Folding@Home Comes to an End with New PS3 System Update
We do get PS Vita trophies on our consoles, though.
A fresh PlayStation 3 system software update is heading our way, and will (finally) be bringing PlayStation Vita Trophy lists to the home console. However, the Sony giveth and the Sony taketh away; when version 4.30 gets distributed tomorrow (October 23rd), it will also terminate the popular Folding@Home application, Life with PlayStation.
The closure of the app marks the end of Stanford University's Folding@Home computing project, which used the power of connected PS3 consoles to further its work in disease research. Life with PlayStation began in 2007, and has been used by over 15 million people, contributing over 100 million computational hours.
Because of this, researchers believe that it has made great progress in fighting Alzheimer's disease. "The PS3 system was a game changer for Folding@home, as it opened the door for new methods and new processors, eventually also leading to the use of GPUs," said Stanford projects research lead Vijay Pande.
"We have had numerous successes in recent years. Specifically, in a paper just published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, we report on tests of predictions from earlier Folding@home simulations, and how these predictions have led to a new strategy to fight Alzheimer’s disease.
"The next steps, now underway at Stanford, are to take this lead compound and help push it towards a viable drug. It’s too early to report on our preliminary results there, but I’m very excited that the directions set out in this paper do appear to be bearing fruit in terms of a viable drug (not just a drug candidate)."
Hoorah for Sony and medical research all around, eh?
The closure of the app marks the end of Stanford University's Folding@Home computing project, which used the power of connected PS3 consoles to further its work in disease research. Life with PlayStation began in 2007, and has been used by over 15 million people, contributing over 100 million computational hours.
Because of this, researchers believe that it has made great progress in fighting Alzheimer's disease. "The PS3 system was a game changer for Folding@home, as it opened the door for new methods and new processors, eventually also leading to the use of GPUs," said Stanford projects research lead Vijay Pande.
"We have had numerous successes in recent years. Specifically, in a paper just published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, we report on tests of predictions from earlier Folding@home simulations, and how these predictions have led to a new strategy to fight Alzheimer’s disease.
"The next steps, now underway at Stanford, are to take this lead compound and help push it towards a viable drug. It’s too early to report on our preliminary results there, but I’m very excited that the directions set out in this paper do appear to be bearing fruit in terms of a viable drug (not just a drug candidate)."
Hoorah for Sony and medical research all around, eh?
Companies:
Sony
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