FIXSTARS announces that their openCV version for Cell/BE on a Playsation 3 is up to 27 times faster than on a 2.4GHZ Core2Duo (see here).

The Ubuntu community has done the first work for the powerpc port of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. There are the first daily build iso-CDs available.

It came from out of the blue, but we took the chance. penguinppc is a reference for linux on the powerpc and we are proud that they like to share their news with us.

Perhaps it is pure coincidence and the cause is the Top500 listing. But it makes me wonder if there is a connection between Sonys withdrawal and the specifications IBM let loose about the Cell2+ aka PowerXCell 8i.

Already on 16.10.2007 a blade using the PWRficient processor by P.A.Semi was introduced by Performance Technologies for their blade system.

IBM offers some tutorials for the Cell B.E. on developerworks.

The PS3 has its own disk, so we think it's time for their own news. The UBUNTU community has ported Ubuntu 7.10 for the PS3 in time.

UBUNTU announced UBUNTU 7.10. And even the PowerPC Port was done on time by the community. UBUNTU doesn't send the PowerPC discs any more, but getting them via Bit-Torrent is second best.

To unlock the potential of the SPEs, IBM has to tell people how to handle them. And give them tools how to get the most out of it without setting up a whole new way of programming. Now there is a second part on how to minimize recoding impact for the Cell BE. With macros that align DMA access and how to use multiple SPEs or how to get some SPEs to support the PPE.

Linus made the Linux-Kernel in version 2.6.23 available. It supports XEN client support, EXT4, XFS and other stuff. The cool stuff is CFS aka Completely Fair Scheduler. And if the central part of a kernel is changed, you hope for a better way.