SETI @ home, remember? But if! In 1999 it was the first scientific program to exploit the idea of Distributed Computing : in other words, the idea of using thousands of ordinary personal computers connected to the Internet, instead of a single supercomputer overpriced . With a small program ad'hoc (who was also extinguisher screen) could leave his computer work for science for pee breaks (plus nights and weekends if affinities ...)
Good . In the wake of SETI @ Home UC Berkeley produced a "generic" version of the program which allowed any scientific project using the same principle Distributed Computing. They called it BOINC, ie: Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing .
Okay. David Baker was one of those who have seized this new opportunity to work computers around the world on a particularly resource-intensive: the "folding" of proteins. (1) Thus was born Rosetta @ home.
It worked very well. The computers of thousands of volunteers bent without complaining a lot of protein, or at least they tried, and that's when people started to protest ... Letters began to arrive, "says David Baker, where people complained that their computer was trying lots of opportunities absurd while the solution was bursting their eyes ...
Yes! They were obsessed by the technical side of their job, of Berkeley computer scientists had forgotten that every household in the world contains at least one computer more powerful than the latest from Compaq: a silly (yet awesome) human brain!
So David Baker and his team have radically revised their approach. Rather than using the computer time available for their thousands of volunteers, they asked more brain time! And for this they created a platform game, a sort of giant puzzle made of real proteins, with levels, scores and high scores table to the key.
There's this incredible human Amount of computing power out there That we're starting to capitalize on, "says Baker, Who is feeding Some of the Best Back Into tactics human history Rosetta algorithms. (2)
And it works! Number 466 of Nature published an article signed by the team of David Baker proves the effectiveness of this new approach, called for the occasion Distributed thinking, which resembles the scientist for crowdsourcing already at the work in other areas ...
Players working Collaboratively Develop a rich assortment of new strategies and algorithms; Unlike was Computational Approaches, They not only explores The conformational space to aussi The Space of possible search strategies. The integration of human visual problem-solving capabilities and Strategy Development With traditional computational algorithms-through interactive multiplayer games Is A Powerful New Approach to solving computationally-limited Scientific problems. (3)
Michael Kearns, a computer loaded with the famous DARPA evaluate the concept in 2008, is enthusiastic:
We're At The Dawn Of A New Era in Which Between Humans and computing machinery IS Being mixed. (2)
There are still a little flat ...
There are limits to aussi games. If nothing else, says Kearns, Becomes ubiquitous computing as human, people marvel at Will No Longer Being a part of thesis networks and May start to feel Exploited by 'em. (2)
Yes, it would be stupid as all these hi-tech prowess and the latest inventions eventually give birth to a silly notion as old fashioned and outdated that ... work!
(1) for info on the "folding" of proteins, one can visit the site Foldit .
See also: 098 - Crowdsourcing
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