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Everyone Needs a Personal Server
An anonymous reader writes "Intel Labs is prototyping a potentially revolutionary new 'personal server'. The tiny device -- smaller than a PDA -- comprises a hard disk, BlueTooth, a Web-DAV enabled HTTP daemon, and other technologies enabling the user to access and modify their files from any enabled PC within their "Personal Area Network." In theory, this would allow the worker to access their own data -- essentially to have their own PC -- at any suitable workstation as long as the personal server were nearby. This article at LinuxDevices.com provides background on the personal server concept, explains how the device will enable a truly mobile experience, discusses the basic technologies involved, and provides an architectural block diagram of the prototype, which is based on an XScale Processor running at 400MHz running an embedded Linux OS."
Sounds interesting, but how secure that kind of device can be?
Brings a whole new meaning to mobile computing ;-)
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Yep, they thought the same thing on May 4th.
And michael posted that story, as well.
Yet another dupe from Team Slashdot.
And these tits actually want the readers to pay...
Knunov
Why do users with IDs under 100,000 or over 700,000 usually have the most worthwhile comments?
Looks like an also ran to DaveNetworks design here: http://www.davenw.com/main.html
Turkeyphant
what you want me to lug my phone, pda, mp3 player, digital camera and now a server as well.
Robin hand me my utility belt and a bandolier of batteries.
an iPod is already 2/3s of that
add wireless and http and presto!
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
I travel a /lot/ -- and I have a need to have my data accessable from anywhere in the world whenever I want it. I have servers in 3 countries connected together for most things, but for very large files (or sets of files) this is really impractical and can get very expensive. So I carry two 120GB USB drives with me wherever I go. These drives are pretty bulky, but they do allow me to do what this "personal server" is promoting - access my data from any workstation.
I don't really need a webserver with me, since that is better placed on a server that I don't unplug. This feature is pretty useless for me. Nor is bluetooth really practical to me, since USB is much wider supported than bluetooth on the machines I might sit at.
What I really need is are smaller portable harddrives with bigger capacities (200GB to start would be nice) that are network-aware. Just plug in an ethernet cable and mount it.
Sun: Introducting Cobalt Qube (not very consumer friendly, but it gets the job done; discontinued)
.NET (access your files anywhere, anytime. One catch - your files are not your property)
Linux/BSD: We had this for years, but it takes a rocket scientist to figure out how to secure a small server and maintain it; not consumer friendly but effective)
Microsoft: Introducing
Intel: Lets build a box for the regular Joe so he can access their files anytime, from anywhere, if he has an always-on connection.
Linux community: Lets hack together a working alternative that works out of the box and runs of dirt cheap hardware and even grandma can use it. Just like we did with MythTV and other lesser known PVRs
Apple: Introducing iPersonalServe
SCO: It was our idea all along!
I have a great idea. You can transport your files from one computer to another. i think i'll call it... WAIT! It's been done! it's called A fucking disk!
if you want to be tech wiz, you could even buy a USB memory card. WOOO!
Sure the idea has merits. If they ever can the installed base of the ground. Say that every PC in world is enabled in this way. Then yes I could take this light device with me and while waiting at the airport work at a supplied terminal. While in the aircraft use the PC in the seat to work. Then while at the client use their PC's to hold my presentation.
Slight snag. This is not likely to happen. Most companies don't even like their own employees to attach hardware to the network let alone complete strangers. Let alone a black box device. We all heard the horror storie about people installing modded consoles in the walls to comprimise security at big offices. This make it even easier.
It sounds to me like kermit. To those of you who do not know what kermit is it was a mobile phone that only worked in hotsports. So it worked for a few years while everyone used payphones or carphones until cellphones became cheap. Just as now everyone will use something like a USB pendrive/iPod style/external HD device or pda/laptop. The first are cheap and light and will usually work. The second are expensive heavy but at least can work on their own.
Perhaps this will work for big companies in highly specialized situations. I just can't think of any where existing tech like the ones I mentioned wouldn't do just as well.
Can anyone else perhaps point out what I missed?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What I really need is are smaller portable harddrives with bigger capacities (200GB to start would be nice) that are network-aware. Just plug in an ethernet cable and mount it.
The Snap Appliance Server 1100 is pretty close. It's a little large, but not too bad. It's something that's much more useful to me than this "personal server". But the cost is outrageous. About 800USD for a 120GB networked drive? Considering I can get a 160GB USB drive in Japan for under 200USD now, the extra 600USD does not justify the cost of adding ethernet.
I guess I'll just have to wait, someone's bound to come out with something. For now I'm just thinking of picking up one of those brick-PCs and mounting my drives to that (especially as I need more) and just connecting that to the network wherever I am.
sig hup Cox; sig hup Microsoft; wake up Intel. Cox and other ISPs need to stand up to Microsoft and media interests or die. Don't give me bull about dynDNS, I want to live upright. I don't need a windoze computer to pop up a silly icon and comprimise all my personal and company data. The good folks at Intel need to realize that people already do this and contribute to projects like Open Zaurus that make it easier, rather than to Microsoft because Microsoft will work to prevent, pervert and control the whole effort. If your data is not on a free platform, someone else owns it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
What everyone needs is not a personal server which would turn any computer into their own personal computer but, instead, what every a little device which would turn any display into their own personal terminal (make that X terminal). Remove the storage component from this device and add wireless connectivity to it instead, and then you'd have something that the world needs because it would essentially eliminate the need for the personal computer. And this device could be small enough to be built into clothing or worn as jewelry.
If Apple added wireless & http to the next iPod and marketed it as a must have because of the free, built in iServe software, it would be massive! On launch, ensure it works with Macs and Windows then watch them fly off the shelves!
Looks to me like the idea is basically ubiquitous access to your data.
I'll grant them that it _is_ innovative to create a device like this which abstracts the access method to the portable data behind open protocols such as tcpip, but I still get the feeling they're going about it in a lopsided manner.
You move, but this doesn't mean the data must move with you to be accessible. This is one of the ideas with X, your data is plonked on a machine somewhere far off, and you conect to it and presto, you and your data are one.
I feel effort and time invested in ubiquitous connectivity will do far more to address the need to access one's data than working on solutions like this.
Kudos still, the idea is interesting.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Well, if Intel puts a linux inside this device, we already know whom SCO is going to sue next.
Looks like a pen. Writes like a pen.
But it's not a real pen. It contains 512 MB (or so) of flash, which is shared via bluetooth. A 10cm high retractable 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. Think of the security holes. Finally, as an added bonus, when you write on paper (or anything for that matter, toilet paper springs to mind), 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 butt. And as embedded logic gets more powerful, you could have a personal web/email/aim server running in there too. A wireless iPod sounds nifty, but where's the innovation people? Where is Microsoft?
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
The article is focusing on its use as a portable hard disk even though it really is a portable wireless server.
A USB keychain drive seems to fill this role better. If all I want is portability of my files I dont really need the CPU, the web server, etc..
Let me get this straight. I'm supposed to carry around this little box with all my data on it so that when I get somewhere that has a keyboard and screen and knows how to talk to this box, I can log in and access my data. 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.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
I carry a laptop from home to work. I have a port replicator in both places and kbd, lcd,.. is basically dead weight. If you could make a PC the size of a laptop with a desktop processor (cheaper) but no screen, kbd, mouse then I would definitely be in for this. You would have to guarantee backward compatibility on the docking station so don't need to buy new ones every time I upgrade. You would have to do carefull weight/price/lifetime calculations for deciding what goes in the brick and what in the docking station (power supply, cdrom?). This would also work in these "floating" offices where every employee does not have a fixed desk assigned (very popular in Brussels right now, how about your place?). What they describe here just seems like another expensive add-on. I would look for sth which replaces my current hardware store.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
refering to Microsoft as "M$" is retarded.
10 LET M$ = "Microsoft"
It saves typing.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Gotta admit being a little disappointed by this.
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, and I'm sincerely sorry for the pain that I've caused you all...
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Why can't they just weave this sort of data server into clothing? Average user could get by with a thong while a slashdot user would likely need long johns.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Look, Bluetooth has about a 10 meter (10 yard) radius if you can't keep intruders out of your house or the cubes right next to you, you have more important worries than your PAN server security
Me, I want a PAN server asap. Great idea.
If a personal file server (which fits in the whole bluetooth connectivity thing in theory) were available, my digital camera would only have to be the lens and a little bit of memory until the picture had been sent to the file server and then could be erased. My mp3 player could become little more than a streaming audio reciever -- heck I wouldn't really need it seperate from my digital camera. And, since we've seen this already, why couldn't the camera, mp3 player and cellphone all be in one? Or, and maybe this is stretching this a bit, couldn't it all be integrated with my PDA? the PDA would simply be the interface for the file server. It would be as thin as an lcd screen (no processor needed because it's a dummy client) and then a jack for headphones.
The biggest snag with my scenario is that bluetooth has never worked like it should due to proprietary communications etc. If that can ever get ironed out (a la Betamax vs. VHS) then maybe we can start to see this actually happening from a device consolidation point of view.
This is my digital signature. 10011011001
Intel has it all wrong - and Berkley has it right.
http://oceanstore.cs.berkeley.edu/
Check out OceanStore software for building a fully reliable network where users can access their files from any connected machine. It's also fully redundant too.
The biggest flaw of the personal server is that your data is subject to physical desctruction at anytime. The server can give you portability, but it can't give you reliability.
As high speed connections become ubiquitous across the globe, OceanStore will be the real way of storing your information, encrypted, and replicated across many nodes in the global network - it would be possible to have access to your "personal files" from anywhere in the world. Not only that - you will never have to worry about backing up again.
What you fail to realize though is that 10 meters is a sizeable distance. Its not just the people in the cubicles nearby or your house. What if you live in an apartment building. I don't know how Bluetooth handles through floors and ceilings, but that could be a potential issue. Or what if you're on the bus? Or walking down the street?
So yes, you may have bigger problems if you can't keep people out of your house, or trust your coworkers, but what about everybody else in the world who you might use this near?
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You're comparing apples to oranges.
The iPod is an entertainment device. While it uses similar technology (small hard drive and connection) it doesn't perform a similar function... though it could, in theory.
The personal server idea could well be an ipod as well- just add audio controls. Plus, making it SIMILAR to an iPod with extremely extended capabilities would make it far more desirable than an iPod.
A portable USB hard drive is no news- I use a 64 meg memory stick+usb to share files with my laptops, desktop, handheld, and camera. But if that same thing had 100% the storage of my laptop, plus an interface that I could access anywherish? Sweetness personified.
To quote Futurama, I'll take eight.
You missed an important application: computer labs.
I know I live in the dark ages, but at my university there are several rooms on the main campus with general access terminals and jacks to plug in your laptop. Using a Bluetooth personal server, what is to say I can't access the personal servers of the 25 other students within five meters of me?
But that becomes irrelevant, since even a simple secure login or encrypted connection should clean it up. God knows you wouldn't leave your stuff on a public share without a password!
Intel's 'Personal Server': The Handheld Killer? (Sunday, 4-May-2003)
How to Download YouTube Videos
Sony's had a wireless file server PGX1 out in Japan for several months now. It's not really pocket size but doesn't take much space or add much weight in a bag at only 390g. It stores 20GB and supports CIFS, NFS and FTP connections over 802.11b. It's also dockable with a wired ethernet connection when direct access is desired. Configuration is via LCD display or web browser.
See the FSV-PGX1 at Sony's Portable File Server page for details (in Japanese of course).