New Machines Break Speed Records

Sometimes new technologies hit the market so thick and fast, you just have to stop for a second and say "Gee whiz." The companies that make computers and game consoles are pushing one another to build machines that do more and more, faster and faster, and as a result the past week has a seen the fall of a series of previously unbreakable technological barriers. Heres a quick rundown of some of the science thats getting dropped.

In case you didnt make it to the ISSCC (thats the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference) in San Francisco last week, the buzz was all about what Sony's calling the "Emotion Engine." Its an open secret that the Emotion Engine is the heart of what will become the Playstation 2, Sonys answer to Segas hot-as-heck next-generation Dreamcast console. The Emotion Engine harnesses three separate CPUs that work together to render (in theory) up to 55 million polygons a second. MORE>>