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Intel's 'Personal Server': The Handheld Killer?
markbaard writes "Intel is developing a wireless, pocket-sized personal server that may replace laptops and PDAs altogether. The 'personal server,' which is being developed at Intel Research by ubiquitous computing wizard Roy Want, is the size of a deck of cards, half the weight of an iPaq, and has no i/o, no screen, and no peripherals. The device never leaves its user's pocket or handbag. Pictures of the personal server and the story are at baard.com."
Permalink here: http://www.baard.com/archives/2003_05.html#000071
your girlfriend doesn't have a screen either.
It's tightly integrated, I carry it around with me all the time, I never lose it and it's never crashed yet. It doesn't cost a thing and it comes as standard.
It's called a "brain".
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Ok that was bad, but how secure are these things? I mean I dont want anyone to be able to use a sniffer to find my MP3's and porn.....errr I mean my school work and documents :P
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This already exists, more or less, in the form of the Toshiba HopBit. And I think that Toshiba's smarter than Intel in positioning their personal server as an accessory for PDA's rather than as a replacement for them. A box with no screen doesn't have very much sex appeal, and people like to be able to access information on the go, so people will probably buy these things mostly to serve as video storage for their Tungsten T's and iPaqs.
According to the article, this "box" has both Bluetooth and 802.11 interfaces. You walk up to any PC that supports these technologies and can access your box.
I imagine that, alternatively, you could use a Bluetooth keyboard, speakers, etc. and display? to use this.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Good point. Maybe the user interface is separate from the device. Think of the device as being attatched to you like a watch, with a thinner client in your wallet or something.
Can someone explain how a "wireless harddrive" that you need a computer to access will replace PDAs? I mean, you can't sit on the train and organize your day with it?
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
This is typical /. misreading of the article. It's designed as a server... something that provides background services to the user.
Now combined with various IO devices it may match the functionality of a handheld. Here is the ubicomp 2002 paper about it.
Intel is too late. People have been serving themselves with their hands in their pockets for AGES!
I see this more like addition, or update (if it's done right, if it's NOT done right I see it as paperweight), than replacement.
Sure, it would come handy to automatically have your portable computing device wirelessly "hijack" vastly superior input and output capabilities of bigger computer whenever you're in position to use one, but I'm not convinced web server is good enough for GUI of such device.
And it would be neat for it to still have screen and input device of its own (they would be turned off for power saving most of the time), for use where there just are no desktop systems for borrowing, in such situation, this system is 100% useless.
I already have a handheld killer, it's called a Glock.
Intel is developing wireless, pocket-sized personal server that may replace laptops and PDAs altogether.
The personal server mounts on any PC that can recognize wireless devices: "Any computer becomes your computer," said Want.
Ok, I'm a little confused, are they saying that this will replace laptops and PDAs altogether or are they saying that this is merely a more flexible means of storage that can be accessed from other PCs or PDAs?
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Sounds like fun!!!!!
3) Killer of that which is held in the hand.
As a male, I find this interpretation somewhat frightening.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
since the link is horribly /.'d already, this has a lot of detailed info:
Intel persional server PDF
For those of you who didn't RTFA: This is essentially a little hard drive which rides around in your backpack (note: I don't carry a backpack all the time; do you?) and can connect, wirelessly, to any machine you access which recognizes wireless devices. Basically, as far as I can tell, this has the same net effect as having a home directory on an NFS server someplace and using it to save your settings as you move from machine to machine.
Again: Bo-ring.
When I saw "personal server, no IO", I was hoping this would be a manifestation of the keystone portion of my idea for a personal wireless network Your devices would all notice one another, and the width of functionality of any given device would be dependant on what you were carrying. If you we out taking pictures with your digicam and were carrying a server, the images would be transfered to the (presumably very expansive) drive in the server. If you had your cell phone, the images would be sent off to your home computer, as well.
Repeat en masse. PDAs display and do I/O, headphones play music and the real work is taken care of automagically behind the scenes in some secure fashion. You'd effectively allow the elimination of multi-use devices which don't do any job very well by allowing your devices to play their strong points, and you could customize your loadout just in what you grab in the morning when you're loading your pockets.
Anyhow, this ain't it, and that's disappointing -- somebody must have hit my verbosity flag today...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
What's to stop someone from walking by with a laptop, and gaining access to all your data?
Even better, imagine if you could break into several of these things and then launch a series of DDoS attacks to nearby wireless devices and play hell with their communicationg >:)
:D ( Ack, I said too much :P )
Let the fun begin
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Build and INVENTED by Steve Mann at the University of Toronto.
It is a companion to the wearable computer. Built on a dimm pc and used a laptop hard drive to far surpass this things sotrage capacity, and used 802.11 PCMCIA card for wireless access.
Oh and it ran linux too so you aren't stuck with some crap that they dish out.
My brother just suggested that biometric authentication - probably fingerprinting - would be a useful feature on these devices. It might also be a good way to introduce biometric technology to the general public.
What kind of security features/ecryption would be implemented on this device? There have been enough flaws oncovered with WEP that this sounds like a bad idea to me. ANY computer with 802.11 access being able to connect to my portable hard drive? And how would I know since there isn't even a display?
Intel seems to have a good idea with this; however, I don't think it will cost effective to implement it. It will be like alternative fuel source cars - they will have to built a system to use it. Assuming they use WiFi to connect it to a computer so it "is your computer," that would mean that most computers could not connect to it without an purchase seems how a majority of the population don't even have their computers networked, much less wirelessly. Furthermore, it can't replace a PDA, atleast not yet, because you have to have a computer to use it; you can't use it while you are walking down the street. I think it would work great if they integrated some sort of display, even if it is crude, so you can use it like a PDA and still maintain the personal server aspect of it so it can be used to make any pc or laptop your own
"Half the weight of an ipod, and it has no i/o" cool! Does it run on Write Only Memory too? :)
She definitely has some I/O capabilities, though :p
Perhaps the editor's did take a little licence when they decribe this as a handheld killer. This particular device? Probably not.
This particular paradigm? Hey maybe.
PDAs and laptops suffer from the "kitchen sink" problem. In order to please a sufficently large number of people, all sorts of features have to be included, and in turn, compromises made. Some people want color, others want audio, some keyboards some need a touch pen. In order to compete buttons are placed in random places on pdas so they can work like a dictaphone. All sorts of weird things that I don't want just to please some niche.
And adding all those features raises the cost of the device.
This idea of modularizing components wirelessly might be a really great idea. With this paradigm, I don't have to fit the CPU and hardrive into an ergonomic shape suitable for pen input. Also, your hand is relieved of the extra weight of those components.
So just like desktops, you might buy your "monitor" from a totally different manufacturer than the cpu. You like Sony's egonomics but compaq's performance? Why can't you have both?
Also, with this model, you don't need all the extra proprietary gobblygook to interface to your desktop.
Sounds like a good deal to me.
In what way exactly is wireless communication not I/O?
I read "no i/o" and thought, well, bricks don't have i/o either... so what?
Mirror
A watch with no display.
:)
A walkman with no headphones.
A laptop with no keyboard or screen.
A mobile phone with no screen, mic or earpiece.
They're really going to corner the minialist arty gadget market
I see a niche for "box booths" that provide a keyboard, screen and connectivity for people on-the-go.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Basically it's a hard drive and a processor in your pocket. It connects wirelessly to "normal" computers. So I can carry my mp3s, my videos, my schedule, and all that crap around with me in a little box. But if I want to get at it I have to connect to the little box from a "real" computer.
You know what's better than that? Just set up a "real" computer at home. Then use VNC, ssh, a web server, sftp, or any of that type of stuff. Then, wa-la you have the same exact thing. Only now, you don't have to carry anything around with you. It just sits on your desk at home, where it always is.
The problem isn't that you can't get to your stuff when you're out of the house. The problem is that you can't get to a computer. What I'd like to see is a super super thin super small laptop. Screen, keyboard, small processor, bit of ram, sound output of some kind, pointing device and network connectivity through wire or not. The device would pretty much be a vnc box. Turn it in, connect securely to your machine at home. Use your computer from anywhere on earth.
There's a problem with this. If you are on a plane, suck. But vnc uses mad bandwith. So if you don't have broadband it should have a command line only mode, or at least a low bandwith mode, like lbx or something. So that you can make it work by plugging it into the bottom of your cell phone and raising the little antenna.
We don't need the services. Those can be anywhere. The problem is lack of io. Give me just the io devices and a means to connect, and I'll have just one computer. I'm asking for something like viewsonic's wireless monitor, only 10 times better.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
> the size of a deck of cards, half the weight of an iPaq, and has no i/o, no screen, and no peripherals. The device never leaves its user's pocket or handbag
:)
Dumb like a rock and hard like a brick... Windows CE/ME/NT
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
A 400MHz XScale is just fine for this kind of thing. But while Bluetooth is good for some applications, it isn't fast enough for many others; it's like an 0.5X CD-ROM speed, though it's certainly good enough to drive the headphone audio. 802.11 could be fine (though it tends to be a power hog, suggesting the need for an on-off switch...), though it's tempting to recommend a simple ethernet jack on the side instead, which has the advantage of working in places where people are correctly paranoid about which side of the firewall the wireless network belongs on. I tend to favor having an "ok to connect new object" button anyway, for security reasons...
UPnP is one of them evil Microsoft things :-) Is it the right one? What about security - how do you implement that correctly for this kind of device?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Another interview of Roy Want about the personal server can be found on Intel's website here
"Your Majesty! this is the most advanced PDA ever envisioned! it can do everything! and it needs no no I/O, no batteries and it can hold all your data without ever needing to change batteries!"
"Looks like a block of wood to me." said the grand Vizer
"Well you see your majesty" continued the Intel Rep "only the most intelligent people can see the data it contains, because beams the data straight to their minds"
"Well of course I knew that" the empereor quickly replied "I was just schedualing my apointments and playing solitare just now, what a wonderful device, and I love the wooden finish"
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
Where it spends it's time spewing EM waves into the user's crotch :)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Looks like a pen. Writes like a pen.
But it's not a pen. It contains 256 MB (or so) of flash, which is shared via bluetooth. A 10cm high gain antenna is hidden within the length of the pen itself, and powered by a single AAA battery. Walk by an enabled PC, optionally type in a password, and all your documents, your keyring, etc. are available.
Finally, as an added bonus, when you write on paper (or anything for that matter), you can choose to record your scribbles on the flash drive. Tiny gyroscopic sensors determine the motion of the pen across the page, and a pressure sensor determines whether the pen is against a writing surface. Each time you expose the ball point head it creates a new file, and when you retract it, it closes it. You can tell which file is which by the timestamps.
THAT would kick ass. And as embedded logic gets more powerful, you could have a personal web/email/jabber server running in there too.
A wireless iPod sounds nifty, but where's the innovation people?
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
"The first technology--a prototype developed by IBM Research--is the Meta Pad, a 3-by-5-inch, 9-ounce device that an IBM official hailed as the "ultimate personal server." The Meta Pad contains an 800-MHz chip, a 10GB hard drive, a 3D graphics chip, and 128MB of memory; it is capable of running Windows XP.
The device, which supports Bluetooth, is designed to help give users access to all their data whether they are connected to their desktops or laptops, via a docking station or wirelessly over the Internet. "
Well, to quote the site and the poster of the article, it has no I/O at all. Gee, a server no one can store information in, and no one can get information out of, get yours now! Obviously it has I/O in the form of Bluetooth and/or Wi-Fi, and what a cool idea it is, as if it's a natural extension of your brain as storage. Imagine going to a job interview and just showing up, sitting down, and have your resume show up on the interviewer's computer. I'm sure the folks at the RIAA will be cringing with horror tomorrow morning. With a sane security system, maybe you can have publically accessible folders, and personal folders, and imagine being able to get MP3s just by walking around the office/campus.
It won't kill the PDA, but if will probably transform it to just an information viewing device.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Never? Machine wash cold. Tumble dry low.
Except you set it up once and can use it anywhere.
ANYWHERE.
Desktop, mobile, PDA, Cell phone, you name it. You're customized and ready to go, your OS and programs follow you ( The simpler ones run on the Xscale processor, the wireless link is just for shared data and I0 / screen updates, the more complex platforms get streamed boot data then program data, like your desktop )
We've been bitching at Intel for years for not making things portable enough, instead concentrating on bigger, hotter power hungry desktop chips.
Now Intel looks to be making a move to make everyone's standard data server run on a capable but not overkill Xscale.
Sure, there are some specialized things it can't process. Want to play a game? Mosey over to the desktop, your Xscale will stream the game files over in a few seconds, and while you play, fully configured with your key. Want to crunch a new movie into Divx or your favorite video codec? Your desktop will encode it and download it to the server in real time. Your desktop probably won't even have a hard disk, everything including the OS should be streamed from your handheld server.
* The key point here is this can be used as a seamless virtual session device ( ala Citrix ) plus fileserver plus desktop companion. Remote GUI sessions have always had problems catching on because the software is expensive and they require solid bandwidth. This has neither problem, and does more, so it's not dedicated hardware you're plunking down for. The battery life could be better, true, but for first generation >4 hours is impressive.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
Think of the webpad my microsoft thats supposed to kill laptops....
Now think about it. People need a computer they can carry and use. It better have a monitor, drives, keyboard.. and you got a laptop. Can a PDA replace it? No too small a screen and keyboard. Increase the screen and keyboard size and youve got a picturebook. Similar to a laptop but that harddisk needs an upgrade..
So a webpad is something more expensive. People dont need it. Some might buy it. Just like the some who buy PDAs and use it for maybe 2 minutes each day for nothing really important, except maybe games, for which the laptops still the best tool.
So we will continue to see things that their makers will claim will kill the laptop and picturebook and pda and webpad and intel thingy.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
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Even at that size, It's annoying to add yet something else to my pockets. Three of my four pockets are currently consumed by a cell phone, wallet, and keys. This needs a better place to go. It's annoying to have technology in my pocket, especially if it is in any way fragile. Furthermore, does this thing generate any heat (which would make pocket use more uncomfortable).
Granted, most women have a bag of some sort with them, but men tend to go without. I'm not for any kind of subcataneous form factor, but I'd tolerate an anklet or something (don't ask me how to get hard drives into an anklet, just a thought). Even better, put it in my watch--I'm more likely to have that than my cell, and it's fairly well accepted to wear one.
Form factor must be considered. A Hard drive for your pocket isn't sexy, a normal enough looking watch that holds 80gigs whenever you're in 802.11/bluetooth range is--noone has to know.
Brian
Can you stream a DVD quality video from your home box to any place in the world and get a nice picture over VNC? At a reasonable price for the bandwidth? No. This type of device should appeal to the same kind of people who like to have an iPod. Which are, I'm told, a lot.
Of course it's inconvenient if you have to use 'another big machine' to access the device, but that's not a limitation of this device, it's a limitation of other devices if they can't access this server. Imagine having a bluetooth-enabled phone; this already has a little screen and keyboard (or touchscreen). You'll be able to attach a headset and control an MP3-player with voice commands. You'll be able to put a part of your MP3 collection in a 'shared folder', so other people on your bus can also check out your collection, while you listen to theirs and swap some files. And this is not restricted to music...
Oh dear, we'll see more people wanking in the last row of busses again, eek...
but what do i know, i'm just a model.
..but the world needs pedants..
If this thing had no i/o, as the article claims, it'd be a high tech brick.
Despite the fact that it has no screen, speakers, keyboard, sockets, etc, it DOES have i/o - the wireless connection.
Just being picky.
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
In and of itself, this device is worthless. Combined with devices you already use, it becomes much, much more useful. Though at the same time, this device is far from revolutionary, it's more evolutionary. A terapin mine does most of this already, albeit with a bigger form factor. Intel's goal is to make this as small as possible, so that it suddenly becomes worthwhile to work with digital media makers to develop single use, efficient devices that make transferring data easier.
Marxism is the opiate of dumbasses
If I were using this to replace my laptop I'd want to connect to it through terminals at my clients' sites as well as public terminals. That's basically why I carry around my laptop now, the PCs on sites where I work never have all the tools and data that I need. It's a great idea, after all I don't need to carry my own monitor and keyboard around and frankly I'm sick of digging around under random desks looking for a free drop.
But the problem here is, do you trust every place that you plug your laptop in currently? Right now you don't have to since the act of plugging in doesn't give anyone access to your data. But I could imagine a situation where an unscrupulous customer or public terminal stole data from this personal server. All they'd need to do is see how you authenticate to it (say, use a keysniffer) and then they're free to grab your data whenever you're in range. I think a simple solution would be to have a button on the device that you would have to press in order to authorize access to it - the password is not enough. It's not foolproof, but it's better than just a password. Until there is some additional security you really wouldn't want to use these things at an untrusted location.
Obviously someone is too drunk to select the right moderation option from a fairly small list.
Get your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape
Wow. This sounds awesome. You could run all of your applications on this personal server so that the device with your user interface can be really lightweight... I mean, do we really need a huge hard-drive in every terminal? It just makes sense. You could even let others use your server to run their applications. I can see it now. You'd probably want to run Java on it, and then you could upgrade the low-speed wireless link so that you could connect multiple of these servers together via high-speed wired links. It's almost like the network IS the computer.
Why didn't someone think of this before?
- Flip phone design similar to Kyocera's 7135 smartphone
- Total of 3 LCD screens:
- Color LCD screen (inside) for main display, on the top half
- Monochrome LCD that covers only an area big enough for handwriting recognition or virtual keyboard or status messages for games/integrated debuggers/whatever
- Monochrome LCD screen along the top when closed, used for caller ID and alerts
- MP3 capability
- Some sort of wireless connection
- Integrated web server for entering data when there's a computer around, and a Java interface similar to VNCs for creating a virtual screen so that other programs can be used on other computers
- Capability to communicate with USB or serial for those who want it
- GPS-based alerts - these come two ways, "remind me to pick up my prescription when I'm near my drugstore" and "remind me about the meeting in time for me to get there"
- Massive amounts of storage for a PDA (for this type of device, I'd say 10 GB is "massive" enough)
- Two versions: one with an optical mouse on one side and buttons on the other and a built in thumb operated keyboard that uses a pointer to "tap" on things for those who don't like the stylus or can't/won't learn to deal with handwriting recognition, and one with a 4-way jog dial for scrolling through documents.
- Expandability - I feel that the CompactFlash+ format would be best (most room for additional electronics), but I haven't really looked deeply into it.
Of course, there are going to be some things I missed - feel free to point them out.--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
Makes for a whole bunch of interesting possibilites...
How long before someone develops a piece of software that lets you swap files with other such devices in the area automatically, maybe even search for specific files on other's shares?
Turn up to a lecture and just by being there you get a copy of the audio and notes streamed to your personal server.
Add an access mechanism to a television/home entertainment system. Boom, instant portable TIVO!
Unfortunately the site is gone now (I sold the site in 2000 and it got virtually no attention afterwards), but I wrote about technology like this back in 1999.
I hope they really come out with this technology for a reasonable price, and with a good modular design.
This type of device could be the central component of the mobile communications platform I was describing in a couple of articles.
Add a module for a wireless phone -- beauty here is that module could be CDMA, TDMA, GSM, pick the technology. Add another module for a pager if you need it. Yet another could be used for wireless data/internet.
Next, add your accessories -- color watch display, wireless headset for phone, handset for phone, wireless headphones, handheld (PDA style) display, digital camera (including video), small microphone for dictation (like some MP3 players have), keyboard, external extended battery pack (keeps internal battery charged, main power drawn from external pack until pack is drained), etc.
This "platform" could be marketed by just about everyone, from computer stores ala Fry's and CompUSA to electronic stores (Radio Shack) to wireless carriers.
Here's they key -- multitasking. This device would have to allow the use of the "phone" at the same time as the other modules such as camera (either still or video), PDA/watch, etc.
My wireless background obviously slants my opinion towards wireless phones etc, but I find it interesting how close things are getting to some of the ideas I've worked on or written about over the last 10 years. The potential for this is huge, if they deliver this right.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
What's wrong with this picture? Why do I need to carry around this box? Why do I want to carry around data? That's what the Internet is for.
Remember Java-enabled jewelry with onboard crypto? The RSA "fob" ID device? Dallas Semiconductor buttons? Same functional capabilities, less to carry. All you really need is an ID device.
Ubiquitous computing looks more like "hurry up and find something that wastes compute power before we have to have another layoff". They need some better ideas over there.
Bullshit. English came by way of the people living roughly what is now western Germany and the northeastern part of the Netherlands. The French influence came by the Norman invasion of England, which formed Middle English (the Normans spoke an old French variant). Modern English was then further influenced by incorporating Latin and Greek during the industrial revolution.
American English is a further derivative of EARLY Modern English influenced heavily by Spanish, Native American, and to a much lesser extent French.
So do you actually know some Etruscan or are you a hypocrite?
A radio maverick jumps to internet only. The Future of Rock n Roll
...Which has almost zero security issues, or power issues, will link up with damn near anything, and is a good $100-200 cheaper at the same storage size.
Or, for about 25 cents, burn a CD.
Jon Acheson.
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.