Japan eyes advanced supercomputer as early as 2010

The article by Reuters continues:

Japan is aiming to develop a supercomputer it hopes will be fast enough to help it regain the top spot it lost to U.S. makers last year in an industry that is often seen as a proxy fight for technological supremacy.

The headline reminded me of the greatly-feared (by Americans) Fifth-Generation Computing project that Japanese industry promoted in the early 1990s. Much like global warming today, 5th-Gen was sure to doom life as we know it. Many books were written (by Americans) reassuring readers that the USA's computing future was hopeless. Or lost. Or something. That was a couple of years before the PalmPilot 1000, the Mosaic Web browser, USB, GPS for everyman, the iPod, et al.

What happened to 5th-Gen? It proved unworkable. More realistic is the subsequent headline from Reuters: "Japan mobile makers face challenges at home, abroad."