Fujitsu announces Stylistic Q702 hybrid tablet and LifeBook T902 for Q3

Fujitsu has unveiled two Windows 8-ready portables geared for the business professional. Thesystems will ship with Windows 7 sometime in the third quarter but it’s clear that both were designed with Windows 8 in mind.

The Stylistic Q702 is an 11.6-inch hybrid tablet that supports stylus input and can be paired with an optional keyboard dock much like the Asus Transformer Prime. Inside we find third generation Ivy Bridge processor support (Core i3 or Core i5), 4GB of system memory and up to 128GB of internal flash storage. The display is coated with Corning Gorilla Glass and operates at 1,366 x 768. We are told the tablet weights 1.88-pounds and can run for 4.5 hours on a single charge.

Fujitsu’s LifeBook T902 features a 13-inch Gorilla Glass display that runs at 1,600 x 900, i5 and i7 Ivy Bridge processor options, up to 16GB of RAM and up to 11 hours of battery life (with the add-on battery). Customers can configure the T902 with optional WWAN or LTE radios and there’s even a modular bay that can house an optical drive, an extra hard drive or a spare battery. Additionally, the slot can be left unoccupied to reduce overall weight (4.1-pounds without optical drive).

These business-minded systems include a bevy of professional security features including HDD and BIOS password protection and Trusted Platform Module on the Q702 and Intel Anti-Theft Technology and a biometric fingerprint sensor on the T902, just to name a few.

Pricing starts at $1,099 for the Q702 and $1,899 on the T902. Both systems will be available starting in the third quarter of this year through Fujitsu or one of their many retail partners.

Fujitsu to offer build-it-yourself PC course to customers

Fujitsu is veering off the beaten manufactured PC path and will soon begin offering classes to teach individuals how to build their computers. The move will further bolster PC assembly workshops that the company has been running in Fukushima and Shimane for the past eight years.

Fujitsu wants to teach customers about PC hardware and how to assemble a computer, regardless of age or technical skill. Configurable systems will come with 15 components to piece together for more experienced users. The motherboard will arrive pre-installed in the chassis but otherwise, the user is left to install various components like CPU cooler, RAM and the hard drive. Instructors will teach the students what each piece of hardware does and how to properly assemble them inside the system.

Newcomers can opt to have some components pre-assembled in advance as to ease them into the experience. General safe practice measures like using an anti-static mat and wrist strap will be instilled as part of the course.

Fujitsu will offer the service on 19 different machines that span four series including the LifeBook AH family of notebooks, the all-in-one Esprimo FH family and the Esprimo DH and Raku-Raku desktop systems. Customers will be able to customize key components like the CPU and hard drive at the time of purchase. A personalized mouse will be provided to anyone that participates in the class.

The company hopes that those who attend the course will be able to diagnose and repair their computer in the future in addition to performing upgrades on their own. Courses are scheduled to begin on August 9 in Japan.

IBM supercomputer overtakes Japan's Fujitsu as world's fastest

IBM's latest supercomputer, Sequoia, has taken the crown as the world’s fastest supercomputer in the TOP500 List after achieving 16.32 petaflops. That was enough to beat Japan's Fujitsu built supercomputer and marks the first time in over two years the US has topped the fastest supercomputer rankings.

Sequoia will be put to use by the US Department of Energy at their Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for carrying out simulated nuclear weapons testing, helping figure out how to extend the life of aging nuclear weapons and also to avoid live underground tests.

"While Sequoia may be the fastest, the underlying computing capabilities it provides give us increased confidence in the nation's nuclear deterrent," said National Nuclear Security Administration administrator Thomas D'Agostino. "It also represents continued American leadership in high performance computing."

Sequoia provides an astounding 16.32 petaflops of computing performance, around 16 thousand trillion calculations per second and comprises of 96 racks containing 98,304 compute nodes, 1.6 million processor cores and 1.6 petabytes of RAM covering over 4,500 square feet of floorspace.

"For a machine with 1.6 million cores to run for over 23 hours six weeks after the last rack arrived on our floor is nothing short of amazing," LLNL division leader Kim Cupps told Ars Technica. It achieved this score by running the Linpack benchmark for 23 hours solid without a single core failing, although the unit is actually capable of exceeding 20 petaflops.

In comparison, Japan's Fujitsu built K Computer housed in the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science has 705,000 processing cores giving 10 petaflop. Japan's supercomputer previously took the crown from a Chinese built supercomputer. The last time the US held the top spot was back in November 2009.

Despite its enormous size, IBM boasts the supercomputer is actually very efficient. It consumes 7,890 kilowatts of power at full load, whereas Japan's now second-placed K Computer consumes considerably more at 12,659 kilowatts. Its reduced power consumption is due in part to its primary cooling system, which uses water running through tiny copper pipes encircling each node card.

The entire supercomputer runs on Linux, with Compute Node Linux running on nearly 98,000 nodes, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on 768 I/O nodes that are connected to the filesystem.