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Jumping From Computer To Computer
Roland Piquepaille writes "Imagine a world where computers become so ubiquitous that the idea of carrying a laptop will almost be laughable, a world where any computer could be your computer! According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, this is the goal of Intel Research Pittsburgh's Internet Suspend/Resume (ISR) project, a project that may one day let your work jump from computer to computer without interruption by using the Internet, distributed file systems, and virtual machines. When the non-proprietary technology becomes available, a user will suspend a task on the computer he's working on, and resume this work using another computer in another part of a city or several thousands of miles away. The second system will look identical to the first one, with the same files and applications opened. This technology would also ease OS upgrades or eliminate the pain coming from a hard disk failure. The project has even a feature named Rollback which would permit to go back in time, eliminating these pesky viruses. A pilot test will start this fall, so don't expect to be able to use ISR for a while. You'll find more details and references in this overview."
Sun's has had this working for years on Sun Ray thin clients. Your working session is frozen when you remove a smart card, and is resumed on another appliance when you put the smart card back in. It works all over the country, so a session can be resumed anywhere.
Beautiful idea, but I want to carry his memory/state with me on a little and duplicable box or card.
What's in a sig?
A pendrive/ipod (in size, harddrive space) bluetooth enabled device that carried core applications and your home folder? Wether in be a unix-style home folder layour, or an xml/generic folder layout that has an abstraction to windows/unix/linux(various conflicting layouts in unixes). and OFCOURSE, the drive, preferably solid-state, would be encrypted with a public key...
I walk up to an unused machine, sit down, the login script/screen detects my bluetooth device, notices that is a user account storage device, and prompts for a username/password that is checked against the device via encrypted bluetooth... If successful, links, shortcuts, small apps(putty), documents, contacts, email, etc.. are all 'loaded' onto the local machine, as if i were at my home computer...
Even better if these were on a linux/x11 setup so we could do some automatic screen attach/detach scripts on all processes/programs running!
And it's called the iPod.
... without disrupting the current Mac configuration whatsoever except for the needed reboot. Emulation layer suggested _is_ being worked on... :)
It's tiny standardized robust plugable hard-disk (Firewire based) and 5G is all that I need to "keep running". That's enough space to have the core OS [X] and my Applications directory tree (which is absolutely loaded with only ~3G used).
I'm able to listen to my music anywhere -- and boot "my computer" on any Mac I encounter
I don't see what the big deal is here.
The big deal is making it easy for Joe User to do it every day without thinking. I should remind you that Joe User is no scripting wizard.
Intel's Digital Briefcase will be realized with the introduction of the following technologies:
1) High-density, low-power, nonvolatile memory
2) Integrated logic & wireless
At this point, the Personal Server becomes feasible. A specification for "personal server compliant" operating systems helps any compliant PC in the world "log on to you", as they say in Soviet Russia. All of your preferences down to the last minute detail (wallpaper, favorites, browsing history, etc) will immediately be transferred to this particular PC and it will be as if it were your own.
This is close. Since Microsoft will try to "embrace and extend" this to the point that we can't use these devices without Windows, the open-source community will need to rapidly develop this into an open, robust standard that will work with all PCs. I give it two years... Power consumption will be the biggest issue. Otherwise, you could stick a WiFi link on an iPod and do it now (though I suppose it could be done with a cable that also supplies power).
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
You are thinking about it in the wrong way. In The Future(tm) everyone will use one big shared HD, and its name will be Google.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
Yes, but assume (if the powers that be at the Internet providers decide to allow it...) conectivity imporves and bandwidth is not an issue? We are getting closer and closer to that every day. Some public utilities have started to bring fibre to the door of every house in their district. Some day soon this will be common. At that point your argument will nolonger be valid.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Project Athena at MIT already did all of this, back in 1983. Digital Equipment Co Ltd (DEC) even took the technology, productized it and told it onto some Universities in the UK. And all with (at the time) state of the art MIPS Unix workstations.
Here's a link with some info about the MIT implementation:
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V119/N19/history_of_ath
It was really cool technology and way ahead of its time. The only reason it didn't take over the world was because of the prohibitive price of RISC workstations back then. Way too expensive for a corporate desktop. Shame really.
Those who don't understand Unix are doomed to reinvent it, poorly!
This has lessened significantly in recent years, but still, when their tech is desirable, it's typically out of the reach of the high end (as in knowledge) individual user. Pisses me off to no end that when they come out with something that could be used, they miss the individual.
;-)
Thank God that Sun hardware never becomes truly obsolete, eh? Visit AnySystem to get yourself some amazingly cheap hardware. And keep an eye on their ebay auctions. I've seen more than one E8500 go for ~$3000! That's 8 processors, 9x(8Gig) fibre channel disks, multiple network cards, 6-8 GIGS of RAM, and lots of other goodies! Just slap a "free Solaris 9" copy on there and run with it! I just wish I had a few extra grand for this sucker. Now if Sun would *just* provide a cheaper version of their RayStation Server Software, I'd have my entire apartment complex wired!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade