The personal cloud built on FOSS is a very nice idea. We need this real bad.<p>I think the technological complexity of implementing this is quite serious---setting this up for the average non-technical person would be an impossible task. If we can get past the Dynamic DNS + opening ports on the home router, this will be immediately useful. Then again maybe "my personal cloud" could be on AWS to begin with, see [1].<p>Are there any efforts for the "personal cloud" platforms that have traction? I'm interested particularly for easy-to-use ones---possibly focussing on a single application, e.g., share pictures with your family from the old PC in your closet.<p>[1] <a href="http://minireference.com/blog/a-scriptable-future-for-the-web-and-home-servers/" rel="nofollow">http://minireference.com/blog/a-scriptable-future-for-the-we...</a>
Back in the late '90's I thought lots of aspiring computer scientists were already using Windows or Linux as they VPN'd from their remote laptop back to home so they could access their personal files and full desktop through VNC.
Not much differently than people would do on a commercial scale to their company network when they were away. Mainly dial-up except for the few who had broadband.<p>I was too preoccupied with natural science, but by 2003 I got a cellphone containing a regular USB GSM modem and would use that plugged in to my laptop to log in to my own desktop PC network using dial-up my dang self.
From anywhere having cellular service, no need for a wireless data plan which was not available in most coverage areas anyway. Was good to have a nationwide calling plan which most people did not have either, and it still used up
minutes of your monthly allowance.<p>No FOSS on the laptop back then for me usually, but if you had broadband at a remote location too, Windows XP had everything you needed to VPN back to a regular home Linksys router which normally contained its own VPN endpoint in those days with a new service called DynDNS already preconfigured in the router's firmware.
Too bad DynDNS is not free any more but with the router handling VPN, you could still access a home network that was barebones Windows9x, Linux, even DOS.<p>No need for software, just common hardware and regular Windows features.<p>Unless you wanted the automated "Assistant" type stuff like in the article, then you would need software, regular users would never call it apps.<p>Later once 3G wireless arrived, I got a phone supporting that and could get better speeds (when available) than dial-up, and without even needing the laptop when I just wanted convenient recreational use on the small-screen. Never did want to lose the regular dial-up cell modem from my toolbox though, but a number of years ago Tmobile walled it off.
So much for Plan B when there is no 4G, which is still not everywhere.
Plus, no faxing for you[1] directly from a laptop through a cellphone any more, without having to go through a web service. Clouds got in my way.<p>[1] I realize now the '80's called and they want their facsimile machine back, but I was out of tape on my telephone answering machine ;-)
I like the ideas in this article.<p>Rather than the big footprint whitebox/blackbox from PC 1.0, instead I imagine PC 2.0 being a very small board, no fans, no spinning drives but having very fast CPUs and GPUs driving big monitors. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettop" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettop</a> Or, the very fast CPUs and GPUs with or without fans would hide quietly away in a closet but with a connector hub on my desk. It could draw a lot of power if required. It would be like an iMac, but with an open and modular PC 2.0 board that is separate from the big dumb monitor(s).<p>Rather than UEFI or UEFI-like so-called "secure" boot, instead PC 2.0 would be instantly on, and support virtual "smart" bootloaders as an option. So without a config card (swipe or whatever), it would default to turning on instantly. With a previously used config card it would turn on instantly using that previous configuration. For any new config card to would actually "boot" up the new configuration and create a new "instant on" configuration. There would be options to backup and remove old configurations, and to set the default instant on configuration. Sort of like Virtual Box snapshots, but using hardware for the snapshots to actually make the computer "instantly" turn on.
Super nice article. In some ways a next step compared to 'The Mother Of All Demos', in some ways a step back. But still quite neat.<p>One thing all those 'always on' devices could use their unused cycles for is to create things like federated search engines, peer-to-peer encrypted backups (for instance, seed a torrent of your own encrypted data with a key only you know, boot your 'assistant' afresh and the first thing it could ask you is to restore from some torrent).
I am totally behind the spirit of your article. I also believe it's a travesty that we have so much power that can be attained so cheaply, yet we aren't using it at home.