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Always on Laptops
yapplejax writes "PortalPlayer is offering an interesting laptop technology to manufacturers which will allow information to be displayed without actually booting the computer. The addition will cost manufacturers a mere $30 - $40 and is supported by Vista via the feature "SideShow"." From the article: "PortalPlayer kept down the costs of Preface by using a display used in mobile phones, rather that developing one specially, to take advantage of the economies of scale in the phone market, Johnson said. The costs will include $18 to $20 for a display, about $12 for the single-chip processor and a few dollars for memory and other small components, he said."
I keep my laptop on in sleep mode, and you keep your special display and processor.
This is simply a computer (system on a chip) within a laptop running its own firmware. The 'press release' mentions a Windows API. Does it have an open API so that any OS running on the laptop can access this device? It sounds like it might be one of those devices that you must boot into windows to configure it. Very little substance on the PortalPlayer website about their SDK. It also sounds like its embeds a small LCD display in the laptop cover.
I would assume the files you can read are special, because otherwise your no boot system is in its own booted status to read the files. At that time, you might as well boot the laptop.
What exactly do they mean by 'peek inside?' I guess I don't particularly see the applications for this sort of thing. Are they talking about being able to look up a contact or read an email message without firing the whole laptop up? Or is this to have an interface into your mp3 collection? Anybody with some insight into the uses for this?
This guy's the limit!
This has been talked about for a few months, ever since Asus demoed a version like this. You can see a current take on it (with quite a few links) that works in Windows XP here: http://www.makezine.com/extras/41.html
Granted, it's ugly as sin, but it works and gives you space to start working on potential applications and uses for this technology.
And here I was hoping that someone had come up with a laptop that never needed to be turned off.
;-)
:-(
FWIW, it is possible to create a laptop that will power itself for years on end. Unfortunately, it would require that a consumer-focused Radioisotope Thermal Generator be developed that is far lighter weight than the current models. Even then, it will still add a few pounds to your laptop, but what's a little extra weight when you never need to plug in?
Sadly, the current anti-nuclear stance of the public makes such "nuclear batteries" an unlikely development. Just throw it atop the pile of cool technologies that have never seen the light of day.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Honestly, embed OS'es like Linux or Windows in some form of memory on a laptop or desktop mainboard and turn it into a calculator already!
It is freaking ridiculous that 6/7 years into the 21st Century (however you count it) that we still rely on BOOTING computers from antiquated electromagnetic platters before we can access the software applications.
There is no reason why all the OS components, kernel and key applications cannot reside in some built in non-volatile memory so that the computer is technically "always-on" even if the power is turned off. All you do is restore the environment in the memory as opposed to booting fresh. You can pair that with keeping a small charge on volatile memory to keep the current desktop environment active in low power mode.
This may actually make the OS more secure as you can make sure that nothing can touch or corrupt the embedded software and OS kernel simply by making the embedded software read only. Patches, updates or upgrades would require a sophisticated authentication protocol to allow changes to the embedded OS software.
It ain't rocket science.
I know PDA's and mobile platforms used embedded OS'es, but is there any reason why the humble Desktop or Laptop computers can't use this same technology? Put 1gb of embedded non-volatile memory on to the mainboard and let Windows or your favourite OS of choice be installed into it in its running state.
In some ways I find that computer/software technology has become stagnant. No matter how fast CPU's get, or how fancy OS'es get there are some things that haven't changed for almost 30 years on computers. It's time for a revolution, make our computers better darn it instead of adding cutesy add ons that mimic what real innovation could do more effectively.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
It's been done before.
A buddy had a Tandy PC that was equipped with DOS v3.3 in the BIOS (designated c:\)
It didn't work very well in practice, but in theory, damn it was cool.
(Among many software problems that he had due to c:\ being read-only, the whole system was slow as hell.)
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Now, does that look useless to you or what? I can see my appointments! Wow. My PDA does that now. Or my phone can. Or my watch can. Soon my Toaster will too. And with my PDA I can edit the appointment. With these little screens, you either can't edit it (useless) or it would have to use the disk (must understand filesystem, file format, etc; HDs use battery) or it just saves the changes into memory to be put into the schedule program when you boot it up (that would require battery to keep the memory going). Neither of those seem useful.
But it's on my laptop! So when I want to see an appointment on the road, instead of looking at my PDA or Phone (as I said before), I can pull out my laptop out of it's case and press a button so I can read data off a little 2" screen. Wow. For all that time, I could just use the laptop. My Mac comes out of sleep in about 2 or 3 seconds. I can open the program, look at what I want, and close it back up in under 20. How long would it take me to get details on an appointment with these little screens. Can I even do that? My Mac uses almost no power when in sleep mode (it tells me when it comes out of sleep that it could stay that way for about 10 days). And newer macs have a disk based sleep mode that uses NO power (instead of next-to-no-power).
Sure, it may be useful if you keep your laptop on your desk and you want to be able to glance over at it... but if you do that, leave the laptop plugged in and turned on.
This seems like a solution in search of a problem. People like the little screens on their phones because they can see who is calling. The screen on the laptop doesn't provide that. See if you got new e-mail messages? Nope. It would either have to talk to the e-mail server (waste of battery, complex) or it would have to get the mail program to check (which involves basically running the laptop all the time).
And, after all of this, if you want to act on something you see on the screen by running the program in Windows, you either have to open the lid and wait for it to come out of sleep (can take awhile, from the laptops I've seen around me), or the computer was off and you have to turn it on and wait for a full boot. Genius.
I'm with another post. For that price ($30) you can easily embed 256MB (or maybe even 512 since it doesn't have to bee too small) of Flash on the motherboard and boot the OS kernel and some other stuff out of that. That would cut boot times a ton. That would save power (don't spin up the disk unless you need it). That would make sense.
But adding a little screen that won't give you much value? Don't bother.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
No, it's not rocket science, but it is incredibly complex, and I'm guessing from your post that you've never studied how operating systems work or things like "authentication protocols". What happens when you go without power for an extended period of time? You lose your entire OS. What do you do if you want to upgrade your OS and the volatile memory you're storing it on doesn't have enough space? (keep in mind that volatile memory is MUCH more expensive than a hard drive) How do you differentiate normal and "key" applications? It's either read-only or it's not, and every independant software developer out there is going to consider their software to be "key". Also, if the device state is constant, how do you handle removing or installing new hardware? You'll have to reboot for that. That is, of course, ignoring the fact that you should have the power completely off any time you're working on internal hardware, and that would wipe out your OS. All kinds of horror would ensue if you tried to move whatever device was containing your OS to another computer. You'll also have to reboot any time your OS's kernel changes.
These things aren't issues with PDAs and mobile devices because their OSs are much simpler, their hardware is not expected to undergo any serious changes (except perhaps swapping out an expansion card), and because they have so little data (relatively) that it is cheap to implement. If you think it's so easy, why don't you do it rather than telling the engineers what they should be doing?