[tstactplsignore]

Looking up one of the fellows who is using "crowd-sourced mobile computing", I came across:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/21/meet-hyv-a-startup-that-can...

Apparently the idea is to build a pay-to-use BOINC or Folding@Home, except for iPhones, where the startup steps in by actually *paying 3rd party app developers to bundle their distribution code in their app, thereby allowing them to run independent code on a user's phone using the unaware user's computing resources, data plan, and battery life without the user's direct permission?

Not only would this seriously inconvenience consumers, have ample security risks, have a dubious market for legitimate customers (Such a system could never outperform the price of AWS or a custom GPU cluster, let alone volunteer networks like BOINC and Folding@Home), only works at a ludicrously large scale (Are there even enough iPhones out there to reach Folding@Home's 45 petaflops?), would require those running complicated algorithms to port optimized code to Objective-C, but the icing on the cake is it only works on unlocked phones.

So, did Thiel just fund a ridiculous idea which is essentially malware or am I missing something?

[uptown]

Sure, maybe today the concept isn't the right fit for cell phones (all sorts of trade-offs regarding CPU usage, battery-life, data consumption, etc.) but perhaps the concept can evolve to take advantage of the future "internet of things" grid which is likely to connect devices that have plenty of spare processing cycles without the same constraints imposed by a mobile phone.

Aim for where the ball is going. Not where it is right now.

[spartango]

As I understand it, TF tries to pick good people even if they are working on not-so-bulletproof projects at the moment. That's likely the justification here.

Keep in mind that the funding is a grant (rather than equity/royalty/loan) and is not given to the project but the individual.