That’s an interesting idea if I may say so myself and best of all, it’s possible by downloading the latest Facebook app from Intel called Progress Through Processors. While I am a little wary of giving control of my computer to the big brain in the computer sky I may be OK with what is going on here if I know that no access to my files is also occurring.  A little more research is needed.  Overall though, this is a great thing and a lot of good can be done for the world when you put the collective wasted power of all our computers together to make one big super computer.  Sounds a bit like the Matrix.

Often in the fight against cancer, researchers are not limited by their ingenuity, but the resources available to make research effective. The processor power needed to handle complex calculations is often in short supply. To help address this need, Intel Corporation today announced Progress Thru Processors, a new volunteer computing application built on the Facebook platform that allows people to donate their PCs’ unused processor power to research projects such as Rosetta@home, which uses the additional computing power to help find cures for cancer and other diseases such as HIV and Alzheimer’s.

Progress Thru Processors participants can also choose to contribute excess processor computing power to the research efforts of Climateprediction.net and Africa@home. Climateprediction.net is dedicated to increased understanding of global climate change by predicting the Earth’s climate and testing the accuracy of climate models. Africa@home is currently focused on finding optimal strategies to combat malaria by studying simulation models of disease transmission and the potential impact of new anti-malarial drugs and vaccines.

Launched on August 3rd,  as a public beta and available to all Facebook users at www.facebook.com/progressthruprocessors, the application will automatically directs your computer’s idle processor power to fuel researchers’ computational efforts. The application will activate only when a PC’s performance is not being fully utilized. When the participant’s computer usage demands more processor performance, the application defers and sits idle until spare processing capabilities become available again.

Source:  Intel Via: Greener Computing