The Cell processor
![](http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5884/4142/200/celll.jpg)
Over the past month or two I've been watching attentively the development of next-generation consoles such as Sony's PS3, Microsoft's XBOX 360 and Nintendo's Wii. The gaming industry has always captivated my interest as it constantly commits itself to new endavours, both technological and conceptual. Consoles are currently celebrating their seventh generation in the making and I believe that many young people of my age who have a minimum interest in technology, have been following these events with anticipation. Afterall, the console market amounts to a substantial portion of the consumer electronic economy. Also according to some stats, the average age of players has expanded into an age segment between 25-45, increasing the size of this industry.
On the forefront of innovation are in my opinion Sony and Nintendo. The XBOX 360 is somewhat amazing too, but it seems to give more an impression of a simple upgrade rather than drastic revolution. Nintendo is fascinating, in that it incorporates motion sensing, making the game experience extremely involving, and to say the truth, I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a Wii unit, also because it's cost is seriously more approachable compared to the PS3.
Sony's power lies truly however in its processor, the Cell, which promises vast potential in application. According to developers, the processor has vastly exceeded it's expectations. One of the major strengths of the cell are the 8 CPU cores in the chip, which work in parallel, ultimately delivering a tremendous calculation power. In practice the cell can outperform today the best microprocessor available on market about 5-12 times(which is unconceivably fast,yes). With better performance harnessed through software we should be seeing drastic changes not only in multimedia experiences, but in research and technological advancement. For instance, imagine a genome research that would normally require 1 year, done in one day. However Cell proposes a challenging enviroment for software, so its actual implementation pivots around program developers. All I can say is that it will be exciting to see how this small chip will be delivering staggering results, that is, if it will live up to its fame!