The Future Home Server?

Sat, Jun 27, 2009

  |  Jim Clark
The Future Home Server?

It fits in the palm of your hand.  It plugs into a wall socket.  It runs Linux.  Plug a USB drive (or more) into it, fire up your browser of choice, and have an instant storage hub.  Heck, it even won a PC Magazines Editors’ Choice award!  It is full blown computer… appliance!

0,1425,sz=1&i=204973,00 

And all this for under $100!

Does anyone out there remember the first Compaq “portable” computer?  It wasn’t much smaller than a PC of that era, but you could pick it up and “lug” it with you.

678px-Compaq_portable

Since then, companies have been making computers smaller and smaller.  Normally, so that you pick it up and take it with you.  While not meant for potable applications, the Pogoplug appears to be the current culmination of a computer-as-an-appliance in an extremely compact size.

There is a 26 year gap between the above 2 pictures.  Just imagine what might come about in the next 26 years!  A chip inserted under your skin?  ooo-EEE-ooo!  Science fact meeting science fiction?

PCPro has the low-down on such a device being readied for sale in the UK.  And PC Magazine has the low-down on the Pogoplug.

I could be very wrong here, but it seems at some point, personal computer software will become obsolete.  Everyone will have that chip-under-their-skin and those chips will all communicate with a central server hub(s).  IBM will rule once again!

It could happen, you know.

Thanks to Urmaster for bringing to my attention the PCPro article.

 

Sign up for WGS Daily News

If you don't want to miss out on the latest news from We Got Served, why not subscribe to our daily digest? You'll get the day's headlines and a short summary of each news item delivered straight to your inbox each morning. Get served!

This post was written by:

Jim Clark - who has written 356 posts on We Got Served.

Hello. I’m from the heartland of U.S. Lots of corn and beans, although Iowa is a lot more than just farmland. It also has a few computer enthusiasts (no, not me!). I’ve been around PC’s since I got my 1st PC XT aloooong time ago. WGS is one of the first sites I found centered around WHS. And the best. Every once in awhile, I do get away from the KB and enjoy time with and my wife and our 4 kids. And I do have a day job.

Contact the author

3 Responses to “The Future Home Server?”

  1. urmaster Says:

    Yay I get a mention.
    The Size to Processing Power ratio on these things are crazy makes you wonder why laptops and other portable computers are so underpowered in comparison. Then again why make new tech when you can make millions off existing hardware.

    Reply

  2. AshLaws Says:

    I noticed a lot of people talking about using this as a torrent box – plug it into the network, plug in a USB hard drive, and you are ready to go!

    Reply

  3. Osamede Says:

    USB speed is deadly slow. Utterly useless for a real server. When they put esata on this it will actually be useful.

    Reply

Leave a Reply