Sony sells 1m units of PS4
One million units of the new PlayStation 4 console have already been sold in the US.
The next generation video game console was launched in the US on 15 November and has got off to a good start, despite mixed reviews and reports of glitches on the machine.
Sony expects to sell 5 million units worldwide by the end of March 2014, making this one of the most successful console launch periods to date.
The console will be released in the UK on 29 November. It is currently being promoted in London on the iconic OXO tower, which has had its traditional red neon sign changed to a multi-coloured sign consisting of a circle, cross, square and triangle to represent the action buttons on a PlayStation controller.
Bitcoin value soars to over $600
The value of Bitcoin rose ahead of a US Senate committee hearing discussing the value of the virtual currency.
Representatives from the Department of Justice and financial regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission met to discuss their views on virtual currencies following their rise in profile and involvement in websites promoting illegal activity, such as drugs bazaar site Silk Road, which was shut down by the FBI in October.
"Virtual currencies, perhaps most notably Bitcoin, have captured the imagination of some, struck fear among others, and confused the heck out of the rest of us," the chair of the committee, Senator Thomas Carper, said in opening remarks.
On one exchange site, Mt. Gox, the value of the currency rose to $619 (£384) on 18 November. This compares with a price of $200 (£124) in late October.
The closing down of Silk Road and hearings in front of US government committees have led some to believe that prices are increasing as investors think Bitcoin will gain more mainstream acceptance.
China supercomputer world’s most powerful system
Tianhe-2, a supercomputer built by the Chinese government has retained the number one position on the Top500 list of the world’s most powerful computers.
Tiahne-2 can operate at 33.86 petaflops, 33,863 trillion calculations per second.
The top500 list measures bow fast computers can solve special types of linear equations to determine their speed. The list is becoming controversial sa it does not take other factors into example, such as how fast data can be transferred from one part of the system to another
"The Top500 has been a very useful tool in the past decades to try to have a single number that could be used to measure the performance and the evolution of high-performance computing," said Dr Alessandro Curioni, head of the computational sciences department at IBM’s Zurich research lab.
