Now if only they can get those Wiis and 360s folding, old people will be cured in no time.

terrafloppy? that's what she said!(sorry)

um, do you mean 250,000 or 250,0000 ? over 2.5 million PS3s have been sold?

I'm sure this and upcoming updates to F@H on PS3 has something to do with the selling of all these cycles by Sony to outside companies reported earlier. They better give some good stuff to the users for all that wear and tear done to the systems.

@asTer0id:

Seeing that 250,0000 isn't a real number what you think? Obviously not every person who ahs purchased a PS3 is folding so the number is clearly 250,000.

Sheesh

Id be supprised if the combined power of the wii is even 1 TF. Things like this make my eventual aging to dementia that much smoother a transition.

Ive still got 60 or so years in me before that hits.

I'm number 42 on the Kotaku team, who is whitesanjoro??????

They have the technology, but have yet to scale the 1 petaflop summit. That would really pwn.

I don't think games will kill off Folding@Home on the PS3. It may likely just die off as people lose interest in getting work units done. However, leaving your PS3 on in Folding@Home while you're at work or sleeping isn't going to change because you have more games to play -- you can't play while you're at work or sleeping.

Maybe Sony will offer some sort of trophy/achievement for work done in Folding@Home. Then when Home comes out, people can show off how many work units they've completed in Folding@Home.

Sony will be feeling the "Halo-effect" this Fall. Am I right?

Just kidding this is great news. It puts gamers in a good light and hopefully it ends up doing a lot of good.

With so few quality games, its no surprise that so many PS3 owners are using "spare" cycles for Folding@Home. Can't knock the motivation behind the cause, but I would expect as more exclusive titles are released more PS3's will be sold and a decreasing percentage of owners will be willing to pony up their PS3's time and energy (not to mention their electric bills).

Great, more of Kotaku's Anti-PS3 bias.
Give the console a break guys!

This is actually a cool thing Why hasen't this sort of stuff be happening before, such as with pc's? I'm sure a whole lot of computers would do more to help with solving diseases than a PS3

@AvocadoOverboard: That was priceless.I knew folding was going to get updtaes. If you look carefully it says version 1.0, I hope they add some reference to what molecule is what. I am curious about what each color means. Also I hope they add more worldviews.

What is interested is the hype behind this project. The poor will never see the medicines. This project isn't about cures. It's about money free research going to pharmecuticle(sic) companies, so they get higher profits and their shares go up.
If you disagree, please explain the process from this research to a cure to your wife's Alzheimer's.
Remember, Sony is getting paid for having this feature on the system, because it is a hell of a lot cheaper then owning 250,000 ps3's plus the electricity to power them.
It's nice that people are working on cures for things in this world. It sucks that the only reason these cures exist would be for profit.

@topgeargorilla:

What are you talking about? You can sign up and use your PC to fold as well.

Get your Windows, Linux, Mac client here
http://folding.stanford.edu/download.html

Sounds great. Still though, I don't like just using power constantly. Though from looking around it seems that it costs < $20 to have it folding each month.

The worldview is amazing looking.

That doesn't sound too surprising.

I mean... what else are you going to do with a PS3?

So is this the best game on ps3 right now?

@Bissrok: @x999x:

And you two miss the point completely.

they really need to allow us to play our mp3s or music CDs while we flop.

I don't understand those stupid fanboyish comments about PS3 lacking games. Folding@home is there to find cure for deadly diseases we don't know if we will suffer them or not!.

PS3 has many games despite they are mostly multiplatform titles.

"Flop"... I couldn't have described the PS3 better myself!

[nerdy laugh]

How about enabling background downloading while folding?

Surely it can't be that hard, given that you can use the browser when you fold.

WOW! Maybe now they can continue this progress by making me actually want to PLAY their system!

This is nothing short of a revolution. They should give out points for leasing your processing power to profitable companies in order to buy stuff on PSN or HOME. There are companies out there interested in taping into this processing power.

cerberus_oz: "Id be supprised if the combined power of the wii is even 1 TF"

I am so awed by how inane this statement is, that I can't even comprehend how much you have no idea what you're talking about.

Anyway, what I really wanted to know is if the PS3 is consuming power at "game level" or at "standby level" when it is folding. Anyone know?

undoubtedly at Game Level.

It's worth noting that PS3 isn't--and isn't capable of--running the full suite of Folding workloads, and unlike PC's, which are measured against 3 different sets of Metrics, PS3 is measured only against one, at which it does extremely well. It's tantamount to taking a kid who's a math whiz but sucks at writing and languages, testing him solely on Math and then saying "Look, he's a genius!"

That said, this is really a good thing they're doing here, and I commend Sony for putting this kind of software on the PS3. Microsoft most certainly should do the same for 360, which due to sheer numbers *alone* would probably outpace PS3's output quickly.

It'd be great if Nintendo did this for Wii also, for though the output would certainly be less than 360 or PS3, that's not the point--every little bit extra helps, and there are rapidly approaching 7 million Wii's in homes across the world.

I can't find anything as to how this is helping. I'm not knocking it at all, but I browsed through the stanford folding@home site and didn't really see what it means to know how a protein folds. I mean besides informational purposes of just knowing, what is it solving? Are there things that can fold or unfold certain proteins? Do they think they can make something to do that? I'm @ work so I couldn't really read every page of the site, but I couldn't find anything stating why they're doing this. I guess I don't know what this is solving for. Results-wise I mean. I know they have to understand what they are dealing with, I get that, I just don't know. Something seems missing, like physical lab tests or something. Sorry if I sound stupid, which I just may be, but I'm just confused.

@PaulMorel: It is working and not on standby. So what do you think it is? :D
It must be nice to pay 600 for a console + 150-180 each year, by helping rich people get their medicine.

@PaulMorel: Agreed.

Has there been any sort of rough calculation towards how many additional kilowatts one can expect to consume during 1 year of participation in this program?

This Folding@home thing is essentially indirect charity. Its popularity is an interesting phenomenon that should be noted and replicated elsewhere. It's tough to get people to open up their wallets, but you get past a massive hurdle if that direct link between "helping a cause" and "direct cash transaction" can be removed.

Think of all the parents of 15 year old kids who have no idea that a portion of their electrical bill is going towards funding Alzheimer's research.

@DarkSideDave:

Now that would be a good idea.

Hurrah for at least 6 active SPUs. :D

Also, if Johnny Scientist thinks folding helps find a cure then don't slow down to explain it to this idiot.

@Unique,

your attitude is positively *Disgusting*. The work that is done to find cures for these diseases is *hard* and *expensive*. You need highly educated researchers, obscenely expensive custom equipment, sterile labs, production capability, etc. in order to find a cure for *any* single disease.

Do you think these researches live free? That they don't have to buy the equipment and materials they need? That they don't have families to feed? Cars to pay for? Mortgages to pay for? Student loans to pay back?

Yes, there will be profits made, and you know what? They're DESERVED. These are highly skilled and educated people devoting their lives to solving obscenely complex problems that would make you and I shit ourselves just to *see*. Moreover, you're flat out WRONG that "the poor will never see these cures". Pharmaceutical companies donate LOADS of product every single year to those who can't afford it, as do private charities, hospitals, and many times even doctors themselves. Then who pays obscene prices? Oh yes, the RICH do, and they do it happily and willingly, balancing on their backs the costs of drugs handed for free to the poor. Yeah, those horrible rich people, we should just execute *all* of them and seize their wealth!

You're fucking disgusting, and not very much disgusts me.

@MJDeviant:

Protein folding is basically how proteins form the molecules in the human body out of the amino acids we carry.

Incorrect folding of a protein (ie: cells are not created properly and hence are damaging) can lead to some forms of cancer, Alzheimer's, and mad cow disease. So it's worth studying how exactly the proteins misfold to cause this in these folding simulations so we can work on cures.

Folding@home is basically what my ps3 does, I turn it on and keep it on overnight.

It'll be interesting to see whether this proves helpful. Maybe they'll move on to solving why all the bees are dying. Save the bees!

"Bees?!!!!"
"No, I said beads"
"Beads!!??"

I miss you Arrested Development. And yes, the bees must live!

What about PCs?! I'm running Folding@home on a PC (since I don't own a PS3). Are they also counted and where can I see that map?

I think that many of you will cry when you see, that your PS3 gets an error/crash after 2 years, when you have no warranty anymore.
Do you really think the PS3 is powered by pure love. The energy used to unfold proteins destroys our blue planet. + all the heat. tztz

@Schabralk:

As does the 360, which has special red LEDs designed to tell you when the console is broken, as well as giving you a carpet-scorching power supply. And need I mention the third-party MEGAHUGE FAN peripherals?

Yes the PS3 isn't capable of running the full suite but it does do very well in its task. As for the math wiz kid example, that why we have scientist and lawyers. Each doing what that person is good at and earning the big bucks doing it. :)

The PS3 folding@home sure made me run my pc to do this also. Before, I didn't pay too much attention to this distributed computing thing. I'm actually in 5th place in team Kotaku :) I'm still amazed at the fact the every time I come home, my PS3 hasn't locked up running this program for hours upon hours. I think my 360 would have eaten the dust if I ran it that much every day. It's just nice to be able to contribute to a good cause while patiently waiting for the new games to come out.

@Youlikeyams: Hm I take the cables out after playing. So no energy/electracy loss. YOU ALL SHOULD! energy=higher bill/ invoice=heat=ozone hole gets bigger=pain to the world/people

It is amazing how some people are trying to turn a good thing into a flame war. Clearly they aren't to blame though it has become quite the norm to gain attention by making harsh misinformed comments.
The only thing I hope is that I see results from all this research in my lifetime.

Some stats : ( not the most recent )

PS3 Team Rank / Overall rank / Team Number / Name
=================================================
1 / 93 / 54733 / 2ch@PS3
2 / 157 / 54376 / PS3Forums.com
3 / 178 / 55265 / PlayStation.com Forums Team
4 / 333 / 51355 / PLAYSTATION 3
5 / 410 / 55260 / IGN-PS3
6 / 427 / 55077 / mixi@PS3.JP
7 / 486 / 57793 / Official-ish PS3Fanboy Folding Team
8 / 594 / 54886 / PS3 FAN
9 / 696 / 54751 / Sony Playstation 3 G.A.P.
10 / 1059 / 57266 / Official German Playstation Community Team

@Schabralk:

I say we all just accept our fate and burn the planet up.

I love how the Xbots are even jealous of folding. I have to stop reading these boards.

for someone that (i'm guessing) enjoys yams, that's a bit of a downer-statement. then again, you could be just an enjoyer of sardonic comments.

otherwise, i hope people don't start playing with their PS3s and bum out the scientists =/

if i were a research lead i would look at all the short-term goals that our team had and start looking at video game market trends, to try to time out projects. at least then we might have some reliable data on how much the gaming community gets jerked around with release dates.

protien folding is actually very important in developing new medicines. and its not like your helping out merck or something, its a university- still out to make a profit, but is for the most part, in the pursuit of education. and the people commenting that this is "helping rich people get their medicines" are, well, retarded. sure, all new treatments first go to the rich, and it would be nice if that changed, but eventually, more and more people get it. I'm sure stuff like tylenol was once very expensive. And if you own a ps3 (or 360, or Wii... or a computer that can play modern games), you are those rich people. if this was someone in africa who barely had enough money to pay for their food, nobody would ask them to use their electricity to help with protien folding.

1 / 93 / 54733 / 2ch@PS3

Nice to see 2chan doing the fold, if only 4chan could do the same, hell we'd have cures for every disease by now. At least SOMETHING constructive would come from that.

In fact, that gives me an idea. Hosting companies that host sites like 4chan, IGN, Gawker etc, could set up folding programs on their computers to run in the background, or on servers that haven't gotten rented out yet, in return, that company pays the host for a certain amount of units processed. And organizations like Standford University could set aside a portion of their grants and government funds to give to the hosting companies. This would hopefully be passed down to the clients of the hosting companies (Gawker, IGN, etc) with lower server rental fees. Of course you could argue that if they're going to pay someone to do the processing for them, why not just do it themselves? Well, I would figure that in the end the