Jumping From Computer To Computer 474
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."
Already close (Score:2, Interesting)
Sun Ray (Score:5, Interesting)
Beautiful (Score:4, Interesting)
Beautiful idea, but I want to carry his memory/state with me on a little and duplicable box or card.
DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Uh, right. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Uh, right. (Score:3, Interesting)
The trouble for me is, I like my personal machines. Not just the settings, which are relatively painless to transfer (since I don't use Windows when possible), but rather, the hardware: I love my particular old Marble FX trackball and NMB keyboard...
This is UNIVAC! (Score:2, Interesting)
computer that had acces points in the style of an ATM machine, all around the world. The bad thing is that the computer, tired of that burden, tried to commit siucide hiring some terrorists for the job.
Do not put all your eggs in the same basket...
Insecure as all get-out. (Score:3, Interesting)
Note that this memo wasn't just idle paranoia; we sent it out after having some IP address in Korea attempt to log in to our corporate webmail server, after one of our salesdroids checked her mail from a public terminal in the lobby of a business hotel. He had her username, password, and who knows what else in the way of corporate data, all from her using a public PC.
Me? I'll stick with bringing my laptop around, even if it looks funny, just like I stick to using GPG and public-key encryption on my emails.
What goes around ... (Score:2, Interesting)
We've had this ability since the birth of computers, we just keep coming up with 'whiz-bang' junk that prevents us from maintaining it, as a feature, across consequent generations of computer technology.
seems like the further we get from the 80's, the more we forget about just how productive things truly were back then
Security (Score:3, Interesting)
Very easy to put in a keyboard, mouse, USB key sniffer in.
If I can't trust my own computer running the 'standard' OS, how can I trust someone elses.
People have finally gotten to understand they must keep their bank PIN number secret, they should be able to understand putting it into random computers is also a bad idea.
Re:Um... (Score:3, Interesting)
Do real work in VNC/X/Remote Desktop over a 128 kbs DSL and you know the answer to that.
This will run stuff on the local machine, and limit lags to filetransfers. I can live with a lag of a second or two when I save a file - NEVER a lag of 100-200 ms or even more everytime I hit a key or click my mouse - and this is the reality of X/VNC over anything but very fast connections.
How about... (Score:5, Interesting)
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!
Re:Uh, right. (Score:3, Interesting)
And there's the interesting bit. How do we automate the interaction and composition of processes in a market environment? How do we allow services to submit bids to some consumer, and have it choose the best bid; thousands of times a second? How do we arbitrate and regulate such an environment?
Welcome to my PhD
Henry
It's here already (Score:4, Interesting)
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
Re:Well... (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [intel.com] 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 [com.com] 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).
What I really really want, is portable systems (Score:3, Interesting)
I want to carry a small device(possibly like an iPod, I can listen to my music on it, but it is primarily a portable HD)
I walk up to ANY computer and insert the device. I press a button. The computer loads MY OS setup, and shows my files and settings.
I use the computer as I need to, press a button, and it ejects my device.
To make this work, it would require a new kind of hardware setups. The Hardware would have to have a basic OS setup, and an abstraction layer for hardware. for network settings, various video cards etc. It would then at the press of the button, setup an interface layer with the OS on the device, and boot that OS. It would give full hardware access to all local hardware(cd-roms, usb firewire ports, 3D cards etc.
Apple are you listening? Your the only one who could pull it off.
Re:Interesting, but incomplete (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Knoppix discs (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:GoToMyPC?? (Score:2, Interesting)
need word for a couple of hours just login at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx there are a lot of possibilitys for this kind computing. ok privacy might be an issue but there are a lot of times when you just dont care and 5 minutes of connection with a fast computer or an advanced program could save you days if not weeks struggling with your home system.
Re:Um... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Beautiful (Score:1, Interesting)
Michael
Roaming Profile (Score:3, Interesting)
Would it be an interesting and novel concept to have a key that allows you to plug it into a pub terminal (with appropriate package) that allows you to have your user profile and preferences on it?
IE you could buy USB device/key, set up your desktop environment on it, and then be able to carry it around with you from terminal to terminal. Perhaps keeping the general windows user structure on the key (IE my documents/mypictures folders).
This way you could keep files and such, and if the password you entered in the login screen was also the password which opened the key, you could keep it secure as well.
When you downloaded you could only download to your KEY or a temp folder on the hard drive which would be immediately deleted after you logged off.
If the keys had sufficient on-board memory, say 256 megs, you could get a goodly amount of documents/cookies/cached images on it etc...
People could also buy bigger keys just for this purpose.
I think it would be a great idea.
I also have a few other ideas with portable keys, but this one seems kind of obvious to me.
So what... (Score:3, Interesting)
You can already do it with rdesktop and windows, vnc and any vnc-enabled graphical environment, even X11 if you have the right kind of proxy extension enabled. I'm just waiting for someone to polish up a client for the SunRay protocol (it's mostly understood, but no one seems to care enough for someone to finish a client...)
I don't think anyone really wants this.
I think a visual protocol is too specific. The work needs to be in creating a widget/RPC API that lets you splat a standardized local GUI onto remote application servers. XML-RPC might be a part of it, or maybe just a component. Something that lets you pick your "skin" and standardizes on a backend with an interface description language... like XUL or Glade or something, but remote.
Then it'd be real easy to have a consistent view of the state of the app from anywhere.
Simpler solution (Score:2, Interesting)
A universal, single connector including video, keyboard, mouse and network.
An iPod-size device that has one such connector. The device has a processor and a disk, which contains your favourite OS.
And you just plug your device at any connector that you find.
Re:I love this quote... (Score:3, Interesting)
- You connect to your PC and press the 'Request password' button.
- A one-time password is sent to your preconfigured cell phone number.
- You log on with this password, and after you're done working you log out, and the password becomes invalid.
This way, it doesn't matter how insecure the computer you're on is. Worst case, the keylogger only gets a useless password.
Re:I love this quote... (Score:3, Interesting)
And note the "or worse" in my post. As someone else mentioned, once you're on, the session can be hijacked. Files can be accessed and copied. Anything can happen. Using untrusted hardware for anything sensitive is a terrible mistake, there are no precautions you can take to make it secure.
Re:I love this quote... (Score:3, Interesting)
- You connect to your PC and press the 'Request password' button.
- A one-time password is sent to your preconfigured cell phone number.
- You log on with this password, and after you're done working you log out, and the password becomes invalid.
This way, it doesn't matter how insecure the computer you're on is. Worst case, the keylogger only gets a useless password.
Except that once you're logged on, the keylogger will still capture everything you do; account numbers, notes to your mistress, etc., which is what you were trying to protect in the first place. And what happens if your cell phone is stolen? The thief has himself a perfectly good one-time password to use at any of these public terminals.
Already done before - MIT's Project Athena: 1983 (Score:4, Interesting)
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!
Re:So what... (Score:4, Interesting)
Thank God that Sun hardware never becomes truly obsolete, eh? Visit AnySystem [anysystem.com] to get yourself some amazingly cheap hardware. And keep an eye on their ebay auctions [ebay.com]. 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 [ebay.com]. Now if Sun would *just* provide a cheaper version of their RayStation Server Software, I'd have my entire apartment complex wired!