Air Force May Suffer After PS3 OtherOS Feature Was Cut

When most Americans think about where the military spends its money, we think about things like $500 toilet seats and cheap items we can buy at the stores that the military pays huge money for. The US Air Force was conducting some tests on using the PS3 and its cell processor as a cheap and very powerful computing platform.

The Air Force was using plain PS3s to get the Cell processor much cheaper than via other methods. The Advanced Computing Architectures team at the information Directorate looked at other ways to get the cell processor and settled on the PS3.

However, the chopping of the OtherOs feature will put a crimp on the plans of the Air Force. According to the Air Force, building the same cluster with similar power out of other cell processing solutions will cost "more than an order of magnitude greater than the PS3 technology." The Air Force Told Ars Technica that it would continue to use the PS3s on hand, but when one fails or needs repairs all bets are off. I wonder if this is one of the big reasons Sony killed the feature, because the PS3 was cannibalizing sales of its cell processor in other computing products.