A pared down "computer" to replace bulky, grey desktop PCs could help close global digital inequalities.
Not-for-profit developers, Ndiyo - the Swahili word for "yes" - said it could open up the potential of computing to two billion more people. The sub-£100 box, called Nivo, runs on open-source software and is known as a "thin client". Several can be linked up to a central "brain", or server.
Thin clients are not new, but advances have made them more user-friendly. They have been employed in large organisations in the past, but the Ndiyo project is about "ultra-thin client" networking.
It said the small, cheap boxes are targeted at smaller companies, cybercafes, or schools, which need an affordable, reliable system for providing clusters of two to 20 workstations.
"Your PC is a bulky, noisy, expensive mess that clutters up your life," Ndiyo's Dr Seb Wills told a Microsoft Research conference in Cambridge, UK. "Our emphasis and core motivation is the developing world for whom the current 'one user, one PC' approach will never be affordable," he told the BBC News website.
The Nivo unit itself measures around 12 by eight by two centimetres. It has no moving parts, but it has ports for ethernet, power, keyboard, mouse and a monitor.
It comes with two megabytes of RAM. The next version currently under development, will have a USB port, soundcard, local storage capacity, and will be even smaller.
The small Nivo box, developed along with commercial partner, Newnham Research in Cambridge, is essentially a computer - known as the "client" - which largely depends on the central server for processing activities.
Applications, for instance, are kept on the main server and accessed through the Nivo box.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4496901.stm
So am I understanding that this just a scaled down server for multiple PCs to hook up to? The article is extremely vague about why this is important (and I'm sort of tech illiterate).
Not-for-profit developers, Ndiyo - the Swahili word for "yes" - said it could open up the potential of computing to two billion more people. The sub-£100 box, called Nivo, runs on open-source software and is known as a "thin client". Several can be linked up to a central "brain", or server.
Thin clients are not new, but advances have made them more user-friendly. They have been employed in large organisations in the past, but the Ndiyo project is about "ultra-thin client" networking.
It said the small, cheap boxes are targeted at smaller companies, cybercafes, or schools, which need an affordable, reliable system for providing clusters of two to 20 workstations.
"Your PC is a bulky, noisy, expensive mess that clutters up your life," Ndiyo's Dr Seb Wills told a Microsoft Research conference in Cambridge, UK. "Our emphasis and core motivation is the developing world for whom the current 'one user, one PC' approach will never be affordable," he told the BBC News website.
The Nivo unit itself measures around 12 by eight by two centimetres. It has no moving parts, but it has ports for ethernet, power, keyboard, mouse and a monitor.
It comes with two megabytes of RAM. The next version currently under development, will have a USB port, soundcard, local storage capacity, and will be even smaller.
The small Nivo box, developed along with commercial partner, Newnham Research in Cambridge, is essentially a computer - known as the "client" - which largely depends on the central server for processing activities.
Applications, for instance, are kept on the main server and accessed through the Nivo box.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4496901.stm
So am I understanding that this just a scaled down server for multiple PCs to hook up to? The article is extremely vague about why this is important (and I'm sort of tech illiterate).
