Is it possible to get BOINC to use more then just idle CPU cycles? If not then that should be added as a feature to allow people who are truly committed to push farther then their normal limits. Also, how many cores is BOINC designed to work with? They now have quad core processors and I read that there will be 8 cores by 2009. Will BOINC be able to keep up with the latest hardware? What about using the idle cycles of GPU's? It seems to me that BOINC should be able to get some cycles out of unused video cards. With all the hardware in computers these days, BOINC doesn't seem to be working at it's full potential.

1) The way to get more out of a computer used for BOINC, is to NOT use it for anything else.

2) BOINC will use the number of cores that you allow it to, in the General preference setting on each project website. Currently it defaults to 16

3) In general, GPUs work fast by using low precision maths to move data around. They may be OK on some projects with e.g. integer maths.
Some projects, such as Climateprediction, use floating point maths in high precision. For these, GPUs would be slower than a cpu.
And the science application for each project would have to be rewritten specifically for the GPU.