Mercury releases supercomputer SDK for PS3

If you are planning to do a lot more with the Playstation 3 than playing games, then here is an opportunity to use the console as a high-performance computing platform.

Mercury Systems said that it has releases its "MultiCore Plus SDK for PS3 - Base Package" just ahead of Siggraph and will follow up with a more elaborate version on August 6. Provided you have not just casual development experience, Mercury promises that the kit offers the tools to dive into the processing power of the Cell processor in an “affordable” way and simplify the transition to multi-core programming for developers.

According to the company, the SDK will run (YellowDog) Linux on the PS3 without overhead, data movement and computation automatically, and fine-tune application performance. Included in the $399 per seat software is a trace analysis tool, which monitors dynamic multiprocessor and multi-core interactions and detects performance bottlenecks and visualizes deadlocks (both functions require an x86 PC as host.)

Pricing for the upcoming “MultiCore Plus SDK for PS3 - Scientific Algorithm Library Add-on Package” has not been announced. However, Mercury promises the software to include “over 600 functions for use in compute intensive applications” and “over 100 image and signal processing functions optimized specifically for the Cell architecture.”

The Playstation 3 has been at the center of third party applications virtually from the beginning of its release. The Folding@Home PS3 project, announced back in March of thsi year, has emerged as one of the most popular third-party and supercomputing uses for the platform.

Report: The average PC holds 880 MP3 files

Approximately three gigabytes of storage is taken up with MP3 files on the average PC in the US, according to a new report from Comscore.

This makes MP3 the most common file type on American PCs, says Comscore, followed distantly by Microsoft Word. The report said the average PC had around 197 Word files, as well as 100 PDF files, 77 Microsoft Excel files, and 36 Windows Media files.

To house all those files, Comscore showed that 39% of household computers had hard drives of 70 GB or more. The research firm also broke down Internet traffic based on what kind of files were on a user's PC. For example, 39.4% of people who frequented gaming sites were defined as "heavy MP3" users, while those with a lot of Word files were more likely to visit business and finance sites.

The results are part of Comscore's new "Tech Matrix" analysis service, which the company hopes will bring valuable information to advertisers and industry watchers, as a more defined scope than previous reports that just showed the top Internet among typical age/race/income demographics.

Grand Theft Auto IV gets shot back to 2008

Take Two's anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV will miss the pivotal holiday timeline for 2007, adding several months to the wait time for fans of the series.

The newest addition in the open-ended street life game series, which was originally given a release date of October 18, has been pushed back to spring 2008.

Grand Theft Auto IV will be the first GTA title for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, and as such will be the first entry to support high definition video output.

GTA IV was expected to be part of a colossal melee for this holiday season, with powerhouses like Halo 3, Lair, and Rock Band all converging in the final months of the year.

Rockstar said it needed to push back the release date because of increased development time required to fit everything into the game.

"Every aspect of the game and its design has been completely transformed. The game is huge and is pushing the hardware platforms to their absolute limits. The top engineers from Sony and Microsoft are working closely with the team in Edinburgh right now, helping us to fully leverage the power of both platforms," said Rockstar Games founder Sam House in a statement.

Nokia dominates cellphone market

The numbers for the cellphone market in Q2 are in: Nokia is leading the industry with shipments of more than 1.1 million phones per day, Motorola continues to struggle and Apple has not made a visible dent in the market yet, according to a report released by IDC today.

Despite all the frenzy surrounding Apple’s iPhone launch, traditional vendors are controlling the big numbers in the cellphone market - and that scenario isn’t likely to change anytime soon. Apple only had two days in Q2 to sell its iPhone and apparently managed to ship around 270,000 units in this time frame. But even if Apple will achieve its goal to sell 10 million iPhones in its 2008 fiscal year, it is Nokia that is dominating the iPhone’s market segment for now: According to IDC, Nokia shipped 13.9 million converged devices in Q2 alone.

Overall, the cellphone market continues to boom and even in the traditionally slower Q2, about 272.9 million phones were shipped, representing a 16.2% gain for the industry year-over-year. 37% of all phones shipped, or 100.8 million, came from Nokia, which continues to have a tight grip on the global market. Nokia achieved a year-over-year shipment growth of 28.6%.

Samsung surpassed Motorola with shipments of 37.4 million units, up 48.4% from Q2 2006. Motorola, now in third, was the only vendor to record shipment declines: Unit numbers were down 31.6% to 35.5 million units. However, IDC noted that Motorola shipped its 100 millionth Razr phone during the quarter.

The top-5 list is completed with Sony Ericsson, which was able to achieve the strongest growth among the five largest cellphone manufacturers, with shipments gaining 58.6% to 24.9 million units. LG remains in fifth: The company’s cellphone shipments increased by 27.3% and ended up at 19.1 million units.

Harman Becker launches GPS system that warns speeders

Harman/Becker Automotive Systems has launched a new GPS device that will verbally warn drivers when they are in excess of the legal speed limit.

The Traffic Assist Highspeed 7934 is the first GPS system from Harman/Becker, a company more renowned for its high-end automotive audio/video systems, and one of the first devices to integrate posted speed limits in its display.

GPS systems can calculate the speed of the car based on how fast it travels over a short distance. The Traffic Assist Highspeed 7934 takes that information and compares it against the speed limit on record for the current road and if it thinks the driver is speeding, a "voice signal" will warn him or her.

The GPS unit has a screen size of 3.5 inches, with a full graphical color display and touch screen functionality. There are also separate backlighting options for day and night time.

Offering support for maps of the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico, the device also doubles as an MP3 player. Users can plug in an SD card with song tracks and listen to them through the two built-in speakers. It also has a photo viewing feature for images stored on SD cards. Maps can be added or updated through a direct-to-PC USB connection, or via the external SD slot.

The device is currently exclusive to Office Depot where it retails for around $300.

Pioneer to begin offering 1080p "super black" HDTV sets

Dedicated plasma TV backer Pioneer will launch its first pair of "full HD" TV sets with 1920 x 1080 resolution this October, according to a recent Reuters report.

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Panasonic and Hitachi both had big displays of 1080p sets. Both companies support plasma and LCD. Pioneer, on the other hand, is 100% committed to plasma. Pioneer's focus was on its new technology to offer deeper contrast.

1080p has become more popular among the mainstream crowd, though, as general consumers become more educated about high definition technology. Though it's a moot point for over-the-air programming, which is limited to 1080i resolution right now, 1080p is fully supported by HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc movies, as well as a sprinkling of next-gen video games, mainly from Electronic Arts.

In June, Pioneer introduced its Kuro line of plasma TVs, which was recently updated last week with two new models. The "Kuro" line promises significantly deeper black levels than any other plasma set. However, the resolution on the flagship Kuro products is only 1024 x 768, which is more closely related to 720p.

The company's new 1080p sets will reportedly be priced at around $5,000 for the 50" model and around $6,500 for 60". "Elite" version of both will also be available for $1,000 more on each set.

Crysis gets a November 16 release date

Electronic Arts (EA) and Crytek today announced that the first person shooter Crysis will be hitting retail shelves on November 16.

The new game, shown for the first time at the 2006 E3 tradeshow and conference, will be available for the PC only and promises to deliver “stunning DirectX 10 and DirectX 9 visuals.”

“Crytek is constantly striving to push the boundaries of both game design and technology, while maintaining quality at the highest bar," said Cevat Yerli, CEO and president of Crytek, said in a prepared statement. "We're thankful to our fans for their support and patience, and we're excited to bring them Crysis this year. It's going to be worth the wait."

According to EA, the new game will feature open-ended gameplay and dress the player in a “revolutionary nanosuit and an arsenal of fully customizable weapons.” The game environment will include “tropical jungles, flash-frozen landscapes and a zero gravity environment.” There also will be a new team-based mode to play the game, which will enable up to 32 players can face each other.