Agent X Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 The Sony PlayStation 3 is shaping up to be one great multi-faceted device. It's offering gaming, movie playback, music playback, photo viewing, and online communication all together in one powerful machine. They're adding new features and capabilities all the time to it, making the system appear to do just about everything but cure cancer. Get ready to add "cure cancer" to the feature list. More accurately, it's capable of appropriating processor clock cycles (which would normally go unused) to assist in scientific research which can be applied to fight diseases such as cancer. Click here to read about this interesting and beneficial new development. Although it's a non-gaming application, it's a good example of "distributed computing" that we heard so much about when the Cell processor was announced. If I wind up with a PS3 of my own later this year, I'd be willing to get involved with this. It would be nice to have my PS3 contribute some of its processing power to this type of research while I'm doing something else on the system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carpecarne Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Is this the 4th dimension gaming they've been talking about? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbanes Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Get ready to add "cure cancer" to the feature list. Although it's a non-gaming application, it's a good example of "distributed computing" that we heard so much about when the Cell processor was announced. So what you're saying is, someone has figured out how to use the PS3 as a supercomputer (like the cell processor was designed to be) rather than as an overpriced toy that is likely to never fully be utilized? Shocker. Maybe it can find a way to keep the giant crabs from going extinct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Good thing Saddam Hussein's been caught! Otherwise, he might get his hands on one and use it as a weapon of mass destruction! JR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 That's pretty cool. Hopefully they can get a decently widespread application going to put that power to use until the developers figure it out in a couple years. I currently donate a *lot* of CPU power to different scientific projects, when I get a PS3 I'd donate it's power too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sega saturn x Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 So what you're saying is, someone has figured out how to use the PS3 as a supercomputer (like the cell processor was designed to be) rather than as an overpriced toy that is likely to never fully be utilized? Shocker. And that pretty much sums it up, water still wet more at eleven. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 "The PS3 client will also support some advanced visualization features. While the Cell microprocessor does most of the calculation processing of the simulation, the graphic chip of the PLAYSTATION 3 system (the RSX) displays the actual folding process in real-time using new technologies such as HDR and ISO surface rendering. It is possible to navigate the 3D space of the molecule using the interactive controller of the PS3, allowing us to look at the protein from different angles in real-time. " Sweet! ... Why don't they add this to the PC clients? It's not like no one on the PC side has a half-decent video chipset... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Is this like that SETI screen saver everyone and their brother had like 6 or 7 years ago? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Is this like that SETI screen saver everyone and their brother had like 6 or 7 years ago? Yah. Folding@Home took the concept and applied it to something more terrestrially useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjarabbit Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Isn't this like awhile back when a bunch of unused Jaguars were used for dental equipment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 (edited) Isn't this like awhile back when a bunch of unused Jaguars were used for dental equipment. I think they just used the mold, but in any case I would compare that to someone using the Atari 2600 Wico Bat Handled Joystick as a dildo then to what Agent X is talking about. Edited August 24, 2006 by moycon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper_Eye Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Isn't this like awhile back when a bunch of unused Jaguars were used for dental equipment. LOL! Yeah, they just used the mold but that was great anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keilbaca Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Is this the 4th dimension gaming they've been talking about? Next up for the PS3: Use the unique controller and control white blood cells in your body to destroy disease and cancer, where if you fail, you really do die. Yeah, this is pretty much the same as Folding@Home, which people have been doing for years. Looks like they just made a modified program for the PS3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foxy Cleopatra Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 The Sony PlayStation 3 is shaping up to be one great multi-faceted device. It's offering gaming, movie playback, music playback, photo viewing, and online communication all together in one powerful machine. They're adding new features and capabilities all the time to it, making the system appear to do just about everything but cure cancer. Get ready to add "cure cancer" to the feature list. More accurately, it's capable of appropriating processor clock cycles (which would normally go unused) to assist in scientific research which can be applied to fight diseases such as cancer. Click here to read about this interesting and beneficial new development. Although it's a non-gaming application, it's a good example of "distributed computing" that we heard so much about when the Cell processor was announced. If I wind up with a PS3 of my own later this year, I'd be willing to get involved with this. It would be nice to have my PS3 contribute some of its processing power to this type of research while I'm doing something else on the system. Its interesting that video game consoles, for the most part, have evolved past the point of simply being gaming platforms. More bang for your buck, plus, in this case, you can contribute to worthwhile research. How cool is that?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 Folding@home is neat, but nothing really new. Wouldn't anyone interested in donating cycles already be wasting electricity and network bandwidth to do this already, on existing computers? It seems like Sony is really reaching to make its PLAYSTATION 3 seem relevant. Along with the "built in Linux development environment," this is particularly desperate-sounding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPUWIZ Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 this is particularly desperate-sounding. Helping out a university with a little bit of software is incredibly desperate, isn't it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted August 24, 2006 Share Posted August 24, 2006 OK, I confess I didn't click the link until now. The onscreen display is pretty cool, and it doesn't look as though Sony is pushing this themselves. Thta makes it a little easier for me to accept -- yes, that's kinda cool. Not "buy a PS3 now!" cool, but interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 I have got to run out and preorder a PS3 now!! I hope it will cook and clean, too, so I don't have to put up with a wife! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 I have got to run out and preorder a PS3 now!! I hope it will cook and clean, too, so I don't have to put up with a wife! Just as a warning, don't trust the official feature list. My PS2 never DID deliver the blowjobs Sony said it would. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadow460 Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 I heard a bunch did, though. When it comes to quality, doesn't the PS2 really blow? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari Master Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 I heard a bunch did, though. When it comes to quality, doesn't the PS2 really blow? Pretty much. Nintendo has been the best as far as console survivability goes. I personally will wait for a PS3 re-design. It'll happen eventually. From what I hear Blu-Ray is a lot more delicate than DVDs were, so I'd be weary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 From what I hear Blu-Ray is a lot more delicate than DVDs were, so I'd be weary. It WAS. Then various companmies spent a lot of cash on making a coating they could put on the disk that would leave it with a hard surface. So now durability is gonna vary from disk to disk. CDs were still worse, though. Almost any scratch on the label side of a CD is fatal, because there's virtually nothing between the refector and the rest of the world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liveinabin Posted August 26, 2006 Share Posted August 26, 2006 Wow, the PS3 can show REAL emotion AND cure cancer. I bet it even cries real tears when you turn it off. All hail the exploding battery company! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockman_x_2002 Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 This is very interesting, actually. Although as a game system the PS3 strikes me as rather pricey (more than I can afford to spend anyway), it's nice to see it get some application outside of gaming that is both useful and relevant to the scientific world. It's also relevant to one of the classes that I'm currently in as a masters student. It's a class on scientific data and analysis and one of the things we've been discussing is the use of distributed systems to do things like this. So I may just have to print this out and bring it in for Thursday when we meet again. I'm sure the professor would be quite interested in it (he's a gamer, too, btw). Very nice. Thanks for pointing this out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariJr Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 I heard a bunch did, though. When it comes to quality, doesn't the PS2 really blow? Pretty much. Nintendo has been the best as far as console survivability goes. I personally will wait for a PS3 re-design. It'll happen eventually. From what I hear Blu-Ray is a lot more delicate than DVDs were, so I'd be weary. Yea this is one of those sytems you can see a redesign a mile away. Besides the fact that its Sony and you know it will come, the thing is huge.. any console that makes a 360 look small is too big. I wonder if it will be as small as the redesign of the ps2 was, or if it will only get to the original ps2 size with the redesign. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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