Emerging Technology

Let your PC join an army of several million others and save the world—while you sleep

By Steven Johnson
Aug 2, 2004 5:00 AMNov 12, 2019 6:33 AM

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I’m beginning to suspect my computer does more good for the world the less I use it. During the day, I pound away at my keyboard—writing prose, sending e-mail, surfing through my usual routine of Web sites. But at night, as I sleep soundly in the other room, my computer works steadily in the darkness, trying to find a cure for smallpox.

Illustration by Leo Espinosa

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