Sony studies commercial PlayStation 3 supercomputing grid

[thunderhawk]

Sony studies commercial PlayStation 3 supercomputing grid

Sony is mulling over the idea of offering product discounts and other incentives to entice PlayStation 3 users into forming a supercomputing grid that could be leased to businesses.

Companies, particularly in the medical industry, have approached Sony with the idea after reading about PlayStation 3 owners participation in the nonprofit Folding@home, a Stanford University project that uses home computers to form a supercomputing grid for biomedical research. The project is focused on understanding the causes of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other deadly diseases.

For supercomputing, PS3s are the creme de la creme because they pack so much more processing power than the average PC -- 30 times more, according to Sony. The reason is they use IBM's powerful Cell processor.

On Wednesday, for example, 20,000 of the 200,000 PS3 users who have signed up for the Folding@home project were online, delivering a combined processing speed of 267 teraflops, Dave Karraker, spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment America, told InformationWeek. By comparison, the 200,000 PCs online were producing a combined speed of 240 teraflops. A teraflop is a trillion mathematically computations, called floating-point operations, per second.

With an estimated 6 million PlayStation 3s sold, it's little wonder that pharmaceutical companies, medical startups, and other businesses would be hot to chat with Sony about building a supercomputing grid that they could tap into. Like the Folding@home project, all that would be needed in terms of technology would be a Sony-distributed piece of software that PS3 owners could download.

However, to make the grid commercially successful, Sony would have to pay customers to keep their machines running all the time in order to make them accessible when not in use. "It's something we could absolutely do in terms of the technology," Karraker said. "It's whether the consumer can be incentivized to let someone else utilize the computer power of their PS3."

Unlike Folding@home, this would be a commercial venture, so there's no appealing to customers' charitable side. As incentives, Sony is considering discounts on products, such as the PS3 and accessories. Sony would wrap this cost into the overall price it would charge to companies seeking to use the grid.

At this point, Sony is studying the idea -- first trying to determine how many PS3 owners would be willing to participate and at what cost. "It's all in the research phase, right now," Karraker said. "If consumers ultimately say they don't want this, then obviously we won't do it."

Nevertheless, Sony is serious about following through with the idea, if it's commercially feasible. In the meantime, PS3 owners interested in joining in will have to stay tuned.

Source:

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199000315

Soon we'll see this: "Leave your PS3 24h/24h powered on, and you'll have it for free!" That'd be nice.

[akadkins]

I am hesitant about leaving my PS3 on all the time...was it built to be on 24/7?

[simcal]

Originally Posted by akadkins

I am hesitant about leaving my PS3 on all the time...was it built to be on 24/7?

I have never had a problem, been folding for a while now and i run the ps3 for a few days at a time. apparently on the folding@home website they have 3 ps3 that have been running 24/7 with no issues.

[PBJblu-ray alltheway]

Mine has been running 24/7 since the folding@home download was available.

No problems at all.

[tr10av]

But running 24/7 has got to kill the life expectancy some. Maybe 6-7 months, but hopefully by the time it dies they'll be on PS5.

[deathscripture]

sadly though you will see the processing of folding at home go down the shitter real quick. Most people will put greed above a higher cause if this comes to fruition.

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by akadkins

I am hesitant about leaving my PS3 on all the time...was it built to be on 24/7?

Yes. They ran a hackathon against the PS3 for 2 months and it was on 24/7. No problem. No break-ins either.

Guy at my work has been running Folding@Home 24/7 since it came out ..and it gives the PS3 quite a workout. More so than the hacking challenge.

It also has thermal sensors built in so if it was to overheat or the fan was to fail it would shut itself down. It's up to you .. but it was built to a very high-standard as far as I can tell .. and the lack of widespread problems since launch would seem to confirm that.

[Slackr89]

meh, i got three year warranty. And i'll probably do this to get some extra cash

[Gamekid]

I have yet to read of a ps3 breaking after being on more then one day because I don't think that it can happen. Unless there is a power outage or something. I never have my ps3 on more then a few hours in one day.