Your PS3 Could Make Money For The Man

Sony is considering asking PS3 owners to share their console's computing power with commercial organisations.

The scheme would be similar to Folding@Home, a scheme run by Stanford University that utilised spare computing capacity in idle PS3s to analyse data relating to protein folding. The difference between the Folding project and any potential commercial project, of course, is that the former served the cause of curing cancer and Alzheimer's, while the latter would serve the cause of making money for other people.

SCE's chief technology officer, Masa Chatani, said, “This kind of computing model could be used in a commercial application. For example, a start-up or a pharmaceutical company that lacks a super-computer could utilise this kind of infrastructure. We are discussing various options with companies and exploring commercial applications.”

Breaking it down further, he added, “If there is a big problem to be solved, each computer is responsible for processing a small chunk of information, then by analysing it all together a big conclusion can be made. At any single moment, there are 11,000-12,000 PS3 users participating in Folding@Home. The number of contributors is far greater than we had anticipated.”

So, how do you benefit from your PS3 curing AIDS (or, more likely, premature hair loss) while you're sat in your swanky PlayStation Home pad? Free products, potentially. Details of what kind of free stuff has not been elaborated on, however. If it comes in the form of free downloads from Sony SPOnG could get on board with the project. If it comes from the company using your PS3, however... Well, let's put it this way; SPOnG doesn't need any more soothing balms for itches in hard to reach places.

^{Source: FT}