Personal Servers can replace PCs, PDAs

Giving a sneak peak of things to come in the mobile computing arena, Intel unveiled the personal servers (PS), a card sized high-density storage device with wireless capabilities. The announce-ment of the PS device was part of the warming up activity, coming up as the precursor to the Intel Developer Forum, which commenced on Septem-ber 16 at San Jose, California.

With the mobile computing market on the upswing, the current choice is between PDAs, which lack display or data capability, and laptops, which are bulkier to carry. The solution, according to Roy Want, Principal Engineer, Intel Research, “Is in trying to find a compromise between the PDA and laptop.”

According to Want, resear-chers at Intel believe that the middle path could be to move data around rather than the entire system. Based on this, researchers are working on the PS that would come without any traditional IO capabilities like keyboards or display. With inbuilt wireless features, individuals can carry gigabytes of data in a card-sized device and can also connect it to external devices like printers or televisions.

Given the increasing popula-rity of the Bluetooth and WiFi-based wireless devices which continue to sell in large num-bers, Intel is betting that the popularity will drive third-party companies like television or display manufacturers to ship their products with the ability to connect to wireless devices. Such infrastructure is the key to the successful deployment of the personal servers.

However, Intel did not dis-close the time frame by when it would be able to commodi-tize the product, as this would depend on the development of the external infrastructure. Until then the key market for the PS would be for individ-uals–shifting data to and fro between office and home.

Yograj Verma

(CNS)