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Aura: Harnessing the Power of IoT Devices For Distributed Computing

Posted by Soulskill on from the SETI-at-your-actual-home dept.

An anonymous reader points out that a computer science research team from the University of Alabama has put together a new architecture called "Aura," which lets people make use of excess computing power from various smart devices scattered throughout their homes. Ragib Hasan, the team's leader, says this scheme could be integrated with smartphones, letting you offload CPU-intensive tasks to your home devices. He also anticipates the ability to sell off excess capacity — like how people with solar panels can sometimes sell the excess energy they harvest. Alternately, they could be allocated to a distributed computing project of the homeowner's choice, like Seti@home. Of course, several obstacles need to be solved before a system like Aura can be used — smart devices run on a variety of operating systems and often communicate only through a narrow set of protocols. Any unifying effort would also need careful thought about security and privacy matters.

4 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. IoT != compute by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    this is stupid. no. just no. ok?

    iot is all about low power, dedicated and it is NOT YOUR HOSTING PLATFORM for running your bullshit on.

    iot has enough trouble with weak or non-existent security and the devices are just not meant to accept 'workloads' from you.

    someone has been smoking from the beowulf bowl...

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    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  2. April Fools? by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is this a mis-placed April Fools post?

    CPUs don't 'have' power. They consume power. A powerful CPU is one that has the potential to consume a lot of power doing some form of calculation. The point in IoT embedded controllers is to consume as little power as possible. If they are loaded up with tasks that have nothing to do with their embedded purpose, they will consume more power (watt) and since they're not optimized for the task, they will do so inefficiently.

  3. Re:Cycles are too cheap by silas_moeckel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So they are paying you more than the wholesale cost (aka what they buy it at) for electricity and you are upset?

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    No sir I dont like it.
  4. short lived hack by liquid_schwartz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Many, perhaps even most, of the IoT devices are battery powered. Mostly CR2032 coin cells. These have ~150mAH to 240mAH depending on how you use them. Your nodes will die off in about a day of running non-stop. This website mostly thinks in terms of embedded==(Arduino || Rasberry Pi) when in reality most of the IoT devices will be Arm Cortex M0+/M3/M4 devices that spend the vast majority of their lives in low power sleep modes drawing a microamp or two.