OK, so maybe he's not writing off the 360 entirely, but he did tell Pro-G that the 360's processor would be of limited help to his Alzheimer's Disease research project, saying that "the cell processor in the PS3 is much more powerful for our calculations than the CPU in the Xbox 360." Now sure, he's the expert, and we know he's crunched the numbers on how valuable the 360 could be to his important work. But we'd bet some of you would still like to use your 360's limited brain power to solve the world's ills (as long as it doesn't cost any points). How about it Vijay? Can we volunteer our 360 to be the Otis to the PS3's Lex Luthor?

What a difference a month and several thousand gaming consoles makes. Sony announced today that the 250,000 PS3s that have run Stanford's Folidng@Home research program in the last month have delivered nearly 400 teraflops of computing power, nearly doubling the pre-PS3 computing capacity for the network. The PS3 has been a PR dream for the project too, leading to a "halo effect" increase of 20 percent in the number of PC folders, according to Sony.

A downloadable update for the PS3 version of the program will be available tomorrow, offering increased folding speed, better globe visibility and, most importantly, "the ability for users to create longer donor or team names." Finally, our dream of folding for Team "JoystiqSingleHandedlyCuresAllDiseases" can be realized.

Wanna discover a cure for cancer while you sleep? Or solve the mysteries of Alzheimer's in your dreams? Perhaps unfold the complexities of Parkinson's even as the drool beings to seep into your pillow? Then tonight, before you tuck yourself in, remember to power on your PlayStation 3 and launch the Folding@home application, joining PS3 owners everywhere as we commit our consoles' processors to the first-ever Sunday Night Foldathon.

Note: After installing 1.6 Firmware, Folding@home can be downloaded from the Network tab in the XMB menu. The application requires 250MB of hard drive space. Once launched, the application will automatically download a work unit from Stanford University and begin computation. If you're feeling a pang of gamer camaraderie, hit triangle, select identity, and join existing team #57516. All set? 'Kay, this is your cue to hit the lights and let Cell do the rest -- while you rest. Sweet dreams.

[Via PS3 Fanboy]

Coupled with some glowing press about the admittedly impressive specs of the PlayStation 3's Cell processor comes news that the console's long promised Folding@home client will be using all those leftover processing cycles on March 23rd. The distributed computing project, whose PS3 partnership was detailed in an event at Stanford University this morning, will be accessible within the Network menu of the XrossMediaBar.

Why bother donating all that computing power (not to mention electricity) to "help study the causes of diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cystic fibrosis and many cancers?" If you're not in it for the altruism (and we're talking serious good karma here), then at least you'll be able to enjoy watching the protein folding happen in real-time, and manipulate the presentation using the Sixaxis. Somewhere, a slightly disgruntled Will Wright is wondering when Sony's going to donate all that unused processing power to a SETI@home client.

Thursday's WoW machinima event at Stanford showcased the winners of the World of Warcraft Summer Movie Contest. Following the screening of the best videos, Daniel Kayser of GameTrailers.com hosted a panel discussion with a few Stanford professors and other machinima luminaries. Also, Joystiq's Christopher Grant sat on the panel.

For an hour, Kayser led the group through questions about the state of machinima, its history, and its future. In general, the participants anticipated a bright, creative future for machinima, but they were uncertain how the art would change once corporations tried to exploit the style.

Matteo Bittanti, from Stanford's Humanities Lab, commented on the continuing shift of machinima from in-jokes to a general artistic tool; many of the contest winners relied on WoW jokes, but the grand prize short, The Edge of Remorse, bore no direct relation to WoW as a game. Bittanti anticipated that the balance would continue to even out, with more machinima stories unrelated to games able to find a broader audience.

Machinima's practical definition was another topic. Ezra Ferguson of Rufus Cubed Productions said that a feature-length machinima production is inevitable, especially as the game tools continue to evolve to show facial emotions and better acting. Animation director and one of the night's winners, Jun Falkenstein questioned the point at which those machinima tool updates would change the technique into a standard animated movie. Are the rough edges in machinima part of its definition?

Henry Lowood, Curator of Stanford's History of Science and Technology Collections, also stressed that accessibility and rapid production are the root of machinima. He mentioned French Democracy, a story created with The Movies that responded almost immediately to last year's riots around Paris. He said that this method of quick reaction is "a power we really have never had before."

Will machinima become regular-old animation once the results mirror other computer animation tools? Are accessibility and quick response the real root of the style?

I'm sitting in a nondescript conference room in a humble office building in Menlo Park, CA, a quiet Silicon Valley burg, just next to Stanford University. A polite, uniformed team of Xfire employees check on me to make sure the internet connection works. A large plasma television -- the only thing in the office that seems flashy -- plays a loop of the winners in their World of Warcraft machinima contest. The event is tonight, and I've (surprisingly) been asked to be a panelist following the screening, along with two noted machinima creators and two academics researching the field.

We've been posting about the nominees occasionally, like when movies (such as Jun Falkenstein's "Ballad of the Noob") find themselves on YouTube from behind Xfire's client-required downloads. I've managed to dig up all of the nominees from Gametrailers, whose Daniel Kayser is moderating the panel, and posted the links after the break. We'll run another post after the winners are announced, just in case you aren't able to make the event.

Anyone in the area -- like, say ... Stanford students -- can stop by the Peter Wallenberg Learning Theater at 6:00pm PT to watch the three hour event. As usual, I've brought a handful of Joystiq shirts, so stop by and ask for one after enjoying the festivities.

File this under "strange but true." In conjunction with Stanford University's Folding@home project, PlayStation 3 owners who leave their consoles connected to the internet can lend their extra horespower to running calculations and studying various proteins. So far the project has made numerous discoveries, and the long-term goals include finding cures for Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease and certain forms of cancer.

For those of you who don't care about humanity's survival, every PS3 user who runs the program gets a visualization program of the folding process, complete with HDR lighting. You can check out videos via the bottom of the FAQ. Next time you're throwing a party and need some killer visuals, hook up a PS3, put on some electronica, and have yourself a life-saving rave!

[Via Engadget; thanks to everyone who sent this in!]