Thursday, April 26, 2007

The PS3... saving mankind... literally...

PS3 boosts protein research plan
Screen shot of PS3 folding program, Sony
The program simulates how proteins assume their shape
Attempts to understand diseases such as Alzheimers have got a boost from Sony's PlayStation 3 console.

More than 250,000 PS3 owners have enrolled their console in the Folding@Home project which uses it to study the shapes proteins assume.

So many have signed up that the project has carried out a year's worth of research in a month.

Proteins that do not fold correctly have been implicated in diseases such as Alzheimers and BSE.

Speedy science

The Folding@Home (F@H) project uses idle machines, be they PCs or game consoles, to simulate how proteins, the building blocks of life, assume the forms that play key roles in living tissue.

A better understanding of these folded forms could help tackle disease or help manipulate or mimic these vital structures.

The project, like many others, tries to solve hugely complicated problems by splitting them up into thousands of much smaller tasks.

By harnessing thousands of idle machines to do hundreds of thousands of these smaller tasks it becomes possible to do analysis that would take years to complete on a single supercomputer.

"Thanks to PS3, we have performed simulations in the first few weeks that would normally take us more than a year to calculate," said Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and leader of the Folding@Home project.

Sony signed up to F@H in March and those that have downloaded the program have, at their busiest, racked up a total computing power of more than 700 teraflops. The average computational power delivered by these users is about 400 teraflops.

By comparison BlueGene L, which tops the list of most powerful supercomputers, has a top speed of 280.6 teraflops.

Sony said an update to the F@H PS3 program would boost speeds and make it easier to see who else was participating.

Feature: I Am 8-Bit - Kotaku

Some awesome artwork by various artist, based on the wonderous 8-bit era.

Enjoy...

Feature: I Am 8-Bit - Kotaku

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Think your clever? Think again...


university entrance tests.

The UK's Royal Society of Chemistry is offering a £500 prize to one lucky but bright person who answers the question below correctly.

Anyone wishing to enter the competition should go to the RSC website and send the correct answer by Friday 27 April to be included in a prize draw.

Chinese maths test

English maths test

The PS3 Fights back... slowly...

Hitman, Conflict Teams Bring Games to PS3

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men and Crossfire go the other way.

View & Post comments on this article

Sony has taken flack in recent months for losing exclusives, as games such as Assassin's Creed and Virtua Fighter 5 found additional homes on the Xbox 360. Now it's going the other way, with Eidos parent SCi revealing that two of its Xbox 360 games are headed to Sony's console.


Hitman developer IO Interactive's next game, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (developer interview here), previously exclusive to PC and Xbox 360, will now be coming to PlayStation 3 as well. All three versions are due before Christmas.

The company has also delayed and expanded the release of Crossfire, a co-op first-person shooter by Conflict series developer Pivotal Games steeped in the black-ops world of international relations.

Crossfire had previously been announced as an Xbox 360 and PC title. Now it'll be out on PlayStation 3 too, though the trio will only be in stores in early 2008 and not this year as originally planned.

The company says the PlayStation 3 versions of both games are in "advanced stages of development".

The move is motivated by the SCi board's belief that the PlayStation 3 will reach "critical mass" during 2008. The company is also looking make the most of its marketing campaigns, releasing the games simultaneously on the three platforms.

How time flies...

It's been a while folks, sorry i've kept you waiting for any form of decent content.

Work has been one continual busy cycle, hopefully the loop will soon break be it naturally or artificially, either way i'm gonna make some time.

I'll be back soon, just getting my shit together then i promise i will start filling this webspace with some more opinions - all soley mine, some more extreme than others and i will also trawl the web for some more candy coated goodness to feast your greedy eyes upon.

Soon my friends, soon.

Mr Beast

Design in Film to Game Crossovers - GameCareerGuide.com

Design in Film to Game Crossovers - GameCareerGuide.com