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Network Adapter Keeps Talking While a PC Is Asleep

Posted by timothy on from the would-make-me-feel-better-about-keeping-a-server-on dept.

Al writes "Researchers at Microsoft and the University of California, San Diego have developed a network adapter that lets a computer enter sleep mode without disrupting the network connection. The adapter, dubbed Somniloquy (meaning to talk in one's sleep), consists of a gumstix running embedded Linux, 64MB of RAM and a 2G SD memory card, connected via USB. The adapter keeps the network connection going and the researchers have also developed a simplified IM client and bittorrent client that carry out more complicated tasks autonomously, only waking the computer if, for example, an actualy IM is received or a download is completed."

6 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Mainframe architecture revisted ... by golodh · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's funny how today's PCs continue to take architectural queues from earlier mainframe and minicomputer designs.

    Remember when your IBM mainframe had an array of special I/O processors? Well, the bus arbitrator on your motherboard looks suspiciously like one of those. And remember when disk arrays because "smart"? Well ... just looks at the electronics on the average SATA IDE drive and you'll see what I mean. It manages the hardware, and you only talk to the drive's on-board controller, never to the drive itself.

    And now this network controller. Pardon me, I mean network card.

  2. Research? This is already a product by xianthax · · Score: 2, Interesting

    NIC's with on board processors and off load for these types of applications have been on the market for several years.

    http://www.bigfootnetworks.com/products/

    I think the only difference here is the operation while sleeping which could easily be done with a killer nic with firmware/driver changes

  3. Is it just me? by SuseLover · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is this scary technology? Now your system can become a true zombie on a botnet while asleep. Couldn't a virus/worm just wake your system up and infect it?

  4. Re:Yo Dawg by KibibyteBrain · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Still, the issue remains, why not just have two computers, a gumstix based box that runs bittorrent 24/7 and forwards the data to a cifs share on the windows box, and then a windows box that is set to sleep when idle but WOL? I see no benefit in tying the low power headless machine to your other computer. I essentially do this now, running my 24/7 tasks on an Atom based desktop and then sleeping my workstation when im not sitting in front of it. I also run my IM client on the remote host too, so the only benefit of their system over mine is they have an API that wakes the host machine on certain events, which I could implement if I really wanted that functionality.

  5. Re:So in other words... by Locutus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    much like the OLPC design for their mesh networking. Another cool thing they, the OLPC people, was to let the CPU sleep but the video card keeps displaying what's on the screen.

    LoB

    --
    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
  6. Re:So in other words... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    so, every 10 minutes with a decent connection. maybe the 2GB is upgradable.