And finding a cure for cancer is definitely lvl 80.
My daily reading usually does not include anything from Science or Nature, but this article stood out among all the other academia mumble-jumbos. In a nut shell, the paper described a software that evaluates protein conformations faster than any existing computer. How? By taking advantage of human brain’s immense cognitive power. Researchers found that even a casual player (non-biochemist) can solve complex protein folding problems much faster than a computer. (Ars has some very good background info explaining the biology aspect of the paper, take a look if you are unfamiliar with terms like amino-acid and hydrophilicity)
So a game called FoldIt is devised to takes advantage of of people’s boredom. A series of incrementally difficult scenarios teaches players the basic mechanics of the game, then real data is streamed from online for player to solve. Results are sent back for cumulative analysis. So far, the result looks wonderfully promising. It turns out, our monkey brains can easily out-perform a cluster of Intel i7s, both in accuracy and speed.
In the US, 200,000 Million (200Billion) hours are spent in front of a television, each year. A total of 500 million hours were spent in Second Life in 2009, and a mere 100 million hours was spent in creating the entire Wikipedia. Perhaps we can cure cancer in a week if we all just skip our weekly quota of Grey’s Anatomy?
Thanks for sharing something so awesome!
I know a ton of people that really complaint about being bored during afternoons, i quit gaming on-line FPS, completely about 2 months. But this looks something worth to be played!
I will play when I get some time.
I remember a talk from TED, about how massive on-line games, can do some difference in human relations.
I also remember a Google Tech Talk where they talked about the image labler game, which is the same idea.
You are awsome!