It's a seesaw. Somedays playing World of Warcraft is good, good, good. Somedays it's bad, bad, bad. What about today?

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Pandemic PS3 coder Tony Albrecht already has a unique unit of measurement, called the "Tony", for explaining the differences in processing power between the major consoles. He even went so far as to break it down for the less technically-minded.

Now, I think Tony units are great. Albrecht however felt a deeper understanding of where the consoles sit on the grunt scale was required, so he went and compared the latest generation of gaming platforms with the planet's fastest supercomputer - the IBM Roadrunner. His findings are fascinating:

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The United States' nuclear stockpile in Los Alamos will soon be monitored by a powerful computer made out of parts you might have in your living room - the PlayStation 3's Cell processor. Nicknamed the Roadrunner, the IBM-built supercomputer is comprised completely of off-the-shelf components, including nearly 7,000 dual-core AMD Opteron processors and almost 13,000 Cell processors. The machine can process more than one thousand trillion calculations per second, making it twice as fast as the world's current fastest computer, IBM's Blue Gene.

If only we had had access to this sort of technology back in 1983. The movie WarGames would have been so much better. "Would you like to play a game? How about Resistance: Fall of Man?"

IBM unveils fast new computer for US Energy Dept. [Newsday.com]

President and CEO of Double Fusion, Jonathan Epstein put all the other GDC rock gods to shame this week at IBM's Guitar Hero Competition. Epstein won the $US 1,500 grand prize with his face melting rendition of Eric Johnson's White Cliffs of Dover. According tho the short press release, you can challenge Epstein to an epic battle of the bands by going to Double Fusion's website. I went there myself and didn't really see a place to sign up per se, but I suppose an email will do nicely. Just don't count on wrestling that $US 1,500 from him. I think the title will be the best you can hope for.

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In an attempt to convince high schoolrs that math and science are cool (hey guys, they're not beating down the door to history classes, either), IBM is launching a new, free to play MMO called PowerUp that will challenge players to solve problems involving solar, wind, and hydropower before the environment of a fictional planet is destroyed by mounting crises. Of course, there's more:

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From 90mm to 65mm to 45mm - IBM has announced details on a smaller, more efficient version of the Cell BE processor, which of course is the brains inside every shiny new PlayStation 3. IBM will soon migrate from the 65nm process currently used to manufacture the chips to their next generation 45nm high-k process, which results in a Cell that requires 40 percent less power, reducing cooling costs while a smaller die means higher yields and a lower overall cost. This gives Sony a choice - reduce the price of the system to increase their install base or just ride the cheaper process for awhile to work up a little profit. Also interesting to note is that once again the shrink comes with no performance tweaks, with IBM citing the need to maintain gaming software operation. In other words, IBM's Cell division is Sony's little bitch.

IBM shrinks Cell to 45nm. Cheaper PS3s will follow [Ars Technica]

IBM and The Mayo Clinic have teamed up to open a research facility, which they hope will bring about advances in the field of medical imaging, and in particular to things like CT scans. At present, it can take a doctor hours to look over a set of scans, which in some cases can endanger a patient's life. It's hoped that by using the PS3's Cell chip they can not only create 3D images of a patient's brain much faster, they can also then compare those to earlier 3D images in only minutes, a feat which once took hours. Pretty neat, considering the Cell was built to, you know. Play games. The Mayo Clinic's chairman Bradley Erickson says this is not the first time games tech has been used to aid medical science. In addition to their current research using the Cell chip, Erickson says that "other games technology", including high-end graphics cards, are often used in medicine, particularly in the field of imaging.
IBM, Mayo Clinic team up to improve medical imaging [Computerworld, via io9]

IBM made a major announcement today that they will be offering 32nm chips to their partners in the second half of 2009. This would mean that, yes, the Xbox 360 could get even smaller chips than the 65nm "Falcon" CPUs..or the rumoured 45nm upgrade. We're talking power savings of 45% and speed boosts of 30% over IBM's last generation of hardware...it's flat-out better technology that will reduce the propensity of overheating drastically, and maybe even make way for a smaller console.

So it will be interesting to see if Microsoft opts to go with 45nm chips (available next year) and then 32nm chips, or ends up skipping one of these technologies. Most of us probably won't know the difference—actually, most of us will know the difference—but only because we're obsessing about it here.

IBM, partners in 32nm device surge [via tvg]

Of all companies who develop software, we didn't wake up this morning expecting to hear about a new "serious game" from IBM. Called Innov8 (see what they did with the clever phonetics?), universities around the world have access to download the title to better educate students. So what exactly is the game? We can't quite tell. It looks like The Sims meets some theoretical Office Tycoon. But the goal is to "develop a combination of business and information technology (IT) skills." While it's sure to be at least a small plug for IBM technological solutions and we generally prefer watching our Sims peeing themselves over developing networking solutions, it might beat reading textbooks. Was anyone out there part of 30 university beta?

IBM announces new video games to teach business skills [gamingnexus]

Avatars are important, but confining. One avatar in one game won't necessary be usable in another. IBM and Second Life developer Linden Labs have joined forces to figure out a way to make avatars interoperable. An open avatar would allow individuals to keep their same basic appearance and data. Says IBM vice president of digital convergence, Colin Parris:

It is going to happen anyway. If you think you are walled and secure, somebody will create something that's open and then people will drain themselves away as fast as possible.