Condor is a popular software tool developed by the University of Wisconsin at Madison Computer Sciences Department. It is a type of batch system that distributes computationally intensive jobs to multiple workstations, thereby creating a grid-style environment and speeding the processing time. Universities and other research institutions can download Condor at no charge, provided they agree to the...

Distributed computing can take many forms, but perhaps its most powerful use involves connecting many computers to form a grid. A grid is a group of networked computers that work together to perform a very large and complex task. Rather than having expensive dedicated computers, grids put home and business PCs to work during the time that they would normally be idle. With thousands or even...

Cooltown is Hewlett-Packard's ambitious vision of a pervasive computing environment, where mobile services, Internet, and intelligent devices are intertwined to make an omnipresent networked experience. This vision of the future makes up a high profile research effort to develop technologies that will enable such a connected world. The program's homepage has a great deal of information about...

The RAND Corporation has recently added selections from the writings of Albert Wohlstetter to its well known RAND Classics site. Wohlstetter "was a mathematical logician and senior staff member at RAND in the 1950s and 1960s.... His studies led to the 'second-strike' and 'Fail-Safe' concepts for deterring nuclear war. These and other methods reduced the probability of accidental war." At present,...