While you sleep, your smartphone could be doing something much more useful than acting as your alarm clock.
Vodafone Australia has launched DreamLab, an Android app that uses your smartphone’s computing power to assist in cancer research while you’re not using it. DreamLab, a three-year collaboration between Australia’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the Vodafone Foundation, wants to use your idle smartphone to help cure cancer.
To participate, all you have to do is download the free Android app from the Google Play Store and make sure your phone is being charged. Choose the types of cancer research you want to support, whether breast, prostate, ovarian or pancreatic, nominate how much mobile network or Wi-Fi data you’d like to donate, and each night, your phone will solve small problems that contribute to big picture research at the Garvan Institute.
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.
Users can choose which type of cancer they’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 .DreamLab will run on both Wi-Fi and mobile networks; if you’re on Vodafone’s service in Australia, you won’t be charged for data transmitted through the app.
