Last night I heard about Dreamlab, a phone app that runs only when the phone is charging, typically overnight. Is used for cancer research and similar. The idea is that the computing task is spread across perhaps millions of otherwise idle phones. Kind of like SETI and Folding at home.
I like this idea. Does anyone know of a list of similar things? I don't know what to call it so I could search for it myself.
This made sense back when SETI@home was big, because most computers back then didn’t use any power-saving modes at all, so running SETI really was just making use of energy that would otherwise be going to waste.
Nowadays, with the aggressive power saving our computing devices have, having them run such background tasks means actively adding to energy usage. No thanks. (It’s not about individual cost, but rather the aggregate energy use of such things done widely.)
Similarly, this is why I run ad blockers: some ads use
your “spare” computing power to mine bitcoins and stuff, meaning your battery life is reduced, lap is heated more, etc. so some prick can make money without asking you. No thanks.
Edit: indivisible -> individual. Autocorrect got me!