Computers

The world’s most powerful supercomputer has just fired up. A newcomer named Fugaku has nabbed the number one spot in the Top500 list of supercomputers, surpassing Summit, the reigning champion of the past few years.

Scientists have successfully bridged the gap between organic and artificial. A team has created biohybrid synapses that let living cells communicate with electronic systems, not with electrical signals but with neurotransmitters like dopamine.

It turns out that neural networks might also need sleep to function at their peak. And it’s not just a matter of turning them off every now and then – the neurons benefit from exposure to slow-wave signals like those in a sleeping biological brain.

Intel has revealed its latest generation desktop processors. The 10th Gen Intel Core S-series is faster for playing games, streaming content and editing video, with the company claiming the flagship model to be the “world’s fastest gaming processor.”

Intel has unveiled its newest generation of laptop processors, the 10th Gen Intel Core H-series, are the first to streak past the 5 GHz mark. And the first batch of devices making use of them are here too.

Planet Computers has hit the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform with the Astro Slide. Inspired by the Personal Digital Assistants of the 1990s, it's a chunky smartphone when out and about, with a slide-out physical keyboard when it's time to work.

Computers still pale in comparison to nature’s version – the brain. Now Intel has unveiled its most powerful “neuromorphic” computing system. Named Pohoiki Springs, it packs in 100 million neurons, putting it on par with the brain of a small mammal.

Google has announced that it has achieved “quantum supremacy,” the point where a quantum computer successfully performs an operation considered impossible for traditional computers. But rival IBM disagrees that this has been achieved at all.

The USA has gained ground in the world supercomputer rankings, with 116 supercomputers listed among the top 500, but China continues to dominate the list with 219 top-500 supercomputers.

The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, UK is marking the 75th anniversary of the Colossus Mark II computer today with new revelations about its role in winning the Second World War.

Supercomputers will take a huge leap forward when the “exascale” era kicks off in 2021 with the launch of Aurora. But now it looks like that world-leading machine will be usurped before it’s even set up. The Frontier system has been announced, which will boast the power of over 1.5 exaflops.

Four years after the original Surface Hub arrived, and a year after announcing its successor, Microsoft is now launching the Surface Hub 2S in 50-inch and (eventually) 85-inch versions. The giant, interactive digital whiteboard can be yours for a mere $9k from June.