giovedì 31 marzo 2011

Thoughts on a Cloud OS

I was talking some years ago with a Linux expert, one of the big important ones. We were of course talking about operating systems and their future. I was talking about a very fast, on the fly, live OS dedicated just for gaming. Imagine getting a new PC game, putting the DVD on the drive and restarting your pc. BIOS POST, and off it boots the game. What's the point? None. Maybe not needing drivers or updates or antivirus or whatever, so you'll experience the most of the game as long as you meet minimum hardware requirements.
So the guru said to me: "you wanna know what's the future of operating systems?"
Well, no...
This was the year 2001, when internet was still slow and Windows XP was the greatest thing ever. And that's when I heard the first concept of a Cloud OS. What's a Cloud OS? Well, imagine your computer with a very very fast internet connection and no hard drive. Or your friend's computer, with the same config. You turn it on and it asks for username and password. It connects to the internet and there it is, YOUR desktop, your software, your 50GB of mp3s. You can play your games, work on your documents and then simply logout.
All and everything you have on your PC right now will be dispersed between servers around the world.
And this is cool because you can change hardware every 6 months without reformatting, copying files over, etc. Plus, you can work literally anywhere in the world, given you have a good internet connection.

And just today, I saw a first concept running. I shall say no more.
But you might taste something similar with Cloud Gaming. Head over to http://www.onlive.com/ and create an account. You don't even need to put a valid e-mail. Download the small program and try one of the demos.
I was just running Dirt 2 on max settings. On a $200 netbook.

31 commenti:

  1. yeah its awesome now when we got insaly fast internet we can use such features!

    RispondiElimina
  2. I love cloud concept. I am already using Amazon Web Services.

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  3. Cloud computing certainly seems to be future...
    Can´t wait for OnLive to go out¡¡

    RispondiElimina
  4. sorry for the double post my computer has been doing that a lot recently.

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  5. how is onlive supposed to work if i don't even get a decent framerate with vnc over my local network?!

    RispondiElimina
  6. dende, it DOES work. I don't know how. (I do have 20mbps ADSL, though)

    Try it, it's free!

    (no, I don't work for them)

    RispondiElimina
  7. I remember discussing this a long time ago with my uncle, it's cool seeing it come to fruition on such a large scale.

    RispondiElimina
  8. This is a great blog! really informative keep it up

    RispondiElimina
  9. Interesting, sounds pretty complicated tho

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  10. this is awesome! thx for posting. +following

    RispondiElimina
  11. we're going to need a lot of bandwidth though. like south korea.

    RispondiElimina
  12. I still prefer storing my stuff on the computer as opposed to the cloud

    RispondiElimina
  13. This does seem to be the future but I jus dont think the bandwidth is there yet

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  14. Yeah I agree with PaulBlark, the bandwidth is and will continue to be an issue. Its such a shame

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  15. It's the future of controlling internet and getting deeper into socialism. Brilliant idea, yeah... -_-

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  16. I am interested in music/document storage cloud style. Just signed up for Amazons and going to ch3eck it out - uploads were FAST!

    RispondiElimina
  17. It's all shits & giggles when you have unlimited bandwith...
    But in Belgium they still have caps.
    100GB is the average nowadays

    RispondiElimina
  18. I've heard about cloud gaming, sounds like a great idea but what does that kind of thing cost? Also, the download and speed requirements :\

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  19. This is quite intersting, I think I read about it a while back. Keep it up +follow.

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  20. I've heard about it being a work in progress, but I thought it was only for emails, not your entire desktop, haha.

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  21. This is why I love the internet! I'm gonna download from your link right now. Thanks for the post!!

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  22. Where did you get a netbook that cheap?

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  23. I will try this out as soon as I have time. Sounds freaking awesome.

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  24. psyke: second hand Acer Aspire One. Little rockin' thingy.

    RispondiElimina