On Wednesday, the 24th of October, Sony will be releasing software update version 4.30 for the PlayStation 3. This update will allow users to view PlayStation Vita Trophies on their PlayStation 3.
The 4.30 update will also terminate the Life with PlayStation application. The service itself will end at the beginning of November. The termination of the program includes the termination of the partnership with Stanford University’s Folding@home, a distributed computing project aimed at understanding protein folding, misfolding and studying the causes of a variety of diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and cancers.
We’d like to thank the more than 15 million users that have participated in the program since it started on PS3 in 2007. PS3 users have donated in total more than 100 million computation hours to the Folding@home project to date, and as a result, contributed greatly to Stanford University’s Alzheimer’s disease research. Considering the contribution PS3 has made to the project, we decided the termination as a result of discussions with Stanford University.
Vijay Pande, Folding@home lead researcher at Stanford University said:
“The PS3 system was a game changer for Folding@home, as it opened the door for new methods and new processors, eventually also leading to the use of GPUs.
“We have had numerous successes in recent years. Specifically, in a paper just published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, we report on tests of predictions from earlier Folding@home simulations, and how these predictions have led to a new strategy to fight Alzheimer’s disease.
“The next steps, now underway at Stanford, are to take this lead compound and help push it towards a viable drug. It’s too early to report on our preliminary results there, but I’m very excited that the directions set out in this paper do appear to be bearing fruit in terms of a viable drug (not just a drug candidate).”
(Via the PlayStation Blog)