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After the success of the non-profit Folding@home project, Sony is interested in leasing out computing power to companies willing to pay

Sony is interested in offering discounts and other incentives to have PlayStation 3 owners create a type of supercomputer grid that can be utilized by businesses.  A number of companies -- especially those working in the medical and pharmaceutical industries -- are interested in harnessing the power from PS3s instead of paying outright for a supercomputer.  Sony would likely have to pay users to keep the PS3 running all the time for the benefit of paying businesses.

Sony is unsure how many PS3 owners will be interested in having someone utilize the computer power of their PS3.  Sony spokespeople said the plan is still in the research stage, so types of incentives and which companies are interested have not been announced.  Discounts on products, free downloads, exclusive content, and points are all possible incentives PS3 owners might receive.

The PlayStation 3 is the main choice for supercomputing since Sony's next-generation console has so much processing power, courtesy of the IBM Cell processor.  A newtork of 10,000 PS3s has the power equivalent to 200,000 home PCs, Sony claims.  

Reports were published last month that showed PlayStation 3 game consoles would be able to participate in Stanford University's Folding@ home program -- a popular distributed computing project that uses the processing power for biomedical research.

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Why not?
By Yeah Yeah on 4/12/2007 4:14:19 PM , Rating: 2
Why wouldn't you spend a little bit of cash per month to help with the discovery of new things? Swap out your light bulbs, that way you can leave it on, spend less money overall on the lights themselves, and possibly save lives. Just hope there is not RROD like on the 360!




RE: Why not?
By Alpha4 on 4/12/2007 4:16:23 PM , Rating: 2
Amen. Thankfully the HDD wouldn't see much action, so thats one less moving part to worry about. Plus the GPU would likely be idle so heat dissipation won't be a major concern.


RE: Why not?
By fic2 on 4/12/2007 4:26:12 PM , Rating: 4
Let's see:
Sony makes money off of it.
The company buying compute power doesn't spend as much and presumably makes money off of drugs or whatever it develops.
You spend money to help big companies make more money.
Yeah, seems like a winner for someone....

This seems like a gov't type thing - tax the little guy so that the big guys can get richer. Granted, at least it is a voluntary tax.


RE: Why not?
By Yeah Yeah on 4/12/2007 4:41:38 PM , Rating: 1
my point was to help humans in general. I wasn't talking about how big businesses would owe us, but how we owe it to each other. Who cares if businesses make money off this. I care about cures. If I can help, I will. Why because I am not broke, or petty enough to let things like money get in the way. Big business might be, but I am not.


RE: Why not?
By Griswold on 4/12/2007 5:29:22 PM , Rating: 5
I would never donate any processing power (and therefore money) to a profit-oriented project. There are enough non-profit projects out there, that will make their findings publicly available (and in the end, somebody will still make money with it, but not by having a monopoly on a cure ) and if Sony kicks F@H to the curb because they rather make a fast buck with my unit/power, I'd just turn it off.

Its not like the pharma industry cares about you or me. They want our money - and thats ok, but I say: go and earn it, but not with my help and then turn around and sell it back to me because theres no alternative like there would be if the research becomes public domain.

Matter of principles.


RE: Why not?
By Kuroyama on 4/13/2007 11:08:18 AM , Rating: 3
When academic research projects make a discovery they usually patent it, then either license it or start up their own company. For instance, Yale made over $100,000,000 on an anti-AIDS drug that was discovered there. Unless the F@H folks have specifically said that any discoveries they make will not be patented (have they?) then don't fool yourself into thinking academic research = no monopoly or no profit.


RE: Why not?
By fic2 on 4/12/2007 5:34:30 PM , Rating: 2
I think for me it would depend on the project. Something like folding@home I would do, but something where Sony charges company X $1M for a month of time on 10,000 PS3 doubtful. At least not for free.

It's kind of like a taxi company wanting to borrow your car while you aren't using it and you paying for the privlege of letting them.


RE: Why not?
By PrinceGaz on 4/13/2007 11:15:54 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
It's kind of like a taxi company wanting to borrow your car while you aren't using it and you paying for the privlege of letting them.


Or more accurately, you paying for the petrol they use while they borrow your car.


RE: Why not?
By bob4432 on 4/12/2007 8:04:24 PM , Rating: 2
there is no $$$ in the cure, just the medicine!!!!!! we will never see a cure for anything, just drugs to keep it all under control. call me a conspiracy theorist but that is how i feel. medicine in all its forms is probably a multi trillion dollar a year industry globally, so why would they make a cure and stop the $$ coming in?

i have suffered from a serious neuromuscular disorder since 1999 and when you figure i take ~600 pills/mo and get injections that cost thousands of $$$ 3-8x/year do you think the medical community wants to stop making thousands off me alone? when you consider i see a neurologist, pain managemnt, family doc and neurosurgeon many times a year i alone employ numerous people by suffering, so do you think anybody really wants me to get better? hell no, they would rather see me suffer, live a sh!tty, painful life while they get fat $$$ wise off of my suffering.

your thoughts are in a good place, but reality tells me that there will never be a cure when serious amounts of $$$ will be lost. so the last major ailment that was cured was what, polio? and when? now think about how much more knowledge we have now along with computing power and we still don't have cures for anything else in the past 50+yrs (not sure of the exact time, but quite a while) but we sure have come a long way with meds to keep things under control but not fix them, and many people have gotten rich through the suffrage of people living with horrible ailments....just think about it....


RE: Why not?
By Lakku on 4/12/2007 10:57:30 PM , Rating: 2
Well, if I had to believe in a conspiracy, this would probably be the one. However, we have gotten to the point with modern medicine that most viruses and bacteria infections can be 'cured', treated, or made better. AIDS is one of the last major diseases we have no cure for that is not genetic or a neurological disorder. The reason I don't believe the conspiracy is for that reason. Cancer, neurological disorders, muscle disorders etc. can occur in a lot of families for a variety of reasons, mostly genetic or enviromental. We as a civilization haven't figured out how to fix these disorders, either before or after birth. Either way, these disorders aren't like viruses etc that can be stamped out due to a vaccine, and will afflict people for years to come. Therefore, they would still be able to make massive amounts of money off of cures or vaccines, because either 1) EVERYONE would be getting the vaccine or 2) people will be at risk or will develop cancer or other diseases etc., and thus there will always be money to be made. Hence, no conspiracy for me.


RE: Why not?
By bob4432 on 4/13/2007 2:13:54 AM , Rating: 2
eventually everyone would be vaccinated - like smallpox and then no more $$$, hence no more vaccines.


RE: Why not?
By Manfred on 4/15/2007 3:02:52 PM , Rating: 2
Umm yeah I just got my second smallpox vaccination a few years ago. Small pox is alive and well, just not as wide spread as it used to be.


RE: Why not?
By Gatt on 4/13/2007 12:36:17 AM , Rating: 3
Two things.

1. We in the Medical field are no more happy about dealing with sick people than the people are about being sick. We work our butts off with impossible patient to staff ratios, sick people jump all over us for the littlest thing like they're the only one in the building. Trust me, if we could cure everyone of everything so that we'd only have to see you for emergencies/checkups/get cure, we'd do it in a heartbeat.

2. Drug companies aren't the only ones who can find cures, plenty of non-profit groups, universities, and solo-researchers working on problems that finding a cure is in their best interests.


RE: Why not?
By bob4432 on 4/13/07, Rating: 0
RE: Why not?
By Kuroyama on 4/13/2007 11:09:48 AM , Rating: 2
It depends. Some are definitely nearly fraudulent, even if technically legal (look at all the United Way scandals), but for the most part non-profit workers are not particularly well paid.


RE: Why not?
By DeltaZero on 4/13/2007 6:44:04 AM , Rating: 2
Somehow I believe you more than the conspiracy people.

Whoever finds a cure will make loads of money, not to talk about publicity. I seriously doubt that somebody wouldn't do it because 10 years later lots of OTHER people would lose their jobs. Even if that person would still want to continue working with all the money, I believe he/she would easily find employment.


RE: Why not?
By TheGreek on 4/13/2007 10:02:28 AM , Rating: 2
"there is no $$$ in the cure, just the medicine!!!!!! we will never see a cure for anything, just drugs to keep it all under control. call me a conspiracy theorist but that is how i feel. medicine in all its forms is probably a multi trillion dollar a year industry globally, so why would they make a cure and stop the $$ coming in??"

But the greed will continue to your benefit. Rx Co A makes $1000/month from one of your meds, then Rx Co B comes out with another drug that costs $800/month and gains a customer. Wouldn't you expect that to happen? Look at Rogaine and how much the cost of that has dropped in order not to lose market share. But that's in general of course, and may not apply with rare health issues.

Vaccines by the way need to be administered to everyone. Polio, smallpox, etc.

The other question is, what's the alternative? Is is better to keep paying from a treatment or save your money and no options?

Yes Rx Co.s are very greedy. What co. isn't?


RE: Why not?
By cplusplus on 4/13/2007 11:42:24 AM , Rating: 2
I don't think you're lying, and I don't doubt anything you say, but I'm not gonna let the fact that half of that rant was stolen from a Chris Rock comedy special slide. Give credit where credit is due.


RE: Why not?
By hobbes7869 on 4/13/2007 8:05:18 AM , Rating: 2
I think one of my favorite views is how it seems many of you really have a large disdain for "big business" What is wrong with big business? Is it not okay to try to further a company and make profits for the share holders? Is that not what the majority of people actually want, more money? Sit down for a moment, think of how big business really benefits you...they keep you employed. Whether you work directly for the big business, or they buy your companies products or services. Granted some have abused their power, IE: Enron, worldcom, but most people, I believe would venture to say that big business is not inherently evil. The goal of companies is to maximize profit, whether big or small.


RE: Why not?
By person462 on 4/12/07, Rating: 0
RE: Why not?
By fic2 on 4/12/2007 5:41:20 PM , Rating: 3
What the hell are you talking about?

And what country is "this country"? You do realize that there is actual internet access beyond the borders of the U.S., right?


RE: Why not?
By Trisped on 4/12/2007 6:20:52 PM , Rating: 2
Actually, every country with a set tax system I have heard of charges more to those who make more money. US is a little extreme though, rather then charging a lot of luxury taxes (though we do have them) we change the rich a higher % in taxes. So for example someone living on minimum wage might pay 15% taxes, while someone taking home millions might pay 34% of there income as taxes. Even if you switch to a flat tax system a person taking home 25k, but paying the same 20% as the person taking home 5000k will be paying 5k vs the 25k paid by the better off individual.


RE: Why not?
By fic2 on 4/12/2007 7:19:46 PM , Rating: 3
Actually, in the U.S. if you made more than $94,200 in 2006 you automatically got a 6.2% increase in wages for amounts above that since social security tax only went up to that amount. If you are self employed your raise was 2x that since you pay both employee and employer.

And, actually, if you are self employed you probably pay yourself much less in actual salary and the rest as a "dividend".

There are all kinds of ways to structure your payments so that you get taxed a lot less. Also, if you are pretty wealthy you are probably writing off that vacation home you haven't used in a couple of years.

The U.S. needs to go to some kind of consumption tax so that people start saving instead of consuming. I like http://www.fairtax.org

And, BTW, I am self employed and I my income did go over the SS cutoff.


RE: Why not?
By deeznuts on 4/13/2007 1:54:53 AM , Rating: 2
With a consumption tax the poor can be overly burdened with taxes since they consume more of their income then the wealthy. Basic necessesities and simple luxuries take up a lot more of their income then someone wealthy.


RE: Why not?
By TheGreek on 4/13/2007 10:06:01 AM , Rating: 2
Why would basic neccessities have a consumption tax? Last I looked food from a store has no sales tax. Prepared food is another story.


RE: Why not?
By Kuroyama on 4/13/2007 11:21:37 AM , Rating: 2
If you consider Social Security money as money lost down a hole then you're right, but if you consider it as a mandatory pension system then people over $94,200 may have higher take home pay but that's not the same as higher wages or less taxes.

A consumption tax may or may not be a good way to go, but Fairtax's claim that a 23% tax will suffice (with a rebate paid too) is absurdly optimistic. This is the wrong forum to debate that though, so I'll leave it at that.

Anyways, my, we've drifted far from the original topic.


RE: Why not?
By TheGreek on 4/13/2007 10:09:25 AM , Rating: 2
"while someone taking home millions might pay 34% of there income as taxes"

Marginal rates, not overall rates, and reductions for capital gains which probably make up a much larger percentage of their income.

All that before creative accouting kicks in.


RE: Why not?
By Dactyl on 4/13/2007 4:01:13 AM , Rating: 2
You spend money to help big companies make more money.

No, you spent the money to buy the PS3, to play games and watch movies. And you get that.

And if you want, you can sell your unused CPU cycles to big, eeevil companies that are working on new technologies and more advanced medicine. Horrors.

Anyway, Sony isn't doing this for the money. Sony is doing this because it brings credibility to their console. They get to say: "see, it's a real supercomputer, unlike the 360." That sells consoles.


RE: Why not?
By damncrackmonkey on 4/14/2007 3:38:40 AM , Rating: 2
No, you spent the money to buy the PS3, to play games and watch movies. And you get that.

No, you spend money on electricity to run the CPU for these projects when you're not using the PS3.

Anyway, Sony isn't doing this for the money.

Do you work for Sony? If you don't, I can't really see how you could even make this claim.


RE: Why not?
By Snuffalufagus on 4/12/2007 4:30:40 PM , Rating: 5
I would want to see an extended full parts replacement warranty before adding this much usage to something I shelled out that much cash for.


Electricity Cost vs Payments
By ghost101 on 4/12/2007 4:01:31 PM , Rating: 2
Will you make a profit? I somehow doubt it. Residential customers never get good rates for electricity, while a business has some leverage to get good rates.




RE: Electricity Cost vs Payments
By Alpha4 on 4/12/2007 4:14:29 PM , Rating: 2
Bah, I posted way too late. In response I think a best case scenario is that someone is planning one leaving their system on overnight for some other reason. That is Unless the Cell idles well enough during these tasks.


RE: Electricity Cost vs Payments
By feelingshorter on 4/12/2007 4:21:42 PM , Rating: 2
Businesses probably get charged more. Residents get charged in kilowatt hours whereas businesses get charged in real watt usage.

But still, how much can consumers gain from this? If Sony is the middleman, then the consumers who own their 600 dollar consoles will surely get the short end of the stick. Not to mention, how long will a PS3 last? 1 year-1.5 year if you continuously run Folding@Home or other programs as Sony plans?


RE: Electricity Cost vs Payments
By Christopher1 on 4/12/2007 4:28:50 PM , Rating: 2
No...... that's quite a bit of an understatement for the life of a console.

I had a Packard Bell computer (crappiest of the crappy!) that lasted for more than 10 YEARS, count them, 10 YEARS without breaking, except for a hard drive replacement.

Most computers today, if you are not on the BLEEDING edge, will last a goodly amount of time. My parents Media Center Edition computer was on 24/7 until recently, and it has lasted nearly 5 years with that constant on.

I still have an original NES that still works after being dropped, submerged (literally!) in soda, and after a power supply caught on fire.


RE: Electricity Cost vs Payments
By OxBow on 4/12/2007 5:14:30 PM , Rating: 2
Heck, I'm still using parts from my old Packard-Bell.

I don't have any problems running folding@home on my PS3 (it's been folding nearly non-stop since the program was released). There's a 1 year warrantee on the machine, so if any problems come up with it, they'll probably come up well before then. Like they did with the 360.

The key aspect to this story is just what the incentive program consists of. Is the cost to run the machine worth the incentive's, which is almost certainly going to be a subjective decision, rather than arbitrary. Some incentives could be gobbled up quicker than Grant took Richmond, while others would probably become laughing stocks.

It's sort of like the old joke "Will you sleep with me for $1,000,000? Yes. Will you sleep with me for $1? No, what kind of person do you take me for? Well, we already established that, now we're just negotiating a price."


RE: Electricity Cost vs Payments
By MonkeyPaw on 4/12/2007 5:44:10 PM , Rating: 3
You don't consider a first generation PS3 as bleeding edge? It's full of hardware that is waiting for cost cuts (die shrinks and improved processes). A 10 year old PB probably has a 10W CPU. Media center PC? Not running at load the whole time. If you were to run an average on your MCPC over those 5 years, it probably ran around 10-20% load over the long run. Running near 100% CPU load will tax the PS and motherboard much more than at 20%. As for your NES--no moving parts, and the processor probably doesn't even have a heatsink. Electronics from that day were more likely to fail due to rust than excessive use.

Personally, I would not run a $600 PS3 at 100% load 24/7. Does Sony (or any other business) care if you burn out your PS3 in a year? I doubt it. By then you'll have 10-25 games for it, so you'll likely buy another one.


RE: Electricity Cost vs Payments
By Alpha4 on 4/12/2007 11:29:21 PM , Rating: 2
LMAO. How did your NES find itself fully submerged in Soda? I keep picturing a large soda vat found in a factory.


RE: Electricity Cost vs Payments
By feelingshorter on 4/13/2007 1:33:26 AM , Rating: 2
Well, reliability depends on many factors. I also had a Packard Bell PC with 6-7 years on it before we just threw it away. But PCs back then were much simpler, and barely produced much heat. My last 3 PCs after the Packard Bell died in 4-5 years, to the one I'm using now. Two of which I built myself and one was an e-machine (crappy, I know thats why it died). I'm pretty sure why my computers died: heat. Those AMD 2200+...

Anyways, the thing about the PS3 is that it has no power saving features, according to an anandtech article. In fact, running Folding@home or not still produces the same watt usage. Whats weird is that, according to the anandtech article, the PS3 uses the most watts when your playing music with visualization on? I'm too lazy to find the article again. So I'm not sure comparing the PS3 to a PC is fair since even PCs have stages in which the processor slows down and uses less electricity. The cell proc uses about ~200 watts I believe (not sure). It probably won't break but the chipsets in the PS3 might, unless it has very good cooling.


RE: Electricity Cost vs Payments
By MonkeyPaw on 4/13/2007 7:48:52 AM , Rating: 2
It may not have any power saving features, but running any chip at load produces more heat, power saving features or not. K7s and P4s had an idle temperature and a load temperature before things like C'nQ or SS. Idle transistors are cooler than active ones.


Cost/Gain Ratio
By Alpha4 on 4/12/2007 4:11:53 PM , Rating: 2
This doesn't sound like a bad idea. In fact it would be ideal if users were to queue a series of very large downloads overnight (Downloads earned by previous computing sessions?) and not want their system idle during those periods. For those that wouldn't I imagine power usage would become a concern, so it would have to be determined if the potential gain would surmount the cost of hydro.

On another note, wouldn't the unified shader architecture of the Xbox 360's Xenos provide abundant computing power for folding projects & the like?




RE: Cost/Gain Ratio
By Yeah Yeah on 4/12/2007 4:16:57 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
On another note, wouldn't the unified shader architecture of the Xbox 360's Xenos provide abundant computing power for folding projects & the like?

yes.


RE: Cost/Gain Ratio
By OxBow on 4/13/2007 12:41:38 PM , Rating: 2
It's be great if Microsoft would join up for Folding. I for one would be glad to leave my 360 folding alongside my PS3.


RE: Cost/Gain Ratio
By borowki on 4/12/2007 4:40:48 PM , Rating: 2
It's a brilliant idea, really.

A look at the PlayStation Home environment tells you that it's going to require an enormous amount of media contents--huge video, audio, and graphic files. And these are going to have to be updated on an on-going basis. PS3 owners who don't let their consoles cache the contents beforehand will likely find their experience significantly degraded, so most will choose to leave them running 24/7. And since the machines are turned on, why not let them doing something? In this manner Sony will dually profit: While people sleep, PS3s all over the world will be retrieving promotional materials in one direction and sending useful data back in the other. A simply ingenious arrangement, I must say.


RE: Cost/Gain Ratio
By Dactyl on 4/13/2007 4:18:04 AM , Rating: 2
No, Xenos does not provide supercomputing power.

It probably could, if AMD wrote the right drivers for it (like they did for R600).

But it would be a massive waste of their resources to go back and add that functionality to the 360. AMD has to be focused on the future.

I can only see this happening if AMD wanted to give more functionality to the 360 (such as by adding physics calculations), but that probably won't happen because it would cost too many FPS.


By Trisped on 4/12/2007 6:14:29 PM , Rating: 3
Important points:
Sony is once again trying to make their console processor sound like it is incredibly powerful, just like when they spread the idea that the PS2 processor was too powerful to leave Japan for military purposes.
So Sony is going to pay you to leave your console on. How much will they pay you and how much will they keep for themselves? Does this make them a pimp and the PS3 owners whores? Think about it, they will be making money selling the right to use your hardware and electricity to satisfy someone else’s needs.
How much will it cost in power to run these things all the time?
From the previously posed folding numbers GPUs average 0.0585 TFLOPS (41 TFLOPS on 700 active processors) and the PS3 CELL processors average 0.0245 TFLOPS (367 TFLOPS on 14971 processors). That is an average of 2.39x the processing on a GPU vs a PS3. Numbers current with posting are 57 TFLOPS for 971 GPUs averaging .587 and 261 TFLOPS on 19896 Active PS3s coming in at a whopping 4.47x the processing on a GPU vs a PS3. And to make numbers worse, the PS3s are marked as inactive if they haven’t posted in 2 days, but the GPUs are marked inactive if they haven’t posted results in 10. In this way PS3 numbers are boosted, as those systems that don’t do much work don’t count against the power per core average.
So if the folding numbers indicate such a huge value from a GPU folding, why doesn’t the PS3 GPU fold too?

Personally it sounds like a bunch of smoke and mirrors to make the PS3 look larger then it really is. Every time I see someone trying so hard to make something look good, I start to wonder if they are hiding anything. After all, should we be able to see the value of a system without such extreme help from a biased source?




By lukasbradley on 4/12/2007 7:04:06 PM , Rating: 5
It got your attention, you read it, and are commenting. If what you say is true, then it worked.


By Vinnybcfc on 4/14/2007 9:53:25 AM , Rating: 2
The PS3 cant GPU fold it is based on a Geforce 7


err...
By crazydrummer4562 on 4/12/2007 5:52:01 PM , Rating: 1
"A newtork of 10,000 PS3s has the power equivalent to 200,000 home PCs, Sony claims."

I'd like to see what kind of home pc they were referring to...a Celeron with 256mb of RAM possibly? I know quite a few people who own computers that would utterly obliterate a PS3 in terms of computing power, hell my own setup with a core 2 duo might do the job, not to imply that most computer owners have high end rigs.




RE: err...
By Armorize on 4/12/2007 8:51:08 PM , Rating: 2
"A newtork of 10,000 PS3s" did you mean newTORQUE? oooh network =P


RE: err...
By walk2k on 4/12/2007 10:05:11 PM , Rating: 2
Well you would be delusional then because the Cell is about 30x faster than the most advanced PC CPU for these types of operations.


RE: err...
By OxBow on 4/13/2007 12:40:00 PM , Rating: 2
The PC baseline they use are the PC's who presently contribute to F@H. That's 200,000+ machines they are averaging out.

While a new, dual core gaming rig might be faster than this "average," it still isn't approaching the capabilities of cell IN THIS APPLICATION. Stanfords been quite clear that the cell processor is very adept at certain folding tasks (not all) and in this category performs 30 times faster than the average PC contribution.

They also have GPU's contributing that blow the Cell out of the water, but the processes they can work are are significantly more narrow than the Cell. As such, Stanford needs a lot of PC's for some tasks, fewer but still a lot of PS3's for other jobs, and a few GPU's for a select minority of jobs.


Mistake
By techfuzz on 4/12/2007 3:52:28 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Sony would likely have to pay users to keep the PS3




Cell is good but is IBMs creation...
By teainthesahara on 4/12/2007 6:48:23 PM , Rating: 3
As I said earlier Sony have to remember that Cell is IBM's baby.Not(demoted by Howard Stringer)Kuturagi san's.They prance around like it is a Japanese invention.You dont see Toshiba strutting around saying look at us we have access to Cell technology for our HDTV'S and HD-DVD players.According to Wikipedia:-

"The Cell was designed over a period of four years, using enhanced versions of the design tools for the POWER4 processor. Over 400 engineers from the three companies worked together in Austin, with critical support from eleven of IBM's design centers."

This was pretty much an IBM venture with the arrogant Kuturagi as a mouthpiece.Note the "critical support form IBM's centres" I personally like IBM PowerPC architecture especially on the Xbox 360.This is no Japanese processor.Its actually American by and large....So I actually believe in the power of this processor although I wouldnt buy a PS3 with its inferior RSX graphics chip for love nor money.And let us not talk about the awful bandwidth of the PS3...That was definetely Japanese designed!!! ;)




By Chaser on 4/13/2007 8:15:19 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
although I wouldnt buy a PS3 with its inferior RSX graphics chip for love nor money.And let us not talk about the awful bandwidth of the PS3...


Inferior for what exactly? HD Gaming or Blue Ray movie viewing?

The PS3 is a very powerful system for what it was designed to do.

-More useless sour grapes-


sony's so called "gaming" console
By phatboye on 4/12/2007 8:12:28 PM , Rating: 3
Instead of spending development money and time on creating distributed computing projects why not actually develop some games for this overpriced console.

Seems like this $600 box can do everything under the sun except play games. I could care less about Blu-ray, folding@home, or media center usage. This is supposed to be a gaming machine.




By mars777 on 4/13/2007 6:22:21 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
Seems like this $600 box can do everything under the sun except play games. I could care less about Blu-ray, folding@home, or media center usage. This is supposed to be a gaming machine.


Why ?
I say that it is meant to be a media center pc / HD player merged with console capabilities.
And for that it is the best piece of hardware on earth (and the cheapest too).


By teainthesahara on 4/12/2007 4:51:23 PM , Rating: 2
Wouldnt they prefer a dedicated server rack of cell broadband engines from IBM instead of an overpriced games console from Sony???Besides IBM should get all the credit for Cell.What did Sony and Toshiba actually contribute possibly apart from money?????




By OxBow on 4/12/2007 5:21:52 PM , Rating: 2
Yes and no. If you have only a couple problems to solve, this could be a very viable, cost efficient way to "rent" supercomputer time. That's what this really comes down to. It just a different method of paying for essentially the same service.

I think we'll probably be seeing this become a reality next year. There's been a lot of discussion about the future of games involving microtransactions. This trend has already begun and is only going to gain steam. It seems like marrying microtransactions with leased distributed computing would be a no brainer. It's just down to how much the service costs.


Seeing as little as you care to
By TheGreek on 4/13/2007 10:21:09 AM , Rating: 2
The monetary profits and motives have all be discussed. What is missing is the "pay it forward" type of action and the ramifications of such. So you're healthy today and don't kick a shxx about those diseases. Who's to say whether you will or won't get one of them in the future? You can ignore Alzheimers, but really, shouldn't it scare the hell out of you? Won't the consequences of treating millions of baby boomers for Alzheimers before you get old put a huge strain on our economy? Did you consider the economic benefits of being able to push back Alzheimers just 5 years per patient on average?




By Kuroyama on 4/13/2007 12:11:37 PM , Rating: 2
If you're a regular blood donor and there's a shortage then you get to go to the front of the line when you need it. Likewise, let's say if you donate your PS3 time and there's a trial for an Alzheimer's drug developed using the PS3 network then let's say you get to have priority. OK, not realistic because medical trials need something approximating a random sample (for instance, blood donors and PS3 donors may be more altruistic and healthier people than the average population), but it sounds like such a bizarre idea I couldn't resist suggesting it.


By clayclws on 4/12/2007 4:20:12 PM , Rating: 2
So, I guess that could be a viable business plan. People buying PS3 instead of other consoles because the console can generate digital income (exclusive contents, classic games, etc.) for the users. Guess that extra power from Cell has some usage after all. Then again, this is all theoritical at this point.




Give them away free
By jsshah1 on 4/12/2007 5:55:04 PM , Rating: 2
Why not give away free ps3s? Saves 100's of them sitting on shelves give them away to people, in return they leave them on for this supercomputer project. Sony makes up the cost of the ps3 from selling time on the super computer and we get to buy games from them giving them more cash.

This would give blu ray a killer advantage as well, i.e. free player in every house.




By crleap on 4/14/2007 2:09:40 AM , Rating: 2
not sure how this would work. if sony is going to sell computing power, the consumer (in this case, the business leasing the computing time) would need to be quoted as far as productivity. Sony can't just say OK send us this money, then count on users of the PS3 to generate the results. What if everyone turns it off? Sony will owe a refund to the company that leased it. I don't see how this will work without Sony having a sign-up and lock-in type deal for us... you say yes and can't change your mind. Otherwise I don't see how Sony can offer a service based on willing and dynamic participation.




people love their pride
By GlassHouse69 on 4/13/07, Rating: -1
"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." -- Robert Heinlein











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