Slashdot Mirror
PS3 Owners To Simulate Gene Folding
fistfullast33l writes "According to IGN UK, the next version of Playstation firmware will include a joint venture from Stanford University and Sony called Folding@Home. Similar to the infamous SETI@Home project, Folding@Home will be an idle application that participates in a simulation that 'aims to map the way that genes change shape (or fold), so they can be studied by scientists and, potentially, cure illnesses such as Parkinson's or a variety of cancers.' The application will download a 'work unit' that it will unravel to completion, update Stanford's servers, and then download the next unit and continue." We've previously discussed the client; it will be available as an update at the end of the month, and should appear on your cross-media bar once installed.
So who's Gene Folding?
Yet the article and blurb seem to imply that it's a new thing.
Also, here's the info on the Folding@Home website:
http://folding.stanford.edu/FAQ-PS3.html
I was thinking recently: if I could get the credit card cycle beginning right, I could defer payment on any electricity I buy for 110 days. (55 days from first day of electricity billing cycle to due date, 55 days from beginning of credit card to its due date.) If I use it steadily for the whole month, that's on average 95 days still, or about a quarter (of a year).
So, if there were a way to convert electricity into roughly its monetary value, I could put it in a money market account for (on average) 95 days, and then keep the interest that accrued. (5% per year at today's money market rates)
So, anyone know if you can charge enough for PS3 computing cycles for this to be worth it?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
Maybe this is the application Sony is looking for to utilise the full power of the PS3.
Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature.
proteins do..
It's not just famous, its INfamous.
Might even be the biggest thing to come out of Mexico.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
So let me get this straight. I pay the energy bill for cycles used to crunch genetic mapping data that will be used by corporations to develop drugs for lifelong treatment (like they'd develop a cure when they could profit more from treatment?) so that when I'm sick, I can pay a few thousand dollars a month to afford the pills?
Just because the project is managed from a university doesn't mean the project, its goals and it's results are altruistic.
I assume to get it on as many machines as possible. This also isn't the only new feature in the March 23rd update, other things - like background downloading - will also be implemented.
"Joy is contagious," he said, peering into the microscope.
Academic research has a much greater chance of being widely distributed and public domain then corprate research. So someone will do it eventually. I'd prefer it to be a university who will at least share their findings thena propriatary research group which would hoard their results much tighter.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."