Alibaba wants to get you off the PC upgrade treadmill and into its cloud
- Reference: 1600410848
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/09/18/alibaba_wuying_pc_replacement/
- Source link:
While Alibaba has not released many details about the device it has made its intentions plain: during the device's launch at the company's Apsara conference execs made constant references to the pain of living on a PC upgrade treadmill and the many virtues of cloud.
The PC replacement, dubbed “Wuying”, runs an embedded Linux and a “proprietary app-streaming protocol” that lets users “access to the personal cloud computer and access to licensed apps and programs across platforms such as Windows and Linux.”
Latency is promised to be less than 70 milliseconds. The cloud instances powering the devices can offer up to 104 vCPUs and 1.5TB of memory, a handy spec for a workstation never mind a PC.
Alibaba's Wuying 'cloud computer'
USB-C is the key to the device as Alibaba images a single cable will power Wuying and connect it to a display. The company hasn’t explained how one might attach a keyboard and mouse.
Demo videos featured bright young things wandering through the streets, pressing a button on a Wuying and then peering at stuff happening on futuristic transparent tablet computers.
Which may have been DemoMagic™ as Wuying does not have a battery and WiFi handles network connections.
The idea of a small device that streams a PC experience resembles thin clients, desktop virtualisation and Teradici’s PCoiP protocol. All are niche concerns notwithstanding COVID-19 causing a spike in demand. But all are also offered as tools for businesses that need locked-down devices for regulatory or cost-saving reasons. Alibaba has a different experience in mind.
Reg readers may also recall Intel’s PC sticks, very small form-factor PCs designed to be mated to monitors with their HDMI plugs, but also requiring an external power source. PC sticks have found admirers among digital signage providers, but have not set the world on fire.
Alibaba has offered the devices to businesses first and said consumer editions will follow. But until it offers more than teasers and the not-very-detailed images it’s offered so far, it seems wise to reserve judgement. ®
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Re: so, a 'Network Computer'?
As it doesn't appear to have any significant compute power in it's own right, i.e. apps are actually run "in the cloud" my immediate thought was that it's just a dumb terminal, albeit a fancy graphical one.
Re: so, a 'Network Computer'?
The Oracle fail thingy isn’t streaming a virtual desktop from the cloud thing.
Re: 1996 called...
Maybe today's global network infrastructure is better and faster than it was in 1996?
Could that be why a network only pc might be more viable.....
Oh it certainly could be viable - QuakeOnline has been rocking it for years now and it's not your browser doing the graphics.
It boggles the mind to think that we are indeed headed straight back to the 90s. Apparently the future of IT is everyone on a dumb terminal connected to a CPU datacenter. You upgrade by paying a bit more on your monthly plan. I'm guessing they'll want to bill you for amount of CPU activity and electricity you consume, because otherwise how can it be economically viable ?
Well I will leave the younguns the pleasure of finding out how that works. My data and my activity stays local, thank you very much.
Re: so, a 'Network Computer'?
If the price is right, I can see a lot of people going for it, however, it does make a good environment for lock in.
Re: so, a 'Network Computer'?
A few years later, in 1999, the Sun Ray 1 launched and it kinda worked ok.
Another attempt to kill the "Personal" in PC...
... and centralize everything again under the full control of someone else....
A ''cloud" computer!
Great. We all know how reliable the cloud has been. Never a glitch. Never.
Little question
Given it's basically a dumb terminal, a UK based person uploads data then there should be some privacy agreement in place between the countries involved (eg the not-at-all-Safe Harbour) for the data involved. However if the user creates new data on a remote cloud computer (a commercial product design for instance), do the same international data agreements apply or the privacy laws of the host country(s) in which the data was actually produced and stored?
Re: Little question
Given that the data is created under the user's profile, privacy protection should be a blanket case.
But I'm sure there will be lawyers to find otherwise.
A "cloud" computer"?
or a time sharing mainframe?
Right back to the 1960s, but without the reliability.
How can they guarantee some kind of performance (latency)? They don't control the end user's network quality.
Is it based on a Raspberry Pi?
Keyboard and Mouse
USB-C is the key to the device as Alibaba images a single cable will power Wuying and connect it to a display. The company hasn’t explained how one might attach a keyboard and mouse.
Via the USB hub built in to the monitor.
Fire?
"Reg readers may also recall Intel’s PC sticks, very small form-factor PCs designed to be mated to monitors with their HDMI plugs, but also requiring an external power source. PC sticks have found admirers among digital signage providers, but have not set the world on fire."
Either this was a clever and sarcastic reference to the Amazon Fire Stick (which is a little PC plugged into an HDMI socket with an external PSU) or....what?
Obvious
Apart from the semiconductor wars playing out before our very eyes, and I would prefer as much as the next man to drive a Ferrari instead of a Morris Minor, but in principle why should I need a CPU in my pocket which has more computing power than NASA when they put a man on the Moon? The data terminal thingies are what is important to me.
I am sure I do not need to remind punters here that a massive proportion of what we "do" on our phones whether it is spell-checking, map reading, workout tracking etc etc is already done "somewhere else" with some other organisation's cycles.
Privacy? Forget it. It's so last century. (Many will not like that. Neither do I but I happen to like the 21st Century).
so, a 'Network Computer'?
1996 called...
https://www.cnet.com/news/oracle-to-debut-500-network-computer-1/