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The PC Display has Left the Building
Makarand writes "A new class of PC displays, called Smart Displays, that will use Wi-Fi to effectively decouple
themselves from the PC will be unveiled next week at Comdex. Special software
from Microsoft ( code-named 'Mira') will be at the heart of these displays
allowing them to communicate with any PC running Windows XP within Wi-Fi range ( typically several hundred feet ). The surface of a Smart Display will be touch sensitive allowing you to interact using a finger or a stylus."
Now I can look at everyone else's porn as well as my own!
I interact with my Windows XP using a finger all the time.
If you open yourself to the foo, You and foo become one.
Because when I think "security" I automatically think "Microsoft" and "802.11b."
If sure these will just FLY off the shelves, so people can ensure that the script kiddie next door will be able to watch in realtime as you type up your post to alt.members.nambla-- before you even hit the "Submit" button!
Think of the potential harm you can do by sniffing these networks.. Everything concerning patients in hospitals is classified information isn't it?
Think of the bandwidth situation:
The average LCD screen is 1024x768x4(bytes)x60hz = 188,743,680 bytes per second of transfer over a wireless connection.
I have no idea what kind of wireless system can transfer data like that, so there would definitely be a loss in picture quality somewhere.
It's a neat idea, but without a real connection, data cannot travel that fast, and there's probably proprietary software behind it that would make it a WXP monitor ONLY, for whatever method it uses.
So now some war driver is going to be able to intercept the communications between my touchscreen monitor and PC? I think I'll pass.
How can we afford to ever sleep
So sound again
--ebtg
Hmmmm. This is actually kinda cool and innovative which surprises me as it came from the company whose only true innovations that I am aware of are Clippy and Bob. Does anyone here know if this technology was home grown, or did Microsoft purchase this as well?
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Also, wouldn't this make things a little TOO easy. Before, someone could easily comprimise your network, they still had to work to hit anything else, now you are giving them access directly to your desktop.
The resolution of a touch screen is reduced because fingers (or stylus) are much fatter than mouse pointers.
I like touch, but recognize the limitations involved as I have worked on touch drivers in the past.
Fight Spammers!
I'm curious, does writing on a screen ever make scratches, even after years of heavy use?
Also the model mentioned is $1300 for a 15" next year, while you can pick up a $700 Samsung 19" LCD at Best Buy today.
No... Imagine having a VNC terminal running on your LCD screen (complete with RAM and processor)-- no need for inputs, disk, etc. And another terminal running 'locally'. So now, not a whole lot of bandwidth is required to show images, and you in effect have a "wireless" screen.
It seems we can do an open source solution quite quickly...
I demand a million helicopters and a DOLLAR!
Somebody check my math here, but an 800x600 resultion display with 24 bit color depth needs 11,520,000 bits to be described uncompressed. Yeah, I know there's all sorts of compression than can be applied, but this is going to need something along the lines 40X compression effectiveness in order to fit into an 802.11b signal, or about 10X if you want to use 802.11a. Mira had better be very good at shrinking the bandwidth down.
How many of these things can work within the same office building at once before the Wi-Fi bandwidth gets saturated and ends up jamming the other wireless networking functionality as well?
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Now for a limited time, you can buy a product to sniff both X10 networks and users porn^H^H^H^Hdesktops!
Only $199.99 for this amazing device!!!
(note, not garenteed to break ssh tunnels)
This
This is exactly what I was thinking. I could see this working for relatively static screens like you'd have with web browsing or typical business apps, but I can't imagine this working well for games or watching videos...
The surface of a Smart Display will be touch sensitive allowing you to interact using a finger or a stylus
Now I can actually finger a user using a real finger.
$cat
It will only be crap if you're playing UT on it. With normal desktop use very few pixels from one cycle to the next, and there is pretty good image desktop image compression technology already in existance with Remote Desktop. I assume the system also is able to handle the desktop image separately from the rest of the screen. The bandwidth you calculated is an absolute maximum, and really isn't very meaningful.
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Basicly Microsoft has just invented "the terminal". I already do this with my iBook. Its pretty creepy running XP remotely in full screen. Its unlikely that anyone will be able to play games with it.
Sorry about the typo.
My monitor can show me full-motion video... can this thing? If it can't, then it's not a full replacement for my desktop monitor like the article claims it world be.
.mpg file playing.
Yes, you can make sprites out of Windows icons and the such, but that still doesn't work when you have an
This does bring up some interesting security issues, will the wifi network be encrypted in any way?
Honestly this is something I've wanted for a while as a way to put my DVD Player (computer) in a hidden, out of the way place and allow it to be controlled from a screen sitting at the couch. But at the price listed in the article, (1k-1.25k for first generation Viewsonics), the screen will be worth signifigantly more than the computer.
I'd also like to know if a standard monitor connected to the computer is needed to boot the computer. I'd assume that unless your boot process enters Windows XP w/o interaction that you need another monitor/periferal set to boot.
Finally, Can these be used with linux? If they are running Mira or windows CE for portable displays or whatever you call it it sounds like there is a small amount of internal memory to store the OS. Could these be converted into a linux thin client?
I do security
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What is the name of that method of evesdropping on a user by intercepting the radiation from the monitor?
This brings a whole new meaning to evesdropping using the video output.
And even if the output is encrypted, somthing tells me that there would either be one master key, or some sort of escrow system that we have no control over. It seems like this technology would be great for the feds, and maybe a silent part of MS's agreement with the DOJ.
"We will market this technology, making it so pervasisve as to be the prefered method. Once everyone is using it, you can evesdrop on anyone, since we will give you the master key. In return, you slap our wrists on this other thing."
Instead of buying some proprietary solution:
Why not use a large lcd screen, a compact flash (or similar) HD, 128mb or so ram, and a small processor, and a PXE (network) boot over the 802.11 connection?
(essentially a large screen, minimal hardware, networked tablet PC)
That way the corporation can run whatever software it wants.
As people have pointed out though, its going to be hard to display movies or games on these (or videoconfrencing for that matter)
This
I see this included in some sort of kvm solution. One less thing for the MCSE's to not have to be able to figure out :-)
Mod point free since 2001
Makarand writes:
The surface of a Smart Display will be touch sensitive allowing you to interact using a finger or a stylus."
This sounds suspiciously like my girlfriend...
My
Limekiller
Given the way Remote Desktop currently works, remote 3D (or any app that writes directly to a framebuffer such as PowerDVD or most TV tuner software) won't be possible. (I know - I've tried TVs, DVDs, and 3D games over RDP with no luck.)
Remote Desktop doesn't read from the framebuffer. It switches the primary display to a virtualized video card and monitor with capabilities set by the client system (resolution, bit depth, etc.).
You can check this. Fire up a RDP session into an XP Pro box and open the display control panel. The video adapter listed won't be the physical video card you've got on the system.
Hopefully I'll turn out to be wrong about Mira devices (and Microsoft will have drivers reading from the card itself, making 3D and DVD possible), but with their past record, I'm probably right.
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
This sounds like something that Bill Gates thought up. It's like the Tablet PC: a solution in search of a problem.
Always remember that in the absence of other people's good ideas to steal, Microsoft attempts to "innovate." The result is usually crappy ideas that come from none other than Gates himself (the Tablet PC has been his pet project for a long time).
What's the point? Wireless displays? Why bother, when you can build an entire wireless computer in a form factor that isn't any larger than this wireless display? And of course you can simply remote your applications, using HTTP or X11, or even RDP if you really insist on staying in the Winworld. Sorry, I don't see any usefulness here.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
Wi-Fi covers more than just 802.11b. I think that's just a buzzword in this story... this is a proprietary technology so there's no reason MS couldn't have tweaked something about normal 802.11 technology to get the kind of bandwidth they needed (at the expense of other things like interferrence, I'm sure.)
Other questions: Does it require the OS to be up to be used (basically, must I plug in a real monitor to fiddle with the BIOS?) and will these be the "Windows Modems" of monitors?
I don't think these are for me.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
since this is most likely just an embedded windows+RDP client...
how long till someone can get this new display hardware, install linux+X+rdesktop ( http://www.rdesktop.org ) and undercut microsoft in the market?
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
What advantages does a remote screen have over a notebook? (or tablet?)
I guess it would deter employee theft, because it wouldnt work outside the network.
But does it really make financial sense to buy something for inter building work, and then have to buy even more stuff so that employees can work outside the building (ie trips).
Or do they envision this thing to replace desktop PC's with wireless screens and massive centralized servers? (and what would the cost benifit be? it costs $500 to buy a full desktop PC, vs $1k for the wireless display, and then $50k for a server)
This
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I don't believe it one bit. They purport to be able to send "video" through the air? Over long distances? Sorry, but for now I think we're stuck with cable television and cabled monitors. I just don't see how receiving pictures from thin air would work.
But think of the possibilities if it did! We could turn on a TV anywhere and receive the latest news and watch our favorite shows. We would no longer be restricted by wires. Imagine that, wireless TV!
qslack.com
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Just as programs such as PC Anywhere don't need to transmit every single pixel of the screen for every frame, here too you can simply transmit the parts of the screen that need updating (ie, parts that have changed since the previous frame). Windows already does this internally (partial screen redraws), so it shouldn't be too hard to implement. Most of the time, you'll only need to update a small area around the cursor. If you don't have a cursor, and instead use a finger or pen, you don't even need to update that.
Of course, you probably won't get brilliant performance in action games, but I doubt any action game fanatic would use a touchscreen (or even an LCD) anyway.
Oh, and you can transmit a lot more than that using wireless, but using partial updates you will probably never need to.
RMN
~~~
Ok, not to mention the fact that I'm sure they will use some sort of proprietary packet formatting (this is Microsoft we're talking about people) that only the display (or a really clever OSS developer) will be able to decypher. That alone is secure.
...so using WiFi encryption would have your session doubley encrypted I guess.
If you haven't played around with RDP, checkout rdesktop ( http://www.rdesktop.org/ )
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
It took me years to get a PC on my desk instead of a "dumb terminal." Now that there are Smart Displays, the ones everybody already has will become "dumb displays." Sigh.
Guess what you can do with a proprietary digital interface connecting your monitor to your trusted computing platform? That's right! You can add in more Digital "Rights" enforcement mechanisms! Remember that the ultimate goal is total secure control over all the electronics between the media and the glowing phosphor in the screen and the vibrating elements in your speakers.
It's going to be incredibly useful. I'm getting a few to use in my stores. I don't have room for PC's up front, and I need touchscreen at the same time. This is designed for commercial or industrial uses. The tablet PC is designed for, well, more of a "gee whiz" factor (like PDA's).
You're not getting lag free over a 100 MB connection? Are you talking about playing a game or something like that? I regularly use Terminal Services with a 56K modem and the lag is relatively minor.
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I can see the next logical step in this...
1) Create Tablet PC with built in 802.11b
2) Create Wireless Display for 802.11b
3) ???
4) Take over the world
5) Profit becomes irrelevant
You can have it fast, accurate, or pretty. Pick any 2.
Ok, so I take a seat in the campus computer lab. They have just installed these marvels of market coersion wireless screens.
1. Instead of comfortably resting my hand over the mouse I have to do John Madden calesthenics to move things around on the screen "Boom!"
2. I don't really know if the screen I'm looking at is actually showing me the image from the computer where I am sitting.
3. I discover that it doesn't really matter that I am not looking at "my" computer, as long as nobody else sees the one I am using... until I try to use the keyboard.
4. It's all OK because although I'm not using my computer, I have a wireless keyboard, and it happens to be typing on the computer whose image I'm seeing.
5. I notice while I'm using this computer, that there is a lot of personalized stuff, and in fact I am using the computer of my accounting professor from his office on the floor below. I sneekily email his next test to myself.
6. Feeling smug about the test, I finish typing my report, print it, and reset my station, inadvertently destroying the work of a really cute girl on the other side of the lab.
7. While waiting at the printer for an unusually long time, I realize that my report with my name on it has just been printed on my accounting professors personal laserjet... in his office.
8. Feeling less smug about the test, I wonder to myself... When did computers start to suck so bad?
I hate this idea
Sounds like they thought of embedding a VNC client with an 802.11 card into an LCD display. It's a nifty idea, really; the concept of decoupling the user interface from devices is interesting. For example, assuming VNC was the standard remote display protocol, imagine the following scenario:
1. The display (LCD monitor with a VNC client) broadcasts discovery beacons
2. Devices in range respond. Your stereo, fridge, computer, laptop, handheld, watch, all equipped with VNC servers, announce themselves.
3. The LCD monitor shows a list of discovered devices. You pick one to interact with, say the stereo.
4. The user interface designed by the manufacturer of the stereo pops up on the LCD monitor.
Now repeat the above with a similarly capable TV, or head-mounted display. Very cool. (Security is not really a problem, all this can be end-to-end encrypted and authenticated).
Admittedly, the mechanism is conceptually similar to HTML-based user interfaces. Howeveer, the difference is that the VNC-based system is less restricted in what the servers can display; with HTML, the servers are restricted to using browsers and the kind of interaction they induce. Also, the HTML system, due to requiring a browser, is more heavy-weight.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
Come on! It is nothing more than VNC over Wi-Fi! One calls this "embrace and extend" and this time VNC is the victim.
My first thought, when reading this article, was "What about non-Windows users?" Then, after reading the comments, "Why is no one bringing up non-Windows users?"
But then, after a moment, I thought this-- would Linux/other "geek" OS users want to use a WiFi monitor, with all the inherent security concerns (not necessarily actual exploitable threats, but the scary POSSIBILITY of such a threat) involved?
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
This is windows XP (and higher) only. Windows XP already comes with a VNC client server setup that works quite nicely. I can log in as any user and it operates at pretty decent speeds. Just wish multiple logons were possible. Either way, this is what they are using I'm sure. Infact if you bought a tablet PC with wifi you could probably do this right now, but hopefully as these will be dedicated towards VNC they will be significantly cheaper.
Why not embed Linux and the XFree86 XServer on this wireless PC( I mean innovative display system ) and have xdm running on the beige box under the desk?
Wow, a remote display! How revolutionary!
If you want a taste of this then get a Sharp Zaurus, a WiFi card and install the XServer on it. You don't have the realestate of a 1028x768 display but the idea is the same.
Boy, this Microsoft thing is pure genius. NOT.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Didn't Viewsonic already do this? Slashdot Article
Basically an RDP session to the dekstop. Cool for certain applications, and could easily be applied to a X-Windows session too...
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
That's a good question.
Now, I know that virtually nobody on Slashdot has a job, or for the most part, even graduated from high school yet, but this *does* have real world applications. Since this was picked up by ABC news, every story they do is gonna revolve around fat ass home users on their couches. BUT, this thing does have a very practical use.
I'd like to get a few for my store. I have PC's up front, all networked, running my POS systems. I don't really have room for them, and the wires networking them to the back room are a pain. This will be a perfect solution. I can get rid of the PC's in the front, I don't need to worry about employees tripping over wires, and I even have the touchscreen feature that I need.
My guess is that MS had this in mind when developing this, but you can't exactly explain that to ABC News, which caters to people with an average IQ equal to that of a doorknob.
Now (knowing this crowd) I know I'm going to get flamed for this, but I'll put it out: I want on of these. Not a wishy-washy TabletPC, but a "SmartDisplay."
As opposed to trying to find all the negatives about it (although I do agree on the security and bandwidth points), think of what you could do with one of these. Put it by your bedside table and read the newspaper/your email from the comfort of bed on Sunday morning. Watch a movie from your hammock in the backyard in the summer. Imagine a six-hundred student lecture with one of these terminal in each seat - interactivity that wouldn't suck.
Collaborative work in a design-office setting. Wanna get the guy across the room's opinion on what you did? Bring the screen over to him. Or pretty much any application that needs acces to huge amounts of visual information - categroized bad on where it is either on the monitor wall or on the Mira. And lastly, you know you want to be like Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies, working off one of these and a two-story video wall.
I was actually considering rolling one my own of these things for my dorm (so I could use my computer from bed and across the hall) - two WiFi cards, a laptop, and VNC. Then I remembered that I didn't have the cash for an AP and the the battery life on the laptop blew.
Oh well, I'll wait until these things get cheaper. And would your opinion on this whole thing be different if the words "MS" and "Bill Gates" had nothgin to do with it - what about a <fav distro>-based SmartDisplay?
Cue The Sun...
I read on The Register that Mira will not support DVD viewing, apparently as a result of MPAA restrictions. Apparently retargeting the display is the equivalent of copying the DVD in the MPAA's opinion. If true, this is a ridiculous limitation.
I know this is probably redundant but the only real use for this is DRM control. How better to handle DRM than not allowing the video stream to the monitor.
Got Code?
No it will include DRM control thus avoiding the need to disclose the API....game over....
Got Code?
XP does not come with VNC preinstalled. You are probably thinking of Remote Desktop, which comes with XP Professional. While VNC xfers bitmaps of the screen, Remote Desktop xfers low-level Windows API calls. This makes it much more efficient and very fast, even on a low speed connection.
-------------------------
slashdot@com.jarnot (swap the domain)
If this device could also act like a Pronto and you could also control your stereo, tv, dvd, etc. When (if) they get zero-config networking into electronics. A device such as this would be all you would need to control all your devices around the house. I was really hoping Apple would have come out with something like this. Their digital hub strategy would work much better with a product such as this. Security issues aside, with added features and capabilities, such a device would be great in a digital/wireless home.
That's about what I was thinking, myself... Which leads me to believe that MS is doing this because with these monitors, they get tithed for TWO copies of the Windows OS rather than just one for every PC sold. ;-)
In order to avoid various security problems, bandwidth problems I think it makes more sence to use an infrared receiver/transmitter. This will need require some allignment of receivers/transmitters of course.
You can't handle the truth.
Doesn't this seem like a waste of good wireless bandwidth? The amount of traffic you can send through the air is limited and I would much rather use that bandwidth for connecting to other computers (i.e., the Internet). As the number of computers using this technology grows, the less bandwidth there will be available for useful applications.
They already have this done. A friend of mine brought one over one evening. Uses a touch screen lcd with an 11b interface to a brick with a PIII in it. He said police buy them, put the brick in the trunk and the touch screen display on the dash with suitable software. The brick is ruggedized for auto use. It's a Toughbook model 07.
Toughbook 07
Screen seemed a only a little bit slow, I would not recommend it for a LAN party but for a routine traffic stop or food order it looks OK to me. Win2K was the OS.
Hedley
Basically this product is nothing new, in my opinion. Its just a combination of neat packaging and an unhealthy dose of Microsoft marketing.
Not to say this product is worthless, but realize this is more microsoft hype than revolutionary device.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Remote Blue Screen of Death
The Magic of 'Mira'
Around here (San Jose) my mexican buddies would have translated the above statement to..
The Magic of 'Shit'
Mira=Shit in spanish, no joke!
... to them, they are apparently oh so worried about whats going on on there pc and anything that presents a potential 'physical' security hole really 'freaks' them out like they actually have a bunch of people waiting to bust into there system, and they have some 'super' sensitive data on it... give me a break, and if this 'really' is the case, just dont use it, as for the rest of you, i guess your all being paranoid for the sake of being paranoid...
Never mind what happens when you try to run dozens of such machines in an office environment (especially in an office building with lots of small individual tenants who won't want to coordinate bandwidth use)... You're taking up valuable radio spectrum just to avoid using a 9' cable? That's ludicrous.
..Touch screens severely limits the life span of the device, especially in a high use area. Unless they can make it a 'cost neutral' (gotta love my PCease eh) option I don't see it getting adopted any time soon. The corporate desktop market is VERY TIGHT $$ wise. The industry standard is 3 years of use I believe, and to get that from a touch screen seems a bit optimistic to say the least.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
They showed these devices at Computex in Taipei. That was some 3 or so months ago. The drawbacks to these devices is that you're not going to easily stream multimedia content, etc. to them- you're using a Citrix type framebuffer protocol. As a surfing device, it might be okay, but you're better off using something like a web pad or a tablet PC.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Yeah it is.
It's 2002, and Microsoft has re-invented VNC. Not bad: this time it took them less than a decade to copy someone else's idea; usually, it takes them several decades.
"Smart Display" is the 21st century market-speak version of what used to be called the "dumb terminal". Mind you, it's not a bad idea, but it's neither new nor earthshaking.
Microsoft: Yesterday's technology, tomorrow!
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Why not embed Linux and the XFree86 XServer on this wireless PC( I mean innovative display system ) and have xdm running on the beige box under the desk?
Wow, a remote display! How revolutionary!
Then where are all the Linux displays that work this way?
If you want a taste of this then get a Sharp Zaurus, a WiFi card and install the XServer on it. You don't have the realestate of a 1028x768 [sic] display but the idea is the same.
So you're saying it's not the same. And even at 1024x768, I wonder how X would compare to Microsoft RDP? (Which I've used over a fairly slow connection with AWESOME results.)
Boy, this Microsoft thing is pure genius. NOT.
It doesn't need to be pure genious. It just needs to work well and be marketed correctly. I think Microsoft might be able to do that?
"And like that
Could be a VNC station after we redo the firmware..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
if other posters are correct, it's been done already, by other companies.
and, I could do it myself. Just slap a WiFi card into my laptop, connect to an Xserver on another machine, and BAM! a remote display. Yes, it requires a second machine, but what geek doesn't have one or more machines? This basically sounds like one step removed from that scenario, kind of like VNC on a thin display over WiFi. All just some minor hardware tweaks. Not earth-shattering news.
and, more importantly, it will be implemented by Microsoft, w/ their not-so-glorious security record. which means that I could probably buy one of these things, spend a day or two tweaking it and googling, and be able to walk into any corporate building and get a display/login on someone's machine. And since this kind of toy will probably only be used by managment, I'll be able to get all kinds of nifty stuff ( because they undoubtably knocked out their security so they could do this or that nifty shiny feature )...information warfare...
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
Now my 2.4 GHz phone can cut out my GF's Airport and screw up my PC's display with a single call from my drunky buddy.
MS wants this because it would require an XP license on each computer as well as a WinCE license on each "mira" device while not working with any other type of system.
Just say no and run TightVNC on a cheap webpad under your favorite free OS.
"What's wrong with being a member of the National Association of Male Bashing Lesbian Anti-christs?"
No no, its the North American Marlon Brando Look-alikes Association
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
We will have a device without a monitor communicating with another device, which has a monitor.
Woot !!
15" wireless screen for $1299....plus whatever you pay for the box running Windows....just get a friggin' laptop w/ a wireless network card. And, what's the battery life on one of these gonna be anyways? My guess: shitty.
I can see it now. Multicast the keystrokes to do a shutdown, wide open RW access to the C drive, etc.
Seriously though, this is silly. If you want remote monitors, just run remote desktop software which Would be of some use for tablet-PCs's. You take your tablet with you to a meeting and can access a spreadsheet currently open on your office machine. Now beaming from your tablet to a projector (or other tablets in the meeting) might be of some use (bluetooth would be best here), but to another desktop monitor? Silly.
This seems like an easy way to introduce digital rights management between the CPU and the display: tell the consumer that DRM will make his devices more secure.
Honesty. Loyalty. Kindness. Laughter. Generosity. Magic!
I've got a Windows XP system and a Jornada 728 which runs Hanheld PC 2000 OS (a buggy, rehashed version of Windows CE). Using the terminal server client, I can connect to my Windows machine through my wireless Type II PC card and operate it from my very thin client. The stylus is the mouse, just like the machine in this story. The only problem is the screen on the Jornada 728 is very short (about 240 pixels or so) and not wide (about 640 pixesl or so). I have to scroll around a lot. But what's really great about the Jornada is that it has a keyboard, too. I run any application on the PC through the Jornada. It's cool and I think this product will be a success. In fact, I'm writing this post on the Jornada over my wireless connection!
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Try streaming multimedia or doing a DirectX game over the Windows remote session. Not going to happen, is it? Try doing something sophisticated like operating a CAD program over the link- that's going to be "fun". It's not undoable, but the effort and wasted time is much larger over a network session than a local console. It's why companies usually got someone a workstation instead of an X terminal when they were doing CAD work.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Or classrooms. Wow. No more cramming. Just switch over the the class Poindexter and get the right answer.
Oh, wait! I know! Let's use these at the office of father^h^h^h^h^h^h homeland security! Now theres no way to trace who's looking up your data for personal gain!
No, I'm not bitter.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
It seems MS weenies often cite X being client-server as a weakness of Linux, and now Microsoft is going the client-server display route themselves! No doubt they're touting this as some radical new architecture. Yawn.
With this news, a wireless display for windows XP only, and the new MS tables PCs, now I suddenly realize what steve meant a couple of weeks ago with outsmarting Linux.
Of course... It will work only until the porting projects get underway...
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
how is this different from using a small machine with a minimal OS and a VNC client connected to some machine with VNC server running? Such a terminal will allow accessing any machine (not just PC running XP). Well may be it has SSL style authentication (the number 1 drawback of VNC in my opinion). MS seems to be desparate in expanding in non-pc software: XBox, Tablet PC, Pocket PC, etc...
Wow, it's been a while since I've worked a crappy retail position, so I did not think of that.
Anything that runs winCE can run free software. Just wait and the exact same hardware will be available with reasonable non propriatory crap on them. I'm sorry to hear that your current set up is such a pain. I advise you to look further than M$ for solutions. There are plenty of fine low footprint systems out there that have nothing to do with M$ and therefore are not a pain to use.
My guess is that MS ... caters to people with an average IQ equal to that of a doorknob.
That's the kind of disrespect M$ is known for. They think they are so clever. I predict XBox like losses.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Against all reason, I really hope that these devices don't speak RDP. RDP is a -classic- example of MSFTs embrace and extend tactics. Essentially, RDP is based on a suite of international standards protocols (ITU T.128 being the topmost layer) with one little twist; between the T.128 layer (the desktop sharing) and the T.124(? I think.. It's MCS (multipoint communication service), essentially the base protocol for netmeeting) layers there is a security layer that is not documented, requiring signing an agreement w/ MSFT (beyond the standard click-through licensing) to get information on.
Interestingly enough, there DOES exist a free client for RDP, but no server. Why is this? Official MSFT servers are willing to let clients ignore the security layer & skip initialization of it. The official MSFT clients, OTOH, will refuse to connect to a server that doesn't properly support the encryption layer.
In short, there's a snowball's chance in hell of these things ever working with anything other than Windows, short of physically hacking the machines and making Xterms out of them.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Spèaking about stereotypes, doesn't "screen name" make you sound like an AOL user?
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Say...why not combine this with a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse! Then you could compute anywhere in your house! And hey...what if we put a small hard disk in, and added a CPU...then we wouldn't need the wireless connection to the PC!
via their 'wearable' PC.
F 07 LZ5ZY.HTM
Nice and semi-rugged too, so it'll cope with a small drop from desk etc...
http://www.panasonic.co.uk/product/wearablepc/C
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Yes and no. Proprietary thin-clients do nothing but promote the feared 'vendor lock-in'. Look at the current crop of thin-clients, a vast majority (essentially anything that is not marketed as an X-term) of all but the most expensive models are limited to RDP and ICA (Citrix's protocol). RDP is 100% Microsoft, ICA provides expensive client/server licences based on Win32 & several commercial unices (Sun, HP, IBM...), neither will likely ever be supported under a free OS, since MSFT, having invested large sums of money in them. has a considerable influence over the decisions made by Citrix.
Most businesses, unless they are specifically looking for interoperability with non-MSFT systems, are going to look beyond that initial purchase price, ignoring the fact that they've essentially purchased a whole office/lab full of hardware that is essentially Windows-only. Where PCs could potentially be converted to a Linux/BSD system, if the desire ever arises, without doing anything more than replacing an OS, these windows only terminals become garbage if an enterprise wishes to move away from Windows.
If this new hardware comes out, it'll be much the same story; another case of MSFT taking open protocols and using their market strength (and customer momentum) to manipulate the standards in such a way that they are no longer open & interoperable, further building the stranglehold they have on the computing industry.
Just think what will happen if MSFT gets their way and manages to get their secure computing platform crap on the market...
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
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You dont transfer every pixel. You simply transfer coordinates for windows and contents such as text. Streaming video would be like streaming over any other wirless network. It works with some simple compression.
Also as for security you could simply have a narrow antennea so they sniffers will have trouble picking it up.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
Still I prefer that over software that is released before the major gaping security holes have been taken out. Security hole of the week... License change of the month. Cost increase of the year. New enlarged start button wooptydoo.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.