PlayStation 3 to take on incurable diseases

[The People's DJ]

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - Sony announced on Thursday that its PlayStation 3 video game consoles will be enhanced to join a supercomputing network researching causes of cancer, Alzheimer's and other incurable diseases.

The Japanese electronics titan said a software update that will be available by the end of March will enable users to devote their consoles' idle time to a Stanford University quest for diseases caused by "misfolded" proteins.

Such diseases include Parkinson's, mad cow, Alzheimer's, Huntington's and some forms of cancer, according to Stanford associate professor Vijay Pande, leader of the "Foldingà home" project.

PlayStation 3 console software will let users click on a "Foldingà home" icon on their television screens to have their machines devote their computing power to medical research whenever games aren't being played.

The program harnesses idle time of Internet-linked home computers to use the combined power to perform in months protein-folding simulations that would take a single machine decades to complete.

Processors in PlayStation 3 computers are approximately 10 times faster than chips in typical personal computers so adding the consoles to the "folding at home" network should boost simulation speeds, Sony said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070316/hl ... 0316005030

I can see the new ads now...

Playstation 3. Helping to cure Cancer.

[fearpeddler]

Its gotta e used for something, obviously its not for playin games there's only what 9 titles for it...