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Making the OS and Internet one...

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by contact

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I've mentioned this on other forums once or twice before, and it seems that most of the major companies are heading in the direction of making the OS and Internet one. The two major companies that I have noticed because they are the bigger players and the ones I love to read up on are Google and Microsoft. It's interesting to watch how two uniquely different companies coming from different parts of the computing industry, Microsoft (OS/software industry) and Google (SE/internet industry), will be rivaling to get their piece of the market. Google has already started by creating online Word processors and other various applications which one can use directly on the internet, while on the other side Microsoft is taking it's approach by trying to completely integrate its OS more with the internet; this can be seen in Microsoft's AD technology where domains are now based on DNS. The major difference between the two is that Google is a more open source type company while Microsoft is more the traditional, big business type of company. We have seen Microsoft opening up more and more towards an open source type business in recent years, but I still think all the techie types favor Google's business model, I know I do. I've always loved seeing Google develop new technologies, which are all built on top of the internet, and which is the way of the future in computing. Gone will be the days of desktop OS's.

I haven't really read up on this, so if anyone has articles about this topic please post.

44 replies

by absolutely

If my OS [u]"is"[/u] the Internet, what do I run to connect to my OS? I mean, even with a broadband connection, the OS has to load a network driver, before I can establish a connection to the...

See the problem?

by deepsand

Reminds me of Comcast's "Triple-Play " package; TV, I'net & Phone service, all delivered via cable. Which begs the question "If I loose my cable service, how do I contact Comcast re. restoration of service?"

OS services delivered via the 'Net? Duh?

by contact

Why the OS on the net?
It greatly increase mobility. Your not stuck with all your data on your computer at home and don't have to carry around a laptop with all your data and software where ever you go. Monitors can be setup in areas that have hotspots, libraries, cafes, etc... and you can boot up by plugging in your boot device (ie. thumb drive) and then connect to a site that provides storage and run software applications directly from the net.

by contact

USB thumb drives and other small storage devices could hold boot information and drivers that may need to be loaded which could connect directly to any monitor now. there are alot of other issues of course like if you wanted to play games the graphics hardware would be an issue, but i'm sure someone will come up with solutions for that, maybe alot of the hardware that is needed can be integrated into the monitor, cellphone, tv, pda, or other device you will be using for viewing. i'm just saying that the divide point between a person's actual computer and the Internet will become more obscure. Just like when broadband connections took over dial-up connections.

by deepsand

continuous power and an ample supply of air canisters? Or, would you prefer to be able to breath unassisted?

Relying on the 'Net is analogous to the former.

Businesses have already painfully learned the folly of not being able to operate when cut off from their core applications & data.

by contact

i know it will take alot more bandwidth, but they do have all that fiber laying around unused.

by absolutely

Sounds like risk maximization, polar opposite of the brilliant safety via diffusion, implemented by the DARPANET project.

by hlhowell9

My understanding of quantum effects is that no medium (as we know it today) is required for the synchronization of the quantum bits. In fact the communication between the quantum bits is instaneous, thus quantum entangled bits would remain in sync with no communications whatever.

Regards,
Les H

by absolutely

The convenience you describe will probably sell well. But, a laptop computer is more than sufficient convenience for my real desire to use the computer. Putting all my data on the net, on somebody else's hardware, is not an attractive idea, and the "benefit", to me, is nil.

by dogknees

>>Gone will be the days of desktop OS's.

If everyone who uses a computer had broadband Internet access, this idea just might make sense, but even then I'm not convinced.

The majority of computer users in the world have no or ay best dialup access. You seem to forget that the US is not the world.

We would need to get broadband access into every home in every village in Africa, every village in China, every shack in the wilds of Siberia,....

That's a long time off yet. Even then, Broadband is nowhere near fast enough for a lot of applications. I mean, even Gigabit Ethernet is too slow for a lot of applications, people are already moving onto 10 Gbit.

It may well be that a lot of people could use this system, but until it solves everyones needs, the OS and the PC it runs on will remain.

Regards

by rocky

It has been said that knowledge (information) is power. The political and business elite know that (s)he who controls information has the upper hand in power structures.

"History teaches us that absolute power corrupts absolutely" and we see this today in the headlines from our political organizations domestically and abroad as well as in businesses with monopolies who attempt to drive others out of business.

What do you believe would happen if only a few large organizations controled the physical access to such massive amounts of information? YOUR information.

What if you placed all of your business and information into the hands of one super organization and then, for what ever reason, they or the government decided that you should not have access to it.

What would happen if a super organization with a super database was told by the government that they needed to hand over your information or risk criminal prosecution?

"But I'm not a criminal", you say. No, not today, but you COULD be if we just redefine the word "criminal" and what is a crime. There is more and more legislation in the United States today to the point that almost every activity is regulated and that more and more things are classified as criminal.

If you have the vision and creativity to imagine all of the liberating uses of technology and all of the benefits to man kind, then there are also people who are just as visionary and creative who would use such leverage in ways that are not so bright and rosey.

What if . . . your entire customer database is on somebody else's server in some place that you don't know where, and for what ever reason, you are denied access to it? How long would it be before your lack of communication with your clients would drive you out of business?

Maybe your direct competitor is the huge company hosting YOUR customer database?

This was meant to simply offer another point of view that seems to be overlooked.

We developed the atomic bomb for "peaceful purposes" or to "save lives" by stopping wars quicker. Has that increased the security of the world or has it allowed certain organizations to black mail and intimidate those who don't hold the nuclear button?

You put all of your data onto a super server, does that cause you greater security in the event of a political, natural or man made disaster - as was the original intent of the Internet?

Look at the world around you, study the past behavior, extrapolate the data and make your own decision if you would like your personal and business information in the hands of a super monopoly.

The technology is cool. It really is and I'm excited about the future; however, along with something as pervasive as what is proposed comes and enormous responsability for integrity and insight that only a few in history have demonstrated.

Would we design a network in our business around somethings with such a security flaw as the good will of the occassional individual possessing uncommon wisdom?

How many of those people do you see walking the halls of corporations and government institutions?

by Member 27084243

Infact, gauging from your arguments, the obsoloscence of the OS could perhaps be the best thing to happen to computing. Imagine this scenario , a full fledged implementation of a ultro thin client computing with devices needed to just display content. Hardware would just be about display... with all the computing being server side... Software monopolies would cease since IT-business would be all services centric. Think about it, Software prices would plummet and so would Hardware manufacturers have to reduce prices to cater to the untapped markets ( essentially the masses in Africa and Asia ). The information age would enter a new paradigm completely... an era of equitable information availability.

by rocky

There is a point to which prices can not drop due to "fixed" operating expenses - unless the workers decided to take a pay cut in order to retain their jobs and business owners decided not to take as much profit for their risks.

Even open source software like Ubuntu Linux - which I am quite fond of - is "underwritten" i.e. paid for by profitable companies or individuals (Canonical) who have a lot of money from some profitable activity.

There aren't many people sitting around in thier underwear writing code and coordinating large, complex projects. They drive cars, feed families, pay taxes, support charities, etc.

Since money seeks to always remain in circulation just as energy is transformed from one state to another, I would expect that we would see a shift of new businesses and costs to the public arise as new ideas come into play. One thing becomes cheap and another service pops up.

I remember when we didn't need antivirus software, then we could buy it once and own it, now we subscribe to it - for the rest of our lives until we die or stop using computers.

Now there is a thought . . . what if I had to 'subscribe' to my own information or loose access to it? That's not impossible.

by systems guy

" ... devices to just display content ..."
"...all the computing being server side..."
Already been done, it's been around for about 40 years. It's called a mainframe with 3270 displays. Although I'm pro-mainframe, I haven't seen hardware or software prices plummet.

by Member 27084243

Continuous power with supply of cool unadulterated contaminants free air from temperature controlled air canisters and a zero downtime guarantee with sufficient legal leverage to cover all your losses in tandem with the damage that you incur for the loss of service... How is the deal now ? Enticing ?

by deepsand

That's legalese for "we'll pay your [u]estate[/u] if you die from lack of air."

Thanks; but, no thanks.

by codebubba

I don't have a problem with *some* of my data being on the "Net" but I reserve the right to keep the majority of it offline on my DESKTOP O/S away from prying eyes thank you very much.

If the Web is the O/S then Microsoft (and all other O/S) are going to have to go away. Don't think so. Last I checked XP and Vista bring MORE functionality to the desktop machine, not LESS.

-CB :)

by deepsand

The 'Net grew out of the realization that invulnerability was unattainable, but might be reasonably [u]approximated[/u] through redundancy.

by deepsand

We reached that point some time ago, with the introductions of web based e-mail accounts, paperless on-line account management, etc.. If you want to ensure future access to your information, the burden is yours to download & archive it.

by contact

I see the computing industry heading that way again, but this time on top of the Internet, or maybe just a part of it. You can already see this from companies that offer storage space online in Gig amounts, online applications, etc..

by tony hopkinson

The 'dumb terminal' came about because PC's were 20k a shot and had about 1% of the computing power of a main frame which was the size of two desks.

If you want to compare like for like ish, look up thin client and disk less workstation in the 90s.

You'll see the same sort of promise, same hype and I fully expect the same abysmal failure.
By the time you've finished addressing all the risks, any cost saving in the individual 'terminals' is wiped out big style.

by contact

I'm not saying that this will happened over night but will occur in the future. As the internet matures and government/economy realizes how valuable it is the reliability of it will improve. Just like how telephone lines were before. If you think about it when was the last time you lost connectivity on your telephone? The infrastructure of the internet will continue to improve to a point where there is almost no downtime as time moves on (just like telephone lines).

Just my 2 cents. Of course there will be people who will disagree.

by deepsand

DNS problems with 'Net, countless. All of this within one of the most densely populated subsurbs of Philadelphia.

It is informative to recall that the 'net was born of a DARPA project which was built on the understanding that 100& reliability is [u]unattainable[/u].

It's one thing to have your applications and data available via the 'net; it's quite a different thing to have them [u]exist only in the cloud.[/u]

by tony hopkinson

by redundancy.
Short of some technological break through by accident eg cell phone texting, no one is going to see it as worth investing in.

Just a simple example

?600 quid for a keyboard that will fail once every three years, you can source from only one vendor, vs ?15 for a cheap ass cherry, that will fail once every three months and you can get from anywhere.

Now how much money would you spend on making the heavy duty number better to get your sales back? Bearing in mind you'd have to improve it's physical longevity by 10 times just to achieve parity!

by deiceray

The nearest city to me doesn't have one; in fact, only one within 100 miles. Internet OS's are like electric trams - what happens when the power goes off? I don't want my OS sitting anywhere BUT inside my own PC. This idea will never fly in an increasingly paranoid world. No one with any sense of responsibility will allow a core tool like the Operating System (for God's sake) to ever be outside of their control. The idea will never fly.

by fil0403

So the future is being dependant on network availability in order to do our work? I'd hardly consider that something good.

by hlhowell9

Once upon a time there was a mainframe, and the terminals saw it and it was good. They logged in and ran applictions on it, and it was good. They told people, and more users came and logged in and it was not quite so good. One day it crashed and everyone lost everything. The next day the workstation was born.

You probably count this as a myth, but it is not. You have much to learn young Skywalker, with great appologies to George Lucas for associating his wonderful work and expression with such mundane technobable.

Regards,
Les H

by hlhowell9

You would let all your precious livelihood reside on someone else's hard drives, where they could access it whenever they wanted? The government and your ex could request copies and have it delivered via the patriot act and lessening of privilege for third party storage and retrieval?

Privacy, personal data, accounts and access lists, your history, your communications, the wole works in one place for a simple spider or netbot to search out and index for God knows who?

I'm sure that you didn't think this through before posting. In addition, if the network goes out, or the provider goes down, how will you get your data? Did someone say bankruptcy? What a snafu that could create. What would you pay to get back your personal data being held hostage in India or China? A bomber hits the data store. Now what?

I'm not pointing fingers at any one nation, just using China and India as examples because so much has migrated there from the US that everyone is aware of that part of the issue.

I hope you are monitoring and respond.

Regards,
Les H

by w2ktechman

by the way, remember the first attempts at this, the Internet Computer? A low cost computer without a HDD just to connect to the Internet. Hmmm, havent seen one in a long time either....
Thanks for the input

by deepsand

useful communications. Photonics involves actual movement of photons from one place to another, whereas electronics involves the movement of the [u]effect[/u] of an electron, not the movement of the electron itself.

Photons can be easily moved from one end of a conduit to another of their own accord, i.e. without relying upon the action of any other particles; electrons merely hop from one atom to another, thereby displacing another electron, which in turn hop to another atom, etc..

by tony hopkinson

Don't see them in grannies back room too often do you? :D In fact they are getting rare everywhere, more cost effective to buy a budget PC and an emulator.

Course the mainframe still has it's own value.

by deepsand

What I wouldn't give to have an IBM 1401 w/ 16K word memory, a 1402 card reader/punch, 2 tape drives, & a 1403 line printer.

by tony hopkinson

DEC work station. OK you can do a lot more with a PC, but what those old fellas did, they did extremely well.

Two years I was there, turned it off once, after the network boys unplugged the wrong cable.

by tony hopkinson

The risks far outweigh the business advantages.

Leaving aside, reliability, connectivity, security, disaster recovery, performance.
How much would it cost to host your video collection(an entirely legal one of course !) and then pay to access it, compared to the price of a hard drive.

Needless to say I'm not prepared to leave aside the first five issues and any business that is prepared won't exist long enough to make their opinion count.

Take one system out, where is the impact. worse still it could be partial, even worse the failure could be transparent, you could have missing data and not know.

What is going to be hosted and how, how private is it ?
We've got enough issues with privacy invasion and ID theft on our own hard drives when we connect them to into the internet.

It wasn't designed to be secure, if it was it would be slow, inefficient and expensive to maintain and operate.

by deepsand

I'll bet that they got that cable issue resolved in less time than we now spend on hold, waiting, for example, to advise our ISP/Telecom that our T1 is down.

Big iron & COBOL are going to be with use for a long time to come.

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