It’s a really simple idea like genius ideas tend to be. Power Sleep lets people donate small pieces of their mobile’s unused computing power, so that a large supercloud computer can use that power for scientific research on genetics and heredity, biochemistry, molecular biology and to solve problems like Alzheimer’s and cancer.
The app, which was developed by Samsung in Austria the Faculty of Life Sciences of University of Vienna looks like a smartphone alarm clock.
It doesn’t take any personal data and you are completely safe from identity theft. “Power Sleep does not access personal data of any kind. What comes back into the servers, as a result of the calculation process of the individual devices, are only numerical values relating to protein calculations. It is very important to us that the process is transparent, based on a true open-source collaborative platform,” Dr. Thomas Rattei, professor of bioinformatics at the University of Vienna, confirmed.
“In order to fight diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer, we need to know how proteins are created. This requires series of tests that need immense computing power and this is where Power Sleep bridges the gap between science and society. Not only does it drive our research forward, but also allows everyone in Austria to be part of the project and to do good while they sleep. The more people who participate, the greater the effect.”
It is activated by setting the alarm clock in your phone. You have to plug the phone in to a charger and turn on your wifi, but you don’t pay for any data usage and your phone is fully charged in the morning. While you are asleep, small packets of data, no more than 1 megabyte in size or smaller than a conventional MP3 file, are sent from the Similarity Matrix of Proteins (SIMAP) database at the University of Vienna, then returned after the mobile devices have performed their calculations. The data then flows directly into a research database, which collects the results of protein test series from all over the world and makes them available to the scientific community. You need a wifi connection, but there is no usage charge to you.
The app is connected to Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC), which connects computers around the globe for the purpose of processing scientific data. With Power Sleep, that network now includes mobile devices.
This mobile app project is part of Samsung’s ongoing global branding campaign, the Launching People initiative. The app is free to download from the Google Play Store.
