Dr Gaurav Khanna is a professor at the University of Massachusetts. He has been renting supercomputers at NASA and the US National Science Foundation for US$20,000-$30,000 a year to run complicated calculations on just how much radiation is emitted in the process of a black hole swallowing a star. Khanna says that the PS3's uniqueness comes from the fact that Sony has made it "an open platform." Why DID Sony make it an open platform anyway...?

How come the PS3 isn't so "open" to video-game developers who are bitching about the fact that it's difficult to work with ever since it was released, yet scientists find its use more appropriate than anything they could get their hands on, even at NASA for Christ's sake? We'll get back on the subject in a jiffy. Here's Dr Gaurav Khanna saying a few:

"For US$4,000 or so, I can get eight PS3s that can do the same task that I'd do on a supercomputer. For a one-time cost, I have this resource I can use privately. I can use it indefinitely over and over again. That's hugely attractive. That's why I considered the project. I have my own supercomputer right here. There's no elaborate process for getting time. There's no waiting. It's just mine."

Now, the professor also mentions that the PS3's Cell chip, co-developed by Sony, IBM and Toshiba, has been designed "to have a single processor and eight compute engines, making it more powerful than dual-core or even quad-core chips," as computerworld.co.nz posts. Speaking of the machine's "unique design." the professor claims it has "has a lot more potential - a better processor in my opinion," he said. "What's unique is that they (Sony) made it an open platform. Normally with a game console, the maker controls who can run what on it. What Sony did was make the PS3 an open platform. They let you run whatever you want on it. It has the full capabilities of a normal computer. You can run Firefox or whatever you want. It gave me the possibility of doing whatever I want with it."

So again, when console maker giants such as Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo try as much as possible to hide the "truth" inside their machines, so modders don't hack them, why would Sony suddenly let you run everything on the latest, most ambitious of all their machines? Because (probably) they aren't just aiming at video game fanatics, that's why.

It's a pretty good answer to why Nikkei Financial Daily mentioned some while ago that Sony intended to sell its manufacturing facilities to Toshiba, especially those used to produce Cell processors. Then again, why would Sony ask developers to be patient with the PS3? Maybe so they don't look suspicious... Eh heck, it can't be that big of a conspiracy.