News

PS3 1.6 update adds Folding@Home

You are here: blasteroids.com / news / ps3 1.6 update adds folding@home /

Latest news | News archive | Search news

Not registered yet? Register here.

Dela @ Mar 15, 2007 23:51 | 15 comments

PlayStation 3 (PS3) owners will soon be able to join a Stanford-run distributed-computing effort that researches Cancer, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's causes (amongst other things). The Folding@Home project is similar to SETI@Home, except it studies protein folding in hopes to determine causes of various lethal conditions.

It works by using CPU cycles on a computer to complete workloads sent to it from the project's servers. When completed it sends its results back and downloads information for its next task. When you multiply participating CPUs by thousands you reach the power of super computers.

Folding@Home teams are found particularly amongst computer hardware enthusiasts like overclockers. It is for a great cause and its functionality in the PS3 could boost the project significantly. Ken Kutaragi actually announced that Folding@Home would be part of the PS3 at last year's Tokyo Game Show.

"Millions of users have experienced the power of PS3 entertainment. Now they can utilize that exceptional computing power to help fight diseases," Masayuki Chatani, Sony Computer Entertainment's chief technical officer, said in a statement. "In order to study protein folding, researchers need more than just one supercomputer, but the massive processing power of thousands of networked computers. Previously, PCs have been the only option for scientists, but now, they have a new, more powerful tool--[the] PS3."

See: http://folding.stanford.edu/

Source:

GameSpot

Previous Next

Comments

Comment by: rihgt682 (Mar 16, 2007 00:13)

I can't believe it's already 1.6 fw update. THis is why you should never get sony. YOu have to update FW every 2 weeks. This is worst than microsoft vista.

Comment by: azndrake (Mar 16, 2007 01:37)

O.o,
For me the only reason i turn on my PS3 anymore is because i wanna d/l new updates for my ps3.

Comment by: Andrew691 (Mar 16, 2007 01:39)

How is the fact that they are up to 1.6 bad? how are extra features/fixes being added to the console every week bad? No matter what some people cant be pleased.

EDIT: Vista is 100x worse than this, but cant really be compared as they are two different things.

Comment by: azndrake (Mar 16, 2007 01:42)

Also the ps3 update is not out yet. I just checked my ps3 for the update and i assume it will come out at the launch date for the ps3 at europe.

Comment by: cascadeuk (Mar 16, 2007 03:10)

It also includes Remote Play, which is a little more exciting. it allows you to be anywhere in the world with your PSP and aslong as your near a hotspot you can access content on your PS3 HDD

Obviously you would have to fly to another part of the world, update 1.6 does not teleport you there, maybe in a future update ;-P

Comment by: Moomoo2 (Mar 16, 2007 05:59)

Props to Sony on this one. Too bad no one has their console...

Comment by: natony (Mar 16, 2007 07:27)

Quote:
new, more powerful tool--[the] PS3

Ok, so the PS3 is new, I can't argue with that. (It wouldn't be so new if they'd released it when they said they would but that's another story...)
But more powerful than a PC? Gimme a break Sony. No really.

Comment by: spydah (Mar 16, 2007 09:18)

Yo the funniest thing about this post is all the Sony hater's jump in every little thing they come up with. People (360 fans) seem to forget that M$ has updated the 360 like damn near every day since its been out. I got both and I dont have any beef with any updates if its gonna make it better and just because don't label all their updates as firmware this firmware that dont mean they arent doing the same thing. Again when PS3 is out longer then a year and things dont look to be getting any better I will openly agree with some of the Sony bashing but until that day we need to let them get they stuff together.

Comment by: Pop_Smith (Mar 16, 2007 15:22)

Well, the 360 has had more updates then the PS3 (for now :p) but, at least this adds something useful to the PS3. ;)

Now watch M$ do the same thing for the 360.

Comment by: azndrake (Mar 17, 2007 02:58)

O.o not sure about the xbox thing, from what i heard they were gonna use this on the xbox, but they choose the ps3 because it was much more powerful.

Quote:
The Cell/B.E. processor inside each PS3, which Sony says is roughly 10 times faster than a standard mainstream chip inside a PC, will help researchers perform the simulations much faster, speeding up the research process.

From : http://channel.tomshardware.com/2007/03/...ting/index.html

Comment by: alphabit (Mar 17, 2007 22:22)

And some certain people say video games are bad for society.They can read this story and blow that out their arse.

Comment by: jwyles (Mar 18, 2007 07:58)

Sorry, but could you point out in that article where it mentions xbox? I only see mentions to PC's...

Quote:
O.o not sure about the xbox thing, from what i heard they were gonna use this on the xbox, but they choose the ps3 because it was much more powerful.

[quote]The Cell/B.E. processor inside each PS3, which Sony says is roughly 10 times faster than a standard mainstream chip inside a PC, will help researchers perform the simulations much faster, speeding up the research process.

From : http://channel.tomshardware.com/2007/03/...ex.html[/quote]

Comment by: eskoink (Mar 19, 2007 11:13)

rihgt682 what the *bleep* you mean play station 3 is worst then Microsoft Vista there are two different things. There's a reason for updating your PS3 to add more functions and more details to the system Microsoft Vista
update there program very other day to try to control people. It's just like the Xbox360 it suck ass Microsoft wants to charge you just for could play games online what that why charge people with Sony everything is free

Comment by: azndrake (Mar 19, 2007 13:50)

Quote:
Sorry, but could you point out in that article where it mentions xbox? I only see mentions to PC's...

Just check the xbox processor spec and match it with a PC processor spec and you will see the differences are not too significant.

Comment by: g_5tar (Apr 21, 2007 14:21)

SPAM removed