Intel invites Facebook users to save the world

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 4 Aug 2009 at 10:25

Intel has developed a Facebook app that will allow people to easily donate their PC's spare processing power to research projects.

Progress Thru Processors allows people to participate in three research projects aimed at fighting disease, predicting climate change and combating the spread of malaria.

These projects require so much processing power it would be prohibitively expensive to deal with them in a lab, thus they're being tackled through distributed computing. Under this scheme, the research projects are broken into smaller pieces which are then sent out to members of the public for processing.

Intel's app sits in the background monitoring processor usage and allocating resources to the research project when it detects the CPU is idle. According to Intel, the app should have a minimal impact on a machine's performance.

"Progress Thru Processors underscores our belief that small contributions made by individuals can collectively have a far-reaching impact on our world," says Deborah Conrad, the general manager of Intel's Corporate Marketing Group.

"By simply running an application on your computer, which uses very little incremental resources, you can expand computing resources to researchers working to make the world a better place."

Progress Thru Processors has been built on the Facebook platform, and anybody looking to download it will require a Facebook account.