Brain Simulation?

It seems from the news reports that the system will attempt to simulate the physical properties of individual neurons and their connections - a science known as neuroinformatics. Both the New Scientist report, and another from Business Week are a little light on detail however.
They both suggest that an initial project will be to simulate the structure and function of neocortical columns - the three dimensional, highly interconnected layers of neurons, famously found to be an essential part of the visual cortex.
Although impressive, this seems a far cry from simulating the 'entire brain', which would involve simulating 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses in real-time.
This assumes, of course, there is a good enough understanding of how each neuron and synpase works - a science which is still very much in development.