ministry informs that the dates to carry out tenders for OS development have not been announced yet, but the tenders are to be held in the near future. The main purpose of the deployment of open source software is to reduce dependence on foreign commercial software and provide education institutions with the possibility to choose whether to pay for commercial items or to use the software, provided by the government

Splashvision.com – the world’s only social video and photo sharing portal for ocean and maritime lifestyles completes phase 1. The preliminary design and response from its users proves splashvision is right on track to become the number 1 media portal providing an alternative distribution channel for businesses and individuals alike.

The site is opening more windows for water sports enthusiasts, yachtsmen, recreational boaters and fishermen than ever before. You will find professionals from the cruise ship industry, commercial shipping, oil & gas exploration and research organizations. If none of this floats your boat then who wants to plan a tropical vacation to the south pacific or the Greek isles. Avid travelers are also coming to splashvision and the travel industry is answering with promotional videos of hotels, resorts and spas. – SplashVision.com has it all!