[qeorge]

From later in the post: "The key is nobody has to cool these devices, so it’s almost like free computing at the endpoint."

Also, you don't have to buy it! (the user bought their phone/computer and pays for the power)

I agree its a bit handwavy. I suppose the remaining cost is the cost of transmitting more data?

But regardless, it is a good point - we are absolutely crazy to not be taking advantage of all the free computing and power that our users have purchased for us to use (and are paying the costs up upgrades and maintenance). I've felt this way for a while (especially when OnLive came out), but it seems that servers have so far been cheap enough that its been cheaper to buy more servers than spend valuable engineering time making your app distributed.

[SoftwareMaven]

Yes, but it needs to be done very carefully. As soon as your app is draining my battery or running my fans inappropriately, your app is gone. The key word, of course, is inappropriately. This puts caps on how much you can use, but it is still an essentially free resource.

[dinkumthinkum]

I think that's a major issue. The best way we know how to save battery live on devices now is not all these fancy computing techniques or what have you, it is the finish a computation and shut the device off as quickly as possible. So this strategy seems to run counter to that basic idea of power saving.

[walterbell]

Also applies to desktop browsers, e.g. https://crowdprocess.com