Tapping into tablets and smartphones

Along with growing the grid’s volunteer base by millions, Kevin is particularly excited about the potential of drawing idle processing time from an explosive range of new handheld devices to increase the grid’s computing capabilities.

“Tablets and smartphones are starting to reach the point where they can do significant computations,” Kevin said. “In two to three years these devices could become powerful contributors to the grid — for instance, when you come home at night and plug your cell phone into the wall.”

I will add that bbover3 says that Kevin's recent work shifting some activity into the cloud has really helped with WCG's bandwidth usage. As we grow, we keep running into new bottlenecks that have to be dealt with. It is easy to forget just how far we have come, but that comes into focus when you realize that 2 current projects have to be slowed down until they can upgrade to match our current speed.

Lawrence