DreamLab - Powering Research

Description of App

From the App Store:
***Temporarily, DreamLab is being used to support research to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19.***

Imagine if you could really make a difference and help to speed up time in the fight against Covid-19 and cancer.

DreamLab is a multi-award winning app from the Vodafone Foundation, in partnership with Imperial College London, which uses the collective power of mobile phones to fast track Covid-19 and cancer research. DreamLab exists to help find answers quicker and the more people who use DreamLab, the faster it works.

Medical research currently generates huge volumes of health data around the world every day, but access to computing power to crunch and make sense of this data is limited. Your mobile device contains a huge amount of computing power needed to run everything from email to music and video streaming apps, but is mostly dormant while you plug it in to charge overnight. DreamLab harnesses this processing power, of yours and thousands of other mobile phones, to examine such health data to look specifically at how existing drugs can be repurposed to help in the fight against cancer.

DreamLab taps into this invaluable resource to find more effective combinations of drugs that can be tailored to patients to improve treatments and save lives. As a Dreamer you can even choose which project to support and also select how much mobile data the app uses every month (or only on WiFi). Just one PC running 24 hours a day would need 300 years to process the data required to complete the project. However, 100,000 smartphones running DreamLab for six hours a night could fast track the job in just three months.

Download the DreamLab app today and start making a difference to lives in the fight against cancer.

Charge
Download the DreamLab app, choose a project to support and each time your phone is plugged in, charged and connected to the internet, you’ll be helping to save lives in the fight against Covid-19 and cancer.

Sleep
Charge your phone overnight and while you #SleepLikeAHero, DreamLab taps into its unused processing power to support vital cancer research.

Fight Covid-19 and Cancer
Alongside thousands of other DreamLab users, while you sleep you’ll be using your phone to power a virtual supercomputer, capable of processing billions of calculations – and helping fast track research into better ways to fight Covid-19 and cancer.

When you plug your phone in and power DreamLab, it downloads tiny parts of a huge research project from the cloud to calculate and sends the results back to the team at Imperial College London. The more people who power DreamLab, the faster we can find the right drugs and treatments to beat cancer. All you need to do is set up DreamLab once and it will get to work each time you plug your phone in.

To help the fight against Covid-19 and cancer, and find the drugs and treatments needed to fight them, simply download the app (#) and choose which Project you’d like to support. You can also track the contribution you’ve made and keep up to date with news.

DreamLab supports cancer research globally and is powered by the Vodafone Foundation.

https://www.vodafone.co.uk/mobile/dreamlab

* A compatible handset is required. Downloading DreamLab will consume mobile data. Once downloaded, DreamLab can be used when your device (i) is connected to a charging source and (ii) has mobile network or WiFi connectivity.

# By downloading, installing or otherwise using the DreamLab application on your device, you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions found at https://www.vodafone.co.uk/mobile/dreamlab

If you do not agree to be bound by these Terms, you should not download, install or otherwise use DreamLab Application.

Version

2.2.7

Free or Paid

Free

Apple Watch Support

No

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

iOS Version

14.3

Accessibility Comments

I would say this app is fully accessible. The only (minor) issue I have encountered is that in the lab screen, when a session is active and while reviewing the information displayed in there (number of calculations, session duration etc), focus sometimes jumps to the bottom of the screen and the swiping order appears to change. to get it To read the screen correctly again, you have to explore by touch until you find the information you are looking for.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads all page elements.

Button Labeling

All buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.

Other Comments

This is a pretty unique app: it is amazing to think that a common smartphone is powerful enough to perform meaningful research calculations. I highly recommend it, especially during these times, since we can help the fight against COVID-19.
Note that in order for it to work, you have to keep your phone unlocked and the app open. Therefore I recommend turning the screen curtain on: since the same image stays displayed on the screen for a long time, there could be a potential risk of damaging the screen, or so I read in some reviews of this app. Unfortunately there is no background option at this time; hope they will add it someday, so it could perform calculations also when using other apps and while locked, the device could also perform the backup through iCloud if one has that set up.

Recommendations

1 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by Laura Tosetto 3 years 8 months ago

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