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April 12, 2006, 03:20 PM ET
SETI@Home Searches for Cash
SETI@Home, the pioneering project that put personal computers to work in the search for extraterrestrial life, may shut down because of financial struggles.
The distributed-computing effort, begun in 1999, has attracted more than 5 million participants and spawned a number of imitators. But as the dot-com glory days ended and the novelty of grid computing wore off, corporate sponsorship for the project all but dried up. (VNUNet)
Supporters of SETI@Home -- including Arthur C. Clarke, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey -- are hoping to scrounge up $750,000 by the end of the year to keep the project going. But some bloggers, like Silicon Valley Sleuth, say it might be time for SETI@Home to retire: With other grid-computing endeavors asking users to help simulate protein folding and search for a cure for AIDS, casting about for ET seems a bit less urgent.
Categories: Research
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