The PS3 takes the cape of a supercomputer once more

Like Clark Kent, it's time again for the PS3 to discard its nerd-goggles and rip that button-down shirt off to reveal what lies beneath: a superhero. Or a supercomputer, if you felt the comparison went a bit far. A professor at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, Guarav Khanna, bought eight PS3's and clustered them together. Using Linux, he and his colleagues are enjoying some heavy-duty scientific research thanks to their newfound supercomputer.

Khanna offers up the notion the supercomputer could be used outside of scientific research. See, most supercomputers have intense calculations queued up and answers can take a day or two to get back to researchers. If every school had a PS3, or this chain-gang of PS3's as it were, that problem would go away. It could also double as a computer running Linux allowing kids to do work and surf the web. Obviously. Now, PS3, go get your glasses and shirt back on, because we want to play some Folklore.

[via PlayStation Forums]