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Sony PlayStation 3 to Cure Cancer?
- August 28, 2006 10:25 AM PST
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When it debuts this November, the PlayStation 3 won't just play games and Blue-ray movies: it will also help in the fight against cancer thanks to a Folding @ Home client that was announced today.
The PS3: More than a game machine
Started in October of 2000, Folding @ Home is a distributed computing project that harnesses a decentralized network of computers to perform complex mathematical simulations; in this case, of protein folding, which aids researchers in their quest to cure diseases such as Alzhemier's and Huntington's diseases, as well as certain forms of cancer.
The PS3, which Sony is positioning as more of a "computer," could make an ideal platform for the project. According to the project's website, the Cell processor that powers the PS3 should be able to produce performance that's equal to 100 gigaflops. 10,000 PS3's working in unison could reach a petaflop, or a thousand trillion floating point operations a second, which surpasses the performance of the fastest supercomputers in the world.
And PS3 owners who decide to take part in the initiative will gain something other than a sense of altruistic satisfaction: thanks to the PS3's powerful graphics hardware, the mathematical simulations will be rendered in real-time using visual treats such as HDR rendering. The client will also allow for real-time navigation of the models using the PS3 controller, giving interested observers a close-up view of simulations.
(More information about the Folding @ Home project can be found here.)
This is excellent news. And I'm amazed by the numbers involved. 100 gigaflops from a single PS3? That's insane.
Folding @ Home is a worthy cause and I hope a ton of PS3 owners get involved with the project. Hopefully, this will help dispel the societal misconception that video games are nothing more than a diversionary pursuit.
