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August 02, 2013

Volunteer Computing Program Taps the Power of Smartphones

The smartphone in your pocket can be used for more than just getting directions to the nearest Olive Garden – it can also be used to help fight cancer. And find quasars in outer space.

Yes, your Android-powered device can do all this and more with a joint IBM and University of California Berkeley application called BOINC, or Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing. Volunteered devices will donate their surplus computing power to IBM's World Community Grid and the Einstein@Home project.

The program, available on Android 2.3 devices or higher, allows everyday users to participate in citizen science projects through a technique dubbed "volunteer computing."


Image via Shutterstock

Volunteer computing hit the scene in 2000, with Stanford University's Folding@Home program. That program, currently ongoing, allows participants to help digitally fold proteins, design drugs and manipulate molecules to better understand the causes behind Alzheimer's disease, cancer, Huntington's disease and various other maladies.

But Folding@Home, and other programs like it, have traditionally limited their computational power to desktops and laptops. IBM's solution allows researchers to tap into the power, and the network, of millions of Android devices.

According to eWeek, there are roughly 900 million Android devices in the world, putting their total computing power well beyond that of the largest supercomputers. That makes the smartphone market a lucrative target for cloud computing.

But there are limitations to a cell phone-powered computer. The first and foremost: battery life. The BOINC program will have phones participating in complex problems and analysis, which will, in turn, quickly drain any battery. To combat this, BOINC developers have limited the program to run only when a phone is plugged in and charging at an outlet. To combat any potential data problems, developers limit calculations to when a device is connected to a Wi-Fi network, though users can change these default settings at any time. 

Android users can download, and choose which project to dedicate their device, the volunteer computing program, BOINC, at the Google Play Store.




Edited by Alisen Downey


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