The momentum and excitement for the Folding@home project continues. This time it's something that the Folding community and the computer science field as a whole have been anxiously awaiting - the crossing of a milestone known as a petaflop.
Maximum PC: Walking into the Pande Lab at Stanford University is somewhat of a hardcore geek’s ultimate dream. This is, after all, where the real work gets done—or should we say, work units. For the various desktop systems and consoles scattered around the area are all a part of a larger initiative that likely you and I, as well as Stanford graduate students, researchers from around the globe, and consortiums of geeks and enthusiasts alike, have all contributed to.
Dr. Vijay Pande, an associate professor of chemistry, structural biology, and computer science over at Stanford—as well as the longtime director of the Folding@Home distributing computing project, which his aptly titled “Pande Lab” oversees—estimates that around 400,000 systems actively “fold” at the current moment. Given the program’s fairly linear growth of around 40,000 new systems a year, Folding@Home should be able to push past half a million “connected” PCs easily before its crystal anniversary.
Amazing project.
Amazing feature on PS3 to help the project.
Critical Gamer writes: There has been a lot of hype about the power of the Cell processor residing inside the PlayStation 3. Whether or not we will see its full power being exploited remains to be seen, but it has been put to good use by medical researchers in America with the folding@home project.
I’m sure a lot of PS3 owners are unaware of the program folding@home residing on their PS3. This little piece of software has been designed by boffins at Stanford University in the USA, and is used to perform mathematical calculations of proteins when they misfold in the human body. I know you’re probably wondering what I’m wittering on about, so here’s what it is all about.
My problem is I can't do anything with my PS3 when using folding@home if it was in the background I would use it more
Microsoft should be supporting folding@home as well on the 360. Bill Gates is always seen donating money to charity, so why not help with this project? They should try and get it integrated into the OS of PC's, Mac's and all the consoles, and have it running in the background.
I use my console for gaming and blu-rays, sorry. I also turn off my console when it's not being used for said activities.
How a couple of egos and extrinsic motivations turned Folding@home into a bloody cold war competition, where work units were as valuable as kill counts.
lls good post. Funny story. I'm tempted to start a Folding war with some of my buddies now :)
Nice to know we're making a difference by just sitting down and doing nothing while our PS3's do the calculations for a good cause. I'm sure with future firmware updates we will be able to fold much faster.
GO STANFORD!!
PLAY B3YOND!!!!!!!!
That's really awesome. I realize that for most gamers the importance of Folding is difficult to understand, but just wait til you've had a loved one get afflicted by one of these horrible diseases. I wish I could convince everyone to contribute, because every little bit helps. I have some friends in the biotech field that wish they had access to this kind of computing power. Sure, you won't get "achievement" points for it, but this has real life tangible benefits.
How did scientists cure diseases and create vaccines before Folding at home was invented?
I think what they need to do is create a detailed report on what advances have been gained from all this as its all coming at a price.
If everyone left their PS3s on all the time to do Folding then just think of the amount of power that it would consume, in a world where everyone is being encouraged to save electricity for the sake of all our futures.
Don't get me wrong its not that I don't agree with Folding, in fact I think it is a great idea and if it does do what they say it will and can cure diseases and help people then thats amazing.
I'm just a bit concerned that after another 12 months or so when they reach another Petaflop will the advancement they have made be worth the cost in power and to our environment or will it be just so they can say "hey great, we've reached 2 petaflops, keep leaving your PS3s on so we can get to 3".
So in my humble opinion I think it would be a very good idea if an independant company (not Sony or Microsoft) were to create a detailed report into the acheivements already made from Folding and the long term effects and benefits from doing it.
Most businesses leave there workstations on 24/7 yet nobody says anything about power use...the PS3 is using no more power than a typical ps3...but yet only 33k PS3 will give folding@home 800 teraflops!!!
People please use [email protected] 1 million out of the 5+ million PS3 users fold then we would be over 10+ Petraflops!!!
Believe me, your PS3 will not die. I am over 500 workunits runnign 24/7 since March...the PS3 was built like a rock...