Seven Wonders of the IT World

First, there were the Seven Wonders of the World. Then there was a New Seven Wonders list, voted on Internet-style. That got us thinking: What are the seven wonders of the IT world? Here’s a look at seven of the biggest, most extreme and most unusual computers and projects. By the way, do you have a vote for an eighth wonder?

Well this is the introduction to the amazing post made by CIO that

  • Computer Closest to the North Pole : Webcam #1

Who’s in charge: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory takes care of this floating eye at the top of the world.

  • Computer farthest from Earth: NASA’s Voyager 1 satellite

Distance from Earth: Voyager is three times farther away than Pluto. That’s to say at least 4 billion kilometers, times three.

  • World’s most intriguing data center: Google

Location: The Dalles, Oregon, on the banks of the Columbia River, 80 miles east of Portland.



  • World’s largest scientific grid computing project: The E-sciencE II (EGEE-II) project

Helps power: Large-scale scientific research projects in fields from geology to chemistry—for example, will analyze data from CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, a particle accelerator being built to help investigate details around the Big Bang and related physics questions.

Powered by: 65,536 dual-processor computer nodes.



  • Smallest PC to run Windows Vista: OQO, Model 02

The package: OQO’s Handheld PC checks in at 5.6 (wide) by 3.3 (high) by 1 (deep) inches.

  • Biggest Paradigm Change in Enterprise Software: Linux kernel

Created by: Linus Torvalds, in 1991, helping open-source developers collectively craft a viable alternative to Microsoft operating systems. The Linux kernel contains 8.2 million lines of code, with approximately 86 lines added every hour

Number of developers: Total since 1991 is unknown; 3,200 developers for the kernel as of release 2.6.22.

Via CIO

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