[email protected] 1.2 adds Remote Play folding, Advanced Participation, more
Posted Aug 21st 2007 1:00PM by Andrew Yoon
Filed under: Firmware Updates
It appears that more and more PS3 systems are getting access to a new version of
[email protected] for PS3. Version 1.2 contains some noteworthy additions, such as the ability to activate folding from your PSP through Remote Play, and a new Advanced Participation mode for those that fold more than eight hours a day (!). Here are the updates:
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Support for Remote Play for PSP - Turn on Remote Play and feel free to activate folding when you're on the go. Requires PSP firmware 3.50 or above.
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Visibility of Donor Locations on the Globe - See night and day users.
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Support for Additional Protein Simulations - PS3 now supports even more kinds of proteins!
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Advanced Participation Mode - Recommended for users that fold at least eight hours a day, this mode will allow users to tackle advanced calculations that take significantly longer than standard operations. A new energy graph will show the energy level of the protein over time.
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Screensaver Mode - After three minutes of controller inactivity, the screen will go blank, allowing users to save on power consumption.
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Link to Project Information - See what you're folding, and what cause it's going for.
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Protein Visualization Enhancements - Four new visual modes have been added:
Tapioca – Displays the protein as a smooth surface with improved shading and depth. (Replaces "ISO Surface" visualization from earlier versions.)
Caviar – Displays the protein as a smooth surface with defined edges.
Licorice – Displays only the protein's bonds.
Backbone – Emphasizes specific sections of the protein that are of the most scientific interest to researchers.
Get folding! To join the PS3 Fanboy
[email protected] team, add your PS3 to our group:
57793.
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PS3 Fanboy breaks into the top 200 [email protected] teams
Posted Jul 8th 2007 9:00PM by Colin Torretta
As of today, the PS3 Fanboy
[email protected] team has broken into the top 200
[email protected] teams and now stand at 199th, beating out Joystiq (533), IGN (209), and Digg (438). Thanks everybody! There's no way we could have achieved this without the continued efforts from everybody here. If you haven't joined up yet, we'd love it if you would join up with us and help us and
[email protected] fight cancer, our team code is 57793, so join up today. Also, major props to Big Delicious, who holds down the single-user top score with an insane 330 Work Units completed. Now that is some serious dedication!
In honor of this achievement, we're hosting a
[email protected] event tonight. Before you go to sleep, fire up the
[email protected] application and do a bit of good for the struggle against cancer. If you want to join our team, we'd really appreciate that -- but regardless of your affiliation we'd love it if you'd chip in tonight.
Posted May 28th 2007 9:30PM by Colin Torretta
Tonight, PS3 Fanboy is hosting our first ever Memorial Day Fold-a-thon event! Tonight, before you go off to bed and dream of
Nariko, remember to turn on
[email protected] and do some good for the medical community. As always, if you haven't joined our team (57793) yet, we'd love to have you - but regardless of your Folding affiliations, we hope that you join us for this event!
Posted May 21st 2007 7:00PM by Colin Torretta
It's been a bit since we did one of our big Sunday night
[email protected] events, but it's clear that you guys haven't been slacking off when it comes to Folding. One of our users sent us an e-mail recently pointing out that PS3 Fanboy has broken into the top 300 teams on the
[email protected] website. We are currently number 277 out of 66360 teams, well above Joystiq (#743) but trailing Engadget (#28!).
I'm number 32 on our team, where are you on the list? If you haven't joined our team yet, our team number is 57793. Join up and help us (maybe) save the world!
[Thanks mccomber!]
Posted May 11th 2007 6:30PM by Nick Doerr
Filed under: PlayStation Network, Community
Another piece of good Folding news has made its way to our ears and, consequently, fingers as we type up the reasoning behind our subject line. The PS3 has made
[email protected] the most powerful distributed computing resource on the entire planet. For the calculations being run, it makes the PS3 and the Folding project as a whole the most powerful supercomputer of any type. We are awesome, basically.
Two million CPU's have contributed to the project. Don't you guys feel like part of something great? A community who has only decided to give and give and give to a project that might save lives? We've done a great thing and we should continue to do what we're doing (especially if you're part of the PS3 Fanboy folding team), because who knows how much street cred the PS3 will get when it happens upon a cure for some kind of disease.
[via PS3Forums]
Posted May 3rd 2007 6:30PM by Peter Vrabel
Filed under: PlayStation Network, Multimedia, Community
The father of the PS3
[email protected] project, Vijay Pande, publicly shared his opinions on the processing power of the Xbox 360, as compared to the Playstation 3. In an interview with Pro-G, Mr. Pande advised that the Xbox 360's triple core processor
might be able to withstand the requirements of the project, but the Playstation 3's hardware is, "much more powerful." Mr. Vande goes on to state that the PS3's architecture allows computations of "up to 20 times faster" than that of a standard computer. Playing with power, indeed.
So far, the
[email protected] project has produced spectacular results in the short time since its inception. Mr. Pande noted, "Thanks to [the] PS3, we have performed simulations in the first few weeks that would normally take us more than a year to calculate. We are now gearing up for new simulations that will continue our current studies of Alzheimer's and other diseases."
Hats off to you, PS3 participants!
Posted Apr 29th 2007 2:30PM by Nick Doerr
If you check out our Official-ish PS3Fanboy Folding Team stats, we've almost cracked the top 400 worldwide for folding excellence. In light of this, we'd like to take this opportunity to first, thank you guys. Second, we'd like to remind everyone that each Sunday at 8PM (whatever time zone you're in) to let
[email protected] run. We've folded practically as much as big-name medical companies -- our efforts beat out the main Joystiq team by a multiple of five (almost). Not surprising, as we'd wholly expect anyone with a
PS3 to play on our team! Anyway, that's about all we've got to offer. Remember guys, Sunday night, fold for team 57793!
[Thanks for the reminder, Sean!]
Posted Apr 25th 2007 12:00PM by Nick Doerr
Filed under: News, PlayStation Network
We've got a press release from Sony regarding the
[email protected] program. Not only does it tell us that PlayStation 3 owners have made
[email protected] "one of the most powerful distributed computing networks in the world and is quickly approaching a level of computing power that is of historical proportions." How great is that?
[email protected] is getting an update to show Sony's continued committment to the program. It's going to give us an improvement in folding calculation speeds, increased visibility of user locations on the globe and the ability to create longer donor/team names.
The Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford, Vijay Pande had a few words for the program and the PlayStation 3: "The PS3 turnout has been amazing, greatly exceeding our expectations and allowing us to push our work dramatically forward. Thanks to PS3, we have performed simulations in the first few weeks that would normally take us more than a year to calculate. We are now gearing up for new simulations that will continue our current studies of Alzheimer's and other diseases."
But all we really need to know is that there's an update and the program is making history! Well, approaching historical proportions.
Posted Apr 4th 2007 3:30PM by Nick Doerr
Filed under: News, Culture, PlayStation Network
This interview with Vijay Pande, one of the gentlemen behind
[email protected], is getting kind of old but there are a couple of points worth pointing out. Mainly concerning running
[email protected] on the PS3 -- some people have been running "stress tests" to see how Sony's console can handle the program over extended periods. Those people can stop, because they'll be doing that forever. In any case, the PS3-specific questions were answered by SCEA 's Richard Marks (who's doing a stress test himself). Let's list it up!
Is it safe to leave the PS3 folding for 24/7?
- Yes. There's no indication that the PS3 has problems over long periods of folding... but of course, you should ventilate the darn thing so it won't overheat.
Well... should people give the PS3 a break to cool off?
- No. It shouldn't need a cooling period. You know that whirring thing? It's a fan. It regulates the internal temperature. [note: PS3Fanboy added some "attitude" to this response, because we like attitude]
What's stressed the most and will it affect the stability of the PS3?
- The Cell processor. Luckily, it's a high-performance processor built for things just like this. [email protected] shouldn't have any adverse affects on the PlayStation 3's stability.
That's all that we think pertains to running the program on your PS3. Don't worry, guys! Your system is completely safe and that's a good thing. Waiting for those warranty replacements or whatever aren't the best... plus you only get a refurbished system (read: previously broken) instead of a new one.
[Thanks, Dalton!]
The cost of Folding to your home and wallet
Posted Mar 28th 2007 11:30AM by Nick Doerr
Filed under: News, Culture
The PS3 -- it helps researchers learn more about various diseases with the aid of
[email protected] It helps us feel good about ourselves (and impress our science-addicted friends), knowing we're making some kind of difference, despite how marginal it may or may not be. What hasn't been talked about on this site yet, specifically, is the cost this really does inflict on you, the selfless consumer/pseudo-researcher. IGN wrote up an article about exactly that.
IGN used the estimated 200W usage for the
[email protected] program and compared them to electricity rates from December of 2006. They used a chart, but we'll let you look at it. We'll tell you the cheapest and most expensive state to run the program in (and my state, since I'm selfish).
The cheapest state to run
[email protected] is Idaho, at 4.78 cents per kW hour -- running the program for a month straight nets you a bill of $6.88. The most expensive is Hawaii at 19.28 cents per kW hour ($27.76 for a straight month). Georgia? Near the middle -- 7.31 cents per kW hour ($10.53/month).
We're not trying to dissuade you from running the program! That's for running the thing an entire month straight. We don't know if a PS3 could actually handle that (if I had an extra $500, I'd do a huge piece on it with a webcam 24/7 to show you it's always on, but nah). It's safe to assume that cutting the monthly price in half will be what to expect from running your PS3 -- gaming included.
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Posted Mar 26th 2007 3:00PM by Nick Doerr
Filed under: News, Culture, PlayStation Network
Even though the PlayStation 3 has only been a part of Stanford's
[email protected] project for about a week, it has already completed devoured the other OS's on the leaderboard. In a recent Engadget article, they captured what is probably the most impressive proof of such a claim. Taking upon itself about 75% of the workload and consisting of only approximately 1.8% of the entire catalog of CPU's (not active, the total CPU count) is nothing short of jaw-droppingly amazing. Recent statistics have decreased numbers, but that's probably because all the PS3 owners are letting their now-fairly-warm systems get some rest after that all-night Fold-A-Thon.
Speaking of
[email protected], there are a few suggestions we'd like to make. First off, we'd like to know what proteins we're working on. Yeah, they have funky file names, but if it's a such-and-such protein, let us know. In the same vein, we'd like a key that lets us see what element corresponds to which color -- I had a few science majors over and each quibbled about what this color and that color stood for (although they all agreed that gray was most assuredly carbon). Anyone got other suggestions, or agree with these?
[brought to you by Engadget]
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Posted Mar 23rd 2007 7:15PM by Nick Doerr
Filed under: Culture, PlayStation Network
Due to popular demand (and to pretend to be in friendly competition with sister site Joystiq), PS3Fanboy has decided to create its own
[email protected] team. That's right, we as a collective unit will save lives by all together not play games, rather stare at the giant, super cool bluish globe rotating at a very slow speed.
Well, since I'm about to head out to dinner, I'm going to go ahead and start up the team. Since we're quite possibly the coolest people around, we should have a completely nerdy number to represent that. No, not team number 1337, that would be beyond lame. We'll do something even beyond the beyond lame (not the game
Beyond the Beyond, that was pimpalicious) category. We shall be team number 57793 -- because that's what
[email protected] wants us to be. It's nerdy... right? Fanboys, let's cure!
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Posted Mar 19th 2007 7:15PM by Andrew Yoon
Filed under: Videos and Screenshots
While the rest of the world waits, Japanese PS3 owners have been able to enjoy the most significant update to the PS3 so far. Firmware version 1.6 includes background downloading, the ability to zoom in the web browser, and [email protected], an application that allows your PS3 to aid researchers in their search for cures to many diseases. Siliconera has found a news report that (shock) paints the PS3 in a very positive light.
Check out the video, embedded above. Will you be running the [email protected] application when it arrives to your PS3 this Friday?
Cure diseases using the PS3: March 23rd
Posted Mar 15th 2007 2:00PM by Andrew Yoon
Filed under: News, PlayStation Network
[email protected] is finally coming to the PS3 next week. The program, which is bundled in the next firmware revision, will allow your PS3 to assist in the research of various diseases, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis and many cancers. The program leverages the unused processing power of the Cell chip, and can be set to run automatically when your PS3 begins to idle. According to the press release, "These simulations can take up to 30 years for a single computer to complete,
[email protected] enables this task to be shared among thousands of computers connected via the network ... The Cell/B.E. processor inside each PS3 is roughly 10 times faster than a standard mainstream chip inside a personal computer (PC), so researchers are able to perform the simulations much faster, speeding up the research process."
With more than two million PS3s worldwide, and many more to come, the collective power of the PS3 will undoubtedly provide crucial data in the fight against these diseases. If you'd like to participate, don't forget to update to the newest firmware on March 23rd, and access
[email protected] from the Network option in the XMB.
[Via Joystiq]
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