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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.
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]
Guinness calls Folding@home 'Most Powerful Distributed Computing Network'
Whatever else you feel about the PS3, you've got to admit that Folding@home, which uses the PS3's power (along with PC users) to fight disease, is awesome. Heck, for a while there, watching proteins be folded was the best game on the system. Now, the network is being recognized by the wonderful people of Guinness as the "World's Most Powerful Distributed Computing Network."The record was technically set on September 16 when Folding@home surpassed one petaflop. Fun fact: A petaflop is used to describe both computing power and the awfulness of films in which Peta Wilson has appeared. For you film historians out there, League of Extraordinary Gentlmen set a new bar at seven petaflops. Where's that award, Guinness?
Folding@home gets an update, PSP Remote Play
Check out this new screenshot from an update for the PS3's Folding@home client with its hot new rendering software. Drool! We haven't been this turned on by watching proteins since the last commercial we saw for Outback Steakhouse. The new update to the software, which allows you to aid in cancer research by volunteering your PS3, is available now, just go into the Folding@home client and it should start downloading automatically.Perhaps even sexier than new rendering though, the software can now be activated via Remote Play on your PSP. Now, when you get hassled for playing PSP in public, you can turn your tiny console around and proudly announce that you don't have to put up with this sort of abuse because you ... are a scientist. God bless you, technology.[Via PSPF]
Why hasn't the 360 joined the F@H fight?
The Playstation 3 gives users the ability to donate their processing power to the Folding@Home project, but the 360 has yet to see such a program. Peter Moore said it would be possible, but why hasn't Microsoft allowed Xbox 360 users to do the same? Well, the guys over at Digital Media Thoughts think they know why Microsoft doesn't release such a program and it all comes down to faulty hardware. They believe that the Xbox 360's failure rate is the main reason for not including such a program. According to DMT, they feel the 360's failure rate is much higher than Microsoft wants to admit and that the hardware problems stem from the massive amount of heat generated causing the motherboard to warp and solder joints to disconnect. And if a Folding@Home project were released for the 360, nearly 100% of the CPU would be used for hours on end, causing lots of heat and much more hardware problems. Red rings of death would soon become the norm.Whether you buy into DMT's reasoning or not, we simply cannot justify why Microsoft would not include some sort of project for users to donate their 360's CPU power. Maybe it is because Microsoft doesn't want to stress the hardware any further, maybe not, but we'd like to know the whole story without any smoke or mirrors. Any thoughts guys?
Moore on 360 failure rates, Folding@Home, more
Speaking to Mike Antonucci of the Mercury News, Microsoft's Peter Moore answered readers questions about the Xbox 360. Among the more interesting questions was from a reader who had gone through two Xbox 360s within 7 months. When asked for a "straight answer" about 360 failure rates -- and whether or not they were higher than 3% -- Moore deflected the issue, saying that customers should focus on the treatment of the problem and not the problem itself. In other words, quality of customer service is more important than the quality of the product. According to Moore, "Y'know, things break, and if we've treated him well and fixed his problem, that's something that we're focused on right now." Moore further stated that he couldn't comment on specific failure rates because he was "shipping in 36 countries and it's a complex business."Other issues discussed include Folding@Home, the shared processing initiative recently supported by the PS3. When asked whether or not the 360 would ever be used for such a purpose, Moore stated that if Microsoft believed it could aid projects like Folding@Home with the processing power of the 360, it would certainly consider it. Moore also takes time to address the Xbox 360's variety of games (or lack thereof), and the state of affairs in Japan. Hit the "read" link for the full article.
Sony considers incentives for commercial PS3 use
Tired of wasting all those idle PS3 clock cycles curing diseases for the benefit of all humanity? Wish you could sell off your extra processing power for prizes and free stuff instead? Sony knows how you feel, and is reportedly looking into a program that would let you do just that.Sony Computer Entertainment CTO Masa Chatani told the Financial Times that they are in discussions with a number of companies interested in using the parallel processing power of the PS3 network for their own research. Chatani realizes users might be hesitant to simply loan out use of their $600 living room computer to a commercial enterprise, so the company is considering offering incentives such as free products to users who would aid in such research.This sounds like a win-win-win situation to us: Sony gets a new revenue stream; small companies get their research done relatively cheaply; and PS3 owners get free stuff. Of course, every PS3 running one of these commercial projects is one less project running the potentially life-saving Folding@Home. OK, so maybe it's win-win-win-lose. Still, three out of four ain't bad.
Folding@home PS3 hands-on
We fired up Folding@home on our PS3 today to see just how much damage that Cell processor could do to one of them work units. The app is a separate download from that of today's 1.6 firmware, thought the update did land the Folding@home icon inside the "Network" section of the PS3 XMB menu without us having to do a thing. The 50MB download took a few minutes, but after that we were up, running and crunching a work unit in no time. It was also quite easy to join up with Team Engadget -- which is incidentally ranked #32 right now, go team! All the stats and info menu options launch the PS3 browser, which feels a little inconvenient, but at least doesn't get in the way of the Folding@home app doing its thing. Sony predicted the average work unit would take an our to complete, but ours says it's got a good 6-7 hours to go on its first unit, so we're not sure who's in error here, Sony or the prediction algorithm.Update: Added some shots of the new onscreen keyboard brought by 1.6, you can peep 'em with the rest of the shots in the gallery.Update 2: Also for the inclined, this weekend is the unofficial Sunday Night Fold-a-thon, to get PS3 users to flip the switch and start crunching numbers. You get power from renewable energy, right? We hope so, because we've got some disease to bust. That link for SNF and for Team Engadget again. [Thanks, Ostego; via PS3 Fanboy]%Gallery-2244%
