Here's some news from "boinc projects" mail list, that some of you might find of interest

David Anderson to Boinc
show details 12:47 pm (5 hours ago)

A group in Barcelona has ported the BOINC client
and an app (molecular dynamics) to the PS3 running Linux.
We'll offer the client for download on the BOINC web site,
and will add a Wiki page with info about porting apps to PS3.
Projects can consider porting their app to the PS3
(warning: this is harder than just getting it to compile).

Of course, there are only a few PS3s running Linux.
FYI, I have been negotiating with Sony for 8 months
about porting BOINC to the standard PS3
(which runs a proprietary OS, not Linux)
and having it included in the default software,
like they're currently doing for Folding@home.

These negotiations stalled, at least for the time being.
Maybe some activity in the PS3/Linux/BOINC area will
rekindle their interest.

-- David

I just checked the master download page, and don't see it there yet.

And at the Boinc main page, I see the following:

News
May 31, 2007
Sony Playstation 3 owners: researchers at the Barcelona Biomedical Research Park have launched PS3GRID, a BOINC-based project whose application (molecular dynamics simulations) runs on the PS3's Cell processor, on Linux.

There is a PS3 client for SETI also available.

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Thanks for the post. I think we will see some scientific crunching on the Xbox 360, it will be interesting to see which project.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but...

I'm willing to bet you won't see many 360 owners crunching for science because the console is plagued with so many hardware failure problems compared to PS3. Much of it is related to heat. There are lots of angry 360 owners and lots of dead consoles going to Microsoft in a "coffin" to get replaced by a refurb.

I've been very frustrated with Microsofts lack of attention to this issue, as I was hoping to get a 360 this year and get Halo 3. (sigh) If I somehow find $600 in my sock drawer and get a 360 and 1 or 2 games - I have to admit I won't crunch for science. It's too risky on that console...

I'll stick with my computers, which are better designed for reliability.

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Team Starfire World BOINC

True, the "red circle of death" is a big problem for Microsoft. Maybe RCoD won't be a problem in a few years or with 360 Elite.

The recent past is fraught with such rampant innovation that I will choose to maintain my optimism for the future. :)

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True, the "red circle of death" is a big problem for Microsoft. Maybe RCoD won't be a problem in a few years or with 360 Elite.

The Elite has already been gathering widespread reports of issues unfortunately. None of the problem areas of the console were addressed in the elite.

Hopefully they stick a cooler CPU into it or better parts.

Unfortunately, 360 elite is just the standard 360 with a new paint job, and a bit bigger hard drive. It has no in-built HD-DVD drive like hoped and no quiter CPU fan, hence the CPU runs just as hot. But they want to charge £425 for it!

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the cpus are getting a die-shrink pretty soon (not sure if they're available already?) That should reduce the power use and heat issues quite a lot.

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WOW! These numbers are crazy!

...

251 Tera Flops from 10238 PS3s and rising.

"The most powerful distributed computing project was SETI@Home at 280 teraflops.
Now it is Folding@Home, which is at 492 teraflops and rising." (is this quote right about SETI?)

Anyhow, this news is very exciting for science!

The thing to realise about that is that the Sony FAH team wrote some very carefully crafted inner loops that run on the SPUs, which is where the PS3 gets those obscenely high flops counts from.

That, of course, raises the question of whether the Rosetta algorithm is amenable to being parted out on a single system to the 6 available SPUs, especially considering that they each only have 256K of memory. Looking at the typical WSS under windows (30 to 50 MB, rising to 100+ MB sometimes), I'm not sure what the answer is.

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When you put it that way, combined with the fact that if Rosetta@Home doesn't like it when CPUs do not have 2MB cache per core... Might not work out for Rosetta@Home and PS3.

Maybe down the road, Folding@Home can work more directly with Rosetta@Home, or Rosetta@Home can learn more from Folding@Home's experience. Supposedly, F@H can still use more processor power (the PS3 has leveled out at 600 teraflops, and their total project teraflops are at 900 teraflops), but maybe eventually they can combine or branch off into the type of science that R@H is doing? Rosetta@Home definitely needs more processor power.

I will definitely be buying several dedicated Rosetta@Home crunchers in the near future after the July 22nd quad core Intel price drops. I believe a little more in the science that R@H does. I also think F@H will lead to significant advances, if not in medicine then in research and modeling.

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PS3GRID

and

G. De Fabritiis, Performance of the Cell processor for biomolecular simulations, Comp. Phys. Commun. 176, 660 (2007)

PS3GRID is a volunteer computing project based on the PlayStation3 and BOINC for full-atom molecular dynamics simulations and other scientific applications specially optimized for the Cell processor. Your contribution is very important because our Cell MD molecular dynamics software runs over an order of magnitude faster on the PlayStation3 opening the way to innovative computational experiments.

The ps3grid.net project gives a new powerful tool to computational scientists and you are an important part of it. By using BOINC and the first full-atom molecular dynamics code (CellMD) specially optimized to run on the Cell processor and the PlayStation3, PS3GRID opens novel computational scenarios. New biomedical applications suddenly become possible giving a new role to computational biology for biomedical research.

If you like science, you can participate with your PlayStation3 to scientific research by running molecular simulations while not playing. We will use it at its best by running only the most optimized software: With Cell MD, the Cell processor is equivalent to almost 20 PCs (16 times faster on the 6 SPEs of the PS3).



For example, if 1,000 people join this cooperative effort we will be able to utilize the computational equivalent of 16,000 single-core computers.

** Deleted **

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SIMAP has now applications for the PS3 Linux, too.

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Xbox issues to cost Microsoft $1 billion-plus

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday it expects to spend more than $1 billion to repair widespread hardware problems in its Xbox 360 video game console after a large number of them broke down.

Microsoft said it would extend the warranty on the Xbox 360 to three years after too many of the consoles succumbed to “general hardware failure,” but the company provided few other details about the extent of the problems.

Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the independent research group Directions on Microsoft, estimates that Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division has lost more than $6 billion since 2002.

In June, bloggers speculated that the Xbox 360 return problem was getting so severe that the company was running out of “coffins,” or special return-shipping boxes Microsoft provides to gamers with dead consoles.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but...

I'm willing to bet you won't see many 360 owners crunching for science because the console is plagued with so many hardware failure problems compared to PS3. Much of it is related to heat. There are lots of angry 360 owners and lots of dead consoles going to Microsoft in a "coffin" to get replaced by a refurb.

True, the "red circle of death" is a big problem for Microsoft. Maybe RCoD won't be a problem in a few years or with 360 Elite.

The Elite has already been gathering widespread reports of issues unfortunately. None of the problem areas of the console were addressed in the elite.

Hopefully they stick a cooler CPU into it or better parts.

I was about to get myself a XBOX360, but after all those horrible news I just threw that plan overboard...

...But those PS3 numbers makes me want to but it =)

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http://www.MIAteam.eu

@Sailor: Might not be such a bad idea.....

Report: PS3 $499 on July 12

Although Sony has yet to confirm a price drop officially, GameDaily BIZ has received confirmation from the retail sector that the PS3 will be dropped to $499 next week. Sony itself recently talked about "refining" the PS3 price. Now it appears to be happening.

A PS3 price cut rumor spread like wildfire across the Internet this afternoon when several sites spotted a new advertisement from Circuit City. The ad as seen on Kotaku lists the PS3 console at $499.99, $100 less than its current price.

It wasn't clear at first if this ad was a special deal specific to the electronics retailer or if it's indeed a retail-wide price cut instituted by Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA). As it turns out, a merchandising manager (who wished to remain anonymous) at one of the world's biggest retailers has confirmed to GameDaily BIZ that the price drop is indeed retail-wide and it's scheduled to take place on July 12, although the first wave of ads to promote the PS3's new price won't kick in until Sunday, July 15.

Many analysts have speculated that Sony would drop the price on the expensive console this year, and some even predicted that it could happen this summer. It's starting to look like they were right. We're sure to find out much more next week when Sony holds its press conference at E3.

SCEA when contacted for confirmation declined to comment.



Although, there is now this:

Sony has no plans to cut PlayStation 3 price

39 minutes ago

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp. has no plans to cut the price of its PlayStation 3 (PS3) at present to pep up demand and counter surging sales of Nintendo's rival game console Wii, Sony's president said on Friday.

"At present we have no plans," Chubachi told Reuters when asked whether Sony had any plans to cut the PS3 price.

Do Xbox 360s Scratch Discs?

Just days after Microsoft Corp. took a more than US$1 billion earnings charge to fix hardware problems in Xbox 360 consoles, a class-action suit says that the consoles also damage game discs.

Filed on Monday in the U.S. District court for the Southern District of Florida, the suit claims that Xbox 360s scratch game discs, making them unusable. Thousands of people have been affected by and have complained to Microsoft about the problem, the suit claims.

maybe this will teach microsquish to stay out of the gaming console biz.

Do Xbox 360s Scratch Discs?

Just days after Microsoft Corp. took a more than US$1 billion earnings charge to fix hardware problems in Xbox 360 consoles, a class-action suit says that the consoles also damage game discs.

Filed on Monday in the U.S. District court for the Southern District of Florida, the suit claims that Xbox 360s scratch game discs, making them unusable. Thousands of people have been affected by and have complained to Microsoft about the problem, the suit claims.

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or encourage Rosie to work with Sony instead... with heat-related problems originating from a design flaw, it would be no wonder very few Xbox owners would run (heat-intensive) DC tasks. No such problems with PS3...

maybe this will teach microsquish to stay out of the gaming console biz.

Do Xbox 360s Scratch Discs?

Just days after Microsoft Corp. took a more than US$1 billion earnings charge to fix hardware problems in Xbox 360 consoles, a class-action suit says that the consoles also damage game discs.

Filed on Monday in the U.S. District court for the Southern District of Florida, the suit claims that Xbox 360s scratch game discs, making them unusable. Thousands of people have been affected by and have complained to Microsoft about the problem, the suit claims.

Sony is becoming much more popular than microsquish, so it would be a good idea to partner with them to get Rosie on their system.

or encourage Rosie to work with Sony instead... with heat-related problems originating with a design flaw, it would be no wonder very few Xbox owners would run DC tasks. No such problems with PS3...

maybe this will teach microsquish to stay out of the gaming console biz.

Do Xbox 360s Scratch Discs?

Just days after Microsoft Corp. took a more than US$1 billion earnings charge to fix hardware problems in Xbox 360 consoles, a class-action suit says that the consoles also damage game discs.

Filed on Monday in the U.S. District court for the Southern District of Florida, the suit claims that Xbox 360s scratch game discs, making them unusable. Thousands of people have been affected by and have complained to Microsoft about the problem, the suit claims.

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Obviously F@H was able to find a way to make it work...

Sony is becoming much more popular than microsquish, so it would be a good idea to partner with them to get Rosie on their system.

or encourage Rosie to work with Sony instead... with heat-related problems originating with a design flaw, it would be no wonder very few Xbox owners would run DC tasks. No such problems with PS3...

maybe this will teach microsquish to stay out of the gaming console biz.

Do Xbox 360s Scratch Discs?

Just days after Microsoft Corp. took a more than US$1 billion earnings charge to fix hardware problems in Xbox 360 consoles, a class-action suit says that the consoles also damage game discs.

Filed on Monday in the U.S. District court for the Southern District of Florida, the suit claims that Xbox 360s scratch game discs, making them unusable. Thousands of people have been affected by and have complained to Microsoft about the problem, the suit claims.