Recently there has been a lot of focus on content going to “The Cloud” as it can then be accessed anywhere in the world via the Internet. There are projects such as Microsoft Mesh which allows you to sync files to the Internet and your other computers as well as cloud based operating systems such as “Cloud” by Good OS. AMD this week at CES announced that it is developing a Super Computer cloud OS called “AMD Fusion Render Cloud”. What really makes this amazing is that Fusion Render might be available before even Windows 7 is available for your home computer.
“AMD has a long track record in the supercomputing world. Seven out of 10 of the world’s fastest machines, including the fastest two computers on the planet, are powered by AMD hardware,” said Meyer. “Today, AMD is pleased to announce a new kind of supercomputer unlike any other ever built. It is being designed to break the one petaFLOPS barrier, and to process a million compute threads across more than 1,000 graphics processors. We anticipate it to be the fastest graphics supercomputer ever. And it will be powered by OTOY’s software for a singular purpose: to make HD cloud computing a reality. We plan to have this system ready by the second half of 2009.”
Most cloud based operating systems have been designed for data accessibility and basic computer functions. What really separates Fusion Render from others is that they have a focus on delivering video games and other graphics intensive applications to users. Cloud operating systems up until this point have been more of a novelty but it looks like AMD is aiming to make people take them more seriously.
“Imagine watching a movie half-way through on your cell phone while on the bus ride home, then, upon entering your home or apartment, switch over to your HD TV and continue watching the same movie from exactly where you left off, seamlessly, and at full screen resolution,” continued Boswell. “Imagine playing the most visually intensive first person shooter game at the highest image quality settings on your cell phone without ever having to download and install the software, or use up valuable storage space or battery life with compute-intensive tasks. Those are just some of the experiences that AMD and OTOY plan to make possible with HD cloud computing of visually rich entertainment content.”
Other competitors to AMD in the Super Computer market are also working at getting Cloud OS’s up and running such as Sun Microsystems. There appears to be a big rush towards the cloud by many manufactures for many purposes and the good news is that in the long run it will benefit all of us in one way or another. I have not been able to find any word on price yet but I am sure it will take some time until it can approach the price range of the average consumer. Hopefully we don’t have to wait to long for that to happen.
Check It Out> AMD, Cloud Computing (wikipedia), Gigaom,
[...] systems coming out or being announced right now but they might be late to the show. Both AMD Fusion Render Cloud and gOS Cloud were recently announced at CES. gOS is way out of it’s league when pitted [...]