[eigen] Announcing eigen.js for cloud computing

[Benoit Jacob <jacob.benoit.1@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

JavaScript is quickly becoming the best language to implement
something like Eigen. Recent development in JavaScript JITs, such as
tracing [1] and polymorphic inline caches [2] are exactly what we need
to efficiently do what we currently do in C++ with expression
templates. Actually, thanks to being JIT compiled on the client's
machine, this could easily outperform C++ code.

So, today I announce eigen.js:
https://bitbucket.org/bjacob/eigen.js

Envisioned applications include games, since new technologies such as
WebGL [3] allow for modern gaming in the browser.

But the real vision is cloud computing. Suppose that you have a large
computation-intensive task to perform. Until now, you had to purchase
expensive hardware to accomplish that. But by integrating eigen.js
scripts into your website, you could run a little bit of computation
on each visitor's computers, without them even noticing. This could be
the next revolution in the monetization of the web, which so far was
mostly based on annoying and privacy-invading advertisement systems.
By leveraging the untapped computational potential of millions of web
users, one could achieve the first non-advertising business model
supporting free Web services. Moreover, while advertisements are easy
to block [4] as the ads are served from external domains, your
eigen.js-based computation scripts could be entirely integrated into
your webpage, making it entirely transparent to the user.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace_tree
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inline_caching#Polymorphic_inline_caching
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adblock_Plus

Cheers,
Benoit