$1000 for making HTML5 supercomputing applications open source
blog.crowdprocess.comThe CrowdProcess team are doing some really interesting stuff. Essentially, they're making distributed computing more readily available than it has ever been -- if you can write JavaScript, you can dive into distributed computing.
And with browsers advancing so rapidly, I'm really excited about what will be possible on this front in a couple of years time. Imagine being able to run computations on thousands of GPUs without having to distribute any software (think Folding@home, SETI@home, etc).
Cool concept, but morally dubious. You're basically using people's electricity in the background without people knowing, not unlike bitcoin miner malware.
The plan is to recover unused cycles, and ask the websites who power the platform to add a link to the opt in/out
https://ss.crowdprocess.com/opt-out.html
Having said that, I am the first to admit that many websites aren't currently displaying this, we need to work on that.
It's extra work for website owners to build/test/maintain opt-out functionality. Have you considered offering a pre-built opt in/out widget which can be re-styled and integrated easily?
Or you could even just provide website owners with a "global opt-out" URL that they can stick in their footer.
This link is a global opt-out :)
We don't want anyone on the platform who isn't aware/comfortable with it. Our instructions to the websites (when they join) are to create a link to the opt out page. I supposed it could be a direct opt out
It seems one of the biggest business issues is site visitor perception. I have a couple questions please.
What's your opt-rate rate so far out of the sites that have shown this option?
do you have any real data regarding hidden cost to a site visitor? like power consumption A/B testing or something?
The opt out rate has been close to 0, but (in all fairness) that has been due to the way websites choose to display it.
A standard for how to display might be called for, perhaps?
What do you mean? Unused cycles makes no sense. I'd be really annoyed if my laptop's battery life drops from 5 hours browsing the web to 1hour because it is running at 100% all the time due to this.
Not to mention bandwidth which can in some cases be pretty expensive.
Currently blocking 3g and 4g (all mobile devices in fact), and working to block satellite internet.
How are you doing that?
We block mobile phones with some similar rules to the ones in this web page http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/setting-up-nginx-to-redirect-mo...
Is there a deadline until you can submit ideas and their solutions?
No deadline, but ideas have to be original, so first applications are the ones that count :)