China's Newest Supercomputer Uses Homegrown Chips

China has built its first supercomputer based entirely on homegrown microprocessors, a major step in breaking the country's reliance on Western technology for high-performance computing .

China's National Supercomputer Center in Jinan unveiled the computer last Thursday, according to a report from the country's state-run press. The supercomputer uses 8,704 "Shenwei 1600" microprocessors, which were developed by a design center in Shanghai, called the National High Performance Integrated Circuit Design Center.

Details of the microprocessors and the design center were not immediately available.

The supercomputer has a theoretical peak speed of 1.07 petaflops (quadrillion floating-point calculations per second), and a sustained performance of 0.79 petaflops when measured with the Linpack benchmark. This could place it at number 13 in the world's top 500 supercomputing.

China's Shandong Academy of Sciences built the computer. Officials of the academy could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday. 

A report from The New York Times said the supercomputer's name in English was the Sunway BlueLight MPP.

China is increasingly investing in supercomputing technology. Last November, its Tianhe-1A supercomputer briefly grabbed the spot as the world's most powerful, but the computer used chips from Intel and Nvidia. The Tianhe-1A has a theoretical peak speed of 4.7 petaflops and a sustained performance of 2.5 petaflops.

China currently has 61 supercomputers on the top 500 list. In comparison, the U.S. has 255 on the list. Japan's "K Computer" is currently ranked first in the top 500 list, after bumping Tianhe-1A to the second place. 

Experts have been anticipating that China would build its own supercomputer, using domestically developed chips. Chinese state-run press hailed the new supercomputer as a symbol of China's strength. 

Courtesy PCWORLD

World Heaviest Gold Coin 1,012kg

World Heaviest Gold Coin 1,012kg

PERTH(BullionStreet) : Australia's Perth Mint unveiled world's largest , heaviest and inherently most valuable gold coin with acurrent value of nearly $55 million.
The coin weighing 1012 kilograms and is more than a tonne of 99.99 per cent pure gold . The giant coin is 80 centimetres wide, 12 centimetres deep, took 18 months to create
The obverse of the coin features Ian Rank Broadley portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and carries the face value of AU$1,000,000. The reverse design features the classic kangaroo design by Dr. Stuart Devlin AO CMG, goldsmith and jeweller to Queen Elizabeth II. The inscriptions include the "2012″ date and "1 Tonne 9999 Gold".
Perth Mint said the coin was a showpiece of the Australian kangaroo gold bullion coin program, and would coincide with the release of several smaller gold coins this week.
The weight and purity of each issue is guaranteed by the West Australian government.
Previous holders of the title of world's largest gold coin include a 31 kilogram Gold Philharmonic coin struck by the Austrian Mint in 2004, which carried a €100,000 denomination. This was followed by a 100 kilogram Gold Maple coin struck by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007, which carried a face value of CA$1,000,000.


Courtesy- Billion street

HAPPY DIWALI TO ALL

HAPPY DIWALI TO ALL FROM KRISHNA KUMAR M IYER "VENU"

FAMILY

7.2 Earthquake hit Turky

Thousands of people injured. 138 killed.

27 Killed in a bridge collapse near Darjeelling

27 Killed in a bridge collapse near Darjeelling

Global economy is very bad

EUROPEAN UNION is in bad conditioon 

Greece's debt may have to be cut by 60%: Eurozone report

Greece's debt may have to be cut by 60%: Eurozone report


BRUSSELS: Eurozone finance ministers said on Saturday that they have agreed that banks should accept substantially bigger losses on their Greek bonds, with a new report suggesting that writedowns of up to 60 per cent may be necessary. 
The report from Greece's international debt inspectors, which formed the basis for discussions at the finance ministers' meeting Friday, says that in order to keep rescue loans from the eurozone to the (euro) 109 billion ($150 billion) foreseen under a second bailout deal tentatively reached in July, Greece's debt would have to be cut by 60 per cent. 
Even that would leave the country's debts still at 110 per cent of economic output in 2020. 
"Yesterday we agreed that we need a substantial increase in the contribution from the banks," said Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's prime minister who also chairs the meetings of eurozone finance ministers. That means the July deal, under which banks would have taken writedowns on their Greek bondholdings of about 21 per cent, is definitively off the table. 
Austria's Finance Minister Maria Fekter told journalists that the eurozone's chief negotiator Vittorio Grilli had been asked to restart negotiations with banks. 
Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos confirmed as he arrived for the meeting that leaders were looking for banks to write down more than the July agreement envisaged. "But in any case, Greece is not a central problem for the eurozone," he said. "Now the point is to take a more general and more constructive decision for eurozone as a whole." 
The report did not make policy recommendations, and in fact the European Central Bank opposes cutting Greece's debts further. But finance ministers are clearly paying close attention to the document. 
Another scenario showed that if Greece's debts are cut by 50 per cent, the country would need (euro) 114 billion ($157 billion), on top of the July package. 
The agreement to push for much bigger losses is a key step in helping Athens eventually dig out from underneath its debt burden. 
But asking banks to more significantly write down their Greek debt will raise concerns about their ability to withstand the losses as well as the ensuing turmoil on financial market. 
As a result, the finance chiefs from the 27 EU countries, meeting Saturday in Brussels, are also expected to force banks across the continent to raise billions in capital for their rainy-day funds. 
Both measures are critical to solving Europe's debt crisis, which is now threatening to engulf larger economies like Italy and Spain and is blamed for dampening growth across Europe and even the world. 
"The crisis in the eurozone is doing real damage to many of the European economies, including Britain," George Osborne, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer, said as he headed into Saturday's meeting. "We have had enough of short-term measures, sticking plasters that get us through the next few weeks." 
European leaders had promised a solution would come from a summit on Sunday _ following the two days of finance ministers' meetings _ but they have now scheduled another get-together of EU leaders for Wednesday. Still, this weekend, they appeared to be making progress. 


courtesy economic times

2G SCAM Charge details

The Trial Court, hearing the 2G scam case, has charged all the 17 accused with a criminal breach of trust.

Former telecom minister A Raja, DMK MP Kanimozhi along with 12 other people and three companies, who have been accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case, will be charged under Indian Penal Code Section 409 (Criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent). Under criminal breach of trust charge, an accused if convicted, can be given a jail term of seven years.

Special Judge OP Saini decided that all the 17 accused will will be charged under criminal breach of trust during the hearing on Saturday at the Patiala House Court. All other charges levied by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have also been upheld, including abetment to illegal gratification against Kanimozhi.

The CBI filed its first chargesheet seven months ago, in which it called Raja the mastermind. He has been in jail since his arrest on February 2. The CBI has also named some of the biggest corporate executives and companies in the country in the 2G spectrum allocation scam.

There are a total of 17 accused in the 2G spectrum allocation scam case. They are A Raja, Siddharth Behura, RK Chandolia, Gautam Doshi, Surrendra Pipara, Hari Nair, Sanjay Chandra, Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka, Sharat Kumar, Kanimozhi, Rajiv Agarwal, Asif Balwa, Karim Morani, Reliance Telecommunication, Unitech Wireless Pvt Ltd (Tamil Nadu) and Swan Telecom.

Raja has been charged with cheating, criminal conspiracy, forgery, accepting illegal gratification and criminal breach of public trust. Kanimozhi has been charged with accepting bribe, abetting a public servant for receiving illegal gratification and abetting a public servant in criminal breach of public trust.

The CBI has also charged Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka, Sanjay Chandra, Gautam Doshi among others of them abetment to cheating, forgery, criminal conspiracy and abetting a public servant in criminal breach of public trust.

Kanimozhi's father and DMK chief M Karunanidhi arrived in Delhi on Friday and met UPA Chairperson and Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Saturday.

Kanimozhi has been lodged in jail for almost six months and has been denied bail. The court will resume hearing on the bail applications of various accused, including that of Kanimozhi, from October 24.

The Special Court also decided the charges against the three companies named by the CBI - Reliance Telecommunication, Unitech Wireless Pvt Ltd (Tamil Nadu) and Swan Telecom, which is now called DB Etisalat. The companies can be slapped with a steep fine if the charges of criminal conspiracy, forgery and cheating are proved.

courtesy IBNlive  

2G Spectrum scam charged against A.RAJA and 17 others

BREAKING NEWS: 2G Trial Court frames charges against all 17 accused. All accused can face imprisonment up to 7 years.

Saudi crown prince dies Age 86

Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz has died, a palace announcement on state television said on Saturday, throwing his brother Prince Nayef into line to succeed King Abdullah as leader of the key oil producer.

BARACK OBAMA INFORMS TROOPS WITHDRAWAL

GOOD NEWS TO AMERICAN TROOPS