Sony PS3 Reaches New Heights and Is Entered In Guinness World Records.
Stanford University’s Folding@home program that is integrated in the Sony PS3, has reached new heights and will soon be recognized by the Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed computing network in the world. Ps3 users that amounted to 670,000 collectively contributed to hit the petaflop mark on September 23, which is a computing milestone that has never been reached until now. The record was initially set on September 16, 2007 by the collective efforts of PS3 users all across the world and the ps3 users alone reached the petaflop mark on September 23, 2007. The record is a testament to the widespread participation of PS3 users from around the world-currently more than 670,000 unique PS3 users have registered to the Folding@home network, bringing the overall computing power of the program to more than a petaflop. Thanks to PS3’s powerful Cell Broadband Engine(TM) (Cell/B.E.), scientists will be able to make greater progress in their studies of protein folding and its link to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other forms of cancer.
“To have Folding@home recognized by Guinness World Records as the most powerful distributed computing network ever is a reflection of the extraordinary worldwide participation by gamers and consumers around the world and for that we are very grateful,” said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and Folding@home project lead. “Without them we would not be able to make the advancements we have made in our studies of several different diseases. But it is clear that none of this would be even remotely possible without the power of PS3, it has increased our research capabilities by leaps and bounds.”
“To have PS3 play such a large role in allowing Folding@home to be honored by Guinness World Records is truly incredible,” said Masayuki Chatani, Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Technology Platform, Sony
Computer Entertainment Inc. “This record is clear evidence of the power of PS3 and the contributions that it is making to the Folding@home network, and more importantly, scientific research.”
The Folding@home program was mostly leveraged only with distributed computing power of personal computers (PC) from around the world until the Ps3 contributed. The number of PCs that made up the network were roughly 200,000 which gave the program the equivalent of about one-quarter of a petaflop. On March 15, 2007, PS3 joined the Folding@home program and hasd contributed more than 670,000 unique PS3 users to the network, which in turn brought the overall computing power of the program to more than a petaflop.
Sony Ps3 Started with Folding@home and will continue to support distributed computing projects in a wide variety of academic fields. Fields such as medical,social, and environmental sciences will be the next goals of the PS3 in hopes to contribute to the advancement of science. The above picture depicts the user interface for the Folding@home network which reminds me of one of the many ps3 strategy games.