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Here's one of the more interesting weekly newsletters on computing. More along the lines of enthusiastic
industry predictions, rather than critical social commentary, but very
informative nonetheless. I won't send
it out regularly, so those who want to receive it should subscribe yourselves.
I recommend reading it on the Web, rather than via email, as the Web version usually
includes images and links.
Mark
From: "Harrow, Jeffrey" Jeff.Harrow@compaq.com
Subject: RCFoC for June 5, 2000 - BROADERband?
Sender: owner-rapidly-changing-face-of-computing@mail-lists.compaq.com
To: "\"The Rapidly
Changing Face of Computing\" distribution (E-mail)"
rapidly-changing-face-of-computing@mail-lists.compaq.com
MIME-version: 1.0
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2000 06:20:06 –1000
Status:
The Rapidly Changing Face of Computing
June 5, 2000
BROADERband?
------------
by Jeffrey R. Harrow
Principal Member of Technical Staff
Technology & Corporate Development,
Compaq Computer Corporation
jeff.harrow@compaq.com
<mailto:jeff.harrow@compaq.com>
Insight, analysis and commentary on the innovations and trends of
contemporary computing, and on the technologies that drive them (not necessarily the views of Compaq Computer
Corporation).
ISSN: 1520-8117
Copyright (c)2000, Compaq Computer Corporation
-------------------------------------------------------------------
In This Issue:
* RCFoC Radio!
* Quotes for the Week.
* How Fleeting Our History...
* Return Of The Phoenix?
* Ecommerce Update.
* BROADERband?
* Tidbits...
* From Out of the Ether.
* Potato or Potatoe?
* About the "Rapidly Changing Face of Computing..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
RCFoC Radio!
As always, the RCFoC is also available as a "radio" show in three Web-based
audio-on-demand flavors: "RealAudio" technology from RealNetworks,
ToolVOX from VOXware, and MP3. It's easy to set up and use, and works over even
slow modems -- give it a try by clicking on the "RCFoC Radio" icon
next to this issue on the RCFoC home page at http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc <http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc> !
Need help acquiring or setting up the players? Information is a click away
at http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/rcfoc_radio_help_general.html
<http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/rcfoc_radio_help_general.html>.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Quotes for the Week.
"In a survey conducted by The Economist with market-research firm MORI,
76% of youthful respondents (median age 23) said they viewed the Internet
revolution on a par with the industrial revolution, and ranked Bill Gates third
behind Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi as the greatest individual of the
20th century..."
May 24 NewsScan Daily summarizing the May 26 Economist online article "Talkiní
About E-generation."
http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/current/wb2644.html
<http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/current/wb2644.html>
And, commenting on the sense of the recent "Wireless Data Forum,"
the May 23 ZDNet News
(http://www.zdnet.com/enterprise/stories/main/0,10228,2574946,00.html
<http://www.zdnet.com/enterprise/stories/main/0,10228,2574946,00.html>
)
paints a picture of our wireless future that may seem outrageous -- until
you remember that this is what has already happened to wired phone networks:
"All the [wireless] carriers
painted a picture of a day when data
would be the primary wireless
signal and voice would be secondary."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
How Fleeting
Our History...
My Mom came to visit recently, and even though I've yet to convince her to
reach out and touch the Web, her low-tech visit triggered some very high-tech
thoughts. We were engaged in that most
traditional of Mother's Visit activities, going through a box of old family photographs,
when we came across several "personally recorded" small 78-RPM
records; they were apparently from my Dad to my Mother when he was overseas
during World War II. This was long
before the days of tape, so various organizations such as the USO provided this
recording service to soldiers so their families at home could actually hear
their voices. (One record even has a
full-color Pepsi commercial emblazoned across its face -- and you thought
"banner ads" were new for the Internet!)
"Well," I thought, "playing these old records would be a real
Mother's Day treat for Mom!"
Although a CD/DVD player had long-since replaced our venerable
turntable, I knew it was still in the basement, so up it came; it was the work
of but a moment to hook it into the sound system. And then the
disappointment...
My old turntable, it turns out, was not quite old enough. As you probably suspect by now, it would
play 33 and 45 RPM records, but not 78s.
The voice was there, buried under the scratches and pops, but it was
very ssssllllllooooowwwwwwwww.
Now I will admit to thinking of digitizing the slow audio into my PC and
speeding it up through software, but I could tell from the very poor quality
that I'd do better starting with the correct speed. So the project is on-hold until I dig up a 78-RPM turntable.
The Point.
But this did get me to thinking...
We had no problem looking at several generations of paper photographs,
even though some looked to be from the early days of photography itself. A several generation-old family tree on dry
and yellowed paper was still quite readable.
And old diplomas and mementos posed no problems at all. Yet the moment "technology" reared
its head, the words on those 78-RPM records were lost to our reminiscing, at
least until I bring some new technology, or an old phonograph, to bear. Some of
the paper records we enjoyed viewing may well have been 200 years old, but the 60-year
old records held their secrets tight.
The parallel to how we're increasingly storing information today, in digital
format, is all too obvious, and the dangers are all too real. I have old
single-density Macintosh disks I can no longer read, even if the information is
still intact on the media (highly doubtful.) Somewhere else in my basement are
reels of DECtape that, without calling in some favors, will never again remind
me of programs I wrote long ago. In
another box I have perhaps a dozen different disk and tape media that I no
longer have the drives to read, and anyway, their content has doubtlessly
succumbed to magnetic old age.
Looking more recently, I have some 8mm videotapes of my kids, and while the
old 8mm camcorder still works, it has been replaced with a DV (Digital Video)
version. So, when my 8mm camcorder
plays its last, I'm unlikely to get it fixed or replace it. What then happens to those old movies if I
don't transcribe them to my "new media" first? And even if I do transcribe those 8mm tapes
to DV tape, how long will those "DV" tapes remain playable...?
Don't Take This (Only) Personally.
I've been using "personal" data here as an illustration, but this issue,
of the long-term integrity of stored digital data, very much extends to
businesses and to governments. Consider
how much information is now being stored exclusively in computer-readable format,
with no paper backup. What are the
implications when (not if, but when) those tapes and disks are no longer
readable due to media failure or reader obsolescence? What if, ten years from now, you need to access information for
your small or large business, only to find that no paper records were ever kept
and the magnetic backups are, at best, only somewhat readable. What would happen if hospitals and town halls
"upgrade" their old, cumbersome but long-lived paper records, to new
easily searchable, but perhaps not "for the ages," digital media, and
fifty years from now your kid needs a new birth certificate...?
Certainly, there are ways around this:
constantly regenerating magnetic tape (copying from one tape to another
before the original degrades) can help, and some CD-ROMs can last longer
(although I've been told that the typical writable CD-ROM is not as "cast
in stone" as I might have expected, having a life expectancy of less than
ten years.) And I'm sure there are
other, longer-term archival media out there that can be used by governments or
businesses to safeguard their most important data.
But my old box of "photographs" does illustrate that MOST
information (government, business, and personal) will never get that
"special archival treatment." Which places much of our national,
business, and personal histories at risk of being lost to the ages through the
decay of magnetic domains, the physical aging of tapes and disks, and the molecular
drift of the pits in CDs. The
photographs in my old box, however, are likely to remain intact for generations
of Mother's Day's viewings to come. It
is something to ponder.
Our past would be a terrible thing to waste...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Your Feedback
is Important!
I'd like to understand your interest in the RCFoC, how you make use of it,
and the value you feel it provides to you, your career, and to your company.
Please send your comments to me at
jeff.harrow@compaq.com <mailto:jeff.harrow@compaq.com>
I look forward to hearing from you!
Jeff Harrow
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Return Of
The Phoenix?
The Knowledge Age "David" we've been discussing recently may rise again,
with a few technological twists that may now keep the lawyers at bay. What I'm talking about is upstart
iCraveTV.com, the tiny Canadian company that began Webcasting U.S. and Canadian
TV broadcasts to the world. In spite of
800,000 visitors spending an average of 45 minutes on the site, iCraveTV had to
pull the plug under massive legal threats (http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000207.html#_Toc474135690
<http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000207.html#_Toc474135690>
). Now though, according to RCFoC
reader David Akin in his May 4 Canadian National Post Online article (http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost.asp?s2=canadianbusiness&f=00
<http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost.asp?s2=canadianbusiness&f=000504/278763.html),
a new iCraveTV may rise from the legal ashes.
CEO Bill Craig plans to be "back on the air" (David used that
phrase for want of a new catch-phrase for Webcasting -- "back on the
fiber" just doesn't quite sound right) by Labor Day with a new technology
he calls Country Area Networks. It
would restrict the viewing of individual channels to those countries where it
was legal for this activity to take place.
Time will tell if this can work in the relatively geography-independent world
of the Internet, and if such restrictions will blunt the lawyers' swords, but
Mr. Craig certainly does get an "A" for spunk. Which, if you think about it, is exactly
what keeps pushing things forward...
On the other hand, RCFoC reader Gordon Edall suggests that there may be some
downsides to imposing "borders" within the Internet:
"Say hello to a new internet
that will look nothing like the old
one. Say hello to nations and
city states where some people make
sure you cannot share thoughts
with your neighbors down the road
because of an invisible
cyber-border designed to protect rights
holders and ensure that positions
of privilege are maintained. Of
course, I just like the old internet..."
I rather suspect that iCraveTV.com's new technology would only affect who
could watch THEIR broadcasts, and so not actually set up any "borders"
that could affect other activities. But
Gordon's concern -- that widespread adoption of such techniques by many
publishers could effectively destroy the global nature of the Internet -- is a
concern worth keeping in mind. It would be a great shame (and an immense economic
loss) to partition the world's first global, egalitarian, voice and
marketplace!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Ecommerce Update.
* Japanese Wireless Internet,
Revisited -- Following up on our
discussion of how
"wireless" is now being considered "...Japan's
most popular way of accessing the
Web"
(http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000529.html#_Toc483752489
<http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000529.html#_Toc483752489>
), several
readers commented that it's one
thing to talk about the number of
Internet-equipped phones that are
sitting in pockets, and another
thing to count how many of them
are actually being "used" for
Internet access. That's a valid point and an important
distinction, although the Reuters
article I referenced doesn't
clearly differentiate how many
pockets fall into each category.
But even if the number of actual
users is significantly lower than
the number of pockets that have
Internet access (likely), it's just
this dramatically growing
"access" that will enable the number of
active "users" to
climb. A later article, also from
Reuters
(http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/
<http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/014491.htm),
pointed out that by the time you read this, "...18% of Japan's mobile phone users will be equipped
with Web-compatible phones."
Coupling that Internet
pocket-penetration with the 7,000+ Japanese
Web sites explicitly catering to
pocket Internet access, and with
the Japanese government's
expectation that there will be $67
billion in Japanese Ecommerce by
2005, I think that the rise of
both "pockets
equipped," and "active users," remain important
trends to watch.
* The WinTel-less Alliance? --
"WinTel" (Windows + Intel-compatible)
has been synonymous with the
majority of end-user computing for
many years; only Macintosh has so
far demonstrated a credible
challenge. But it may be that the Internet is providing
the
impetus to change these WinTel
rules. The May 29 New York Times
(http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/30
<http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/05/biztech/articles/30chip.html)
reports that America Online and Gateway plan to release
an under-$500 WinTel-less home
Internet Appliance, this year.
Powered by a Transmeta chip and
Linux operating system, and without
a hard drive, this device is
explicitly not a PC, but an
"appliance" targeted at
making it easy to do just those things that
people do on the Web.
Of course, this hardly marks the
death of WinTel or the PC; there
are a vast number of things people do with PCs that this
incarnation of Larry Ellison's
"Network Computer" concept will not
support. But it is an opening gambit from very
recognized players.
The market acceptance (or not) of
dedicated, inexpensive,
easy-to-use Internet Appliances
will be one very interesting trend
to watch.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
BROADERband?
Almost everyone I've spoken with who has cable modem service is pleased with
it. But as we recently discussed (http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000424.html#_Toc480784982
<http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000424.html#_Toc480784982>
), cable modem service does share its 10 megabits/second of bandwidth with a
variable number of other subscribers in your neighborhood. So, as activity increases, your available
bandwidth decreases. But even if
cable's bandwidth were NOT shared, might 10 megabits/second become too slow?!?
Before you look at your current 56K modem and tell me that shared cable modem
service would be "quite fine for me, thank-you-very-much," remember
that similar statements have been made every time a new modem technology
increased available bandwidth. For
example, I recall when 9600-baud modems came out -- I could suddenly fill an
entire VT100 terminal screen in the blink of an eye, far faster than I could
read it. So this was clearly all the
bandwidth I'd ever need. Right -- all it
took was the transition to a graphics-based interface, and those once-fast
modems again had much in common with molasses.
So, I suggest that even though most of us are still lusting after the DSL
and cable modem connections that are increasingly becoming available, THEY WILL
NOT BE FAST ENOUGH. The day will come
(and not terribly far away, if Internet Time continues its relentless acceleration),
when a "mere" 380 kilobits/second DSL connection, or a shared 10
megabits/second cable modem connection, will again feel like walking
underwater.
What could cause this? One obvious
possible bandwidth-driver is the maturing of Internet-delivered full-motion,
full-screen, high-quality, enhanced video-on-demand, already being explored by
sites such as www.atomfilms.com <http://www.atomfilms.com> .
For example, have you viewed "The New Arrival," a four-minute
online film that was shot in a 360-degree format? You use your mouse to freely look completely around the camera's
position, rather than your being a slave to where the director pointed it
(which I'm sure made the filming rather "interesting"). This new way of viewing a movie, which goes
far beyond what we can experience at a movie theater, is available today at http://www.atomfilms.com/default.asp?film_id=809
<http://www.atomfilms.com/default.asp?film_id=809> . I
didn't much care for The New Arrival's content, and the quality, even over a high-speed
line, is not yet great. But imagine how
the entire art of movie making (and viewing) might change if (when?) bandwidth
increases to allow for similar 360-degree interactivity at excellent quality!
Or, the bandwidth-driver might be ever-more compelling interactive worlds,
such as Sony's EverQuest (www.everquest.com <http://www.everquest.com> ). Or it might be bandwidth demands generated
by applications we haven't yet imagined. But history suggests that these
bandwidth-consuming applications will surely arrive -- they always have. Which is why ideas to change the bandwidth
rules, such a new one from Advent Networks, are so interesting.
Bandwidth Tomorrows?
Brought to our attention by RCFoC readers Don McArthur and Jamie Walker and
the May 24 Forbes Magazine (http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/00/May/0524/mu5.htm
<http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/00/May/0524/mu5.htm>
), Advent Networks is promising to supercharge cable modem systems to provide,
not 10 megabits/second shared among many users, but 40 megabits/second dedicated
to EACH user! And they say this service
would be provided at prices comparable to today's high-speed consumer services.
Putting this in perspective, if they can pull this off, each user would have
26-times the bandwidth of a T1 connection.
A typical MP3 file would download in about a second; two full-quality
HDTV signals could be delivered simultaneously.
Is this in the "too good to be true" category? Their well-animated Web site at http://www.adventnetworks.com/ <http://www.adventnetworks.com/> was labeled "under construction" when
I explored it, and provided virtually no supporting detail. But they have received $5 million in initial
funding from Murphree Venture Partners and others, and Advent's CEO Geoffrey
Tudor expects $30 million in second round financing.
Of course, this particular idea may go nowhere. Or, it may rocket the Knowledge Age to unprecedented heights. How would we expand our use of the Internet
if 40 megabits/second became the norm?
And how would it change established industries, such as broadcasting and
entertainment? Just perhaps, we'll get the opportunity to find out...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Tidbits...
* Ahh, Convergence -- Yesterday, if
you were seriously into digital
media, you might have carried
around a digital still camera, a
digital camcorder, and a pocket
music player. But thanks to a
pointer from RCFoC reader
Nicholas Bodley, today you can combine
all three of these functions in a
single unit from Sony called the
DCM-M1
(http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/ss5/home/mddisccamcorder/
<http://www.sel.sony.com/SEL/consumer/ss5/home/mddisccamcorder/mddisccamcorder/dcm-m1_specs.shtml). And interestingly, you never
have to rewind its "tape."
That's because this $2,500
device, which can store 20 minutes of
digital video, forty-five hundred
640x480 stills, or 260 minutes of
audio (or some combination
thereof), uses the "MD Data Disc 2"
minidisc. Oh -- and let's see,
it's graphic interface is powered by
Java, and it has an Ethernet
port.
Is this device, which fits in
your hand, a computer? A consumer
camera? Or more... That, after all, is exactly the Convergence
question...
* More For Less -- Last issue we
were considering the future of video
delivered over the Web in the
context of new upstart, RecordTV.com
(http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000529.html#_Toc483752488
<http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000529.html#_Toc483752488>
).
Although I acknowledged that the
quality of such Web-based TV is
currently inferior compared to
broadcast TV, I did suggest that
"...Internet Time pretty
much guarantees that it will get better,
fast." Well, it's next week, so RealNetworks, in
conjunction with
Intel, seems poised to make that
happen with RealSystem 8.
According to the May 24 Wall
Street Journal
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB959123380154667750.htm
<http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB959123380154667750.htm>
), new
compression techniques may shrink
the size of a video file by
two-thirds, while it boosts the
quality of Web-based video to VHS
quality and beyond --
"enough to stimulate new kinds of media
businesses." A beta version of this software is
available at
https://secureforms2.real.com/ecomm3/pplus8_order.html
<https://secureforms2.real.com/ecomm3/pplus8_order.html?language=english&src=000522realhome,000522plus
, although I do find
it interesting that Real is
breaking tradition and charging $29.99
for the beta program (along with
the current shipping version,
RealPlayer 7-Plus).
I stand by my predictions that,
driven by the Internet, the worlds
of broadcast and cable TV, indeed
of entertainment in general, will
(perhaps now sooner than
expected) never be the same again...
* Storage Eater -- If you remember
just a few years ago, a couple of
hundred megabytes of disk storage
was a lot. Yet today, new PCs
are routinely sold with 10-20
gigabytes or more. More than enough.
Right? But -- imagine yourself in
Sprint's shoes.
They're getting ready to begin a
massive study of Internet traffic,
recording details of each packet
that passes their major Internet
switching centers. (Recording this data will not compromise
privacy however -- they will not
record the packets' fields that
identify the originator or
destination, or the packets' actual
contents.)
(The way they plan to do this is
interesting -- since most traffic
at that level of the Internet
backbone is optical, they will use a
passive optical splitter to
monitor packets as they go by.
http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,11011
<http://www.zdnet.com/eweek/stories/general/0,110112577075,00.html
.)
But the really intriguing thing
about this study is how much data
they'll be collecting. Monitoring just five of their fifteen major
switching centers, Sprint expects
to store thousands of gigabytes
(terabytes) -- each day!
And we thought that WE had
problems with our disks filling up...
* Apply Any Way You Wish, As Long
As It's Online -- That's the new
policy of West Virginia Wesleyan
College, the first to require that
all undergraduate applications be
filed online. According to the
May 25 New York Times, this is a
natural outgrowth of their policy
of providing every student with a
notebook, and their current plans
to install a campus-wide wireless
network. (Wesleyan's admissions
counselors allow kids without
their own computers to use their
notebooks during high school
visits, and Wesleyan feels that just
about anyone can gain access to an
Internet-connected PC at their
high school, or at a local
library, long enough to fill out the
30-minute application. Students with disabilities will still
receive special
accommodations.) If this is the
beginning of a
trend, it could save a lot of
paper...
On the other hand, this may not
be happening a moment too soon,
considering that that old college
application tool, the typewriter,
is continuing along the road
towards extinction. Venerable,
112-year old typewriter company
Smith Corona has filed for Chapter
11 bankruptcy for the second time
in five years. It now plans to
sell its assets to one of its
distributors, and it will be no
more...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
From Out
of the Ether.
* Alternative Uses -- Several
issues ago we noted that a Japanese
company, Sunshine Inc., is
producing artificial fingernails that
flash in the presence of cell phone
radio waves
(http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000424.html#_Toc480784985
<http://www.compaq.com/rcfoc/20000424.html#_Toc480784985>
). While
this was touted as a
technological fashion statement, RCFoC reader
Mike Ryan thought "outside
the dots" for a less, er, down-to-earth
application. He suggests that these radio-wave-powered
flashing
fingernails could be well used
by,
"Ö hostesses on planes.
They always make a big deal about
turning off cellular devices,
and yet some people still donít.
With this, they could check
them while walking up on down, or
even painting a strip of it
down the middle of the plane. That
way, the occasional blip the
cellular makes to the base station
would show up."
Just goes to show how a seemingly
fanciful device might well find a
very serious application.
* The Changing TV Rules --
Following up on our recent discussions
about how the Internet is altering
the broadcast industry, my kids
can't conceive that when I grew
up, even though I was in a large
city, there were only two TV
channels and they went off the air at
midnight. If I wanted to see something that those two
local
stations didn't choose to air, I
was out of luck.
Today, of course, with 30 or 40
cable channels or a couple of
hundred satellite choices, we can
see something about almost
anything. Yet, reminiscent of "the old
days," we are still at the
mercy of a relatively few
"broadcasters," be they cable or
satellite operators. And as we've seen with the iCraveTV.com
story, many of them are trying to
maintain the status quo.
But not all of them. Because right now, after a suggestion by
Indian RCFoC reader Raja
Pundalik, I'm watching a European channel
that (to my knowledge) just isn't
available in most of the U.S.
through traditional media -- the
"Fashion Channel" from Paris.
Their use of the Internet to
expand their audience to a global
market is an example of how some
"broadcasters" are already, very
successfully, leveraging the
Internet:
"I would like to point
out that the concept of
'TV-Over-Internet' is at
least 8-10 months old (at least, as
far as my knowledge goes) and
the FashionTV channel (broadcast
from France and available
freely in India) has been constantly
and aggressively advertising
the streaming video from its
website http://www.ftv.fr <http://www.ftv.fr> .
This website is quite a hit
here and I know a lot of people who
watch streaming images from
this website. I have myself logged
on to this site, and the
video quality is not at all bad. The
favorite line of advertising
of FTV is 'Watch FTV images on
your office PC.'
Since both the TV channel and
the website are hosted by the
same interests, there may not
be any conflict of interests
here, and no legal issues
involved. But in case of an
independent website feeding
the images of a TV channel on to
the Net may drag up more
issues than we can think of at this
moment. All the same, your statement that '... the
best course
of action might be to figure
out how to prosper in the new
environment, rather than in
trying (usually in vain) to use
heavy-handed legal tactics to
attempt to keep things as they've
always been (and falling
farther behind in the process)' will
be the ultimate truth."
This does give us a hint, I
suspect, of the future of one global
entertainment market...
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Potato
or Potatoe?
[Late breaking
indications, brought to our attention by RCFoC reader
Joe Batt,
indicate that I, in the good company of the BBC, USAToday,
Ananova, ZDNet
and others, have apparently been duped by the report of
this
veggie-powered Web server; its home page now carries the note "It
is a
joke!" (Also, see The Register at
http://www.theregister.co.uk/000525-000013.html
for additional
background.) I also note that the BBC story on which I based
this
article now
shows "Removed."
But I'm still
going to leave this in here because it's an interesting,
if now we know
untrue story, that nevertheless leads to an important
thought. And it's also a very good reminder that, especially
in an
online world,
even the likes of the venerable BBC may not quite see
things as they
really are...]
Finally, regardless of how certain political figures might spell it, the
lowly potato has now taken on a new role in life -- powering Web servers.
Brought to our attention by RCFoC reader Rajesh Ambigapathy and others, the May
23 BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_759000/759529.stm
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_759000/759529.stm>
) describes how computer hobbyists Steve Harris and his buddies were told that
a potato-powered Web server was impossible -- so they just went ahead and built
one.
[Image - Tuber Power -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/755000/images/_759529_spuds150.jpg
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/755000/images/_759529_spuds150.jpg>
]
A bare-bones Web server based around a 386 chip and a solid state disk, this
Linux server is powered by a "battery" composed of twelve potatoes connected
in series, each delivering about one-half volt and lasting for a few days (the
moist, salty insides act as an electrolyte when zinc and copper electrodes are
poked into the tuber.)
If you'd like to see a live self-portrait of the tater-powered server, just
click on http://152.78.65.48:2300/pic.jpg
<http://152.78.65.48:2300/pic.jpg> , or check out http://152.78.65.48:2300/
<http://152.78.65.48:2300/> for the cyber-tuber's home page.
It may sound foolish, but potato power is certainly an easily renewable resource. And as electronics continue to shrink and
consume ever-less power, who knows -- it's a lot cheaper to drop in replacement
veggies than a new set of batteries! In
any event, this fun project does remind us how little is
"impossible."
I've always believed that if a well-funded think tank or government body
collected a broad set of scientists and "proved" to them, beyond their
doubt, that another country had successfully developed anti-gravity, if they
then gave the scientists all the time and money they needed, those scientists
would eventually "catch up" and figure out how the others had
"learned" to control gravity.
My budget doesn't quite go to funding such an experiment, but I do
continue to believe that the "impossible" only takes a little
longer...
--------------------------------------------------------------------
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