IBM

IBM announced a new line of mainframes it calls the zEnterprise. Unlike past models, the new system functions as a hybrid, with a mainframe housed on one side of a cabinet that is twice the size of a refrigerator and space for server blades on the other. Between those two halves sits software that manages virtualized machines on both platforms and allows them to work together.

Linux as a hypervisor includes a number of innovations, and one of the more interesting changes in the 2.6.32 kernel is Kernel Shared Memory (KSM). KSM allows the hypervisor to increase the number of concurrent virtual machines by consolidating identical memory pages. Explore the ideas behind KSM (such as storage de-duplication), its implementation, and how you manage it.

Fuzz testing is a simple technique that can have a profound effect on your code quality. In this article, Elliotte Rusty Harold shows what happens when he deliberately injects random bad data into an application to see what breaks. He also explains how to use defensive coding techniques such as checksums, XML data storage, and code verification to harden your programs against random data. He concludes with an exercise in thinking like a code cracker -- a crucial technique for defending your code.

IBM has expanded its server lineup with a new mainframe system designed just for Linux that may be aimed, in particular, at higher-end x86 systems.

A computer with the power of a human brain is not yet near. But this week researchers from IBM Corp. are reporting that they've simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory — 100,000 times as much as your computer has.

LotusLive iNotes is a web-based e-mail and calendar service. It will use the messaging assets that IBM acquired from Outblaze, a Hong Kong-based online application service provider.

Pricing starts at $3 per user per month, undercutting Google Apps Premier Edition, which costs $50 per user per year. IBM is aiming the software at large enterprises that want to migrate an on-premise e-mail system to SaaS (software as a service).

International Business Machines Corp is looking to the building blocks of our bodies -- DNA -- to be the structure of next-generation microchips.