CPUShare will allow you to run computations on random computers through the Internet with the object of generating a Low Cost and World Wide Supercomputer crunching data 24/7. You will be able to buy and sell cpu cycles online through CPUShare in the first global market of the CPU. The cpu sellers will only have to create an account in a few seconds and to run the client software to stop wasting idle cpu cycles and to start producing more cash than what the computer will burn in energy costs while computing at 100% cpu power. The cpu buyers will have to modify a livecd iso image with their grid software inside, create an account, add funds with PayPal and then they can immediately start massive computing too. Trusted computing can furthermore provide the buyers an almost total guarantee of reliability of the results and of secrecy of the data being computed.
With a common slow laptop computer on battery you will be able to control a theoretically unlimited number of virtual machines running remotely. Besides the cost savings, the other advantages will be: no more hardware maintenance, no space needed to locate the hardware, no need of air conditioning and finally... no more fan noise ;).
If instead one desktop computer is more than enough for your computation needs and you're only interested to surf the Internet, to send emails, to chat, to listen to music, or you're simply using OpenOffice most of the time, CPUShare will allow you for the first time to benefit actively from the idle cycles in your desktop computer, and your only choice won't be to donate them (at your expense) anymore. You will earn money for the hard work your computer will be capable of doing while you surf the Internet, listen to music, watch a DVD or write your documents, thanks to the CPUShare software.
While powerful cpus will always be very important for desktop users, for example to avoid waiting minutes while opening big applications, the cpu on desktop systems tends to do nothing after the desktop interactive applications started up: the cpu only waits for more input from the keyboard/mouse/network. Multicore technology is creating an huge amount of wasted idle cpu resources, so it'll always become more important to provide to the desktop users a technology that will allow them to profit from their idle cpu resources, to allow wealth to be generated, instead of wasting energy.
These days the networking bandwidth and latency is bad on the Internet if compared to a gigabit intranet, so the number of applications suitable to be run on the virtual ethernet generated by CPUShare is small if compared to the number of applications that can run on clusters with gigabit ethernets, but this will eventually change.
It'll be possible to repeat the same computations in different countries or on different kind of hardware and to verify the results are the same. Buyers might be able to mark the sellers as "good" or "bad" dealers after each transaction depending on the results provided, so that it will be easy to identify any abuse or faulty hardware. The feedback rating of each seller is optional because it will require small modifications to the legacy grid software.
Trusted computing on the buy side will only be a button to enable in the website when you place the buy order. And no seller will ever be required to provide the trusted computing attestation in order to join CPUShare, trusted computing will remain an optional feature. However trusted resources might be sold at an higher price if compared to untrusted ones.
Buyers are able to screen the sellers based on network bandwidth, latency, cpu performance and ratings. It'll be the buyer responsibility to make sure the license of the software allows him/her to run it on top of CPUShare.
The CPUShare virtual ethernet can be easily be connected to the local ethernet or even to the internet to extend the computing power on demand. The grid software won't notice the difference except for the virtual CPUShare ethernet being slower than the local network.
CPUShare sell side by default and by design will work through firewalls and NATs. As far as ssh and skype audio calls work fine, CPUShare will likely work fine too. Your computer will not require any TCP/UDP incoming port open. However if you're willing to open one single UDP port on your firewall you could profit significantly by allowing the buyer to create a fully interconnected virtual ethernet (so each virtual machine in each seller computer can talk directly to another virtual machine in another seller computer, without passing through the buyer).
CPUShare will be profitable by charging a commission for each transaction (currently as a percentage of the money transferred with the Add Funds procedure). In future versions of the system the sellers might also be allowed to specify a not null per byte fee for their networking costs, and the buyers would be then allowed to screen the sellers in function of their networking fees too.
See the CPUShare User Agreement to learn about the details of the actual implementation. The User Agreement and the CPUShare implementation can change over time to improve the service or to decrease the CPUShare commission fees.