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Consider the fate of SGI (formerly Silicon Graphics), which tried a similar approach with its Virtual Workstation product line.

For Microsoft, it is yet another step in the company’s bid to be taken more seriously at the highest end of the computing market. Its current product, Windows HPC Server 2008, is the successor to the company’s inaugural effort, Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.

(Credit:
Cray)

Cray billed the CX1 as an expansion of its lineup, aimed at universities, laboratories, and departments within big businesses. It said that the machine will be “the world’s highest-performing computer that uses standard office power.”

Although trying to offer Microsoft-based systems at the low end and proprietary systems at the high end may make sense for Cray, it’s also an option that can be fraught with peril.

The Cray CX-1 supercomputer.

“Cray sees Microsoft Windows becoming an increasingly important force in the HPC market,” Cray Senior VP Ian Miller said in a statement. “With the Cray CX1 high productivity system and Windows HPC Server 2008, we’re bringing the power of Cray supercomputing to a much wider range of new users with an affordable and adaptable system that provides incredible value and is easy to install, program and use with a broad array of applications from independent software vendors.”

Microsoft’s entry into the supercomputing market took another step Tuesday as high-end system leader Cray announced plans for its first machine running the Windows HPC Server operating system.

Cray announced the CX1 supercomputer, which will run HPC Server 2008 and have list prices between $25,000 and $60,000–prices which make it the company’s most affordable system ever.

Then again, maybe we shouldn’t be that surprised considering the tech industry’s counterculture wellsprings. I’m not going to cover that in detail here, but a good resource is John Markoff’s “What the Dormouse Said: How the ’60’s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer” does a nice job pulling the disparate strands of the story together. He offers a good explanation of how drug experimentation and rebellion against authority in the 1960s fed into the thinking of several of the key computer researchers, whose contributions to the tech canon ultimately laid the basis for the contemporary PC business.

“We’ve got a warehouse full of posters and letters and things,” Watkins says. “We want to create a library annex, and we’re going to try and raise $2 million to build it. In August, I think maybe we’ll hold a big fund-raiser party somewhere in the Bay Area.”

“You’d be surprised how many secret Deadheads there are out there,” he noted.

(Credit:
Grateful Dead)

Watkins, who calls himself “a Deadhead from way back,” owns a couple of the band’s old guitars as well as a gold record or two, among other Grateful Dead paraphernalia. And he says he’s not the only fan and collector from the ranks of Silicon Valley’s managerial elite.

Maybe that’s why Watkins appears increasingly irritated at often finding business interlocutors–and even employees–dressing in formal attire (a no-no in the historically more casual West Coast technology community).

“It’s one of my secret peeves,” he says. “I showed up at a meeting the other day, and I was the only one with blue jeans on. They were all dressed up in suits. But there’s another side to this. You start creating social structures within your companies where ties are becoming ways of differentiating the senior guys from middle management. It’s senior management that’s trying to differentiate themselves…and I don’t like it much.”

Seagate Technology CEO Bill Watkins doesn’t Twitter, but he’s not big on sartorial formality either–especially when it comes to ties. You know that cliche about marching to a different drummer? In this case, it’s Watkins’ own drummer and that’s why he grooves on the Grateful Dead.

Bill Watkins So much so that he’s one of the Silicon Valley hotshots volunteering to help the University of Santa Cruz raise money for its planned archive of Grateful Dead memorabilia.

The giant Chinese market is creating an opportunity for clean technologies. Investments are following: a report in China Daily, citing numbers from Cleantech China Research, said that investment in clean tech is rising rapidly, from $550 million last year to an expected $720 million this year.

But there is a flip-side, says Paula Beroza, an investment banker and managing director at Sierra Asia Partners, a firm that specializes in investment in China.

The last financing we did was in a wind turbine blade company in China. Everybody that manufacturers wind turbine parts is going gangbusters because they are building huge wind farms. All of these are a drop in the bucket, but they help.

Even in the supposedly clean industry of solar power, there has been trouble. A recent Washington Post investigation unearthed toxic chemical dumping at a Chinese solar cell manufacturing plant.

So much of Chinese business has strong government involvement, as I understand it. What’s the government stance on environment and clean tech?

Beroza: The message to businesses I would give is the government is getting more supportive, for obvious reasons, for clean-tech projects in China. Some companies with new technologies are starting to introduce products in China first rather than elsewhere because there is a huge market and you can get government support. It doesn’t mean cash (from the government), but it might mean getting factory space at attractive prices or access to educational facilities that might provide you with manpower.

Q: What’s the overall situation when it comes to the environment?
Beroza: If you look at the big picture, it’s daunting. China’s huge growth has been accompanied by huge problems on environment side. And that’s an issue that everybody in the world is concerned about, quite frankly. But when I put my business hat on, there is also a huge opportunity for companies involved in clean tech. That’s the positive news out of it.

The picture has been brought into clearer focus because of the upcoming Beijing Olympics, where some national teams are concerned about athletes’ ability to compete.

Equally significant is government support in China for clean technologies, said Beroza who noted that China’s renewable energy target of 15 percent by 2020 is one of the most aggressive in the world. The government has also set up investment funds to nurture technology developed in universities to be commercialized.

Air and water quality are health issues. And China’s skyrocketing energy consumption raises greenhouse gas levels, a matter of concern for everyone.

I spoke with Beroza about clean-tech investing in China. Here are excerpts from our talk.

To point out the country’s run-away energy demand, speakers at clean-tech conferences often say that China is building one coal-fired power plant a week.

Solar companies like Suntech have shaken up the solar business by manufacturing cells cheaply. Do you expect the same to happen in other areas of clean tech?

Beroza: On the solar side, the big investments have really been companies that manufacture in China for global consumption. Although they are clean tech, they are manufacturing plays more than anything else. There’s nothing wrong with that, but what I see as more interesting is the next phase of new technologies. Thin-film solar, water treatment–there’s huge demand for that. Anything with respect to energy-saving technologies in buildings. There’s a great opportunity because of development and partially because, historically, people didn’t focus on buildings–insulation and that sort of thing–and there’s now all sorts of interesting new building materials.

It’s not that somebody in the government is going to wave a magic wand. But in China, especially in this sector, the government can really be an ally. If you understand how they work and not go confrontational and try to co-opt them, and get them on your side, they’ll help you out a lot. With all of the publicity around environmental problems in China, officials at every level in municipal, provincial, and federal governments are going to be helpful to try to get some brownie points for themselves.

Clean coal is another one and anything with respect to renewable (energy). All of those are great, great sectors.

A lot of money is being spent on infrastructure. Where are clean-tech opportunities?

Beroza: If you got a technology that works in an area and you can get it adopted, then you can be part of the huge building boom. That’s where I see a leapfrogging. We–the United States and other more-developed countries–have a huge installed base. If you got clean technology for buildings and you can get it approved and you can to get on the side of the angels with the government, then that can have tremendous impact.

I just focus on one step at a time, in terms of trying to get projects in China that help either through introducing new technologies or energy-saving devices.

A steady stream of bad news over the past year has brought China’s environmental woes into clearer focus.

Wow, nothing gets people worked up like talking about Apple vs. anything. For the record, I use a BlackBerry Curve on Verizon and have been BlackBerry loyal for about three years. I just think the
iPhone is very compelling in comparison to nearly everything else.

So what will compete with iPhone? The readers speak:

Samsung i900
HTC Diamond and the real iPhone killer HTC Touch Pro *coming soon*
The Sony Xperia *coming soon*
Why a new entrant? RIM’s BlackBerry Curve already holds its own quite well against even the iPhone 3G. The Bold will wipe the floor with it.
Nothing will challenge the iPhone until Windows Mobile 7 is released. Even then, it might not be enough. There may not be any serious challenge to the iPhone until Windows Mobile 8 in 2010.
First, Blackberry HAS NO NEED for an “iPhone killer.” Second, the Thunder project PREDATES the iPhone. GET THE FACTS STRAIGHT. It’s APPLE fighting the uphill battle, not RIM. Argue all you want, it can’t change the facts.

Erik Nordenankar had claimed that he placed a GPS device in a briefcase on March 17 and then sent the case on a 55-day trip around the world with DHL. He originally stated on his Web site that he had given DHL specific travel instructions on the route that the briefcase should take to yield the drawing. After the package allegedly traveled over 6 continents and 62 countries, it was returned to him in Stockholm, Sweden, where he downloaded the GPS coordinates that were recorded by the device to his computer to generate the image.

Another visitor pointed out technical flaws in the project description.

The technique is described this way: “My pen was a briefcase containing the GPS device, being sent around the world. The paths the briefcase took around the globe became the strokes of the drawing.”

However, many visitors to the site pointed out that the route described in the drawing was unlikely to be followed by DHL pilots.

A Swedish art student who claimed to have created the “biggest drawing in the world” using a GPS device and an international package delivery service has admitted that the drawing is a hoax.

“Were the DHL pilots on acid?” asked one visitor.

“A GPS signal cannot penetrate dense materials,” wrote a reader using the name Samppa79. “That briefcase looks dense enough to block the signal and the roof of a
car or thick walls of an airplane blocks the rest.”

His Web site included two YouTube videos purporting to show the briefcase during its journey and delivery receipts for the package during its circumnavigation of the globe.

(Credit:
Erik Nordenankar )

Nordenankar has since posted this message to the bottom of the site–presumably because he doesn’t want to spoil the surprise–admitting his hoax. “This is fictional work. DHL did not transport the GPS at any time.”

A DHL spokesman told the Telegraph that the delivery company had allowed Nordenankar access to a warehouse in Stockholm for a school art project and that it was interested in discussing the hoax with him.

A federal district court in New York ruled Wednesday that the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is owed “reasonable license fees” by online media powerhouses AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo for the music streamed and distributed on their sites.

More details to follow.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York will now determine appropriate fees for AOL, RealNetworks, and Yahoo, all of which have applied for ASCAP licenses but have not been able to agree upon fees. The total payments to the group, which represents over 320,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers–not record labels–could reach $100 million. (Click here for a PDF of the court’s decision.)

It is critical that these organizations share a reasonable portion of their sizable revenues with those of us whose content attracts audiences and, ultimately, helps to make their businesses viable. This decision will go a long way toward protecting the ability of songwriters and composers to be compensated fairly as the use of musical works online continues to grow.”

ASCAP President Marilyn Bergman wrote in a statement following the decision:

Currently, music streamed by sites owned by the three companies is advertising-supported and no dividends are paid to ASCAP.

The court’s finding represents a major step toward proper valuation of the music contributions of songwriters, composers and publishers to these types of online businesses.

The license fees would cover music distributed as early as July 1, 2002, and then up through the end of 2009. Because songwriters and composers often aren’t affiliated with record labels that distribute their music as performed by another artist, they presently are left without licensing fees from digital distribution on the three companies named in the court decision.

That “green tape” could mean granting permits, allocating costs appropriately for interstate transmission lines, or siting–the process of determining where exactly the lines will go.

Just as decades ago Congress withheld highway construction funds from states that did not adopt 21 as the legal drinking age, the government should be able to enforce conditions on states to set up a functional, efficient electric transmission system, Karsner said.

“It’s a necessity, and only the federal government can provide for that necessity,” he said.

John Podesta, an Obama adviser and president of the Center for American Progress, said the administration was enthusiastic about the promise of renewable energy as it developed the stimulus package but was weighed down by “a sense of frustration that policy still needed to be developed.”

Questions remain, however, as to whether the Energy Department and other government agencies will be able to overcome a complex regulatory maze to spend the funds quickly and appropriately, particularly for transmission lines.

“Our energy sector is very complicated,” Karen Harbert, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, said at the Chamber on Tuesday. “It’s become too easy for any project of any hue to get wrapped up in ‘green’ tape.”

If the government truly wants to meet Obama’s goals for energy efficiency–such as doubling the amount of renewable energy in the next three years–the Department of Energy will have to reorganize immediately, said Andy Karsner, the Energy Department’s former associate secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy. The department’s failure to distribute the loan guarantees promised in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 demonstrate the department’s failures, he and other panelists at the Google event said.

“You will see legislation, and you will see it fairly soon,” Miller said.

Congress intends to address these problems in upcoming legislation, said Chris Miller, a senior energy adviser for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), at a smart-grid discussion at Google’s Washington office on Tuesday. The legislation would expand the federal government’s authority over a process that is typically led by the states.

President Obama on Tuesday signed the so-called stimulus bill into law, providing what Obama’s climate czar Carol Browner called on Tuesday “an amazing down payment” on smart grid technology, renewable-energy production, and other efforts to create energy efficiency.

Reid has been working for a couple of years, he said, on ways to get renewable energies to the marketplace and will reintroduce an expanded version of a bill he introduced last session. The legislation is likely to be introduced this March or April.

WASHINGTON–Now that the federal government has authorized spending billions of dollars for transmission line construction and renewable-energy efforts, it may expand its authority over how interstate transmission lines are built.

The department is mired in the “organic growth of legacy policy,” Karsner said, and needs to exert more authority over interstate transmission issues.

SAN DIEGO–Best Buy launched at DemoFall on Tuesday an online gift registry that enables people to create lists of items they want from any Web site and share that list with others.

There is integration with Facebook so all your friends there can see your wish list and buy gifts for you.

Other social networks will be included later, as will mobile support, the company said. The application programming interface will also be made available to developers to create other applications.

Best Buy demonstrated a version in
Firefox and said an Internet Explorer version will be available soon.

Basically, you click on the Giftag icon in the browser bar, pulling up a window at the bottom for adding items to a list. If the site supports the Microformats standard, you can just click on the item you want and the specs are added to the Giftag window. You can add tags and create a new list or add it to another list.

If the Web site doesn’t support the standard, which most retailers won’t, you can highlight and select the item and description and it pulls the information automatically into the Giftag window.

You can e-mail the list to anyone and it will include links they can click to make purchases.

But it seems to have caught everyone by surprise that, as reported by Gamasutra, Itagaki has resigned from Tecmo and is now suing the publisher for $1.42 million in a financial dispute over “unpaid completion bonuses.”

Tomonobu Itagaki, then of Tecmo’s Team Ninja, poses in San Francisco in May. Itagaki has resigned from Tecmo and is suing the company in a financial dispute.

Following Itagaki’s lawsuit, Tecmo released a statement–in Japanese–responding to the charges. It was subsequently translated by IGN, which reports that Tecmo said Itagaki was properly compensated.

So what happens now? Well, only one thing is clear: Itagaki won’t be making more Ninja Gaiden games, or any others, for that matter, for Tecmo. Gamasutra said the developer had hinted at future work on a new action game, but no details are known.

Easily recognized by his rail-thin frame, dark sunglasses, long hair, and devil-may-care leather jacket, Itagaki is the very image of someone who goes his own way and who keeps his own, very non-corporate counsel.

“Before the start of development of Dead or Alive 4, Tecmo…had agreed to pay a completion bonus to me for this Xbox title, which I produced,” Gamasutra quoted Itagaki as having said in a statement. “However, when the time came for the actual payment, Tecmo…went against its previous agreement and refused payment.”

Further, Itagaki wrote that Tecmo President Yoshimi Yasuda “chose not only to violate this agreement, but also turned defiant, telling me, ‘If you are dissatisfied with the decision not to pay the bonuses, either quit the company or sue it.’”

(Credit:
Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

If ever there was a rock star video game developer, it has to be Tomonobu Itagaki, leader of the Tecmo Team Ninja studio that just released Ninja Gaiden II for the
Xbox 360.

“In the statement, Tecmo denies responsibility for paying the completion bonus mentioned by Itagaki in his complaint,” IGN reported. “The company claims to have a bonus system in place, and states that it paid Itagaki this bonus every year. The bonus Itagaki mentioned in his complaint is, according to the Tecmo statement, separate from this and is something from the time of previous management.”

On June 10, Geek Gestalt hits the highways for Road Trip 2008. I’ll start in Orlando, Fla., and visit many of the South’s most interesting destinations. Stay tuned, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I’m doing on Twitter.

(Credit:
Rafe Needleman / CNET)

Still, obviously, the “hardened” design of Amazon Web Services is not a panacea. Many of the AWS products went offline Sunday. From the audience, Howard Morgan of First Round Capital opened the topic of regulation for this market, considering how important Web services are becoming to businesses. Morgan compared the Web services market with the regulated electricity market, a comparison Bezos made several times during his talk with Kirkpatrick. But Bezos said that power utilities were regulated since it didn’t make sense to run multiple power lines in a city. Web services need to compete on reliability, he said. Perhaps he should put his rocket engineers on the case.

HALF MOON BAY, Calif.–At the Fortune Brainstorm 2008 conference here on Monday, David Kirkpatrick asked Jeff Bezos about the origins of Amazon.com’s Web Services. “We were building these services for ourselves,” Bezos said, when Amazon came up with the idea to “harden the interfaces” between interdependent services. Bezos said the idea was to make interaction between services “coarse-grained instead of fine-grained.” Loosening the links between services allowed individual groups to innovate and change without fear of breaking the rest of the Amazon infrastructure.

Jeff Bezos, rocket man.

See the rest of our conference coverage here.

This concept, Bezos said in response to a question from Kirkpatrick about his space exploration company Blue Origin, does not apply to rockets. “It’s harder to get APIs” for rockets, Bezos joked, before getting more serious. You change one variable, and everything else changes. Change your propellant, then you have to change engines, which changes the center of gravity, which takes you back to the drawing board. Bezos said this kind of tight integration is necessary because so many components of a space vehicle are operating at the very edge of their performance. The corollary, of course, is that most Web services are not.