MoneyBee is a distributed computing

Distributed computing

Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...

 project in the fields of economics

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

, finance

Finance

"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...

 and stock market

Stock market

A stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...

s, that generates stock forecasts by application of artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...

 with the aid of artificial neural networks. MoneyBee acts as a screensaver, thus the user hardly notices the program running on his PC. The project is run by i42 Informationsmanagement GmbH, a consulting private company from Mannheim

Mannheim

Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The project is currently suspended with a standing invitation for any interested in joining the MoneyBee2 project.

History

The idea was first conceived in an economics thesis on stock forecasts with the aid of artificial neural networks at the University of Heidelberg. The MoneyBee system was then developed by i42 GmbH, Mannheim, who added some innovative features to the original idea.

Since starting in September 2000, many users downloaded the German version. By 2001, about 12,000 users were generating 0,1 Teraflops of computing capacity – comparable to an average university

University

A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...

 mainframe computer

Mainframe computer

Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...

at the time.

Prizes and awards

In Germany, Moneybee won two prizes: the German Federal Ministry of Economy's Multimedia Award (Foerderpreis Gruendungswettbewerb Multimedia 1999), Berlin, and the Shortlist ("10 Best Ideas") at the innovations contest CyberOne 2000 in Stuttgart. MoneyBee was also nominated for the Neo Online Awards.