folding@home
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Folding@home ARM support lets Android devices crunch COVID-19 research data
Folding@home and Rosetta@home can now run on billions of Android smartphones, Raspberry Pi devices and ARM-based servers. The distributed computing projects, which give citizen scientists a way to contribute their devices’ computing power to the development of new cures for diseases, now support ARM64.
400,000 new people have joined Folding@Home's fight against COVID-19
The Folding@Home community has turned its attention toward the fight against COVID-19, and it now has massive computational power at its disposal as a result. The distributed computing project is now working with about 470 petaflops of output in its quest to fold proteins, or enough to eclipse the world's top seven supercomputers combined. That's more than twice the 149 petaflops of sustained output from the record-setting Summit supercomputer -- helped in part by the Summit team joining the project over two weeks ago. There's been a roughly 1,200 percent increase in contributors, Folding@Home said, with 400,000 new members in the past two weeks.
SETI@Home ends its crowdsourced search for alien life after 21 years
The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence is a series of projects that scrub the background noise of the universe to look for alien life. One of the most famous ventures under the name was SETI@Home, in which members of the public were encouraged to donate their idle computing time to the venture. After 21 years, however, UC Berkeley has announced that the project will stop on March 31st.
Sony's Folding@Home Android app now fights cancer while you sleep
Want to help cure Alzheimer's or breast cancer? From now on, you don't have to do much more than charge your phone. Sony has released a big upgrade to its Folding@Home app for Android that can use your phone's processor for medical research on a continuous basis -- so long as you're on WiFi and charging, you can doze off knowing that you're contributing to a good cause. It also ties into your Google account to both accumulate time on multiple devices as well as earn game-like achievements. The refresh is available now, so give it a shot if you'd like your phone to do more in its idle time than fetch your email.
Donate your Android device's processing power to science with BOINC
If you've ever wanted to help out with a scientific research project but lack the PhD credentials, there's now a much simpler way: all you need is a decent Android device and a new app called BOINC. Similar to projects such as Folding@Home for laptops and desktops, the app harnesses your mobile device's extra CPU cycles to help crunch data for scientific studies. Don't worry, it'll only work if you're on Wi-Fi, so it won't eat up your data plan. You can choose which research endeavor to support from within BOINC, including Einstein@Home and FightAIDS@Home that seek to discover pulsars (stellar remnants) and AIDS treatment, respectively. The app, which you can install from Google Play, was designed to be as unobtrusive as possible and will work as long as you're running Android 2.3 or higher. Generous (and envious) iOS users, sit tight -- the developer is mulling over the possibility of creating an iOS app next.
PS3 4.30 update brings Vita Trophies, folds Folding@Home
Sony will be rolling out a new PlayStation 3 firmware update tomorrow, October 23. Update 4.30 only brings a couple of changes. First, the Trophies section (for some reason) is moving from the games section of the XMB to the PSN section. Furthermore, Trophies earned on your PlayStation Vita will now also be displayed on the PS3.Finally, Sony is retiring the Life with PlayStation service and, along with it, Folding@home. The Folding@home project, for those who don't recall, utilizes the idle processing power of personal computers and PlayStation 3 consoles to help further Stanford University disease research. Vijay Pande, Stanford's Folding@home research lead tells PlayStation Blog that the PS3 "was a game changer for Folding@home." The project, and by extension the contribution of PS3 users, has helped pave the way to "a new strategy to fight Alzheimer's disease" and potentially a viable drug.Those who wish to continue (or begin) supporting Folding@home may still do so via Windows, Mac or Linux.
Folding@Home packs up on PlayStation 3: over 100 million computation hours added to research
Squared away in the PlayStation 3's latest software update post, Sony announced that the Folding@Home service will be retired starting next month, alongside the console's 4.30 update. The project, which tied into Stanford University's work on protein folding and research into the causes of a diseases like Alzheimer's, pulled in over 15 million PlayStation owners since it started in 2007. In fact, according to Stanford's client statistics, PS3 users offered the second greatest contribution after Windows devices, adding more than 100 million computation hours to the research project -- and well, we did our bit.
Joystiq set to overtake G4 in Folding@home leaderboards tonight
Were you aware that Folding@home (now called Life With PlayStation) isn't just an altruistic distributed computing network, but also a brutal team sport? It's true -- reader Chilly_Willy recently pointed our attention to Joystiq's ranking on the F@h leaderboard and reported the delightful news that Team 'Stiq is set to overtake fellow games media outlet G4TV within the next 24 hours. We received the news with dignity, knowing that rankings don't matter -- all we care about is contributing to the scientific community's fight against disease. We're kidding, of course -- we're purely in this thing for the thrill of victory. In fact, it would be great if you guys could go turn on your PS3s and lend a hand in destroying G4. We want Adam Sessler and Morgan Webb to feel absolutely crushed with defeat at some point during the day, but not know why. We want to run into Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira at PAX East, and have them be too afraid to make eye contact with us. Please, please, dear readers -- won't you help make our dream a reality?
Watch streaming game trailers on Life with PlayStation
Life With PlayStation, Sony's updated Folding@Home app just got a cool new expansion today. With update 1.20, cancer-stopping PS3 owners will be able to watch streaming full-screen game trailers while the PS3 chugs away, unfolding proteins. The experience is rather sleek and videos load almost instantly, taking advantage of the same streaming player that "What's New" and the PlayStation Store both use. It appears the content is automatically gathered from the PlayStation Store, and it allows you to watch all the available content in a single continuous stream. While we don't see this feature being used too often, it's perfect for those GameStop employees that want to have video looping on their PS3 kiosks. [Thanks, marcus]
Happy 3rd birthday, PlayStation 3!
We can hardly believe that it's been three whole years since we first enjoyed the splendor of the PlayStation 3 in our own homes. Sure, there weren't a million fantastic games for the console right at launch, and there were a few issues at some stores with poor crowd management, but here we are three years later with a heap of great memories. Remember that nightmare inducing baby ad? How about Sony's response to PlayStation Home being leaked? These days, we have hilarious commercials, a smattering of great exclusive games both on disc and through the PlayStation Network – hell, the system even lost some weight (and half its original price)! We're spending the day celebrating the PS3s lifespan by ... folding proteins like mad! If you're so inclined to join along, we've got this convenient 300 person strong team set up. It's a celebration foldathon, folks – ya dig?
Xbox 360 being used to detect heart defects
We've suffered our fair share of broken hearts at the hands of the Red Ring of Death -- now, the Xbox 360 is being used to mend our ailing blood-pumpers. A computer scientist at the University of Warwick in England recently did some sweet console modification to allow his 360 to calculate heart rhythms using a complex algorithm. Microsoft's console is capable of performing these calculations five times faster (and 10 times cheaper) than a lab computer, and has the added benefit of letting its users play Madden in between bursts of scientific study. To sum up, the 360 is now being used to cure heart disease, and the PS3 is being used to cure cancer. Ball's in your court, Nintendo.
Life with PlayStation 1.10 update adds United Village channel
Have you booted up Life with PlayStation lately? Sony's enhanced Folding@Home application saw an update last week, upgrading the program to version 1.10: Added support for adding and removing channels dynamically. Added a local time display in the LIVE CHANNEL. Updated Mood categories for automatic music selection. Added support to enable Folding@home™ Expert Mode which disables all other channels and features that may impact simulation performance. Folding@home™ Expert Mode can be activated by navigating to: Options Menu > [Configuration] > [Folding@home]. One of the new channels introduced to Life with PlayStation is United Village, "a project designed to provide an experience of sharing a sense of community and culture from locations around the world." Right now, it's a bit sparse, and we don't really see its potential. Hopefully, the fact that channels can be "dynamically" added suggests more channels are on their way.[Thanks, zKAPOWz and Gotoxy!]
Folding@home gets 'Good Design' award
Have you cured cancer lately? Maybe not, because you're too busy playing the excellent games on PS3 right now. But, why not take some time this weekend to launch Life With PlayStation and fold some proteins. (Join us at Group #57793.) Now is the best time to jump in the cancer-saving fun, especially because of a new award donned to the service.The Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization awarded Sony Computer Entertainment the "Good Design Gold Award 2008" for the support of the Folding@home project on PS3. "Analysis of proteins for the purpose of shedding light on diseases is just one example of solution design for social issues, a stance that indicates the direction that design should take in the future. Motivating the people who will be involved in these studies will be the key to success, but the program functions well as an idea for making participation in this project visible on a global scale."So yeah, let's celebrate and fold at home this weekend!
Life With PlayStation is really live, really
At last. Life With PlayStation was leaked yesterday, but now it's officially available to download. Simply go to Network -> Folding@Home. You'll be prompted to download two update files. Once you're done, Folding@Home will be replaced on your XMB with Life With PlayStation. Don't worry -- you can still cure cancer. But now you'll be able to check the news, listen to music, and research the weather all from one app. [Thanks, Random1448!]
51-card NVIDIA folding rig can crank out 265,200 points / day
Sure, it's all well and good to play around with the Folding@Home client on toys like the PS3, but if you're really serious about out-nerding the rest of the pack, you need big-boy hardware, like this 51-card NVIDIA-based rig built by nitteo of the overclock.net forums. That's 51 8800-series GPUs on 13 MSI P6N Diamond mobos, enough for an estimated 265,200 folding points per day when they all go online -- and we're guessing that number will go up when that new CUDA-based folding client released yesterday is installed. Now let's just hope all those cards can stand the heat, hmm? More pics at the read link -- and remember, we're always down for more help on the Engadget Folding@Home team![Via x64bit.net]
Gaming graphics cards drive advances in medical imaging
We all know that gamers can actively help medical research through efforts like the PS3's Folding@Home project. Now comes word from UK's The Engineer magazine that gamers and their pumped up video cards are helping the cause of medical imaging without even trying.You see, speeding up the processing of magnetic resonance imaging is important to prevent the blurring effects of involuntary body movement. Networked supercomputers are fast enough to do it, but they're too expensive to be a wide scale solution. However, high-powered video cards, with their 128 built-in processors, provide the perfect, low-cost method for speeding things up. And why have those graphics cards so freaking cheap and powerful? "The reason for this is the games industry," said Kings College London Professor Tobias Schaeffter. "It is amazing how much the power of the cards increases annually by putting on more processors and more memory."So remember, the next time you plunk down hundreds of dollars for that new super-duper graphics card, you're not just helping your gaming experience -- in some small way, you're helping medical research.
New Folding@Home update: nothing to write home about
A minor update for Folding@home dropped in this morning. In fact, the picture above pretty much sums up everything you'll need to know about the update. "Operations for handling network errors related to the uploading and downloading of work units have been improved." Exhilarating! Riveting, even. Though the update's description is vague, it does bring a bit of the "curiosity cat" out of us. Have you had many problems with downloading/uploading work units? Does this update relieve those network connection woes that have been keeping you up at night?[Thanks, SirRealVision!]P.S. Join our Folding team: #57793. All the cool kids are doing it!
Folding@home for PS3 goes platinum
The super-sized, record-breaking protein-folding project Folding@home has claimed its millionth PlayStation 3 console, according to a press release from Sony Computer Entertainment. Folding@home began in October 2000 as an effort to utilize as much computing power as possible (via distributed clusters) to understand protein folding and misfolding. Researchers hope to gain a better understanding of related diseases such as Alzheimer's, Huntington's and various forms of cancer. The PS3 client launched in March 2007 and was last revised in December.A million consoles may seem like a lot, but that's really not a large portion of PS3 owners, given hardware sales statistics. We'd like to thank everyone on the (currently) 218-member Joystiq folding team, who have helped us maintain a 367th out of 102,162 ranking. (Don't forget about PS3 Fanboy or the stellar Engadget teams, either.) Remember, it's never too late to join.
A million PS3 owners have signed onto Folding@Home
It hasn't yet been a year since the Folding@Home client was released onto the PS3, but in the 10 months since its inception there are now over a million PS3 owners on the Folding@Home network. How do we know this? Sony has sent out a rather handy press release telling us all about it - which includes the fact that this equates to 3000 people signing up every day. Or, if you prefer your linear time nuggets in smaller doses, two people signing up every minute. Vijay Pande, Folding@Home Project Lead, has said that the research is increasing "in leaps and bounds" since the partnership with Sony started up in March 2007. Only six months later, the network exceeded a petaflop of data. The research taken from the project simulates the folding of protein molecules in order to see in what environments and situations they fold incorrectly, which is what causes various cancers as well as Alzheimer's disease. We're happy to see more PS3 owners join the Folding fold, but are slightly startled by the figure. With upwards of 8 million PS3s out in the world, why are only a million joining the fight. This figure is to be congratulated, but we can't help but feel slightly disappointed that it's still relatively low.
Engadget's Folding@home team crosses the 100,000,000 point mark
It's not often we get to boast about 100,000,000 anything but now, thanks to many of you, we can happily announce that Engadget's Folding@home team has crossed the 100,000,000 point mark, a number likely only rivaled by our combined Xbox Live Achievement Points. Of course, there's plenty more Fold@home points where those came from, and it's never too late to hop on board and put those spare computing cycles of yours to good use (we hear you can even use a certain game console nowadays). Head on over here for all you need to know about getting started.