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USB-Based NIC Torrents While Your PC Sleeps

Posted by kdawson on from the talking-in-your-sleep dept.

jangel sends us to WindowsForDevices.com for news on a prototype device created by researchers from Microsoft and UC San Diego. It's a USB-based NIC that includes its own ARM processor and flash storage, and can download files or torrent while a host PC is sleeping. As a result, its inventors say, the "Somniloquy" device slashes power usage by up to 50x. The device requires a few tweaks on the host OS side save state before sleeping. The prototype works with a Vista host but the hardware comprising the NIC is based on a Linux stack. Here is the research paper (PDF).

2 of 246 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Perfect for the computer lab by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If it had Wifi, you could just stick it to the bottom of a table at your favorite coffee shop.

    RTFA

    Pulled directly from the link:

    The resulting device, pictured above, includes a 200MHz Marvell PXA255 processor with 64MB of RAM and 16MB of flash storage, 10/100 Ethernet, WiFi, and an SD slot which was fitted with a 2GB memory card.

  2. Re:Perfect for the computer lab by colsandurz45 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You might need to build a dumb USB power supply for it though. How about a 9 volt battery, a resistor and a zener diode?

    How about that's extremely inefficient. For an additional $0.50 you can get a voltage regular or DC-DC converter. Come on, I'm on the digital side of EE and I know better.