U.S. Air Force Looking to Buy 300 PlayStation 3 Consoles

[Guest Wolfeymole]

USAF wants 300 PlayStation 3s for "research"

 

Sony, Toshiba and IBM have long touted the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) to be supercomputer material. The designers of the Cell/B.E. said many times that the processor may be used in a variety of applications, ranging from entertainment to industrial.

 

Now, the U.S. Air Force is planning to put the Cell/B.E. to the test, and oddly enough, it plans to procure its processor samples by purchasing 300 PlayStation 3 consoles.

 

As written in its presolicitation notice posted late February, “The Air Force Research Laboratory is conducting a technology assessment of certain cell processors.”

 

While there are many other ways to obtain a Cell/B.E., some of which more capable than the one offered for videogames, but even the U.S. Air Force has a budget.

 

“The processors in the Sony PlayStation 3 are the only brand on the market that utilizes the specific cell processor characteristics needed for this program at an acceptable cost,” detailed the notice.

 

Strangely, the 40GB PlayStation 3 model requested by the U.S. Air Force specifies the inclusion of four USB ports – twice as many on the retail 40GB PS3 – and slots for Memory Stick/SD/Compact Flash, which are only available on the 60GB and 80GB machines.

 

 

Sourced from DailyTech

 

Rumours abound that they have also bought 300 leather sofas, 300 wide screen TV's and enough beer and pizzas to choke a mule.

[jo123]

strange should they do it? and should they spend the money on other things?

[RandyL]

Other countries were buying up game technology decades ago because it was better then their own. I guess even the U.S. is behind private companies in some areas now.

[jo123]

If it is better then theirs why do buy the console not just the part they need to use. Plus with all of this terrorism around the powerful countries are getting to get worried just because they do not know what to do about them and with more technology maybe they can improve the safety around the streets. Hope it does.

[JEBWrench]

They're probably going to try training on Ace Combat. :P

[Dalo Harkin]

as Randy has posted private companies have contracts to the government as they focus on say one particular item and then sell them en mass to the government.

Sony would invest far more money into their chips than the military would be able to - they could basically just get the chips after all the hard work was done and then 'tweak' them for whatever purpose they saw fit

so in 30 years when people are finding bombs that didnt detonate it will say PS3 inside (see what I did there, intel inside - never mind, he he)

[jo123]

Dalo harkin good joke

 

good point chances are that the ps3 is cheaper then the chip as long as well use them in the right way and not play ACE combat