March 3 2002 News

Technical, Business and Product News from the Modern Computer World... Updated Once Per Month

Help Science with YOUR Computer - Protien Folding
Stanford University
...Understanding how proteins self-assemble ("protein folding") is a holy grail of modern molecular biophysics. What makes it such a great challenge is its complexity, which renders simulations of folding extremely computationally demanding and difficult to understand. (See Scientific Background for more details about what are proteins, why do they fold, why this is so difficult, and why do we care).

Our group has developed a new way to simulate protein folding ("distributed dynamics") which should remove the previous barriers to simulating protein folding. However, this method is extremely computationally demanding and we need your help (see below). We have already demonstrated that our distributed dynamics technique can fold small protein fragments and protein-like synthetic polymers. The next step is to apply these methods to larger, considerably more important and complicated proteins. Unfortunately, larger proteins fold slower and thus we need more computers to simulate their folding. While the alpha helix folds in 100 nanoseconds, proteins just a little larger fold 100x slower (10 microseconds). Thus, while 10-100 processors were enough to simulate the helix, we will need many more to simulate these larger, more interesting proteins.

To achieve a significant speedup, we need lots of processors in a given run. Also, since a single run does not tell us much, we need to simulate several runs (10 runs would be a good start) per protein. Thus, we need lots of processors. By running our client that uses the Mithral CS-SDK, you can lend us your machine for as long as you like. The client allows you to run for as little or as long as you like. Even a single day's worth of running is helpful to us.

CNet - Yahoo News Morpheus' downfall: Bills weren't paid
Mon Mar 4,10:46 PM ET John Borland CNET News.com
...The Morpheus file-trading network, which drew more than a million people a day to trade movies, songs or software at its peak, went dark last Tuesday. Although it relaunched with new technology late Friday, the service is struggling to regain its footing.

In progressively more extreme statements, StreamCast Networks Chief Executive Steve Griffin has characterized the shutdown as an "attack" on his company and on the millions of people who used the Morpheus software. Bulletin and chat boards around the Web have been buzzing with conspiracy theories, ranging from a competitor's sabotage to plots by the record industry.

But in its first public statements since the blackout, Dutch company Kazaa BV, which provided StreamCast with its peer-to-peer technology, said there was a simple explanation.

"MusicCity (also known as StreamCast Networks) has failed to pay any amounts due to Kazaa BV under the parties' license agreement," Kazaa BV founder Niklas Zennstrom wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "As a result of MusicCity's breach, Kazaa BV did not provide version 1.5 to MusicCity. Kazaa has also terminated MusicCity's license."...

ITWorld Canada New Java Based Backberry Will Have Voice
By Laura Rohde IDG News Service
...Waterloo, Ont.-based Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) has added voice capabilities to its RIM BlackBerry handheld device to create the Java-based BlackBerry 5810, which it is demonstrating at the Comdex Chicago trade show, the company announced Monday.

...mobile networks with J2ME (Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition) as its core operating system, RIM said in a statement.

The BlackBerry 5810 joins other combination mobile phone and PDA products on or coming to the market, such as the Handspring Treo from Handspring Inc. Also bound for the U.S. market is the HP Jornada 928 Wireless Digital Assistant (WDA) from Hewlett-Packard Co., the first branded Microsoft Corp. Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition device...

IT World Canada Sun Helps Launch Calgary Medical Lab with CAVE Technology
By Gail Balfour
The University of Calgary and Sun Microsystems Inc. officially launched the Sun Center of Excellence for Visual Genomics yesterday, a new kind of bioinformatics facility which uses 3D technology to view complex data of the human body.

...has the ability to create 3D models of biological systems such as genomes, organs or cancerous cells, using a technology called CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) from Kitchener, Ont.-based Fakespace Inc.

Often compared to Star Trek’ famous Holodeck, the CAVE is a dark, black-curtained room with 270 degree projection systems, as well as floor projection. People may stand inside, and with the use special 3D glasses and other virtual reality gear, and actually feel as if they are part of the environment they are seeing.

Being inside the CAVE is "like climbing inside your TV and playing with all the little people," according to Sensen. He said the hope is for scientist to be able to understand complex human diseases by visualizing aspects of the human body as a collective, something that researchers are unable to do as thoroughly with traditional tools such as MRIs or microscopes. Sensen also expects this technology to cut down the need for medical experimentation with lab animals and human cadavers because, in many cases, they will be able to duplicate digitally the human body’s reactions to events instead.

Total investment in the Sun Center of Excellence for Visual Genomics is more than $6 million, and funding partners include Sun Microsystems, Fakespace, Western Economic Diversification Canada, the Alberta Science and Research Authority, the Alberta Network for Proteomics Innovation, Genome Prairie and the University of Calgary.

The centre includes a high performance Sun Fire 6800 server and Sun Ray thin clients for graduate students to access the computer network. It’s home to about 30TB of storage, an amount expected to double over the next two years, according to Chris Spindler, a technical architect for Sun in Calgary....

Toms Hardware This Athlon Really Cooks
Someone with obviously too much time on their hands, and a gourmet bent, has worked out how you can fry an egg using an Athlon XP1500+ CPU.

Trubador details how he turned his PC into a domestic appliance capable of cooking an egg in 11 minutes in a quite remarkable posting on Tekforums, which comes complete with pictures. The man himself has been in touch with us to assure us the experiment wasn't faked.

To start with Trubador opened up his PC, took out the fans and created a heatsink using copper coins, which he clipped onto his CPU using ThermoResin.