Server In A Fly

Tablespork writes "These guys have implanted the world's smallest webserver-on-a-chip into a dead fly! From the site: "Fly, grants us the ability to virtually possess the body of a dead, preserved fly via web-based technology." There is a webcam monitoring the fly, so you can watch as you blink the LEDs." And don't worry if something goes wrong with it -- "Several pre-programmed and wired flies will be on hand in case of technical malfunction."

Comments

Technically pointless

[esanbock]

That's nice. Besides the fact that the chip is small, I see no point in sticking it in a dead fly. In fact, that seems quite pointless and the main focus of the article should be on the tiny chip, not the fact that it happens to be inside a dead fly. That's not impressive whatsever.

Re:funny...

[Afrosheen]

It's not science, it's a fusion of science and art. You've got to actually read the site prior to the typical /. knee-jerk-reaction-for-funny-karma to actually get it.

That said, from an art standpoint it's interesting. From a science/tech standpoint it's a yawn.

Re:Slashdotted?

[VEGx]

Doesn't ANYONE read the article?

This must be your first post. Welcome! It looks like you are new to ./ :)

Actually not too impressive

[worst_name_ever]

Here, yet again, is another "WORLD'S SMALLEST WEBSERVER!!!1!!11" which is uses a SLIP connection to get to the outside world. Having actually implemented something like this myself, I can tell you that there's really nothing that challenging about such an undertaking anymore these days - the technique is well known and there are even books published on the subject which reveal some of the tricks, such as the use of precomputed TCP headers and the creation of a semi-crippled "stateless" stack which saves you a lot of code space and memory usage. I consider the SLIP connection a giant cheat, since you're leveraging the power of the (presumably) Linux box that's attached to the other end of the SLIP line and offloading onto it the difficulties of the actual "connecting to the Internet" part. The embedded webservers which really impress me are the ones that have a modem or RJ45 connection and can exist as network nodes in their own right; these are much more technically interesting and useful as actual real-world devices.

So, to me, this particular instance of the same thing from 1999 is basically a neat soldering job but nothing technically innovative in terms of embedded connectivity. But as art, it's pretty cool. ;)