Save lives with your Playstation 3
According to Kotaku.com, Sony have teamed up with Stanford University to create a network which you can connect your PS3 to, to help study causes of many diseases such as Parkinson’s, Cystic Fibrosis and Cancer. The next firmware update will open the doors to this program. Once you have it installed you will find a new Folding@Home icon on the XMB. To join you simply click the button. You can also setup your PS3 to run the app while it is idle. This is called Folding@Home
So how does it work?
Sony’s powerful Cell processor will tap into Stanford’s Folding@home program to work on studying disease by folding proteins. When this process is started on a single computer this can take up to 30 years to process, however with Folding@Home allows the thousands of PS3s to work on the same simulation, speeding the process dramatically, 10 times faster according to Sony.
“Millions of users have experienced the power of PS3 entertainment. Now they can utilize that exceptional computing power to help fight diseases,” said Masayuki Chatani, Corporate Executive and CTO Computer, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. “In order to study protein folding, researchers need more than just one super computer, but the massive processing power of thousands of networked computers. Previously, PCs have been the only option for scientists, but now, they have a new, more powerful tool — PS3.” “We’re thrilled to have SCE be part of the Folding@home project,” said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead. “With PS3 now part of our network, we will be able to address questions previously considered impossible to tackle computationally, with the goal of finding cures to some of the world’s most life-threatening diseases.”
Sony says this is just one of the many projects they’re going to setup to help with “a wide variety of academic fields such as medical and social sciences and environmental studies.”
Edit: You can now see some pictures over at Kotaku.
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