Ideas

This is a public network of computers. That will make money.
Just about every company needs IT infrastructure for there projects. Home users need it but usually can not get access to it. Because of the high costs when dealing with company grid computers. This system uses public grid computers, so costs are dramatically derived down.

I am new to this site, but it sure seems interesting.

LOVE IT

I like this idea and would certainly like to delegate some of my video encoding tasks and such like to it. Does anyone have the technicalexpertise to get it up and running though? I know I don't.

My idea CrowdProcessor was somehow alike. I think we need a good developing team who can convert usual applications to parallel processings. I would love it however!

this has some convergence with this (http://www.cambrianh...ss/view/renderjuice/ )

Nice idea but I have no idea if it is possible (doubling words today...)

AWESOME

"Does anyone have the technical expertise to get it up and running though? I know I don't."
Personally I have set up small in-house networks that work in groups. It is possible to have this project up and running with the right group of people.

"this has some convergence with this"
The ideas are similar as far as having a computer farm. That part of the idea was never new, computer farms all ready exist. The main point is that this would aim at other applications, target new user groups, and have an entirely different business model then all other services.

Q: Whats the business model?
A: Selling the extra computer power to contributing users that want extra bandwidth or to non-contributing users that would like to buy the power.

There are lots of companies that have projects that require massive amounts of processing power. On there own a project would take them months before they could ever get it produced. In addition, there costs would be through the roof.

Thousands of companies would gladly want to participate in this program or buy the extra computer power. Because we could sell it at a very low competitive cost. Since, all of our hardware contributed and shared by users of free.

Users that contribute and join the system would get to use it for free because they contributed more processing power. As more and more users contribute the more the system would be improved and we would make even more money from that extra possessing power.

How contributing users can have this service for free:

1.) The users signs up and downloads our networking program to the computer.

2.) They select when they want there computer to connect to our network. Basically when every there computer is idle or not doing much it connects to the network.
For Example:
* Instead of a screen saver our program would connect the user to our network and the computers idle time would be used.
* If the computer was left on and idle our program would connect the user to our network and the computers idle time would be used.
* Simply set the amount of power he wants to contribute in the background while still using the computer.

3.) For there participation they get to use the system free for there personal or commercial use. How much they can use the system is allocated by how much they contributed to the system.
For Example:
* How fast there computer can work.
* The speed it can connect.
* How much time they connected to the network.

So basically contributing users get to use super computer for what ever there hearts desire at no cost!

i like it!

This idea is amazing, and would rake in a fortune.

This project could benefit from my 'Project Aldeburgh', coming soon to CH. You can read about Project Aldeburgh at http://www.craighenderson.co.uk

I'll post an Idea here for it soon.

I assume it could benefit a lot of projects. Granted they will need to be to the right scale to stay efficient.

Quote From User Drh:
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As well as allowing members to get free use of the super computer they could have the option of taking their reward as cash or time. E.g. at the end of the month they have earned 200 credits which would entitle them to and hour of computing power or $10 which ever they prefer. The cash payout would have to be based on how much of the processing power had been sold that month, kind of like an exchange rate.

I was thinking that students would be a great member market to target as I remember when I was at Uni everyone had PC's that were left on all the time and we always need a bit of extra cash. University departments also might be good customers of the computing power, science departments, computer departments etc.
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This idea is not new at all.
It's the same a my p2p render farm idea from the last voting rond

]V[oogy

1. This is NOT p2p.
2. This idea was originally posted a long time ago by myself. (I re-posted it for clarification and to address every ones concerns and opinions.)
3. This idea uses a different business model.

seti at home but with profit?

Yes, it is kind of like seti at home. The difference is this is not just for non-profit organization projects, it is for regular companies and even for personal use.

The contributing users users of the service can donate, use the farm for there personal or commercial use, or make profit. Unlike seti at home which is only for major non-profit projects which offers nothing to contributing users.

My idea is not just lets build a super computer, lots of people have done that before. My idea is to use the computer farm to produce both noncommercial and commercial endeavors.

This idea sounds very good but it is very terrible for the users. Using 'idle cycles' doesn't sound very bad, but it isn't good for the computer.

The users will most likely be spending more in power than the money they would get out of it, and their computers would be shortening their life time greatly.

Check out my Idea, specialfx@home its very similar in some areas and the suffers from the same problems.

I like this it has allot of technical detail that would need to be addressed.

Just like with my idea, I believe the necessary skill set may not be here.

Many users would have been leaving the computer on anyway. With the monitor turned off, the average computer uses less electricity than a light bulb, even less for laptops. Even if you left the computer on all day it would cost you at most a few pennies a day.

You will not see any harmful happen to the hardware that is extremely unlikely.

Also, keep in mind that users would be gaining from contributing to the service. Because they can use it themselves, revive money or make a donation to help others.

This seems like an idea which is worth exploring to see if it is feasible.

If I were an investor I would say, "Come back with a proof of concept".

Since we are all talking about ideas here, I think it's fair game to have untested / unproven ideas. A positive vote indicates you should take it to the next step.

Intuitively I would shy away from signing up for a system like this. I am a non-techie. Anything about "sharing" my computer suggests vulnerability to viruses, hackers, identity theft & things that go bump in the night. I bought my own computer so that it would be my own, period.

However, it might work if you could created trusted neighbourhoods or syndicates of people in closed groups who only share with each other. Maybe.

Personally I don't think that this system could pay me enough to put my perceived privacy at risk. I would be highly unlikely to sign up to use something like this. A large part of that is because I don't understand how computers work and I fear what I don't know. I think many people are like me in this regard.

It would not matter how many experts say that my system is not at risk. I have no incentive to share my system so I would not sign up for a sharing service like this one.

Who do you think WOULD use it? What demographic?

so you stole Moogy's idea?
I think this has been done before. P2P is nice and dandy, but when it comes to those people actually paying, good luck! Another issue you will find that upstream rates are pretty poor, for eg in Bell's megabit service, the upstream is only 16 kb/sec.

I did not take Moogys idea, in fact I posted this idea way back in 2006 months before Moogy had posted his. My idea was also posted long before P2P. I re-posted my own idea, to clear up my thoughts and try to communicate clearly to the community. Feel free to look on my profile of ideas.

"Who do you think WOULD use it? What demographic?"
The main demographic groups are:
Movie Makers
Computer Artists
Computer Science
Mathematicians
Medical Researchers
Scientific Researchers
Most Companys

There are also lots of other groups like:
Computer Gamers
Website Owners
Just about anyone...

There are not very many limits to who can use the network.

Make it happen! Let's make this happen. I like the idea of any idle resources (of the affluent) being shared to those who lack these resources. I read about something like this during the debate about the Sun Microsystem paradigm. I dont know what happened. But definitely it did not reach the PCs of the ordinary people.

I give you four on this Kevin!

hmmm...very good and would really help a lot, including my own projects. I dont care who originate this as long as ti can be done thing and much better than the "first" still is;
sweet and Rawkin!

GET GOING! it make lot of sense...

This idea with respect to purely 3D graphic rendering farms (public ones) has been done and is underway with the BURP project in alpha :

http://burp.boinc.dk/

All of it is free, and publicly available, from the free open source 3d content creation suite (yay BLENDER) to the renderfarm itself ...

More info:

http://www.blenderna...roject-enters-alpha/

http://www.blender.org/

Of course, you could promote your idea to all the folks out there not using Blender, as BURP seems to be specfic to Blender only...

They are not making money from it they are only non-profit projects.

I use Blender, whats wrong with promoting Blender with this project? 3D artists need money to fund there projects. It seems like a good trade off extra computer idle time to money.

Using a network of computers around the globe is a great idea.

I am sure, however, that everyone who would even contemplate joining, would be frightened silly by the possibility of HACKERS joining the scheme and frying a few hundred machines just for laughs.
I am certain that you have already explored this possible hole and plugged it.

I can think of some negatives, but I am willing to shove them into my back pocket and forget about them.

Its just too easy to be negative - so I am giving it a BIG thumbs up!!!!

Well, I can't say that there is never going to be some security hole. If someone really wanted to they probably could find a way. But, the same is true for all systems and every computer on the internet.

Over all because this is more of a controlled system, it would be typically safer then the browser you're running right now!

Thanks for answering my questions, Kevin. For the type of users you are aiming at, and based upon the feeback here, it seems to be an idea worth pursuing. Good luck!

First, I think this is a great idea. However, one big concern I'd have if I were an investor would be "How can this compete with a service like Amazon's Elastic Cloud Compute service?" ECC is basically the same principle as this idea, except instead harnessing unused cycles from users, it takes the excess computing power from their huge data centers and sells it to users who need processing power. The rates are extremely low (.10 $US/hr) and they guarentee high reliability, security, etc..

A non-profit distributed p2p service would be great, but a for-profit project would need to have razor thin margins to compete with Amazon in this niche.

$.10 is there flat rate for just the CPU, they have other charges that apply are also applying.

On average a server farm charges with all costs around $.40 to $1 per hour. Also, you have to keep in mind they have to pay for the storage, maintenance, the hardware, everything. Also, server computers are have slower processors then the most home computers.

"guarentee high reliability, security, etc.."
This service would be very redundant system, that would maintain reliability. Also, no one can "guarantee" security on any computer system. Not home computers, not major corporate websites, not the government, no one.

Wont this be another pipe dream? Looks like a very HUGE job as in HUGE!...i knew wayback this has been in the works, but even moneyed corporation failed to lift this off half inch above the ground.

It s the collaborated open source 'rendering" that seems the big block? I dunno if am right am more into vitamins and viral infections=)

Honestly, its cool!

The technology is available. Non-profit server farms like this have been set-up successfully. There has been open source non-profit render farms as well. This idea basically changes the business model to turn a profit as well as bring it closer to the point where the average user would have access.

Honestly this is an idea and all ideas are risky. You have to take a change to see if it will work. All, inventors and entrepreneur have to take risks before they can ever turn a profit or see if something will work.

FocusDriven, actually, I don't think it'd be a big deal to write. Think of a program similar to a torrent client - it would go out to a supernode and find machines to talk to. It would then negotiate a work unit to be processed with each willing (registered for payment) node. The trick is for security to be paramount, the work unit would likely need to comprise some sort of executable (native, java or other bytecode machine) that could be run in a sandbox as not to jeopardize the host (unless of course the host ran a signed fixed function binary). Data would need to be encrypted for transport, and would be susceptible to examination, as the node needs it in the clear to operate on it. A sandbox, VM or similar approach would provide the safety and flexibility required. Some issues crop up - not all processors have the same SSE extended instructions, so it means some things will not be as fast - and the whole point is to maximize FP right? As well, any Java or interpreted program will not run as fast as a binary, and you'd need several flavours of binaries to encompass the various CPU types (like Seti@home does). The technical part is NOT the problem. The problem is how to publicize, get people to participate, and to offer an incentive for people to do so ( money!). The node client will need to be closed, so that it is not hacked, and I expect people will be very wary that their machines could easily become hijacked or operate as spambots. Good luck with 10c paypal and VISA transactions with 75c-$1.50 overheads!

I assume you got $.10 from amazon. But, you are slightly confused because they have other charges that apply. Most farms charge about $.40 to $1 per CPU hour.

Server processors are generally slower and they are not set up to process graphics. The reason being is because servers don't need to process GUI. Home computers have much faster processors and GUI processing capability.

The code data being sent would not have to necessary run any executable code. This system would be safer then the browser you are currently running right now.

Also, the user has options they can use the time, receive payment or donate it non-profit.

The payment system would probably work much like most ad services, that is the payment would be sent every $20-$100 dollars. Over all the users is not going to notice any downfall because this is idle time anyways.

bad ass idea

Kevin and all, I'd like to raise a layman's question:

The 24/7 300 kbps internet cost here in the Philippines is around US$20.8 a month. If I have a PC with speccs: Pentium 4 with 256 MB RAM, 1.5 ghz. What is the possibility of recovering the internet cost with this? Up to what percent?

My fervent wish for projects like this is it can be a cost recovery scheme for people incurring expenses on internet connectivity especially for those living in a tight budget.

This idea can rock the world Kevin.

Love the idea.

Maybe apple will buy it and add it to their .mac subscription. Possibly for pros only, (Final Cut Studio Users), just a possibility.

"The 24/7 300 kbps internet cost here in the Philippines is around US$20.8 a month. If I have a PC with speccs: Pentium 4 with 256 MB RAM, 1.5 ghz. What is the possibility of recovering the internet cost with this? Up to what percent?"
Well that would depend on how much time the computer is left idle.

Bare in mind this are rough estimates power consumption. The math is correct, but the power used by each users machine will depend on the hardware setup of the machine.

Lets say you have 6hours of computer idle time a day, this would be easily achievable by anyone.
Assuming you turned off the monitor, with the computer using the maximum a full load. (Note: A full load is the MAXIMUM cost that should be seen to any user. A average computer will operate at about 80% efficiency due to the nature of the circuits.)

For 6 Hours you computer will use about 2.256 Kw
Assuming it costs 10 cents per unit of electricity the cost of running for 6 hours is about 2.256 * 10 = 22 cents or less per day.
22*30=660 cents or $6.60 per month.

Now to calculate the profit you will make. c=cents
If you make 5c per cpu hour for 6 hours:
(5c per cpu * 6hr) - 22c = 8c per day
8c * 30 = $2.40 per month

If you make 10c per cpu hour for 6 hours:
(10c per cpu * 6hr) - 22c = 38c per day
38c * 30 = $11.40 per month

If you make 15c per cpu hour for 6 hours:
(15c per cpu * 6hr) - 22c = 68c per day
68c * 30 = $20.40 per month

If you make 20c per cpu hour for 6 hours:
(20c per cpu * 6hr) - 22c = 98c per day
98c * 30 = $29.40 per month

If you make 25c per cpu hour for 6 hours:
(25c per cpu * 6hr) - 22c = 128c per day
128c * 30 = $38.40 per month

If you make 30c per cpu hour for 6 hours:
(30c per cpu * 6hr) - 22c = 158c per day
158c * 30 = $47.40 per month

Also, on another note this is not just limited to computers. Game stations with an Internet connection would work as well. For example you could even use your PS3, Xbox360, Wii.

Kevin,

Reasonable idea.

One challenge that a number of folks have alluded to is the security. Most comments were related to those people donating the processor time. What about the companies/firms you are suggesting could buy this service and truly make it profitable? What is the pitch for a company and how do you sell the business on security, particularly in thi