SCE Joins Stanford's Folding@home Program (B3D ID=32377)

[one]

It's in the latest firmware offered at the end of this month.

http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/070315e.pdf
http://plusd.itmedia.co.jp/games/articles/0703/15/news066.html (pics)

SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT JOINS STANFORD
UNIVERSITY FOLDING@HOME PROGRAM TO FURTHER
MEDICAL RESEARCH
Tokyo, March 15, 2007 – Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today announced that
PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment systems will have the capability to
connect to Stanford University’s Folding@home™ program, a distributed computing project
aimed at understanding protein folding, misfolding and related diseases. Stanford University
is leveraging PS3’s powerful Cell Broadband Engine™ (Cell/B.E.) – and what will be an even
more powerful distributed supercomputing network of PS3 systems – to help study the causes
of diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis and many cancers.

...

With the latest system software update expected to become available at the end of
March, Folding@home icon will be added to the Network menu of the XMBâ„¢
(XrossMediaBar). PS3 users can join the program by simply clicking on the Folding@home
icon or optionally set the application to run automatically whenever PS3 is idle(*1).

...

(*1) To run the application automatically in idle state, PS3 must be connected to the network with both main power switch and
power button turned on. Option setting must also be changed as this automatic feature is off at default.

 

[DieH@rd]

Cool. Can anybody tell me does ps3 have some soft of standbuy mode? And will this app work in it? [probably not, cos it will use cell to max]

 

[Rainbow Man]

Just above your post man it says power has to be turned ON for this to work..obviously.

Since if it's (soft-)off the machine's powered off. So it won't be able to run anything..obviously.

Anyhoo.. Finally I say. This is relly cool awesome news.
Peace.

 

[Titanio]

There's some more info in this article. Stanford will have a press conference later this morning.

http://www.mercurynews.com/lifestyle/ci_5440897

According to that, if just 10,000 PS3 owners download this, it will double the computational power available to F@H. They've also added a new visualisation to the software, showing a globe, with a glowing light everywhere a PS3 is running F@H.

edit - And some pictures in this article:

http://plusd.itmedia.co.jp/games/articles/0703/15/news066.html

 

[Bad_Boy]

According to that, if just 10,000 PS3 owners download this, it will double the computational power available to F@H. [/IMG]

Interesting. Though this isn't a download though is it? (well technically you have to download it), but it's built into the firmware right?

Also makes you wonder if they have a "sleep mode" planned with this and the remote play being always on.

 

[Titanio]

Yeah, it's in the firmware. I guess that should say if 10,000 PS3s use it.

Some sort of low(er) power idle mode which allowed for remote play and F@H would be indeed neat, but I guess we will see. I'm not holding my breath for it in 1.6, but I think it should come in time.

 

[Arwin]

Wow - it's not only just as I expected (i.e. it would be launched together with the European launch, and include some kind of screensaver function) but it has this additional cool map thing (I like!).

Great stuff!

 

[Bad_Boy]

Yeah, it's in the firmware. I guess that should say if 10,000 PS3s use it.

Yeah that makes more sense. And the % of people who use it should grow as time goes on. Imagine if you had 100,000+ people using it a couple years from now.

Some sort of low(er) power idle mode which allowed for remote play and F@H would be indeed neat, but I guess we will see. I'm not holding my breath for it in 1.6, but I think it should come in time.

I hope so. I would rather not leave my ps3 on 24/7/365 for remote play if I could avoid it.

 

[inefficient]

So awesome.

Hey Angelina Jolie! I'm a humanitarian too!

 

[pascal]

Really nice

 

[Titanio]

Actually, it turns out F@H isn't bundled with the firmware as such - the firmware will include an icon for F@H under 'Network', but you have to select that icon to download it. It'll require 200MB of HDD space.

Sony has a webpage up now with that info, and little more:

http://www.scei.co.jp/folding/en/index.html

 

[Jawed]

Worth keeping an eye on this sub-forum, too:

http://forum.folding-community.org/forum55,ps3-client.html

as it's the official Folding community.

Jawed

 

[Bad_Boy]

Actually, it turns out F@H isn't bundled with the firmware as such - the firmware will include an icon for F@H under 'Network', but you have to select that icon to download it. It'll require 200MB of HDD space.

Sony has a webpage up now with that info, and little more:

http://www.scei.co.jp/folding/en/index.html

Interesting. I guess it makes sense though. Every firmware update has been under 100mb, even for the more minor updates nobody notices.

 

[[maven]]

...and the team name will be hardcoded to SCE...

I applaud their efforts, and the visualization looks nice, but it's not something I'd personally leave running (unless it's active while downloads are in progress or something), because my PS3 is off when I'm not using it.

 

[DieH@rd]

Awesome. Lets hope that people will participate in this...

 

[Geo]

Team# 32377 for all our new Beyond3D PS3 folders!

 

[Bobbler]

Sounds good to me!

I'll definitely be adding it to the team, if I can.

I'm curious how they will handle it all... are PS3 users going to have a separated from PC users in a sense -- Will there be points? Will teams be selectable still? I can't visit either of the links, so I can't read the full PR doc... maybe my questions are answered there.

 

[patsu]

Good effort. I thought the original interface was ugly. This is much better.

So awesome.

Hey Angelina Jolie! I'm a humanitarian too!

Wrong forum. She's in the "GPGPU Technology and Programming" one.

 

[Rainbow Man]

Those screens look fabulous. I'm not sorry at all it took a while to get the thing ready there's obviously a lot of polish that went itno that client.

Hopefully those graphics aren't totally static so that it can function as a nice screen saver.
Peac.

 

[infinity4]

who's profit is this for??? (i know people benefit from cures but who has last laugh, ie benefit from selling drugs) if this is for american company there is no way i am wasting my electricity