Everyone in the world today has a smart phone, and we can get a lot of information through smart phones, such as weather forecasts, earthquake warnings, and so on.
Today, 3trivia shared with trivia lovers about how smart phones can help us live a healthier and happier life. The topic of this issue is Cloud Computing.
Science produces a lot of data, and it requires a large amount of computing power to process it all. Sharing the work among a large number of computers is one way of getting it done, so computer scientists have created an app to take advantage of the combined power of the billion Android devices currently used around the world. Named BOINC, the app takes advantage of a phone’s computing power when it is sitting idle but on charge—when plugged in overnight, for example.
One of the projects taking advantage of BOINC is [email protected], which is developing new drugs against the HIV virus. It is an add-on to the World Community Grid project by IBM which utilizes idle desktop and laptop computers. Renting time on a supercomputer can cost over $1,000 per hour, so alternatives help scientists get more done for less money. One research project into a tropical disease expects to be able to use the smartphone network to cut its research time down from 30 years to just one.
