Diskless PCs — a transition path
I’ve been beating the drum for flash-drive-based diskless PCs for a while (see earlier posts in this section). Computerworld now reports that In-Stat says these PCs could take over half the laptop market by 2013.
Of course, that kind of market research study is not to be taken seriously, at least in its detailed dates and numbers. But of interest is the #1 benefit to flash drives cited in a survey they did, because it’s one I hadn’t focused on before — lower power consumption.
What I’ve been talking about is a grand change in personal computing, with removable flash drives replacing hard drives, and being carried from device to device. Laptops with fixed flash drives may be a key step on the path toward that future.
| Categories: Diskless PCs, Hardware | Leave a Comment |
Appliances are not dead yet
Nick Carr and Jonathon Schwartz are predicting the death (or at least decline) of special-purpose computing appliances. Their reasons, so far as I can tell, are pretty much threefold:
- Vendors have economies of scale making general-purpose computers.
- Users have economies of scale running homogenous, general-purpose computers.
- Virtualization will work.
But when one thinks a little bit about what’s really driving the use of appliances, those arguments fall apart.
| Categories: Computing appliances, Hardware, Platforms, Virtualization | 1 Comment |
Unlocking fiscal from technical architecture
Martin Geddes of Telepocalypse is kind enough to call Tariff Rebate Passthrough “the first new idea I’ve seen in a long time on the stale network neutrality debate.” He goes on to express concern about the practicality of the idea, but hopefully I addressed that somewhat in subsequent posts. While there certainly are major systems to build, which I acknowledge, I don’t see why it’s worse than what would be needed if the telcos’ preferred bill successfully makes it through Congress.
| Categories: Net neutrality, Public policy and privacy | Leave a Comment |
So THAT’S why Andrew Orlowski still has a job
Good things can come from the oddest sources, like mushrooms from a guano cave. And thus an amusing and worthwhile article has appeared under Andrew Orlowski‘s byline. It’s over-the-top, of course, but hey — it IS an Orlowski piece, after all.
His basic thesis is that political bloggers feel so driven to just write that they eventually lose touch with logic, and that this plays in to the general paranoid theme in political discourse. (For some reason, he identifies paranoia uniquely with Americans, but let’s overlook that piece of silliness.) In particular, he thinks the pro-net-neutrality arguments are extremist, even as he correctly points out that the bill being rammed through Congress in their despite is horrifically anti-competitive.
| Categories: Net neutrality, Public policy and privacy | 1 Comment |