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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
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.
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!
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.
I had another take on this...
I have broadband and ssh.
Leave the server at home. There is a thing called "the internet" that does this well already.
Everyone is missing the point. You keep your wireless harddrive in your backpack/pocket/purse/briefcase/whatever. Now your handheld has access to 80GB storage at all times, at no size/weight/cost. Your phone, handheld, and computer can all use the same harddrive, so they could all use the same data.
You're right, it's not a handheld killer. It will make killer handhelds.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.