Citizen Science and Grid Computing

japonicus writes "The Economist has an article summarizing the current state of distributed computing (think SETI@home and its ilk), which suggests that distributed-human projects are going to be the next big thing. (We discussed one such project, the Galaxy Zoo, a few months back.) The distributed-computing platform BOINC is about to expand to human processing. Distributed proofreaders have been a longstanding success (yet inexplicably failed to get even a mention in the article); but there are a lot of other projects waiting in the wings."

Comments

Grid computing != Distributed computing

[edsousa]

Grid computing is when you request resources to run your app. Projects like SETI@home use a different approach: you pull a task, instead of arbitrarily offering your computing resources.

IBM defines grid computing as "the ability, using a set of open standards and protocols, to gain access to applications and data, processing power, storage capacity and a vast array of other computing resources over the Internet. in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Computing