Distributed Computing, Distributed Web App

Came across this article on CNN just now "Your dusty old PC may hold the cure for cancer"  and I suddenly remembered this experiment back in my college days and  I used to participate in a similar program.

This is definilty nothing new, but it dosn't mean it's not signifcant. If you use the idea properly and have a good usage based on this distributed computing idea, then I really imaging you could do amazing things. Throughout history, we've seen again and again how an idea was invented years and years back, and then never got the spotlight till someone who came up with a great usage for them.

Surely, webservices these days are created for this purpose. We've seen how we share google maps, temperature, amazon book lists, paypal credit card processing and so on and so forth. The recent "Ajax" crazyness only got to the spotlight because google - a highly visible company brough the technology into their search - something millions and millions of people use, but ascynchonous call back to the server sure was there already for a long long time. Still, it doesn't quit hitted my nerve till I read this paragraph in the article.

"The project sends work to computers that have installed the necessary free software. When the machine is idle, it figures out how an individual protein -- a building block of life -- might fold or contort, displaying the possibilities in a screen saver. When the PC is done crunching, it sends the results back to Baker's team and grabs more work"

Grab some work and then do some more? Now THAT is amazing.

This is what's lacking in our web applications. We need to make our web to be"smart"! Let others do what they do the best and you do what you do the best, integrate your powers together and that is what intelligence is all about.

This makes me think about how I design my software, why? I don't really know right now. I just feel like there is something we are not doing right or missing.

For example, take the web information scenario,

Social bookmarks, Tagging, it's all a step forward in terms of faciliating the "intellegence" , but it still remains in the "preparation" stage, for some intelligence to consume it. It's simply a "Preparetor" intelligence. It's not enough.

One layer up is our beloved search engines currently acting as the "legs" for us. It crawles through the web, collects info, but what do we do with it? Back to human for the consumption. It's a "Collector" intelligence. Surely, someone does the leg work for us is nice, but I'm lazy, think for me!! Not quite there yet.

Is that all? Not yet! how does the search engine crawles or know where to crawl? We need a "Connector" intelligence (webservices). Hey, I know where to hook you up, here are the people and the location, thank me later.

What is the intelligence on top of that? I can't think of any right now. Who act as the "Analysts" intelligence? Who act as the "Decision" intelligence? and that's only half of the battle.

In my imaginary brain, the web in the future goes like this.

- I - the human tells the web in a human like conversation.. I want this [...] Might it be a wishful thinking posted somewhere, through a chat application with someone else, whatever. 

- The Web reader intelligence correctly identifies who I am, linked my random thoughts together and identified the exact needs, what's useful to me and what's not.

- These information gets passed to the collector intelligence and tell it.. go do the leg work and collect base on these quateria, don't get me the useless crap, find the ones I idenitfied as useful, when you are done, pass it to the analysts intelligence.

- Analysts  got back the data, analyze the info and form an aggregated "report" of differents ways to do the same thing, to mak me - the human happy.

- Decision intelligence then make a final decision and present it back to me - the human.

- Human is happy because it as close I'll get to what I want if it's not exactly what I want.

We got tagging, search engine, the connector (web services), but we dont' have the rest yet.

I wonder what the world will be like when I'm old and wrinkly.