Peter Hofstee is one of the brilliant minds behind the Cell that powers our PlayStation 3 (PS3) video game consoles. Designs for the technology, which started seven years ago, include multiple uses aside from playing video games. And the fruits of his labor, including those of Microsoft's and IBM Corp.'s, are beginning to be realized today.

Aside from the Folding@Home Project that has received a very warm welcome within the gaming community, the Cell technology is being used quite differently in Rochester, Minnesota. Mayo Clinic researchers are currently using an IBM Cell blade server and the clinic's own software to accelerate the processing of 3D medical images such as magnetic resonance imaging.

Germany Fraunhofer Institute scientists, on the other hand, used several Cell servers to reconstruct a 3D image of a beating human heart from MRI scans. The importance of this is that it allowed doctors to view the organ with special glasses and make virtual incisions in real time.

Also, the University of Washington in Seattle utilized the technology last year by demonstrating how the Cell technology can improve the quality and speed of ultrasound scans. "In the future, you might be operating on somebody and repairing their heart valve while only making minimal incisions and not even having to string a camera inside," commented Hofstee.

Hofstee's own PS3 is one of the 30,000 units newly lined up to participate in the Folding@Home project. Currently, more than 270,000 systems are actively helping, two-thirds of which are PS3 units.