PS3 Owners to Join Folding@Home Project

Sony is allowing Internet-connected PlayStation 3 owners to participate in a program created by Stanford University that would employ unused processor power in the console to research protein folding.

The program -- Folding@Home -- already has been operating on PCs since 2000, with over 1,000,000 computers participating during the life of the project. The addition of the PS3 would mark the first time a non-PC device would be used for such a project.

Beginning March 23, users would be able to launch the application through the XrossMediaBar. When idle, the console would process bits of data sent to it by the main Folding@Home servers.

Data mined from the study would be used to discover how proteins play a part in biological functions, Sony says. From there, Stanford hopes to discover how incorrect folding leads to certain medical conditions.

"In order to study protein folding, researchers need more than just one super computer, but the massive processing power of thousands of networked computers," SCE technology chief Masayuki Chatani said. "Previously, PCs have been the only option for scientists, but now, they have a new, more powerful tool -- PS3."

Stanford says the need for mass computing power is due to the complex nature of folding proteins. A single computer would take 30 years to complete a single simulation.

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