OpenID 2.0 Finally Launched

The open identity system OpenID 2.0 was launched today at the Internet Identity Workshop in Mountain View, after what Marshall Kirkpatrick recently described as "a long, long time of political infighting over either semi-relevant minutea or deal-breaking technical details." The new version improves security and usability -- and will hopefully be the catalyst for more Internet companies to adopt it.

According to the announcement, more than 8,000 Web sites currently accept OpenID and this figure is growing by five percent per week - although Marshall mentioned in his post that this figure is down from 7% in February. But support for OpenID is gradually growing; just last week Google Blogger unveiled support in the next version of Blogger. A number of Internet companies, such as digg, have promised to implement OpenID once 2.0 arrived.

Marshall wrote an in-depth critique of OpenID 2.0 a week ago, which I encourage you to read to fully understand the significance of this announcement. OpenID is the way of the future for identity on the Web, so expect more adoption - and deeper support from existing adoptees such as AOL, Google and Microsoft - in 2008 and beyond.

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India enters supercomputing race

A computer system designed in India has made it into a top ten of the world's fastest supercomputers.

Computer giant IBM continues to dominate the list - which is compiled twice a year - with a total of 232 out of the top 500 supercomputers.

Its Blue Gene/L supercomputer - used to ensure the US nuclear weapons stockpile remains safe and reliable - comes out at number one.

The Indian system - known as EKA - made it into fourth place.

The world's fastest supercomputer - BlueGene/L - has been significantly upgraded in the last six months.

It can now deliver a sustained performance of 478 trillion calculations per second (478 teraflops), nearly three times faster than any other machine on the list.

Petaflop barrier

TOP FIVE SUPERCOMPUTERS IBM's BlueGene/L - 478 teraflops IBM's BlueGene/P - 167.3 teraflops SGI Altix ICE 8200 - 126.9 teraflops HP Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c - 117.9 teraflops HP Cluster Platform 3000 BL460c - 102.8 teraflops

Second place went to another IBM system - a newer version of BlueGene/L known as BlueGene/P. The system, introduced this June is the first in a batch of IBM machines designed to operate at a petaflop and beyond.

Breaking the petaflop barrier - the ability to process 1,000 trillion calculations every second - has long been a key milestone in supercomputing and would allow highly detailed simulations.

For example in earthquake simulations it could show building-by-building movements of regions in earthquake zones, improving future structural designs.

India has also entered the exclusive list for the first time with a Hewlett-Packard designed system that has a performance of 117.9 teraflops.

Codenamed EKA - Sanskrit for number one - it is installed at the Computational Research Laboratories in Pune.

The system will be initially targeted at developing applications such as neural, molecular and crash simulations, and digital media animation and rendering.

"The supercomputer system will have a direct affect on the lives of Indians, espcially in areas such as earthquake and Tsunami modelling, modellings of the economy and potential for drug design," said Mr S. Ramadorai, chairman of the Computational Research Laboratories, which is a subsidiary of Indian firm Tata.

The next step for the system is to put more applications on it.

"While the ranking is important the more important thing is to keep on improving performance and applications," said Mr Ramadorai.

Third place on the top 500 list went to a new supercomputing centre based in New Mexico.

Fifth place went to another Hewlett-Packard system installed at a Swedish government agency.

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