Google has begun an experiment that could turn its modest toolbar software into a supercomputer to tackle scientific problems such as untangling genetic codes.
Google invited 500 people to try out a new version of its toolbar that lets Windows users donate their computers' otherwise unused processing power to the Folding@home project at Stanford University.
The project seeks to figure out how genetic information is converted into proteins, complex molecules whose three-dimensional structure is key to everything from fighting off a cold to transporting oxygen around the body.
The Google Compute project illustrates how the approach to even the most ornery problems of computing science is changing. Supercomputers once were isolated, expensive systems affordable only to the likes of aerospace companies, national laboratories and well-funded universities. But all that is changing with the arrival of the Internet, omnipresent PCs and ever-faster network technology.
"The main motivations were to try to leverage Google's expertise with large computer systems and to try to give something back to science," said Susan Wojcicki, a Google product management director and the head of the Google Compute project.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin initiated the project, Wojcicki said, and people started trying the software two weeks ago. An option on Google's toolbar lets the participants in the project download the necessary software to their computer. Google is considering offering the program to a larger audience, Wojcicki added.
"From what I saw, it simply rocks!" said one enthusiastic person who sampled the software. "When I move my mouse across that little DNA icon, it tells me what protein it is folding and what percentage it has completed."
News source: ZDNet News
View: About Google Compute with this little tip, Enable Google Compute on your toolbar!
View: Folding@home project at Stanford University
Google invited 500 people to try out a new version of its toolbar that lets Windows users donate their computers' otherwise unused processing power to the Folding@home project at Stanford University.
The project seeks to figure out how genetic information is converted into proteins, complex molecules whose three-dimensional structure is key to everything from fighting off a cold to transporting oxygen around the body.
The Google Compute project illustrates how the approach to even the most ornery problems of computing science is changing. Supercomputers once were isolated, expensive systems affordable only to the likes of aerospace companies, national laboratories and well-funded universities. But all that is changing with the arrival of the Internet, omnipresent PCs and ever-faster network technology.
"The main motivations were to try to leverage Google's expertise with large computer systems and to try to give something back to science," said Susan Wojcicki, a Google product management director and the head of the Google Compute project.
Google co-founder Sergey Brin initiated the project, Wojcicki said, and people started trying the software two weeks ago. An option on Google's toolbar lets the participants in the project download the necessary software to their computer. Google is considering offering the program to a larger audience, Wojcicki added.
"From what I saw, it simply rocks!" said one enthusiastic person who sampled the software. "When I move my mouse across that little DNA icon, it tells me what protein it is folding and what percentage it has completed."
News source: ZDNet News View: About Google Compute with this little tip, Enable Google Compute on your toolbar! View: Folding@home project at Stanford University
In a companywide memo on March 5, 2000, Huang said the firm had won a lucrative contract to supply graphics chips for Microsoft's Xbox game console. Nvidia shares soared in the following days and weeks as rumors of the deal rippled through Wall Street.
In a telephone interview with The Chronicle, Bhagat admitted that he purchased 1,000 shares the following day but said he didn't know about the Microsoft deal, because he opened the e-mail after he purchased the shares.
"Mr. Huang sent an e-mail midnight on Sunday night. . . . Me and my wife had been looking for houses during that time, and the following morning, I was looking at properties online and I also traded stocks at the same time," he said. "It was after lunch I opened the e-mail."
Bhagat, who immigrated to the United States a decade ago from India, said he feels "persecuted by the U.S. government."
"I came to this country and enrolled at the University of Kentucky with $800 in my pocket. I worked delivering newspapers and pizzas putting myself through school. And now this," said Bhagat, who is married to a school teacher and has a 10-month-old son.
He later earned a master's degree in electrical engineering at Stanford University and landed a job at Sun Microsystems, where he remained for about three years before becoming a hardware engineer at Nvidia in January 2000. He remained on paid leave yesterday but figures that he will be fired now that there's a conviction.
"These guys want to ruin my life for 1,000 shares that I bought on speculation, not on insider information," he said. "I'm going to fight hard." Bhagat said he made $48,000 profit from the purchase but ended up spending more than $250,000 to defend himself in the case.
Bhagat said he will appeal the verdict. He spent yesterday afternoon writing an eight-page letter to U.S. District Judge Ronald M. Whyte, appealing his case.
"In early 2000, everybody was trading stocks, and I was, too, and Nvidia happened to be one of the purchases on that day. And here I am, a convicted felon," he said.
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