Ultra thin client
Here's a pretty neat idea, be nice to have at home as an email terminal in the kitchen or something like that.
Small box 'to end digital divide'
By Jo Twist
BBC News science and technology reporter
Nivo boxes connected to monitors
The boxes mean small companies or cybercafes can set up cheaply
A pared down "computer" to replace bulky, grey desktop PCs could help close global digital inequalities.
Not-for-profit developers, Ndiyo - the Swahili word for "yes" - said it could open up the potential of computing to two billion more people.
The sub-£100 box, called Nivo, runs on open-source software and is known as a "thin client". Several can be linked up to a central "brain", or server.
Thin clients are not new, but advances have made them more user-friendly.
They have been employed in large organisations in the past, but the Ndiyo project is about "ultra-thin client" networking.
It said the small, cheap boxes were targeted at smaller companies, cybercafes, or schools, which need an affordable, reliable system for providing clusters of two to 20 workstations.
"Your PC is a bulky, noisy, expensive mess that clutters up your life," Ndiyo's Dr Seb Wills told a Microsoft Research conference in Cambridge, UK.
"Our emphasis and core motivation is the developing world for whom the current 'one user, one PC' approach will never be affordable," he told the BBC News website.
"But we think our approach is also of benefit to organisations in the developed world who don't want to throw away money on buying and maintaining a full PC for each user."
Open source
Desktop machines with which we are familiar, are inflexible, and power-hungry, according to Ndiyo.
The raw materials used for a PC are 11 to 12 times the weight of the machine, he explained.
Typical office workstation set-ups also use more power than thin clienting. A PC typically uses 100W of power, whereas Nivo uses five.
Here's the link
Small box 'to end digital divide'
By Jo Twist
BBC News science and technology reporter
Nivo boxes connected to monitors
The boxes mean small companies or cybercafes can set up cheaply
A pared down "computer" to replace bulky, grey desktop PCs could help close global digital inequalities.
Not-for-profit developers, Ndiyo - the Swahili word for "yes" - said it could open up the potential of computing to two billion more people.
The sub-£100 box, called Nivo, runs on open-source software and is known as a "thin client". Several can be linked up to a central "brain", or server.
Thin clients are not new, but advances have made them more user-friendly.
They have been employed in large organisations in the past, but the Ndiyo project is about "ultra-thin client" networking.
It said the small, cheap boxes were targeted at smaller companies, cybercafes, or schools, which need an affordable, reliable system for providing clusters of two to 20 workstations.
"Your PC is a bulky, noisy, expensive mess that clutters up your life," Ndiyo's Dr Seb Wills told a Microsoft Research conference in Cambridge, UK.
"Our emphasis and core motivation is the developing world for whom the current 'one user, one PC' approach will never be affordable," he told the BBC News website.
"But we think our approach is also of benefit to organisations in the developed world who don't want to throw away money on buying and maintaining a full PC for each user."
Open source
Desktop machines with which we are familiar, are inflexible, and power-hungry, according to Ndiyo.
The raw materials used for a PC are 11 to 12 times the weight of the machine, he explained.
Typical office workstation set-ups also use more power than thin clienting. A PC typically uses 100W of power, whereas Nivo uses five.
Here's the link
Comments
i was very impressed with user-switching on mac os 10.3 and how my parents and i can *share* my (well, my dad's) iBook
i wonder if this is an area apple can look into. 'coz a family that is considering getting 2 dells within the space of one year,
maybe they could get a iMac-g5-2ghz-512mb ram, and then have 2-3 thin clients running off that one g5.
i think apple might jump into this scene though if somehow the core "family server" would also be recording HDTV in the background
exciting possibilities
Originally posted by MarcUK
http://www.amstrad.com/default.shtml
Wow! Amstrad are still around. I hadn't heard of them since the days of the Commodore 64.
Interesting little device.
Originally posted by Bart Smastard
Wow! Amstrad are still around. I hadn't heard of them since the days of the Commodore 64.
Interesting little device.
I remember them to;
Originally posted by sunilraman
and then have 2-3 thin clients running off that one g5.
They'll all be thin clients running off of .mac.
--B
Originally posted by Bart Smastard
Wow! Amstrad are still around. I hadn't heard of them since the days of the Commodore 64.
Interesting little device.
Bet you didn't know also you can get an Amstrad CPC emulator for your mac/PC, yes you can still play ghosts'n'goblins and jet set willy
Originally posted by Relic
I remember them to;
Only losers had Amstrads. Teh Elite had Commodores.
But Apple stole the idea of the Newton from Amstrad. They had what was then the amazing 600PDA (or something like that).
Amstrad seems to be a company just an inch too ahead, an inch too backwards or a mile of the wrong road.