IBM helps you donate computer power to fight Ebola

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By BRANDON BAILEY

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — IBM has engineered a way for everyone to join the fight against Ebola — by donating processing time on their personal computers, phones or tablets to researchers.

IBM has teamed with scientists at Scripps Research Institute in southern California on a project that aims to combine the power of thousands of small computers, to each attack tiny pieces of a larger medical puzzle that might otherwise require a supercomputer to solve.

"This could let us do in months what it would otherwise take years and years to do," said Erica Ollmann Saphire, a biomedical researcher at Scripps.

The idea isn't new: Several universities and research institutes have used so-called distributed computing to tackle complex problems. For the last 10 years IBM has sponsored a project called World Community Grid, in which volunteers agree to download software that takes advantage of unused processing capacity on their devices. About 680,000 individuals in 80 countries have enrolled in the IBM program, said IBM vice president Stan Litow. They've donated computing power to help scientists at several institutions conduct research into malaria, AIDS, cancer and environmental issues.

FULL story at link.



FILE - Anne McNeill, right, with IBM Corporate Community Relations, demonstrates the World Community Grid to sophomore Whitney Rains at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., in this Sept. 6, 2006 file photo. IBM has teamed with scientists at Scripps Research Institute in southern California in the fight against Ebola on a project that aims to combine the power of thousands of small computers, to each attack tiny pieces of the larger medical puzzle that might otherwise require a supercomputer to solve. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141203/us-tec-ibm-ebola-d049ec254f.html

[greiner3]

1. Thanks;

I registered and then noticed that this is also one of the BOINC enabled projects so if you are already registered for BOINC just add a project via 'tools' and 'add a project or account manager' from the BOINC Manager.

Try it, you'll like it!

[eppur_se_muova]

2. Is IBM *still* announcing as new things that others have been doing for years ?

Folding@Home has been around for years, as have other biomedically oriented distributed computing projects.

[Delphinus]

3. Oh!

I used to be on Folding@Home - here on DU, right? It was medical? Gosh, when my computer died so many years ago, I think I forgot to put it back on when I built a new one. Thanks for this reminder!

[sinkingfeeling]

4. The only thing they annouced as 'new' was using the power for Ebola.

" For the last 10 years IBM has sponsored a project called World Community Grid, in which volunteers agree to download software that takes advantage of unused processing capacity on their devices. About 680,000 individuals in 80 countries have enrolled in the IBM program, said IBM vice president Stan Litow. They've donated computing power to help scientists at several institutions conduct research into malaria, AIDS, cancer and environmental issues."