$100m supercomputer to be constructed

The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is forming an alliance with the state of New York and IBM to construct the Computational Centre for Nanotechnology, a $100 million supercomputer that will be one of the top 10 most powerful computers in the world, CIO Tech Informer reports.

The IBM Blue Gene computer will reside at Rensselaer`s New York campus, and it will be able to perform 70 trillion calculations per second.

IBM spokesman John Buscemi says it would take a person with a calculator almost 60 million years to perform that number of calculations.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is putting some bite behind its bark in its fight against illegally copied CDs and DVDs, reports PC World.

The group has funded the eight-month training of two black Labradors, called Lucky and Flo, who can now sniff out optical discs at customs points and other locations. The MPAA worked with its UK counterpart, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact).

The dogs were trained to detect the smell of chemicals used in the manufacture of optical discs, says Eddy Leviten, head of communications for Fact. But the dogs can`t distinguish between pirated discs and genuine ones. Investigators examine packages to try to determine which should be opened for inspection.

ICANN, the Internet`s key oversight body, has canned a proposal to create an .XXX domain for pornographic Web sites, reports Sci-Tech Today. The controversial proposal had faced considerable opposition from both conservative groups and Internet porn companies.

The nine-to-five vote by the ICANN board brings to a close a six-year effort by ICM Registry to create and operate the domain.

According to ICM, a porn-specific domain would produce a clearly identifiable area of the Internet for purveyors of adult content, and would therefore make it easier to prevent kids from inadvertently accessing that material.