You can use your smartphone to help process cancer research data
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How many hours a day do you think your smartphone sits in idle, meaning it’s on but not being used at all? We all use our smartphone a lot, but there are plenty of times when it just sits in our pockets doing nothing, or just sits next to our bed for hours while we sleep. With that in mind, what would you say if I told you that you could contribute to cancer research by allowingย Vodafone Australia’s newย DreamLab app to use your smartphone’s processing power to crunch research data and help find a cure forย breast, ovarian, pancreatic, and prostate cancer?

Vodafone Australia has launched DreamLab, an Android app that uses your smartphoneโ€™s computing power to assist in cancer research while youโ€™re not using it.ย Developed in collaboration with the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, DreamLab pools the processing power of every smartphone that has the app installed to create a networked supercomputer of sorts. It helps speed up researchersโ€™ computing to aid in finding cures for breast, ovarian, prostate and pancreatic cancer.ย According to the institute, having 100,000 users on board will help researchers crunch complex data approximately 3,000 times faster than the current rate.ย Users can choose which type of cancer theyโ€™d like to support with their idle phones, and how much data they wish to contribute each month (250MB, 500MB or 1GB). The app runs only when devices are fully charged.ย DreamLab will run on both Wi-Fi and mobile networks; if youโ€™re on Vodafoneโ€™s service in Australia, you wonโ€™t be charged for data transmitted through the app.ย The app isnโ€™t really the first of its kind: itโ€™s a similar initiative to SETI@Home and Folding@Home, which harnessed the power of desktops and mobile devices to help make contact with aliens and research cures for diseases like Parkinsonโ€™s and Alzheimerโ€™s. But every little contribution helps, so if you havenโ€™t tried those programs, it might be worth signing up for DreamLab.

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