Eggcyte is Making a Pocket-Sized Personal Web Server (Video)

Eggcyte has been working on this for two years. It's on Kickstarter now; a personal server you can use to share music, video, text, and just about anything else without resorting to cloud-based services where one weak password can put your private celebrity photos (you are a celebrity, right?) into the wrong hands. If you suddenly decide you don't want to share the information on your Egg any more, turn it off. If you suddenly have something new to share, like a video you just shot of the Loch Ness Monster capturing an alien spaceship, you can connect your Egg to the Internet anywhere you find a wireless access point. The main thing, say the Eggcyte people, is that your data is yours and should stay that way. Facebook and other cloud-based "sharing" companies use your data to learn about you. Here in the U.S. their primary purpose may be to show you ads for things you might want to buy. In more repressive countries, cloud-based sharing services may use your private data in ways that could be hazardous to your health. Of course, our government people would never keep track of what we post on Twitter and other online services... or would they? (Alternate Video Link)

Comments

What?

[sideslash]

How does this address leakage of private media on the internet? Sure, you can "turn it off" to disable public access, but you can do that on DropBox too.

The typical pattern, whether DropBox or "Eggcyte" is something like the following:

(1) You post private stuff on the cloud
(2) somebody else accesses it, whether it's intentionally or unintentionally shared
(3) bad actors download the media and publish it on other outlets such as 4chan
(4) you panic and disable the original share, although of course it is now too late.
(5) Sad stories about you are published on news sites, along with stern and moralizing finger wagging.

200 dollars is too expensive

[Karmashock]

I can buy a raspberry pi with all the addons for less then 100 USD, load a webserver on it, and have more functionality then what this thing offers.

Yeah it has a screen and yeah its probably easier to set up. But that is what I'm buying then. A screen and an easier set up... for twice the price.

As to sticking it in your pocket... The whole web domain thing is great but subdomains are nothing new. I can get a free subdomain from any of several services. I do it all the time. Any system I work with on a regular basis that is on a dynamic IP gets a subdomain synced to it so that I can always login to that system. All they're doing is setting up a subdomain on a server they own and selling this unit... which is nice but isn't really competitive with a raspberry pi.

Am I missing anything? The thing is neat... its just redundant.

Re:200 dollars is too expensive

[CaptainDork]

Actually, you are missing something ... a revenue stream.

Re:Web Server?

[jedidiah]

Once you stop keeping a low profile, being noticed by your ISP is really the least of your worries.