The US has new armament in the weather forecasting arms race. Its competitive selection process is over, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has picked its next supercomputer. Named Cheyenne for the Native American tribe and the city in which the National Weather Supercomputing Center (NWSC) is located, the powerful new computer will be used to study climate change, seismic activity, air quality, wildfires, and other earth science issues.
Director of operations and services at NCAR’s Computational and Information Systems Lab, Anke Kamrath told Atmos News, “Whether it’s the threat of solar storms or a heightened risk in certain severe weather events, this new system will help lead to improved predictions and strengthen society’s resilience to potential disasters.”
Cheyenne will replace Yellowstone, shown below, the NWSC’s prior computer that is no longer quite as super. The visualizations in the video above were created using Yellowstone, and similar work will be done on Cheyenne. NCAR picked Yellowstone out back in 2011 and made it available for use in summer 2012. Since then, more than 2,200 researchers from over 300 federal labs and universities have used NWSC and Yellowstone for research.
Yellowstone ran on Intel Sandy Bridge EP processors in an IBM iDataPlex system and was rated for 1.6 petaflops. Cheyenne will run on Intel Broadwell processors for a 5.34-petaflop rating – 5.34 quadrillion calculations a second. NCAR plans to integrate Cheyenne with the GLADE file system already in use.
“Cheyenne will be a key component of the research infrastructure of the United States through its provision of supercomputing specially tailored for the atmospheric, geospace, and related sciences.” NCAR direction James Hurrell said. The new supercomputer will help improve predictions across a range of fronts, including decadal prediction (ten-year climate models) and 11-year solar cycle timing to determine its possible impacts on tech like GPS.
Cheyenne is set for installation this year, and will be ready for operation in 2017. David Hosansky, Head of Media Relations at NCAR told us, “Allocations on the supercomputer go through a national committee process.” Said process may not have begun for Cheyenne yet, so if you’re thinking NWSC might help your future research, keep an eye on the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s website.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.