The field of distributed computing is a fascinating one, especially the online distributed computing projects. I have participated in some of the online distributed computing projects in the past just because of my interest in the field. I still remember the days when I was participating in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. My computer will search for a Mersenne Prime when I would sitting in front of it with my eyes wide open (and was hoping to win some prize and fame).
Distributed computing projects make use of processor cycles of computers over the internet. Now the problem is that we need to find a way to use the processor cycles. In most of the projects, an application is downloaded to the client computers to aid the process. This application will perform all the computations that are necessary and give the results back to he server. The problem with this approach is that only a limited number of users will download and and install this software. So in effect, the distibuted project is not distributed enough.
Is there any distributed software that can actually do this work? Which is the largest network of software that can be used to harness the CPU cycles form different omputers all around the world? It turns out that there is one. – Google Ads.
Google Adsense Ads are shown in millions of webpages across the globe. Adsense ads are viewed more than the google homepage itself. If some javascript code can be inserted to each adsense ad, it can do very huge calculations faster than any other distributed system, and that too without installing any aditional software. The end users will not feel the difference in performance either.
If Google starts using Adsense ads for helping scientific calcuations, I am willing to view ads in all webpages I visit. Then I would know that even though ads are a distraction, they serve a huge prpose. The purpose of promoting the progress of human race.
Great idea.
its really very very wonderful idea!!
Silky, Asha,
Glad you liked the idea.
So do it!