Ken Naehu

Cottage industry thrives on bypassing banks

Scott Langmack has given more than US$600,000 in unsecured loans to strangers.

"I can reliably get 12 per cent, worst case 9 per cent," said Mr Langmack, 50, a former Microsoft marketing executive who began investing in so-called peer-to-peer lending last year. "I can't find anything that gives me this kind of confidence."

What did I say then?

IBM Building Supercomputing Grids | eWeek

IBM on Thursday unveiled a service that gives businesses in need of supercomputing power access to clusters of high-powered IBM systems.

IBM's service, part of its eBusiness on Demand push, is designed to make computing power a variable cost for customers, many of whom only need the power at certain points every year. Instead of having to buy and maintain servers when they need the extra power—and then watch them sit idle when the demand is not there—businesses can tap into an IBM supercomputing grid and pay only for the power they use, said David Turek, vice president of supercomputing at IBM.

Turek said IBM will work closely with customers on a case-by-case basis to put their applications on the grid and to develop security and access policies. The company currently is still working out a pricing plan. more

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