Internet & Tech: Grid Computing -- Research for Profit

Background info: [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GRID_computing]grid computing[/URL] @ wikipedia.org

I'm currently running [url=http://www.find-a-drug.org/]Find-A-Drug[/url] on my computer, having previously run [url=http://www.grid.org/]grid.org[/url] and [url=http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/]IBM backed WorldCommunityGrid[/url].

I do this for free. I enjoy the thought that my idle CPU cycles may help find drugs to combat cancer, AIDS, and many other diseases... whether they do or not. I was thinking the other day, it would be nice if I got paid on this computing research... and an idea popped in my head.

What if you could get paid? Even measely amounts of $.01 per complete result (currently taking me several hours to compute) would be nice. How would the company pay for it? Advertisements targeted at their grid-ers. Pay rates could fluctuate, running contests, etc...

Comments, feedback, and business inquiries are welcome!

[quote="ewindsor"]Very interesting - you can choose to do it only at idle?[/quote]
That is how most grid software works -- it uses up the spare CPU cycles. I shouldn't say at idle alone, I guess, because it uses them up when you are doing stuff too.

Perhaps an example would make it more clear: if I leave my computer on during the day while I go work, exercise, run errands, etc., the grid software will sit here and make sure my CPU is 100% utilized in crunching data for research.

I am currently sitting here now with the grid software running, but I also have Gaim, Firefox, Thunderbird, K9, and Motherboard Monitor running as well. If I open up a new Firefox browser, the grid software will completely release my CPU until I what I need to get done is done -- as I write this post, I am sure it is near 95-98% use of my CPU, because typing my post doesn't take much in terms of cycles. My other software running is mostly idle as well, until I decide to use it.

Does that clarify?