Computing Written by Martin Courtney, Computing, 17 Jun 2010

1.5 million volunteer PCs create mass processing power to recognise protein crystallisation

The World Community Grid (WGC) has enlisted the help of 1.5 million systems worldwide to give cancer research scientists sufficient computing power to identify crystallised protein, helping them determine how cancer is formed and, potentially, how it might be prevented.

Begun in 2007, the Help Conquer Cancer project has so far sifted through more than 100 million images of 12,500 unique proteins that could be linked to cancer, captured in the course of 19.2 million experiments.

Sponsored and co-ordinated by WCG founder IBM, it allows researchers to get results up to six times faster than if they were using alternative supercomputer or mainframe resources, or making the same calculations manually. For more go to www.worldcommunitygrid.org/index.jsp

IT-Online SKA bid a step closer, Thursday, 17 June 2010, 11:39
Here is an article about the SKA with a little gem at the end - it appears that the CHPC - after all that - is nothing more than a processing node for KAT.

Tellumat has completed the feed cluster sub-assemblies for the KAT 7 radio telescope that is currently being erected at Carnarvon in the Northern Cape.

The units, destined for each of the KAT 7 array’s seven telescopes, will receive and amplify data captured in the form of radio frequency (RF) emissions from celestial bodies. Tellumat’s delivery to KAT 7 also includes software to process the data, allowing for a close study of the cosmos.
The KAT 7, whose construction was commissioned by the Department of Science and Technology, could ultimately lead to South Africa winning the right to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Four countries bid for the privilege, which will bestow immense scientific prestige on the victor, but only South Africa and Australia remain in the running.

Computing

Combined Windows and Linux offers faster processing, claim firms

Written by Iain Thomson in San Francisco

V3.co.uk, 02 Jun 2010

Microsoft and Novell have reported strong interest in their high performance computing (HPC) system based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Windows HPC Server.

The companies said that 33 organisations have signed up to use the system in the financial, healthcare, higher education and technology sectors, including Deutsche Bank AG, Honeywell International, Japan Petroleum Exploration and Texas Instruments.

"Many customers are realising the benefits of the Microsoft and Novell HPC technical solution that streamlines management functions, reduces internal support requirements and enables greater interoperability without having to dedicate time and resources to devise workarounds," said Joe Wagner, senior vice president and general manager of global alliances at Novell.

"Through our successful initiatives in the Joint Interoperability Lab, we've been able to anticipate the mixed-source IT requirements necessary in today's business environment."

BBC News
By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, 8:09 GMT, Monday, 31 May 2010 9:09 UK

China aims to be become supercomputer superpower
China is ramping up efforts to become the world's supercomputing superpower.

Its Nebulae machine at the National Super Computer Center in Shenzhen, was ranked second on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list.

For the first time, a second Chinese supercomputer appears in the list of the top ten fastest machines.

However, the US still dominates the list with seven of the top ten computers, including the world's fastest, known as Jaguar.

The Cray computer, which is owned by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops.

One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

HPCwire:
April 07, 2010

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, April 7 -- The first-ever feature-length 3D animation film to come out of South Africa, "Lion of Judah", hits local screens later this year -- and it owes its existence to a massive bank of supercomputers that are working overtime to finalise the movie for our screens.

The movie, created at local animation studio Character Matters, is in final production with the assistance of the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) in Cape Town.

HPCwire April 13, 2010, by Michael Feldman, HPCwire Editor

The 21st century has seen a plethora of supercomputing centers sprouting up across the globe. While the US, Western Europe, and Japan are still the dominant HPC territories, rapidly developing countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are quickly ramping up their HPC infrastructures. Of all the regions, though, Africa is still mostly an HPC desert. But in Cape Town, South Africa, the three-year-old Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) aims to change all that.

Funded by South Africa's Department of Science and Technology (DST), CHPC is tasked with providing high-end computational resources for research organizations and businesses in South Africa and throughout Africa. Since it opened its doors in June 2007, CHPC, under the direction of Dr. Happy Sithole, has been busy building up its HPC infrastructure and gathering users. Because it is a regional HPC center -- essentially covering a whole continent -- its resources have to serve a wide array of clients and applications.

IT-Online Monday, 19 April 2010, 11:29

In just a few weeks time, four of South Africa’s young scientists will be jetting off to the US to represent South Africa at the 2010 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) which is taking place from 11 to 14 May.

Good for Eskom ...

Business Report (Reporting by Elinor Comlay; Editing by Alex Richardson) - Reuters, April 10, 2010

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether some of the biggest technology companies agreed not to recruit each others' employees, violating antitrust laws, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The investigation is looking into hiring practices at companies including Apple Inc, Google Inc, IAC/InterActiveCorp, International Business Machines and Intel Corp, the newspaper reported.

This would be a fun thing to happen in South Africa as well.

ITWeb By Farzana Rasool, ITWeb journalist. Johannesburg, 29 Mar 2010

Parliament seems to be leaning towards regulation of labour broking as opposed to banning it outright, but the matter is still being debated.

I am implacably opposed to labour broking in IT. As far as I can see it provides big corporates an excuse not to do IT right, but to muddle along randomly creating projects of no value that fail - and then the wonder why. If companies are serious about software development, they actually need a plan - that plan is not screw the workers, by the way.
If something is really worth doing - and by that I mean really - then it must be done properly. Scrum, RUP, waterfall or whatever - the project needs the correct resources and that means humans. People. Engineers. Developers.
I have seen some of the bizarre and perverse antics of our big companies, as well as the unintended consequences. Labour brokers must go - they are parasites and a scourge on the face of the IT community.
If a personnel agency / labour broker approaches me I demand 3 things
(1) their candidates must be members of IEEE / ECSA / SAIEE / BITF /
(2) they must have a 3 month notice period with their candidate
(3) their candidates must have agreed to a skills development program.

Needless to say no-one complies with my stringent requirements. Stringent, not a damn - personnel agencies get 14% of your annual salary when they place you. Regardless of whether you work for 6 months. To them you are a commodity.

And as for big companies - the fact that they give you a 1 year "contract" is irrelevant - the contract says they can fire you (they say terminate) after 2 weeks or 1 month or 3 months if you are really lucky. The 1 year is just an accounting cost-centre exercise.

Which reminds me - whoever though open-plan was conducive to good work was lying.
For big companies, labour broking is just an accounting device. It helps them get around BEE, or whatever devious things accountants dream up. It is the antithesis of good engineering.

ITWeb By Leigh-Ann Francis, Johannesburg, 26 Mar 2010

Delegates at the annual Black IT Forum (BITF) conference were disappointed yesterday by the absence of top ICT players, who failed to deliver their keynote presentations.

I think it is about time that we realise that their are no free meals with government, no matter what they say. The BITF needs to stop looking to government for their salvation. No matter what the good intentions of government (or not), it is a lumbering beast.
I am convinced that in the IT arena, there is so much value available for free, that to hitch your ride to the government train is the worst possible strategy.
I am bemused that the government encourages "entrepreneurship" as a strategy - this is a high-risk high-return strategy, which is by definition a failing strategy. A much more sensible alternative would be a growth strategy - which does not prevent someone getting lucky. But to stake your future on luck as a stratgey has to be a bad idea.