<i>Japan computer smashes speed record</i>
A Japanese supercomputer has broken its own record as the world's fastest machine by performing 10 quadrillion calculations per second, its developers announced.
The "K Computer", which has more than 88,000 central processing units -- the computer's "brain" -- compared with the fewer than four in the average desktop, smashed its own record of just over 8 quadrillion calculations during an experiment in October. A quadrillion is a thousand trillion.
Supercomputers operate roughly 10,000 times faster than ordinary personal computers.
Among other things, supercomputers are used by scientists investigating the effects of seismic waves and tsunamis to predict what effect they may have on buildings.
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