Armand
explorer
Joined: Nov 20, 2006
Posts: 532 |  Posted: 07-04-2007 16:08
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org
This (free) program runs in the background and uses up your CPU clock cycles when you're not using them (most computers are idle 95% of the time). It processes computations to assist research into various humanitarian projects. You can even pick and choose which projects to help with, and it will rotate through them. Currently the projects available are:
1. Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy Project
2. Genome Comparison Project
3. Help Defeat Cancer Project
4. Human Proteome Folding - Phase 2 Project
5. FightAIDS@Home Project
I'd like to encourage everyone to install this program: I have it running on my network of 4 machines, and it doesn't interfere with anything that I do. It is programmed to operate on your CPU's lowest priority, which means that anything else that wants to run will be processed ahead of it.
When I checked their global stats, their combined 250,000 members were processing about 149 years worth of data every RL day. This could really make a difference!
For anyone concerned about security issues, the program is backed by IBM. And someone did an analysis of the extra electricity costs associated with the increased CPU usage, and estimated it to be approximately $6 per year.
EDIT:
They have actually just completed thier cancer project, but they will be rolling out phase two in a few months.
[ This Message was edited by: armand on 07-04-2007 16:13 ]
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