2007-11-12 PowaPhone

2007-11-12 PowaPhone, originally uploaded by royblumenthal.

Please vote for this on Crunchgear! I need about 70 votes to stand a chance!!!

This is an entry on the CrunchGear 'Best Friends Forever' site. They've called for people to supply their very best open source ideas for what would be awesome on a cellphone.

I THINK they're fishing for things to add to phones once the Google 'OpenSocial' platform comes into being.

My idea is pretty simple. You've heard of the SETI project, right? The 'Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence'. Computer users can sign up to make their computers available to the SETI project to assist in the massive number crunching involved in sifting through the radio static picked up from outer space. They're looking for something that resembles a pattern, something that can't possibly originate from a randon source.

The way they do this is they create a powerful supercomputer by using bits and pieces of everyone's computer in the project.

Now. Let's get back to cellphones.

They're puny, right? The processors are TINY. And they can barely send MMS without a burden, yeah? But now what if phones were all linked up to a friendly, open-source, distributed computing platform?

Say I'm not using my phone right now. Neither are twenty or thirty other people in the vicinity. But you've just shot a little video, and you want to edit it quickly before zapping it onto YouTube.

Currently, you can't edit video on a cellphone. There just isn't enough processing power. But what if YOUR phone could 'borrow' processing power from all of the inactive phones in the area? Not only the phones, but ANY computer on the network?

You'd be able to edit, create 3D animations, run massive spreadsheets. Whatever.

And when your phone is inactive, you'll return the favour to others in need.

All at zero cost. Because you don't use your phone connection to do it. You use Wifi and Bluetooth.

I'm calling it PowaPhone, just for the hell of it. Sounds kinda muscly.

If you like this idea, please go to the CrunchGear site and vote for my entry! I realllllly wanna win the free Nokia N95 they're giving away. [http://www.crunchgear.com/bff/?p=177#more-177]

Oh... and if you're an open sourcer, and like this idea, please feel free to implement it!

This pic originated as two separate sketches in my Moleskine. I scanned them in, comped them together in Photoshop, and then did all the colour work there too. All on my Toshiba Tecra M4 tablet pc.