UID to my Sky-PC systemI’m not sure if someone has suggested this before…
A few years back Microsoft launched among their online services the “Microsoft virtual machine” to their customers. That service got a considerable popularity then.
Encouraged by the growing widespread of the broadband and the other modern high speed massive data transmission technology, Microsoft launched lately the ”sky drive” service which also gained much more popularity. Other companies whether little earlier, little after or concurrently with Microsoft, introduced similar online storage services. The growing high speed internet service together with the more and more declining cost of the service, were the major factors behind the widespread popularity of these online storage services; many people by time find that there is no more need to save their content in the local drives of their home PCs.
About a couple of years ago, many computer manufacturers introduced their new Netbook devices which as announced differ from the ordinary laptops as being designed mainly for browsing the web.
Hence the new idea rose up into my mind: “why not the PCs (designed for web browsing only) to be confined to the final (direct user) input & output elements?”
It’s something even much simpler than these Netbooks.
I imagine it, as if my PC is being divided into two parts:
part one: is my interface (mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers)
part two: is the rest of my computer which is then located very remotely and connected to part one by very long cables and wires (which would logically be replaced by fast secure wireless connection)
So the proposed Web Browsing system would have two sets of components:
A- Set One -the simple one- it is the User-Interface- Device (UID) & contains the following:
Input: a mouse, a keyboard, a camera & a microphone. +/- some other means of input.
Output: a display (monitor), & speakers.
Ports: (USB, BT, WiFi, 3G, etc) for speed connection and for other input & output external devices, as flash drives, card readers, other accessories.
N.B. a real huge capacity rotating hard drive may not be included in the UID (User-Interface- Device), as users would rather store their files either online, or on external storage device or media… Otherwise a lighter non mechanical storing means as built-in flash memory might be integrated in the UID instead. That feature is indispensible to reduce the device weight, power consumption, & heat emission, which is important for outdoor web experience.
The operating system and the included software in the UID would be rather simple and confined to the functioning of the above mentioned hardware profile, together with reliable firewall and encryption technology for securing private data transmission. Also a set of compression-decompression software and media codecs should be included to reduce the magnitude of the incoming and the outgoing data, hence reducing the time needed for browsing and computing experience.
If the included operating system and software, to come in the ROM (read-only-memory) format, that would be a major advantage which would rule out troubleshooting, & the need for antimalware software.
(The ROM format of the OS & the included software, wouldn’t be a disadvantage, as the antimalware software, & all the customizing tools, & something like add-remove-program feature would all be integrated in the sky-PC).
B- Set Two : sky-PC:
These are real computers which users would be connected to, as if their own PCs. Such machines are fully integrated and are provided online by the Sky-PC Service Providers. Most of the computing tasks, and the web-content-processing, would be done on such powerful sky-machines, and little left to the local user interface devices (UID)… An experience like that is already provided by Opera: Users of the Opera mini browser in their mobile devices, send their web requests to the Opera server rather than directly to the websites, where the Opera servers integrates the requested WebPages’ content, compress it, and then sending it to the mobile devices to be decompressed by the mini browser and displayed in a while.. An experience which proved to reduce the browsing time to about one third of the original time needed if using another phone browser at the same connection speed.
Logically, these proposed sky-PCs would be reliably protected against malware, but yet the service providers though doing their best in this respect, would not be able to give 100% guarantee to their users against threats. They would rather inform users about that and perform moment-by-moment or session-by-session backups, or something like system restore for them.
For the user the story is expressed like that:
My UID has just a screen & speakers, a keyboard & mouse, Ports & means for high speed secure connection to my sky-PC which browse the web for me and send me back the Ready-to-See WebPages that i already requested. I store my content there. I’m neither spied at, nor attacked by malware, ‘cos my OS and software are in ROM format, and ‘cos I have a firewall, & reliable encryption tools. Furthermore I can log in to my sky-PC from anywhere by any UID. And Lastly I haven’t to afford purchasing expensive PC anymore, as the UIDs are now much simpler and cheaper. My intensive computing work as video processing,3D or photo editing and Microsoft Office or similar heavy presentations, etc. all are performed on either my sky-PC or my ordinary home PC.
Actually Microsoft, Google & probably other providers introduce online document and other presentations editing and saving services... This means that things are naturally going towards an internet experience near to what is being suggested here.
I think this system –if it would prove any success- will not replace the ordinary PC, as many people will still like to keep having their files and work on their own real PCs, and also people using slower networks, and won’t be able to store-and-retrieve their content, or finish their work on the sky-PCs instantly, would rather work on the ordinary PC.
Thus both systems then, would run side by side.
So what is the need for all that? Why not to keep the ordinary PC system?
- In addition to the other advantages mentioned above, The answer is that:
The pecentage of people using computers only for browsing the web is rising steadily and intensively, so providing powerful computers for such users would be a waste of resources and money; so the proposed (UID to my Sky-PC system) is more convenient then in a way.
This is not an invention which i’m claiming, or advertising for… it’s rather a panoramic view of what is already happening and is continuing to happen…
I as non technical person submit my apology, regarding lack of proper technical expression, and for any mistake that might be present in this essay.
Finally I hope that the reputed bodies and corporations like: Microsoft, Google, Apple, IBM and other hardware and software manufacturers, to check the validity of such proposal, and –if proved worth working- to bring it true one day.
