Donate your Android Device's Processing Power in Research

New app puts idle smartphones to work for science

Android smartphone users will soon have a chance to participate in important scientific research every time they charge their phones. Using a new app created by researchers at UC Berkeley, users will be able to donate a phone's idle computing power to crunch numbers for projects that could lead to breakthroughs ranging from novel medical therapies to the discovery of new stars.
BOINC logo

Photo and video upload size options

With unlimited photo and video uploads, Google+ makes it easy to upload photos to share with the people you care about. Learn how to upload and share your photos.

Upload options

• Photos you upload will be stored at Standard size. Standard size photos are best for web sharing, and have a resolution designed to look great on tablets. If your preference is to have your photos uploaded at standard size, photos will be resized to 2048 pixels on the longest edge. You can store an unlimited number of standard size photos on Google+.
   
• Full size uploads are currently available when you upload photos on your desktop, or with Auto Backup on your Android device. Full size photos refers to the original image resolution of your photo (e.g. 4288 x 2848). Full size uploads will count against your Google Drive storage quota.
  
  When you're beginning to run low on storage, you'll see a notification in your notification tray. If you run out of Google Drive storage quota we'll automatically switch to storing photos at standard size. You can purchase more storage space, if needed.
   
• You can upload an unlimited number of videos that are less than 15 minutes long and 1080p or lower resolution. Videos longer than 15 minutes long, or taken at a higher resolution than 1080p, will count against your Google Drive storage quota. Learn more about Google Drive storage.

It's not necessary for you to purchase additional storage, but if you'd prefer to continuing uploading and storing full size uploads, additional storage is available for purchase. Learn how to get the most out of your storage.

Enable or disable full size uploads

On desktop

1. Select  Settings from Google+ navigation menu.
2. Scroll down to the Photos section and check or uncheck the box next to 'Upload my photos at full size'. You can change this option at any time. You can see how much storage you have left directly beneath the setting to upload photos at full size.

On your mobile device

1. From the Google+ app, touch Menu.
2. Touch Settings.
3. Touch Auto Backup.
4. Touch Set upload size and select Full size or Standard size.

How to purchase more storage space

Google Drive storage powers Google+ photos, Auto Backup, Google Drive, Gmail, and Picasa. If you wish to purchase more storage, find out more information about Google Drive storage plans and pricing.

Note: Full size upload is not available on iOS, however, you can still use Auto Backup to store photos at standard size.

A new Android app called BOINC allows smartphone users to contribute their phone's processing power to scientific research.

The app was created by a Berkeley project called BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing), which is known for its computer software that supports more than 50 volunteer computing projects around the world. BOINC software allows projects to tap unused processing power donated by computer owners around the world to analyze data or run simulations that would normally require cost-prohibitive supercomputers.

The new Android app, also called BOINC, will be available Monday, July 22, from the Google Play Store and works on Android versions 2.3 or later. The app currently supports several popular computing projects, including Einstein@Home, which searches radio telescope data for spinning stars called pulsars, and FightAIDS@Home, which searches for more effective AIDS therapies as part of IBM's World Community Grid. Android, owned by Google Inc., is the operating system used by two-thirds of all smartphones today.

"There are about a billion Android devices right now, and their total computing power exceeds that of the largest conventional supercomputers," said BOINC creator David Anderson, a research scientist at UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory. "Mobile devices are the wave of the future in many ways, including the raw computing power they can provide to solve computationally difficult problems."

Creation of the app was funded by the Max Planck Institute, which runs Einstein@Home; Google Inc.; and the National Science Foundation, which has supported BOINC since 2002. IBM assisted in the design of the user interface and organized beta testing of the app.
Einstein@home

Sign up for Einstein@home and search for spinning stars called pulsars using the new BOINC app.

"Our main goals are to make it easy for scientists to use BOINC to create volunteer computing projects to further their research, and to make it easier for volunteers to participate," Anderson said.

Anderson noted that the app will run only when the phone is plugged in and charging and after the battery is more than 95 percent charged, since computing can slow the recharge rate. It will only communicate with computing projects through the Internet when connected via WiFi, to avoid burning through users' data plans. These default settings can be customized by users, however.

Other projects now available through the BOINC app are Asteroids@home, operated by Charles University in Prague; OProject@Home; and Yoyo@home.

Among the projects slated to be adapted to the Android BOINC app is the first and most successful volunteer computing project, UC Berkeley's SETI@home, which analyzes radio telescope data in search of intelligent signals from space.

Owners of iPhones should stay tuned. A BOINC app for Apple products like iPhone and iPad may be Anderson's next project.