Thisweek we feature a website that harnesses the unused power of a millioncomputers around the world to help solve scientific problems for thebenefit of some of the world's poorest people.
The site uses atechnology called grid computing. The idea is to break big problemsdown into small pieces. It works this way: you download a small programonto your computer. That program uses your Internet connection to fetcha small packet of data from a central computer. Your computer processesthe data at moments when it has spare capacity, and uploads the resultsback, where your results are combined with everyone else's.
Thereare other grid computing projects on the Web, but Stan Litow says isdifferent.
"The power on World Community Grid is used purely forhumanitarian purposes ? cancer research, research on dengue fever, riceDNA - all kinds of public purposes. So that's one thing. But the secondthing is, it's a permanent source that can serve humanitarian needsyear in and year out."
Litow is a vice president of IBM Corporation, which funds the program.
WorldCommunity Grid has been online for about two years now. It only takes afew minutes to sign up. And you can choose what project you want towork on.
"You actually decide, and then onWorldCommunityGrid.org's site, you can actually track how much workyour power has done ? individual calculations ? and you can see theprogress of the research day by day," Litow says.
The softwareruns on most popular personal computers ? Windows, Mac, or Linux. Andthe system requirements are very modest ? you don't need a huge harddrive or a fast Internet connection. It doesn't interfere with yourother computer activities.
Litow says members in more than 200 countries and territories are participating.
"Andthe research projects are also worldwide. The muscular dystrophyresearch project comes from France. The climate modeling, from Africa.Cancer research project came from Brazil. And the rice DNA study, totry to address the world food crisis, comes from Washington state,right here in the U.S."
With more than one million computers inthe mix, World Community Grid is the equivalent of a supercomputer.Scientists working on projects with a humanitarian goal can apply, andproposals approved by the advisory board get free computing time andexposure they might not otherwise have. IBM's Stan Litow says onecondition is that the researchers must agree to share their findings.
Dosome good by donating your spare computing resources ? you're not usingthem anyway ? at WorldCommunityGrid.org, or get the link to this andmore than 200 other Websites of the Week from our site, voanews.com.