Sony announced an update for the distributed Folding@Home project initiated by the Stanford University, bringing the application to version 1.2.
A lot of new features have been added according to the Japanese electronics and entertainment behemoth, including support for Remote Play for PSP, added protein simulations and visuals, as well as a screensaver mode which enables PS3 to consume slightly less power and increases the performance of protein-folding simulations.
Stanford University’s Folding@home program is a distributed computing project aimed at understanding protein folding, misfolding and related diseases, such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis and many cancers.
More than 536,000 PS3 users worldwide have downloaded the Folding@home application in about five months from the joint project’s debut. PS3 users have delivered up to 600 teraflops, making the Folding@home program one of the fastest distributed computing networks in the world. Thanks in part to the ultra-fast processing power
found in PS3, the Folding@home project is closer to its goal of achieving a petaflop, a level of computing power that is of historical proportions. The combined force of Cell CPUs simply dwarfing any other participating systems, and considering that since October 1, 2000, over 1,000,000 CPUs throughout the world have participated in the Folding@Home project, that is significant.
With this new software update, Sony has added the option of controlling the FAH using the Remote Play feature of the PS3 system. With this feature, PS3 users are able to view on their PSP the exact same Folding@home information that is viewable on their PS3, complete with the map of the world and the protein that their particular system is simulating.
Other features include enhanced support for additional protein simulations, screensaver mode (it can now be activated via the Settings menu in the Folding@home application, allowing PS3 users to consume slightly less power and to increase performance of protein-folding simulations), link to project description (allows users to quickly obtain additional information about the specific research project they are currently contributing to), protein visualization enhancements ("Tapioca" displays the protein as a smooth surface with improved shading and depth; "Caviar" displays the protein as a smooth surface with defined edges; "Licorice" displays only the protein's bonds and "Backbone" which emphasizes specific sections of the protein that are of the most scientific interest to researchers) and advanced participation mode (only suitable for PS3 owners who leave their console up and running for more than 8 h a day).
"We take a lot of pride in the fact that more than half a million PS3 users worldwide have dedicated a portion of their machine's capabilities towards helping Stanford University and their Folding@home team research many of the diseases that inflict our society today," said Jack Tretton, President and CEO of SCEA. "It is one thing for us to provide the technology to make this possible; it is quite another to have gamers from all over the world proactively sign up for this program to make a difference in our global community. We couldn't be more pleased with the results we have seen to date in this collaborative effort."
PS3 users can download the updated version of the application (v1.2) by simply restarting the Folding@home application.
FAH founders estimated that a network of PS3's will allow performance similar to supercomputers. Since the aforementioned simulations can take up to 30 years for a single computer to complete, Folding@home enables this task to be shared among thousands of computers connected via the network, utilizing distributed computing technology. Once the data is processed, the information is sent back via the Internet to the central computer. The Cell/B.E. processor inside each PS3 is roughly 10 times faster than a standard mainstream chip inside a personal computer (PC), so researchers are able to perform the simulations much faster, speeding up the research process.
A standard PC working alone would take a day to simulate 1 billionth of a second of protein folding. But scientists believe that 10,000 idle PS3s can be four times faster than IBM's BlueGene/L System, which cranks out 280.6 trillion calculations per second. And if Sony could actually sell the PS3 with as much success as the PS2, imagine what 100 million units could do.
