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Yes. And both are used for GIMPS.

See the Mersenne Forum's GPU Computing sub-forum for details.

There are, however, many more CPUs than GPUs out there, so most of the work is still done by CPUs. Two different GPUs using different software (CUDALucas) were used to confirm that 2^57,885,161-1 was prime, in addition to two other CPUs (one using different software than the GIMPS standard Prime95/mprime).

As is well known, there is no direct mathematical benefit from finding these primes.

It is, however, a very useful "driving problem" to developing new algorithms, software, and distributed computing infrastructure which have wide ranging real-world applications.

Check out the Mersenne Forum where all types of interesting mathematical, software and computer issues are discussed.

The admins missed the prime for about a month
http://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=11996
Apparently the email that was supposed to be sent wasn't when the prime was reported

This is a bit more mathematics than general science, but I'd suggest GIMPS for a chance to find a huge prime or, if they're more interested in actually finding a prime than searching for an enormous one, I'd suggest No Prime Left Behind (NPLB).

There's a Mersenne/GIMPS FAQ on this very topic here: http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=10275

Also, the source of these three test images is described as "I used my Nikon Coolpix 3MP digital camera to generate JPEG files..." However, the pictures are from Canada, the US, and Japan. It's not like he went out and took three random photos. While he doesn't mention the specific model used, the coolpix cameras appear to be your average consumer models, so the wording is quite suspect. As the total compression times are under a minute, why were only these three pictures chosen? Perhaps they compress better than average? Why can't we download the original .JPG files? There is no way to reproduce this test.

Lastly, the article consistently says 30%, but the average actual compression is 25.53333%. That's 17.5% bull puck.

So, the reviewer isn't objective, the picture sources are suspect, and the numbers are suspect. This sounds like a slashdot-sponsored spin machine to me.

If Stuffit really wanted to prove themselves, they'd put a link on their website to compress/decompress images and have it only work for a week or so. Then they could publicly demonstrate things without giving away an executable to be leaked.

Instead they give a full, working EXE to some guy who's home page is linked to only 83 times (most [all?] of which are junk/link farms). Don't believe everything you read. Especially not on the Internet, and especially not this junk.

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As stated above, this website effectively has no google presence. How did it survive the slashdot effect with pictures? It appears to be hosted by Roger's Cable in Toronto. Who is paying (presumably) big bucks for bandwidth for an otherwise unremarkable site?

Why does he first describe "The test computer used", then go on to mention "Machine A" and "Machine B"? Also, why is a compression expert using such wimpy hardware? Some quick research on the author only shows how unremarkable it all is for such an important announcement.

Of course, you also have to wonder how Kris_J (apparently from Australia) found out about the story to post it to begin with, since it's so obscure. (No offence Kris_J, I'm just in ultra-skeptic mode here)

</tinfoil hat>